I am very surprised: "Boycott Sweden and it's candidacy for the 2004 Olympic games"

[Merecir]

The Rus.
The story goes like this:
A Swedish 'clan' went to Gårdarike when the people there asked for them to be their lords.
They united the greatest cities and laid the foundation of Russia.

(Gårdarike = Viking name for the area that became Russia)

[belgian]

There is growing evidence that Varangians played a very important role in the history of Russia. Below you have a short summary of what is written about the settlement of Varangians in Russia. I have two questions
1. If Varangians were Swede Scandinavians who became quickly Christinas, who were the Slavs who remained Pagan for a while? Are they of the same ethnic origin?
2. Have anyone ever heard of Varangian mummies found somewhere?

"The city of Kyiv was founded on the bank of the Dnipro river which was the water route taken by the Scandinavian warriors and tradesmen to travel all the way down to the shores of Byzantium. The ancient chronicles called it “the route from the Varangians to the Greeks” (Varangians-members of a Scandinavian people, mostly Swedes, who settled in East Slavic lands in the 9th century). The fact that Kyiv commanded this very important trade route contributed eventually to its rise and predominance over other East Slavic towns. It is a well-established fact that the Lavra Pechersk Monastery was originally founded in the caves (pechery - “caves” - in its name is evidence of that) but the cave mentioned in the quoted Chronicles had evidently something to do with the Varangians who played a significant role in the early history of Kyivan-Rus - Ukraine (in Western tradition Varangians are better known as Vikings or Norsmen). There was even a controversial theory, much discussed in the nineteenth century, that it was only thanks to the Vikings that ancient Kyivan-Rus - Ukraine emerged as a mighty state of Eastern Europe. Another theory treated the Vikings in Kyivan Rus only as usurpers and plunderers. As it is so often is, the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes.
Eric the Red Beard, William the Conqueror, Oleg the Oracular are remarkable figures of the world history. The Vikings-Varangians’ role in the early history of Kyivan-Rus - Ukraine had been a particularly significant one. They exercised their influence mostly in the military and religious spheres. The Varangian and Slavic warriors took their military oaths separately because the Varangians were already Christians and the Slavic warriors were still pagan (incidentally, the texts of both the oaths have been preserved for us in the chronicles). Scandinavia had gone Christian two centuries before the Eastern Slavs."
http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dml0www/variagi.html
"Vikings coming back from the east told of a place they called Holmgård This was Gorodishche (gorod = fortified settlement). a trading post dating from 800 AD at the confluence of Lake Ilmen and the river Volkhov. Many finds from Scandinavian mens and womans clothes would seem to suggest that they also settled here.
Novgorod
In the 10th century Novgorod was founded some kilometers downstream on the river Volkhov and in the 11th century the Russian Prince Iaroslav the Wise moved there from Gorodishche. He was married to Ingegärd, Olof Skötkonung's daughter. Swedish Vikings among the prince's followers (druzina) played important roles as traders and warriors. It is Iaroslav's father, Prince Vladimir, who is considered to have converted Russia to Christianity in 988 AD.

Are you ready to go one step further in the history back to 6th century BC?

[Nolvinge]

Ha ha ha ha

From boycotting Sweden to racism in Sweden to the Sammi's legitimate claim to the history of the early Swedes to the Vikings and now......are the Russians really red Swedes ???

Wow....I never knew I can such diverse information from one thread LOL....seriously, Belgian u are tenacious and your postings have been fun.

BTW.....with regards to the Sammis...well my people owned the land in my country but we are now minority and worse still, we are marginalised.

Peace

[belgian]

Finally I suppose that I found one genuine. Who? A Saami, at least I found you after talking so much about you. No, I'm jusk joking but it's hard to get information about the Saamis of Sweden, even for someone very very curious, as I am.
In fact, it's very sad to hear you say that you feel yourself marginalized. I think that you should not feel that way. This is your homeland and whatever your ethnic origin, Germanic or Asiatic you should both feel home here in Sweden. European Union is created to host people of different races and ethnicity sharing the same values of freedom. The southern Spanish who are of Arabic descent enjoy the same social rights and opportunities with French speaking Dutch population of Brussels. Many Swedes I knew are very clever and helpful people but your problems seem to be largely ignored by the Germanic population of Sweden(could I say this?).

By the way this is what I got from a Finnish site about the origins of Saamis:

"There are reasons for believing that the Finnic race occupied part of the Northern peninsula at an early period in the history of Scandinavia. At a remote time, which tradition places at the beginning of the Iron age in that country, but which may have been much earlier, the country was overrun by people of a different race from its aboriginal inhabitants-i.e., by tribes of similar racial characters to those of the early Gothic or Teutonic stock. These newcomers are supposed to have driven the aborigines, who are believed to have been of Ugrian descent, northwards, where a remnant still exist, and are known as Lapps. These were, however, in ancient time also called Fins, and the name Finnmark as the boundary of their country has come down to our time. The Fins of the Baltic, the inhabitants of the present Finland, are, however, now a different race from the so called Northern Finns or the Lapps, and although they have affinity in language, they were known as distinct in the time of King Alfred.(Note! Tacitus mentions Finns in Germania, but the way he descripes them fits the Lapps. As seen above some confusion about the names has also occurred later)."

Now we will go one step further in the East but in another post as this one will be too long to read as usual.

[belgian]

I forgot to forward you these posts I got in Ukraine.com(yes it exists sorry no Norway.com yet) This seems to be a correct hypothesis for the red colour(ruotsi) of Vikings.

"Scandinavian counts (or Knyazy) really made the first attempt to establish a feudal state with a center in Kiev.
Althoug this theory was opressed before by many soviet historians, who tried to state that Russian counts were of local origin.

But most of modern serious authors agree that it were variags, who were the first counts (knyazy of Kiev).
They and their closest soldiers (so called DRUZHYNA) they all had skandinavian names. Like Oleg, Igor, Olga and many others.
Now it is obvious, that the first state was established by variagy.
The Soviets supressed the idea of Vikings having anything to do with Ukranian and Russian history so most of the discoveries and depth of Viking involvement in Russia and Ukrania is beign unearthed today in places like Ladoga, Novgorod, Bielorussia and Ukranine.

Referring to the name ruotsi indeed means red in Finish so it comes as no surprise that the colour of the sails the Variags ships were red. "

[Wendist]

Gentlemen,

if you are looking for info on rus and related subjects then I would like to recommend a visit to the history section on russia.com.

http://www.russia.com/forums/showthr...3&pagenumber=1

http://www.russia.com/forums/showthr...8&pagenumber=1

Both these threads unfortunately are rather long but hopefully they will provide you with interesting facts and ideas.

Regards Thomas

[Merecir]

Ehm, the Finnish name for Sweden is Routsi...

[belgian]

I think that Russians have the wrong spell of the word:,
from
http://www.russia.net/~oldrn/history/settlements.html
"the State of Rus (its name derived from the Viking word ruotsi, meaning "oarsman") became one of the largest kingdoms in the world."

This Russian website states that Slavs were nomadic Scythians who migrated north into fertile Russian territories around 700 BC. Varangian Rurik defeated the strongest Slavic settlement, Novgorod, in A.D. 862 and his successor Oleg conquered the Slavic-ruled Kiev and made the city his capital two years later. The Russian Union was created by Varangians. The Russians were tham a mixture of Schytians and Varangians until the arrival of Mongols who invaded Kiev. Do you agree with this?

Here is another theory the word is again cited as ruotsi from http://www.ecn.mb.ca/~qdx128/tryzub.htm

"Some scholars believe that the term Rus pertains to people of Roslagen, while others say it means ruotsi (oarsmen) and still others believe the term means light or shining as the varangian marauders were often called "the shining ones" and still others believe it is a shortening of the word Ruthenian as Ukrainians were know as."

Here is another one:
"Ruotsi" was a common name of Suomi Finns. Later the word spread to all Finns. Hence, in the 10th century the word was used to describe Scandinavian newcomers in contrast with Slavic people. After a number of Ukrainian tribes(e.g. Palyane) had been conquered by Scandinavians, they adopted the names of their victorers, and eventually word "Rusi" meant mainly inhabitants of Ukraine, which, consequently, was called "Rus".

One last questions can we agree on the Germanic(teutonic) origin of Varangians?

from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jaygee9...n%20Origin.htm
"Possibly the greatest impact upon the English character was introduced during the Viking excursions. The culture the Scandinavians {who are Teutonic cousins to the Germans} introduced to the English tended to change the psychological makeup of the English, mainly in the north."

[belgian]

I will pop the question who are in reality the Turks? A race of warriors emerging from the dry steppes of from Asia?

here is an interesting paper from a German scientist:
http://www.uyghuramerican.org/ET/his...areuyghur.html
"people talking about Uyghurs must always be aware that almost each modern Nation designation is representing only one particular people of many who became part of the ethnogenesis of a people in the course of the History. Thus we call the Chinese by the name of only one of many "Ethnos" who played a role in "Chinese" history. In other cases we even call a particular people by different names. In case of my people the US americans call us "Germans", whats going back to a Celts designation for one tribe whose own name was "Tongrer". Some Slavic peoples call us "Swabes" what is the name of only one of our peoples. The whole Latin speaking Europeans call us "Aleman", what was just another tribe. Our own designation is "Deutsch" what definitely is a Celtic name.

Uyghur is our designation for the peoples of Uyghuristan, and we always are aware that only a part of contemporary Uyghurs can be regarded as "pure" descendants of a people which once ruled Mongolia. Tocharians, Ärya, Saka, Basmil, Karakhanids, and many other peoples, who all became part of the modern Uyghur Nation, are -theoretically- legal designations for the Uyghur people.

No matter how we call them, todays Uyghurs must be regarded as the indigenous people of Uyghuristan.

A people with a long and amazing History of more than 4.000 years, which started with the arrival of representatives of the proto-European race, a people very similar to the ancient peoples of Russia and Northern Europe. Somewhat later typical representatives of -at least two- branches of the gracile and darker complexed Mediterrean Subbranch of the greater Europoid race appeared in the South and West, and in the eastern regions very unique representatives of a "proto-Tibetian" race mixed with the proto-Europeans. Note that this dolichocephal race with narrow faces, very high orbits and very pronounced cheekbones had racially and culturally nothing to do with the Chinese of past and presence.

In the iron age -probably much earlier- the ancient Hu-Chieh, who also are known as Kao-ch'e, settled to the North of the peoples of Uyghuristan. About Hu-Chieh the ancient Chinese sources say that they were from a Dinlin origin. To the North of Hu-Chieh settled the Dinlin (T'ieh-lê) Turks, Oshanin called them "the legendary blond race of Centralasia". Even more northernly settled another race of "red haired and green eyed Barbarians" known as the ancient Hja-g'ja-sz Turks, who also are known as Chien-Kun, and our scholars designation is "Yennisey Kirkiz", who became the most important enemy of the Hu-Chieh/Kao-ch'e in the days Hu-Chieh ruled over all of Mongoli and already was known to us as Uyghur."

Who were in fact those Uyghur turks, "red haired and green eyed Barbarians"? You were asking me about the origin of Eastern Vikings or Varangians. I was also asking to myself about the ethnic origin of blond and bright blue eyed Ataturk, the father of Turks who founded a secular democratic state in 1923 over the remnants of an obsolete Muslim Empire. He established a quota system in 1932, a similar system is still used in Riksdag, enabling tens of villager Muslim woman be elected in the Turkish Parliament. The quota system had been abolished as soon as he died. Where did he emerged from in the Muslim world of 20's?

[Helios]

Belgian
The finnish name for Sweden is Ruotsi, so the russians have the correct spelling.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I remember that I have read another explanation of the word rus. Well let´s see if I can find it...

[belgian]

Please do >I'll be waiting

[NordicKnight]

First off, "finns are just russians?"

Pardon me, but the Russians are just finns! The oldest acknowledged term that Russia decendend from is The Ros, or Rosh. The prince of Rosh settled Russia around 36 AD.

The "real" Vikings came from all over scandinavia. The danish and norwegian ones were the ones who were the most likely to go on war raids, whilst Swedish and finnish vikings were hardcore traders and traded on the silk route. New evidence found also suggest they had 1 trade route with the america's under a short period of time, during the disapperance of the New foundland settlers era.

Now, the Sami.. I dont know what to do about the Sami, one of the major problems is that they are fighting for the same rights in 4 different countries, they want to be Sami, but at the same time be able to roam freely from Norway-Sweden-Finland-Russia.. I don't see how that will work in the long run.