Operation “Pure Rurik”

Colonel of the medical service Yuri Obolensky, a hereditary prince, the son of the leader of the Russian Nobility Assembly Andrei Obolensky, was seriously alarmed when he learned that his family line in the male line goes back to a certain Slavic ancestor. Prince Yuri Andreevich expected something completely different: he, a supporter of the Norman theory, was sure that, as it should be for Rurikovich, he descended from this legendary Scandinavian. Newsweek journalists who examined Obolensky's DNA were surprised along with him. So, while searching for the roots of the legendary Varangian, we accidentally stumbled upon the most intimate secret of the first Russian ruling house. Which can correct modern ideas about the most tragic period in the history of Ancient Rus'.

Exactly a year ago, Newsweek published the first study of the genome of the Rurikids - the likely direct descendants of the legendary Varangian prince. We studied the princely family with the help of genogeography - a science that studies the settlement of peoples and allows you to find your distant ancestors and previously unknown relatives by the genetic code. The Y-chromosome of modern princes was studied, whose pedigree strictly along the male line goes back to Rurik. That is, their male chromosome should, in theory, be identical to the Varangian one. More precisely, it is almost identical: over 1200 years, mutations inevitably arose in the genetic code.

It was necessary to take into account another possible “mistake”, much more serious: for many generations it could well happen that the wife of one of the princes gave birth to another, which means that from the point of view of genetics, the family line was interrupted. That is why we had to do a DNA analysis of several princes from different branches of the rich Rurik offspring.

We hoped that as a result we would be able to resolve the Norman question, which has been tormenting the Russian elite for 300 years and has suddenly become relevant again in recent years. The invitation of the Varangian Rurik to reign, colorfully described in The Tale of Bygone Years, of course, is nothing more than a symbol. But with its help, they periodically try to solve the geopolitical issue. Westerners, who consider Russia an integral part of Europe, are sure that the Varangian means Viking, which means that the state system in Rus' came from the West. At the very least, Westerners agree that the founding father was a Finn. 18th century historian Tatishchev even referred to a certain Joachim Chronicle, which directly stated that Rurik was the son of the prince of the Finnish tribe of the Varangians, and Rus' was bequeathed to him by his maternal grandfather, Prince Gostomysl; so the prophets advised him.

The Slavophiles, who believed the Joachim Chronicle was a fake, were sure that Rurik was a Slav - the “Lomonosov” version of his origin from the Baltic branch of the Slavs is especially common. And the Slavic origin, they say, confirms the old conclusion: Russia has always had its own, special path.

This December, we collected all the results of the analyzes and found out that the "house of Rurik" is not at all one, but is divided into two almost equal and independent branches. One can be conditionally called Scandinavian-Finnish, the other - Slavic. It turns out that as a result of some kind of family drama that happened more than 800 years ago, the "Norman question" received two mutually exclusive answers. It is very symbolic: both the Slavophiles and the Westerners are right.

FAMILY ACCIDENTS

A year ago, we investigated the DNA analysis of Prince Dmitry Shakhovsky. Then we found out that genetically the Rurikovich are very different from both the majority of the Vikings and the majority of the Slavs. The analysis showed that Shakhovskoy - and, consequently, his ancestors in the male line for thousands of years - belongs to the N3 haplogroup.

Scientists call haplogroups sets of genetic mutations in human DNA, by which one can find out where his ancestors came from. The distribution of haplogroups does not completely coincide with what is commonly called an ethnos. Russians, for example, have representatives of more than ten haplogroups. And N3, which is extremely rare among other Slavs, is one of the main options among Russians. However, it is just as common among Norwegians and Swedes. And among all the Finno-Ugric peoples from Siberia to Finland, as well as among the Turkic-speaking Yakuts, this haplogroup is the most common.

Having learned the result of the genogeographic analysis of Shakhovsky (and, consequently, Rurik, as we assumed) and writing down both of them as “chud white-eyed”, we wrote that “this is the best option for fans of historical detective stories”, not yet suspecting how right we are.

Genogeography is a young science, but it already makes it possible to obtain more accurate data. First, we had to exclude various “family accidents”. To do this, they had to beg to donate saliva for DNA analysis of representatives of other branches of the Rurikovich. If the results coincided (or were very close - after all, gene mutations, as we remember, are simply inevitable over the centuries), then we could conclude that they all had a common ancestor.

Then the results of the analysis had to be checked against databases containing haplotypes of hundreds of thousands of people. Logically, the region where most of the genetic relatives of our princes were found could be called the ancestral home of Rurik. Finally, during the year the N3 haplogroup was studied more deeply - for example, it became possible to identify its representatives of Scandinavian origin with a fairly high probability.

The first results were extremely encouraging: two princes, Gagarin and Lobanov-Rostovsky, who, according to the genealogical tree, had a common ancestor Vsevolod the Big Nest (XII-XIII centuries), and with Shakhovsky, Vsevolod’s grandfather, Vladimir Monomakh (XII century), according to genetic analysis turned out to be very close relatives. Differences in their DNA (those very mutations) indicated that their related lines had just split about 800 years ago. That is, at least Vladimir Monomakh and all his descendants, referred to as "Monomachis", also belonged to the N3 haplogroup.

Then came the results of two more analyzes - representatives of another major branch of the Rurikovich. Historians call them Olgovichi (named after Oleg Svyatoslavovich - the main rival of Vladimir Monomakh in the feudal struggle - and, as all sources assure, his cousin). And then we realized that the real historical detective was just beginning.

Both - Prince John Volkonsky (his DNA was examined by our Polish colleague Professor Andrzej Bazhor) and Prince Yuri Obolensky - certainly turned out to be relatives (despite the fact that, according to the genealogical tree, their common ancestor is Chernigov prince of the 13th century Yuri Mikhailovich). But here they have no family relation to the Rurikoviches from the Monomashich family.

It turns out that one of these long-standing warring branches in vain considered Rurik's great-great-grandson Yaroslav the Wise to be their ancestor, for whose inheritance they fought fiercely for many decades. Moreover, if the descendants of Monomakh, like himself, were Finno-Finns, then the clan of his enemy Oleg, belonging to the haplogroup R1a, can be attributed to the Slavs.

It is not known who Yaroslav the Wise was, but it can be assumed that his wife or the wife of one of his sons or grandchildren did not have enough chastity. Her child, conceived from a lover of non-grand princely blood, marked the beginning of a whole dynasty of pseudo-ruriks. For many centuries, no one suspected this. And now one can only guess: which branch is the product of female weakness, and which goes back to Rurik himself.

GRANDMA IN TWO SAID

This whole old Russian family series seems to have been specially made to illustrate the history of the state in the pre-Mongolian era. In the last episode - a monstrous tragedy. Both warring branches of the grand princely family were almost completely destroyed by the Mongols. Before that - hundreds of episodes of the feudal war, in which the Monomashichs were able to gain a foothold in the not very rich north-east of Rus', and the Olgovichi - in the south. Kyiv and Chernihiv changed hands many times.

Yaroslav the Wise himself laid the foundation for this war, dividing the destinies among his five sons. Two of them (Vsevolod and Svyatoslav) gave birth to the founders of the two main dynasties - Vladimir Monomakh and Oleg.

The DNA of the descendants of the Monomashich princes Shakhovsky, Lobanov-Rostovsky and Gagarin and the Olgovich princes Obolensky and Volkonsky, studied by us, showed that among the Monomashichs one could suspect Monomakh's grandmother or pro-grandmother of treason, and among the Olgovichs - any of the spouses of the princes, from Yaroslav the Wise to Mikhail Chermny, who was killed in 1246 at Batu's headquarters for refusing to perform pagan rites. It is unlikely that the enemies suspected that they were not relatives to each other, and one of them did not have the right to Yaroslav's inheritance at all. And even if they knew, it would not have stopped the war.

The split among the descendants of Monomakh and the war with Poland, Hungary and the Polovtsy completes the picture of strife. If we consider that as a result Rus' split into large pieces that became dependent on the Mongols, Poles and Lithuania, then we can assume that the split has not been overcome so far: after all, even now there are three independent states. But this is a story from a completely different series.

HORNED VIKINGS

Normanists, from the 18th century. those who talk about the Scandinavian roots of the Varangian, of course, will like the Finno-Ugric version. “It is a pity that your results will not be published in scientific journals. In the future, it is possible to involve anthropologists and try to extract DNA from bones in Scandinavian burials,” advises Elena Melnikova, professor at the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

She considers Rurik the leader of one of the Scandinavian detachments, of which there were many. They were headed not by kings with their own allotments, but by the younger offspring of noble families who did not get their own land. “They were called sea kings, because they went on campaigns on ships. A group of four to five ships was gathering, these are 150-200 professional soldiers. They landed somewhere in Ladoga, but you can’t take it with your bare hands: there are fortifications [the same as them]. So it's better to sail further and trade. Rurik was one of these leaders - you can trade, or you can wave your sword. How will it turn out, ”says Melnikova.

It was easier and more profitable to trade, furs are a colossal value. So the Scandinavians sailed along small rivers and exchanged with the local population. They changed knives for furs - “it is no coincidence that knives made according to the Scandinavian technology of the 9th-10th centuries are dispersed throughout the Russian north: it means that there was an active trade,” the historian emphasizes.

Melnikova is sure that the Scandinavians have integrated very well into Slavic society. Unless, of course, these were not gangs of robbers, but immigrants who were going to settle in a new land. “I represent the Slavs and Finns very well, fitting into the squads of the Scandinavians. The social structure of both the Slavs and the Scandinavians was approximately at the same level, but the Scandinavians were active in external activities and developed more intensively, ”says Melnikova.

Geneticists agree that Monomashic DNA is more likely to indicate their Scandinavian origin. “The results of the analyzes of Shakhovsky, Gagarin and Lobanov-Rostovsky indicate that they were Scandinavians rather than Balts. Judging by the population distribution of their haplotype, it is often present in the north of Norway, in Sweden, Finland and Estonia; and only one case in a large sample among the Poles, while not a single case among the Balts,” Boris Malyarchuk, head of the genetics laboratory at the Institute of Biological Problems of the North, told Newsweek. In Pskov and the Baltic states, they find another version of the N3.

Our search in the largest online database Ysearch confirmed his words: among the several dozen genetic relatives of the Ruriks found there, 90% stated that their distant ancestors lived in the center and north of modern Finland, and the remaining 10% indicated Sweden and Britain.

“It's amazing that you found that we all go back to the Scandinavians and at the same time three are relatives. This not only means that our birth was not interrupted, but that they also go so far back in time together. This means that the memory of our ancestors remained in our genes. My father was shot in 1938 when I was only three years old, and all I know about him is from my mother,” says physicist Andrei Gagarin.

However, if you look for relatives of the Rurikovich-Olgovichi in the same Ysearch, the Slavophiles will already rejoice: the search reveals people with Polish, Slovenian and Czech roots.

“Despite the fact that in The Tale of Bygone Years there is no indication that the Varangians were Slavs, this should not embarrass us. Then it was such a well-known fact, which did not need to be repeated. The main proof of the Slavic origin of the Varangians is that most of the cities they founded bear Slavic names: Novgorod, Beloozero, Izborsk. Some Slavs invited other Slavs to help, and not Scandinavians, because they believed that it was their fellow tribesmen who could judge them. Just as we would invite Czechs, Poles, Croats, and not Swedes to help, ”says Vyacheslav Fomin, a leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The same quite Slavophile point of view is shared by Valentin Yanin, head of the Novgorod archaeological expedition: “These were long-familiar people, the South Baltic Slavs.” The academician cites an adapted quote from the Lavrentiev and Ipatiev Chronicles: “Just as other Varangians called themselves Germans, Englishmen, Swedes and Goths, these called themselves Rus.” At the same time, Yanin does not deny that the South Baltic Slavs could have had a fair amount of Scandinavian blood: “But the cultural closeness of this people and the then Slavic population is much more important.”

RENAISSANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

Supporters of the Slavic and Norman origin of Russian statehood, according to Yanin, will be able to resolve the dispute only when they interpret the quotation from the annals in the same way.

According to Melnikova, this will not happen soon. She is much more concerned that a few years ago there was a "medieval renaissance" among historians. “Somewhere in 2001-2002, a surge of anti-Normanism suddenly began again, moreover, primitive, based on the works of the middle of the 19th century. This surge was provoked by the presidential administration, this is a purely political order,” she says.

Just in 2002, Kaliningrad hosted the sensational "anti-Normanist" conference "Rurikovich and Russian statehood", which some historians consider a patriotic PR campaign of the Kremlin. The conference was indeed sponsored by the presidential administration. The first meeting began with the reading of a welcoming telegram from President Vladimir Putin. Academician Yanin, however, does not believe that the authorities are trying to direct historical science in the right direction: "These are attempts by individual historians to curry favor, the initiative comes from the bottom up, not from the top down."

Three years ago, when Putin visited the most famous Varangian settlement of Staraya Ladoga in the Leningrad region, the head of the excavations, Anatoly Kirpichnikov, told him that this ancient settlement was the first residence of the first head of the Russian state. Kirpichnikov reported to the president that Rurik spent several years here, which many other historians disagree with; in their opinion, Staraya Ladoga was just a transit point. As academician Yanin recalls, Putin then took a keen interest in this settlement: “He asked me what I thought about the Ladoga issue. I answered: you are now in Novgorod, why does it not become the capital of the Russian Federation? Putin agreed: “And indeed.”

Yuri Andreevich Obolensky, a descendant of Russian princes, is also ready to agree with his Slavic origin, although he believed all his life that Rurik was a Norman: “Although I adhered to the Norman position, you won’t go against science. According to him, there is a family legend in the Obolensky family: they say that Ivan the Terrible was not at all a descendant of the Monomashichs, but the illegitimate son of one of the Obolenskys, Prince Telepnev-Ovchina. “Everything in our family is so mixed up,” says the prince.

If you understand with the help of modern methods, "everything is mixed" in the whole of Russian history. The more scientists learn, the more it becomes clear: Russia and its statehood do not have one source. In the same way as the Rurikovich from the once warring clans - a common ancestor.