On the Origin of Ethnonym Rus’ and of the Rurikid Lineage: A Look at the Slavo-FinnoScandinavian Frontier of the 9th–11th Centuries AD from the Point of View of Kinship Studies

Abstract

The article looks at the North-East European cultural borderlands in the 9th–11th centuries from the point of view of kinship studies. The author proposes a new etymology of the ethnonym Rus’ which he derives from the Old Russian kinship term *rodičь (“kinsman, relative”). Originally the ethnonym Rus’ was a calque of the self-name of the Swedes, reshaped under the influence of Finno-Ugric languages. The transformation of a kinship term into an ethnonym took place during the evolution of the East Slavic social organization towards new ethnic-state formations associated with the ascension to power of new clans and the development of a linear system of inheritance of princely power. Modern and paleogenomic Y-DNA data from Swedes, Slavs, Balts and Rurikids are used to reconstruct the specifics of interaction between clan structures, molecular lineages and anthroponyms in the context of the North-East European cultural borderlands. The article demonstrates ways of integrating the best elements of Normanist and anti-Normanist thinking in Russian and foreign historiography into a single paradigm for solving the “Varangian problem”.