The Millennium of Russia monument was erected in Novgorod (Veliky Novgorod, as it is now called) in 1862. And although everyone knows that this is a legendary date, nevertheless, specific events in the Russian annals are counted from it.
But not all events of the early history of Russia were reflected in the annals. Maybe it is worth looking for other dates associated with other specific events in foreign sources?
838?
In 839, the ambassadors of the Byzantine emperor Theophilos arrived at the Frankish emperor Louis I. In their retinue there were people who introduced themselves as "ambassadors of the kagan of the ross." According to them, while they were in Constantinople, their way back was blocked by the war. They asked permission to return to their homeland in a roundabout way, through the Frankish Empire.
Louis, as it is written in the annals of the monastery of Saint-Bertin, suspected spies of these ambassadors and ordered them to be interrogated with partiality. The end of the story is silent. Be that as it may, this is considered the first mention in the sources of the Russian state headed by the kagan. The Ross ambassadors were sent to Byzantium about a year before their arrival with the Franks. Consequently, in 2038 it will be possible to celebrate the 1200th anniversary of Russian statehood.
Some problem is that we do not know exactly where this Russian kaganate was located. Historians argue about this. Along with its identifications with Kievan Rus, there are suggestions that it was located north of the Khazar Kaganate, somewhere in the upper reaches of the Seversky Donets (E.S. Galkina). Some (V.V.Sedov) believed that the original Rus did not have a definite capital, and the kagan with his court could wander around the country, like the kings of the Franks from the Merovingian dynasty.
94 BC?
Prominent pre-revolutionary Russian historian Dmitry Ilovaisky (whose textbook for gymnasiums was reprinted about thirty times) traced the beginning of Russia to the Sarmatian tribe of Roksolans, mentioned by ancient writers. It lived somewhere north of Meotida (Sea of Azov). Ilovaisky considered its name to be composed of two words: Ross and Alans. The Alan people were known in the Don and North Caucasus for a very long time in the Middle Ages. In the first root of the name of the Roksolans, Ilovaisky saw the direct ancestors of the Russian people.
“In 1906, exactly two thousand years have passed since the time when the Russian tribe appeared on the tablets of history…,” Ilovaisky wrote in the introduction to his popular work The Formation of Rus. - The young Pontic king Mithridates VI ... annexed the kingdom of Bosporus to his possessions, and to protect this kingdom he had to fight the neighboring tribe of Tavroskifs, which then united under the rule of King Skilur ... Skilur's eldest son Palak turned to the Scythian-Sarmatian (probably , a relative) of the Rosso-Alan tribe, which lived in the steppes between the Dnieper and Don and along the shores of Lake Meoti ... This event took place in 94 BC. The famous Greek writer Strabo reports about him. "
Roksolans, or Rosso-Alans, according to the etymology of Ilovaisky, are then mentioned by Tacitus and Jordan. The name of the Russians, Ilovaisky believed, was imprinted in the era of the Great Nations Migration in the name of the later known southern French province of Roussillon. There is nothing impossible in this - after all, the relatives of the Ross, Alans, even reached North Africa.
Almost all modern scientists reject Ilovaisky's version. However, the etymology of the word "rus / ros", according to the hypothesis of the linguist Oleg Trubachev, is associated with the Iranian root meaning "bright, bright". The name of the Rus tribe, according to many, is of Iranian origin. Why couldn't it be included in the name of Roksolans, meaning "light Alans", and later become an independent tribal name?
According to any version, Russia was originally a non-Slavic name. What if it was Iranian and not Scandinavian, as the official version has claimed since the days of Karamzin? Why give up identification with this tribe? Franks and Bulgarians also originally spoke languages different from the current population of those countries to which they gave their name.
It is only possible, however, to make an amendment that if 94 BC is taken as the beginning of Russian history, as reflected in written sources, then its 2000th anniversary came not in 1906, but in 1907. This chronological paradox is caused by the fact that there is no zero year in the chronology: 1 year BC. immediately follows 1 year A.D.
The 2500th anniversary of the history of the state in Russia is coming soon
In our time, it has become fashionable to start the history of one or another country from the beginning of a civilization in it, even if it is even the civilization of another people. The British, French and Germans are not going to abandon the legacy of Roman civilization in their territories. Although, for example, the Angles came to Britain several centuries after the last Romans left there. The history of the United States is shamelessly attributed to the centuries-old archaeological history of the indigenous Indian tribes that inhabited the vastness of North America before the arrival of the whites. And so on.
In this regard, it will be interesting to mention that the first known state on the territory of modern Russia arose in 480 BC. as a result of the unification of several Greek colonies along the shores of the Cimmerian Bosporus, as the Kerch Strait was then called. The Bosporan kingdom arose, which existed with short interruptions for more than a thousand years - until 527 AD.
In the 10-11 centuries. on the site of the former Bosporus kingdom was the Russian principality of Tmutarakan, which played an important and not fully explored role in the history of the Old Russian state. Some kind of Bosporan (essentially antique, Greco-Roman) heritage could not but exert its influence on Russia through it.
So very soon it will be possible with good reason to celebrate 2500 years of the state in Russia. Only, taking into account the above-mentioned paradox of the zero year, the anniversary did not come in 2020, but in 2021.
