It was during the Scytho-Sarmatian period that the Graeco-Iranian culture developed on the northern shore of the Black Sea and in the Russian steppe. The Iranian element was represented in the first place by the Scythians and the Sarmatians themselves. They established large and lasting military states which provided the basic pattern of political organization for the area. They brought with them their languages, their customs, their religion emphasizing war, an original style in decorative art known as the Scythian animal style, and generally vigorous and varied art and craftsmanship, especially in metalwork. The enormously rich Greek civilization came to the area primarily through Greek colonies. These colonies began as fishing enterprises and grew into major commercial centers and flourishing communities. They included the already mentioned Olbia, founded as early as the middle of the seventh century b.c., Chersonesus in the Crimea near present-day Sevastopol, Tanais at the mouth of the Don, and Panticapaeum and Phanagoria on either side of the Strait of Kerch, which links the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea and separates the Crimea and the Caucasus. The
Greeks engaged in varied trade, but especially significant was their importation of southern Russian grain into the Hellenic world. The settlements near the Strait of Kerch, enjoying a particularly favorable position for trade and defense, formed the nucleus of the Bosporan kingdom which was to have a long and dramatic history. That kingdom as well as other Greek centers in southern Russia fell in the first century before Christ under the sway of Mithridates the Great of Pontus and, after his ultimate defeat by the Romans, of Rome. Even after a retrenchment of the Roman Empire and its eventual collapse, some former Greek colonies on the northern shore of the Black Sea, such as Chersonesus, had another revival as outposts of the Byzantine Empire.
Thus for many centuries the Iranians and the Greeks lived and worked side by side. It has been noted that the Scythians and the Sarmatians made no sustained effort to destroy Greek colonies in southern Russia, choosing instead to maintain vigorous trade relations and other contacts with them. Intermarriage, Hellenization of Iranians, and Iranization of Greeks proceeded apace. The resulting cultural and at times political synthesis was such that the two elements became inextricably intertwined. As Rostovtzeff explains in regard to the Bosporan kingdom, a prize example of this symbiosis: 'It is a matter of great interest to trace the development of the new community. A loosely knit confederation of cities and tribes in its beginning, it became gradually a political body of dual nature. The ruler of this body was for the Greeks an elected magistrate, for the natives a king ruling by divine right.' Today one can readily appreciate some of the sweep and the glory of the ancient Graeco-Iranian culture in southern Russia after visiting the appropriate rooms of the Hermitage or of the historical museum in Moscow.
The Sarmatian rule in the steppe north of the Black Sea was shattered by the Goths. These Germanic invaders came from the north, originally from the Baltic area, reaching out in a southeasterly direction. In southern Russia they split into the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, and the latter eventually established under Hermanric a great state stretching from the Black Sea to the Baltic. But the Gothic period in Russia, dated usually from A.D. 200 to A.D. 370, ended abruptly with the appearance of new intruders from Asia, the Huns. Furthermore, while the Goths proved themselves to be fine soldiers and sailors, their general cultural level lagged considerably behind the culture of southern Russia, to which they had little to contribute.
The Huns, who descended upon the Goths around a.D. 370, came in a mass migration by the classic steppe road from Central Asia to southern Russia. A remarkably mixed group when they appeared in European history, the Huns were, on best evidence, a Turkic-speaking people supported by large Mongol and Ugrian contingents. Later, as they swept into central and even western Europe, they also brought with them different Germanic
and Iranian elements which they had overwhelmed and picked up on the way. Although one of the most primitive peoples to come to southern Russia, the Huns had sufficient drive and military prowess to conquer that area and, indeed, to play a key role in the so-called period of great migrations in Europe. Even after their defeat in the battle of Chalons, deep in France, in 451, they invaded Italy and, according to tradition, spared Rome only because of the influence of Pope Leo I on their leader, Attila. But with the sudden death of Attila in 453 the poorly organized Hunnic state crumbled. Its successors included the large horde of the Bulgars and the smaller ones of the Utigurs and the Kutrigurs.
The next human wave to break into southern Russia consisted again of an Asiatic, Mongol- and Turkic- speaking, and relatively primitive people, the Avars. Their invasion is dated a.D. 558, and their state lasted for about a century in Russia and for over two and a half centuries altogether, at the end of which time it dissolved rapidly and virtually without trace, a common fate of fluid, politically rudimentary, and culturally weak nomadic empires. At the height of their power, the Avars ruled the entire area from eastern Russia to the Danubian plain, where they had their capital and where they remained after they had lost control in Russia. Avar armies threatened Byzantium, and they also waged major, although unsuccessful, wars against Charlemagne and his empire.
In the seventh century a.D. a new force emerged in southern Russia, to b'e more exact, on the lower Volga, in the northern Caucasus, and the southeastern Russian steppe in general: the Khazar state. The impact of the Khazars split the Bulgars sharply in two: one group definitely settled in the Balkans to dissolve in the Slavic mass and give its name to present-day Bulgaria; the other retreated to the northeast, eventually establishing a state at the confluence of the Volga and the Kama, with the town of Great Bulgar as its capital. The Utigurs and the Kutrigurs retrenched to the lands along the Sea of Azov and the mouth of the Don.
Although the Khazars were still another Turkic-speaking people from Asia, their historical role proved to be quite different from that of the Huns or of the Avars. To begin with, they fought bitter wars against the Arabs and served as a bulwark against the spread of Islam into Europe. When their own state assumed form in southeastern European Russia, it became notable for its commerce, its international connections, and the tolerance and enlightenment of its laws. Although a semi-nomadic people themselves, the Khazars promoted the building of towns, such as their capital of Itil - not far from the mouth of the Volga - Samandar, Sarkil, and certain others. The location at the crossroads of two continents proved to be of fundamental importance for the Khazar economy. In the words of a recent historian of the Khazars, Dunlop: 'The prosperity of Khazaria evidently depended less on the resources of the country than on its favorable position
across important trade-routes.' The Khazar revenue, consequently, came especially from commercial imposts as well as from the tribute which increased as the Khazar rule expanded westward on the Russian plain. Pagans, Moslems, Christians, and Jews mingled in Khazaria, where all enjoyed considerable freedom and autonomy to live under their own laws. In the eighth and ninth centuries the Khazars themselves embraced Judaism, or at least their ruler, who bore the title of khakan, and the upper class did, thus adding another exceptional chapter to their unusual history. The Khazars have also been cited as one of the first peoples to institute a permanent paid armed force. The development of Khazaria, with its close links to the Arabic and Byzantine worlds, as well as to some other civilizations, its far-flung trade connections, and its general cosmopolitanism, well represents one line of political, economic, and cultural evolution on the great Russian plain at the time of the emergence of the Kievan state. It may be added that, while the Khazars were outstanding in commercial development, varied commercial intercourse on a large scale also grew further north, in the country of the Volga Bulgars.
Cultures on the northern shore of the Black Sea and in the southern Russian steppe, from the neolithic period to the time of the Khazars, form an essential part of the background of Kievan Russia. Yet it is true too that the people of the Kievan state who came to be known as Russians were not Scythians, Greeks, or Khazars, much as they might have been influenced in one way or another by these and other predecessors and neighbors; they were East Slavs. Therefore, East Slavs also demand our attention. The term itself is linguistic, as our better classifications of ancient peoples usually are. It refers to a group speaking the Eastern variety of Slavic. With time, three distinct East Slavic languages developed: Great Russian, often called simply Russian, Ukrainian, and White Russian or Belorussian. Other branches of the Slavic languages are the West Slavic, including Polish and Czech, and the South Slavic, represented, for instance, by Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian. The Slavic languages, in turn, form a subdivision of the Indo-European language family which includes most of the tongues spoken today in Europe and some used in Asia. To be more precise, in addition to the Slavic this family contains the Teutonic, Romance, Hellenic, Baltic, Celtic, Iranian, Indic, Armenian, and Thraco-Illyrian subfamilies of languages. The Cimmerians, it might be recalled, belonged apparently to the Thraco-Illyrian subfamily, the Scythians and the Sarmatians to the Iranian, and the Goths to the Teutonic or Germanic, while the Greeks are, of course, the great representatives of the Hellenic. Early Russian history was also influenced by other Indo-European peoples, such as the Baltic Lithuanians, as well
