White-skinned handsome men who drink a lot and are much more cunning than the Jews: How foreigners imagined their Slavic neighbors

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The ancient Slavs never left foreigners indifferent. This unique people, which cannot be outsmarted or defeated, seemed mysterious and incomprehensible. And the isolation and some closeness of our ancestors, combined with their dissimilarity to other peoples, gave rise to the most incredible rumors in the minds of foreigners. Some of these myths were more or less close to the truth, some were quite far from reality …

All Slavs are white-faced fair-haired beauties

Almost all foreigners noticed that the Slavs (both women and men) are incredibly beautiful. And the Arabs and Byzantines paid special attention to their "fairness". For example, the Arab historian and geographer Al-Masoudi wrote that among all the tribes that he met, there are no people with more beautiful, clean faces and whiter-skinned than the Slavs. All Slavic women, according to his observations, were "thin in the waist, with a clear line of the hips and buttocks." And they walked exclusively in white and bright scarlet clothes.

The writer and traveler Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, who visited Eastern Europe, in his notes about the Slavs (922) also called them incredibly beautiful - according to him, they are slender like palm trees, white in face, and their bodies are perfect.

Such a description of the Slavs should be taken with the proviso that in the eyes of dark-skinned and black-haired southerners, even light brown hair was perceived as very light.

Their warriors are real beasts and fight without armor

Both Arab and Byzantine sources in the description of the Slavs indicated their desperate courage and special cruelty. According to foreigners, Eastern Slavs usually fight on foot, without wearing armor, often with a naked torso. And their weapons are very simple - a small shield, a short spear, a battle ax or a bow (swords began to be used later, starting from the 10th century).

But with all this, they fight to the last drop of blood, never surrender to the enemy alive, and deal with their opponents with particular cruelty. For example, they put them on a sharpened stake, iron bars are driven into the head, and the skin is cut off from the backs, from which belts are then made. A number of foreign chroniclers call the Slavs barbarians and vandals, who in the heat of rage burn everything in their path and kill everyone in a foreign land - women, old people, children. For example, the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea argued that the Slavs have a habit of ripping off their enemies' skin and covering their horses with it. And the Roman historian Tacitus in the II century wrote that the Slavs "rage everywhere."

The Slavs, according to rumors spread by foreigners, preferred to attack not openly, in orderly rows, but from the thicket, trying to catch the enemy by surprise. But with the captive slaves, according to the generally accepted opinion, the Slavs treated very humanely.

The Slavs are peaceful

There was also an opposite version of the ancient Slavs, according to which our ancestors, on the contrary, were very peaceful. According to this myth, the Slavs had a soft and even passive character. For example, the Byzantine author Theophylact Simokatta at the turn of the 6th-7th centuries described three Slavs taken prisoner by the guards of the Roman emperor, as follows: the foreigners did not have any weapons or any military equipment with them, and from their luggage they only had a gusli …Simokatta argued that the country of the Slavs does not know iron, and therefore they do not carry weapons, but live peacefully and in serenity, constantly "playing the lyre."

In fact, the truth was somewhere in between: the Slavs were not at all sadistic monsters who fought like savages, but our ancestors cannot be called submissive and peaceful, as evidenced by numerous historical facts.

Slavs cannot be outsmarted

Back in the 6th-10th centuries, foreigners who had to deal with the Slavs argued that they were a very cunning and sharp-witted people who were almost impossible to deceive. Later, in the Middle Ages, foreigners also paid attention to this feature of the inhabitants of Russia. The German traveler and researcher Olearius Adam wrote: "If someone wants to deceive them, then such a person must have good brains." And the Syrian priest Pavel Aleppsky in the 17th century referred to a Jewish Christian from Solonik, who argued that the Muscovites, with their cunning and resourcefulness, surpassed even the Jews, who had long been considered the first in this matter.

By the way, according to ancient sources, fighting, the Slavs showed a lot of "insidious methods." For example, they sat for hours under water in the river, breathing through reed pipes and waiting for the enemy, so that then they would suddenly attack.

The Slavs, as you know, showed cunning and ingenuity in military affairs, and in negotiations with foreign merchants, and in trade as such.

They drink too much "drunken honey"

The records of many foreigners (Arabs, Byzantines, Greeks) mention the addiction of the Slavs to the intoxicated honey drink. They say that representatives of this strange people drink it day and night and even die with a mug in their hands. The ancient Muslim researcher Kardizi claimed that one Slav can keep a hundred jugs of honey at home.

Of course, this did not mean ordinary honey, but intoxicated honey (not to be confused with mead). According to historical data, this ancient drink, widespread in Russia, did not intoxicate and did not lead to unhealthy excitement, but gave vigor and pacification. This drink did not give a hangover, and our ancestors could really drink it for a long time, "cleansing the soul and body before hard work or feats of arms." By the way, drunken drinking honey was bought with pleasure from the Slavs both in Byzantium and in other states, and Kievan Rus rescued tons of gold for its sale. But, of course, foreign buyers could not drink it in such quantities as the Slavs.

The religion of the Slavs is wild and cruel

The faith of the Slavs gave rise to many myths among foreigners. According to rumors, the "wild people" regularly sacrificed people and even babies to their deities, and almost everyone, including women and small children, gathered to watch these bloodthirsty rituals in the pagan temple.

In fact, in the ancient chronicles there are no facts proving that the Slavs practiced regular human sacrifice. The possibility of such bloody rituals is refuted by the Slavic belief itself, according to which people are created from the fingers of Svarog (the main deity) and they are all “his sons”. It is unlikely that the supreme god would approve of such mass murders of his children.

And in continuation of the theme of the Slavs - objects of Slavic life that have remained only in history.