Alan tribe. Alans: who are they?

Was abandoned Alans, a people who created their own statehood. They were first recorded at the beginning of the 2nd century BC. and then throughout their history they appear in the reports of Armenian, Georgian, Byzantine, Arab and other authors under different names - roksolans, alanros, asii, aces, yas, oats, wasps.

Scientists are convinced that the Alans were Iranian-speaking and were one of the branches of the Sarmatians. By the 1st century AD Having arrived from the steppes of Central Asia, they occupied vast spaces in the Southern Urals, Lower Volga, and Azov regions, forming a powerful tribal union. At the same time, the hordes of Alans spread over a large part of North Caucasus, subjecting to their influence, only the mountainous regions of Chechnya, Dagestan and the western Caucasus retained their originality.

Initially, the economic basis of the Alans was nomadic pastoralism. The social structure was based on the principles military democracy. From the 1st to the 4th centuries, various sources constantly talk about the military campaigns of the Alans against neighboring countries and peoples. Carrying out raids in Transcaucasia, they intervened in the struggle between the great powers of that time ( Parthia, ), participate on the side and against the owners Iberia, Armenia,.

Unlike the earlier Iranian newcomers, the Alans were able to settle down and farm, which helped them gain a foothold in the Central Caucasus. In the 3rd century, Alanya was a formidable force that neighboring states, for example, had to reckon with.

Over the several hundred years of their domination in the North Caucasus, the Alans had such a powerful impact on that the culture of all local peoples was subjected to leveling and acquired common characteristics, including the Alanian one, which is found in various parts of the Caucasus. The presence of Alans is recorded in the folk epic of Adyghe and Nakh legends, for example, the epic legend of the Vainakhs “Elijah”.

Alans during the era of the Great Migration

At the end of the 3rd century AD. The power of the Alans was significantly undermined by the invasion of new nomadic hordes from Central Asia. Initially, in the 70s of the 3rd century, a horde Huns defeated and pushed the Alans into the foothills, and carried away the rest of them on their long European campaigns.

One of the Hun factions Akatsir, remained in the North Caucasian steppes throughout the 4th century. Then at the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th centuries AD. Almost at the same time as the Huns, another whole group rushed to the North Caucasus a number of tribes of Mongolian and Turkic origin. The most notable of these is the tribal association Bulgarians.

The onslaught of nomads forced the Alans to leave the entire steppe part of the North Caucasus and retire to the foothills and mountainous regions. Alan settlements at that time were based on modern lands Pyatigorye, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Ossetia, Ingushetia. The main type of dwellings became fortified settlements, which were built in hard-to-reach places. This was justified, because nomadic expansion in the North Caucasus did not subside for several centuries.

In the 6th century, the Alans experienced the pressure of a nomadic alliance Turks who created their own enormous formation Turkic Khaganate. In the 7th century, the subjugation of the nomadic and aboriginal peoples of the Caucasus by another steppe ethnic group began to take place.

The Alanian alliances of the central Caucasus became dependent on the Khazars and, on the side of the latter, took part in a whole series of Khazar-Arab wars of the 7th and 8th centuries. Khazar and Arab authors during this period point to the Central Caucasus as the permanent place of residence of the Alans, also the Daryal Pass ( Daryal Gorge), connecting the North Caucasus with Transcaucasia, from Arabic Bab al Alan(Alan gate).

By this time, two large and independent communities were being formed among the Alans. Stand out:

1. Western Alans (Ashtigor), Karachay-Cherkess Republic, eastern regions of the Krasnodar Territory and Stavropol Territory;
2. Eastern Alans (Ardosians), KBR, Ossetia, Ingushetia.

At the end of the 10th century, Khazar pressure on the Alans weakened and the prerequisites were created for the formation of an independent Alan state. Over the almost thousand-year period of their stay in the North Caucasus, the Alans were able to achieve significant success in various industries. Along with traditional cattle breeding, plow farming and crafts—pottery, weapons, blacksmithing, and jewelry—developed. Since the 7th century, crafts have been separated from agriculture and turned into an independent industry.

Excavations of Alan settlements provided material about social differentiation in their environment. The formation of classes was facilitated by processes Christianization, which became especially active in the 10th century. Christianity penetrated into Alania through Georgia and. As a result, the construction of churches following the Byzantine model is taking place throughout Alanya.

The rise and fall of the Alan state

In the 10th century, the western and eastern Alan tribes were united into a single Alan state. Socially, Alanya has a privileged class feudal lords, exploited community peasants And patriarchal slaves.

In the mid-10th century, the rulers of Alanya are mentioned, having the titles of “spiritual son” and “Divine ruler of the Universe”. By this time we can talk about the emergence of cities among the Alans, for example, the city Magas.

Not only neighbors, primarily Georgia, but also distant powers - Kievan Rus - are striving to develop relations with the Alans. During this period, dynastic marriages took place between the rulers of Alanya and other countries.

Like other early feudal states of that era, after its heyday in the second half of the 12th century, it plunged into the abyss of feudal civil strife. By the beginning of the 13th century, the once unified state was breaking up into a number of small possessions at war with each other.

Alanya finds itself in a state of feudal fragmentation. Since 1222, the Mongols made their first attempts to subjugate Alanya, but the systematic conquest of the entire country began in 1238. Despite the heroic resistance, part of the Alans are destroyed by the Tatar-Mongols, another part of them joins the troops of the Tatar-Mongol khans, and the third part of the Alans is scattered across the mountainous, inaccessible places of the Central Caucasus, where the process of mixing Alans with locals begins. Modern peoples: Ossetians, Balkars, Karachais have a certain share of the Alan component in their ethnogenesis.

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ALANS: WHO ARE THEY?

Mirfatykh ZAKIEV

From his book TATARS: Problems of history and language.(Collection of articles on problems of linguistic history; revival and development of the Tatar nation). Kazan, 1995. – P.38-57.

§ 1. General information. As is known from sources, in the vast region of Eurasia, namely in Eastern Europe, in the Caucasus, in Minor, Central, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Southern and Western Siberia lived multilingual tribes, which Greek and then Roman historians called by a common name until the 9th–8th centuries. BC. – kimmers, in the 9th–3rd centuries. BC. – discounts(in Russian: Scythian, in Western European: monastery), parallel and – sauromatami, in the 3rd century. BC–IV century AD – Sarmatians. Then the ethnonym came into general use Alan.

In official Indo-European and Russian Soviet historical science, all of them, not on the basis of a generalization of linguistic, mythological, ethnological, archaeological and historical data, but only on the basis of scattered linguistic conclusions, are recognized as Iranian-speaking, in particular, the ancestors of the Ossetians. It turns out that in such a vast region of Eurasia, under common name Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans (Aces) for a thousand years BC. and another thousand years AD. The ancestors of the Ossetians lived, and at the beginning of the 2nd millennium AD. they declined unusually quickly (or adopted the Turkic language) and remained in small numbers only in the Caucasus. This representation of the historical process in Eurasia does not stand up to criticism even for the following general considerations. The opinion about the Iranian-speaking Scythians, Sarmatians, and Alans is not justified by the historical process of development or assimilation of peoples. If in such a vast region of Eurasia, as Iranianists assume, Iranian-speaking Ossetians had lived for at least two thousand years, then, naturally, they would not have suddenly disappeared without a trace after the “arrival” of the Huns from somewhere or turned into Turks with lightning speed - this is on the one hand, on the other, the Turks, if they had not previously lived in these regions, would not have been able to in the 6th century. create over a vast area from the shores Pacific Ocean to the Adriatic Sea Great Turkic Khaganate.

It is also necessary to keep in mind that the idea of ​​this ancient population as Iranian-speaking contradicts the information of ancient historians about the multilingualism of the Scythians and Sarmatians and is not confirmed by the toponymy data of the above-mentioned vast region.

In addition, if the Scythians and Sarmatians were Iranian-speaking, then the Assyrian, Greek, Roman, Chinese ancient historians could not help but pay attention to this, because they well represent both the Iranian-Persians and the Scythian-Sarmatians, i.e. when describing these peoples, they would somehow definitely note the similarity or proximity of the Persian and “Scythian” languages. But we do not find even a hint of this in ancient writers. At the same time, there are many cases of identifying the Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans with various Turkic-speaking tribes.

Finally, if in the vast territories of Eurasia under the general name Scythian And Sarmatian Only Iranian-speaking tribes lived, from where then suddenly Slavic, Turkic, Finno-Ugric peoples appeared. All that remains is to ask an ironic question: maybe they “fell from space”?!

Thus, even general view on the results of the Scythian and Sarmatian studies of Iranianists shows that in their tendentiousness they went into the limits of unreality, unprovable fantasticality and far-fetchedness.

At the same time, many scientists, even before the appearance of the Scythian-Iranian concept and after it, proved and continue to prove the Turkic-speaking nature of the Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans, recognizing the presence among them of Slavic, Finno-Ugric, Mongolian, and, to a lesser extent, Iranian tribes . According to this group of scientists, in the vast territories of Eurasia under the general name Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans (Aces) long before our era lived the ancestors of the Turkic peoples. Starting from the middle of the 1st to the beginning of the 2nd millennium AD, they, under various ethnonyms, continued and now continue to live in the same regions. True, since the 11th century, since the beginning crusades, the regions of distribution of the Turks gradually narrowed.

But, despite the presence of two different prevailing points of view, official historical science tries with all possible and impossible arguments to substantiate the correctness of the Scythian-Sarmatian-Alan-Ossetian theory. Here is how V.A. Kuznetsov writes in TSB: “Alans (Latin alan), self-name - irons, in Byzantine sources – Alans, in Georgian wasps, in Russian - jars, numerous Iranian-speaking tribes that emerged in the last century BC. from among the semi-nomadic Sarmatian population of the Northern Caspian region, Don and Ciscaucasia and settled in the 1st century. AD (according to Roman and Byzantine writers) in the Azov and Ciscaucasia regions, from where they carried out devastating campaigns against the Crimea, the Azov and Ciscaucasian regions, Asia Minor, and Media. The basis of the Alan economy of this time was cattle breeding...”

The author further describes that in the Central Ciscaucasia their association was formed, which was called Alania. In the VIII-IX centuries. it became part of the Khazar Kaganate. At the turn of the 9th-10th centuries. The Alans developed an early feudal state. In the 10th century Alans play a significant role in the external relations of Khazaria with Byzantium, from where Christianity penetrates into Alania.

Here, V.A. Kuznetsov presented information about the Alans basically adequately, but the first part of the first sentence does not at all correspond to reality: after all, it is clear to everyone that the Alans (Aces) never called themselves Ironians, the Irons are the self-name of only Ossetians. Consequently, V.A. Kuznetsov begins his presentation with falsification, with an a priori identification of Alans and Ossetians.

§ 2. What was the initial basis for the opinion about the Ossetian-speaking Alans (Ases)? Here we encounter several “irrefutable” facts that “prove” the Ossetian-speaking Alans.

As you know, ancient historians repeatedly noted the complete similarity in the language and clothing of the Alans and Scythians. In addition, according to the ancients, the Alans are one of the Sarmatian tribes. Since Iranianists consider the Scythians and Sarmatians to be Ossetian-speaking, in their opinion, the Alans should also be recognized as Ossetian-speaking.

As is known, the theory about the Iranian-speaking (or Ossetian-speaking) Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans did not develop from objective research, but was created purposefully through tendentious etymologization of Scythian and Sarmatian words recorded in sources only with the help of Indo-Iranian languages. Iranianists stubbornly did not allow other languages ​​to enter into the etymology of such words: neither Turkic, nor Slavic, nor Finno-Ugric, nor Mongolian, whose speakers “did not descend from heaven,” but from time immemorial lived in these territories.

We and many other scientists have had to prove more than once that Scythian-Sarmatian keywords are better etymologized using Turkic languages. The existing etymologies of these words based on Iranian languages ​​are not convincing, do not have an elementary system, and certainly Scythian-Sarmatian words do not have Iranian etymology at all. For clarity, we list some key Scythian-Sarmatian words.

As is known, the name of the Scythians first appears in Assyrian documents from the mid-7th century. BC. The country of the Scythians is called Ishkuza, Scythian kings were Ishpakai And Partatua[Pogrebova M.N., 1981, 44-48].

Word iskuza not explained on Iranian basis; in Turkic it has several etymologies:

1) Ishke~echke'interior'; bonds- Turkic ethnonym of the Oguz part of the Turks ( oguz~ok-uz‘white, noble bonds’);

2) Ishke~eske- first part of the word skif~skid~eske-de; word eske in its pure form, i.e. without an affix, found as a Turkic ethnonym. Word skid (eske-le) means ‘people mixed with the ‘eske’ people. Word eshkuza~eske-uz used in the meaning of a bond, i.e. related to the ‘eske’ people; at the same time it is the name of the people and the country;

3) Ishkuza consists of parts ish-oguz, Where ish- this is a variant of the word ac- ancient name of the Turks, Oghuz consists of words ak And bonds and means ‘white, noble bonds’, in turn, bonds also goes back to the ethnonym ac; Oghuz- ethnonym of part of the Turks.

Ishpakai Abaev and Vasmer is explained by the Iranian word aspa'Horse'. If we assume that the name of the Scythian prince is taken from the name of the people, then in the words Ishkuza And Ishpakai initial ish- part of the same word. Then we can assume that in the word Ishpakai~Ishbaga - ish‘equal, friend’ + bug'educates'; ish baga‘finds his own kind, friends’.

Partatua has no Iranian etymology, in Turkic partatua~bards-tua~bar-ly-tua‘born to create property, wealth’.

The key words preserved in Greek sources include, first of all, the names of the ancestors of the Scythians: Targitai, Lipoksay, Arpoksai, Kolaksai; Scythian ethnonyms: Sak, Skid, Agadir (Agafirs), Gelon, Skolot, Sarmatian; Scythian words, etymologized by Herodotus: eorpata, enarei, arimaspi; as well as the names of the Scythian gods: Tabiti, Popeye, Api etc. All these words are etymologized on the basis of the Turkic language [see. Ethnic roots of the Tatar people, §§ 3-5].

In terms of their ethnological characteristics, the Scythians-Sarmatians are, of course, ancient Turkic tribes. It is the ethnological proximity of the Scythians and Turks that pushes supporters of the Scythian-Ossetian concept away from dealing with Scythian ethnological problems. As for the Scythian-Turkic ethnological parallels, the first, as well as subsequent Scythologists, paid attention to them and came to the conclusion that “the remnants of the Scythian culture were long and persistently retained in the culture of the Turkic-Mongolian (and to a somewhat lesser extent - Slavic and Finno -Ugric) peoples” [Elnitsky L.A., 1977, 243]. P.I.Karalkin also came to the conclusion that the royal Scythians were the ancestors of the Turkic-speaking peoples [Karalkin P.I., 1978, 39-40].

The ethnological features of the Scythians and Sarmatians are discussed in detail in the book by I.M. Miziev “History is nearby”. He lists here 15 Scythian-Turkic (more broadly, Altai) ethnological parallels and concludes that “all, without exception, the noted details of the Scythian-Altai parallels, almost without changes, find the closest analogies in the culture and life of many medieval nomads of the Eurasian steppes: the Huns, Polovtsians, etc. , almost completely survive into the traditional culture of the Turkic-Mongolian peoples of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, the Volga region, the Caucasus and Altai” [Miziev I.M., 1990, 65–70].

Thus, the message of the ancients about the identity of the languages ​​of the Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans is in no way a basis for recognizing the Alans as Iranian-speaking. According to the results of research by many scientists, the Alans, like their ancestors - the Sarmatians and Scythians, were mainly Turkic-speaking, i.e. ancestors of the Turks.

§ 3. What other grounds are there to recognize the Alans (Ases) as Turkic-speaking? In 1949, V.I. Abaev’s monograph “ Ossetian language and folklore”, in which, to confirm the hypothesis about the Iranian-speaking Alans, in addition to Scythian-Ossetian etymologies, the following are given: 1) the texts of the Zelenchuk epitaph, carved in the 11th century. and 2) phrases in the Alanian language given by the Byzantine writer John Tzetz (1110–1180).

Zelenchuk epigraphy, written in Greek letters, was first deciphered on the basis of the Ossetian language at the end of the 19th century. Vs.F.Miller. His translation: “Jesus Christ Saint (?) Nicholas Sakhir son of H...ra son of Bakatar Bakatai son of Anban Anbalan son of the Youth monument (?) (Youth Ira) (?).” This translation by Vs.F. Miller is considered quite satisfactory; he makes only one slight critical note: “Although we cannot indicate the name Anbalan among the Ossetians, it sounds quite Ossetian” [Miller Vs.F., 1893, 115]. V.I.Abaev introduces a minor change into the translation text: “Jesus Christ Saint (?) Nikolai Sakhir son of H...r. H...ra’s son Bakatar, Bakatar’s son Anbalan, Anbalan’s son Lag is their monument” [Abaev V.I., 1949, 262].

At the very beginning of reading the Zelenchuk inscription, Vs.F. Miller introduced 8 additional letters into the text, without which he would not have found a single Ossetian word in it [Kafoev A.Zh., 1963, 13]. Following him, all supporters of the Alan-Ossetian concept, when reading the Zelenchuk inscription, always resorted to various manipulations with the letters and words of the inscription [Miziev I.M., 1986, 111–116]. It must be borne in mind that even after a conscious correction, the text of the Zelenchuk inscription in the Ossetian language is only a meaningless set of personal names and nothing more, but in the Karachay-Balkarian language it is read clearly and understandably. The words there are certainly Turkic. For example, yurt'homeland', Yabgu'viceroy', yyyyp'gathering', you'speak',

angry'year', itiner'pursuit', bulletin- ‘having separated’, etc. [Laipanov K.T., Miziev I.M., 1993].

In 1990, F.Sh. Fattakhov, having made a critical analysis of the existing interpretations of the Zelenchuk epitaph, came to the conclusion that the inscriptions of this epitaph are freely read on the basis of the Turkic language. Translation from the Turkic language reads: “Jesus Christ. Name Nikola. If he had grown up, it would not have been (better) to take care of the dominant yurt. From the yurt, Tarbakatai-Alan the child was to be made the sovereign khan. Year of the Horse." [Fattakhov F.Sh., 1990, 43-55]. Thus, the Alan epigraphy, found on the lands of the Karachais and written in the 11th century, can be more confidently deciphered using the language of the ancestors of the Karachais. Consequently, Zelenchuk epigraphy cannot serve as evidence of the Iranian-speaking Alans. As for the Alan phrase of the Byzantine writer John Tzetz (1110-1180), which is stored in the Vatican Library in Rome, they also tried to decipher it using the Ossetian language, and whatever they did with the text: “corrected”, rearranged the letters in their own way and even added them. Translated by V.I. Abaev, John Tsets’s entry reads like this: “Good afternoon, my lord, lady, where are you from? Aren’t you ashamed, my lady?” [Abaev V.I., 1949, 245]. The question immediately arises: is such an appeal to one’s master and mistress possible? Apparently not. In the phrase Tsets there are such common Turkic words as hos~hosh~’goodbye’, hotn'madam', cordin~'saw', caitarif'returning', oyungnge- an idiom meaning in Balkar ‘how could this be?’ [Laipanov K.T., Miziev I.M., 1993, 102-103].

The Alan phrase of John Tsets was also deciphered by F.Sh. Fattakhov, and it was proven that it represents a Turkic text: “Tabagach - mes ele kany kerden […] yurnetsen kinje mes ele. Kaiter ony [- -] eyge” - ‘Grasp - a copper hand where did you see (?) […] Let him send a smaller (small) hand. Bring it [- -] home’. [Fattakhov F., 1992].

Thus, the Alan phrase of John Tsets clearly speaks of the Turkic-speaking nature of the Alans.

According to supporters of the Alan-Ossetian concept, there is allegedly another irrefutable proof of the Ossetian-speaking nature of the Alan-Ases, this is the book of the Hungarian scientist J. Nemeth “List of words in the language of the Yases, Hungarian Alans”, published on German in Berlin in 1959, translated into Russian by V.I. Abaev and published as a separate book in 1960 in Ordzhonikidze.

The entire logic of this book is built on the a priori and unconditional recognition of the Ossetian-speaking nature of the Ases-Alans. Since the author J. Nemeth represents the Alan Ases as necessarily Ossetian-speaking, he attributes the list of words with Ossetian lexical units accidentally found in 1957 in the state archive to the Hungarian Ases (Yas). All work on the transcription of the dictionary, the etymologization of its words, is carried out with a passionate desire to find Ossetian words in the list in order to attribute them to the Ases (Yas) and necessarily prove their Ossetian-language. Therefore, the dictionary is waiting for its objective researchers. This is a matter for the future; this is not what interests us here. The questions are interesting: is it possible, even according to this book by J. Nemeth, to recognize the Hungarian Yases as Ossetian-speaking and, based on this, did J. Nemeth do the right thing by attributing a list of words with supposed Ossetian lexical units to the Hungarian Yases?

Let's listen to the author himself. He writes: “1. Yassy in Hungary until the 19th century. form one administrative unit with the Cumans (Kipchaks, Cumans); both peoples usually bear the common name Yazs-Kunok, i.e. “Yasy-Kumans”. This can only be explained as a result of the old close community between the two peoples” [Nemeth Yu., 1960, 4]. This message from the author suggests that the Yasy and Cumans constitute a basically monolingual community among the Hungarians, because they are located together on the same territory and bear the common ethnonym Yasy-Cumans. Let’s imagine if the Cumans and Yases were multilingual and came to Hungary at different times, would they settle together and bear a common ethnonym? Probably not.

Further, Y. Nemeth continues: “The Cumans came to Hungary in 1239, fleeing the Mongol invasion. One can therefore think that the Alans appeared in Hungary mainly as part of the Cuman tribal union. The joint life of Cumans and Alans in Southern Russia, the Caucasus and Moldova speaks in favor of this” [ibid., 4]. We already have an idea that in the named regions the Alans were Turkic-speaking and therefore lived together with the Cumans, moreover, to this day the Balkars and Karachais call themselves Alans, and the Ossetians call themselves Balkars assies. We know well that the Volga Bulgars are called differently jars. The Hungarian scientist Erney reports that after Svyatoslav’s victory over the Bulgars in 969, Muslims moved from Bulgar to Hungary; they were called Yases [Shpilevsky S.M., 1877, 105].

Let's continue J. Nemeth's message. “There are seven known places in Hungary called Eszlar, Oszlar(from Aslar- “aces”). It is believed that the name of the jars is hidden in these names: as- this is the Turkic name Alan, a - lar- Turkic indicator of plurality; Apparently, this is what the Cumans called Yasov. However, it should be noted that the name Eszlar in the committee Somogy(south of Lake Platten) is attested as early as 1229, i.e. before the Cuman invasion, and in uniform Azalar” [Nemeth Yu., 1960, 4]. There is nothing to assume here, it is clear that we're talking about about the Ases, that they call themselves in Turkic aslar. Therefore, they definitely spoke Turkic, and not Ossetian. About the fact that this is a plural affix. — lar is not the result of the influence of the Turkic-Cuman language, writes Y. Nemeth himself. We do not know of a case where any people used their own ethnonym together with someone else’s plural affix.

Further, what does the following message from J. Nemeth say: “Wherever there are Cuman populations, we can meet Iasi settlements.” If the Cumans and Yases were multilingual, would they have settled everywhere nearby?

It is surprising that after such messages, which should have prompted J. Nemeth to think about the ethnic and linguistic identity or proximity of the Cumans and the Yas, the author comes to the conclusion that “the Cumans and the Yas are of different origins. The Cumans are a large Turkic people... the Yas are a people of Iranian origin, a branch of the Alans, closely related to the Ossetians.”

The list ended up in storage from the archives of the Batiani family. “Date January 12, 1422 Contents: lawsuit of the widow of George Batiani against John and Stephen Safar of Cheva.” Apart from the mention that the village of Chev is located next door to the Yas village, there is no basis for the assumption that this list of words belongs to Yas, except for the deep conviction of Y. Nemeth himself that the allegedly Iranian list of words with an Ossetian bias should be attributed to Alano-Yasssky. Batiani's surname suggests that he was apparently of Caucasian-Ossetian origin, so the word list has many Ossetian words. At the same time, there are a lot of Turkic words in the list. From this point of view, the list found in Hungary was analyzed by I.M. Miziev [Miziev I.M., 1986, 117-118].

Thus, Y. Nemeth’s statement that the list containing Ossetian words belongs to the Yas-Alans is more than controversial. Moreover, at present, the list of words itself must be re-deciphered objectively, and not with a biased desire to necessarily find Ossetian words there.

§ 4. What peoples did their contemporaries identify the Alans with? This is very important question. The opinion of contemporary Alan historians is one thing; the efforts of modern scientists to understand history the way they want is a completely different matter.

If we imagine the so-called Scythian-Sarmatian vast territory, we will see that on it the peoples that preceded them in time are often identified with those that followed. So, even in Assyrian sources of the 7th century. BC. The Cimmerians are identified with the Scythians, although modern historians assess this as if ancient historians mistakenly confused them. For example, M.N. Pogrebova, speaking about this, writes: “Perhaps the Assyrians confused them.” [Pogrebova M.N., 1981, 48]. Further, in later sources the Scythians are identified with the Sarmatians, the Sarmatians - with the Alans, the Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans - with the Huns, Alans, Huns - with the Turks (i.e. Avars, Khazars, Bulgars, Pechenegs, Kipchaks, Oguzes) and etc.

Here are a few messages about the Alans. Roman historian of the 4th century. Ammianus Marcellinus, who knew the Alans very well and left the most complete information about them, wrote that the Alans “are similar to the Huns in everything, but are somewhat softer than them in their morals and way of life” [Ammianus Marcellinus, 1908, vol. Z, 242]. Translator of “The History of the Jewish War by Josephus” (written in the 70s AD) into the Old Russian language ethnonym Alan conveys in words I'm with and without a shadow of a doubt he asserts that “the language of Yasek is known to be born from the liver of a woman’s family” [Meshchersky N.A., 1958, 454]. This quotation, where the Alans-Yas are identified with the Pechenegs-Turks, is also cited by Vs. Miller and indicates that the translator replaced the Scythians with the Pechenegs, and the Alans with the Yases [Miller Vs., 1887, 40]. It is clear that this remark does not help Vs.Miller at all to identify the Alans with the Ossetians; on the contrary, it only says that in the 11th century. the translator was well aware that the Pechenegs were descendants of the Scythians, and the Alans were Yasses.

In addition, one must keep in mind that ancient historians always describe the Alans next to the Aors (i.e. Avars), Huns, Khazars, Sabirs, Bulgars, i.e. with Turkic-speaking peoples.

The Alans left a noticeable mark in the Middle Volga region, and here they were identified with the Turks, in particular with the Khazars. Thus, in this region there are place names that go back to the ethnonym Alan. The Udmurts have preserved legends about ancient peoples. They called the mythological hero Alan-Gasar (Alan-Khazar) and everything that was attributed to him was attributed to the Nugai people, i.e. Tatars, who were also called differently kuruk (ku-irik, Where ku'white-faced', iirk- synonym of ethnonym biger‘owner, rich’ - M.Z.) [Potanin G.N., 1884, 192]. Here there is an identification of the Alans with the Nugai-Tatars.

In official historical science, cases of identification of the Scythians-Alans-Huns-Khazars-Turks are usually explained by the fact that ancient historians allegedly often confused these peoples. In fact, they could not be confused, because they were talking about events that they themselves witnessed. In order to deliberately confuse, they did not have political guidelines then. In our deep conviction, the ancients did not confuse anything, but modern historians, based on their prejudices or political attitudes, want to understand the ancient sources in their own way and begin to “correct” them. If you carefully and objectively study the messages of the ancients, it becomes irrefutably clear that in the so-called Scythian-Sarmatian regions, basically the same tribes lived in both ancient times and the Middle Ages. These territories are still inhabited basically by the same peoples.

It is impossible not to pay attention to the fact that supporters of the Alan-Ossetian theory recognize as correct only that part of the message of the ancients that relates to the identification of the Scythians-Sarmatians-Alans, and the other part of the message about the identity of the Scythians-Sarmatians-Alans-Huns-Turks-Khazars -Bulgars, etc. They don't even pay attention. Consequently, they approach the study of ancient sources tendentiously and unsystematically. This is the first thing. Secondly, as we saw above, their identification of the Scythians-Sarmatians-Alans is not the basis for proving the Ossetian-speaking Alans, for the Scythians and Sarmatians were not Ossetian-speaking.

One more fact deserves attention. How do some modern historians imagine the ethnic process in Eastern Europe?

They think that more and more new peoples were constantly arriving from Asia to Eastern Europe: some of them eventually dissolved in Europe, where living conditions were better. And in Asia, where living conditions were more difficult than in Europe, new peoples quickly multiplied and kept a close watch on Europe: as soon as some peoples began to disappear there, they allegedly rushed to Europe. After some time, this process was repeated. So, according to supporters of official historical science, the Cimmerians disappeared - the Scythians appeared or, conversely, the Scythians appeared from Asia - the Cimmerians disappeared; the Sarmatians appeared - the Scythians disappeared, the Alans multiplied among the Sarmatians, the Huns appeared (supposedly the first Turks) - the Alans gradually disappeared, the Avars (Aors-Aorses) appeared - the Huns disappeared, the Turks appeared - the Avars disappeared, the Bulgarians appeared - the Khazars disappeared, then gradually from Asia Pechenegs, Cumans, and Tatar-Mongols came to Europe, after which the arrival of the Turks from Asia to Europe stopped. Such a process of constant replenishment of the population of Europe due to the arrival of “nomads” from Asia cannot seem plausible or consistent with reality to a realistically thinking scientist.

Why did ancient historians often identify (not confuse!) those who preceded with those who followed? The answer is clear: in such vast territories, the people basically did not change, only the ethnonym changed. The name of the tribe that occupied a dominant position became the common ethnonym of an entire people or even an entire large territory subordinate to this tribe. And different tribes were dominant in different periods of history. Therefore, the ethnonym of the same people changed over time. Thus, in the vast territories attributed to the Scythians and Sarmatians, in ancient times lived the ancestors of mainly those peoples who inhabit these territories today. From this point of view, in the Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans we should look primarily for the Turks, Slavs and Finno-Ugrians, and not for the Iranian-speaking Ossetians, who left traces in stripes only in the Caucasus region. Cases of identifying the Scythians-Sarmatians-Alans with Turkic tribes survive to this day. For example, both in ancient times and now the Turks - “Balkars and Karachais call themselves the ethnonym Alan, as, for example, the Adyghe people... call themselves Adyga, Georgians - Sakartvelo, Ossetians - iron, Yakuts - Sakha etc. Mingrelians call Karachais Alans, Ossetians call Balkars “Assias” [Khabichev M.A., 1977, 75]. This is a fact, and there is no getting away from it. But one of the founders of the Sarmatian-Scythian-Ossetian theory, Vs.Miller, falsifies it as follows. Assuming that the Balkars and Karachais must necessarily be newcomers, and the Ossetians - local, he writes: “The Balkars (alien tribe), who displaced the Ossetians from these places, they (i.e. Ossetians) call Asami (Asiag - Balkar, Asi - country occupied by them), an ancient name preserved in the chronicle in the form jars. However, there is no doubt that it was not the Balkars, who came to their present places very late, but the Ossetians who were the jars of our chronicles; but the name attached itself to the area and remained with it, despite the change of nationality. Chechen is called in Ossetian tsotsenag, Ingush - mekel, Nogay - nogayag” [Miller Vs., 1886, 7]. The question arises, why do Ossetians correctly call Chechens, Ingush, and Nogais, making a mistake only in relation to the Balkars? If we decipher the mysterious confusion of Vs.Miller, it turns out that the Ossetians first called themselves and their territory Asiag, then, when the Ossetians were sleeping, the Balkars came and moved the sleeping Ossetians to another territory, occupying their former territory. The next day, the Ossetians stood up and, based on the name of the territory, began to call not themselves, as before, but the Balkars with their own ethnonym - Yasy, and themselves - Ironians, because they did not remember what they were called. It is clear to every child that this does not and cannot happen in life. Vs.Miller needed this “fairy tale” in order to prove at all costs the identity of the historical aces and Ossetians.

Further, Vs.Miller gives examples from the toponymy of the Caucasus, which resemble Ossetian words. No one doubts that among the Caucasian toponyms there are also Ossetian ones, for they live there, but at the same time there are a lot of Turkic names there, according to the estimates of the latter’s specialists - much more. From several toponymic facts and from the fact that the Ossetians call the Balkars not themselves, but the Balkars (by “mistake”), which works against the author, Vs.Miller concludes: “There is reason to think that the ancestors of the Ossetians were part of the Caucasian Alans.” [Ibid., 15]. At the same time, he is silent about the fact that the Balkars and Karachais call themselves the ethnonym Alan, and the Mingrelians call them Alans.

Thus, the Alans, according to the strong opinion of their contemporaries, were Turkic-speaking. If they were Ossetian- or Iranian-speaking, then numerous historians would have mentioned this somewhere.

§ 5. The ethnolinguistic essence of the Ases-Alans according to other data. Name Alan first mentioned in sources in the 1st century. BC, but name variations ac meet much earlier. For example, according to Assyrian and other ancient Eastern sources, “the name of the ouds can be traced back to ancient times, namely from the 3rd millennium BC, which can be associated with the Caspian ouds” [Elnitsky L.A., 1977, 4]. Based on the usual alternation of sounds d-z in Turkic languages ​​one can conclude that the name beat- this is a variant of the ethnonym bonds, which certainly meant Turks(cf. Ashina~ashina‘As mother’) and means part of the Turks, i.e. Oghuz(ak~uz‘white, noble bonds’). Phonetic variants of the ethnonym are well known uz: ud, us, os, yos, yas, ash, ish etc.

It remains a mystery why the Aesir then began to be called Alans, and why the sources known to us identify the Aesir and Alans. About the etymology of the word Alan There are different points of view, but none of them tries to derive it from the word Alban. Meanwhile, such an attempt could be very fruitful, because the Alans lived in Caucasian Albania and it is still unknown who these Albans were. These people are from the 1st century. BC. to the 8th century AD often mentioned in many sources, its main composition lived in Caucasian Albania, which occupied the territory near the Caspian Sea, north of the Kura River. Albania roughly corresponds to Shirvan.

In this region, during the Scythian and Sarmatian times, one of the ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis, called aluan(aluank). As F. Mamedova notes, the Albanian identity of the inhabitants of these places is recorded in their self-name aluank from the 1st century BC. to the 8th century AD throughout Albania, and after “the fall of the Albanian kingdom, as a splinter phenomenon, both the ethnonym and the Albanian identity can be traced in the 9th-19th centuries. in one of the parts of the country - in Artsakh” [Mamedova Farida, 1989, 109].

According to the phonetic laws of the Turkic language, the word aluank could have options Alan, Alban, Alvan. Sound To, apparently, is part of the affix of belonging - nyky(aluannyky- ‘people belonging to the Aluans’). Highly reduced s almost inaudible, so it fell out very quickly, double nn over time gives one n, thus the word appears aluank, where is the sound To undergoes further reduction. Regarding the sound at, then it is pronounced here as w, a w usually sounds like a null sound, or b, or V. Yes, from aluau~alwan formed Alan, Alban, Alvan. All of them were actively used. Option Alban in Yakut it means ‘quirky, pretty, beautiful’. If this meaning is preserved in the word Alan, then it confirms the correctness of the message of Ammianus Marcellinus that “almost all Alans are tall and beautiful in appearance, their hair is light brown, their gaze, if not fierce, is still menacing” [Ammianus Marcellinus, 1908, 241].

Thus, the Alans in the Caucasus were apparently originally known under the ethnonym aluan, which then received the forms Alan, Alban, Alvan.

Let's turn to another ethnonym Alan- to the ethnonym ac with its many phonetic variations. In the ancient Turkic runic monuments of the 8th century. aces recorded as Turkic tribes. They are mentioned many times next to the Turks, Kyrgyz and are presented as a branch of the Turgesh Turks [Bartold V.V., 1968, 204] and the Kyrgyz in the valley of the Chu River [Bartold V.V., 1963, 492]. Eastern historians of the 10th-11th centuries, including M. Kashgarsky, report on the tribe az cache‘people of Az’, who, along with the Alans and Kasas (Kasogs), undoubtedly belong to the Turkic tribes [Bartold V.V., 1973, 109]. Al-Biruni, as a scientist, states that the language of the Ases and Alans resembles the languages ​​of the Khorezmians and Pechenegs [Klyashtorny S.G., 1964, 174-175]. Here it must be borne in mind that the Khorezmians, only according to some words preserved in Arabic sources, are assigned the Iranian language, just as the Iranianists imposed this language on the Tocharians, Sogdians, and other historical peoples. In fact, the Khorezmians were mainly Turkic-speaking and were part of the Massagetae union of tribes, which the ancients identified with the Huns. And, according to Al-Biruni, the Khorezm language was close to the Pecheneg language, which in turn, according to the translator Josephus, resembled the Alan-Yass language.

Let us turn to the Russian chronicles, which say that in 965 Svyatoslav went to the Kozars (Khazars - M.Z.), defeated both the Yasses and the Kosogs. There is a subtext here that identifies the Khazars with the Yas. In addition, Orientalists, identifying this message with that of the eastern historian Ibn-Haukal, claim that here we are talking about Svyatoslav’s campaign on the Volga against the Khazars, Bulgars, and Burtases [Shpilevsky S.M., 1887, 103]. If this is so, then it turns out that the Bulgars and Burtases of the Volga region were also called Yas. As S.M.Shpilevsky writes, the Russian prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, who lived in the 12th century, had a Bulgarian wife [Shpilevsky S.M., 1877, 115]. And the historian V.N. Tatishchev calls this prince’s wife “Princess Yasskaya” and claims that Prince A. Bogolyubsky was killed by the brother of the “Princess Yasskaya” (the prince’s brother-in-law) Kyuchuk in 1175 [Tatishchev V.N., 1962, 375]. Kyuchuk is clearly a Turkic name. The fact that the ethnonym as denoted Turkic tribes is also evidenced by the presence of this word in many Turkic ethnonyms. Thus, V. Romadin, who prepared the works of V.V. Bartold for publication, based on the fact that in the work of the 7th century. “Badai at-tawarikh” the Kyrgyz are called asami, ethnonym Kyrgyz as consisting of two words kyryk And ac(‘forty aces’), associated with ethnic or geographical term az, ac or mustache[Bartold V.V., 1963, 485]. The basis ac(yas, az, us, uz), apparently included in the ethnonyms Burtas, (burta-as) - ‘forest aces’ or aces engaged in beekeeping’, yazgyr(Oghuz tribes near M. Kashgari), yasir- Turkmen tribes [Kononov A.N., 1958, 92], Iazygi- Sarmatian tribe, Oghuz‘white, noble bonds’, Taylas(Thauls as), i.e. 'mountain aces', suas‘water aces’. Mari in their own way ancient tradition Kazan Tatars were called, some of them still call them, Suas. Ethnonym suas was the self-name of the Tatars [Chernyshev E.I., 1963, 135; Zakiev M.Z., 1986, 50-54].

Let us pay special attention to the last two ethnonyms: thaulas And suas. As in the word Taylas(tulas), which was the name for one of the mountainous regions of Khazaria [Bartold V.V., 1973, 541, 544], as well as, apparently, its population, and in the word suas root ac is used together with Turkic defining words, which once again proves the Turkic-speaking nature of the Ases.

The Perm Tatars, whose ancestors were directly related to the Biars (Bilyars) and Bulgars, before the adoption of the class ethnonym Tatars at that time, called themselves Ostyaks, which means ‘Os (Yass) people’, because Ostyak comes from the word ostyk~oslyk. The Ostyaks also took part in the formation of the Bashkirs, which is why the Perm and West Siberian Tatars and part of the Bashkirs are now called their eastern neighbors Ostyaks~ishtyaks~ushtyaks. Tatar historian of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Yalchigul considered himself bolgarlyk ishtek. Back in the 18th century. the Perm Tatars indicated in their petitions that their ancestors were called Ostyaks [Ramazanova D.B., 1983, 145]. It is also interesting that the ancient settlement centers of the Perm Tatars, which later became district towns, were called Os and Kungur, these names coincide with the ethnonyms ac And Kungur(those. kangyr- Pechenegs).

So the word ac with all phonetic variants to designate Turkic-speaking tribes was used very widely and in parallel with the word er(ir-ar). Apparently, in ancient times the ethnonym as as a name for eastern peoples was used very actively among Western peoples. So, in Scandinavian mythology asami called the main group of gods, at the same time it was argued that the Aesir came from Asia, hinting at the identity of the words aces And Asia[Myths of the peoples of the world, 1980, 120].

There is one curious touch in the Iranianists’ description of the history of the Alans. After the deportation of the Karachays and Balkars from the Caucasus, the basically Turkic, Nart epic, which became common to them over the long centuries of coexistence of the Karachay-Balkars with the Ossetians, was declared only Ossetian, and on this basis the Ossetians were identified with the Alans. In fact, here the box opens very simply: the Balkars and Karachais from ancient times to the present day call themselves Alans, and this epic primarily refers to the Turkic Alans (i.e. Karachay-Balkars), for long years life together and the Ossetians adopted the Nart epic.

§ 6. Close interaction between the Alans and the Huns, Khazars and Kipchaks. If you trace the entire history of the Alans, it is easy to notice that they interacted closely with the Turks, first with the Sarmatians and Sarmatian tribes - Roxolans (in Turkic - Uraks Alans‘Alani farmers’), Siraks (i.e. tribes sary-ak‘white-yellow’, ancestors of the Cumans), Aors ( aop-awap-avar, —OS- Greek ending), Yazygs (Turkic-Uzes). The close interaction of the Alans with the above-mentioned tribes is recognized by all historians, only in determining the ethno-linguistic composition of these tribes, opinions differ. Iranianists recognize them as Iranian-speaking, Turkologists - as Turkic-speaking, which is confirmed by numerous historical facts.

Before understanding Alan-Hun interactions, it is necessary to have an understanding of the Huns themselves. Official historical science claims that the Huns, since they were first mentioned as Huns in Chinese sources, somewhere in the 2nd century. allegedly migrated from Central Asia to the Urals and from there in the 70s of the 4th century. poured into Eastern Europe, thereby allegedly starting the so-called Great Migration of Peoples; supposedly the Huns were the first Turks to appear in Europe; supposedly on the way to Europe in the North Caucasus they conquered the Alans and, led by the leader Balamber, crossed the Don, defeated the Goths and Ostrogoths who had penetrated into the Northern Black Sea region, and drove the Visigoths from there to Thrace, allegedly passing through the Caucasus, devastated Syria and Cappadocia, settling in Pannonia, did raids on the Eastern Roman Empire. In 451, under Attila, they invaded Gaul, but were defeated on the Catalaunian fields by the Romans, Visigoths, and Franks. After the death of Attila (453), strife arose among the Huns, and the Germanic tribes defeated them in Pannonia. The Union of the Huns collapsed, they went to the Black Sea region. Gradually, the Huns are disappearing as a people, although their name has long been found as a general name for the nomads of the Black Sea region [Gumilyov L.N. Huns].

From such an unrealistic explanation of history by L.N. Gumilev, questions arise: could the nomads, having crossed the Volga, defeat the strong Alans, Goths, Syrians, Anatolians (in Cappadocia), the population of Pannonia, Gaul, Northern Italy? Of course not, it's unrealistic. How did L.V. Gumilev establish that the Huns disappeared, and their ethnonym has long been found as a general name for the nomads of the Black Sea region? How does he know that the ethnonym Huns for a long time meant not Huns, but others? Who? Why was the movement of the Romans and with them other peoples (or rather, the army and colonizers) during the creation of the huge Roman Empire not called the Great Migration, and the movement from the periphery to the central regions of the Roman Empire of other peoples (the liberation army taking revenge on the colonialists) was called the Great Migration peoples? Why did the Turks, first in the person of the Huns, and then under the name of Avars, Turks, Khazars, Pechenegs, and Kipchaks, constantly migrate from Asia to Europe? Where did they go there? How did they reproduce so quickly in Asia? Etc. If we try to answer these questions, it becomes clear that the traditional idea of ​​the history of the Turks is formed tendentiously, without taking into account the real historical situation.

If we objectively summarize all historical data on real historical grounds, then it is not difficult to imagine that the Huns ( Sep or hen) were at first inconspicuous Turkic-speaking tribes among the Turkic-speaking Scythians and Sarmatians. In the 1st century AD they began to make themselves felt. Greek historians, noting their presence in Europe, did not say a word about their arrival from Asia.

Thus, Dionysius (end of the 1st - beginning of the 2nd century) notes that on the North-Western side of the Caspian Sea live Scythians, Unns, Caspians, Albanians, Cadusians... [Latyshev V.V., 1893, 186]. As we have proven more than once, the Scythians were mainly Turkic-speaking (see Ethnic roots of the Tatar people, §§ 3-6) the Unns are the Huns, where the sound h falls out, the Caspians are also Turkic-speaking ‘people of the rocks’ ( cas'rock', pi~bye‘rich owner’), Albanians - Alans, Kadusii - Turkic ties~mustache among CAD‘rocks’.

Ptolemy (2nd century AD) writes that in European Sarmatia “lower than the Agathyrsi (i.e. Akatsir~ Agach Erov'forest people' - M.Z.) live Savars (Turkic-speaking Suvars - M.Z.), between Vasterns and Roxolans (Uraks Alans, i.e. 'Alans-farmers' - M.Z.) live Huns” [Latyshev V.V., 1883, 231-232].

Philostorgius, who lived at the end of the 4th century. (i.e., when, according to some scientists, the Huns moved to Eastern Europe), describing the Huns, he does not mention their arrival from Asia in a single word, but writes: “These Unns are probably the people that the ancients called neuroses; they lived near the Riphean mountains, from which the Tanaid flows its waters” [Latyshev V.V., 1893, 741].

Zosimus (2nd half of the 5th century) suggests that the Huns are the royal Scythians [Ibid., 800]. Objective analysis ethnographic data gives grounds to assert that the royal Scythians were the ancestors of the Turkic-speaking peoples [Karalkin P.I., 1978, 39-40].

Thus, among the tribes called Scythians and Sarmatians, at the very beginning of our era the Huns made themselves known, who are mentioned in Assyrian and other eastern sources among the tribes who lived in the 3rd millennium BC. In the 4th century. in the struggle for dominance in the North Caucasus, they defeated the Alan power and, together with them, rebelled against the colonial policy of the Roman Empire, first in Cappadocia, then in the western part of this empire, where new colonialists appeared in the person of the Goths. Naturally, neither the Huns nor the Alans as a people moved to the West, as supporters of the “great migration of peoples” imagine; the Hun-Alan troops penetrated deeper and deeper into the West. The main composition of the Huns and Alans remained in their former places of settlement.

At the end of the 4th century. The Huns, together with the Alans, attacked the Goths, who wanted to settle in the Northern Black Sea region. The main historian of the Huns and Alans of this period, Ammianus Marcellinus, often identified them, because they were ethnically very close. “Ammianus Marcellinus not only emphasized that it was the assistance of the Alans that helped the Huns, but also often called the attackers themselves Alans” [Vinogradov V.B., 1974, IZ].

After the death of Attila (453), the Hunnic union gradually disintegrated, and the Huns no longer appeared as the dominant force; they dissolved among the Turkic-speaking Alans and Khazars, but at the same time retained their tribal ethnonym hun(Sep).

In Gaul, the Alans came into close contact with the Vandals (East Germans), together they devastated Gaul and settled in Spain in 409, the Alans got the middle part of Lusitania (later Portugal) and Cartagena. However, in 416 the Visigoths entered Spain and the Alans were defeated by them. In May 429, the Vandal king Geiseric, together with the Alans subordinate to him, crossed to Africa, there, having defeated the Roman troops, he created his new state of Vandals and Alans. As a result, the Alan troops dissolve among the Vandals and local peoples. But in the Northern Black Sea region and the Caucasus, the Huns and Alans continue to cooperate closely.

After the collapse of the Hunnic Empire, during the period of anarchy, various tribes and nationalities try to become dominant, therefore their ethnonyms often appear in Byzantine sources: Akatsirs, Barsils, Saragurs, Savirs, Avars, Utigurs, Kutrigurs, Bulgarians, Khazars. All these ethnonyms belong to Turkic tribes. The Barsils are the inhabitants of Berselia (Berzilia), which in many sources is considered the country of the Alans. There is a clear identification of Alans with Barsilami~Bersulami, considered related to the Khazars [Chichurov I.S., 1980, 117]. Moreover, the Khazars also came from Berziliya. Thus, Theophanes writes in 679-680: “From the depths of Berziliya, the first Sarmatia, the great people of the Khazars emerged and began to dominate the entire land on the other side right up to the Pontic Sea” [Chichurov I.S.., 1980, 61].

From the 5th century among the Caucasian Alans, i.e. numerous Turkic tribes, other tribes begin to make themselves felt: Khazars, Bulgars, Kipchaks, etc. After the brilliant performance of the Turkic tribes led by the Huns against the colonial policies of the Goths and Romans, the Huns ceased to be dominant, their place was taken by the Alans and Khazars, who competed in the political arena until the 10th century. “From the 5th century. the onslaught of the Khazar Khaganate increases, which then established control over the Alans” [Vinogradov V.B., 1974, 118]. In the 8th century During the Alan expansion, the Alans once again prove that they are supporters of the Khazars. “In the 10th century. there was a turning point. Now the Khazars were forced to evaluate their former vassals with the following words: “The kingdom of the Alans is stronger and stronger than all the peoples around us” [Vinogradov V.B., 1974, 118-119].

In the 11th century in the North Caucasus, other tribes begin to rise - the Cumans (Kypchaks), who immediately become close to the Alans, and peace and love are established between them [Dzhanashvili M., 1897, 36]. In this region, the Alans, together with the Cumans, adopted Christianity.

Alans and Cumans in 1222 together opposed the Mongol-Tatars. Seeing that together they represented an irresistible force, the Mongol-Tatars resorted to cunning. “Seeing the danger, the military leader of Genghis Khan... sent gifts to the Polovtsians and ordered them to be told that they, being fellow tribesmen of the Mongols, should not rebel against their brothers and make friends with the Alans, who are of a completely different kind” [Karamzin N.M., 1988, 142] . Here the Mongol-Tatars apparently took into account the fact that their army by that time was dominated by Kipchak-speaking Turks of Central Asia, therefore they turned to the Kipchaks as fellow tribesmen, and the Alans of the Caucasus were partly Kipchaks (ancestors of the Karachay-Balkars), and partially Oghuz (ancestors of Azerbaijanis - residents of Caucasian Albania - Alania).

As you know, soon the entire Kipchak steppe passes into the hands of the Mongol-Tatars. Volga Bulgaria, the main population of which was called Yasy, was conquered by the Mongol-Tatars in 1236, and the Alans - Yasy of the North Caucasus - in 1238.

Thus, the Alans walked their glorious military and political path hand in hand with their Turkic-speaking relatives: the Huns, Khazars, and Polovtsians. From the 13th century The Alan-Yas cease to be dominant among other Turkic-speaking tribes. But this in no way means that they disappeared physically; they survived among other Turkic-speaking tribes and gradually became part of them, taking on their ethnonym. Such a strong people, scattered throughout Eurasia, like the Alans-Yas, cannot be identified by any of the characteristics with the Iranian-speaking Ossetians and “at the behest of the pike” could not almost suddenly decrease to the parameters of the Ossetians of the Caucasus.

If the Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans were Ossetian-speaking, then they should have left behind Ossetian place names throughout Eurasia. They do not exist unless they are created artificially (scientifically). Thus, by all indications, the Alans were Turkic-speaking and took part in the formation of many Turkic peoples.

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This is what the Alans looked like

The Huns were not to blame for the collapse of the Roman Empire, as was believed. She owes her downfall to the eastern people, who had an unusual elongated skull, called Alans.

It was the Alans who brought the cult of war to Europe. And the foundations of medieval knighthood were laid by them.

The history of the Great City remembers many invasions of nomads, but its collapse began under the hooves of Sarmatian and Hunnish horses. Despite the fact that the ancient world was shaken long before the Alans appeared there, the latter became the cause of its collapse.

This “non-German” people differed from their predecessors in that they were able to establish extensive settlements in Western Europe.

The Alans existed for many years in the neighborhood of the empire, paying it “neighborly” visits from time to time. They were invincible warriors, as Roman commanders recalled more than once.

Where did the warlike people live?

They lived on both banks of the Don, because, as the great geographer of those years Claudius Ptolemy believed, the border ran along the river.

He called those who lived on the western bank Scythian Alans, and the lands they occupied - European Sarmatia. The inhabitants of the eastern shore were called, according to Ptolemy's sources, Scythians, or Alans (according to Suetonius' sources).

Joining the Roman Empire

Thanks to Constantine the Great, the Alans became part of the Roman Empire as federates. This happened in 337. Their place of settlement was Central Europe (formerly Pannonia). Thus, it was possible to turn a dangerous enemy into a defender of the imperial borders for a worthy reward.

This did not last long, however, because the warriors were dissatisfied with their lives.

Teaming up with the Vandals

Alan symbolism

A hundred years later, the Alans entered into an alliance with the German tribe of Vandals. These two peoples earned the title of cruel robbers of Rome, which they ravaged for two weeks.

The Eternal City was unable to recover from such an “invasion.” More than 20 years passed until the German leader Odoacer managed to formalize his fall. He also forced the last emperor of Rome to abdicate.

Therefore, even today the name “Vandal” remains a common noun.

In the fifth century AD, the Romans began to imitate the barbarians. Strange as it may seem, they dressed in wide, Samara-style trousers, grew beards and sat on short, but extremely hardy and fast horses. Everything “Alan” was in fashion and simply overwhelmed the Eternal City.

But special honor was given to horses, which, as already mentioned, were not distinguished by height and beauty, but were famous for their almost supernatural endurance, and dogs.

The Patricians of Rome, having had their fill material benefits, preferred everything primitive, natural and simple, which brought them closer to the people, as it seemed to them. Tired of the noisy ancient metropolis, they contrasted it with a quiet barbarian village. The barbarian tribes themselves were so idealized that legends and traditions were composed about courtly knights.

Reincarnation

Video: The history of the invincible Alans

In the books of that time, the Romans praised both moral and physical virtues. With the Alans, the opposite process took place. They freely used the achievements of the largest civilization, which were absent on the periphery, which gradually led to the romanticization of the Alans, in contrast to the Romans, who were “Alanized.”

However, the Romans did not like some Alan customs. They did not accept the fashion for an elongated skull and the artificial deformation common among the Alans. Although for modern historians it is precisely this feature that facilitates the work of determining the territories where the Alans lived.

• Scientists find burials with long skulls, which make it easier to assess the habitats of militant people.
• According to the head of the Pyatigorsk local history museum, in that ancient era, up to 70% of Alans had long skulls.

How was the unusual shape of the skull achieved?

To change the shape of the head, children immediately after birth, until the cranial bones were strengthened, had their heads bandaged very tightly, using a bandage made of leather and decorated with beads, multi-colored threads, and pendants.

They were removed only after the bones had strengthened.

Why was the elongated skull needed?

One version claims that the deformation of the skull affected the capabilities of the brain. Thanks to this, the priests quickly fell into a trance. This tradition was later adopted by the local aristocracy. It soon became fashionable.

According to Flavius ​​Arrin, the mounted tribes of Sarmatians and Alans attacked the enemy with lightning speed, not allowing him to come to his senses. The most effective means used against Alan attacks were infantry flanks, which had metal shells.

But the “steppe people” often used the tactics of false retreat, which often caught the enemy, thus achieving victory. When the Alans fleeing from the advancing infantry lost their ranks and the victory of the attackers was so close, the Alans suddenly turned their horses 180 degrees, crushing the pursuing foot soldiers.

This tactic was later adopted by the Romans. This is understandable, since the Alans had large combat capabilities, which the West could not ignore. The Alans elevated the fighting spirit into a kind of cult.

Ancient writers explained that at that time it was an honor for the Alans to die in battle, even joyful, since they believed that those who died served God. Those Alans who lived to old age and died in their homes were despised and considered cowards who disgraced their families.

The importance of Alans in the development of European military art

The influence of the Alans on the development of military art in Europe was very strong, since they provided spiritual, ethnic and military-technical developments, which became the beginning of the knighthood of the Middle Ages. In addition, the culture of fighting influenced the creation of the legend of Arthur's exploits.

Witnesses to this are ancient authors who say that more than eight thousand experienced Alan and Sarmatian horsemen were hired for military service during the time of Howard Reid. Most of the soldiers in Britain fought on Hadrian's Wall under banners resembling the famous dragon.

Legends of Arthur

It varies among different researchers. Researchers Malkon and Littleton see it in the sacred cup and Grail from the Ossetian epic (Nart) - Nartamonga.

The path to independence

Two warring tribes, the Alans and the Vandals, united and posed a great threat. The savagery of these peoples and great aggressiveness did not allow concluding an agreement with the empire. They live a quiet life in a certain territory, preferring to engage in robbery in new territories.

In the end, the Alans reached the borders of Eastern Spain by 425. Here they captured ships and set off on them to North Africa. The leader of the Alans was Geiserin. They landed in the Roman colonies, which at that time suffered from internal uprisings directed against the current government and from frequent raids by the Berbers, and were therefore weakened. The Alans captured significant territories in a matter of days.

• The lands, including Carthage, were a tasty morsel for the Alans.
• Having taken possession of a strong fleet, Alan warriors often visited Sicily and the shores of southern Italy.
• Rome had no other choice, and it recognized the independence of the Alans in 442, and 30 years later, its defeat.

During the period of their existence over a vast territory, militant people left a fairly “long” trail - from the Caucasus Foothills to Africa through Europe. Today, the peoples living in these places are fighting for the right to be related to the famous tribe. But, according to scientists, their descendants are Ossetians. In modern Ossetia there is even a movement demanding the return of the country's historical name.

Ossetians have every reason for this:

linguistic community;

territorial;

folk epic.

This is opposed by the residents of Ingushetia, who also consider themselves descendants of a militant tribe.

Some ancient sources claim that the Alans are a collective image of nomads and hunters who lived north of the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. Most likely, the Ossetians represent only a small proportion of the successors of the Alans.

And most of them merged with other ethnic groups, including:

• Berbers and even Celts.

One version says that the common Celtic male name Alan, it starts with “Alans”. They lived in Luarez from the beginning of the fifth century, mixing with the British.

SCYTHIANS, ALANS, RUSSIANS - JEWISH TRIBES

E. Makarovsky. ("Jewish roots of Rus'")

As for the relationship of Jews with the Scythians, the Ashkenazi Scythians have been known since ancient times. Of interest is the opinion of A.P. Smirnov on this issue, who writes: “So, the name of Noah’s “great-grandson” Ashkenaz corresponds to the name of the Ashkuza tribe, known from Assyrian sources, and the Scythians from Greek sources. And the name of the “father” of Ashkenaz Homer corresponds to the cuneiform “Gimmirai” and the Cimmerians of the classical authors. This mention of the Scythians and Cimmerians is considered one of the oldest. And note: the Cimmerians are the “fathers” of the Scythians.”

Evidence of the Jewish origin of the Ashkenazi Scythians are stone statues - “women” with Torah scrolls in their hands and tefillin on their heads, stored in the Dnepropetrovsk Museum.

And when we talk about the Bosporan kingdom, we must keep in mind that no Greco-Scythian kingdom existed there at that time, as some historians are trying to justify. This was the Jewish kingdom in Crimea. The same as Byzantium was a Greek state in Eastern Europe, although the ruling elite did not consider themselves Greeks, but called themselves Romans - Romans.

When Alan tribes appeared in the Sea of ​​Azov region in the first century AD, the Russian Jews who lived here entered into an alliance with them and attacked the Sarmatians who lived in the steppes of the Black Sea region and, sweeping away everything in their path, reached the banks of the Danube. The Sarmatians, in turn, retreated to the western tip Balkan Peninsula and are now known under the name of Croats.

The Scythians, at one time pressed by the Sarmatians, retreated to the Crimea and, mingling with the Tauri, became known as the Tauro-Scythians. According to A.P. Smirnov: “The close relationship between the Tauri and the Scythians is reflected not only in the ritual side of the burials, but also in the inventory. In the first centuries of our era, a new term “Tauro-Scythians” appeared. This term was found on one of the Bosporan inscriptions.” Byzantine chroniclers identified the Tauro-Scythians with the Rus. However, the Rus of the tenth century were not yet Slovenes.

And the Arab chroniclers never wrote that the Rus are Slovenians. Ibn Khordadbeg’s famous passage about: “As for the Russian merchants, they are a tribe from the Slavs...”, Irma Heinman believes that this is just an incorrect translation of the word “jeans”.

The word “jeans” has a meaning – type, genus, category. And the term “sakaliba” in Hebrew does not mean Slovenian, but “slave”, “slave”. So the correct translation of this passage by Ibn Hardadbeg will sound like: “Russians are a type of slave traders.” Or: “Russians are slave traders.”

At the same time, the persistent reluctance of Russian historians to use the Hebrew language in translating the difficulties of medieval terminology into Russian often puts Russian scientists in a rather curious position.

Thus, having mistakenly accepted as a basis that the “Slavs” are designated by the term “al-sakaliba,” T. M. Kalinina cannot give an intelligible answer as to how the Volga in the 9th century could be called the river of the Slavs, when there were no Slavs there yet.

“For a hundred years,” she writes, “researchers have been arguing about which river is meant by Ibn Khordadbeg: according to the description, it seems like the Volga, but why in the 9th century. It is called the “river of the Slavs,” and as they could at the beginning of the 9th century. merchants sailing “from distant Slavic lands” to its mouth, when its shores were not inhabited by Slavs at all?

However, if we take into account that in the Hebrew language “as-sakaliba” does not at all mean the ethnonym “Slavs”, but serves as the name of a slave slave, then it is quite clear why the Volga was called the Slave River. Along it, the Russians transported slaves for sale. This is where the Volga gets such a symbolic name - the Slave River.

As for the Alans, they are in no way Ossetians, as Russian historians try to present them. Ossetians were never called Alans. Their self-name was ironic.

The Alans were descendants of the Saka-Massagets. And the Jewish tribes settled on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea were known in Assyrian chronicles as the Saki-Massagets. The Alans were Jews. They shared the same catacomb burial culture with the Cimmerians and Tauri. This was the Jewish culture of burial in stone boxes and catacombs. G. M. Barats was the first to draw attention to the Jewish origin of the Alans in his works.

And finally, as for the Ros or Rus, such a tribe never existed. This was noticed by many other Russian historians in the past. So, at one time V. O. Klyuchevsky wrote: “About Rus' among the Eastern Slavs in the 8th century. It’s not heard at all, but in the 9th and 10th centuries. Rus' among the Eastern Slavs is not yet Slavs; it differs from them, like an alien and ruling class from the native and subject population.”

He was echoed by the famous historian V.Z. Zavitnevich: “The fact that the eastern Slovenes did not recognize themselves as Rus is evident both from the fact that among them the question arose very early about the origin of the name Rus, and from the fact that the place of origin of this name was originally searched outside the territories of their settlements. The persistence with which the compiler of the Initial Chronicle denies the local origin of this name would not have been possible if the Eastern Slavs of the 11th and early 12th centuries considered the name Rus to be their original name. After all that has been said, it is clear that the word Rus' initially did not mean either this or a separate tribe, or this or that geographical area.” In his opinion: “Rus was a privileged government squad that enjoyed special advantages.”

It is not surprising that with such a variety of opinions about the origin of the word “Rus”, Professor M. I. Artamonov came to the following conclusion: “Who were the “dews” of the Middle Dnieper, after whom this region began to be called, with the above change, “Russian Land”, It’s hard to say.”

However, Irma Heinman, in her historical study “The Jewish Diaspora and Rus',” published in Jerusalem in 1983, convincingly proved that: “Rus, which laid the foundations of the Kievan state and gave it its name, was a military-trading organization mainly of pagans of Jewish origin, which developed along the shores of the Black and Azov Seas since the time of the Bosporan Kingdom and spread its activities along the river highways of the East European Plain all the way to the Baltic Sea.”

As for the word “Rus” or “Rus”, Irma Heinman claims that translated from Hebrew it means in its softened meaning “Hellenized Jew”: “A Jew who abandoned Judaism in favor of paganism,” she writes, “in accordance with the term adopted in the Torah and the Book of Maccabees is called “rasha” or “rashiya”.

Perhaps this can explain why Russians are the only people in globe, whose ethnonym is an adjective, not a noun.

However, "Rus" or "Rus" was not only a military-trade organization. Rus' was at the same time the religion of the Fiasoph brothers who worshiped Almighty God. This is a syncretic religion, combining elements of Judaism with Hellenism, which spread widely among half-Jews, Tauro-Scythians and Jews in the Crimea and the North Caucasus. They, like the Jews, do not pronounce the name of God, but it means Zeus the Thunderer. Their place of prayer is not a temple, but also not a church, but a synagogue.

According to N.I. Novosadsky: “The Bosporan fias were basically religious societies. Their members united around the cult of the same deity. This deity was closest to the ancient Greek Zeus, but it did not have any name. The absence of a name indicates the influence of ancient Christian communities based on Jewish beliefs. The influence of these communities is also noticeable in some features of the organization of the Bosporan fias. But the Bosporan fias did not set as their exclusive goal only the cult of their special deity. They also had other tasks: material support for members, expressed in concerns about the burial of fiasots and the upbringing of their children and, apparently, the achievement of certain moral goals.”

From the above, we can conclude that initially Rus' was not only a military-trade organization, but also a religious movement close to Christianity. This explains why Rus' eventually adopted Christianity. The brothers Fias and Alans, led by this military-trading organization, also gravitated towards Christianity. The correct spelling, of course, is al-lany. Al is a preposition and then lans from the word lan-field. This is what the Mountain Jews called those Jews who lived in the steppes of the Azov region.

One of the Allan tribes that founded Kyiv and Kievan Rus were the Polyans. They were by no means Slovenian. On the other hand, they were not autochthons of the Middle Dnieper region, because otherwise they would not have been called glades, but by some other name. The fact is that back in the eighth century this area was covered with dense forests, and here, at that time, the Slovenian tribe of the Drevlyans or foresters lived.

The Polyanes, according to Professor V.A. Parkhomenko, were: “They came from the territory of the Khazar kingdom, generally from the southeast and, most likely, from the Azov region.” They got their name from their habitats in the bend of the Azov-Don fields - glades. The question of their ethnicity as Slovenes is not confirmed by archaeological data.

This was first pointed out by A. A. Spitsyn. He published an article on this issue in ZhMNP in January 1909. Following him in 1930, M.I. Artamonov, based on the material of medieval settlements of the Lower Don, came to a similar conclusion that no traces of the Slovenian population in this area could be traced before the 11th century. But unlike A. A. Spitsyn, who believed that the Lower Don and Azov region were inhabited by Alans - Iranians, A. M. Artamonov believed that this area was inhabited by Bulgarian, Turkic in language, tribal groups related to the Khazars.

Then I. I. Lyapushkin examined the massive archaeological material of Tmutarakan itself and confirmed the conclusion of Spitsyn and Artamonov that until the end of the 10th century, the Azov region did not know any Slovenian culture, which spread here only in the 11th century, replacing the Saltovo-Mayak culture. Archaeological excavations, carried out on a large scale in the post-war years in Crimea, also did not confirm the settlement of this region by Slovenes until the end of the 10th century.

Those who came from the Azov steppes and founded Kyiv and Kievan Rus' glades were Jews professing Judaism. And according to the Tale of Bygone Years, unlike the tribes around them, they did not eat clean food, but ate only kosher. So, before Russia adopted Christianity, Kievan Rus was an exemplary Jewish state on the banks of the Dnieper. The Polyans did not accept Christianity, and Vladimir did not force them to do so. It was Bishop Hilarion who ran to them at night to conduct disputes in order to convert them to Christianity.

As we see, Rus' and Polyans are mentioned separately before Russia adopted Christianity, although it is said that ethnically there is no difference between Polyans and Rus. And with the adoption of Christianity by Russia, the glades disappear from the pages of the chronicle and the Jews appear.

Alans also penetrated into Crimea and completely merged with the Jews related to them by blood. Some historians classify the Alans as Sarmatian tribes. But the Sarmatians themselves trace their origins to Scythian men and Jewish women. According to legend, they are descendants of the Amazons.

In the 1st century BC. and I century. AD Representatives of the eastern Sarmatians appeared on the territory of modern Ukraine - the Aors and Alans. They are mentioned as inhabitants of the lands “north of the Ister” (i.e. the Danube) by the Roman historian Pliny the Elder and the philosopher Seneca.

In the 1st century BC. and I century. AD in the territory modern Ukraine Representatives of the eastern Sarmatians appeared - the Aors and Alans. They are mentioned as inhabitants of the lands “north of the Ister” (i.e. the Danube) by the Roman historian Pliny the Elder and the philosopher Seneca. The migration of the Alans significantly changed the historical and ethnic picture of European Sarmatia. Under their pressure, the Iazyges went west, to the area between the Tisza and Danube rivers, and the new newcomers created a military-political association near the Roman borders, known in science as the “kingdom of Pharzoi and Inismey.” The names of these Sarmatian kings are placed on the coins of Olbia, which for a certain time was either under the protectorate of the Sarmatians or in alliance with them. The existence of an association of Alans in the neighborhood of Olbia and some connections between the Olviopolitans and Sarmatians is evidenced by the recently found fragment of an Olbian decree, which speaks of an embassy of the Olviopolitans to “Umabius... the greatest kings of Aorsia.” It is possible that the unpreserved names of these kings were the names of Farzoi and Inismey.

Modern science considers the etymology of the ethnonym “Alans” as equivalent to the term “arya”, which corresponds to the general name of the ancient Indo-Iranian peoples, which, apparently, served as a kind of national idea in the new tribal association. This ethnic unification was based on a common cultural, economic and ideological platform. It is no coincidence that already in the 2nd century, that is, immediately after the creation of the Alanian union, a single late Sarmatian (or Alanian) archaeological culture arose, distinguished by striking uniformity over wide areas from the Caucasus to Ukraine and the Volga region. The Alan era begins in the Northern Iranian world.

Pushed by the Alans to the west and south, the vanguard of the Sarmatian tribes encountered the zone of influence of the Roman Empire, which entailed not only a military confrontation with the latter, but in the future, cooperation with it (Fig. 26). Under the influence of Sarmatian military technology, advanced for its time, there was a complete change not only in weapons, but also in battle tactics in the Roman army. Sarmatian cataphracts - riders and horses clad in armor, would later become the prototype of medieval knights (Fig. 27). Already from the end of the 2nd century. AD The Roxolan cavalry carries out border service in the British Isles, protecting the borders of the empire from Celtic tribes rebellious to Rome. The influence of the military art and culture of the Sarmato-Alans was also felt by the neighboring Germanic tribes. Researchers have more than once drawn attention to the striking similarities between the Scythian-Sarmatian heritage, the British legend of King Arthur and the epic of the Ossetians, who represent one of the last ethnic fragments of the Scythian-Sarmato-Alans.

By the 2nd century AD In the Far East of Asia, some serious movements of nomadic tribes took place, which was the beginning of the “Great Migration of Peoples”. The stable ethnic mass of Northern Iranians is beginning to be crowded by a young union of Turkic tribes, which has displaced many peoples from their homes. In the 3rd century. AD The Sarmato-Alans of the Northern Black Sea region collide with the Ostrogothic union of Germanic tribes, and already at the end of the 4th century. AD hordes of Turkic Huns, led by the formidable Attila, having crossed the Volga, smash the Goth-Alan alliance, dragging most of it into Western Europe(Fig. 28). Thus, in the wake of the “Great Migration,” the Alans found their way to the north of Italy, into the territory of France and Spain. Pressed by the Huns, in alliance with the Visigoths and Vandals, they subsequently penetrated North Africa, to Carthage, where by the 6th century. their traces are lost (Fig. 29). But the memory remains. The ethnonym “Alan” became widespread in Europe not only in the form of a personal name, but also in toponymy. The rich spiritual heritage of the Northern Iranians has been preserved in the folklore and ethnoculture of those peoples with whom the Alans were brought together by historical fate.

The remaining part of the Alan ethnic massif in southern Russia was located in the foothills and mountain gorges of the Central Caucasus, constituting a significant military-political force at that time (Fig. 30). They began to develop early medieval statehood. Scientists noted that the simultaneous appearance in different parts In the Central Caucasus, burial structures of the same type can be considered as evidence of the formation within the borders of Alanya in the 6th-9th centuries. united cultural and ethnic community. It occupied most of the North Caucasus during the Middle Ages.

A significant group of North Caucasian Alans, through the Cimmerian Bosporus (Kerch Strait) and the territory of the Bosporus Kingdom, moved to Crimea, where by the 4th century. n. e. Alan crypts became the dominant type of burial structures in the foothill Crimean burial grounds, excavated near the villages of Druzhnoe in the Simferopol region, Balanovo in the Belogorsk region and in other places. Some information about the settlement of Alans in Crimea can be extracted from written sources. Thus, in an anonymous description of the shores of the Black Sea, compiled in the 6th century. n. e., another name is given for Feodosia, which was deserted by that time - Ardabda (“seven-god”), which belongs to the “Alan, that is, Taurian language.” Many researchers believe that the name of the Crimean medieval city of Sugdeya (modern Sudak) in the Alan language meant “pure, holy.” According to church tradition recorded in the 13th century, this city was founded in 212 AD.

In the North Caucasus, Alan settlements, most of them based on places previously inhabited in Koban, Scythian, and Sarmatian times, developed rapidly. One of these settlements, which has no domestic analogues in terms of the power of defensive structures, was discovered by archaeologists in the territory of the village of Zilga, not far from Vladikavkaz. Scientists have established that the Zilgin settlement existed in the 2nd – 5th centuries AD. e.

Alania is gradually gaining significant international weight. This was greatly facilitated by her military power and favorable geographical location. Important trade routes, as well as roads of military-strategic importance, passed through its territory. In the 6th century, the Great Highway was laid across the territory of Alanya. silk road. Thanks to international trade, Alanya's treasury received considerable income and, in addition, it was able to establish close ties with many countries. Contemporaries considered Alanya a country full of “all kinds of blessings”, in which there is “a lot of gold and magnificent clothes, noble horses and steel weapons, tempered with the blood of reptiles, chain mail and noble stones” (Fig. 31).

The Alans were engaged in cattle breeding and did not change the traditions of horse breeding. The country was also very rich in bread. Archaeologists have identified pits for storing grain, as well as sickles, grain grinders and mortars and pestles. The Alans, like the Scythians in their time, were good beekeepers. From honey they made an intoxicating drink - rong, which is widely mentioned in the Ossetian epic about the Narts.

The turbulent history of those years accelerated the early state processes that had begun. Participation in the Arab-Khazar wars, diplomatic and military cooperation with Byzantium and Georgia united the Alan military aristocracy, pushing it towards socio-economic changes in society. At the beginning of the 10th century. Alanya officially accepts Christianity. Byzantine, Georgian and Arab chronicles note that the Alans had strong royal power, an extensive network of cities and fortresses, castles and churches (Fig. 32, 33). The description of medieval Alania is not much different from the description of contemporary Rus', Georgia, and Bulgaria.

Powerful medieval states sought a political union with it, and their rulers considered it an honor to become related to the kings of Alania. The latter were related to the Byzantine emperors, Khazar, Georgian, Armenian, Abkhazian kings, and Old Russian princes. In the prestigious list of states with which Byzantium maintained diplomatic relations, Alania was located above Khazaria and Rus'. If the Georgian, Abkhaz and other Caucasian rulers received orders from the Byzantine emperor, then the king of Alania was recognized as an independent sovereign and was called his “spiritual son” (Fig. 33a, b).

At the same time, Alania maintains stable ties with the related population of the Northern Black Sea region, noted in ancient Russian chronicles under the ethnonym Yasy (Alans). At the same time, scientists record the final formation of the Nart epic of the Alan-Ossetians.

The Nart epic of the Ossetians is an outstanding cultural monument of Scythian antiquity and the Alanian Middle Ages (Fig. 34). In the form of myths, capturing the history of the ancient people, starting from the tribal system and ending with the tragedy that befell them as a result of the Mongol-Tatar invasion, it goes back to the era of the Aryans. Tales about the Narts, under whose name the creators of the epic themselves appear, figuratively reflect the model of the world, worldview, way of life and social structure of the ancestors of the Ossetians. The images of Nart heroes evoke associations with real-life historical heroes who followed the same code of honor. A real man is a valiant warrior who abstains from food and respects a woman. A warrior possessing these qualities is placed by the Narts at the highest level of the social ladder. They do not forgive insults and keep their word.

In historical chronicles of the V–VII centuries. Alans are often mentioned among the “literate” peoples. Information has been preserved that suggests that the church service was held in the Alanian language, and therefore, there were translations of theological literature. In particular, this is suggested by the words of the creator of the Slavic letter, Constantine the Philosopher (in monasticism, Cyril), dating back to the 9th century, who mentions the Alans among the peoples “who have writing and glorify God in their native language.”

Research in the 20th century led to the discovery of an interesting pattern. In the period from 800 to 1200. AD The peoples of Europe are experiencing intensive state building. During the same period, there was an abnormal global warming, an increase in grain yields and a general economic takeoff, which once again confirms the connection between the history of mankind and the surrounding cosmos. But good times in history are always followed by years of trials. And sometimes you want to see the guiding hand in this.

Mongol-Tatar invasion of the XIII-XIV centuries. completely undermined the statehood of the Alans. The Alans were the first to fall under the wheel of the formidable conquerors, the first clash with whom occurred in 1222. It ended in the defeat of the Alans (deceived by their allies - the Polovtsian khans), but not in their conquest. After his death, the countless army of Genghis Khan was led by his grandson, Batu, who in 1238 began to conquer Alanya. He besieged its capital for three months in 1239, and in the end the city of Magas fell (Fig. 35, a). However, this sad event did not bring the Alan princes to their senses and did not prompt them to leave their strife and stand up as a wall for their country. As a result, despite the desperate resistance of its inhabitants, Alanya was destroyed piece by piece. On its territory, the Mongol-Tatar state of the Golden Horde was created, which included the conquered Alan principalities.

One part of the Alans, having fortified themselves in the narrow gorges of mountainous Alania, tirelessly harassed the conquerors, raiding their settlements, while the other left their homeland forever. For example, Hungarian jars owe their origin to this outcome. Scientists also noted that starting from the 13th century. Crimean Alans or Ases are mentioned many times in written sources. The last ethnonym (name of the people) with with good reason is compared with the Yases (as Alans were called in Russian chronicles) and therefore identified with the Alans. The sudden discovery of the Crimean Alans by the authors of medieval works against the background of the previous long silence is hardly accidental. It seems that Crimea came from the North Caucasus around the beginning of the 13th century. Some group of Alans moved. Purely hypothetically, based only on the coincidence of dates, it can be assumed that this migration occurred as a result of or in connection with the threat of the Mongol-Tatar invasion.

In the first half of the 13th century. Christian missionary Bishop Theodore, on the way to North Caucasian Alania, arrived by sea in Kherson (as ancient Chersonesus was called in the Middle Ages, the ruins of which are located near modern Sevastopol). Pursued by enemies, he fled and found shelter in an Alan village located not far from the city. “Alans live near Kherson, as much by their own free will as by the wishes of the Kherson people, like a kind of fence and security of the city,” writes Theodore. A little higher he calls these Alans “small”. Theodore's information seems especially reliable in light of the fact that he eventually reached Caucasian Alania and was therefore able to compare the inhabitants of the Crimea and the Caucasus. Probably as a result of this comparison, he called the Crimean Alans “small”, in contrast to the much more numerous, but related inhabitants of the North Caucasus. Thanks to the testimony of Theodore, it becomes clear that the Alans concentrated in the South-Western Crimea, where they guarded the approaches to Kherson.

The most important evidence about the Crimean Alans belongs to the Arab geographer of the 14th century. Abu al-Fide (Abulfeda). “Kerker or Kerkri... is... located... in the country of the Aesir, his name means forty people in Turkish; it is a fortified castle, difficult to access; he rests on a mountain that cannot be climbed. At the top of the mountain there is a square where the inhabitants of the country (in times of danger) find refuge. This castle is some distance from the sea; the inhabitants belong to the Ases tribe... Kerker is located north of Sary-Kermen; between these two places is one day's journey." Thanks to fairly accurate topographical indications, none of the researchers doubt that Kerker (often called Kyrk-Or by other authors) is the famous “cave city” of Chufut-Kale, located near modern Bakhchisarai. Some late medieval Arab and Turkic-speaking authors called Kherson Sary-Kermen. Thus, it turns out that the Alans, as in the 13th century, inhabited the South-Western Crimea and possessed one of the most powerful fortresses on the peninsula.

The same thing was written about at the beginning of the 15th century. Arab geographer Al-Kashkaidi, and in the 18th century. - Turkish historian Aali-Efeidi.

In the Caucasus, the fate of the Alans developed tragically. Having stormed the capital of Alanya, the Mongols occupied its foothill territories. After them, devastation and civil strife began, well known to us by analogy with Russian history. The Mongols skillfully poisoned one people against another, dividing them and conquering them. But the Alans more than once tried to free themselves from the Mongol yoke by raising uprisings. The center of one of them was the large Alan city of Dedyakov. However, all performances ended in failure.

At the end of the 14th century, a grandiose battle took place on the Alan lands between the Golden Horde and the Central Asian conqueror Timur. Timur defeated Tokhtamysh, the khan of the Golden Horde, and then turned his sword against the Alans, completing the process of genocide of a huge people, finally undermining the Alan statehood. An unheard of disaster has befallen ancient people with a developed civilization (Fig. 36). It has lost its former level of economic and social development. It was as if he did not have crowded cities and lively trade. It was as if he had just dreamed of his single mighty power, and the vast expanses of mountains and plains, their countless riches. Knocked out of the usual circle of advanced countries of that time and isolated from them, he was also limited in his internal connections. Locked in the mountain gorges and forgotten by everyone, he had to start all over again. A dark period of survival and a difficult struggle for existence dragged on. The remnants of a once strong people entrenched in their last territory - in the mountain gorges of the Central Caucasus, recorded by Georgian chronicles as “axes”, and from the 18th century. Russians as “Ossetians” have preserved to this day their unique Northern Iranian language and their unique thousand-year-old culture (Fig. 37, a).

It should be noted that the Alan diaspora in Hungary retained its language and culture until the 18th century, and the Crimean Alans lived until the late Middle Ages, inhabiting two regions of Crimea. One of them - densely populated with a center in Kyrk-Ore - Chufut-Kale - is localized in the South-Western Crimea, the other, less significant - in the south-eastern part of the peninsula. Separate groups of Alans settled in the Crimean steppe. In the 16th century, after the capture of Crimea by the Turks, the Alans apparently took part in the ethnogenesis of the Crimean Greeks and Crimean Tatars (mountain ethnographic group), lost their ethnic characteristics and ceased to exist as an ethnos.

An ancient Ossetian song dedicated to the sad events of the past has brought to this day the amazing image of Zadaleski Nana, who saved orphaned children from “Timur’s nimble armies.” Exhausted from adversity, the hunched old woman gathered them together, hid them in a cave and, “protecting them from beasts and enemies,” raised them. The song calls her the Mother from Zadalesk, but she is seen as the Great Mother Ossetia-Alania, who was bled dry by the blows of fate, but whose spirit remained unbroken.

From the book by V. Tsagaraev “The Golden Apple Tree of the Narts”)

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