Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - III. Period of the Vikings and Introduction of Christianity - A. The Viking Expeditions—A Northern Migration
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Viking Expeditions 35
sels over land on rollers they reached the Volga and
the Dnieper. On the latter they sailed down to the
Black Sea. On the way they founded new states on the
Slavic plains. Among the Slavs these Swedes were
known as Rus or Eos, because most of them had come
from Roslagejk a name given to the Swedish shores of
the Baltic. These shores were so named because they
were divided into sections, each one of which was to
furnish in time of war a certain number of ships with
rowers (roddskarlar) . The land which these Rus set-
tled and governed became known as Rusland, hence,
Russia. Thus these Swedish vikings laid the founda-
tion of the Russian State.
For more than a century there was a lively inter-
course between these Northmen and their country-
men in Sweden and Finland. From the old homeland
there flowed a constant stream of its rapidly increas-
ing population to join with their kinsmen in Russia
in their expeditions to the Greek Empire at the outlet
of the Black Sea. This sea swarmed with viking ships,
whose goal was Constantinople, the luxurious capital
of the Empire. Its treasures excited their admiration
and tempted their greed, just as Rome in former days
had tempted their Teutonic kinsmen. On account of
its greatness they called it Miklagard (Great Strong-
hold).
But the Swedes in Russia were too few to continue
for any great length of time as a dominant race. They
were submerged in the immense Slavic masses. Long,
however, adventurous young men continued to go forth
to Miklagird to enter the Emperor’s bodyguard under
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