6 what century. See what "VI century" is in other dictionaries

The most valuable monument, which contains information about the formation of the Russian state, is the chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years". From there you can learn about the origin of the Russian land and about who was the first prince in Kiev. The chronicle was most likely compiled by the Kiev monk Nestor around 1113 Nestor used Russian chronicles written earlier, monuments of Byzantine and West Slavic writing, as well as folk legends. He was engaged in a special search for answers that require questions of Russian history.

Nestor's work has come down to our days, but it has various kinds of distortions and layering, since it was later revised, but the original version of the manuscript "The Tale of Bygone Years" has also survived, which testifies to the fascinating attempt of the monk XII c. to answer the question: "How did the Russian land appear?" His story begins, like all medieval historians, with a worldwide flood.

The chronicler tells how in antiquity the Western and Eastern Slavs settled in Europe. In the chronicle, the East Slavic tribes are divided according to the level of development, which, in accordance with the description, was different, into two groups. One of the groups lived, as he put it, "in a bestial manner," while maintaining the features inherent in the tribal system: blood feud, remnants of the matriarchal system, marriage prohibitions, abduction of wives were completely absent. Such tribes are opposed to the clearing, on the land of which Kiev was built. Glades were "meaningful men", they already had patriarchal monogamous families, they had a "meek and quiet" character.

The archaeological map of those lands of the 2nd-5th centuries can serve as a confirmation of Nestor's words. n. e. First, the funeral rite, which is described in the document: the remains of the burnt dead were buried in pillars-domina and urns, fully corresponds to the burial rite, since fields were discovered where burial urns were located. Secondly, the Drevlyans, Radimichs and Vyatichs, who inhabited the flattering regions of the right bank of the Dnieper, the Sozh River and the Oka River, actually had a lower level of culture. The territory of the meadows to a large extent coincides with the place where approximately in the II-V centuries. Chernyakhov culture spread, and its carriers have already approached and almost crossed the very last border of the primitive communal system,

Further, the monk reports on how the city of Kiev was created. Prince Kiy, who ruled there, according to Nestor's narrative, visited the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, who always received the Kiev ruler with all the honors. Kiy built a city on the banks of the Danube River, hoping to stay here for a long period, but the locals considered him their enemy, and Kiy had to return to the bank of the Danube.

Composition of Procopius of Caesarea, who is the historian of Byzantium VI v. tells that Emperor Justinian I invited to serve the Antsky prince and set him the task: to ensure the protection of the fortress on the Danube River. But the neighboring tribes forced the prince who came to leave the city. The chronicles of Procopius and Nestor describe the history of Russia in almost the same way. 6 century.

The first event in history on the way to the creation of the Old Russian state, according to the chronicle of Nestor, the emergence of the principality of Polyans in the Middle Dnieper region. The story of Kei and his two brothers spread very far to the south. But still it remains unknown whether in reality Prince Kiy was or is it just an epic name that was formed from the name of the city of Kiev and refers to any prince who lived around the time of Justinian. It is worth paying tribute to the fact that the Kiev chronicler described the most important border in the history of the Eastern Slavs, he noted how tribal alliances were formed, princes appeared who ruled huge masses of people, fortresses were built - cities, which over time were transformed into cities and feudal castles.

Russian history 6 century is similarly described by other Byzantine writers. Their narratives convey the changes that occurred in the life of the Slavic tribal names, which were reflected in the regrouping of the tribe during the period of time when their alliances were formed. Also, Byzantine historians talk about how the leaders of the type of Mesamir, the son of Idarisius, appeared among the Antes, who were dangerous for Byzantium by the possibility of their unification and the leadership of the "countless tribes" of the Antes. A well-known fact about the Slavic princes is that the Byzantines tried to invite them to serve and gave them the role of chiefs of squadrons and border regions, generals.

During the reign of Justinian I a very large number of Slavs were able to advance to the northern borders of the Byzantine Empire. They crossed the Danube, crossed the border fortifications and were engaged in the seizure of the fertile Balkan lands. Byzantine historians very vividly describe how Slavic troops invaded the empire, and then took prisoners and took away wealth, as well as how Slavic colonists settled the empire. Since the Slavs had communal relations, their appearance in Byzantium contributed to the destruction of the slave system here and the development of feudalism.

The successful struggle of the Slavs with Byzantium may indicate that the level of development of the Slavs was quite high at that time. Long-distance campaigns contributed to the strengthening of the power of the princes in the territories of the indigenous Slavs, this was accompanied by the creation of tribal reigns.

It is quite obvious that the glade led the tribal union, which was formed in the Middle Dnieper region, the names of the remaining tribes were gradually supplanted and they all spread throughout almost the entire forest-steppe zone and settled in Eastern Europe, which was occupied by Slavic farmers and other various nomadic tribes.

The state of Polyan-Rus, with the story about which the chronicler's narration begins, gives rise to the history of the statehood of Russia.

Scientists have found in the Byzantine chronicles of 536-540 AD mentions of the closure of the Sun by a "black cloud". This "darkening", according to the chronicler Procopius of Caesarea and other chroniclers, continued for several months. It was with this celestial phenomenon that other cataclysms of that time were associated, such as crop failures, famine, political unrest and the Justinian plague.

Death "black" and "red"

The so-called Justinian's plague was the world's first recorded plague pandemic. It got its name, since it began during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I and covered almost the entire civilized world. However, separate plague epidemics broke out after that for centuries - from 541 to 750.

Researchers believe that the source of the plague appeared in Ethiopia or Egypt, from where rats and fleas infected with the infection "arrived" along with a cargo of grain to Constantinople through trade channels. From there, the epidemic spread throughout Byzantium, and then spread to neighboring countries ... By the end of 654, it reached North Africa, covering all of Europe, Central and South Asia and Arabia.

In Byzantium, the pandemic reached its climax by 544. According to the chronicles, in Constantinople alone, up to 5 thousand people died from the plague every day, and sometimes the death rate reached 10 thousand people a day ... 40 percent of the city's population was destroyed.

In the East, the plague killed about 100 million people, in Europe - about 25 million. Irish sources speak of crom conaill ("Red Death"), which became the cause of death of many saints and monarchs in the years 549-550. So, it was from her that the Welsh king Gwynedd Maelgun and Saint Finnian of Clonard died ...

If desired, prophecy about these events can be found in the Bible. This is what is said in the ninth chapter of the Revelation of John the Theologian:

"She opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke came out of the pit, like smoke from a great furnace; and the sun and air were darkened by the smoke from the pit ...

So I saw in a vision horses and riders on them, who had on themselves fiery, hyacinth and sulfur armor; the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions, and fire, smoke and brimstone came out of their mouths ... From these three ulcers, from fire, smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths, a third of the people died ... "

Volcanic horror

What happened? Scientists believe that the reason for the solar blackout was volcanic eruptions, traces of which were found in the ice of Greenland and Antarctica.

"Each of these eruptions, which occurred in 536 and 540, should have greatly affected the life of civilizations at that time, and their effect was amplified by the fact that they occurred with an interval of only four years," comments Kruger. we know which volcanoes were responsible for this, but we have several candidates for this role in Central and North America, as well as Indonesia. "

Volcanoes are believed to have thrown large amounts of ash into the atmosphere, causing the so-called "volcanic winter". Something similar, only on a local scale, happened in 1815 after the explosion of the Indonesian mountain Tambor.

Ice and sulfur

Kruger and her colleagues found confirmation of the "volcanic" hypothesis by analyzing the chronicles of the 6th century and examining samples of Greenland and Antarctic ice that formed during that era.

It turned out that these ice fragments contain sulfur and other compounds, which are found in large quantities in volcanic gases and ash. Thus, scientists managed to build a climatic model that made it possible to reconstruct the events of the late 530s.

It turned out that the consequences of the climatic cataclysm were much more serious than expected. The combined force of the eruptions of the two volcanoes was the highest in the last 1200 years.

As a result, the average temperature on Earth dropped by two degrees Celsius for several years, but climate change affected the northern hemisphere the most. Scandinavia, the Mediterranean coast, the Middle East and North Africa were "affected".

The events described in the chronicles and the data of excavations in the north of Europe and Africa fit into this theory. According to researchers from the Kruger group, the "apocalypse" of the sixth century was "provoked" by volcanoes. And there are no guarantees that this will not happen again ...

2. 3rd - 6th century AD

The long crisis that shook the empire in the 3rd century brings with it complete desolation in the field of fiction in Latin. It revives only after overcoming the crisis, but the conditions for its development have already changed dramatically. The absolute monarchy, which was created at the end of the 3rd century, transferred the center from Rome to Constantinople, and Christianity soon became the dominant religion. Christian literature also plays a leading role in literary development. "Late Empire" IV - V centuries. - the time of the birth of medieval Latin literature. Antique literature is in the process of fading away.

The old literary forms still continue to exist until the final disintegration of the western part of the empire and its destruction by the "barbarians". The conservative force that sustained the old literary culture was school, grammar and rhetoric teaching. The school taught proficiency in the old "classical" language, from which living language development had already moved far away; she taught the old versification based on the distinction between long and short syllables, which had already disappeared in a living language. The old language remains the class language of the top, regardless of their religious affiliation; Christian prose writers [Minucius Felix (II - III centuries), Lactantius (III - IV centuries), Jerome (about 348 - 420), Augustine (354 - 430)] use the same rhetorical style as the pagans, and Christian poets retell biblical stories in the manner of Virgil or follow Horatian forms in their lyrics (a prominent poet is Prudentius, circa 348 - 410).

Christian literature, preparing further medieval development, lies outside the scope of our consideration. Here we restrict ourselves to a brief indication of several of the most important phenomena associated with the old literature.

So, the task of reviving Roman literature sets himself in the second half of the 4th century. a circle of aristocrats, grouped around the orator Symmachus (about 350-410). Kruzho "to this, remaining" true to the ancient religion, opposes the traditions of the old Roman culture to Christianity, on the one hand, and to "barbarism", on the other. But the own literary work of conservative circles is characterized by ideological hopelessness. The speeches and letters of Symmachus himself, beautifully finished stylistically, are extremely poor in content. Retellings of old authors, fanciful form and verse tricks, school pedantry and symbolic-allegorical fiction are characteristic features of this literature. a kind of literary kunststyuk are "centons" (patchwork dresses): a new work is created by combining poems pulled from different places by a poet (most often Virgil).

From the poets of the IV century. the most significant is Decimus Magnus Avsonius (circa 310 - 395), teacher of grammar and rhetoric in Burdigal (modern Bordeaux) and educator of the Emperor Gratian. This master of poetic toys, who loved to compose on the same theme "monotony" and "couplet" (or "quatrain"), left several works that are not only of formal and stylistic interest. These include Mose11a, a description of a journey along the Rhine and Moselle with various sketches of pictures of nature, and Ephemeris, a description of a day's pastime. Roman patriotism is combined in Avsonius with love for his native province, and in his numerous poems the cultural life of the top of Gallo-Roman society of the 4th century. gets a varied reflection. The poet manages to portray family feelings, friendships, secular virtues; his interests do not penetrate more deeply. Avsonius is a Christian, but his gaze is turned mainly to the past, and his works are loaded with all kinds of grammatical, mythological and historical-geographical "scholarship." He knows classical poetry well and tries to directly adhere to the poetic traditions of the 1st - 2nd centuries. n. e. (Martial, poets of the time of Hadrian).

Allocation of the western part of the empire at the end of the 4th century. returned to Italy its lost political significance. Court poetry with political themes reappears, glorifying the successes of Rome in the struggle against the "barbarians". The most talented representative of this poetry on the verge of the 4th and 5th centuries. - Claudius Claudian (died 404), an Alexandrian Greek by birth, a brilliant master of verse, who wrote poems in both languages. Claudian composes poems in honor of the western emperor Honorius and the de facto ruler of the West, Stilicho, and lashes out with harsh derision against the favorites of the eastern emperor; passionate invective against the eunuchs and schemers of the Constantinople court alternates with excessive praise addressed to the poet's patrons. The unity of the Latin world in its opposition to the Greek empire found in the person of Claudian an eloquent and pathetic spokesman: he glorifies the Roman past and heralds the eternity of Rome. In terms of pictorial lyricism and the richness of the use of the mythological apparatus, Claudian often approaches the manner of Statius. His mythological epic "The Rape of Proserpine" is distinguished by great grace. An enthusiastic praise to Rome, as the center of world dominion, is contained in the poem by Rutilius Namatian, describing in elegiac verses the author's return from Rome to Gaul in 416.

Many poems of later times have come down to us in a collection usually called "Latin Anthology". The collection was compiled, apparently, in Africa in the 6th century, but contains works from different periods. Among them, the "Vespers of Venus" stands out for its artistic merit: the onset of spring and the holiday of the birth of Venus are glorified by the author, for whom personal "spring has not come." The poem is divided into unequal parts, bordered by the refrain: "Tomorrow, let him love, who never loved, and who loved, let him love tomorrow." Neither the author nor the time of the poem. unknown (maybe IV century).

Non-church prose also feeds on old traditions. Compiled "panegyrics" on the model of Pliny, biographies of the emperors on the model of Suetonius. Of the prose writers of later times, in addition to the already named Symmachus, the most interesting are Ammianus Marcellinus (about 330 - 400), the last major Roman historian, the successor of Tacitus, and the philosopher Boethius, who was executed in 524 by Theodoric, the author of the treatise "On the Consolation Delivered by Philosophy ".

The development of narrative literature is characteristic. "The Acts of Alexander", "Dictis", "Dareth" receive a Latin treatment, which became the source of the acquaintance of medieval Europe with these works. Another Latin adventure novel, The Story of Apollonius, King of Tire, was also very popular in the Middle Ages. Apollonius is haunted by misfortune. He has to escape from the king Antiochus, whose incestuous relationship with his daughter, he deciphered from her riddles; Apollonius' wife, the Cyrene princess, dies during a sea voyage, and the box with her body is immersed in the water; a newborn daughter, left to be raised by unworthy people, is in mortal danger and is presumed dead, but in reality ends up in the pimp's house. Everything ends well, of course. The kingdom of Antiochus passes after his death to Apollonius; the box with his wife's body was nailed to dry land, her death turned out to be imaginary, and the doctor brought her back to life; the daughter remained clean, and Apollonius, who had already reached a state of complete despair, recognizes his daughter in the singer roughly repulsed by him and then finds a wife in the position of priestess of Diana of Ephesus. Vice is punished and all virtuous characters are rewarded. The plot of "The History of Apollonius" served as material for the tragedy "Pericles, Prince of Tire" attributed to Shakespeare.

The disintegration of the Western Empire, barbaric conquests and the transition of ancient society to a feudal one complete the process of fading of the old Roman literature. On the verge of the 6th - 7th centuries. it is already dead, and its literary forms are only partially transformed into the genres of medieval Latin literature. But the needs of the school and technology demanded the preservation of ancient monuments. In the monasteries, now becoming centers of education, work is underway to rewrite the texts of old Roman writers; especially significant in this respect is the initiative of Cassiodorus (born about 480), a prominent statesman of the time of Theodoric. Having entered the everyday life of school and monastery life, especially since the time of the Carolingians, the correspondence of Roman texts preserved them until the time when they again became powerful factors in the cultural life of Europe, before the Renaissance.