Slavic fortress. Slavic museums in Europe. Ancient Russian fortresses
The first known Slavic settlements located on the territory of today's Ukraine date back to the 6th-7th centuries. these settlements were unfortified. In subsequent centuries, in connection with the threats of neighboring tribes, nomads in the south and Finnish and Lithuanian tribes in the northwest, fortified settlements - cities began to be created. Fortifications of the 8th-9th and even the 10th centuries. belonged, as a rule, to not crowded communities that did not have the opportunity to build powerful fortifications. The main task of the fortifications was to prevent the enemies from suddenly breaking into the settlement and to cover the defenders of the fortress, who could fire at the enemy from cover. Therefore, in the construction of fortifications, they tried to make the most of natural barriers, the landscape of the area: rivers, steep slopes, ravines, swamps. The most suitable for this purpose were islands in the middle of rivers or swamps. But such settlements were not very convenient in everyday life due to the complexity of communication with the surrounding space and did not have the possibility of territorial growth. And suitable islands are not always and not everywhere to be found. Therefore, the most common were settlements on high capes - "remnants". Such settlements, as a rule, were surrounded by rivers or steep slopes from three sides, from the floor side the settlement was protected by a moat and rampart. A wooden palisade or horizontal logs sandwiched between two pillars were arranged on top of the shaft - a “plot”.
Settlements Bereznyaki III-V centuries.
In the X-XI centuries. the military-political situation changed, the Pechenegs were increasingly active in the south, Poland in the west, and the Baltic tribes in the north-west. The birth and development of the feudal state at this time made it possible to build more powerful fortifications. At this time, feudal castles, princely fortresses and cities appeared, where the main role was played not by agriculture, but by craft and trade.
Castles served as strongholds and residences for feudal lords.
Castle of Vladimir Monomakh in Lyubech XI century. (Reconstruction by B.A. Rybakov.)
City fortifications most often consisted of two defensive lines: the central part - the citadel and the second line - the roundabout city.
Castle town on the Dnieper near the village. Chuchinka. (Reconstruction according to excavations by V.O. Dovzhenko)
Fortresses were built mainly in the border areas and populated with garrisons.
The management of the construction of fortifications lay with military engineering specialists small towns or city dwellers. They not only supervised the construction of fortifications, but also monitored their condition and timely repairs. Urban affairs, as one of the most difficult types of feudal duties, lay on the shoulders of the dependent population; hired labor was often used in the Novgorod and Pskov lands.
The construction of fortifications required large material and human resources. So, about a thousand people had to work continuously on the construction of the “city of Yaroslav” in Kyiv for five years. Approximately 180 people were to work on the construction of the small fortress Mstislavl during one construction season.
The main tactics of capturing fortifications in the X-XI centuries. there was a sudden capture - “departure” or “exile”, if it did not work out, then they proceeded to a systematic siege - “encirclement”. The siege led to success in the event that the water supplies and provisions of the besieged ended, a direct assault was decided only in case of weakness of the fortifications or the garrison.
11th century fortifications located on a high place or on a low one, in any case, the fortress had to have a wide view so that the enemy could not approach it unnoticed. Frontal firing from the walls along the entire perimeter prevented the assault on the fortifications. The system of fortifications included a moat, a rampart and powerful walls.
In the XII century. round fortresses were widely used, they were located on a flat surface with large open spaces around the perimeter. In such fortresses, it was possible to freely make wells, which was very important in case of a long siege, and to conduct frontal shelling of enemies in all directions, since the terrain could not create defense areas that could not be shot through.
Mstislavl. (Reconstruction by P.A. Rappoport, drawing by architect A.A. Chumachenko)
The defense of some fortresses consisted of a series of parallel, as a rule, oval rings of fortifications.
Ancient Novgorod. 10th century
The fortifications of many large cities consisted of a citadel built as a cape fortification, that is, limited on three sides by natural barriers and having one floor side. The roundabout city covered the settlement and was built already obeying the terrain and the area that had to be protected.
The basis of Russian fortresses XI - XII centuries. there were earthen parts of defensive structures, these are natural slopes, artificial ramparts and ditches. Shafts were of particular importance in the defense system. They were poured from the soil, the basis of which was usually the soil obtained by digging a ditch. The front slope of the rolls was from 30 to 45 degrees, the rear slope was 25-30 degrees. On the back side of the shaft, a terrace was sometimes made at half its height for the movement of the defenders of the fortress during the battle. To climb to the top of the shaft, wooden stairs were made, sometimes the stairs were cut out in the ground itself.
The height of the ramparts of medium-sized fortifications was no more than 4 m, the ramparts of large cities were much larger: Vladimir 8 m, Ryazan 10 m, the city of Yaroslav in Kyiv 16 m. her. In ancient Russian fortresses, such a construction was oak log cabins clogged with earth.
The earliest structures inside the rampart belong to the fortresses of the 10th century. this is Belgorod, Pereyaslavl, a fortress on the river. Stugne (fortified settlement Zarechye). In these fortresses, oak log cabins stand close to each other at the base of the rampart, with logs about 50 cm wide. Under the front part of the rampart, in front of the log house, there is a trellis frame made of logs knocked together with iron crutches and filled with mud bricks on clay. The entire structure was covered with earth forming the slope of the shaft.
Shaft and fortress wall of Belgorod in the 10th century. (Reconstruction by M.V. Gorodtsov, B.A. Rybakov)
From the 11th century the design of the shaft, due to the laboriousness of manufacturing, began to be made simpler, the front part of the shaft was simply earthen, only a frame of log cabins stuffed with earth remained. Such ramparts were in Chertoryysk, in the settlement of Old Bezradichi, in the settlement near the Sungirevsky ravine near Vladimir, in Novgorod, etc. With a significant width of the rampart, a frame was placed with several transverse walls across the rampart (the rampart of ancient Mstislavl).
To eliminate the sliding of the shaft, log cabins of a small height were placed at its base. Part of the cages on the inner side of the rampart were not filled with earth, but were left for use as residential or utility premises. This technique was especially widely used in the fortresses of the XII century.
Moats in Russian fortresses of the XI-XII centuries. were usually symmetrical in profile, with an angle of inclination of 30-45 degrees. The depth of the ditch was usually equal to the height of the rampart. The shaft was poured at a distance of about one meter from the ditch.
Most of the fortresses in Russia in the 11th-12th centuries were made of wood, they were log cabins cut into a halo. The first simplest design of a log wall is a log house of three walls connected to the second log house of the same kind by a short piece of log.
Fortress wall of the XII century. (Reconstruction by P.A. Rappoport)
The second type, these are walls consisting of log cabins tightly set to each other 3-4 m long. Each such link, regardless of the design, was called Grodny. If the defensive ramparts had wooden log cabins inside, then the walls were directly connected with them, grew out of them. The disadvantage of such walls was the difference in the height of the walls due to the uneven shrinkage of the log cabins, which made the battle area uneven and the rapid decay of the adjacent walls of the log cabins due to poor ventilation.
The height of the walls was 3-5 m. In the upper part of the wall, a battle course was arranged, covered with a log parapet. Such devices were called visors. Most likely, already in the 12th century, the visor was made with a ledge in front, which made it possible to conduct not only frontal shelling of the enemy, but also hit the enemy with arrows or boiling water at the bottom at the foot of the walls.
Double took. According to V. Laskovsky
If the front wall of the visor was taller than human height, then for the convenience of the defenders they made special benches called beds.
I took it with the bed. According to V. Laskovsky
From above, the visor was covered with a roof, most often a gable roof.
In most fortresses, passage inside was carried out through the gate located in the travel tower. The level of the gate was located at the base of the rampart, above the gate, especially in large cities, gate churches were arranged. If there was a ditch in front of the gate, a narrow bridge was made across it, which, in case of danger, was destroyed by the defenders of the fortress. Drawbridges in Russia in the XI-XII centuries were used very rarely. In addition to the main gates, secret manholes were arranged in the fortresses, in earthen ramparts, which were used for sorties during the siege. Fortresses of the 11th-12th centuries were built most often without towers, except for gates and watchtowers designed to survey the area.
From the beginning of the 13th century, an assault on the fortress became more and more often used in place of a passive siege. The ditches were thrown with bundles of brushwood - "will take", they climbed onto the walls with the help of ladders. Stone-throwing machines began to be used. With the advent of the Mongols in Russia, a new tactic of taking the fortress was fully formed. The main weapons for fighting the fortresses were stone throwers (vices), which were installed at a distance of 100-150 m from the wall. The entire city was fenced around the perimeter with a palisade to protect itself from the attacks of the besieged. Stone-throwers methodically fired at a certain section of the wall, and after its complete or partial destruction and massive shelling from bows, they went on the attack. The besieged defenders could no longer fire back at the destroyed section of the walls, and the attackers broke through into the inside of the fortress. Thus, almost all cities were taken by storm and destroyed, especially in the region of the Middle Dnieper.
The emergence of new assault tactics led to a change in the construction of fortresses. The first in this were the lands of Galicia-Volyn, Vladimir-Suzdal and Novgorod lands, as the most remote from the influence of the Mongols.
They try to build new fortresses on hills, so that it would not be possible to roll up stone-throwing machines at a sufficiently close distance to them. In the Volyn principality, high stone towers are being built - donjons (20-29 m) from which attackers can be fired. They were usually built near the most dangerous areas of defense.
Chertoryysk XIII century. (Reconstruction by P.A. Rappoport)
Several defensive ramparts and walls appear on the floor side of the fortress. As a result, the third main fortification wall to be destroyed is located at a considerable distance from the first wall. In Galich, this distance is 84 m. Therefore, to shell the third wall, it is necessary to roll a stone thrower 50-60 m to the first defensive line, while the defenders of the fortress constantly fire at close range those who serve the stone throwers.
In the XIV century. in North-Eastern Russia, its own new defense system has developed. Most of the perimeter of the fortress was covered by natural barriers: rivers, ravines, steep slopes. The floor side was protected by powerful ditches, ramparts and walls. They began to put towers with the removal of the wall, so that it was possible to conduct flanking shelling of the enemy. They tried to make sections of the walls between the towers straight for a more successful defeat of the enemy. Among the fortresses made according to this principle, one can name: Staritsa (Tver land), Romanov, Vyshgorod, Ples, Galich-Mersky, etc.
Fortresses of this type, with one powerful fortified side and less fortified others, closed by natural barriers, required lower costs for their construction and corresponded to the maximum to the ability to repel the enemy's assault.
Starting from the XV century. in connection with the increasing improvement of stone throwers and the appearance of artillery, the walls began to be made thicker, from two rows of logs, walls appeared from two and three sectional log cabins, the interior of which was filled with earth. For the construction of loopholes of the lower battlefield, some of the cages were covered with earth, others were left empty to accommodate guns and shooters. The walls, covered with earth, withstood cannon attacks no worse than stone walls.
By the middle of the 15th century, with the growth of the power of artillery, it became possible to shell the fortress from any direction, natural barriers no longer protected from enemy shelling and assault as before. Since that time, the towers have been placed along the entire perimeter of the defense, and the walls between the towers have been straightened to allow flanking shelling. The creation of regular - rectangular in terms of fortresses, with towers in the corners begins. In addition to the rectangle, the plan of the fortress was made in the form of a pentagon, triangle, trapezoid. If the terrain did not allow making a geometrically regular shape of the fortress, then the towers were evenly distributed along the perimeter, and the sections between the towers were straightened as much as possible.
Fortress wall structures
The simplest fortification of the first fortresses was a moat with a shaft on which a low tyn was erected from logs dug vertically into the ground with pointed ends.
The simplest tyn fortification is a wall of various heights, the defense of which was carried out over the tyn or through special loopholes. A more complex type is a tyn with a double fight; it consists of: an “upper fight”, the platform of which was located on transverse chopped walls and a lower “plantar fight”.
Tynovaya fence with upper and sole battle according to V. Laskovsky
According to the location of the fence, a “standing” prison was distinguished, this is when the fence is located perpendicular to the ground and an “oblique” prison with an inclination of the fence towards the enclosed space.
A - oblique prison, B - backfill fence, C - transitional type from fences to walls. According to V. Laskovsky
There were tynovye walls with "needles", these are inclined support logs, the sharp ends of which were directed outward.
A more serious protection was provided by a backfill fence, when the space between the backyard and the rear pillars was covered with earth. Another type of backfill prison is transitional to chopped walls. Here, a low tynovy fence, which plays the role of a parapet, is placed on log cabins standing close to each other filled with earth. Chopped walls are stronger and more durable. The ancient type of chopped walls are "grodny" log cabins placed close to each other.
The walls are chopped with grottoes. Mangazeya. 17th century Reconstruction
The disadvantage of this design was the rapid decay of the side walls adjacent to each other and the uneven settlement of the log cabins, which led to large differences in the height of the upper battlefield.
These shortcomings were eliminated in the construction of walls by "taras". Such walls were widely used in the XV century. The outer and inner walls were made solid and connected to each other by transverse walls at a distance of 3-4 fathoms, inside they were covered with earth or stones.
Axonometric section of the wall, chopped with "taras", Olonets (1649), reconstruction
To give greater stability, the base of the walls was broadened with slopes.
Section of a wall with a broadened base. According to V. Laskovsky
Another type of wall "tarasami" was more complex. The transverse walls were located on the outer surface at a distance of a sazhen from each other, and at the inner surface they converged to form triangular cages. Moreover, the location of the logs of the transverse walls alternated every two crowns of the longitudinal ones. This design gave greater stability and made it difficult for the besiegers to make a partial collapse in it.
Walls of the city of Korotoyaka (1648)
The height of the chopped walls, according to written sources, was 2.5-3 fathoms, the width of the walls was from 1.5 to 2 fathoms. The tynovye walls had a height of 1.5 to 2 sazhens.
With the spread of firearms in the 16th century, when fire fighting began to be used in defense, the lower tier of defense appeared in the construction of the walls - sole fight. For this, niches were made in taras with loopholes in the front wall.
Plan and sections of the walls of Tarasami with a lower battle. According to V. Laskovsky
For the shooters of the upper battle, a log floor (“bridge”) was laid over the taras, covered with a log parapet with loopholes and covered with a gable roof on top. The upper battle hung over the wall, forming a "bummer" for shooting from the top, dropping stones and pouring pitch on the enemy storming the wall.
Walls of the city of Olonets (1649). According to V. Laskovsky
Wooden chopped walls had a gable roof, the truss structure of which rested on the outer wall and on the inner pillars of the overcut walls resting on the releases of the upper logs. The roof was usually covered in two boards, less often in one, but then a flashing was used or shingles were placed under the boards.
Towers until the 13th century. had limited use, they had different names: “vezha”, “strelnitsa”, “bonfire”, “pillar”. The term tower appeared in the 16th century. The towers were made quadrangular, six and octagonal in plan. Polygonal towers made it possible to increase the field of fire, they fit especially well into fortresses with a complex plan configuration.
Corner tower of the Olonets fortress. 17th century Reconstruction
Quadrangular towers were often placed in fortresses with a geometrically correct configuration. The upper part of the tower, especially of a later period, had a log cabin that was wider than the base, such an overhang of the log cabins on the console logs created a “bull”. Through the resulting gap, it was possible to hit the enemies accumulated at the base of the towers. Loopholes were made in the walls of the towers in the size of the weapons used. The loopholes for the squeakers were 8-10 cm and were expanded from the outside, from the side and from the bottom to increase the space being fired, for guns the size of the loophole was 30x40 cm.
Tower of the Bratsk Ostrog. 1654 Reconstruction according to V. Laskovsky
The towers, as a rule, were multi-tiered, the floors were connected by internal stairs, in some cases an external staircase led to the upper tier, especially when the lower floor was used for housing (the Bratsk prison tower). The tower was usually crowned with a hipped roof, with or without policemen. An observation tower was sometimes arranged on top of the tent.
Tower of the city of Krasnoyarsk. According to V. Laskovsky
The roof frame could be made of logs or have a truss structure on top, the frame was sewn up with a board. The ends of the clefts were sometimes decorated with truncated peaks.
From the writings of Saxo the Grammar we know how the sacred Vedic Arkona was taken by the Judeo-Christians.But an amazing thing, there is not a word about the storming of the city-temple itself ... It is written how the Danes of King Voldemar I besieged the city, how the Saxon army of Henry the Lion approached them - and nothing more .... The only thing that slips in the Catholic narrative is this is that the defenders of the fortress could not cope with the fire.
Allegedly, they did not have enough water to put out the burning gates.
And is it near the sea?
After all, it is enough to dig a deep well and imperceptibly connect it to the Baltic, the technique is primitive. Surely there were several similar wells in Arkona. Our ancestors were never fools, but then why did the gates of the fortress burn out? Just because the water didn't help. That's all.
Ancient napalm, the so-called "Greek fire", was used against Arkona. Western chroniclers prefer to keep quiet about this.
Why?
Because the victory over Arkona disgraced the entire Judeo-Christian Europe.
Cape Arkona
But I'll start in order. In July 1268, during the last siege of the fortress, only about 1000 men and the same number of women gathered in it. The rest of the civilian population of the island of Buyana, or Ruyana, after the landing of the Danish and Saxon armies, fled through the forests and swamps. The Slavs understood that the war with the Christian world was lost, and tried with all their might to survive. To do this, it was necessary to wait for the enemy troops to leave the island, and then to accept Christianity ... And gradually become Germanized.
But there were also those who preferred death to serf Judeo-Christian slavery. As I wrote above, there were very few of them, but there were other warriors in Arkon. They are warriors, not fighters. The difference between the two is huge, but more on that below. We are talking about 300 knights from the protection of the temple of Svetovid.
What kind of warriors they were, judge for yourself: having distributed the forces of the Slavs gathered in Arkona to the fortifications of the city, they left the gates of the fortress and lined up in rows, taking the blow of 17 thousand Danes and 8 thousand Saxons. Three hundred Russian knights against 25 thousand well-trained knights and bollards. Bristling with spears and shielding themselves from flying arrows, the warriors of the temple not only successfully repelled the frontal blows of the armored cavalry, but also went forward themselves. Having built a wedge, the Russian knights began to make their way to the tents of King Voldemar I and the Duke of Saxony. They were forced to stop only when they saw that they could be hit by flamethrowers.
Turning around, the temple warriors rushed to destroy the siege equipment. Part of the flamethrower equipment was destroyed by them, but at that moment the Russian knights were hit by fireballs from catapults. The ground caught fire under their feet, and in order to avoid unjustified losses, the defenders of the temple began to make their way to the walls of the fortress. Despite the fact that by this time they were completely surrounded, the knights easily broke through the ring and approached the gate.
In front of them they lined up again, but neither the Danes nor the Saxons dared to attack them again. The first battle with the "pagans" was too expensive for them: almost 3,000 killed and wounded. Moreover, the best Christian knights fell in the battle.
And then, on the orders of Voldemar I, flamethrower catapults and copper pipes ejecting napalm were sent to the warriors of the temple. For this reason, the Slavs had to leave the gates of the fortress. It was thanks to the "Greek fire" that the gates of Arkona flared up, and it was impossible to extinguish them with water, although the defenders had plenty of it, especially the sea. When the gates of the city collapsed, the Judeo-Christians, gathering their strength, again rushed to the assault with an iron battering ram. They intended to break through to the temple of Svetovid as soon as possible. But again, a squad of temple knights stood in their way.
During the capture of Arkona, both the Danes and the Saxons lost 2/3 of their army.
Slavic fortress Raddush (German: Slawenburg Raddusch) - reconstructed in the 1990s. layout of the fortress of the Lusatian Slavs. It rises near the village of the same name near the town of Vetschau (Spreewald) in the federal state of Brandenburg, next to the federal highway 15.
The western fortress of the Slavs - Slavenburg (Slawenburg) is located in the ancient Slavic village of Raddusch, not on the banks of the Spree River, in the Serbian-Lusatian region of Germany - Dolna Lusatia - Niederlausitz - the federal state of Brandenburg. Now there is an interesting museum of ancient Slavic architecture - "Slawenburg-Raddusch". It was opened in 2001 in the immediate vicinity of the village of Radush, on the site of an ancient Slavic round castle found during the development of brown coal in the late 80s of the 20th century.
Previously, it was the Slavic city-vara Dolna Luzhitsa (9th century AD). The fortress is one of about forty Slavic round defensive structures that originally existed in Lower Puddle. These fortresses were built by the Slavs - the ancestors of modern Lusatians - in the 9th-10th centuries. n. e. and served as shelters for the population living nearby.
The high concentration of these fortresses in Lower Puddle is associated with constant pressure from the Germans in this region. The fortress was built of wooden blocks, a moat filled with water was dug around it. The internal cavities of the wooden structure were filled with sand, earth and clay.
The museum is a reconstructed Slavic castle, which is a fortress 50 m in diameter, with a vast interior space (1,200 sq. m).
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The round shaft-wall, 8 m high, is made of oak trunks linked to each other, laid in layers, the gaps between which are filled with sand and clay. Such round fortresses were characteristic buildings for the ancient Slavs who lived on the territory of present-day Germany.
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The modern building is made using technology very close to the technology of the medieval original. Inside there is a museum with an exposition "Archaeology in Lower Lusatia", a conference hall and a restaurant. The exposition presents a period over the last 12,000 years of the history of the region.
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The ancient Slavs during the "Great Migration of Nations" came to the lands of modern Saxony in the VI century AD. Today it is not possible to restore the events of the process of settling these places. It is assumed that where the Slavs crossed the Elbe (Labu), they met with the Germanic tribes and established good neighborly relations with them. The Slavs at that time represented several ethnic groups.
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According to modern history, from about the end of the 6th to the middle of the 13th century AD. the east, north and northwest of modern Germany was inhabited by a large group of West Slavic tribes of the Luzhic, Lutich, Bodrich, Pomeranians and Ruyans, who are now called Polabian Slavs. These tribes, according to orthodox historians, in the second half of the 6th century replaced the “Germanic” tribes of the Lombards, Rugs, Lugii, Chizobrads, Varins, Velets and others who lived here in ancient times.
However, many researchers argue that there is “an amazing coincidence of the tribal names of the Polabian, Pomeranian and other Western Slavs with the oldest ethnic names known in this territory at the turn of the first centuries of our era,” mentioned in Roman sources. In total, about fifteen such paired, coinciding ancient and medieval Slavic names of the tribes that lived in the area are known. And this means that the Slavs lived on the territory of Germany, at least from these very first centuries.
Most of the West Slavic tribes suffered an unenviable fate. At the beginning of the 10th century, the German Drang nach Osten (campaign to the East) began, during which the Western Slavs were partly ousted from their lands, partly converted to Christianity and assimilated, and most of them were simply exterminated during the Crusades against the Western Slavs.
Raddush has long lost its defensive significance, but even at the beginning of the 20th century it was clearly recognizable as a ring-shaped wooden structure. During the existence of the German Democratic Republic, the remains of the fortress were supposed to be demolished in connection with the planned extraction of brown coal. In connection with the preparations for this, in 1984 and 1989/1990. archaeological excavations were carried out here, and an idol of about 1100 years old was discovered.
To the east of the Elbe (Laby) and Zaale (Zalava) lived the Slavs - encouraged, Lutici, Serbs and Lusatians. Serbs and Vilchans settled in the Anhalt region. The Slavs lived in tribal communities. The Slavs of that period had highly developed crafts, military and trade. The areas of residence were divided into fields and fields with a length of 10-20 kilometers along rivers, lakes and valleys. In the center, as a rule, a family fortress was erected, which was surrounded by several dozen residential and utility yards with land plots of various sizes.
Currently, hundreds of Slavic round fortresses are known in East Germany. About 40 Slavic fortresses are known in the areas of the Saale River, more than 100 fortresses are located in the area between the Elbe (Laba), Saale (Zalava) and Oder (Vodra) rivers. The building material of all these Slavic castles, as in the case of the settlement "Slawenburg-Raddusch" are wooden logs and earth ...
The original castle in Raduš had a diameter of 58 meters and was surrounded by a moat 5.5 meters wide. It had two gates within seven meter walls. In the courtyard of the castle there was a wooden log well 14 meters deep and various residential and outbuildings. On the ramparts there is a wide battlefield fenced on the outside with a wattle fence of willow branches. From here you have a wide view of the Lusatian landscape.
Inside the reconstructed Slavic fortress of the 9th-10th centuries. Raddush is a rather large and interesting museum, which presents the entire long and rich history of these places from primitive hunters and gatherers to the Middle Ages. Of particular interest were the collections of ancient Slavic finds and more ancient Lusatian culture.
Models of the fortress Raddush.
and reconstruction of its surroundings
Of particular interest is a wooden detail found during excavations of the well, interpreted by archaeologists as an "idol". Indeed, items very similar in style were found during excavations of pagan temples in Gross Raden, Parchim in Mecklenburg and the sanctuary in Ralsvik on Rügen. The part did not contain any images or carvings, except for a through hole in the center, which, according to archaeologists, served to secure this part. The upper part resembles a human head and neck, but rather conditionally. This is hardly an idol in the truest sense of the word, rather a detail of the decoration of some building, quite possibly a pagan temple. In the background is another detail with a through hole and recesses of unclear purpose, also found during excavations of the well.
Also in the museum there was a lot of pottery of the Thorns type, among which one pot deserves special attention. This is another of the rare examples of applying not standard ornaments, but detailed scenes to Slavic ceramics. also known from Mecklenburg. Some researchers suggest that such ceramics could be used for special rituals, "sorcery", while others see in it only ordinary everyday scenes. Be that as it may, the find is quite rare.
The next find is interpreted as "a detail of a carved tray".
Rare finds from the fortress of Raddush include a bucket skillfully trimmed with metal. Similar buckets are also known in other Western Slavic lands, mainly from burials. Original and reconstruction.
The exposition of the museum also presents a lot of agricultural and craft tools and household items such as sickles, ladles, keys, combs or such knives. I did not dwell on them in more detail.
Women's jewelry.
Reconstruction of one of the types of ancient Slavic burial mounds.
Figurines signed in the museum as "toys". Although, with the same success it could be ritual figurines, of which many are known in the Slavic lands.
Wax tablet and styluses. Unfortunately the century was not signed.
According to modern history, from about the end of the 6th to the middle of the 13th century AD. the east, north and northwest of modern Germany was inhabited by a large group of West Slavic tribes of the Luzhic, Lutich, Bodrich, Pomeranians and Ruyans, who are now called Polabian Slavs. These tribes, according to orthodox historians, in the second half of the 6th century replaced the “Germanic” tribes of the Lombards, Rugs, Lugii, Chizobrads, Varins, Velets and others who lived here in ancient times. However, many researchers argue that there is “an amazing coincidence of the tribal names of the Polabian, Pomeranian and other Western Slavs with the oldest ethnic names known in this territory at the turn of the first centuries of our era,” mentioned in Roman sources. In total, about fifteen such paired, coinciding ancient and medieval Slavic names of the tribes that lived in the area are known. And this means that the Slavs lived on the territory of Germany, at least from these very first centuries.
They occupied a vast territory from the mouth of the river. Laba (Elbe) and its tributary river. Sala (Zale) in the West, up to the river. Odra (Vodra, Oder) in the east, from the Ore Mountains (on the border with the Czech Republic) in the south to the Baltic Sea in the north. Thus, the lands of the Polabian Slavs covered at least a third of the modern German state. The Polabian Slavs were united in three tribal unions: the Lusatians, the Lutichs (velets or Wilts) and the Bodrichs (encouraged, rarogs or rivers). They were also related to the Pomeranian tribes who lived along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, approximately from the mouth of the Odra to the mouth of the Vistula, and in the south along the Notech River, bordering on Polish tribes.
The fact that the Slavic peoples lived in Germany long ago is evidenced by the multiple toponyms (from topos - “place” and onoma - “name, name” - a proper name denoting the name of a geographical object) that they left behind. For example,
Berlin, Schwerin, Witzin, Devin, Alt-Teterin, Karpin. The ending "-in" in Slavic toponyms is stressed.
Lauzits (Luzhitsa), Chemnitz, Dobranits (Dobranetsy), Doberyushts (Dobroshitsy), Dobershau (Dobrusha).
Lyubov, Teterov, Gustrov, Lyutov, Goltsov, Worlds, Burov.
Lubenau, Schrandau, Torgau.
The most famous toponyms of Slavic origin are:
The city of Chemnitz - (German: Chemnitz, v.-lugs. Kamjenica) is named after the small river Chemnitz, a tributary of the Zwickauer Mulde River. The word "chemnitz" itself comes from "kamjenica" from the language of the Lusatian Serbs and means "rocky stream or river".
The city of Lausitz (German: Lausitz, V.-puddle. Lusatia), originally - "marshy land". Lusatia is a historical region of Germany, in which the Slavic people of the Lusatians still live.
City of Lübeck Founded near the Wagris fortress of Ljubice.
The city of Rostock (German: Rostock, v.-puddle. Rostock) means a place where water spreads in different directions.
The city of Ratzeburg (Slavic settlement Ratibor) was first mentioned in the documents of the German King Henry IV in 1062 as Racesburg. The name comes from the name of the obodrite prince Ratibor (abbreviated German Ratse).
The city of Prenzlau (German Prenzlau, V.-lugs. Prenzlav).
City of Zossen (German: Zossen, slav. Pines).
The city of Brandenburg (German: Brandenburg. Slav. Branibor).
The city of Mecklenburg - formerly called Rarog (Rerik), later - Mikulin Bor.
The city of Oldenburg is the Slavic Starograd (Starigard).
City Demmin - Dymin.
The city of Schwerin is the Zverin of Bodrich.
City of Dresden - Drozdyany.
City of Leipzig - Lipsk, Lipetsk.
City of Breslau - Breslau.
The city of Roslau - Rusislava.
The city of Prilwitz - Prilebitsa.
City of Regensburg - Rezno.
City of Meissen - Mishno.
City of Merseburg - Mezhibor.
And the ancient names of these modern German cities do not need explanation: Lubeck, Bremen, Weiden, Lubben, Torgau, Klutz, Ribnitz, Karov, Teterov, Malkhin, Mirs, Rossov, Kiritz, Beskov, Kamenz, Lebau, Sebnitz, etc. , etc.
Slavic toponyms are widespread in the following modern lands of Germany: Lower Saxony - territories east of Hamburg, the so-called "Wendland", the eastern half of Schleswig-Holstein, throughout Mecklenburg - front Pomerania, Brandenburg, Saxony and Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria and Berlin .
In the 19th century, the Czech scientist A.V. Shember, found 1000 Slavic names of rivers, mountains, forests, plains and places on the map of Austria. He published the results of his research in the book "Zapadni Slovane v praveku" (1860). It is appropriate to add here that the Austrian capital Vienna is the Slavic Vindebozh, and the city of Tsvetl is Svetla. Austria itself was called the Principality of Ostria before Germanization! Unfortunately, at present, written information about that distant life of the Western Slavs is still available only in sources that were written by German Christian authors.
“... Slavs are ten times larger than our Saxony, if we count the Czechs and the Poles living on the other side of the Odra, who do not differ from the inhabitants of Slavs either in their appearance or language ... There are many Slavic peoples. Among them are the most western Wagris living on the border with the Transalbings. Their city, lying by the sea, is Oldenburg (Stargrad). Then follow obodrites, who are now called reregs, and their city is Magnopolis (Velegrad). To the east of us (from Hamburg) live the Polabings (polabs), whose city is called Racisburg (Ratibor). Behind them are lingons (clay) and warabs. This is followed by the Khizhans and through the Penyans, who are separated from the Dolechans and Ratarians by the Pena River and the city of Dymin. There is the limit of the Hamburg diocese. Khizhans and throughpenians live north of the Pena River, Dolenchans and Ratari live to the south. These four peoples, because of their courage, are called Vilians, or Lutiches. There are also other Slavic tribes that live between Laba and Odra (Elbe and Oder) ”(Adam of Bremen - North German chronicler, canon and scholastic,“ Acts of the Priests of the Hamburg Church ”(c. 1066)).
However, thanks to the Internet, you can find out that, it turns out, there are currently several open-air architectural museums in Germany, which are reconstructed Slavic fortresses, large settlements and villages of the 7th-12th centuries. For example, a Slavic castle-fortress with an adjacent village on the site of the Obodrite settlement in Gross-Raden (Slawenburg-Raddusch) in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Excavations, as a result of which dozens of large Slavic settlements were discovered, began in this area even after the Second World War, and in the 70s the Germans restored the Slavic temple, residential buildings of the settlement
Archaeological excavations have made it possible to establish that the Slavic fortress-castles are powerful ring-shaped fortifications made of wooden log cabins and earth with a shaft height of more than 10 meters. The settlements located around them consisted of one-two-storey log houses. The main occupation of the villagers was agriculture and animal husbandry, small crafts, weaving, pottery, brewing, iron and bone processing, and fishing.
The castle was usually laid in a strategic place, on a hill, a high bank of a river or a river crossing. For example, the castle of the Slavic tribe Spreyans (Sprewanen) Kopenick (Kopyenik) at the confluence of the river Shree (Spree) and its tributary Dahme (Dahme). The main castle of the Slavic tribe Gavolyan (Heveller) was Branibor at the mouth of the river Havel. The former Slavic city of Torgelov, which is also located in the federal state of Vorpommern, was no exception. It stands on the river Uecker. In this city there is an open-air ethnographic museum called Ukranenland. The museum is dedicated to the history of one West Slavic tribe called the Ukrs (Die Ukrer, Ukranen), who, according to scientists, settled here in the 6th century.
The lands that once belonged to the Ukrainian Ukrainians are now called Uckermark in Germany. In Ukranenland, after archaeological excavations, a life-size Slavic village of the 9th-10th centuries was reconstructed. By visiting this museum, you can see firsthand what the ships of the Slavic sailors who dominated the Baltic Sea looked like at that time, get acquainted with the life of Slavic farmers and artisans of that time, watch the work of a bronze caster, potter, blacksmith and brewer, listen to medieval music and taste dishes that time. Museum visitors can even buy homemade pickles and jams, drink freshly brewed beer and learn how to work with clay.
On the museum pier they can see the boat "Svarog" (Svarog) - the first reconstruction of a Slavic ship in Germany, made on the basis of archaeological finds on the island of Rügen (Ruyan) in the city of Ralswiek. This type of ship dates back to the 900s. The reconstruction was carried out in 1997. As well as the boat "Sventovit" (Svantevit) - a reconstruction of a Polish ship discovered during excavations in the town of Lebafelde, also known as Charbrow (built around 1100), reconstruction of 1998.
The largest Slavic city was the capital of Vagria - Stargrad, later renamed by the Germans to Oldenburg, where the residence of the prince of Vagry and the sanctuary were located. Vagrs are a West Slavic tribe that lived in the Middle Ages on the Vagria peninsula. They were the most northwestern tribe of the Bodrich-Obodrite union. The area of their residence, which they mastered in the 7th century, covered the east of the current German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein. A modern German reconstruction of Stargrad is presented at the Oldenburger Wallmuseum.
The Germans compiled a kind of catalog of Slavic cities and fortresses in Germany and posted it on the site http://slawenburgen.npage.de, which, unfortunately, is available only in German. On it, with German pedantry and scrupulousness, even the coordinates of places are marked, and the location of each city is shown using the GoogleEarth program.
In particular, they found and described Slavic cities located in the following lands of Germany: Berlin - 8, Brandenburg - 166, Mecklenburg - 285, Lower Saxony - 9, Saxony - 125, Saxony-Anhalt - 36, Schleswig-Holstein - 38, Thuringia - 9, Rostock, Schwerin, Stralsund, cities on the islands of Rügen (23) and Usedom (4) are described. Total: 703 Slavic cities in Germany! Some descriptions are provided with drawings - reconstructions of what was here almost a thousand years ago.
So, the city on the Baltic Sea Stralsund (Strelovo), located on the shores of the Strelasund Strait (Strelasund), which separates the island of Rügen from the mainland, was founded by the Slavs in the 4th century, and on October 31, 1234, the prince from the island of Rügen Wislav I (Wizlaw I) appropriated " fishing village on the Stralow River" status and rights of the city.
As can be seen from the materials of the German site, the Slavs chose strategic places for their settlements - on the coast, near lakes, rivers, which allowed not only contact with neighbors, but also feed themselves at any time of the year. The site also has photographs of fortified cities, or rather, of what remains of the Slavic heritage, but, unfortunately, not very much remains. In most of the photographs, you can see only hills and ramparts in the middle of the field, overgrown with grass and trees, in others - the remains of stone fortress walls.
Unfortunately, in the course of modern history, which is taught to Russian children today, we will not find not only the names of the Slavic princes who rebuilt these fortress cities, but even the mention that the Slavs were those who mastered these territories, that they lived , traded, fought there for at least a thousand years. However, this, oddly enough, is well known and written by German scientists. For example, there is a monumental treatise from 1741, which was written by Ernest Joachim Westphalen and called "Monumenta inedita rerum Germanorum", which in turn contains a treatise by I.F. Chemnitz: "Genealogy of the Dukes of Mecklenburg", written in the Mecklenburg dialect from lost medieval sources. In this treatise, the princes of the Wends and Obodrites are named, starting from the 5th century AD, from whom many Germanic houses trace their genealogies.
Vysheslav (477-486),
Alaric (486-507);
Alberic (517-590);
Johannes (590-630);
Radegast (630-664);
Vysheslav (664-700);
Oritbert I (700-724);
Oritbert II (724-747);
Vladspirit d.772;
Viceslav (747-798);
Dragomir (798-809);
Slavomir (809-821);
Chelodrag (821-830);
Godemysl (Gostomysl) (830-844);
Dobemysl (Dobromysl) (844-861);
Vengeful I (861-865?);
Oritbert III (869-888);
Vysheslav (888-934);
Billung (934-986);
Mechislav (983-1018);
Stoignev 955;
Revenge II (?960-1025);
Udo 1025;
Godoslav (? -1067);
Budy (1066-1067);
Henry (1096-1122);
Svyatopolk (1122-1135);
Pribyslav I (1135-1146);
Nicolot (1140-1167);
Pribyslav II (1167-1171 \ 1178?), who became the ancestor of the Dukes of Mecklenburg.
The Vendian-Obodrite princes entered into dynastic marriages with European nobility. So Prince Alaric was married to a Burgundian princess, Johann to a Norwegian princess, Radagast to Granada (that is, Spanish), Alberic and Oritbert I to Sarmatian, Oritbert II to Anglo-Saxon, Witsislav and Mechislav of Obodritsky to Russian and Lithuanian.
The wife of Yaroslav the Wise - Ingegerda - was the daughter of the Swedish Queen Astrid, who before her marriage was an Obodrite princess. The mother of Eric Pomeranian (Boguslav) - the king of Norway, Denmark and Sweden - Maria of Mecklenburg-Schwerin - was a representative of the Mecklenburg house. The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, Karl Leopold, was for some time married to the niece of Emperor Peter I, daughter of Ivan V, Catherine.
Sophia Charlotte (1744-1818) Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who was born in the town of Mirs, married the English King George III, and being crowned herself, gave birth to 15 children and became the grandmother of the famous English Queen Victoria. And already in the 19th century, George, Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was married to the Russian Grand Duchess and was in military service in the Russian Empire with the rank of major general.
The Slavic trace is still preserved in German folk traditions. So in the book of Yu.V. Ivanova-Buchatskaya "Plattes Land: Symbols of Northern Germany. Slavic-German synthesis in the interfluve of the Elbe and Oder” describes the following legend.
Behind the fictitious names is the opposition of the ethnicity of the heroes: the name Wendogard, judging by the phonetic appearance, is of Slavic origin and contains an ethnonym, while Landolph is a name of Germanic origin. In the dispute between the heroes of the legend, one can see a mythical rethinking of the centuries-old historical “dispute” between German settlers-colonists and the Slavic-Polabian population of Mecklenburg for land ownership. If we analyze the legend - the opposition of the meek and pious princess to the robber, who was notorious, then one gets the impression that the legend, on the one hand, emphasizes the peaceful nature of the Wends, on the other hand, demonstrates a sympathetic attitude towards them, like the legend of the bells. Let us reflect on the further events of the legend: “Outraged by the impudence of the robber, the princess said: “The fact that God exists and this forest belongs to me is just as true as the fact that the trace of my foot and scepter will remain in this stone forever!”; and traces , indeed, remained in solid stone to this day, and the robber who cursed God was punished ". Perhaps the toponymic legend about the Maiden Stone is a kind of folklore assertion of the "primordial rights" of the Wends to the Mecklenburg lands ... "
Note that we would not quote the words about the originality of the rights of the Wends to the Mecklenburg land for the simple reason that now it has already become known enough not folklore, but documentary evidence about this, as well as about the fact that this land was really taken away from the Slavs Germans...