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BRAND HISTORY
Knyaz Troyan, the “Lay of Igor's Warfare” was a prince from the Slavic ancientry.
Probably, if we decode all symbols and poetic generalizations used in the “Lay”, it will open up some hidden sources of knowledge inherent to the heroic ancient Russian aristocracy? For instance, who the mysterious Troyan mentioned in the “Lay” for four times was? Here are those four abstracts of the “Lay”: “O Boyan! Nightingale of a former time! If you were to chirr the glory of these campaigns ... loping along the path of Troyan through the steppes toward the mountains.” “There have been the ages of Troyan; gone are the years of Yaroslav; there have been the campaigns of Oleg, Oleg son of Svyatoslav.” “Grief reigned over the forces of god Dazhbog’s grandsons. Grief, like a maiden, entered the land of Troyan. She splashed her swan wings at the river Don.” “In the seventh age of Troyan Vseslav cast lots … and touched with the spear-shaft the golden Kievan throne.” Then, who was Troyan, so well-known to the people of the Kievan Rus that the author of the “Lay” did not see proper to explain anything? It is obvious that he could not even imagine that his far descendants would sponge out the memory of far later times, and that some haters of the Russian history would name his masterpiece a fake. Probably memories of Troyan had deeply moved enemies of the Rus so that they tried (and quite sucessfully) to erase these memories, and they were so successful in doing this that when in the XVIII century the Russians came across the “Lay”, they were unable to answer the question who Troyan was (as well as a number of other questions). It is possible now, after several centuries have passed, to fill the gap in our knowledge? Let’s try. First, let’s see in what situation the “Lay” was written. The XI-XIII centuries were for many European nations the period of recording heroic epos. Formation of the epic cycles themselves – the Song of Roland, Cantar de mío Cid, Elder and Younder Eddas, Russian epic cycles – started much earlier as oral traditions kept by a separate caste of griots who always belonged to the ruling aristocracy of the early middle-ages monarchy. Epos reflected the ideology of that period in myths and heroic narrations justifying knightly (hero) virtues and values. Keepers and interpreters of epic narrations belonged to the national aristocracy (in a good sense), they formed political ideas of the aristocracy motivating it for protection of religion and motherland not only in words, but also in deeds: at that time aristocrat meant a warrior. This caste was undoubtedly of pre-Christian origin and possessed a lot of knowledge not used by the Church. This is especially typical of Scandinavian Teutons (the Younger Edda), but also, as witnessed by the “Lay of Igor's Warfare”, partially of the Russian Slavs. A need for recording epos (an extremely oral art in its essence) emerged not at once; it was influenced by some external factors. That might be sharp conflicts between bards telling folk tales and advocating spiritual high-flown ideals, and feudals sunk in domesticities and pursuing their own egoistic interests. Those irritating prophets who appealed to conscience and the common good should have been eliminated. I do not dare to allege the rightness of my ideas, but it is a fact: recording of epic narrations coincides with the period of dissolution of early middle-ages monarchies all around Europe and formation of feudal principalities. Apparently, griots had lost the ability to efficiently pass their tradition in the oral form. Recording was hasty; it was obviously interrupted as it is hard to believe that the Russia heroic epos is limited only to the “Lay of Igor's Warfare”. Epics preserved by a miracle in the north of Russia demonstrate that the epic cycle was far wider. But epics survived were recorded by vulgar keepers, they were entrusted this priceless treasure by griots from the aristocracy just before the devastating Tartar invasion. That is why epics did not preserve some specific features typical of this type of works: griots recorded data in a hurry; they were concerned about devoting the selected peasants to the core of the epic tradition, and they had to neglect a number of peculiarities (e.g., explanation who Troyan was). It is specific that the unique written monument to the Russian epos originates from the south of Rus where the conflict between the nationwide ideas and self-serving policy of princes was very sharp. In the North, in Vladimir-Suzdal Principality, the religious and national concept of power was preserved best of all; that is why epics were passed in a common manner. Even when preparing for a battle with the Mongolian invaders militarized aristocracy of the Ancient Rus were concerned about preserving their knowledge for future generations and entrusted the knowledge not to parchment (and that was a right thing to do: very often priceless written memorials burned together with Russian towns during numerous invasions), but to living watchers who managed to preserve ideas and message of heroic epos through centuries. Unlike Russian epics, the “Lay of Igor's Warfare” was not a piece of literary art meant for oral transmission to vulgar watchers. Therefore the “Lay” was recorded (like other similar works that did not survive). As a result the “Lay” has a somehow elite nature and contains a lot of side information not directly related to the key idea of the tale, but clear to the dedicated. Among such side information is mentioning of Troyan. Probably, the secret of the name “Troyan: is directly associated with deciphering such word phrases as the “path of Troyan”, “age of Troyan” (i.e. “the seventh century”) and “land of Troyan.” Are there any hints? Hints are quite numerous, and they were not neglected by researchers who tried (unfortunately in vain) to answer the “Troyan’s question”. The existing hypotheses are restricted to the following three ideas: 1) Troyan, the Roman Emperor Trayan (98-117 A.D.); 2) Troyan, a Slavic Deity; 3) Troyan, an Ancient Rus knyaz. In addition to the “Lay”, Troyan was mentioned in a number of myths and toponymic sources. It turns out that the Slavs’ folklore (primarily southern Slavs’) there are a lot of songs and tales about Troyan. the name can be found in a number of names for settlements, stows, roads and other natural and man-made objects scattered all over the Slavic world (not only at the Balkan Peninsula, but also in the centre of Russia – near Orel and even Tver). The most notable are Troyan’s defensive protection embankments in Ukraine stretching across the steppe for hundreds of versts. The first and the most spread viewpoint is based on consonance of the names and relates Troyan from the “Lay” to the Roman Emperor Trayan. The broad justification of this version was provided by the Academician N.S. Derzhavin. According to Derzhavin, Troyan’s fame as a conqueror of Dacs is depicted in Balkan folklore where the victorious emperor is like a mythic hero. Gradually a series of legends on Troyan appears, the Troyan who becomes a cultic character also for the Slavs who settled in the Balkans (by the way, there are no grounds to deny that the Slavs lived on the Balkan Peninsula in the days of Troyan). This idea was picked up by Academician B.A. Rybakov. Indeed, the idea is partially realistic as long as we do not try to match the theory with the narrations about Troyan in the “Lay.” Derzhavin (followed by Rybakov) tried to relate a perfectly clear word combination “the path of Troyan” to the “Tropaeum Traiani” column erected by the emperor at the top of the mountain in commemoration of his victories. The column could be seen by anyone passing the Central Balkan range, i.e. it could be seen by the Slavs going to the Byzantine Empire in the VI-VII centuries who depicted the name of the column in their legends. Why the Slavs called the column, and not the road “path”, though there are several roads on the Balkans that are even now called “Troyan’s”, either Derzhavin, or Rybakov could not explain. If to cast away the absurd idea about the column, then “the path of Troyan” could be in fact related to the name of the emperor who left trails after him. But at the same time how can one explain other names containing Troyan? Derzhavin confined himself to discussing this name only in toponymy of the Balkan Peninsula, meanwhile the area of its distribution is much more extensive. For instance, how the village of Troyan appeared in Tver region? And where was the land of Troyan? In the “Lay” the land of Troyan was mentioned together with the Dazhbog’s grandsons. All researchers came to the conclusion that the Rus called themselves the grandsons of Dazhbog. Then “the land of Troyan” where after Igor’s army defeat “grief entered” was the symbol for Rus. What is the relationship of this land to the Roman Emperor Trayan? According to Derzhavin’s theory, Trayan’s empire and Rus are connected to each other as a whole and a part. However it is well-known that only a small part of the future Russian state – the lower reach of the Danube – belonged to the Roman Empire. This part was not large enough for Rus to be called the land of Trayan. Derzhavin saw weakness of his idea, and to strengthen it he thought out some Kiev-and-Danube region controlled by Rome. But there are no factual evidences proving this assumption. Rybakov identified “the land of Troyan” as the area between the lower part of the Danube and the Black Sea (now Dobruja) confined in the south by one of the Trayan protective embankments. But there are no grounds in the “Lay” for such a localization of the term. And moreover what is then the explanation for Troyan protective embankments all over Ukraine? The events that happened in Kiev “in the seventh age of Troyan” took place in 1068-1069 A.D. and are related with a short-term seizure of the grand duke’s throne by Vseslav, a soldier of fortune, Polotsk duke, whom the author of the “Lay” depicts with werewolf features (probably, Vseslav was a paganish prophet with magic skills as there is an epic about Vseslavich Prophet). In order for Trayan and Vseslav to be separated by seven centuries, there should be a specific duration of a century. Derzhavin suggested an idea that in this case a century makes a dozen of dozens of years, i.e. 144 years. But there are no proofs that any time any where a century equaled to 144 years. Realizing that, Derzhavin suggested to count the seven centuries starting from “collapse of the Roman control over Kiev-and-Danube region”, i.e. starting from the end of the IV century. But the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) held the boundary along the Danube also in the VI century. As far as departure of the Romans from Dacia is concerned, it took place in the III century. One may accept both the VI, or III century or the fall of Rome (476) as a starting point, but in none of these cases 1068 could be the VII century. It is worth mentioning that at that time an age was not the same as a century, as we are used to thinking. But this is another story. And now let us draw attention to the image of Troyan in the Slavic mythology. Derzhavin quotes several Bulgarian and Serbian legends where Troyan is mentioned. None of them depict Troyan as an awesome conqueror. The majority of tales has something in common with the ancient myth about Apollo and Midas, but there the latter has been substituted with Troyan. Frankly speaking, these tales are a vague basis for judging about a real myth prototype. One has an impression that terse lines of the “Lay” preserved a far more concrete memory about Troyan than legends of the southern Slavs. And that is why a clue to the Troyan's secret lies probably not in the Balkans, but in Russia. Let’s imagine what image of Trayan the Slavs had – an awesome August, the conqueror of dacs? Who are the Dacs? Scientists do not have any distinct answer. Persuading that there is some “Dacs-and-Thracian language group” as the majority of linguists does is departure from the answer. Where is then the Dacs-and-Thracian hydronymics? Traces of human-beings leaving stay in the hydronymics of the area where they live forever. Some scientists long ago gave attention to the fact that in the Balkan there were no rivers the names of which could not be translated from living languages. At almost completely Slavic territory on may come across Albanian (Illyrian), Greek, Turkic, even Indo-Aryan (e.g. yantra) names, and “Dacs-and-Thracian” ones are, as the saying goes, as rare as hen's teeth… The most prominent variety of names can be found exactly in the region where Dacia was located (now a part of Romania). Properly speaking, there are no Romanian names there, instead, Bystritsy, Rechtsy, Belovody, Chernovody, Studenitsy, Glubokie are in abundance… And what about names of the Dacian chiefs mentioned in ancient sources? Only the deaf do not perceive Slavic roots: Burevischa, Dakival… If in doubt, have a look at figures of Dacs at Roman statues and basse-tailles, and you will see a purely Slavic anthropological type. The Dacs who valued freedom above all other things had excited continuous rebellions against the Romans until finally Trayan crushed them almost completely… By the way, stubborn resistance of the Dacs may implicitly evidence for their ethnic background. Dacia was populated with veterans of victorious legions who assimilated remaining scarce population. Initially the Romanians were just descendants of Roman colonizers and Slavic women, and not mythic “Romanized Dacs and Thracians” at all. And who was Trayan for the Slavs? A cruel barbarian, butcher, enslaver. Is there this image in the mythology of the southern Slavs? There are none. This fact alone would make it possible to state that Troyan from the “Lay” had noting to do with the Roman Emperor Trayan. But in addition to that we proved the impossibility to explain within the scope of the “Roman” theory notations of the “Troyan’s protective embankments” and “the land of Troyan.” That is why this idea is outright “on the strength of all evidences.” The hypothesis about Troyan being a Slavic Deity attracted a lot of supporters. Indeed, in some Russian Christian lections against heathenism Troyan is in line with Perun, Dyy, Khors, Volos. The common Slavonic teonim of Troyan may explain widespread distribution of the Troyan toponymy. But the role Troyan in the Slavic pantheon is till unclear. Attempts to explain the meaning of the expressions with the name Troyan in the “Lay” within the scope of this version come across insuperable difficulties. One of attempts was taken by a well-known sneerer of the Russian culture “Academician” D.S. Likhachev. His arguments concerning the issue suggest, to put it mildy, doubts for his professionalism. Look, Likhachev thinks that the centuries of Troyan referred to in the “Lay” are the centuries of heathenism domination in Rus. If it is true, then the author of the “Lay” should have spoken of heathenism as of something gone with the wind. And meanwhile, when reading the “Lay”, we constantly come across the ancient Russian gods – Khors, Dazhbog, Stribog and their descendants. Christianity was mentioned in the “Lay” only once and indirectly: when back from captivity, Igor goes to temple of the Blessed Virgin. It is obvious that the author of the “Lay” was an adherer of ditheism typical of ancient Rus. The author officially embraced Christianity but he still worshiped ditheistic gods who survived in the natural phenomena and people’s acts. And what is the idea of Likhachev? “Names of the pagan deities are referred to in folk poetry of the XII century, like they may be occasionally found in the folk poetry of the time (XVIII-XIX centuries)… [Author of the “Lay”] uses the Russian gods only as poetic symbols (like they used ancient gods in the poetry of the XVIII century).” Students telling such nonsense at the exams get an unsatisfactory mark – and it serves them right! Any intelligent person understands that epos of the XII century and poetry of the “enlightment time” with its mythic allegories are two completely different phenomena. May it be true that Europeans of the XVI century worshiped Apollo and Zeus? And what pieces of “folk poetry of the new time” contain references to Slavic or ancients gods? Or does the pseudo-academician think of G.D. Derzhavin and A.S. Pushkin as of sons of populace? And who gave him the right to call the “Lay”, a monument to aristocratic knowledge, “folk poetry”? One gets an impression that Likhachev either did not new elementary things, or deliberately distorted the facts. But even if Likhachev’s theory if true, how could it happen that the time of Vseslav turned out to be the seventh age of heathenism? Likhachev writes, “Significance of the seventh as a last one is determined by mediaeval idea of the number 7.” That means that the adventure of Vseslav that coincided with other rebellions in Rus is the last burst of heathenism, its last, “seventh” century. Could it be possible? Complete inadequacy of the theory was revealed by Professor A.G. Kuzmin, “Figure 7 was mystifies in the East, by the Egyptians and Hebrews… Illusory association of a week with the seven planets was not accepted by the Slavs. The Russian mythology does not have any trails of figure 7 mystification.” Thus, Likhachev projected to the Rus his own ethnocultural idea of the figure 7. However, false weight of such a scientist promoted the spread of the idea of Troyan as a pagan deity. The same point of vies was supported by a Romanian philologists A. Boldur. But his article on Troyan based on the results comparative philology contains some valuable information: first of all, this is the evidence that the Latin name Trayan could not directly pass to the Romanian language in the form of Troyan. According to Boldur, the Romanians could borrow this name from the Slavic language. The time of borrowing is determined on the basis of laws of linguistics quite exactly – the VI-VII centuries. Remember this date. Discussing origin of the name Troyan in the Slavic pantheon, Boldur could not beat the temptation to relate the name to the Roman emperor. He suggested the following scheme: “1. Borrowing by the Balkan Slavs of the name of Trayan to adapt it to ... legends about Midas… Metamorphosis of the emperor into a mythic creature. 2. Transformation of the idea about a mythic creature into the idea of god and promotion of worshiping him among the Slavs and Dacs.” The researcher did not explain why Midas had to be substituted by Trayan and how a hero from fairy tales could become a god. There are not examples of such transformation in the science, but the reverse process of voiding a god to a literary character or a reverse oral myth (i.e. a myth that lost its sacral significance), to a hero from fairy-tales. It is also unclear why one needed to derive the name of Troyan from the Roman name of Trayan. Troyan has a common for all Indo-European languages root “tri.” The idea of trinity is typical of the Indo-Europeans (cf.: Indian Trimurti, Slavic Kupalo – Lada – Rozhanitsa and Triglav, late Christian dogma about the Holy Trinity, etc.). If not denying presence in the Slavic pantheon of the god named Troyan, we could not but admit that this theory does not explain the lines from the “Lay of Igor's Warfare” under question. The Russian are known to warship Perun, Volos, Khors, Dazhbog. The latter’s grandsons are the Russians. The Land of Rus is somehow is named after another, unknown deity having vague functions, and originating from somewhere from the Balkans five-six years ago. Nonsense! And what about “the path of Troayn”, “the ages of Troyan”? Or should one try to find a clue proceeding first of all from the hints given in the “Lay” itself? According to A.G. Kuzmin, “the very comparison of Troyan with Yaroslav and Oleg Svyatoslavovich suggests that the question is about a monarch, and not about a deity.” Something to add: about a Russian monarch, otherwise why did the author of the “Lay” called Rus the land of Troyan? The conclusion made by Kuzmin is so obvious, that it is amazing that other historians could not but note it. The “Lay” itself suggests no other ways of interpreting the name of Troyan. The problem is to find for Troyan a suitable place in the Russian history, to explain abstracts from the “Lay” associated with Troyan, and at the same time to grasp why other sources do not contain any mentioning on Troyan. If the seventh age of Troyan cannot be considered to be the last age of heathenism, then it would be logical to suggest that this is exactly the time reference associated with Troyan. Kuzmin paid attention to the fact that for the author of the “Lay” “the age” had a meaning different from the meaning that we got used to. “The literal meaning of the word “age” in old times was a life cycle of a human-being, an object, or a phenomenon”. Unfortunately Kuzmin departed from his own observations and therefore from the right answer. Despite his own idea, Kuzmin suggested that “the age” was a period of time separating two adjacent generations. For the Romans, for instance, it was a period of 25 or 36 years. Kuzmin does not explain what this ancient Roman tradition has to do with the ancient Russian one, but takes a period of 36 years for identifying the date of the age of Troyan – the end of the IX century. Then Kuzmin applies one more calculation method drawing up an upline for the genealogy of the Russian dukes starting from Vseslav from Polotsk. Recognizing “the seventh age of Troyan” ad the seventh generation of Troyan, Kuzmin makes a conclusion that Troyan was Igor’s father (fist half of the Ő century), his real father, as opposed to Ryurik, the founder of Kiev dukes dynasty. Being logical and appealing, Kuzmin's theory contradicts to the results of linguistic analysis where the time when the name Troyan was most common in the Balkan languages as the VI-VII centuries. Then, it is hard to imagine that the ancient Russian sources that preserved the names of Ryurik, Askold, Dir, Oleg, would not have brought to us the name of Troyan, if he had been a really outstanding contemporary of the named persons. This makes it possible to assert that if there had been a Russian duke called Troyan, then he would have lived earlier than the end of the IX century. Finally, calculations undertaken by Kuzmin do not coincide with the idea of “the age” proposed by him. According to Russian researchers V.V. Ivanov and V.N. Toporov, “the life cycle itself, the life duration from birth to death was called by the Slavs “vek”. At the same time, “vek”… could mean an ideal space and time continuum where the life of a human-being passed… Compare repeatedly mentioned gaps between expected and real in numerous expressions like the Russian “died before the age” (i.e. earlier that it had been expected), “survive over one’s age” (i.e. live more than it is expected), “set ages” (i.e. to lengthen life over the expected period), etc”. Thus, “the age” means not the gap between generations of parents and children, and not an average life cycle (this notion even couldn’t have exhisted in the old times). “The age” was a period of life when a person who had avoided a fatal disease and an accident died from physical ageing. “The age” is the age of a person being very old. And in this ideal capacity “the age” could serve as a symbol of a certain period of time, a measure for chronological counting, the same as it is now. But nowadays, with the wide spread of the decimal system, the word “age” means a century. In the old times, “the age” meant a different period when speaking about human life. How many? The Slavic sources do not contain exact information about it. But in the Russian village the word “age” is still used for a life span. But this period is quite vague. Somewhere you may find out that it equals to “seventy-five years”, somewhere – “sixty”, etc. These are vague bases for “the age” to be considered as a unit of time. It seems that we have only one source that could help us to near the right answer. But due to its uniqueness, this source may not be neglected. The modern science accepts that “communities being at the same stage of social and economic development have similar ideas and forms for their presentation.” A certain group of notions, particularly those related to the idea of the Universe and the place of people in it, have been inherited by all nationalities with the Arian background. And preservation of similarity of these nations that were for a long time very close to one another is not surprising. Among such nationalities in the early middle ages were the Slavs and Teutons whose agricultural terminology contains words with the same roots (“village” - “dorf”, “plough” - “pflug”, “milk” - “milch”, etc.). Why am I talking about it? In the “Younger Edda” that was written almost at the same time as the “Lay” (beg. of the XIII century, while the “Lay” was written at the end of the XII century) we may find out that “a human age equals to 80 years.” One may neglect this fact, but there is no other one. That is why let us apply this figure to the chronological hints given in the “Lay”. The year 1068 falls at the seventh age of Troyan, that is not later than 560 before, and not earlier than 480 years after this mysterious person lived (we don’t know what the starting point was – birth, death or another event in the life of Troyan, but it is insignificant). After plain calculations we get: the first age of Troyan starts somewhere between 508 and 588 A.D. Let me remind you: the linguistic analysis stated that “the answer to Troyan’s question should lie in the VI-VII centuries.” What was happening with the Slavs at that time? These were exactly the VI-VII centuries when the Slavic army undertook active invasions to the Byzantine Empire, and a lot of Slavs settled on the Balkan Peninsula. Proceeding from the facts about the Dacs and Thracians, we may introduce some corrections. Obviously that Slavonic speaking tribes lived on the Balkan Peninsula as early as in the old times. Migration of the VI-VII centuries resulted in a massive stream of settlers from the north who brought new national ideas with them (let me remind you that this is the time when the ethnicon “Slavs” was recorded for the first time). Looking at the map, one may easily imagine that the center of the migration was in the east-Slavic region – in the Sub Dnepr, Carpathian region, North Black Sea region, where according to Jordan as early as in the IV century there was a state of Wend antae. That is why “the path of Troyan through the steppes toward the mountains” attains distinct features of a well-trodden road of military invasions of the Slavs towards the Byzantine Empire – via the Near Danube lowland to passages in the Old Planina. At the same time the name of the path is associated with not the column, and not with the road named after the Roman Emperor, but with the living heads of the Slavic armies whose deeds were praised by the mysterious Boyan,–a far ancestors of the author of the “Lay.” There is a great temptation to consider “the path of Troyan” not only as a poetic symbol. In Bulgaria, at the northern slope of the Old Planina, there is the city of Troyan. To the south of it there lies the passage of Troyan, one of the highest ones in the Balkan Range. Both the city and the passage are situated in the route from the city of Rus (!) on the Danube to the Greek city of Thessaloniki (Slavic Solun). By the way, Rus region of the VI-VII centuries was considered by archeologists as having much in common with the culture of the Middle Sub Dnepr. Byzantine sources speak about presence of drigovichy, poliane and severiane tribes in this region. It is obvious that here there was a massive colony of a number of east-Slavonic tribes … Probably the author of the “Lay” was already aware of the passage used by Troyan’s army on the way to Greece, but he still remembered that this path was “through the steppes toward the mountains”. There is no doubt that such a great military colonization activity of the Slavs (as witnessed by Menander Protictor “Ellas was completely destroyed by the Slavs”) on the lands of the most powerful empire of that time could be possible only in case of existence of nationhood among the Slavs. The science considers that the Slavs and Teutons at that age had early feudal states or so called “barbarian kingdoms”. The kingdoms of Goths, Francs, Vandals and Langobards are known even by the people not acquainted with history professionally. The Slavic states of early Middle Ages such as the kingdom of Samo, Great Moravic dominion, etc. are less known (because of low interest from history). Besides the Eastern Slavs union of Anta’s was nothing but a state formation and existed on the lands of Middle Sub Dnepr region and North Black Sea region even in the IV century and struggled hard against Goths. The name of the one chief of Anta’s - Buss who had come to a tragic end in this struggle was saved in the “Lay of Igor's Warfare” as well as in the “History of Goths” by Jordan. Here it is required to remember the kingdom of Scythians Scolots of Herodothus age, union of Roxolalians, Attila’s dominion and other ancient states where the leading part of Slavic element may be well seen. So the Slavs of the VI-VII centuries succeeded initial stage of state formation long ago. And more frequent invasions of Avars and Khazars on the lands of Slavs caused the creation of powerful political formations among the Slavs. The feature common almost for all early Middle Ages Barbarian states was their short life. The most important condition was presence of the powerful charismatic (in a sense of God-like) chief around whom other chiefs of tribes could gather. Generally such quasi empires collapsed with a death of their founders (Allarich, Odoakr, Attila, Samo etc). For a long time the family basis was still more significant than the state basis limiting independence of separate tribes. For such societies the uprising of the chief capable to gather separate tribes around him should become bright, uneclipsed heroic fame no matter how short it could be. Therefore “the age of Troyan” for the Eastern Slavs was not the very first century when they had complicated process of state formation. The “Lay of Igor's Warfare” gave us the name of the man associated among both contemporaries and offsprings with one side of this epic process. Just as the kingdoms of Attila and Odoakr, the dominion of Troyan could come over a great territory and wire spread of Troyan walls and other Troyan toponymy could witnessed for it. Probably not with maximum concentration of Trojan places is in Bulgaria, Romania, Moldavia and Ukraine may signify the real scope of state building and military activity of forgotten governor. Reference about “the path of Troyan” is not an enough basis to build up the idea about powerful ancient Slavic dominion. The memory about this dominion may be saved in calling old Russia as Troyan land. Besides we have “the Troyan’s protective embankments” i.e. powerful defensive soil constructions of ancient times built along the border of forest-steppe and steppe areas throughout all Ukraine sometimes even in Moldavia and Romania. Those embankments were called snake walls in Ukraine: maybe due to their snake-like bends throughout hundreds of miles, maybe because of the fact that numerous aggressors came from steppe were associated in old Russia with guileful snakes (according to B.A. Rybakov the character of Gorynych Snake in Russian folklore signifies just Southern invaders). The chronicles refer that St. Vladimir upgraded and adjusted defensive boundaries at the border with steppe, therefore, they had existed before him. The shake-type walls just like Great Chinese Wall provided defense of large areas where agricultural and farming Slavic tribes lived… For cavaliers it was almost impossible to overcome the uphill wall and ditch surfaces with the slope of up to 45º even if the defenders of crest were absent. The fact that the walls were constructed against steppe warriors is witnessed by ditches digged from the Southern part of the wall. The snake-type walls are not the integrated closed chain. They were constructed by different tribal unions but finally they made the integrated system of defense of the forest-steppe agricultural area from steppe warriors… It is calculated that the 40 km long Posttunghan-Irpenian wall was built by 30 thousand men. It is absolutely clear that such ambitious defense system comparable only with the Great Chinese Wall or even Abatis line of Moskovite Russia (by the way both of them are not the integrated full lines) could be built only if administrative force represented by the state power was existed. So when were “Troyan’s protective embankments” built in Sub Dnepr region? Prior to create radiocarbone dating the scientists could only guess about it. Fortunately, now we do have possibility to use objective data not depending on sympathies of researches. The filling of wall was labour consumption process with unavoidable use of fire for elimination of forest at the place of construction thereby providing material for accurate dating. The earliest date of the wall construction is 150 B.C., the latest one is 670 B.C. (± 35). Therefore both the Troyan and Vladimir can not be fully considered as wall creators. Probably those walls were started to develop from local defensive systems long before “the age of Troyan”. The Troyan could be associated with the recovery of the walls damaged somewhere and, probably with an attempt to connect them into one system. The upper limit of dating is almost equal with the discovered by us term of completion of “the age of Troyan”. Here is an appropriate question: if the Slavic God Troyan existed, how could the governor have the same name as the God? Yes, it was not so rare among the Slavs. One of the St. Vladimir sons was called Pozvid, and it was the name (according to Gustyn chronicle) of the one Slavic God of wind. The presence of Slavic personal name Troyan is confirmed by memories about Ńheczh lord Troyan who had lived in the XVII century as well by popularity of this name among Bulgarians. Is the mentioning of Troyan in the same context with Dazhbog thĺ reference to teonim? Not necessary. Indeed we do not know exactly how Troyan appeared in the Slavic pantheon. At the age of heroic barbarity it was common for the Indo-Europeans to give their extraordinary chiefs God-like features (Cf. Homer’s Achilles equal to God). And if the scope of Troyan’s activity was in real just like mentioned above, why is impossible to believe in his God-like essence? And the last thing. If the Troyan’s activity really was so significant why there is no any written documents except for obscure allusion given in the “Lay of Igor's Warfare”? The essays of Byzantian historians representing the main data source about Slavs of that time mention many Slavic lords, but there is no any Troyan. Besides the data saved from that time is the very small part of what had been written. Moreover, if our hypothesis about Troyan was correct, it could be not hard to guess that the Romeys did not like to remember him. Which names of Slavic lords were kept in their records? Only those who were defeated by Byzantine Empire or served it. The Troyan does non fall into any of the above mentioned categories. Besides, as it had been mentioned above, the early state formations similar to Troyan’s dominion were short-lived. Probably the Troyan’s age was a kind of a flash for contemporaries: too short and too shocking to be mentioned in biased written testimonies of the enemy. However, this flash was bright enough to leave a notable imprint on the memory of our ancestor. Source: http://www.rustrana.ru Author: Yaroslav Butakov |
It is hard to imagine a devotee of the Russian history who is unfamiliar with the “Lay of Igor's Warfare”. It is a literary masterpiece one wants to reread again and again. And what is more important – the message of the “Lay” is clear even when the point of discussion is quite hard to grasp. Philologists and historians have been arguing for a long time what “khinovi” means or why Rus is “behind the hills”. But this does not impede comprehension of the idea the ancient author, a well-deserved representative of the committed aristocracy of Kievan Rus, wanted to communicate, the idea that was quite new for feuding age – the sense of national unity. Or is it clear only in general?