Here's an odd one:

Anybody out there have an idea of how big a Princely Druzhina would
be?  Are we talking a large group of body guards, or an army?  (I'm
thinking of the Pre-Mongol period here).

Yours,
Nadezhda Toranova, Voevoda Seagirta

In a message dated 6/2/2002 11:38:22 AM Central Daylight Time,
nadjabear@... writes:


> Anybody out there have an idea of how big a Princely Druzhina would
> be?  Are we talking a large group of body guards, or an army?

More like a company, definitely not an army. When Alexander Nevsky fought the
Teutonic Knights on Lake Peipus, he had mustered the Novgorodian volunteers.

The size probably depended 1) on the wealth of the Prince, 2) on his
reputation, 3) on what a city would allow. While most cities didn't have much
say in this, Novgorod and Pskov had specific rules and laws on what a Prince
(kniaz) was allowed to do. They would have frowned on an army taking over the
city. Besides, they had to fit into the prince's fortress.

*****************************
Predslava Vydrina
Per fess embattled azure and gules, two otters passant or.
  <A
HREF="http://members.aol.com/Predslava/RussianHistoryTriviaPage.html">Russian
History Trivia Page</A>
(http://members.aol.com/Predslava/RussianHistoryTriviaPage.html)


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Greetings Nadezhda!

AFAIR, any size smaller than several hundred. It's not an army, it's a kind of
a personal guard/body of rangers/sheriffs/convoy troops, etc. For greater size
actions, Opolcheniye, or (earlier term) Rat' was involved. Mainly, it was like
National Guard in the US or the main body of the Swiss army - several times a
year they revived their battle skills and all the othe rtime they were peaceful
workers. Druzhina was divided into Older and Younger, the Older Druzhina was a
bode of Boyars and really was a council and a body of closest guards for the
Prince. That makes its size of no more than 1-2 dozen. The Younger Druzhina
performed all the moliary/law enforcement duties it was designed to, and its
size depended on the riches of the Prince mainly. Though, no Prince could
afford a Drouzhina of a thousand or more (he literally bought their loyalty) -
there's an economic law that a society can feed an army of no more than about 1
percent of the population.

The size of Druzhina is somehow pictured by phrases from the chronicles that
mention some conflict that has to be solved, so to say, "on the march", and the
prince hurries to the spot "s druzhinoy maloy" (with his small Druzhina).

Bye,
Posadnik.

Greetings!

In my previous posting,

"It was like the US National Guard..." meant Rat', not Druzhina. Druzhina was
always battle-ready, though involved in several duties almost daily. Though, we
can't see the question well, if we treat Novgorod/Pskov Druzhina as the best
example. There Princes were hired by the city officials, and the size of the
Druzhina was also established as not allowing the Prince to change the rules of
the game. Kievan or Chernigov Druzhinas could be greater, also because NOT all
the Druzhina was supposed to be garrisoned in the main citadel. Some of it was
always busy at faraway outposts.

Though, with the South there's another pain-in-the-neck. As 13-14 century
Novgorod had its Ushkuiniks, that raided the lands byond the eastern frontier
of the Russian states, in Kievan region the same was performed by the 11-13
(approx.) Brodniks. Those were half peaceful Steppe dwellers of the Russian
origin, dwelling between Don and Dnieper, half fortune seekers. There is some
evidence that Brodniks (no connection with the Russian "Brod" ("ford"), BTW)
were the buffer force between the nomads and the Rus, serving this or that
side, and even regular Druzhinas from time to time set out "to feed themselves"
into the Steppes, becoming Brodniks for a while, then returning to their
Prince. The Brodniks existed at least until 14 century, when the term (most
likely it meant "open space dweller, never fixed to a piece of land") was
replaced by the term "cossack" (Ilya Muromets, who served his country at a
Steppe outpost, was commonly called "old cossack" in the Bylinas. The
Historic/Philologic fact the Muromets Bylina cycle was codified and put
together no earlier than 14 century). So, the Druzhina could be split apart and
one part became Brodniks, to raid the Steppes for glory/ransom. Some Brodniks
could join the Druzhina. So I'd count all the Druzhinniks in the capital city
and multiply the number by at least 0.75.

bye,
Posadnik.

Hello all,

I have a question or a request. This fall at the Collegium in Caid there will
be a "Russian track" with two days of classes by Mistress Soraya and me.  I
looked at the planned classes, and thought that we are very non-fighter
oriented (early and late period costume, embroidery workshop, trim
techniques, history, women's lifestyle, folklore and storytelling).  I would
like to add a class on Russian warriors.  Theoretically, I could probably
pull this off on my own, by talking about battles and allegiances, and (oh
well) clothes and armor.  This would be a class from a largely dilettante
perspective.

Alternatively, I could try to get a local fighter interested in the idea and
provide them with information and resources (I read Russian).  I am not sure
how easy or feasible would that be, however.  Ideally, I would love to get
someone who knows these things come and teach this class (Dmitriy, would you
like to, please?)

In any case, I am asking to be pointed in the right direction -- reliable
sources, and so on, please?

Thank you,
Liudmila

PS: The Collegium is in Calafia, Caid -- which is San Diego, California,
which is where I live and where I can provide accommodations if desired.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Liudmila,
I'd love to come down, but at the moment I don't even know which state I
will be living in come fall (graduated a week ago, and the job hunt is on).
I can certainly help you with notes and such, however.  Your best source for
armour and weapons information would be the Sovetskaya Arkheologiya volumes
by Kirpichnikov:
Kirpichnikov A. N., "Drevnerusskoe Oruzhie," Sovetskaia arkheologiia 1-3
(1971): E1-36


UC Library should have this volume at NRLF, and you should be able to get it
on loan through UCSD.  Unless I still have it, but if I do I will return it
this week (having graduated and all).
It is bound together with a volume on bows and other missile weapons
(metatel'noe oruzhie). I sent out a link to the plates from that book a
while ago, check the SIG list archives.

Also, may I humbly suggest using some of the research we put together on the
Red Kaganate website? :)  http://www.geocities.com/kaganate

-Dmitriy


>From: LiudmilaV@...
>Reply-To: sig@yahoogroups.com
>To: sig@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [sig] Russian warriors class
>Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 15:26:29 EDT
>
>Hello all,
>
>I have a question or a request. This fall at the Collegium in Caid there
>will
>be a "Russian track" with two days of classes by Mistress Soraya and me.  I
>looked at the planned classes, and thought that we are very non-fighter
>oriented (early and late period costume, embroidery workshop, trim
>techniques, history, women's lifestyle, folklore and storytelling).  I
>would
>like to add a class on Russian warriors.  Theoretically, I could probably
>pull this off on my own, by talking about battles and allegiances, and (oh
>well) clothes and armor.  This would be a class from a largely dilettante
>perspective.
>
>Alternatively, I could try to get a local fighter interested in the idea
>and
>provide them with information and resources (I read Russian).  I am not
>sure
>how easy or feasible would that be, however.  Ideally, I would love to get
>someone who knows these things come and teach this class (Dmitriy, would
>you
>like to, please?)
>
>In any case, I am asking to be pointed in the right direction -- reliable
>sources, and so on, please?
>
>Thank you,
>Liudmila
>
>PS: The Collegium is in Calafia, Caid -- which is San Diego, California,
>which is where I live and where I can provide accommodations if desired.
>
>
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>




"Fair Gazelle of unsurpassed beauty," apparently


_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.

In a message dated 6/4/2002 12:37:09 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
dvryaboy@... writes:


> Hi Liudmila,
> I'd love to come down, but at the moment I don't even know which state I
> will be living in come fall (graduated a week ago, and the job hunt is on).
>
> I can certainly help you with notes and such, however.


Hi Dmitriy,

and thank you! I appreciate the reference.  I am somewhat in trouble with the
UCSD library right now (for keeping their Domostroi and some other books too
long), but as soon as I pay them off I will get the source you suggest.  I
think the Red Kaganate website is a great resource as well, no need for you
to be humble about it.

Good luck job hunting!

Liudmila


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I've seen this term (boyers) before but i have no clue
what it means.

Anybody got a definition for me?

Aleksandr

--- Alexey Kiyaikin aka Posadnik <Posadnik@...>
wrote:
>
<snip>
the Older Druzhina was a bode of Boyars
<snip>

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Greetings Alexander!

First I thought "Boyar(in)" is related "Boy" (battle, fight) and "yary" (keen,
ferocious, active). But later I came across that in Romania & Bulgaria that
word contained an L, "Bolyar(in)". So, now I don't know anything for sure... :-(

Maybe it really comes from not "Boy" but "Bol'(e)" - "big, great" (and
comparative form), meaning "the higher, the greater one". Similarly, if
Afroamericans had a military body, they could invent a relative title, "A
Bigger Brother". :-)

bye,
Alex

Greetings all!

Some info about tents in Russia.
The archaeologists have found the remains of the yurt-like constructions in the
oldest layers of Kiev. They though don't have any more evidence to tell if
those were the nomad founders of the settlement or (what is more likely) the
"nomad quarter" of the town settled by the forest dwellers. The source: Rodina
magazine, #4 2002.
ISSN 0235-7089
http://www.istrodina.com, of course in Russian.

The exact text of the passage "Choice of Faith" from the Russian chronicle says
Vladimir called for some Jews and there came some Jews from Khazaria - not some
Khazars. So that can't be treated as proof for overall Judaism of the Khazars.
Though, the oldest written document of Kiev is the letter from a respectable
Jew with a request to the Jewish community (???) to help collect ransom for a
fellow Jew imprisoned by the Kievan kniaz (??? the text is not given, it is
shortly cited in a discussion). The source: the same.

So, I've got my job at last, and have more time/money for search. Feel free if
there's anything to ask.     posadnik@...

BTW: does the construction of the homepage allow to post (and read it after
that!!!) some Russian text (not as a scanned picture)? I've got some
interesting materials on folk songs with tunes (collected 1740-1760, Kiev- and
Novgorod-bound) that won't be understandable in English.

bye,
Alex
-----------------------------------------------
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
Мюзикл, покоривший мир в театре "Московская оперетта".
Премьерный блок спектаклей с 21 мая по 15 июня
Заказ билетов на http://r.mail.ru/cln1934/www.ndp.ru

Alexey Kiyaikin aka Posadnik wrote:

>
>BTW: does the construction of the homepage allow to post (and read it after
>that!!!) some Russian text (not as a scanned picture)? I've got some
>interesting materials on folk songs with tunes (collected 1740-1760, Kiev- and
>Novgorod-bound) that won't be understandable in English.
>
I'd try to learn how to read Russian for that - is it possible to you to
send scans via email or something? - not sure enough about webpages to
give you an answer to your question.

-Kataryna

Greetings Kataryna!

> I'd try to learn how to read Russian for that - is it possible to you to
> send scans via email or something? - not sure enough about webpages to
> give you an answer to your question.

No problem with that except time (I have no scanner of my own, so I have to ask
somebody to scan something for me and then carry it on 3'' dickettes to work,
that takes days sometimes). But imagine a situation: I have a full edition of a
book of songs, first published about 1760. A song is a 1-2'' strip of violin
tunes and 1-3 pages of text. It will be too much in kilobytes to scan it
all(and send it all, btw). That'd be much better if we could send scanned tunes
and the rest in txt format. Of course, if the software at
slavic.freeservers.com or elsewhere can understand Russian (I posess a
Russian-language MS Word, MS Windows &all, but can't say if it's enough simply
to download Russian fonts to your computer - I'm no specialist in that). But
all in all, I can send SOMETHING of that.

bye,
Alex.

Alex wrote:

BTW: does the construction of the homepage allow to post (and read it after
that!!!) some Russian text (not as a scanned picture)? I've got some
interesting materials on folk songs with tunes (collected 1740-1760, Kiev- and
Novgorod-bound) that won't be understandable in English.


Hi, Alex -

Who put together the collection?  What kinds of songs are there?  I'd love to
see these!  I've got a scanner - any chance I could get you to mail me some
photocopies, and I could scan them in and post them to the web page?  I could
also do transliterations/translations.  (Well, you could probably do them
better, but I was trying to save you some time!)

-- Kseniia, always on the lookout for new folk songs


*********************************************<br>
Kseniia Smol'nyanina    MKA: Christine Jacobs<br>
Shire of Dragon's Mist  Portland, Oregon<br>     
http://www.geocities.com/chrstnj<br>
*********************************************

Quoting Alexey Kiyaikin aka Posadnik <Posadnik@...>:

>
> Greetings Kataryna!
>
> > I'd try to learn how to read Russian for that - is it possible to you to
> > send scans via email or something? - not sure enough about webpages to
> > give you an answer to your question.
>
> No problem with that except time (I have no scanner of my own, so I have to
> ask
> somebody to scan something for me and then carry it on 3'' dickettes to
> work,
> that takes days sometimes).

   I understand - I have a scanner and still have no time to scan stuff.
   I'm sure that for reading russian all I'd have to do is download the windows
Russian language stuff - to write it I'd need the font, and to get used to the
keyboard.
   I'm no computer expert either, but I'm willing to try and see if something
you send works on my computer. Why don't you try uploading a sample text
(actually try sending a russian word document) to the files at the SIG site
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SIG/
You have to register as a yahoo member if you haven't. (Sorry for the step by
step - I'm used to discussing this with people who've never used the site
attached to the mailing lists).

    BTW is there anyone else on SIG that is interested in Slavic music. I'd like
to research it more but have other project to be done first. If someone has a
class handout they can share that contains a good overview, I'd love to see it.

     ... one of these days (when my other projects are closer to finished) I'll
write the little bits I've found out about the Ukrainian minstrels.
From "Ukrainian Minstrels: And the Blind Shall Sing"by Natalie Kononenko.
http://www.mesharpe.com/books.asp
    It isn't specifically about period but it's the only english language book I
could find easily about Ukrainian minstrels.

-Kataryna

>BTW is there anyone else on SIG that is interested in Slavic music.
>If someone has a class handout they can share that contains a good
>overview, I'd love to see it.
> -Kataryna

Ask, and ye shall receive!

	 http://indra.com/~eliz/SCA/presentation1.2.txt

						 -Yelizaveta

Thank you.
Do you have a bibliography for the article?
-Kataryna

Whoops, sorry - I've just appended the bilio to the file, and included
it below as well.

There's another link to the handout:

	 http://indra.com/~eliz/SCA/handout1.1.txt


						 -Yelizaveta


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bakst, James A History of Russian-Soviet Music.  Dodd, Mead & Co, New
York 1966: pp 3-16

Leonard, Richard Anthony A History of Russian Music.  The MacMillan
Co, New York 1957: pp 11-25

Lvov, Nikolai and Ivan Prach A Collection of Russian Folk Songs UMI
Reasearch press, Ann Arbor, MI 1987

Mizynec, Victor Folk Instruments of Ukraine.  Bayda Books, Doncaster,
Australia 1987.

Reeder, Roberta, trans and ed Russian Folk Lyrics.  Indiana University
Press, Bloomington, IN 1993

Riha, Thomas, ed Readings in Russian Civilization, Volume 1: Russia
Before Peter the Great, 900-1700.  University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, IL 1964.

Seaman, Gerald R. History of Russian Music, Volume 1: From Its Origins
to Dargomyzhsky.  Frederick A. Praeger, New York 1967: pp 1-54

Swan, Alfred J.  Russian Music and Its Sources in Chant and Folk-Song.
WW Norton & Co, New York 1973: pp10-47

Tcherepnin, Alexander Anthology of Russian Music.  M.P. Belaieff, Bonn
1972


(end)

Doers anyone know where I can find any particular court manners of the Poles?
Thanks!

Zygmunt

The 20th Century's Greatest Athlete - Jim Thorpe

Tom Nadratowski <A HREF="http://www.footballguys.com">Footballguys.com</A>


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Thanks.
-Kataryna

Alexey Kiyaikin aka Posadnik wrote:

>Greetings Alexander!
>
>First I thought "Boyar(in)" is related "Boy" (battle, fight) and "yary" (keen,
>ferocious, active). But later I came across that in Romania & Bulgaria that
>word contained an L, "Bolyar(in)". So, now I don't know anything for sure...
:-(
>
>Maybe it really comes from not "Boy" but "Bol'(e)" - "big, great" (and
>comparative form), meaning "the higher, the greater one". Similarly, if
>Afroamericans had a military body, they could invent a relative title, "A
>Bigger Brother". :-)
>
>bye,
>Alex
>
I hear that Boyar is comes from the Turkic/Khazar language and was used
as a term for Nobility.

Laura/Leya

Greetings Kseniia!

>Who put together the collection?
"Kirsha Danilov's songs", first edited in late 1700s, collected by order of
famous factory owner Demidov, from of the Demidov clan that owned about half
factories in the Urals in the 18th century. The collection was put together by
some Kirsha (Cyrill) Danilov, who was traced in the factory documents and some
notes by Demidov. According to the notes, the songs were written down in 1740s,
and decades before they were performed by Kirsha, who learned them from his
father, a descendant of a Skomorokh dynasty (the word Skomorokh wasn't
mentioned in the documents, but there were no other minstrels with dynasties in
Russia). The author (performer) lived in the Urals, where he (and his father?)
was taken from the North of Russia, to work at a factory during the reign of
Peter I. Mine is the first full edition of the book, so the editor can also be
named the one who put the collection together. The tunes are (for the first
time since first edition) were a joint work of Kirsha and somebody who knew how
to write the tunes down, and done as tunes for the violin.

>What kinds of songs are there?

Different ones. There are some Bylinas, we have already had some quarrel about
it at the Kaganate. The Bylinas are Kiev- and Novgorod-bound, that proves once
again that Kirsha first lived in Arkhangelsk region. There are some historic
songs (of later time), about Ivan IV's reign time and later, they are
Moscovia-bound and some are about the conquest of the Urals in 1500-1700s.
There are some "everyday" songs, and some songs that were traditionally
censored in earlier editions, as they are, ergm, ecstatic. It is a common
mistake, made by first scholars of folk lore (digging not in village
storytellers but books like Afanasiv), that "chastity is characteristic of the
Russian fairy tale", though even Afanasiev worked with dozens of texts that
belonged to traditional themes (like Baba Yaga) and could by no means be
offered to children. The same with the songs, as the wedding ceremony was too
closely connected with the cult of fertility and thus "censored" repertoir was
in use. There are at least two such songs in the book, and they indeed carry
the carnival-like spirit that reminds well of, say, Bocaccio or Chaucer.

>I'd love to see these!  I've got a scanner - any chance I could get >you to
mail me some photocopies, and I could scan them in and post >them to the web
page?

Well, thanks really. But, you see, I live not in Moscow, Idaho, but in Moscow,
Russia, and posting of 200-300 pages photocopied is about same trouble as
sending 20-30 megabytes via email (it's easy to copy a document but costs a
little fortune/lots to copy a book, also some trouble with posting something
big to the US). The thing is that the "original" editor used by you English
native speakers, does not have Russian fonts and can't understand Russian
electronic text, so I can't send the lyrics in .txt format already. The part of
the song that really needs .jpg format, is 10-20 square inches of the song
tunes per song.

>I could also do transliterations/translations.  (Well, you could >probably do
them better, but I was trying to save you some time!)

Thanks a lot. We could do the work as joint effort, BTW

bye,
Alex

P.S. And, BTW, why not have a downloadable source of Russian fonts, etc at SIG
homepage? Russian is too easy to read (I won't say anything about Grammar, but
we don't need it in songs). Paul, if you are reading this - what'd you say?

Greetings Kataryna!

Yes, I'm a Yahoo member, that is a way, yes. About the minstrels, some info not
period at all. In 1970s (80s???) about the nicest piece of poetry concerning
Ukrainian minstrels was written by Vitaly Korotich (more known as chief editor
of Ogonyok democratic magazine during Perestroyka). It was translated into
Russian by a brilliant Russian poet Yunna Moritz, and became a song with music
by Sergey Nikitin. Sometimes it was performed in Ukrainian, which was equally
touching. So, if you need to see how the Ukrainians could feel their minstrels'
way, try to find it as a poem or a song - "Poslednaya Pros'ba Starogo Lirnika"
(Last Wish of an Old Lyre Player), or "Maidan" ("market square"). It portrays
the thing, though not documentally but psychologically.

bye,
Alex.

Greetings Laura!
> I hear that Boyar is comes from the Turkic/Khazar language and was used
> as a term for Nobility.

Maybe, though can't say for sure. When my favourite academic bookstore
opens again or I have time to travel to another part of Moscow, I'll simply
consult with the dictionary of Old Russian. In my Joint Dictionary of Turcic
languages there's no such term. It doesn't correspond with Turcic "Bahadur" or
Mongol "Oglan", as well. Suleimenov also doesn't mention it in his Az i Ya,
speaking of the oldest Turcic borrowings into Russian.

bye,
Alex.

Dear Alexey

where is the information on the site (I read Russian but I did not find it)
?
Thank you.


Anne

Network of all Balkan Forums, Message Boards, Yahoo Clubs and Chat
Rooms

http://balkan.ontheweb.com

plz sign my guestbook!!

--- "Alexey Kiyaikin aka Posadnik" <Posadnik@m...> wrote:

> P.S. And, BTW, why not have a downloadable source of Russian fonts,
etc at SIG
> homepage? Russian is too easy to read (I won't say anything about
Grammar, but
> we don't need it in songs). Paul, if you are reading this - what'd
you say?

T%his is actually in the works for the Russian Knowledge Page,
although I am a bit behind in updating and maintaining it, as many are
aware (more on that in the next message).

If you can send me the music info in a Russian font, I can transfer it
into readable text for a web browser.  The RKP would be a good place
to have some music info.

--Yana

Hi again, Alex -

Shoot, I completely forgot that you're in Moscow!  *grumble*  In that case I
understand the issue with photocopies, etc.  (I've done research over there
myself.)

I'd love to somehow work with you on this project, if we can figure out how to
do it.  This is exactly the kind of resource I've always wanted to find!  I know
quite a few of the folk songs collected in this century by Dmitri Pokrovski, but
I would love to find some that are arguably more period, not to mention songs
for solo voice (it's hard to find people who sing in the Russian folk style over
here!).

Let's talk off the list and see if there is some way we can do this together.  I
speak Russian, so that's a help, I think.  Could you send me the bibliographical
info on the book?  Maybe there's a tiny possibility that I can find a copy in
the US and get my hands on it through interlibrary loan.

-- Kseniia, wishing she was back in Moscow

Greetings all,

I am currently researching 14th century chemises and my path has led me to this
list in a roundabout way - I'm hoping that someone can help.

The one extant chemise that I know of is the one shown in Kohler's costume book
(sorry, don't have the title here at work).  I've traced the information back to
a book by Moriz Heyne published in 1903.  The chemise was found in 1867 at
Castle (Burg) Rahnis in Ranis in the ThЭringen region of what used to be East
Germany. I wrote the curator at the cast inquiring if the chemise was still
there.   The curator at the museum wrote back and said that the chemise is not
there anymore.  Apparently, when the Russians came through at the end of WWII,
they took everything from the museum.  Whether they took everything back to
Russia or destroyed it was not addressed in the letter.

My question is this:  has anyone on this list ever heard of or seen a 14th
century chemise in any of the musuems in Russia?

Thanks for your help with this!

In service, I remain

Cainder nic Sheanlaoich
Barony of Madrone
An Tir

As many of you have noticed, I've been rather lax in keeping the Russian
Knowledge Page and the member gallery up to date recently.  I first want to
apologize and promise that I will be updating it as soon as possible and
will keep maintaining it in the future.  I am currently without a computer
at home, so it will be another week or so before I can start fixing links
and updating the member pages.

One of the reasons that I've been behind lately is because Paul and I are
getting a divorce.  Don't worry, SIG will continue on, even with our
physical separation.  We both remain committed to helping the medieval
Slavic world grow within the SCA.  Paul will still publish the main SIG
page and the newsletter.  I will continue to maintain this discussion list
and the Russian Knowledge Page.

After I complete my move (and order my computer) I will be giving the Pages
a much-needed overhaul.  I am currently checking my email at work, so
sometimes I don't have as much time to be online as I did before, but that
will soon change too.  Anyway, time to get back to work!

Talk to y'all soon,

--Yana


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