What did the Alans do? Alans

The history of ancient peoples is full of secrets and mysteries. Historical sources did not show an extensive picture of the ancient world. Little information about the way of life, religion and culture of nomadic peoples remained. The Alanian tribes are especially interesting, since they lived not only on the territory of the southern Russian steppes and in the mountains of the Caucasus, but also on the territory of medieval Europe.

Alans are nomadic Iranian-speaking tribes of Scythian-Sarmatian origin, which are mentioned in written sources from the 1st century AD. One part of the tribe participated in the Great Migration of Nations, while others remained in the territories in the foothills of the Caucasus. It was on them that the Alanian tribes formed the state of Alania, which existed before the invasion of the Mongols in the 1230s.

In the epic of other peoples

Numerous studies devoted to the peoples in the era of the Great Migration ignore or do not notice the role of the Scythian and Alanian tribes in the conquest of Europe. But they had a great influence on the military art of European peoples. The history of the Alans in Germany dates back to those times. The people had a huge impact on the Gothic tribes, as they did not own military equipment.

Alanian military culture underlies medieval legends and the code of chivalry. The tales of King Arthur, the round table and Them are attributed to the Anglo-Saxon tribes, but some researchers claim that this is not true. These legends come from the Alanian people. Emperor Marcus Aurelius, at the end of the second century, recruited 8,000 Alans. Warriors worshiped the god of war - a sword stuck in the ground.

Historiography

Why were researchers interested in the relationship between the Alanian and Ossetian tribes? It's simple, the Ossetian language is very different from the languages ​​of other peoples of the North Caucasus.

Gerhard Miller in his work “On the peoples who have lived in Russia since ancient times” made an assumption about the relationship of the Ossetians with the Alanian tribes.

In the 19th century, the German orientalist Klaproth spoke in his works about the genetic relationship of the Ossetian tribes with the Alan ones. Further research confirmed this theory.

The concept of Klaproth was also adhered to by the Swiss archaeologist Dubois de Montpere, who considered the Alanian and Ossetian tribes as kindred, settled at different times in the Caucasus. The German Gaksthausen, who visited Russia in the 19th century, was a supporter of the German theory of the origin of the Ossetians. The Ossetian tribes descended from the Gothic tribes and, persecuted by the Huns, settled in the mountains of the Caucasus. The French scientist Saint-Martin paid special attention to the Ossetian language, since it originated from the languages ​​of Europe.

Russian researcher D. L. Lavrov in his work “Historical information about Ossetia and Ossetians” gives many details about the relationship of the Alans and this people.

The largest Russian researcher of the late 19th century, V.F. Miller, published the book “Ossetian Etudes”, in which he proves the genetic relationship between these two peoples. The proof was that the names of the Caucasian Alans extended to the ancestors of the Ossetians. He considered the ethnonyms Alans, Oss and Yases as belonging to the same people. He came to the conclusion that the ancestors of the Ossetians were part of the nomadic Sarmatian and Scythian tribes, and in the Middle Ages - Alan.

To date, scientists adhere to the concept of the genetic relationship of the Ossetians with the Alanian tribes.

Etymology of the word

The meaning of the term "alan" is "guest" or "host". In modern science, they adhere to the version of V. I. Abaev: the concept of "Alans" comes from the names of the ancient Aryans and Iranian Agua tribes. Another scholar, Miller, suggested the origin of the name from the Greek verb "wander" or "wander".

What were the neighboring peoples called Alans

In the ancient Russian chronicles, the Alans are Yases. So, in 1029 it is reported that Yaroslav defeated the Yas tribe. In the annals, the Armenians use the same term - "Alans", and the Chinese chronicles call them Alans.

Historical information

The history of the ancient Alans can be traced from the II century BC. e. on the territory of Central Asia. Later they are mentioned in ancient records from the middle of the first century. Their appearance in Eastern Europe is associated with the strengthening of the Sarmatian tribes.

After the defeat by the Huns, during the period of the Great Migration of Peoples, part of the tribe ended up in Gaul and North Africa, where, together with the Vandals, they formed a state that lasted until the 6th century. Another part of the Alans went to the foothills of the Caucasus. Gradually there was a partial assimilation of the Alanian tribes. They became ethnically heterogeneous, as evidenced by archaeological finds.

With the fall of the Khazar Khaganate, the unification of the Alanian tribes into the early feudal state of Alania is connected. Since this period, their influence in the Crimea has increased.

After the merger of the Alans with the Caucasian tribes, they switched to agriculture and a settled way of life. This was the main factor in the formation of the early feudal state of Alania. In the upper reaches of the Kuban, under the influence of Byzantium, was the Western part of the country. Part of the "Great Silk Road" passed through its territory, which strengthened the ties of the Alans with the Eastern Roman Empire.

By the X century, Alania becomes a feudal state. Also at this time, this people plays an important role in foreign policy relations between Byzantium and Khazaria.

By the XIII century, Alania had become a powerful and prosperous state, but after the Tatar-Mongols captured the Ciscaucasia plain, it fell, and the population went to the mountains of the Central Caucasus and Transcaucasia. The Alans began to assimilate with the local Caucasian population, but retained their historical identity.

Alans in Crimea: the history of settlement

A few written sources tell about the resettlement through the Kerch Strait to the territory of the Crimean peninsula. The burial grounds found were of an unknown design for the Crimea. Similar crypts were found in the Caucasus, where the Alans lived. The method of burial was also specific. In the crypt, there were 9 buried, and a sword was placed on the head or shoulder of a warrior. The same custom was among the tribes of the North Caucasus. In addition to weapons, gold and silver jewelry were found in some burial grounds. These archaeological finds allow us to conclude that in the 3rd century AD. e. part of the Alanian tribes migrated to the Crimea.

In written sources, the Crimean Alans are practically not mentioned. Only by the 13th century did different information about the Alans appear. Researchers are of the opinion that such a long silence is not accidental. Most likely, in the 13th century, part of the Alans moved to the Crimea. This may be due to the Tatar-Mongol invasion.

Archaeological data

The materials found in the Zmeysky burial ground confirm the data on the high culture of the Alans and the developed trade relations between Iran, Russia and the countries of the East. Numerous finds of weapons confirm the information of medieval authors that the Alans had a developed army.

Also an important factor in the fall of the state were frequent avalanches in the XIII-XIV centuries. Many settlements were destroyed, and the Alans settled down the slopes. The final fall of Alanya was the result of the attack of Tamerlane. Alans participated in the army of Tokhtamysh. It was the largest battle in the history of the Golden Horde, which determined its position as a great power.

Religion

The basis of the Alanian religion was the Scythian-Sarmatian religious tradition. Like other tribes, the Alans' beliefs centered on the worship of the sun and the hearth. In religious life there were such phenomena as "farn" - grace, and "ard" - an oath. With the formation of statehood, polytheism was replaced by a single God (Khuytsau), and the rest of the deities turned into an “avdiu” creature. Their functions and features eventually passed to the saints who surround the one God. The Alans believed that the universe consists of three worlds. Therefore, the trinity division was present in the life of society: in the religious, economic and military spheres.

After the final transition to an agricultural way of life, the formation of the Scythian-Sarmatian union, the structure of public life changed. Now the military nobility dominated, not the shepherds. Hence the numerous legends about warrior knights. In such a society, it was required to abandon the pagan pantheon and have one God. The royal power needed a heavenly patron - an unattainable ideal that would unite different people. Therefore, the Alanian king chose Christianity as the state religion.

Spread of religion

According to the legends of the church, the acquaintance of the Alans with Christianity took place in the first century. The disciple of Christ, the Apostle Andrew the First-Called, preached in the Alanian city of Fust. Also in written sources it is reported that the Alans, who visited Byzantium and Armenia, adopted Christianity. After the Great Migration, many Alans adopted Christianity. Since the 7th century, it has spread widely in the territory of Alanya and has become the state religion. This fact strengthened foreign policy and cultural ties with Byzantium. But until the 12th century, the Eastern Alans remained pagans. They partly accepted Christianity, but were faithful to their gods.

After the establishment of the Golden Horde dominion in the Caucasus, the construction of Muslim mosques began on the site of Christian churches. Islam began to supplant the Christian religion.

Life

Alanya was located on the part of the great silk road, so trade and exchange was developed in it. Mostly merchants went to Byzantium and the Arab countries, but archaeological finds indicate that they also traded with the countries of Eastern Europe, Central and Central Asia.

The history of the Alans is of interest to modern scholars. The people had a great influence on the states of Eastern Europe and the Ossetians. Yet the information is not enough. The few essays on the history of the Alans do not allow drawing conclusions about the origin of the people.

The dwellings of the Alans were different depending on the social system. The settlements of the early Alans practically did not differ from the settlements of the nomads of Eurasia. Gradually they moved from a semi-nomadic to a sedentary agricultural way of life.

culture

The development of material culture is evidenced by the presence of burial grounds and settlements found on the Northern Donets and the North Caucasus. Ground tombs and crypts, dolmens, catacombs speak of the high development of the Alans culture.

The settlements were fenced with slabs on which a geometric pattern or images of animals were applied.

Alans were masters of jewelry art. This is confirmed by pendants made of gold and silver with semi-precious stones, figurines of warriors, various brooches that adorned the clothes of the Alans.

Numerous amulets, toiletries, sabers, and clothes found in the Zmeysky burial ground speak of the flourishing of the Alanian state.

In the 10th century, Alanya developed its own written language and heroic epos.

legends

The Nart epic is the pinnacle of Alanian medieval art. It reflected a long period in the life of this people - from the early communal system to the fall of Alania in the XIV century. Narts is a pseudonym of the creators of the epic, who preserved in the legends the religious beliefs, life and social relations of the people. The Nart or Nart epic was formed among the Alans, and eventually developed among the Georgian peoples. It is based on the adventures of warrior heroes. The story intertwines reality with fiction. There is no chronological framework and description of events, but the reality is reflected in the names of the area where the battles of the warriors take place. The motifs of the Nart epic reflect the life and beliefs of the Alans and Scythians-Sarmatians. For example, one of the legends describes how they tried to kill the old man Uryzmag - it was customary for the Alans and Scythians to kill old people for religious purposes.

Based on the legends, the Narts divided the society into three clans, which are endowed with special features: Borata - wealth, Alagata - wisdom, Akhsartaggata - courage. This corresponds to the social division of the Alans: economic (Borata owned the wealth of the land), priestly (Alagata) and military (Akhsartaggata).

The plots of the Nart legends are based on the exploits of the main characters during a campaign or hunting, matchmaking and revenge for the murder of their father. The legends also describe a dispute about the superiority of the Narts over each other.

Conclusion

Alans, Scythians, Sarmatians... The history of these peoples has a great influence on the Ossetians. It is safe to say that the Alans influenced the formation of the Ossetian people. That is why the Ossetian language differs from other Caucasian languages. And yet, the few essays on the history of the Alans do not allow us to draw conclusions about the origin of the people.

In January 1995, North Ossetia received its current name "Republic of North Ossetia-Alania". In this form, the name of the region is included in Article 65 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, as the official name of one of the subjects of the federation. The constitution was adopted in 1993; in 1995, it had to be amended accordingly. The Ossetian lobby even pushed through a change in the country's Constitution to please its pseudo-historical fantasies. And Moscow went for it, by the inertia of the phrase "take as much sovereignty as you can swallow." Since sovereignty can be swallowed, then history can be rewritten and call yourself whatever you like. The Kremlin leadership did not pay attention to these "trifles": the main thing was to maintain power and the ability to rob people's wealth. If you don’t interfere, then call yourself at least a scarecrow, at least Alans, at least Martians. Not yielding "in the main thing" - in money and power, the Yeltsin administration easily handed out symbolic rights, privileges and magnificent names. Thus, the false Ossetian-Alanian hypothesis received, as it were, state recognition, the status of official history and ideology.
I am very rude with the Ossetian-Alanian falsification, but only because it has become "official", or rather semi-official. As one of the debatable hypotheses, the version that Ossetians are the closest heirs of the ancient and medieval Alans among the modern peoples of the Caucasus is quite worthy of existence in science and literature. This hypothesis has a number of justifications and its own set of more or less convincing evidence; like several other hypotheses, there are justifications and evidence. However, real, serious, unbiased historical science has not come to a firm and unambiguous conclusion regarding the Alans and the continuity from the Alans among modern ethnic groups. It has not yet come and, perhaps, it will not come, since the evidence of past centuries is very limited and we can only invent new interpretations of existing sources. In such a situation, to proclaim Ossetians "Alans", Ossetia "Alania" is the height of incorrectness, rudeness, populism, falsification and "administration" of history. Thus, all scientific doubts, objections, all other theories and a balanced academic view of history are swept aside. Instead of history, we get the Alania football club and the republic of the same name.
In addition, the Ossetian-Alanian falsification is nothing more than inciting ethnic hatred. No, I'm not instigating hatred, "denying" the Ossetians the right to be called "Alans". And the implementers of falsification plant enmity. Failing to convince their opponents, serious scientists, not only neighboring peoples, but also Russian and world-famous, who defend different views and continue scrupulous studies of linguistic and archaeological data, the falsifiers took advantage of the “administrative resource” and passed their version through the legislature.

The North Caucasus has been home to a great many peoples for centuries. In their constant historical joint existence, a common North Caucasian culture was formed, a significant part of the distinctive features of which is the common heritage and common property of all the peoples of the North Caucasus. And privatization, the usurpation of the most important epochs of historical life by the nationalist circles of one of the regions does not at all contribute to friendship and mutual understanding between all the peoples inhabiting the lands of the North Caucasus.
As always, like all seemingly abstract historical falsifications, this one has its own very specific political and territorial background. In 1992, there was a bloody Ossetian-Ingush conflict. I do not want to support any of the parties to the conflict, such events are always a tragedy for both sides. However, it is obvious that the federal authorities took the Ossetian position, squeezing out the Ingush population and leaving the disputed territories behind North Ossetia. This problem cannot be considered solved to this day. As long as one of the parties to an interethnic conflict considers itself unfairly oppressed, the roots of enmity remain. And in such already tense circumstances, North Ossetia victoriously appropriates the “symbolic capital” of ancient Alania, thereby unambiguously hinting at its “historical right” to dominate these and many other territories of the North Caucasus. Would such a thing be possible with wise, balanced leadership, taking into account the subtleties of national relations and the painful attention of small ethnic groups to manipulations with history?
I mentioned the topic of Ossetian-Alanian falsification in passing in my book "The Leap of the Wolf: Essays on the Political History of Chechnya", in particular, in the chapter "Zelenchuk nonsense". And then I treated the falsifiers impolitely, but did not devote enough space to the problem, since the essays had a different topic. In addition, I still did not understand the seriousness and all the possible consequences of the victory of the falsifiers of the history of the North Caucasus. Now I consider it necessary to devote a special material to this issue. And I do this mainly for my friends, for good acquaintances, nice and pleasant people from among the Ossetian intellectuals, with whom I have repeatedly argued; they are wonderful people and smart, interesting authors, however, they do not seem to understand what kind of wilds they get into by supporting the deliberately false fabrications of "nationally oriented" falsifiers of history. In no case do I want to be at enmity and quarrel with anyone, I hope that we will maintain peaceful, friendly relations even in the midst of the most heated discussion. However, I am forced to put the problem in the most categorical way, because in the end it is always the truth that is most conducive to both peace and friendship, and not the indulgence of lies. This is the Sanskrit motto inscribed on the coat of arms of India: satyam eva jayate, na anritam. What does it mean: the truth wins, not a lie.
So, Ossetians are not Alans. Why?
1.
Because the Alans are no more. There are no Alans anywhere else. Just as there are no ancient Greeks, ancient Egyptians, Goths, Franks, Burgundians, Aryans, Krivichi, Vyatichi, Romans and many other tens and hundreds, maybe thousands of ancient and medieval peoples that used to be, but now they are not. A generation comes and a generation goes, but the earth remains forever. You can talk about the history of the territories, but on those lands where Alania once was, there was a lot of things before it, and there was a lot more after it. And now North Ossetia and several other republics. And Ossetia is not Alania. As Dagestan is not Khazaria. Nations are not eternal. We can talk about greater or lesser continuity between different peoples in different territories. For example, modern Greeks are not the same as ancient Greeks. But there is some connection and it has been historically preserved, including in the name. From ancient Egypt, the current Arab Republic of Egypt is left with only a name and almost nothing more: only pyramids, museums and mummies of pharaohs, which, as they say, are not even genetically close to the modern population of Egypt. And such conquering peoples as the Aryans, Goths and Alans did not survive at all. They had a tremendous impact on culture, took part in the ethnogenesis of not only one people, but entire strings of peoples, but they themselves dissolved in them, leaving only their own glory. It happens that way too. It's not good or bad, it's just different. The Franks conquered the Gauls and gave the name France to a country inhabited mainly by the descendants of the Gauls, while they themselves disappeared into them. The Angles were conquered by the Normans, but the Normans dissolved, and the country remained England. The White Aryans came to India, Sanskritized the entire peninsula in such a way that now the Negroid of the Polynesian type, the Hindu Brahmin, calls himself an Aryan and does not let any German or Russian into his "Aryan" temple, because non-Aryans desecrate it. As the brilliant Oles Buzina, who was killed in Ukraine by the Nazis, wrote, perhaps in a few centuries the population of Eurasia will still call themselves “Slavs”, while having dark skin and a Mongolian eye shape, and speaking Surzhik from English and Chinese. Nothing stays the same. In ethnic reality, everything is in constant motion, imperceptible on the scale of human life, but on the scale of millennia, it looks like a swarm of midges. Even the modern Jews, who claim to preserve their nation from ancient times, are not at all the Jews who were subjugated and scattered by the Romans; modern Jews are the result of constant miscegenation and it is possible that the so-called "Sephardim" are in no way related to the so-called "Ashkenazi". The State of Israel was built in a bare desert from a pure dream, and the state language of Israel, Hebrew, was recently “recreated”, that is, reinvented by philologists. What we really have in the case of the Jews is a cultural community that has retained its religion, culture and self-consciousness. This is not an ethnic group of blood, but a book that they carried with them, endlessly mixing and changing. Can the Ossetians produce a book written two or three thousand years ago in the Alanian language and since then kept in the chests of every Ossetian-Alan, in all his wanderings from Africa to Siberia? No, there is no such book. Only Jews and Hindus have such books. Moreover, the Jews with their book lost their original homeland and dispersed to foreign lands, mingling with other peoples who lived on them, and the Indians remained on their land, only these are not the peoples who wrote the books at all, but those that lived earlier or came later ; the book, it turns out, was preserved not by the people, that people no longer exist, but by the earth. And this is neither good nor bad. It's just the reality. Such is the truth. There used to be Alans, but now they are gone. There are no Russians either. But the name of the Russians was preserved by a very changed and grown people, it has already been preserved, as it happened historically. It has already happened that Russians are called Russians, and Greeks are called Greeks. But when the Ossetians, six hundred years after the death of Alania, decide that they are "Alans", and their republic is "Alania" - this is at best similar to Romania, "Romania", which decided to appoint itself the heir of Rome (Rum, Roma) and began experiments to romanize their language. Best case scenario! And so, it is more like that the inhabitants of the Arkhangelsk region will pass such a law through the parliament so that they are now called nothing more than Hyperboreans, because there is ancient evidence that it seems that Hyperboreans lived somewhere here; therefore, we are they, and we demand from now on to call us "Arkhangelsk region - the Republic of Pomoria - Hyperborea". I can also give a dozen of the same ridiculous examples. Just so that the Ossetian brothers understand: their claims to Alania are no less ridiculous than to Hyperborea, Gardarika, Atlantis and other ancient or mythical lands. Alans are no more. And at the same time, we are all a little bit Alans, a little bit Goths, a little bit Greeks, and so on; for many centuries, the blood of peoples has mixed and, more importantly, culture has constantly interacted and mutually enriched. So let go of the spirits of your ancestors, do not tie them to the leg of your desk and rejoice in the privilege of being the heir not only of the Alans, but also of the Romans, and even the Cro-Magnons, who are older only than the Neanderthals and Australopithecus, but for some reason no one is standing in line for their inheritance .
2.
What were the Alans themselves, and how is it possible now, after a thousand years, to “be Alans”? What could this mean? It is embarrassing to remind this among smart, educated people, which my readers undoubtedly are, especially Ossetians, but it has long been established by many researchers and has already become a sad common place in historical science that in ancient and early medieval times the concept of ethnos was strongly confused with the concept of class or way of life. And also the fact that the name of a cluster of tribes and territories was often given by the name of one clan, as a rule, the dominant one, even if it was the rest of a foreign language and culture. My ancestors lived in Alanya? Yes, it's very possible. Were my ancestors Alans? Hmm, well, in a way, yes. In the same sense in which, for example, the Drevlyans, brutally murdered by the Russian princess Helga, were "also Russian." And who were Russians, Russ, so to speak, in a narrow, special sense? We open The Tale of Bygone Years and read in one of the first agreements concluded with Byzantium: we, from the Russian family ... and then a list of Swedish names. This is especially true of such societies as the Alans and Goths, which, most likely, were tribes-estates of warriors, conquerors, invaders, who formed the exploiting layer in the early state formations of the barbarians. At the same time, the neighbors could also call all the conquered Alans, or Goths, but they themselves knew about the difference. At the same time, there was certainly vertical mobility: some daring from a non-Gothic tribe could enter the squad of the Gothic leader and become a “Goth” himself. And that of the Alans, who left the military class, settled on the ground, became a peasant, remained "Alan" only in a very broad sense. At the same time, the ethnic coloring of the class, of course, was; and common language and culture. But we should hardly expect genetic unity from them. Here the language and culture are rather derived from the class. So the Russian nobles were all obliged to speak French, although few of them were French. And how tribes-estates are formed, we see from the example of the Cossacks close to us. Do you remember how they accepted Gogol into the Cossacks in the Zaporizhzhya Sich? Orthodox? Do you accept the Charter of the Sich? All right, Cossack. Go to what you know kuren. Imagine, they didn’t ask for a passport, they didn’t do a DNA test for the Y-chromosome. Or maybe he had a Turkish grandmother? Therefore, among the Terek, for example, the Cossacks, Caucasians, and Tatars, and God knows who else, starting from the descendants of the Goths, are anthropologically very noticeable. But the Tatars who went out as Cossacks accepted Orthodoxy, and they understood the Russian language in its Cossack version. However, the Cossacks also fluently spoke Tatar, which even Leo Tolstoy tells us about. This is how, most likely, the tribe-estate of the Alans was formed. Therefore, it is somehow absurd to talk about its genetic-ethnic unity, and, therefore, about the biological succession from it. Apparently, therefore, the Alans, having met with the Goths, easily formed a military community and a tribal alliance, so close that neither contemporaries nor historians can sometimes separate them, and they call them that way, through a hyphen: Goth-Alans. Although it seems that the language and origin of the Goths and Alans should be completely different! However, class commonality and the same way of life (robbery, conquest, collecting tribute from conquered tribes and receiving “salaries for service” - in fact, racketeering fees - from Rome) turned out to be more important than ethnic roots. So, side by side, the Goths with the Alans moved to the West, and reached Spain, where the region of Catalonia is now called so why? Right. Because this is Goto-alania. It turns out that we are even ready (Germans) with Alans (Iranians?) not to distinguish; and you want to single out the descendants of the pure Alanian line in the cauldron of the North Caucasian peoples eight centuries after the disappearance of their ancestors. If the Alans are not only an ethnic group, but also an estate, then no "genetic markers" will help you. Although, of course, if you call Klyosov (and pay him well), he will easily prove to you that Ossetians and only Ossetians are the only male descendants of the Alans. Or the lost tribe of Israel. Or arias. Or Hyperboreans. Yes, what you order, then it will prove. Just make sure that his Kabardians do not invite you before. Or not paid more.
3.
If Ossetians are suddenly Alans, then the following question arises: what kind of Alans are Ossetians? The fact is that we first see some Alans, who, together with the Goths, driven by the Huns, as a barrage detachment, storm Europe (and North Africa!). Those Alans disappear into their Catalonia. But several centuries later we find other Alans who dominate the North Caucasus. Perhaps this is not just the same name for different tribes. Maybe they are relatives. Some went there, and others here, hid here and there, then crawled out. Happens. After all, a part of the Goths hid in the Crimea, and for several centuries there was a diocese in the Crimea called Gothia, and its capital was Mangup. Only the Crimean Gothia is still not the same Gothia, which was the power of Germanarich. In Crimean Gothia, the Goths were already heavily Hellenized, and soon became "Greeks" (because of the Greek Orthodox faith). And the population of the Crimean Gothia consisted least of all of the Goths, more of various other nationalities, of which there were always many in the Crimea. I suspect that something similar happened to the Caucasian Alania: since it turned out that the Goths and Alans are brother peoples, then their fate could be the same. After all, about a thousand years passed from the revelry of the brothers of the Alans and the Goths on the outskirts of the Roman Empire to the defeat of Alania by the Mongols. This is a lot. Too much for such a mobile people-estate as the Alans to remain the same as it was. A thousand years. No, it's unlikely. However, I repeat, I admit that the new Alans were not strangers to those ancient Alans. And yet it would be more correct to distinguish: the ancient Alans of late antiquity and the last Alans of the Middle Ages. But they were also destroyed. Fully. This is recognized by everyone, even very nationally oriented Ossetian historians. The invasion of the Mongols shook the dominion of the Alans. And then Tamerlane finished off the Alans. This is a separate long story, but Tamerlane did not just go to war against the Horde Khan, who then also owned the North Caucasus. He went to jihad, to destroy the infidels. And there was a great battle on the Terek, in which the consolidated army of the Horde and their vassals was defeated. And then Tamerlane returned, especially in order to finish off the North Caucasus. I hope to write a separate article about this. But in short, he destroyed everyone. It was a real genocide. After the campaign of Tamerlane, the population of the region decreased significantly. The blossoming earth became ashes. And the Alans took the brunt. After all, they were a military, dominant class! Naturally, they all fought. And everyone was killed. Tamerlane specifically hunted for the Alans. It was them that he intended to exterminate to the root. And destroyed it. After that, the Alans disappeared. How, for example, the Pechenegs disappeared after the Byzantines staged a genocide on them. Perhaps, even for sure, some individuals of the Alanian tribe, or even families, physically survived, and took refuge in the mountains, alone, or found shelter with the mountain people, once subject to them. But as a political reality, as a ruling class and dominant ethnic group, the Alans ceased to exist. This is an indisputable fact. And hiding with former tributaries, living according to their mercy and kindness (and, therefore, according to their customs) - this no longer means being an Alan. Even if such a person survived, he was no longer an Alan. Moreover, his children were not Alans. Nobody considered them Alans anymore. And they themselves did not consider themselves Alans. Therefore, no one, including the Ossetians, has preserved the self-consciousness of the Alans. The Alans are dead. And there is no way Ossetians can be kept secret (first of all, from themselves - until the intellectuals found historical books about the great Alans and it dawned on them: yes, it's us!) The descendants of the medieval Alans. It was easier for them to be the descendants of the Spanish Alans, the Catalans! By the way, have you done your research yet? How many words in the Ossetian language are the same as the Catalan dialect? And the anthropological type? Have the “geneticists” already collected biomaterials from the Catalans, are they on duty in the Catalan toilets, begging the Catalans, for example, for saliva in order to analyze the “markers”? Get busy, I give an idea, what is already there.
4.
Let us now look at some of the substantiations of the Ossetian-Alanian version. Or rather, the fluttering of the Ossetian-Alanian dream.
4.1. Language. The Ossetian language is an Alanian language.
An excellent conclusion. If we really knew something about the Alanian language. But we do not have a single complete and extensive literary monument in the Alanian language. Therefore, the Alanian language can be considered lost. The Gothic language would also be lost if it were not for the "Silver Code" - the Bible of Bishop Wulfilla, translated into the Gothic language. According to this book, the Gothic language was restored. There is no similar source for the Alanian language. What is there? There is a "Zelenchuk inscription". This is a drawing from an inscription allegedly made on a tombstone. When they went for the original source, they did not find it. The headstone is gone. Dissolved. Some Alan or Ossetian unconscious dragged away, made himself a floor in the bath. There was only a drawing made by a certain Strukov, who, swears by his mother, saw the stove. It was written on it in Greek letters, it seems, in the Yas language: the mournful grave of the valiant Ossetians. And names. Wait! And what about Alans? Well, Ossetians are Alans. Such "convincing" evidence. There are 4 (four!) Alanian phrases in one Byzantine source of the 12th century. Here they are called Alanian by the author of the text himself. According to linguists, the phrases are closest to the Yas language. Who are the yasas? These are relatives of the Ossetians who lived in Hungary. Would you be surprised that it was a Hungarian researcher who discovered Iasian phrases in a Byzantine source in 1927? Me not. The Ossetian researcher simply has not yet reached the Vatican library, so at least he sent a relative. Yases were known to both Russian and Byzantine chronicles separately and independently from the Alans. It seems that at that time no one considered them one people. But they could be confused. Moreover, the Yases could be part of an alliance of tribes led by the Alans. Yes, and their languages ​​\u200b\u200bcould be similar, and not only among them, but also among many tribes of the Iranian cycle: Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans (if they were also Iranians), Yases, and those whom we do not know, but who also was. It turns out that both monuments, even if their authenticity is recognized (well, you never know, originals are lost, even gravestones are lost; and that interested persons find manuscripts is also unseen! Quite often this happens) are monuments of the Yassian language. From which we can conclude that there was such a people, the Yases, and that they are very related to our Ossetians. Well, they even have the same name. In principle, we already knew this. And what about the Alans? Well, here again - our friends answer us. So the Ossetians are the Alans. What else is there in the language? Toponymy and names. Wonderful. But not enough. After all, for example, the name Atilla is best translated from the Gothic (“father”), however, according to Roman historians (and I don’t have other historians for you), Atilla was still a Hun, not a Goth. We have to conclude that the available data are quite sufficient to formulate a debatable hypothesis that the Yas language, which is close to the Ossetian language, could also be close to the Alan language if the Alans had some specific ethnic language of their own. But it is absolutely not enough to “cast in granite” and print in the constitution that Ossetians are Alans and they are, because the Alan language is known to us (in fact, not) and this is the same as the ancient Ossetian language (the presence in antiquity or in the Middle Ages of the Ossetian language refutes rather than proves the Alanian hypothesis).
4.2. Religion. The Alans were Christians, and the Ossetians retained the Alanian Christian faith.
In fact, not only the Alans and not only the ancestors of the Ossetians were Christians. Christianity (or rather, its Santerian mixture with local beliefs) was very common among the peoples of the North Caucasus until Islamization. It's just that the Ossetians later began to undergo Islamization. But now the “descendants of the Alans” are Islamizing with might and main. It is impossible to establish the continuous continuity of the Alanian diocese of Byzantine Christianity with the Ossetian church, since the Alanian diocese was destroyed along with the Alans themselves during the jihad of Tamerlane.
4.3. Archeology. Somewhere in the mountains, monuments were found indicating that the Alans lived in the mountains.
Or not Alans. And some other Iranian-speaking tribes. Or the tribes of the Alanian union. What are monuments? A business card on which it is written: Alan lived here, whose grandson became an Ossetian? No. Most often these are shards of broken dishes. Remains of buildings. Weapons (quite possibly made far away) and, if you're very lucky, bones. On which nothing is written either (but if you extract DNA from them, then with some dexterity of judgment you can prove anything). And if they really were Alans, then what does this prove, besides the fact that once, in the 6th-7th century, Alans lived somewhere here? Well, we figured it out ourselves. Especially, depending on who else is considered Alans. And what about the Ossetians? And, well, the Ossetians are the Alans. Yes, I heard. It's even in the constitution. Backdating.
5.
Who are Ossetians if they are not Alans? Oh, everything here is obscenely simple. Alans are nowhere to be found for a long time. And Ossetians are Ossetians. That is why they are called that. Or you can use their self-names (of which there are several among different tribes, united by promiscuous neighbors under the name of Ossetians, but none of the self-names in any way reminds of the Alans). The ethnogenesis of the Ossetian tribes began, like many other tribes of the North Caucasus, somewhere around the 15th century, after the invasion of Tamerlane. Because Tamerlane multiplied all former ethno-political communities by zero. After him, there were no organized peoples left, there were only surviving families that wandered through the ruins and ashes and started life anew, from scratch. It's like a new humanity after the apocalypse: there used to be France, Germany, Italy, and now there is only nuclear ashes, and the descendants of the surviving Germans and Romanians are tinkering in the ashes, joining new gangs, learning to grow potatoes and pump gasoline from abandoned tanks to refuel their terrifying types of motorcycles collected from scrap metal. You see, after two or three centuries they have new tribes. But they are no longer Romanians, but some other communities. Although, if someone has retained the ability to read and found Tolkien's book, he can proclaim that they are the sons of Mordor! And they will be proud of it. So, from the remnants, scraps of the genocide, Ossetians, on the one hand, and Vainakhs, on the other, were formed. Although there is enough in common between them. One for all the Nart epic (Tolkien's book, found in nuclear ash, was read together at first; then everyone who remembered and understood it was retold to their children). But was there a substrate? And was there a language? Of course, as without it. Here, I think, it was like this: at the time it went to the Caucasus and through the Caucasus, and many tribes of the Iranian cycle settled along the way. Some are known as Scythians, like Sarmatians, Aorses, Siraks (?), Roxalans (?), someone, perhaps, like the early ancient Alans, and we don’t know other names, but they were. These surviving remnants of various Iranian tribes formed the basis for the current Ossetian peoples. It is possible that the miraculously surviving Alanian deserters also joined them (the soldiers all died). But they hardly became the basis of a new ethnogenesis. After all, if not individual individuals were preserved, but some significant pieces of the former ruling clans, then they would rather join the new ruling clan of the Kabardian princes. Because soon they, the Circassians-Circassians-Kabardians, as a new military tribe-estate, began to rule this land. And he sees his brother-in-law from afar. For a person of that time, his was close in spirit, way of life, according to class, more than one who has a similar language, but he does not know how to fight, but grows cereals. Because the Alans so easily merged with the Goths earlier. And later they could easily combine with the Circassians and become Circassians; rather than become peasants. Own is a class sign, not an ethnic one. This is the harsh reality of the past. Yes, and now partly too. And I still feel sorry for the yas. After all, not the last people were in antiquity. Not as famous as the Alans. But it is more like an ethnic community, and not just a class-professional designation. And after all, most likely the Yases, or their North Caucasian version, were the closest ancestors of the Ossetians. And the descendants forgot about them, spat on their graves, they are ashamed of their real fathers, but they try to cling to the incomprehensible, but beautiful-sounding Alans as heirs. So the Ossetians are the descendants of the Ossetians, relatives of the Yasses. And you don't have to be ashamed of it. Ossetian - it sounds proud. We all love Ossetian cheese. Ossetians are smart, brave, wonderful people. Being an Ossetian is quite enough. It is not at all necessary to consider yourself a Hyperborean or an Atlantean.
6.
In conclusion, I want to talk a little about metisization. About mixed marriages, half-breeds and other "genetic garbage", as the supporters of "purity of blood" define it. In short, "genetic garbage" is otherwise called the aristocracy. Because mixed marriages are most characteristic of the upper classes, for rulers, exploiters, for the rich, warriors, merchants and travelers. And “purity of blood” is a sure sign of a dependent peasantry. And, of course, I myself am entirely for the working people. But the zoological nationalists are somewhat surprised, who cannot decide in any way: whether they should take off their cross, or put on shorts. “Pureness of blood” is claimed to be a sign of some kind of “aristocratism”, and mixedness is the lot of the lower caste. Although in life everything was and is exactly the opposite. Multinationality is a property of the elite, kings, princes, boyars, nobles, warriors. And “purity of blood” is a sign of serfs. If someone says that he is “pure Russian”, or “pure Georgian”, or “pure Chatlan”, then he thereby admits that his ancestors, most likely, were of a poor, servile class. And that's not bad. In Soviet times, such a person would be welcomed for a correct, labor, worker-peasant origin. But aristocrats are almost always "multinational". The purest Russian can be found in the deepest rural wilderness. Especially if his ancestors were serfs. They, of course, married each other in the same village. The master did not order to go further. The same is with other peoples, not excluding the mountain peoples. The poor, the disenfranchised were forced to keep their blood pure. But the aristocracy has always been prone to interethnic marriages. Here, we read in the Ipatiev Chronicle that in 1116, Prince Yaropolk captured an Ossetian, the daughter of the Yassky prince, because she was very beautiful, and married her. Such a Russian-Ossetian mixed marriage in the XII century. Because the prince could afford it. And at the same time, of course, somewhere in a deep forest, in a swamp, Russian peasants kept the purity of blood by marrying second cousins; and so did their distant class brothers, the Iasian poor dependent people. And mixing blood is the business of princes. And in vain do you think that the aristocrats were illegible in this matter. The same Yaropolk, he stole for himself not just a beauty, but a princess. Because to marry "one's own" is not to knock up the housekeeper, even if she is at least three times a Slav, but to have a wife from the princely class. The aristocracy is prudent in marriages. Marriage for the aristocracy is not just about getting a cook and someone to sleep with, it is an opportunity to unite estates, possessions, strengthen diplomatic ties, and so on. The elite marry their own. But for her, her own people are not bastards from the people (exploiters never consider the subject people to be their own), but the same aristocrats, no matter their own people or someone else's. Alien is even better. Before us is an example not only of princes, but of the entire Russian nobility, which was made up of: Russians, Tatars, Lithuanians, Poles, Germans, Swedes, and so on. Like different nations? No, one, because one caste. Because not any Tatars became Russian nobles, but only khans, beys, rich and powerful people. A person could change his faith and, as a result, his language and ethnicity, but his estate remained the same. If a khan came out of the Horde to Rus', then he was ranked among the princely estate, if he was a bey, then he was a boyar, and a simple Tatar warrior could only become an archer or, if he was lucky, a Cossack. Sometimes, as a sign of special merits, the monarch personally could raise the class status of a faithful servant; and then, for another two or three generations, this family was considered upstarts. For the aristocracy, the preservation of “purity of blood” means marriages within the class, and not within the ethnic group. Who is ethnicity? Serf me or something? When a descendant of a German baron gave his daughter as a descendant of a Tatar murza, this was the hereditary Russian aristocracy, an impeccable origin. And when a Russian landowner gave birth to a child from his Russian serf, then this is not just a child of misalliance, but a disenfranchised degenerate, alas. Alexander Pushkin was extremely proud of his origins. And it would not have occurred to any nobleman to reproach him with a "Negro admixture." That same legendary maternal ancestor of Pushkin, the Arap of Peter the Great, firstly, was not a galley slave at all, but the son of an African prince (!!!), a direct vassal of the Turkish sultan, and this level is almost royal; secondly, he had the emperor himself as a godfather and rose to the rank of general-in-chief. And the fact that he was black meant nothing to a normal nobleman, because the real “Negro” is his Russian white-skinned serf, and the prince, whether he be black or green, he is the prince. Pushkin was proud of his generosity both on the maternal and paternal lines, no one even in delirium considered him a “mestizo”, “geek”, “half-breed”, Pushkin himself spoke caustically about some freshly baked “aristocrats” who “jump into princes from crests ". And the point, again, is not in the ethnic group, but in the class, because Khokhols are Little Russian peasants, townsfolk or land-poor, thin landowners. It is impossible to become an aristocrat, only one born aristocrats can be an aristocrat. Such was the class principle, such were the ideas about "purity of blood" among the ruling class, almost always and almost everywhere. They never had anything to do with ethnic or even racial uniformity. I can give a thousand more illustrations, but I will stop. I hope the idea is clear. And why am I explaining this, and what does the Alans have to do with it? Well, at the same time, the Alans. Since the Alans were, most likely, not just a narrow ethnic group, but a ruling tribe-estate, a layer of warriors and rulers, there can be no particular doubt that they were for several centuries (if they existed or at least their name existed for several centuries) were able to combine with the elite and the North Caucasian societies subject to them, and with their neighbors - Georgians, Armenians, Greeks, Russians, Persians and anyone else in general. According to the principle not of ethnicity, but of class - princes in their own circle, nobles in their own, combatants in their own. And by the time of death, ethnically, culturally and in language, the "Alans" were the same as the "Russian nobles" at the time of their death: a wide range of bloodlines and knowledge of several languages, especially "international" - Greek, Latin. Therefore, there are no monuments in Alanian and there is no writing in Alanian, despite the development of Alanian civilization. The search for a literary Alanian language is meaningless, because it could not exist at all. Why is it needed? All real Alans, that is, the elite: warriors, rulers, priests, merchants - spoke and wrote in Greek, like other elites of Eastern Christendom. And among themselves they gradually began to communicate in Greek. They needed a different language only to communicate with their subjects. And it is quite possible that the Yas language was such, if the Yases and related proto-Ossetian, post-Iranian tribes made up a significant part of the subject population. Was their own language, or what was left of it for several centuries of class existence similar to the Yassian? Maybe he was. This we will never know. Maybe they could understand the yas in the same way that the Polish gentry, at the very least, understood the Russian, "Ukrainian" peasants. And before their Lomonosovs, Derzhavins, Pushkins, who began to create a literary language among the Russians on the basis of the church and chronicle Old Bulgarian, folk dialect (from a peasant nanny), the experience of Greek poetry and borrowing the grammatical structures of French and German, the Alans did not live. Tamerlane cleaned them up. Foreigners could well have mistaken this national Yas language of Alanya for Alan, although the Alans themselves did not necessarily think so, but there is very little evidence even for this (four phrases found by Yas-Hungarian in the Vatican library in the 20th century and that’s it). Such is the lining, such is the ins and outs of the claims to the Alanian inheritance. In the Caucasus, everyone understands that the one who calls himself "Alan" does not actually claim any kind of ethnic identification, but wants to classify himself as a "higher", master class, called to rule the Caucasians. And we don't like that. After long centuries of wars and strife, the mountain communities of the North Caucasus developed the rules of strict military democracy, equality of rights, and the absence of estates. This was quite surprised by Russian authors who wrote that in the North Caucasus every "bridle", every free, independent, is his own master. After the Alans, the Kabardian feudal lords owned the plains for a long time. But they were gradually supplanted by local societies - Vainakh and others. Freed from the princes. And since then there has been one proverb in the Chechen language based on untranslatable consonance, which says: whoever calls himself a prince is a dog. Therefore, loving and respecting all our peoples, honoring our history, and in it the Khazars, Alans, and Adygs, we must, nevertheless, consider our culture as a common property of all the North Caucasian peoples; consider history and legends as a common heritage; and not to declare themselves, contrary to historical truth and contrary to the fraternal, democratic customs of our peoples, as the heirs of the ruling clans, loud-sounding "Alans" or someone else. It is better in peace and friendship to study history together, to be proud of our ancestors together and to learn from them together - to learn both valor and learn a lesson from their tragic experience. And do not repeat the mistakes, do not condone the hatred that has already sharpened our land for centuries, bled it dry and made it weak before the enemies. Together we, all the peoples of the North Caucasus, and also the Tatars, and the Cossacks, and, of course, the Russian people, the support and foundation of our common statehood, are a great invincible force.
7.
My Ossetian friends will surely find many mistakes in the essay and point them out to me. I will gladly correct all the details, but the general meaning and message of my essay is unlikely to change. I want to repeat that I sincerely love all my countrymen, all brothers, which I consider all the peoples of our beautiful land, and only for the sake of good and the common good, I undertook this work, without receiving either money or honors for it. Please forgive me for forced sharpness, it is necessary to clearly identify the problem. I ask for a special apology and understanding from the Ossetian intellectuals, whom I deeply respect, whom I value infinitely, and therefore I enter into a discussion; otherwise what would I care? When a stranger does strange things or says strange things, out of politeness you pretend not to notice; but when your brother holds his hands over an open fire and is likely to get burned, you will go up to him and try to convince him not to harm yourself and others; so I turn to the Ossetians because they are like brothers to me, I will not explain to the Castilians what they are wrong, arguing with the Catalans - these are people far from us, they will figure it out themselves. But we are close to each other, not strangers. Therefore, accept with love what is made with love for you. And we can argue, but how do brothers argue, without resorting to weapons or administrative intervention "from above". In this dispute, we can be sharp and caustic, but we will not be offended by each other, and after that we will go together to eat Ossetian pie or Chechen chepelgash, which are also brothers, like you and me. I embrace you all, my dears, and let me jokingly sign.

Herman Amal Sadulayev-Gotsky,
Chechen, Cossack and Goth, direct descendant of Germanaric Amal of Goth, Rurik and Genghis Khan
St. Petersburg-Yurt, December 14, 2017

Alans (other Greek Ἀλανοί, lat. Alani, Halani) - nomadic tribes Scythian-Sarmatian origin, are mentioned in written sources from 1st century n. e. - the time of their appearance Sea of ​​Azov And Ciscaucasia .

Part of the Alans from the end 4th century took part in Great Migration, while others remained in the territories adjacent to the foothills Caucasus. The tribal union of the Alans became the basis for the unification of the Alan and local Caucasian tribes, known as Alanya, and the formation in the central Ciscaucasia of the early feudal state, which existed before the campaign of the Mongols.

The Mongols, who defeated Alania and captured the fertile plain regions of Ciscaucasia by the end of the 1230s, forced the surviving Alans to take refuge in the mountains of the Central Caucasus and Transcaucasia. There, one of the groups of Alans, with the participation of local tribes, gave rise to modern Ossetians . The Alans played a certain role in the ethnogenesis and formation of culture and other peoples North Caucasus .

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Ethnonym"Alans" first occurs in 25 year n. e. in Chinese sources as the name of the Sarmatian tribe that replaced aorsi(Yancai): “The possession of Yancai was renamed Alanliao; consists depending on Kangyuy ... The customs and attire of the people are similar to those of the Kangyuy” .

Another interesting evidence of the Chinese annals belongs to a later time: “Reign in the city of Alanmi. This country formerly belonged to the Kangyui specific ruler. Large cities are considered forty, small trenches up to a thousand. Courageous and strong are taken in zhege, which in translation into the language of the Middle State means: combatant warrior " .

Later, in 1st century n. e., evidence of the Alans is found in Roman authors. We find the earliest mention of them in Lucius Annea Seneca, in the play "Fiestes", written in the middle of the 1st century AD. e.

The name "Alans" was used by the Romans, and, after them, by the Byzantines, up to 16th century(the last mention of the Alanian diocese in the Byzantine chronicles) .

The Arabs also called the Alans by the name Allan, formed from the Byzantine "Alans". Ibn Rust (about 290 g. x./903) reported that the Alans are divided into four tribes. It is known that the westernmost of them was called "ases". IN XIII century Western scientists ( Guillaume de Rubruk) testified that “Alans and aces' are one and the same people.

Etymology

At present, a version substantiated by science is recognized V. I. Abaev - the term "Alan" is derived from the common name of the ancient Aryans and Iranians "arya" . By T. V. Gamkrelidze And Vyach. Sun. Ivanov , the original meaning of this word “host”, “guest”, “comrade” develops in separate historical traditions into “tribe comrade”, then into the self-name of the tribe ( arya) and countries.

Various opinions have been expressed about the origin of the word "Alans". So, G. F. Miller believed that "the name of the Alans was born among the Greeks, and it comes from a Greek verb meaning to wander or wander" . K. V. Mullenhof the name of the Alans was derived from the name of a mountain range in Altai , G. V. Vernadsky- from the ancient Iranian "elen" - a deer , L. A. Matsulevich believed that the issue of the term "Alan" was not resolved at all .

The names of the Alans among neighboring peoples

In the Russian chronicles, the Alans were called the word "yasy". IN Nikon Chronicle under 1029 year it is reported about the victorious campaign against the yasov of the prince Yaroslav.

In the Armenian chronicles Alans are often referred to by their own name. In Chinese chronicles, the Alans are known under the name of the Alan people. . In the Armenian medieval geographical atlas Ashkharatsuyts several Alanian tribes are described, including "the people of the Alans ash-tigor" or simply "the people of dikor", which is seen as the self-name of modern Digorians. The Alans described by him from the eastern region of Alania - "Alans in the country of Ardoz" - are the ancestors of Irons.

In Georgian sources, the Alans are referred to as ovsi, osi. This exonym is still used by Georgians in relation to modern Ossetian.

This is what Alans looked like

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

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

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

This "non-Germanic" people differed from their predecessors in that they were able to establish vast settlements in Western Europe.

The Alans existed for many years in the neighborhood of the empire, making "neighborly" visits to it from time to time. They were invincible warriors, as the Roman generals 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 passed along the river.

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

Accession to 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.

It did not last long though, as the soldiers were dissatisfied with their lives.

Association with the vandals

Alans symbolism

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

The Eternal City could not recover from such an “invasion”. More than 20 years passed until the German leader Odoacrom managed to formalize his fall. He also forced the last emperor of Rome to abdicate.

Therefore, today the name "Vandal" remains a household name.

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

But in special honor were horses, which, as already mentioned, did not differ in growth and beauty, but were famous for almost supernatural endurance, and dogs.

The patricians of Rome, satiated with material goods, preferred everything primitive, natural and simple, bringing 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: History of the invincible Alans

In the books of that time, the Romans sang of virtues, both moral and physical. The opposite process took place with the Alans. They did not hesitate to use 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 "alanized".

However, some Alanian customs were not to the liking of the Romans. They did not accept the fashion for an elongated skull and its artificial deformation common among the Alans. Although for modern historians it is this feature that facilitates the work of determining the territories of the Alans.

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

How did they achieve the unusual shape of the skull?

To change the shape of the head, immediately after birth, until the cranial bones were strong, the heads were 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 were strengthened.

Why was the elongated skull needed?

One version claims that the deformation of the skull affected the capabilities of the brain. Priests due to this quickly plunged into a trance. This tradition was adopted later by the local aristocracy. It soon became a fashion.

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

But, the "steppes" often used the tactics of a false retreat, which was often caught by the enemy, thus achieving victory. When the ranks of the Alans fleeing from the advancing infantry broke up 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 great combat capabilities, which they could not ignore in the west. The Alans elevated the fighting spirit into a kind of cult.

Ancient writers explained that at that time it was honorable for the Alans to die in battle, even joyfully, because they believed that the dead served God. Those Alans who lived to old age and died in their homes were despised, considered cowards who dishonored their families.

The importance of the Alans in the development of European military art

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

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

Legends of Arthur

It is different for different researchers. Researchers Malkon with Littleton see her in the sacred chalice and the Grail from the Ossetian epic (Nart) - Nartamonga.

Path to Independence

Two militant tribes - Alans and Vandals, united, 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 seized the ships, and went on them to North Africa. Geiserin was the leader of the Alans. They landed in the Roman colonies, which suffered at that time from internal uprisings against the current government, and from frequent raids by the Berbers, so they were weakened. The Alans captured significant territories in a matter of days.

• The lands, including Carthage, were a tasty morsel for the Alans.
• Having seized a strong fleet, the Alanian warriors often visited Sicily and the shores of southern Italy.
• Rome had no other choice, and in 442 he recognized the independence of the Alans, and even 30 years later, his defeat.

During the period of existence on a vast territory, militant people left a rather “long” trail - from the foothills of the Caucasus 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, Ossetians are their descendants. In modern Ossetia, there is even a movement demanding the return of the historical name to the country.

Ossetians have every reason for this:

linguistic community;

territorial;

folk epic.

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

In some ancient sources, it is stated that the Alans are a collective image of nomads and hunters who lived north of the Caucasus and the Caspian. Most likely, the Ossetians represent only a small proportion of the followers 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 originates from "Alans". They have lived in the Luares since the beginning of the fifth century, mixing with the British.

Alans - debunking the myth of "Mingi-Tau", magazine No. 1, 2020 “Stalin was brought another list of those subject to repression, where the first name was Abaev. Opposite it, he put a tick with a red pencil and said: “Leave this one. Good scientist. Transfer to Moscow. Everything turned out to be simple: the leader used the books of Vaso Abaev (in particular, his work “Ossetian Language and Folklore”), of course, without mentioning it anywhere” 2. Abaev fulfilled the assignment given to him, removed the Turkic people from the territory of the Caucasus and justified that in the Caucasus, only one people can be called - Ossetians. It was at his suggestion that in modern Alan studies a point of view was established about the continuity of the Indo-Aryan and Iranian-speaking peoples in the following sequence: Scythians and Sarmatians → Alans → Ossetians, and the opinion expressed by Abaev became an indisputable scientific statement. However, the belonging of the Scythians to the Indo-Aryans and the assertion that they were an Iranian-speaking people are at least the inventions of Miller and Abaev. Their statements turned out to be so strained, if not fictional, that serious scientific studies have repeatedly appeared in the modern press, completely breaking the ideas and constructions of Abaev. Science has never seen a more falsified book than the "Dictionary of Scythian Words" compiled by Abaev. Neither world history nor world linguistics knows such a blatant forgery. * It was during Stalin's time that Ossetians were unexpectedly appointed to be Alans, and for this statement and "scientific justification" a huge machine called the USSR was involved. One modern researcher noted that at one time in our country it was difficult to find even a newspaper, a magazine or any other publication where the question about the Alans and Ossetians did not appear in the crossword puzzle. Even in "Pionerskaya Pravda" there was a question in the crossword without fail: Who were the ancestors of the Ossetians? The answer is 5 letters. On the topic of Ossetians - the descendants of the Alans, tons of papers were written with references to this or that historian, philologist, linguist, but no one objected to the fact that some of these texts were corrected at the discretion of Ossetian historians and no one objected to their anti-scientific version. And when it comes to the fact that some Caucasian peoples - Ingush, Chechens, cannot be direct descendants of the Alans, then gross accusations are poured. Therefore, it was very difficult for such Turkic peoples of the North Caucasus as Karachays and Balkars to argue with Ossetian authors until a new science appeared: DNA genealogy. But let's start in order. In the USSR, Vasily (Vaso) Ivanovich Abaev became the author and creator of the theory of the origin of the Ossetian people from the Alans. Here is a brief biographical note about him. Here is a page of his biography, this is not our opinion, but taken from materials posted on many sites on the Internet. He is called an outstanding scientist, he is an Iranian-Ossetian scholar, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor, Doctor of Philology, senior researcher at the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, full member of the Asian Royal Society (Academy) of England (1966), corresponding member of the Finno-Ugric Society in Helsinki (1973), twice laureate of the Prize. K. Khetagurova, Honored Scientist of Georgia and North Ossetia, laureate of the USSR State Prize. Author of many works on general and comparative linguistics, Iranian studies and Ossetian studies: Nart epic (1945), Ossetian language and folklore (1949). One of Abaev's main works is Historical and Etymological Dictionary of the Ossetian Language (1958); it traces the etymology and history of Ossetian words on the material of 190 languages ​​of the world and the connection of the Ossetian language with Iranian and Indo-European, as well as with Turkic, Finno-Ugric and other languages. Emyurleni tereninden 85 Article Vasily (Vaso) Abaev was born in 1900 in the village of Kobi in the family of an Ossetian highlander. He received his primary education at a rural school, and his secondary education at the Tiflis 6th Classical Gymnasium (1910–1918). From 1918 to 1921 he worked as a teacher at the Kobi primary school. In 1922 he entered the Leningrad State University on the Iranian level of the ethnological and linguistic department of the faculty of social sciences. He graduated from the university course in 1925. At the same time, at the suggestion of N. Ya. After graduating from graduate school in 1928, he was sent to work at the Caucasian Historical and Archaeological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Tiflis, and in 1930 he was enrolled as an employee of the Japhetic Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was later reorganized into the Institute of Language and Thought. N.Ya. Marr, in Leningrad. Since 1929, he has been a professor at the Department of General Linguistics at LIFLI. From December 16, 1930 to December 1931, V. Abaev combined work at the institute with work at the Public Library, at first and. O. chief librarian for the Eastern Department with half the salary, and then the chief librarian of the ONL. In 1935, Abaev was awarded the degree of candidate of philological sciences (without defending a dissertation), in the same year he was appointed head of the Iranian office of the Institute of Language and Thought (the emphasis in this word is placed on the first syllable). Working outside of Ossetia, Abaev did not break ties with his homeland and provided great assistance to local workers, editing and reviewing scientific and other literature, advising them when traveling to the republic. So, in January 1941, Abaev was sent to Ossetia with a special assignment from the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences to advise on the study of the Ossetian Nart epic. During the Great Patriotic War, Abaev failed to return to Leningrad, and in 1941-1945. he worked at the North Ossetian and South Ossetian research institutes, and in 1944 he also headed the department of linguistics at the North Ossetian Pedagogical Institute. Only in the autumn of 1945 did he return to Leningrad. In the autumn of 1945, V. Abaev returned to Leningrad and again began working at the Institute of Language and Thought, which was transformed after a discussion in 1950 into the Institute of Linguistics. There he published his fundamental work on the Ossetian language and folklore. In 1952, together with the main core of the institute's scientists, he was transferred to Moscow. In 1962 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philology (without defending a dissertation), and in 1969 he was awarded the title of professor. Vaso Abaev made a significant contribution to various areas of linguistics. He published more than 270 works on the theory of etymology and the history of linguistic research, Iranian and Indo-European linguistics, and on various issues of general linguistics. Especially much has been done by scientists in the field of Ossetian and Nart studies. All 86 "Mingi-Tau" were subjected to deep research in Ossetian works. No. 1. 2020 main problems of modern grammar and lexicology, phonetics and morphology, dialectology and history of the Ossetian language. Vaso Abaev is the compiler of the Historical and Etymological Dictionary of the Ossetian Language. Of the large number of folklore works, Abaev’s studies dedicated to the world-famous heroic epos “Narty” stand out. In a number of works, Abaev acts as a literary critic, having published articles on the work of Kost Khetagurov, Geor Maliev, Seka Gadiev, as well as separate theoretical works on various problems of literary criticism. Abaev participated in the XVI Congress of German Orientalists (Halle, 1958) and the XXV International Congress of Orientalists (Moscow, 1960). V. Abaev was a full member of the Royal Asiatic Soc. of Great Britain and Ireland and a corresponding member of the Finno-Ugric Society in Helsinki. He lectured at the Collège de France (Paris, 1966). Vasily Abaev - Honored Scientist of the North Ossetian ASSR (1957) and the Georgian SSR (1980), the first laureate of the State Prize. Kosta Khetagurova (1966), laureate of the USSR State Prize (1981). He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, medals “For the Defense of the Caucasus” and “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945”. Vaso Abaev lived to be 101 years old. An entire era in Russian linguistics and Iranian studies is associated with his name. Abaev became the first pioneer in Alan studies, who made a lot of efforts to establish the idea of ​​Ossetians belonging to the Alan ethnic group. And it happened, as we believe, that's why. When Stalin had the idea of ​​fighting the Turks, he began to look for a specialist who could fulfill this complex idea of ​​the leader, write a scientific justification for the absence of the Turks in the Caucasus. The choice fell on Vaso Abaev not by chance. On the one hand, the beloved student of N.  J.  Marr, who not only practically replaced his teacher after his death, but also successfully promoted the new doctrine of language, taking into account the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of language. And now we need to dwell in some detail on the teachings of Marr and the fulfillment of his precepts by Abaev. * * * Here is a brief biography of the linguist, philologist and archaeologist Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr (1864/65–1934). He was born on December 25, 1864 (January 6, 1865 according to the new style; according to other sources, May 25, or June 6 according to the new style, 1864) in Kutaisi. His father was the Scot James Marr, the founder of the Kutaisi Botanical Garden, who, having become a widow at the age of 80, married a young Georgian woman. My father spoke only English and French, my mother only Georgian. Marr's childhood passed in Georgia and among the Georgians, he began to study other languages ​​at the Kutaisi gymnasium and showed outstanding abilities for them. Marr's works are written in Russian. In 1888 he graduated from the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg University, in 1891-1918 he taught there, from 1902 he was a professor, from 1911 he was the dean of the faculty. From 1912 Marr was an academician (of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, then the Russian Academy of Sciences, and then the Academy of Sciences of the USSR). In 1918–1934 director of the State Academy of the History of Material Culture, in 1921-1934 director of the Japhetic Institute of the Academy of Sciences founded by him, transformed in 1931 into the Institute of Language and Thought of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in 1926-1930. director of the Public Library, in 1930–1934 Vice President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He held Marr and a number of other leadership positions and at the same time taught at Leningrad University and other universities. Marr died in Leningrad on December 20, 1934. But behind these sparse lines lies a rather turbulent activity, half of which took place in the Russian Empire, where he was not only a scientist, but also a believer and even the headman of the Georgian church in St. Petersburg. The second half of his life, and with it considerable scientific activity, was already in the Soviet Union, where he had to adapt to the new Bolshevik ideology. We will quote V.M. Alpatov, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Philology, Professor from his serious work “The History of a Myth: Marr and Marrism” Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr, although he was a polyglot, never once in his life listened to a single theoretical course in linguistics. He learned only the general concepts of comparative historical linguistics about the relationship of languages ​​and language families, did not know how to put into practice the method of comparative historical analysis, but, nevertheless, he was drawn to broad and far-reaching constructions that he could not prove. In Marr's character there were many qualities inherent in a great scientist - great natural abilities, extensive knowledge, great capacity for work, enthusiasm for work, conviction in the correctness of his ideas, desire for generalizations, interest in interdisciplinary research, concern for students, talent as an organizer of science. . However, all these qualities were devalued by a complete lack of a sense of proportion and self-criticism. And any of the positive qualities of Marr, going to the extreme, turned into the opposite, the vastness of knowledge - into superficiality and approximation, efficiency and enthusiasm - into graphomania, conviction - into dogmatism, the desire for generalizations and new ideas - into the promotion of fantastic hypotheses, concern for students - into despotism in relation to them, the talent of the organizer - into the desire for monopoly. Marr was called "the iron-handed dean." Even before the revolution, he expelled all competitors from the field of Caucasian studies (by the way, the only one where he really was a professional), quarreled with all the students of the first generation, as soon as they began to show independence. These properties had less effect on Marr's scientific output while he was engaged in the subject in which he was prepared. But, to the misfortune of himself and science, even in the pre-revolutionary years, Marr began to go more and more into the field of linguistics, where he was an amateur. Even before the revolution, he announced the existence of the so-called Japhetic family of languages, which included almost all the languages ​​of the Mediterranean and Western Asia, whose family ties were not even clear at that time. This delusional hypothesis was still within the limits of the theoretically possible, but the degree of scientificity of its development is already evidenced by the fact that Marr categorically included the undeciphered Etruscan language and the Pelagic language, about which nothing was known at that time except their name. Here is his opinion: “Basque belongs to the Japhetic family of languages ​​and is related to Georgian, Svan, Abkhaz, Batsbi, Lak. The Pelagic language, - Marr wrote further, - on the one hand, in the west, is related to Etruscan, on the other hand, in the east, with such a language as Lezgian or Lak and ancient Urartian in Armenia" 1 . All this nonsense was perceived at that time as a new phenomenon in linguistics. And since the “Japhetic languages”, with the light hand of Marr, became more and more and it became more and more difficult to explain the commonality of their origin only by the migrations of ancient peoples, Marr had to make a choice between the results he wanted to obtain and the principles of comparative historical linguistics. And the choice was made - in favor of the desired results. In November 1923 (since that time, the Marrists then counted the "new era" in linguistics), Marr made his first report, where he denied the basic postulates of the science of language. The "Japhetic theory" turned into a "new doctrine of language" (although the term "Japhetic theory" as a synonym for "new doctrine" existed later). Marr was never able, despite the huge number of published works, to give a coherent exposition of his teaching, individual fragments of which he subjected to countless modifications until the end of his life. However, in its most general form, this doctrine boils down to two propositions. The first of them was diametrically opposed to the usual linguistic ideas about the development of a family of languages ​​as a gradual disintegration of the once single proto-language into different, but genetically related languages. According to Marr, "proto-language is a scientific fiction that has served its purpose," and the development of languages ​​goes in the opposite direction from plurality to unity. Languages ​​arose independently of each other: not only the Russian and Ukrainian languages ​​are not originally related, but each Russian dialect and dialect was once a separate, independently emerged language. Then there is a process of crossing, when the two languages ​​are combined into a new, third language, which is equally a descendant of both ancestral languages. For example, French is a crossed Latin-Japhetic language, and the lack of declension and underdevelopment of conjugation is its original Japhetic feature. In turn, Latin is the result of crossing the "language of the patricians" and the "language of the plebeians", the latter also being Japhetic. The process of crossing languages ​​will be completed under communism, when all the languages ​​of the world merge into one, Marr argued. The second provision was as follows. Although languages ​​arose independently of each other, they have developed and will continue to develop according to absolutely uniform laws, although at different rates. Sound speech, which arose in primitive society as a result of the class struggle, initially consisted of the same four elements sol, ber, yon, rosh, which had the character of “diffuse cries”. Gradually, words began to form from their combinations, phonetics and grammar appeared. Languages ​​go through the same stages of development, determined by the level of socio-economic development. At some socio-economic stage, any nation has a language of a certain phonetic and grammatical type. Moreover, these languages, regardless of geographical location, also have a material similarity: Marr wrote that for any people at a certain stage of development, water will be called su, as in a number of Turkic languages. When the basis changes, the language, as part of the superstructure, undergoes a revolutionary explosion and becomes structurally and materially different, but traces of the previous stages remain in the language, up to four elements that can be distinguished in any word of any language. Marr called the search for such traces linguistic paleontology. Both positions of Marr contradicted not only all the linguistic theories that existed by that time, but also the accumulated factual material. It has long been established that, for example, Latin was the parent language for the Romance languages, that the simplification of morphology in French is not an ancient, but a relatively new phenomenon, recorded in monuments, that the separation of the Russian and Ukrainian languages ​​also occurred in the historical era. At the same time, no one could prove the existence of the four elements or "language explosions" at critical historical epochs. But for Marr, established facts simply did not exist. In his research on the history of words, he rejected the strict phonetic laws discovered by nineteenth-century science, relying solely on external consonance, which could be assigned to any arbitrary development of meaning. So, Marr connected the German words Hund, “dog”, and hundert, “hundred”, which actually had different origins, inventing the following “patterns of development”: dog - totem “dog” - members of the genus - many people - many - one hundred. He calmly compared the French rouge, “red”, with a part of the races of the Russian red (he simply discarded the initial part of the root as unnecessary), linking both words with the primary element rosh, to which he erected the names of the peoples Russ, Et-Rus-ki, pe-las-gi, lez-gins, etc. All these exercises were pure imagination, moderated only by ideological considerations (Marr indignantly rejected the very real common origin of the words slave and work). Marr could say anything. Either he declared that the Russian language is in many respects closer to Georgian than to Ukrainian, then he defined the German language as transformed by a revolutionary explosion ... Svan, then he called the Smerds an Ibero-Sumerian layer of Russians. In the “new doctrine of language”, some of Marr’s previous ideas were preserved, first of all, the identification of “Japhetic languages”, which were already understood not as a family, but as a stage in language development, although Marr could not describe the signs of this stage. Nevertheless, even before the official recognition and inculcation of the “new doctrine of language” had undeniable popularity. It was not the attraction of scientific theory. That was the attraction of the myth. Marr's passion was due to many reasons. Among them are the scientific authority of Marr, based primarily on his early non-linguistic works, and the brightness of his personality, and the breadth of the range of his problems. But two of them were of particular importance: the coincidence of his activities with the period of the crisis of world linguistics and the consonance of his ideas with the era of the twenties. Criticism of Marr's "new doctrine of language" is a very simple task and accessible to anyone with a philological education. A flagrant inconsistency with the facts and the results obtained in science, lack of evidence and fundamental unprovability of provisions, illogicality, inconsistency, complete isolation from practice - all this is obvious. However, the question is natural: if the doctrine is so obviously bad, why was it fundamental for Soviet linguistics for two decades? The gap between the scientific weakness of the “new doctrine of language” and the strength of its influence is so enormous that it requires explanation” 1. As it has been rightly noted, the twentieth century brought to mankind many myths of various kinds. Among them, a prominent place was occupied by scientific myths, which in a distorted form reflected the notions of the omnipotence of science that had entered everyday life. Real science often did not correspond to such ideas, and pseudoscience consciously or unconsciously speculated on them, promising to solve any existing and non-existent problems. This appealed to the broad masses and representatives of the authorities, who were not specialists in a particular science, and many of them had no education at all. Using their support, the myth-makers achieved a monopoly position not only in science, but also in society. And here Marr was one of these myth-makers, if not the main myth-maker, who invented so much in history and linguistics that the consequences of his crazy ideas still resonate. Especially Marr was a sophisticated inventor of the myth of language. Yes, his lack of linguistic education (at that time strictly separated from Oriental studies) prevented Marr from scientifically testing his a priori hypotheses and did not limit his imagination in any way. Having learned a large number of languages ​​on a practical level, moreover, he more or less fully possessed information about the history of only the Kartvelian and Abkhaz languages. At the same time, the already well-studied history of the Indo-European and Turkic languages ​​was actually ignored by him. He gathered around him a group of students who were not linguists in the full sense of the word, but they were historians, orientalists, and it was easier for him to inspire them with something that they knew little about. Among his students were those who later became prominent scientists, such as I.A. Javakhishvili, I.A. Orbeli, A.A. Kalantar, A.G. SHANIDZE. But the outbreak of the First World War, and then the revolution of 1917 in Russia, interrupted Marr from working on archaeological expeditions in the Caucasus, and this became a great incentive for his theoretical work. Interest in the Caucasus, in the past of its peoples, has always been in the sphere of Marr's constant interests since pre-revolutionary times. It was then that he very energetically promoted the organization of the “Caucasian Historical and Archaeological Institute”. He repeatedly raised the question of creating such a scientific center in the Caucasus, in Tiflis. Back in 1906, he prepared a project for the organization of the Georgian Academy of Sciences. But these projects were shattered by the resistance of the government, which was afraid that such a scientific center would turn out to be a conductor of anti-government ideas. activities set a specific task - compiling an ethnographic map of Russia with explanatory notes. Marr wrote three works for the commission: “The tribal composition of the population of the Caucasus”, “Caucasian tribal names and their local parallels”, “Talysh”, which are actually historical and ethnographic studies. At the same time, he wrote a number of works on historical geography, toponymy, ethnonymy, etc. It was Marr who was one of the first who proved the importance of onomastics, proving how important this science is for studying the historical past of the people. April 18, 1919 Council of People's Commissars, signed by V.I. Lenin approved the project of transforming the former archaeological commission into the State Academy of Material Culture. Marr was elected the first chairman of the GAIMK. Interest in the Caucasus led Marr to the conviction that the ancestral home of the peoples of the Caucasus should be sought far beyond its borders. “The multitude of Japhetic languages ​​in the Caucasus and their location on the square of this region, which do not coincide with the degrees of kinship, prompt us to look for the ancestral home of the Caucasian Japhetids in another place and on a wider territory”1. In his work “How does Japhetic linguistics live?” Marr noted the significance of the natural psychological kinship of the peoples of the Caucasus. “Our new linguistic doctrine,” he wrote, “after all, correctly illuminates this unity of them. This psychology, which springs like a living spring from the nature of the inhabitants of the region, its source, revealed by linguistics, what is taught? They create a new ideological ground for the unity of the peoples of the Caucasus, its inhabitants, they make the psychological necessity of such unity absolutely palpable. We are also convinced of its necessity by the economic study of the natural forces of the region, and this necessity is also evidenced by the attempt, repeatedly repeated over the centuries, giving brilliant results, to eliminate the life of the Caucasus by the joint efforts of its inhabited peoples. But natural-psychological kinship also requires cultivation, its growth and development must be supported artificially; each of the peoples of the Caucasus should be imbued with the consciousness of their kinship, its significance, as an essential natural and historical factor of progress, should be realized first of all by the peoples of the most advanced, more free-thinking part of them, the youth, the true initiator of the future” 2 . The indigenous peoples of the Caucasus, even the indigenous languages ​​of the Caucasus, according to Marr, are not a phenomenon of local origin: the Japhetic family to which the original population of the Caucasus belongs, alien people here, just like the Ari-Europeans and Turks who subsequently appeared, not to mention others , not introduced by whole tribes, the masses, with the difference, however, that the Japhetic family emigrated from the former territory of its settlement neighboring from the south, if not the ancestral home, from Mesopotamia, naturally spilling over into the neighboring Caucasian countries in ethnic masses. The study of the history of the Caucasus allowed Marr to assert that the peoples of the Caucasus deserved the right to demand “a reassessment of the actual share of participation in the creation of a universal culture of Aryan or non-Aryan peoples, European or non-European countries, nationalities and states great or small in number and territorial size”1. In his outline of the historical process in the Caucasus, Marr wrote that throughout their history the peoples of the Caucasus were strong in unification and that now, when “life has demanded a revision of the relationship between the old and new national groups of the Caucasian world and the freedom of their new self-determination”, it is necessary “to in the interests of human internal cultural coexistence to restore on new grounds the ancient solidarity that has now been lost not only in real life, but also in the idea, in the minds of peoples bound by a common destiny” 2 . In the “new doctrine of language” he created (“Japhetic theory”), which he presented in November 1923, completely unscientific, completely unverifiable and unprovable statements, such as the origin of all languages ​​from the “four elements”, the idea “Japhetic languages” as a kind of not genetic, but social-class community, and the like. What is this theory? And where did such a strange name come from? Strange as it may seem, the Bible came to Marr's aid. Marr wrote that the biblical Noah had three sons: Shem (Semitic languages), Ham (Hamitic languages) and Japheth (Yaphet). After the Flood, Japhet began to live in the Caucasus. From him, according to Marr, all the Caucasian peoples originated. Hence, all the Caucasian languages ​​became, according to him, Japhetic. Despite the far-fetchedness and fabulousness of this theory, however strange it may seem, everyone accepted it as a discovery beyond any doubt. Well, then Marr delves into "an unexplored source of the history of the Caucasian world" 3 . The deeper Marr captures the material of non-written North Caucasian languages, the clearer becomes what he had long ago expressed at the end of the 19th century, but only in 1916 received a complete formulation, the statement about the paramount importance of studying non-written living languages, for understanding the completeness of the historical process. At first, Marr wanted to fix the relationship of the Georgian, Mingrelian, Svan, Chan languages ​​with Semitic and Hamitic by such postulates. As he argued, after all, Shem, Ham and Japhet were siblings, and they had everything in common, not only the fact of birth, but they also communicated in the same language. But this was only the beginning of his pseudo-linguistic research, on which he did not think to stop. Soon he declared related all the ancient (dead) languages ​​of the Mediterranean basin and Western Asia with living languages ​​(Caucasian or Iberian-Caucasian), Basque, Vershik (Pamir), etc.1 Of course, to declare almost all languages ​​of the East (as dead and alive) only by their descent from three siblings seems like an overstretch. But only for an unbiased reader, who does not even have anything to do with linguistics, but not for Marr. Nor was it a stretch for the internationalist communists, in a word, for all those for whom an idea conceived immaculately, i.e. without contact with the facts, was much more important than its scientific justification. As noted by V.M. Alpatov, Marr, as it were, picked up all the “poorly lying languages”, i.e. not assigned to specific groups and, without hesitation, attached them to the "Japhetic". So, language to language, more than a decent “collection” has gathered and, according to Marr, the Caucasus has become almost the parent center of all languages ​​​​of the world, including all ancient, ancient pre-Greek, Etruscan and Hittite languages. The Chuvash, Hottentot, and Kabyle languages ​​also fell into the Japhetic languages. It turned out to be surprisingly simple and elegant: “... stubborn facts” made room in front of the “stubborn author”, wrote V.I. Abaev 2 . As time has shown, Marr's main linguistic idea - the kinship of all Caucasian languages ​​- has not been confirmed 3 . But this will happen later, and while Marr's fame is expanding, new students are clinging to him. Quite quickly, new students from among the students began to appear in the group of already determined adherents. Such were V.I. Abaev, S.L. Bykhovskaya, A.N. Genko. Abaev, already in his second year of university, invited to the Japhetic Institute, created by Marr, as a freelancer, recalls this institution as one of the centers of intellectual life in Petrograd in the early 1920s. "They went to the 7th line of Vasilyevsky Island, driven by a thirst for new ideas and the unique strength of Marr's unique personality." And then Abaev noted: "Marr was at the zenith of his glory" 4 . Marr's name is widely known, and the ideas of Japhetidology penetrate even into poetry. Valery Bryusov, who was friends with Marr, wrote the poem “ZSFSR” in 1924: “... And how many legends! From the days of Atlantis The Japhetids bring revelations for us! Vladimir Zakharov