Tore Gannholm
I have researched the Gotlandic history since 1990 when I came with my first book "Gutarnas historia".At that time it said in Swedish history books: "Gotland is seldom mentioned in the written sources why it was considered that Gotland had no real history, as there lived only peasants.We still suffer badly from earlier generations ’‘Swedish - centered’ historical research. History was always written by the victors.The ‘history’ of the defeated and that of conquered territories is usually being ignored or even misinterpreted. This is true, not only for Gotland but for all those landscapes which were conquered in the 1600s and also, mutatis mutandis, for those parts of the old Sweden which were lost. Who now knows anything about the Middle Ages of Karelia or of Ingermanland or, for that matter, of Finland? When Gotland was annexed by Sweden in 1679 it was the winners history that became ruling. Gotlandic history became irrelevant.To understand the history of Gotland, one must fully realize that Gotland was an independent Merchant Farmers’ Republic, and the hub of the Baltic Sea region, which from time immemorial had its relations mainly east and south. The Gotlandic history is misleading and difficult to understand if it is bundled with the Swedish history, which so far has been done. They both have their separate history. There are some deadlocks in Swedish history which have blocked the view for a broader perspective. I here think of the Roman sources about the Baltic Sea region. In the 1600s when Sweden was a super-power they had to give it a story that matched its position in the world and when they in the Roman sources found peoples and places that started with an ‘S’ they immediately concluded that it must be ‘Svear’ and the ‘Scandinavian peninsula’. The Roman name for the Scandinavian peninsula was, however, still in the 500s THULE.This historical picture was created by Johannes Magnus, and continued by Olof Rudbeck in ‘Atlantica’. Still today many writers without thought are copying these old delusions that the Roman writers would have written about some mighty Svear at the beginning of our era.It is not possible to study Gotlandic history or Gotlandic world-uniqe churches in any Swedish university as there are no such subjects.However on internet I have over the years been able to discuss history with scholars in various countries.As regards the world-unique Gotlandic Medieval churches Professor Emeritus Jan Svanberg has been my mentor since early 1990s and I have followed him on various excursions to churches in Gotland, in Sweden, in Russia and in southern Europe. I have also arranged excursions with Jan as guide to Gotlandic churches.After the book-release of "Gotland the Pearl of the Baltic Sea" in august 2013 I started with the project of the Gotlandic churches with Jan Svanberg as my mentor. I realized something was wrong with the dating and could soon prove that they were up to 200 years older that available research showed. I worked 8 hours a day seven days a week for two years. I used three computers to access my research material that I had scanned and is available in pdf on my server.I had book release on ”The Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medieval Churches” ISBN:978-91-87481-49-9 (701 pages 1400 photos) at the Book fair in St Petersburg in May 2016.
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Historians and linguists have tried in various ways to interpret and fit the epic into the Swedish history without much success.
However, it is now proven that it has its home in the Gotlandic history. Together with the Gotlandic picture stones and Guta Saga the Beowulf epos constitutes Gotland’s finest historical records.
The first real Baptismal fonts we find in Gotland.
It is the font in Etelhem church that is dedicated to Hægwaldr.
He works in sandstone.
Hegwaldr’s art is the gateway between the old and new Gotlandic art.
His style is fundamental for the Gotlandic baptis- mal fonts.
It is not impossible that he has had a fundamental role as an architect.
The earliest fonts were made in sandstone.
Only a few have been exported.
Later with Calcarius the fonts are made in limestone. Of these only two are found in Gotland.
More than 1500 have been exported from Gotland and we find them all around the Baltic Sea.
References to figures is in the book:
The Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medieval churches
The first real Baptismal fonts we find in Gotland.
It is the font in Etelhem church that is dedicated to Hægwaldr.
He works in sandstone.
Hegwaldr’s art is the gateway between the old and new Gotlandic art.
His style is fundamental for the Gotlandic baptis- mal fonts.
It is not impossible that he has had a fundamental role as an architect.
The earliest fonts were made in sandstone.
Only a few have been exported.
Later with Calcarius the fonts are made in limestone. Of these only two are found in Gotland.
More than 1500 have been exported from Gotland and we find them all around the Baltic Sea.
References to figures is in the book:
The Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medieval churches
Silk textiles from the Viking age are a small but exclusive group of archaeological finds in Scandinavia. The silk fragments are produced in many different qualities. The majority of silks have been interpreted as either Central Asian or as made in the Byzantine production area, that is in Constantinople, or in associated areas in the eastern Mediterranean region. A few fragments from Birka have been interpreted as Chinese silk. Great emphasis must be placed on the Gotlandic merchants’, the Varangians or Rus as they are called in Arabic sources, strong ties to the Byzantine Empire in the 800s and 900s and thereby the trade on the westernmost of the Russian waterways. Archaeological sources give no reason to believe that the distribution of silk to the Baltic Sea areas is a result of trading along one single route. The two major eastern trading routes
A project at Enköping museum has re- constructed silk fabrics with Islamic patterns along the Russian rivers Dnjepr and the Volga-Oka region are likely routes for the arrival of silk to both Oseberg and to Birka.
In Scandinavia so far 23 archaeological sites with finds of silks dating to the 800s and 900s have been registered, in most cases from graves. This includes both silk fabrics and silk thread and lan-cores used in embroideries. In addition there are several graves with finds of fibres assumed to be silk but not yet identified. Many of the sites revealed only one or a few fragments of silk. The largest concentration of graves is in Birka in the Lake Mälar area where 49 graves, according to Agnes Geijer, contained silk.
Based on these finds in the graves a project at Enköping museum has re- constructed silk fabrics with Islamic patterns.
The majority of graves containing silk from Birka are dated to the 900s. Of 49 graves, 37 are dated to this period while 12 date to the 800s. The fabric type by Geijer called S4 dominates in both centuries and is the most common type represented in all graves. This is a type of samite with z-spun main warps and weft with no traces of spinning.
När Boris Yeltsin hade tagit makten var en av hans första handlingar att få in en grupp ekonomer från det neoliberala ekonomiska institutet, som är baserat i London.
Resultatet av att Jeltsin antog den neoliberala ekonomiska agendan var effektivt plundringen av Rysslands ekonomi med förödande effekter på det ryska folket. Stödet från den amerikanska regeringen för Jeltsins politik var utbrett med den så kallade Wolfowitz-doktrinen som föreskrev att ingen nation någonsin måste tillåtas stiga upp till Sovjetunionens nivå och det skulle nu bara vara en unipolär värld under dominans av
USA.
När Vladimir Putin valdes till president år 2000 stoppades äntligen plundringen av Rysslands ekonomi och de neoliberala ekonomerna kastades ut samtidigt som förstörelsen av Rysslands industrier stoppades. Putin avvisade klart Wolfowitz-doktrinen som ledde till flera uppror i Rysslands Kaukasus, som Moskva misstänkte hade stöd och anstiftan av brittiska agenter.
Tore Gannholms forskning har med sina böcker om Varjagernas historia och dess världsunika medeltida kyrkor "Gotland the Pearl of the Baltic Sea, Center for commerce and culture in the Baltic Sea region during 2000 years" och "The Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medieval Churches", kastat nytt ljus över Östersjöregionens, Rysslands ja hela Europas historia.
Han har kunnat knyta Varjagerna även kallade al-Rus' till den gutniska historien.
En sammanfattning på svenska “Gutland Varjagernas hem” kom 2017.
Sedan har Tore Gannholm tillsammans med Vera Efron givit ut “Philip Johan Stralenberg”,
baserad på dagböckerna från karolinerna som tillbringade 12 år i Sibirien. Deras liv i Sibirien är mycket spännande.
Med denna senaste bok “Ryssland efter Jeltsin” har Tore Gannholm täckt hela Rysslands historia från dess början då Varjagerna härskade.
Sedan har vi tiden då en hel svensk arme tas till fånga och tillbringar 12 år i Sibirien.
Och nu denna bok som behandlar smärtorna efter det totalitära Sovjets upplösning och stegen mot full demokrati trots alla externa hot mot Rysslands existens.
Tore Gannholm har utnyttjat de historiska källorna med sträng källkritik vilket resulterat i en helt annan bild av Ryssland än vi är vana vid i de Russofobiska svenska medierna.
Historien har nu hunnit ifatt den amerikanska propaganda och svenska Russofobi som vi hela tiden matas med i svenska medier. Tore Gannholm har som historiker med skarp källkritik gått igenom kända källor och presenterar en helt annan bild av vårt östra grannland.
Efter president George H.W. Bushs nederlag till återval föll det på Bill Clinton, som blev
president i januari 1993 att formulera en långsiktig politik mot post-sovjetiska Ryssland.
Med tanke på Rysslands enastående potential för både väsentligt samarbete och oöverträffade faror, ärvde Clinton-administrationen historiskt ansvar för att Rysslands politik, som de lärda säger, skall rättvist förstås.
Detta misslyckades katastrofalt, och de amerikanska tjänstemännen som var involverade i dessa beslut fortsatte att försvara denna politik som gick ut på att slå sönder Ryssland för att komma åt dess naturresurser.
Det krävs ingen examen i internationella relationer för att förstå att den första principen om politik mot postkommunistiska Ryssland borde ha varit att följa det “hippokratiska förbudet”: Gör ingen skada! Gör ingenting för att undergräva dess ömtåliga stabilitet, inget att avskräcka Kreml från att ge första prioritet åt att reparera nationens sönderfallande infrastrukturer, inget att få det att lita mer på sina lager av supermaktsvapen istället för att minska dem, ingenting att göra Moskva mindre än fullt samarbetande med väst i dessa och andra vitala sysslor.
Allt annat i det splittrade landet var av betydligt mindre betydelse.
Den amerikanska politiken blev annorlunda - ett obevekligt, ”segraren” tar allt och fullt
utnyttjande av Rysslands svaghet efter 1991.
Tillsammans med brutna amerikanska löften, nedlåtande föreläsningar och krav på ensidiga medgivanden, var och förblir den officiella retoriken ännu mer aggressiv och kompromisslös än vad Washington hade mot Sovjetkommunistiska Ryssland.
Det är viktigt att specificera de grundläggande delarna i denna faktiska politik när den utvecklas - med fullt stöd i båda de stora amerikanska politiska partierna, inflytelserika medier och liberala och konservativa tankesmedjor - sedan början av 1990-talet, om inte bara för att den bitit sig fast i Moskvas minne:
̊En växande militär omringning av Ryssland, vid och nära dess gränser, av USAs och NATOs baser, som redan i augusti 2008 var förskansade eller planerade i minst hälften av de fjorton andra före detta sovjetrepublikerna, från Baltikum och Ukraina till Georgien,
Azerbajdzjan, och de nya staterna i Centralasien.
Resultatet är en återuppstånden järnridå och militarisering av amerikansk-ryska relationer.
När Jeltsin den 31 december 1999 kastade in handduken och överlät styret på sin regeringschef var Ryssland i ett bedrövligt skick, både ekonomiskt och försvarsmässigt. Skulle Ryssland ha blivit anfallet av USA-NATO hade det inte kunnat försvara sig. Officerarna hade så illa ställt att för att kunna överleva måste de odla potatis på
övningsfälten.
It was in 1961 that one of the most remarkable archaeological finds, ever found in the Baltic Sea region, came to light in the Havor ancient castle-fort in the south of Gotland. But not only is this find scientifically important, it was also a genuine fairy- tale treasure of everything that one associates with it. There was a large bronze vessel, with its richly ornate fittings covered with a flat stone, under which there was a huge, richly decorated ring of shiny gold
There are some deadlocks in Swedish history which have blocked the view for a broader perspective. I here think of the Roman sources about the Baltic Sea region. In the 1600s when Sweden was a super- power they had to give it a story that matched its position in the world and when they in the Roman sources found peoples and places that started with an ‘S’ they immediately concluded that it must be ‘Svear’ and the ‘Scandinavian peninsula’.
The Roman name for the Scandinavian peninsula was, however, still in the 500s THULE. This historical picture was created by Johannes Magnus, and continued by Olof Rudbeck in ‘Atlantica’. Still today many writers without thought are copying these old delusions that the Roman writers would have written about some mighty Svear at the beginning of our era.
Let us look at the archaeological evidences and take such a simple example as the 7500 Roman coins from Tacitus time and there about, denarius, found in present day Sweden. 6500 of these are from Gotland. Only 80 are from the Lake Mälar area. Or take the quantity of bronze bowls from the Capuan factory outside Naples found on Gotland.
How can Swedish scholars with this quantity of finds on Gotland from the Roman Imperial time pretend that Gotland did not exist?
Tacitus wrote about Suionum Civitate. He accordingly tells about the people who lived in Mare Suebicum (the Baltic Sea), i.e. the Gotlanders, who already then had reached a high cultural level and had trade relations all over Europe, including the Roman Empire.
He continues: “Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage. Here end the territories of the Suevians.” The Sithones lived in the Lake Mälar area and are what we later call Svear.
From the archaeological findings we can accordingly establish that trade relations between Gotland and the Roman Empire were intense.
No Svea kingdom as such existed yet at that time. Tacitus says that the people in the Lake Mälar area were ruled by a woman. Still in the Beowulf epos, probably written down in the 700s, the people in the Lake Mälar area are not known as Svear but as Skilfings.
It is quite clear that historical observations can not only be based on name similarities, but one must first look at the map, the archaeological finds and the chronological development and only secondarily try to match the names that different peoples have had in different areas at different times, and when these names first appear in written sources.
The early history is a piece of myth, oral tradition and fragmentary records. From all this can suddenly emerge a pattern, the outline of a process that may not be scientifically inviolable, which it never really can be. Yet it is nearer the truth than you could ever reach with ‘scientific accuracy’.
If you take the Guta Saga, written down about 1220, and the Beowulf Epos, written down in the 700s, as serious as Snorri Sturluson’s ‘Nordiska kungasagor’, written down about 1220, has been honored - i.e. as evidence in lack of better sources, there will open up a new, breathtaking perspective regarding Gotlandic, Swedish and Scandinavian history during the Roman time of the emperors and the Migration Period. Yes also that of Europe.
Already in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age there are signs of Gotlandic trading Emporiums on the east coast of the Baltic Sea and all the way to the river Volga.
Trade, especially amber trade, experiences in the Bronze Age a large bloom. The Gotlanders seem to have controlled the amber trade with trading Emporiums in the Vistula area. The extensive trade relations convey influences from outside. From southern cultural centers, Egypt, Crete, Mycenae, spiritual impulses stretched their effects also to the Baltic Sea region and Gotland.
The immigration of the Herul Royal family (Svear) to the Lake Mälar area in the early 500s, when they bring a new ruling dynasty and a new religion to the area (what we today know as the Ynglinga dynasty and the Æsir religion), is mentioned in several sources. Their entrance on the stage changes the situation in the Baltic Sea region. The wars between the Skilfings (Svear) and the Gotlanders are mentioned in the Beowulf epos.
The Guta Saga tells that the Gotlanders always kept the victory and their right: “Many kings fought against Gutland while it was heathen; the Gotlanders, however, always held the victory and constantly protected their rights. Later the Gotlanders sent a large number of messengers to ‘suiarikis’ (Svear), but none of them could make peace before Avair Strabain of Alva parish. He made the first peace with the ‘suja kunung’ (king of the Svear).”
The Trade Treaty between the Gotlanders and the Svear, probably from second half of the 500s, means that the Gotlanders could freely trade on the new kingdom in the Lake Mälar area and its conquered lands east of the Baltic Sea. There were large Gotlandic trading Emporiums, i. a. in Grobina (Latvia) ca 650-850 CE, an area at that time conquered by the Svear. Helgö and Birka would be trading places with large Gotlandic influence. E.g., writes Adam of Bremen in his story, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, that “Birka is a Gotlandic (Gothia) town located in the middle of the country of the Sveoner.”
A new way of burial appears in the Lake Mälar area in the 500s, as well as the introduction of the Roman calendar. If we accept that the Heruli settle in the Lake Mälar area at this time, as mentioned by Procopius, it explains a lot. Actually this in fact explains the rise of the Vendel era, which in the Lake Mälar area starts first half of the 500s and continues until the beginning of the Middle Ages. On Gotland it starts about 50 years earlier and is explained by the Gotlanders’ close contacts with Theoderic’s Gothic kingdom.
The first writer to mention some people on the Scandinavian peninsula (THULE), except Tacitus Sitonens in the Lake Mälar area, is Prokopios who wrote in the 500s. With the discovery that the Beowulf epos is about the Gotlanders in combination with the Heruls immigration to the Lake Mälar area we have been able to shed new light on the Gotlandic history. Indeed the history of the whole Baltic Sea region has come in a whole new light. We now have a link between the Beowulf epos, Guta Saga and the archaeological finds from the 400s and 500s.
Roman gold coins known as solidi have been found on the three Baltic Sea islands: Bornholm, 150, Öland 298, Gotland 270 + 47 on the market place Helgö in Mälaren. The latter have been intended as raw material and are according to the researchers most likely derived from Gotland. It is obvious here to see Helgö and then Birka as Gotlandic trading venues, as implied by the archaeological sources. Gotland’s importance for trade and culture in the Baltic Sea region during the first millennium can also be illustrated by the coin finds.
From the 500s until the 1000s the Gotlanders have, according to Swedish researchers, been considered to rarely be mentioned in ancient sources. They are, however, well known in Arabic and Byzantine sources as al-Rus’ and Varangian merchants. The word Varangian was used by Arabs, Greeks and Kievan Rus’ for the merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region (the Gotlanders). It probably came from the old Norse word ‘vár’, which means ‘union through promise’, and was used by a group of men to keep them together in an association, and under oath observe certain obligations to support each other in good faith and to share the resulting profits. It was a common word, when trading adventures were undertaken by Gotlandic tradesmen on the Russian rivers. They closed a business contract with each other and pledged to defend each other. Another meaning of the word was for the Gotlanders who acted as mercenary soldiers to the rulers of Khazaria, Miklagarðr (Constantinople) and Garðaríki (Kievan Rus’).
The Gotlandic Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine army formed under emperor Basil II in 988. .
There are some deadlocks in Swedish history which have blocked the view for a broader perspective. I here think of the Roman sources about the Baltic Sea region. In the 1600s when Sweden was a super- power they had to give it a story that matched its position in the world and when they in the Roman sources found peoples and places that started with an ‘S’ they immediately concluded that it must be ‘Svear’ and the ‘Scandinavian peninsula’.
The Roman name for the Scandinavian peninsula was, however, still in the 500s THULE. This historical picture was created by Johannes Magnus, and continued by Olof Rudbeck in ‘Atlantica’. Still today many writers without thought are copying these old delusions that the Roman writers would have written about some mighty Svear at the beginning of our era.
Let us look at the archaeological evidences and take such a simple example as the 7500 Roman coins from Tacitus time and there about, denarius, found in present day Sweden. 6500 of these are from Gotland. Only 80 are from the Lake Mälar area. Or take the quantity of bronze bowls from the Capuan factory outside Naples found on Gotland.
How can Swedish scholars with this quantity of finds on Gotland from the Roman Imperial time pretend that Gotland did not exist?
Tacitus wrote about Suionum Civitate. He accordingly tells about the people who lived in Mare Suebicum (the Baltic Sea), i.e. the Gotlanders, who already then had reached a high cultural level and had trade relations all over Europe, including the Roman Empire.
He continues: “Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage. Here end the territories of the Suevians.” The Sithones lived in the Lake Mälar area and are what we later call Svear.
From the archaeological findings we can accordingly establish that trade relations between Gotland and the Roman Empire were intense.
No Svea kingdom as such existed yet at that time. Tacitus says that the people in the Lake Mälar area were ruled by a woman. Still in the Beowulf epos, probably written down in the 700s, the people in the Lake Mälar area are not known as Svear but as Skilfings.
It is quite clear that historical observations can not only be based on name similarities, but one must first look at the map, the archaeological finds and the chronological development and only secondarily try to match the names that different peoples have had in different areas at different times, and when these names first appear in written sources.
The early history is a piece of myth, oral tradition and fragmentary records. From all this can suddenly emerge a pattern, the outline of a process that may not be scientifically inviolable, which it never really can be. Yet it is nearer the truth than you could ever reach with ‘scientific accuracy’.
If you take the Guta Saga, written down about 1220, and the Beowulf Epos, written down in the 700s, as serious as Snorri Sturluson’s ‘Nordiska kungasagor’, written down about 1220, has been honored - i.e. as evidence in lack of better sources, there will open up a new, breathtaking perspective regarding Gotlandic, Swedish and Scandinavian history during the Roman time of the emperors and the Migration Period. Yes also that of Europe.
Already in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age there are signs of Gotlandic trading Emporiums on the east coast of the Baltic Sea and all the way to the river Volga.
Trade, especially amber trade, experiences in the Bronze Age a large bloom. The Gotlanders seem to have controlled the amber trade with trading Emporiums in the Vistula area. The extensive trade relations convey influences from outside. From southern cultural centers, Egypt, Crete, Mycenae, spiritual impulses stretched their effects also to the Baltic Sea region and Gotland.
The immigration of the Herul Royal family (Svear) to the Lake Mälar area in the early 500s, when they bring a new ruling dynasty and a new religion to the area (what we today know as the Ynglinga dynasty and the Æsir religion), is mentioned in several sources. Their entrance on the stage changes the situation in the Baltic Sea region. The wars between the Skilfings (Svear) and the Gotlanders are mentioned in the Beowulf epos.
The Guta Saga tells that the Gotlanders always kept the victory and their right: “Many kings fought against Gutland while it was heathen; the Gotlanders, however, always held the victory and constantly protected their rights. Later the Gotlanders sent a large number of messengers to ‘suiarikis’ (Svear), but none of them could make peace before Avair Strabain of Alva parish. He made the first peace with the ‘suja kunung’ (king of the Svear).”
The Trade Treaty between the Gotlanders and the Svear, probably from second half of the 500s, means that the Gotlanders could freely trade on the new kingdom in the Lake Mälar area and its conquered lands east of the Baltic Sea. There were large Gotlandic trading Emporiums, i. a. in Grobina (Latvia) ca 650-850 CE, an area at that time conquered by the Svear. Helgö and Birka would be trading places with large Gotlandic influence. E.g., writes Adam of Bremen in his story, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, that “Birka is a Gotlandic (Gothia) town located in the middle of the country of the Sveoner.”
A new way of burial appears in the Lake Mälar area in the 500s, as well as the introduction of the Roman calendar. If we accept that the Heruli settle in the Lake Mälar area at this time, as mentioned by Procopius, it explains a lot. Actually this in fact explains the rise of the Vendel era, which in the Lake Mälar area starts first half of the 500s and continues until the beginning of the Middle Ages. On Gotland it starts about 50 years earlier and is explained by the Gotlanders’ close contacts with Theoderic’s Gothic kingdom.
The first writer to mention some people on the Scandinavian peninsula (THULE), except Tacitus Sitonens in the Lake Mälar area, is Prokopios who wrote in the 500s. With the discovery that the Beowulf epos is about the Gotlanders in combination with the Heruls immigration to the Lake Mälar area we have been able to shed new light on the Gotlandic history. Indeed the history of the whole Baltic Sea region has come in a whole new light. We now have a link between the Beowulf epos, Guta Saga and the archaeological finds from the 400s and 500s.
Roman gold coins known as solidi have been found on the three Baltic Sea islands: Bornholm, 150, Öland 298, Gotland 270 + 47 on the market place Helgö in Mälaren. The latter have been intended as raw material and are according to the researchers most likely derived from Gotland. It is obvious here to see Helgö and then Birka as Gotlandic trading venues, as implied by the archaeological sources. Gotland’s importance for trade and culture in the Baltic Sea region during the first millennium can also be illustrated by the coin finds.
From the 500s until the 1000s the Gotlanders have, according to Swedish researchers, been considered to rarely be mentioned in ancient sources. They are, however, well known in Arabic and Byzantine sources as al-Rus’ and Varangian merchants. The word Varangian was used by Arabs, Greeks and Kievan Rus’ for the merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region (the Gotlanders). It probably came from the old Norse word ‘vár’, which means ‘union through promise’, and was used by a group of men to keep them together in an association, and under oath observe certain obligations to support each other in good faith and to share the resulting profits. It was a common word, when trading adventures were undertaken by Gotlandic tradesmen on the Russian rivers. They closed a business contract with each other and pledged to defend each other. Another meaning of the word was for the Gotlanders who acted as mercenary soldiers to the rulers of Khazaria, Miklagarðr (Constantinople) and Garðaríki (Kievan Rus’).
The Gotlandic Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine army formed under emperor Basil II in 988. .
There are some deadlocks in Swedish history which have blocked the view for a broader perspective. I here think of the Roman sources about the Baltic Sea region. In the 1600s when Sweden was a super- power they had to give it a story that matched its position in the world and when they in the Roman sources found peoples and places that started with an ‘S’ they immediately concluded that it must be ‘Svear’ and the ‘Scandinavian peninsula’.
The Roman name for the Scandinavian peninsula was, however, still in the 500s THULE. This historical picture was created by Johannes Magnus, and continued by Olof Rudbeck in ‘Atlantica’. Still today many writers without thought are copying these old delusions that the Roman writers would have written about some mighty Svear at the beginning of our era.
Let us look at the archaeological evidences and take such a simple example as the 7500 Roman coins from Tacitus time and there about, denarius, found in present day Sweden. 6500 of these are from Gotland. Only 80 are from the Lake Mälar area. Or take the quantity of bronze bowls from the Capuan factory outside Naples found on Gotland.
How can Swedish scholars with this quantity of finds on Gotland from the Roman Imperial time pretend that Gotland did not exist?
Tacitus wrote about Suionum Civitate. He accordingly tells about the people who lived in Mare Suebicum (the Baltic Sea), i.e. the Gotlanders, who already then had reached a high cultural level and had trade relations all over Europe, including the Roman Empire.
He continues: “Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage. Here end the territories of the Suevians.” The Sithones lived in the Lake Mälar area and are what we later call Svear.
From the archaeological findings we can accordingly establish that trade relations between Gotland and the Roman Empire were intense.
No Svea kingdom as such existed yet at that time. Tacitus says that the people in the Lake Mälar area were ruled by a woman. Still in the Beowulf epos, probably written down in the 700s, the people in the Lake Mälar area are not known as Svear but as Skilfings.
It is quite clear that historical observations can not only be based on name similarities, but one must first look at the map, the archaeological finds and the chronological development and only secondarily try to match the names that different peoples have had in different areas at different times, and when these names first appear in written sources.
The early history is a piece of myth, oral tradition and fragmentary records. From all this can suddenly emerge a pattern, the outline of a process that may not be scientifically inviolable, which it never really can be. Yet it is nearer the truth than you could ever reach with ‘scientific accuracy’.
If you take the Guta Saga, written down about 1220, and the Beowulf Epos, written down in the 700s, as serious as Snorri Sturluson’s ‘Nordiska kungasagor’, written down about 1220, has been honored - i.e. as evidence in lack of better sources, there will open up a new, breathtaking perspective regarding Gotlandic, Swedish and Scandinavian history during the Roman time of the emperors and the Migration Period. Yes also that of Europe.
Already in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age there are signs of Gotlandic trading Emporiums on the east coast of the Baltic Sea and all the way to the river Volga.
Trade, especially amber trade, experiences in the Bronze Age a large bloom. The Gotlanders seem to have controlled the amber trade with trading Emporiums in the Vistula area. The extensive trade relations convey influences from outside. From southern cultural centers, Egypt, Crete, Mycenae, spiritual impulses stretched their effects also to the Baltic Sea region and Gotland.
The immigration of the Herul Royal family (Svear) to the Lake Mälar area in the early 500s, when they bring a new ruling dynasty and a new religion to the area (what we today know as the Ynglinga dynasty and the Æsir religion), is mentioned in several sources. Their entrance on the stage changes the situation in the Baltic Sea region. The wars between the Skilfings (Svear) and the Gotlanders are mentioned in the Beowulf epos.
The Guta Saga tells that the Gotlanders always kept the victory and their right: “Many kings fought against Gutland while it was heathen; the Gotlanders, however, always held the victory and constantly protected their rights. Later the Gotlanders sent a large number of messengers to ‘suiarikis’ (Svear), but none of them could make peace before Avair Strabain of Alva parish. He made the first peace with the ‘suja kunung’ (king of the Svear).”
The Trade Treaty between the Gotlanders and the Svear, probably from second half of the 500s, means that the Gotlanders could freely trade on the new kingdom in the Lake Mälar area and its conquered lands east of the Baltic Sea. There were large Gotlandic trading Emporiums, i. a. in Grobina (Latvia) ca 650-850 CE, an area at that time conquered by the Svear. Helgö and Birka would be trading places with large Gotlandic influence. E.g., writes Adam of Bremen in his story, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, that “Birka is a Gotlandic (Gothia) town located in the middle of the country of the Sveoner.”
A new way of burial appears in the Lake Mälar area in the 500s, as well as the introduction of the Roman calendar. If we accept that the Heruli settle in the Lake Mälar area at this time, as mentioned by Procopius, it explains a lot. Actually this in fact explains the rise of the Vendel era, which in the Lake Mälar area starts first half of the 500s and continues until the beginning of the Middle Ages. On Gotland it starts about 50 years earlier and is explained by the Gotlanders’ close contacts with Theoderic’s Gothic kingdom.
The first writer to mention some people on the Scandinavian peninsula (THULE), except Tacitus Sitonens in the Lake Mälar area, is Prokopios who wrote in the 500s. With the discovery that the Beowulf epos is about the Gotlanders in combination with the Heruls immigration to the Lake Mälar area we have been able to shed new light on the Gotlandic history. Indeed the history of the whole Baltic Sea region has come in a whole new light. We now have a link between the Beowulf epos, Guta Saga and the archaeological finds from the 400s and 500s.
Roman gold coins known as solidi have been found on the three Baltic Sea islands: Bornholm, 150, Öland 298, Gotland 270 + 47 on the market place Helgö in Mälaren. The latter have been intended as raw material and are according to the researchers most likely derived from Gotland. It is obvious here to see Helgö and then Birka as Gotlandic trading venues, as implied by the archaeological sources. Gotland’s importance for trade and culture in the Baltic Sea region during the first millennium can also be illustrated by the coin finds.
From the 500s until the 1000s the Gotlanders have, according to Swedish researchers, been considered to rarely be mentioned in ancient sources. They are, however, well known in Arabic and Byzantine sources as al-Rus’ and Varangian merchants. The word Varangian was used by Arabs, Greeks and Kievan Rus’ for the merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region (the Gotlanders). It probably came from the old Norse word ‘vár’, which means ‘union through promise’, and was used by a group of men to keep them together in an association, and under oath observe certain obligations to support each other in good faith and to share the resulting profits. It was a common word, when trading adventures were undertaken by Gotlandic tradesmen on the Russian rivers. They closed a business contract with each other and pledged to defend each other. Another meaning of the word was for the Gotlanders who acted as mercenary soldiers to the rulers of Khazaria, Miklagarðr (Constantinople) and Garðaríki (Kievan Rus’).
The Gotlandic Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine army formed under emperor Basil II in 988. .
With the name Tjelvar the Gotlandic history begins. Some Danish and Norwegian researchers have associated the name Tjelvar with the name of Thors agile servant Tjalvi, where ‘a’ under the rules of the Nordic ‘i’ sound should have passed over to an ‘e’. Such an interpretation is likely considering the mythological character that the Guta Saga undoubtedly has. The Thor cult seems to have had a wide expansion on Gotland. Thor and his servant who belong together as mythical nature beeings were wellknown. Thor was the god of thunder and lightning and was looked upon to cause thunder-storms “tordön”.
According to the Guta Saga, Tjelvar had a son by the name of Havde, who married Vita stjerna and with her had three sons, Gute, Graipr and Gunnfjaun. From these three originated since the entire Gotlandic people. Thus the Guta Saga ties in with the triad, which is so common in most origin myths all the way from the Biblical story of Noah’s three sons, from which all nations of the earth descended. All here mentioned names are formed in a typically Nordic way except for the name of Havde’s wife Vitastjerna. This name stands there like an exotic flower in an otherwise entirely Nordic name flora. In the Low German translation the translator has to the name appended the following statement, translated into English, “it is by far the wisest hereditary daughter”. If you agree with the Low German interpretation it gives the Guta Saga still another mythological dimension. With the wisest it could refer to the goddess Athena in Greek mythology. In the Guta Saga it says that some Gotlanders emigrated to Greece. Athena is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, female arts, crafts, justice and skill.
It is interesting to compare Tacitus Germania with Tjelvar and his family, where Tacitus talks about the Germanic gods in the first century. According to Tacitus, Mannus is the son of Tuisto and the progenitor of the three Germanic tribes Ingaevones, Herminones and Istvaeones. Note that Wodan and that group of gods are not known at that time.
The Guta Saga and Guta Lagh are probably written down around 1220 on the recommendation of the Archbishop in Lund, Andreas Sunesen. He was in 1207 passing through Gotland. There is preserved a letter from him to Bishop Bengt in Linköping in which he stresses the benefits of having the law written down. He also points out that the law must be suitable to the country, adding: “It is noted that, like the island Gutland, through a long sea stretch, is separated from other countries in the same way its inhabitants are so different from other people as concerns regulated law and customary right both the secular and spiritual.” This Gotlandic distinctiveness had a long history.
What is not mentioned in Guta Saga is the ‘Bulverket’ in Tingstäde träsk which was probably built as a fortification in relation to ravages by Norwegian Vikings and a winter tradingplace. If so, the ‘Bulverket’ has not been built later than the end of the 900s or early 1000s, the time when these Viking kings ravaged Gotland. In 1007 came a Norwegian fleet under the 13 year old Olaf Haraldsson (later Christianized and called Olaf the Saint) on a ravaging expedition to the Baltic Sea. The campaign was however led by the king trainer Hrane who had been on Viking ravaging expeditions several times before. As Olaf was the most famous Gotlandic saint when Guta Saga was written down, this could of course not be mentioned.
Both documents show the way beyond themselves, deep in the ancient world, where only the abandoned settlements, burial grounds, picture stones and prehistoric finds speak for themselves in its dumb but expressive language. People came to Gotland already in the Paleolithic, during the time of the Ancylus Lake, when the climate was warm and moist and Gotland was abounding with water, and prey of all kinds were swarming. But for how long has there been a social organization? Can we find any hint to the cause and origin of the Merchant Farmers’ Republic?
What do our Stone Age discoveries say? Yes, they speak in the beginning of a people of seal hunters and fishermen. Of astronomers who were able to read the sky and document an astronomical calendar. They must have had knowledge of what we today call the Metonic cycle. The Metonic calendar assumes that 19 solar years are equal to 235 lunar months, which is in turn equal to 6940 days.
The power and glory of the old Gotlanders was built, as we know, on foreign trade far more than its own products. How far back can we trace the merchandizing on Gotland? At least to the Neolithic period. It is quite clear that the Gotlanders early begun to use the good trading position of their home island for trade.
Already the boom during the Bronze Age would have meant a strong community organization where we can see the great piles of stones, cairns, and those for Gotland unique stone ships.
The outlines of an organized form of society with trade contacts with the Roman Empire can on Gotland be traced back to at least around the beginning of our era.
This seems at the beginning of the Roman Iron Age, also called ‘Time of emperors’, to have been one of the Gotlandic ancient culture’s most prosperous economic booms. Roman authors like Pliny the Elder and Tacitus write about the mighty people on the island in Mare Suebicum (Baltic Sea). This culture was built on regular trade exchange with the continental tribes, and directly and indirectly with the Roman Empire, where the Roman basilicas appear to be prototypes for the large Gotlandic halls of that time known as ‘kämpgravar’. The structure of this society appears to have had that in the Nordic region character of ancient great family. The peculiarity of this cultural image is precisely the singular style of the break between people with their artistically trained, partially refined personal luxury and world-knowledge and their daily lives in a district of simple shepherds. For those who built the huge halls in accordance with ancient inherited traditions and laid Roman wine ladles from Capua in Italy in the tombs and lost Emperor silver denarius behind the headboard must have been not only wealthy but also globetrotters. (see ‘The largest known Nordic building from the Roman Iron Age’ with the measures 67 x 11 metres). The Gotlanders most probably controlled the northern part of the Amber Road and were at the right place when the Gothic federation was formed. In Roman times, a main route ran south from the Baltic coast in Prussia through the land of the Boii (modern Czech Republic and Slovakia) to the head of the Adriatic Sea (modern Gulf of Venice).
Historians and linguists have tried in various ways to interpret and fit the epic into the Swedish history without much success.
However, it is now proven that it has its home in the Gotlandic history. Together with the Gotlandic picture stones and Guta Saga the Beowulf epos constitutes Gotland’s finest historical records.
The first real Baptismal fonts we find in Gotland.
It is the font in Etelhem church that is dedicated to Hægwaldr.
He works in sandstone.
Hegwaldr’s art is the gateway between the old and new Gotlandic art.
His style is fundamental for the Gotlandic baptis- mal fonts.
It is not impossible that he has had a fundamental role as an architect.
The earliest fonts were made in sandstone.
Only a few have been exported.
Later with Calcarius the fonts are made in limestone. Of these only two are found in Gotland.
More than 1500 have been exported from Gotland and we find them all around the Baltic Sea.
References to figures is in the book:
The Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medieval churches
The first real Baptismal fonts we find in Gotland.
It is the font in Etelhem church that is dedicated to Hægwaldr.
He works in sandstone.
Hegwaldr’s art is the gateway between the old and new Gotlandic art.
His style is fundamental for the Gotlandic baptis- mal fonts.
It is not impossible that he has had a fundamental role as an architect.
The earliest fonts were made in sandstone.
Only a few have been exported.
Later with Calcarius the fonts are made in limestone. Of these only two are found in Gotland.
More than 1500 have been exported from Gotland and we find them all around the Baltic Sea.
References to figures is in the book:
The Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medieval churches
Silk textiles from the Viking age are a small but exclusive group of archaeological finds in Scandinavia. The silk fragments are produced in many different qualities. The majority of silks have been interpreted as either Central Asian or as made in the Byzantine production area, that is in Constantinople, or in associated areas in the eastern Mediterranean region. A few fragments from Birka have been interpreted as Chinese silk. Great emphasis must be placed on the Gotlandic merchants’, the Varangians or Rus as they are called in Arabic sources, strong ties to the Byzantine Empire in the 800s and 900s and thereby the trade on the westernmost of the Russian waterways. Archaeological sources give no reason to believe that the distribution of silk to the Baltic Sea areas is a result of trading along one single route. The two major eastern trading routes
A project at Enköping museum has re- constructed silk fabrics with Islamic patterns along the Russian rivers Dnjepr and the Volga-Oka region are likely routes for the arrival of silk to both Oseberg and to Birka.
In Scandinavia so far 23 archaeological sites with finds of silks dating to the 800s and 900s have been registered, in most cases from graves. This includes both silk fabrics and silk thread and lan-cores used in embroideries. In addition there are several graves with finds of fibres assumed to be silk but not yet identified. Many of the sites revealed only one or a few fragments of silk. The largest concentration of graves is in Birka in the Lake Mälar area where 49 graves, according to Agnes Geijer, contained silk.
Based on these finds in the graves a project at Enköping museum has re- constructed silk fabrics with Islamic patterns.
The majority of graves containing silk from Birka are dated to the 900s. Of 49 graves, 37 are dated to this period while 12 date to the 800s. The fabric type by Geijer called S4 dominates in both centuries and is the most common type represented in all graves. This is a type of samite with z-spun main warps and weft with no traces of spinning.
När Boris Yeltsin hade tagit makten var en av hans första handlingar att få in en grupp ekonomer från det neoliberala ekonomiska institutet, som är baserat i London.
Resultatet av att Jeltsin antog den neoliberala ekonomiska agendan var effektivt plundringen av Rysslands ekonomi med förödande effekter på det ryska folket. Stödet från den amerikanska regeringen för Jeltsins politik var utbrett med den så kallade Wolfowitz-doktrinen som föreskrev att ingen nation någonsin måste tillåtas stiga upp till Sovjetunionens nivå och det skulle nu bara vara en unipolär värld under dominans av
USA.
När Vladimir Putin valdes till president år 2000 stoppades äntligen plundringen av Rysslands ekonomi och de neoliberala ekonomerna kastades ut samtidigt som förstörelsen av Rysslands industrier stoppades. Putin avvisade klart Wolfowitz-doktrinen som ledde till flera uppror i Rysslands Kaukasus, som Moskva misstänkte hade stöd och anstiftan av brittiska agenter.
Tore Gannholms forskning har med sina böcker om Varjagernas historia och dess världsunika medeltida kyrkor "Gotland the Pearl of the Baltic Sea, Center for commerce and culture in the Baltic Sea region during 2000 years" och "The Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medieval Churches", kastat nytt ljus över Östersjöregionens, Rysslands ja hela Europas historia.
Han har kunnat knyta Varjagerna även kallade al-Rus' till den gutniska historien.
En sammanfattning på svenska “Gutland Varjagernas hem” kom 2017.
Sedan har Tore Gannholm tillsammans med Vera Efron givit ut “Philip Johan Stralenberg”,
baserad på dagböckerna från karolinerna som tillbringade 12 år i Sibirien. Deras liv i Sibirien är mycket spännande.
Med denna senaste bok “Ryssland efter Jeltsin” har Tore Gannholm täckt hela Rysslands historia från dess början då Varjagerna härskade.
Sedan har vi tiden då en hel svensk arme tas till fånga och tillbringar 12 år i Sibirien.
Och nu denna bok som behandlar smärtorna efter det totalitära Sovjets upplösning och stegen mot full demokrati trots alla externa hot mot Rysslands existens.
Tore Gannholm har utnyttjat de historiska källorna med sträng källkritik vilket resulterat i en helt annan bild av Ryssland än vi är vana vid i de Russofobiska svenska medierna.
Historien har nu hunnit ifatt den amerikanska propaganda och svenska Russofobi som vi hela tiden matas med i svenska medier. Tore Gannholm har som historiker med skarp källkritik gått igenom kända källor och presenterar en helt annan bild av vårt östra grannland.
Efter president George H.W. Bushs nederlag till återval föll det på Bill Clinton, som blev
president i januari 1993 att formulera en långsiktig politik mot post-sovjetiska Ryssland.
Med tanke på Rysslands enastående potential för både väsentligt samarbete och oöverträffade faror, ärvde Clinton-administrationen historiskt ansvar för att Rysslands politik, som de lärda säger, skall rättvist förstås.
Detta misslyckades katastrofalt, och de amerikanska tjänstemännen som var involverade i dessa beslut fortsatte att försvara denna politik som gick ut på att slå sönder Ryssland för att komma åt dess naturresurser.
Det krävs ingen examen i internationella relationer för att förstå att den första principen om politik mot postkommunistiska Ryssland borde ha varit att följa det “hippokratiska förbudet”: Gör ingen skada! Gör ingenting för att undergräva dess ömtåliga stabilitet, inget att avskräcka Kreml från att ge första prioritet åt att reparera nationens sönderfallande infrastrukturer, inget att få det att lita mer på sina lager av supermaktsvapen istället för att minska dem, ingenting att göra Moskva mindre än fullt samarbetande med väst i dessa och andra vitala sysslor.
Allt annat i det splittrade landet var av betydligt mindre betydelse.
Den amerikanska politiken blev annorlunda - ett obevekligt, ”segraren” tar allt och fullt
utnyttjande av Rysslands svaghet efter 1991.
Tillsammans med brutna amerikanska löften, nedlåtande föreläsningar och krav på ensidiga medgivanden, var och förblir den officiella retoriken ännu mer aggressiv och kompromisslös än vad Washington hade mot Sovjetkommunistiska Ryssland.
Det är viktigt att specificera de grundläggande delarna i denna faktiska politik när den utvecklas - med fullt stöd i båda de stora amerikanska politiska partierna, inflytelserika medier och liberala och konservativa tankesmedjor - sedan början av 1990-talet, om inte bara för att den bitit sig fast i Moskvas minne:
̊En växande militär omringning av Ryssland, vid och nära dess gränser, av USAs och NATOs baser, som redan i augusti 2008 var förskansade eller planerade i minst hälften av de fjorton andra före detta sovjetrepublikerna, från Baltikum och Ukraina till Georgien,
Azerbajdzjan, och de nya staterna i Centralasien.
Resultatet är en återuppstånden järnridå och militarisering av amerikansk-ryska relationer.
När Jeltsin den 31 december 1999 kastade in handduken och överlät styret på sin regeringschef var Ryssland i ett bedrövligt skick, både ekonomiskt och försvarsmässigt. Skulle Ryssland ha blivit anfallet av USA-NATO hade det inte kunnat försvara sig. Officerarna hade så illa ställt att för att kunna överleva måste de odla potatis på
övningsfälten.
It was in 1961 that one of the most remarkable archaeological finds, ever found in the Baltic Sea region, came to light in the Havor ancient castle-fort in the south of Gotland. But not only is this find scientifically important, it was also a genuine fairy- tale treasure of everything that one associates with it. There was a large bronze vessel, with its richly ornate fittings covered with a flat stone, under which there was a huge, richly decorated ring of shiny gold
There are some deadlocks in Swedish history which have blocked the view for a broader perspective. I here think of the Roman sources about the Baltic Sea region. In the 1600s when Sweden was a super- power they had to give it a story that matched its position in the world and when they in the Roman sources found peoples and places that started with an ‘S’ they immediately concluded that it must be ‘Svear’ and the ‘Scandinavian peninsula’.
The Roman name for the Scandinavian peninsula was, however, still in the 500s THULE. This historical picture was created by Johannes Magnus, and continued by Olof Rudbeck in ‘Atlantica’. Still today many writers without thought are copying these old delusions that the Roman writers would have written about some mighty Svear at the beginning of our era.
Let us look at the archaeological evidences and take such a simple example as the 7500 Roman coins from Tacitus time and there about, denarius, found in present day Sweden. 6500 of these are from Gotland. Only 80 are from the Lake Mälar area. Or take the quantity of bronze bowls from the Capuan factory outside Naples found on Gotland.
How can Swedish scholars with this quantity of finds on Gotland from the Roman Imperial time pretend that Gotland did not exist?
Tacitus wrote about Suionum Civitate. He accordingly tells about the people who lived in Mare Suebicum (the Baltic Sea), i.e. the Gotlanders, who already then had reached a high cultural level and had trade relations all over Europe, including the Roman Empire.
He continues: “Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage. Here end the territories of the Suevians.” The Sithones lived in the Lake Mälar area and are what we later call Svear.
From the archaeological findings we can accordingly establish that trade relations between Gotland and the Roman Empire were intense.
No Svea kingdom as such existed yet at that time. Tacitus says that the people in the Lake Mälar area were ruled by a woman. Still in the Beowulf epos, probably written down in the 700s, the people in the Lake Mälar area are not known as Svear but as Skilfings.
It is quite clear that historical observations can not only be based on name similarities, but one must first look at the map, the archaeological finds and the chronological development and only secondarily try to match the names that different peoples have had in different areas at different times, and when these names first appear in written sources.
The early history is a piece of myth, oral tradition and fragmentary records. From all this can suddenly emerge a pattern, the outline of a process that may not be scientifically inviolable, which it never really can be. Yet it is nearer the truth than you could ever reach with ‘scientific accuracy’.
If you take the Guta Saga, written down about 1220, and the Beowulf Epos, written down in the 700s, as serious as Snorri Sturluson’s ‘Nordiska kungasagor’, written down about 1220, has been honored - i.e. as evidence in lack of better sources, there will open up a new, breathtaking perspective regarding Gotlandic, Swedish and Scandinavian history during the Roman time of the emperors and the Migration Period. Yes also that of Europe.
Already in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age there are signs of Gotlandic trading Emporiums on the east coast of the Baltic Sea and all the way to the river Volga.
Trade, especially amber trade, experiences in the Bronze Age a large bloom. The Gotlanders seem to have controlled the amber trade with trading Emporiums in the Vistula area. The extensive trade relations convey influences from outside. From southern cultural centers, Egypt, Crete, Mycenae, spiritual impulses stretched their effects also to the Baltic Sea region and Gotland.
The immigration of the Herul Royal family (Svear) to the Lake Mälar area in the early 500s, when they bring a new ruling dynasty and a new religion to the area (what we today know as the Ynglinga dynasty and the Æsir religion), is mentioned in several sources. Their entrance on the stage changes the situation in the Baltic Sea region. The wars between the Skilfings (Svear) and the Gotlanders are mentioned in the Beowulf epos.
The Guta Saga tells that the Gotlanders always kept the victory and their right: “Many kings fought against Gutland while it was heathen; the Gotlanders, however, always held the victory and constantly protected their rights. Later the Gotlanders sent a large number of messengers to ‘suiarikis’ (Svear), but none of them could make peace before Avair Strabain of Alva parish. He made the first peace with the ‘suja kunung’ (king of the Svear).”
The Trade Treaty between the Gotlanders and the Svear, probably from second half of the 500s, means that the Gotlanders could freely trade on the new kingdom in the Lake Mälar area and its conquered lands east of the Baltic Sea. There were large Gotlandic trading Emporiums, i. a. in Grobina (Latvia) ca 650-850 CE, an area at that time conquered by the Svear. Helgö and Birka would be trading places with large Gotlandic influence. E.g., writes Adam of Bremen in his story, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, that “Birka is a Gotlandic (Gothia) town located in the middle of the country of the Sveoner.”
A new way of burial appears in the Lake Mälar area in the 500s, as well as the introduction of the Roman calendar. If we accept that the Heruli settle in the Lake Mälar area at this time, as mentioned by Procopius, it explains a lot. Actually this in fact explains the rise of the Vendel era, which in the Lake Mälar area starts first half of the 500s and continues until the beginning of the Middle Ages. On Gotland it starts about 50 years earlier and is explained by the Gotlanders’ close contacts with Theoderic’s Gothic kingdom.
The first writer to mention some people on the Scandinavian peninsula (THULE), except Tacitus Sitonens in the Lake Mälar area, is Prokopios who wrote in the 500s. With the discovery that the Beowulf epos is about the Gotlanders in combination with the Heruls immigration to the Lake Mälar area we have been able to shed new light on the Gotlandic history. Indeed the history of the whole Baltic Sea region has come in a whole new light. We now have a link between the Beowulf epos, Guta Saga and the archaeological finds from the 400s and 500s.
Roman gold coins known as solidi have been found on the three Baltic Sea islands: Bornholm, 150, Öland 298, Gotland 270 + 47 on the market place Helgö in Mälaren. The latter have been intended as raw material and are according to the researchers most likely derived from Gotland. It is obvious here to see Helgö and then Birka as Gotlandic trading venues, as implied by the archaeological sources. Gotland’s importance for trade and culture in the Baltic Sea region during the first millennium can also be illustrated by the coin finds.
From the 500s until the 1000s the Gotlanders have, according to Swedish researchers, been considered to rarely be mentioned in ancient sources. They are, however, well known in Arabic and Byzantine sources as al-Rus’ and Varangian merchants. The word Varangian was used by Arabs, Greeks and Kievan Rus’ for the merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region (the Gotlanders). It probably came from the old Norse word ‘vár’, which means ‘union through promise’, and was used by a group of men to keep them together in an association, and under oath observe certain obligations to support each other in good faith and to share the resulting profits. It was a common word, when trading adventures were undertaken by Gotlandic tradesmen on the Russian rivers. They closed a business contract with each other and pledged to defend each other. Another meaning of the word was for the Gotlanders who acted as mercenary soldiers to the rulers of Khazaria, Miklagarðr (Constantinople) and Garðaríki (Kievan Rus’).
The Gotlandic Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine army formed under emperor Basil II in 988. .
There are some deadlocks in Swedish history which have blocked the view for a broader perspective. I here think of the Roman sources about the Baltic Sea region. In the 1600s when Sweden was a super- power they had to give it a story that matched its position in the world and when they in the Roman sources found peoples and places that started with an ‘S’ they immediately concluded that it must be ‘Svear’ and the ‘Scandinavian peninsula’.
The Roman name for the Scandinavian peninsula was, however, still in the 500s THULE. This historical picture was created by Johannes Magnus, and continued by Olof Rudbeck in ‘Atlantica’. Still today many writers without thought are copying these old delusions that the Roman writers would have written about some mighty Svear at the beginning of our era.
Let us look at the archaeological evidences and take such a simple example as the 7500 Roman coins from Tacitus time and there about, denarius, found in present day Sweden. 6500 of these are from Gotland. Only 80 are from the Lake Mälar area. Or take the quantity of bronze bowls from the Capuan factory outside Naples found on Gotland.
How can Swedish scholars with this quantity of finds on Gotland from the Roman Imperial time pretend that Gotland did not exist?
Tacitus wrote about Suionum Civitate. He accordingly tells about the people who lived in Mare Suebicum (the Baltic Sea), i.e. the Gotlanders, who already then had reached a high cultural level and had trade relations all over Europe, including the Roman Empire.
He continues: “Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage. Here end the territories of the Suevians.” The Sithones lived in the Lake Mälar area and are what we later call Svear.
From the archaeological findings we can accordingly establish that trade relations between Gotland and the Roman Empire were intense.
No Svea kingdom as such existed yet at that time. Tacitus says that the people in the Lake Mälar area were ruled by a woman. Still in the Beowulf epos, probably written down in the 700s, the people in the Lake Mälar area are not known as Svear but as Skilfings.
It is quite clear that historical observations can not only be based on name similarities, but one must first look at the map, the archaeological finds and the chronological development and only secondarily try to match the names that different peoples have had in different areas at different times, and when these names first appear in written sources.
The early history is a piece of myth, oral tradition and fragmentary records. From all this can suddenly emerge a pattern, the outline of a process that may not be scientifically inviolable, which it never really can be. Yet it is nearer the truth than you could ever reach with ‘scientific accuracy’.
If you take the Guta Saga, written down about 1220, and the Beowulf Epos, written down in the 700s, as serious as Snorri Sturluson’s ‘Nordiska kungasagor’, written down about 1220, has been honored - i.e. as evidence in lack of better sources, there will open up a new, breathtaking perspective regarding Gotlandic, Swedish and Scandinavian history during the Roman time of the emperors and the Migration Period. Yes also that of Europe.
Already in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age there are signs of Gotlandic trading Emporiums on the east coast of the Baltic Sea and all the way to the river Volga.
Trade, especially amber trade, experiences in the Bronze Age a large bloom. The Gotlanders seem to have controlled the amber trade with trading Emporiums in the Vistula area. The extensive trade relations convey influences from outside. From southern cultural centers, Egypt, Crete, Mycenae, spiritual impulses stretched their effects also to the Baltic Sea region and Gotland.
The immigration of the Herul Royal family (Svear) to the Lake Mälar area in the early 500s, when they bring a new ruling dynasty and a new religion to the area (what we today know as the Ynglinga dynasty and the Æsir religion), is mentioned in several sources. Their entrance on the stage changes the situation in the Baltic Sea region. The wars between the Skilfings (Svear) and the Gotlanders are mentioned in the Beowulf epos.
The Guta Saga tells that the Gotlanders always kept the victory and their right: “Many kings fought against Gutland while it was heathen; the Gotlanders, however, always held the victory and constantly protected their rights. Later the Gotlanders sent a large number of messengers to ‘suiarikis’ (Svear), but none of them could make peace before Avair Strabain of Alva parish. He made the first peace with the ‘suja kunung’ (king of the Svear).”
The Trade Treaty between the Gotlanders and the Svear, probably from second half of the 500s, means that the Gotlanders could freely trade on the new kingdom in the Lake Mälar area and its conquered lands east of the Baltic Sea. There were large Gotlandic trading Emporiums, i. a. in Grobina (Latvia) ca 650-850 CE, an area at that time conquered by the Svear. Helgö and Birka would be trading places with large Gotlandic influence. E.g., writes Adam of Bremen in his story, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, that “Birka is a Gotlandic (Gothia) town located in the middle of the country of the Sveoner.”
A new way of burial appears in the Lake Mälar area in the 500s, as well as the introduction of the Roman calendar. If we accept that the Heruli settle in the Lake Mälar area at this time, as mentioned by Procopius, it explains a lot. Actually this in fact explains the rise of the Vendel era, which in the Lake Mälar area starts first half of the 500s and continues until the beginning of the Middle Ages. On Gotland it starts about 50 years earlier and is explained by the Gotlanders’ close contacts with Theoderic’s Gothic kingdom.
The first writer to mention some people on the Scandinavian peninsula (THULE), except Tacitus Sitonens in the Lake Mälar area, is Prokopios who wrote in the 500s. With the discovery that the Beowulf epos is about the Gotlanders in combination with the Heruls immigration to the Lake Mälar area we have been able to shed new light on the Gotlandic history. Indeed the history of the whole Baltic Sea region has come in a whole new light. We now have a link between the Beowulf epos, Guta Saga and the archaeological finds from the 400s and 500s.
Roman gold coins known as solidi have been found on the three Baltic Sea islands: Bornholm, 150, Öland 298, Gotland 270 + 47 on the market place Helgö in Mälaren. The latter have been intended as raw material and are according to the researchers most likely derived from Gotland. It is obvious here to see Helgö and then Birka as Gotlandic trading venues, as implied by the archaeological sources. Gotland’s importance for trade and culture in the Baltic Sea region during the first millennium can also be illustrated by the coin finds.
From the 500s until the 1000s the Gotlanders have, according to Swedish researchers, been considered to rarely be mentioned in ancient sources. They are, however, well known in Arabic and Byzantine sources as al-Rus’ and Varangian merchants. The word Varangian was used by Arabs, Greeks and Kievan Rus’ for the merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region (the Gotlanders). It probably came from the old Norse word ‘vár’, which means ‘union through promise’, and was used by a group of men to keep them together in an association, and under oath observe certain obligations to support each other in good faith and to share the resulting profits. It was a common word, when trading adventures were undertaken by Gotlandic tradesmen on the Russian rivers. They closed a business contract with each other and pledged to defend each other. Another meaning of the word was for the Gotlanders who acted as mercenary soldiers to the rulers of Khazaria, Miklagarðr (Constantinople) and Garðaríki (Kievan Rus’).
The Gotlandic Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine army formed under emperor Basil II in 988. .
There are some deadlocks in Swedish history which have blocked the view for a broader perspective. I here think of the Roman sources about the Baltic Sea region. In the 1600s when Sweden was a super- power they had to give it a story that matched its position in the world and when they in the Roman sources found peoples and places that started with an ‘S’ they immediately concluded that it must be ‘Svear’ and the ‘Scandinavian peninsula’.
The Roman name for the Scandinavian peninsula was, however, still in the 500s THULE. This historical picture was created by Johannes Magnus, and continued by Olof Rudbeck in ‘Atlantica’. Still today many writers without thought are copying these old delusions that the Roman writers would have written about some mighty Svear at the beginning of our era.
Let us look at the archaeological evidences and take such a simple example as the 7500 Roman coins from Tacitus time and there about, denarius, found in present day Sweden. 6500 of these are from Gotland. Only 80 are from the Lake Mälar area. Or take the quantity of bronze bowls from the Capuan factory outside Naples found on Gotland.
How can Swedish scholars with this quantity of finds on Gotland from the Roman Imperial time pretend that Gotland did not exist?
Tacitus wrote about Suionum Civitate. He accordingly tells about the people who lived in Mare Suebicum (the Baltic Sea), i.e. the Gotlanders, who already then had reached a high cultural level and had trade relations all over Europe, including the Roman Empire.
He continues: “Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage. Here end the territories of the Suevians.” The Sithones lived in the Lake Mälar area and are what we later call Svear.
From the archaeological findings we can accordingly establish that trade relations between Gotland and the Roman Empire were intense.
No Svea kingdom as such existed yet at that time. Tacitus says that the people in the Lake Mälar area were ruled by a woman. Still in the Beowulf epos, probably written down in the 700s, the people in the Lake Mälar area are not known as Svear but as Skilfings.
It is quite clear that historical observations can not only be based on name similarities, but one must first look at the map, the archaeological finds and the chronological development and only secondarily try to match the names that different peoples have had in different areas at different times, and when these names first appear in written sources.
The early history is a piece of myth, oral tradition and fragmentary records. From all this can suddenly emerge a pattern, the outline of a process that may not be scientifically inviolable, which it never really can be. Yet it is nearer the truth than you could ever reach with ‘scientific accuracy’.
If you take the Guta Saga, written down about 1220, and the Beowulf Epos, written down in the 700s, as serious as Snorri Sturluson’s ‘Nordiska kungasagor’, written down about 1220, has been honored - i.e. as evidence in lack of better sources, there will open up a new, breathtaking perspective regarding Gotlandic, Swedish and Scandinavian history during the Roman time of the emperors and the Migration Period. Yes also that of Europe.
Already in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age there are signs of Gotlandic trading Emporiums on the east coast of the Baltic Sea and all the way to the river Volga.
Trade, especially amber trade, experiences in the Bronze Age a large bloom. The Gotlanders seem to have controlled the amber trade with trading Emporiums in the Vistula area. The extensive trade relations convey influences from outside. From southern cultural centers, Egypt, Crete, Mycenae, spiritual impulses stretched their effects also to the Baltic Sea region and Gotland.
The immigration of the Herul Royal family (Svear) to the Lake Mälar area in the early 500s, when they bring a new ruling dynasty and a new religion to the area (what we today know as the Ynglinga dynasty and the Æsir religion), is mentioned in several sources. Their entrance on the stage changes the situation in the Baltic Sea region. The wars between the Skilfings (Svear) and the Gotlanders are mentioned in the Beowulf epos.
The Guta Saga tells that the Gotlanders always kept the victory and their right: “Many kings fought against Gutland while it was heathen; the Gotlanders, however, always held the victory and constantly protected their rights. Later the Gotlanders sent a large number of messengers to ‘suiarikis’ (Svear), but none of them could make peace before Avair Strabain of Alva parish. He made the first peace with the ‘suja kunung’ (king of the Svear).”
The Trade Treaty between the Gotlanders and the Svear, probably from second half of the 500s, means that the Gotlanders could freely trade on the new kingdom in the Lake Mälar area and its conquered lands east of the Baltic Sea. There were large Gotlandic trading Emporiums, i. a. in Grobina (Latvia) ca 650-850 CE, an area at that time conquered by the Svear. Helgö and Birka would be trading places with large Gotlandic influence. E.g., writes Adam of Bremen in his story, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, that “Birka is a Gotlandic (Gothia) town located in the middle of the country of the Sveoner.”
A new way of burial appears in the Lake Mälar area in the 500s, as well as the introduction of the Roman calendar. If we accept that the Heruli settle in the Lake Mälar area at this time, as mentioned by Procopius, it explains a lot. Actually this in fact explains the rise of the Vendel era, which in the Lake Mälar area starts first half of the 500s and continues until the beginning of the Middle Ages. On Gotland it starts about 50 years earlier and is explained by the Gotlanders’ close contacts with Theoderic’s Gothic kingdom.
The first writer to mention some people on the Scandinavian peninsula (THULE), except Tacitus Sitonens in the Lake Mälar area, is Prokopios who wrote in the 500s. With the discovery that the Beowulf epos is about the Gotlanders in combination with the Heruls immigration to the Lake Mälar area we have been able to shed new light on the Gotlandic history. Indeed the history of the whole Baltic Sea region has come in a whole new light. We now have a link between the Beowulf epos, Guta Saga and the archaeological finds from the 400s and 500s.
Roman gold coins known as solidi have been found on the three Baltic Sea islands: Bornholm, 150, Öland 298, Gotland 270 + 47 on the market place Helgö in Mälaren. The latter have been intended as raw material and are according to the researchers most likely derived from Gotland. It is obvious here to see Helgö and then Birka as Gotlandic trading venues, as implied by the archaeological sources. Gotland’s importance for trade and culture in the Baltic Sea region during the first millennium can also be illustrated by the coin finds.
From the 500s until the 1000s the Gotlanders have, according to Swedish researchers, been considered to rarely be mentioned in ancient sources. They are, however, well known in Arabic and Byzantine sources as al-Rus’ and Varangian merchants. The word Varangian was used by Arabs, Greeks and Kievan Rus’ for the merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region (the Gotlanders). It probably came from the old Norse word ‘vár’, which means ‘union through promise’, and was used by a group of men to keep them together in an association, and under oath observe certain obligations to support each other in good faith and to share the resulting profits. It was a common word, when trading adventures were undertaken by Gotlandic tradesmen on the Russian rivers. They closed a business contract with each other and pledged to defend each other. Another meaning of the word was for the Gotlanders who acted as mercenary soldiers to the rulers of Khazaria, Miklagarðr (Constantinople) and Garðaríki (Kievan Rus’).
The Gotlandic Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine army formed under emperor Basil II in 988. .
With the name Tjelvar the Gotlandic history begins. Some Danish and Norwegian researchers have associated the name Tjelvar with the name of Thors agile servant Tjalvi, where ‘a’ under the rules of the Nordic ‘i’ sound should have passed over to an ‘e’. Such an interpretation is likely considering the mythological character that the Guta Saga undoubtedly has. The Thor cult seems to have had a wide expansion on Gotland. Thor and his servant who belong together as mythical nature beeings were wellknown. Thor was the god of thunder and lightning and was looked upon to cause thunder-storms “tordön”.
According to the Guta Saga, Tjelvar had a son by the name of Havde, who married Vita stjerna and with her had three sons, Gute, Graipr and Gunnfjaun. From these three originated since the entire Gotlandic people. Thus the Guta Saga ties in with the triad, which is so common in most origin myths all the way from the Biblical story of Noah’s three sons, from which all nations of the earth descended. All here mentioned names are formed in a typically Nordic way except for the name of Havde’s wife Vitastjerna. This name stands there like an exotic flower in an otherwise entirely Nordic name flora. In the Low German translation the translator has to the name appended the following statement, translated into English, “it is by far the wisest hereditary daughter”. If you agree with the Low German interpretation it gives the Guta Saga still another mythological dimension. With the wisest it could refer to the goddess Athena in Greek mythology. In the Guta Saga it says that some Gotlanders emigrated to Greece. Athena is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, female arts, crafts, justice and skill.
It is interesting to compare Tacitus Germania with Tjelvar and his family, where Tacitus talks about the Germanic gods in the first century. According to Tacitus, Mannus is the son of Tuisto and the progenitor of the three Germanic tribes Ingaevones, Herminones and Istvaeones. Note that Wodan and that group of gods are not known at that time.
The Guta Saga and Guta Lagh are probably written down around 1220 on the recommendation of the Archbishop in Lund, Andreas Sunesen. He was in 1207 passing through Gotland. There is preserved a letter from him to Bishop Bengt in Linköping in which he stresses the benefits of having the law written down. He also points out that the law must be suitable to the country, adding: “It is noted that, like the island Gutland, through a long sea stretch, is separated from other countries in the same way its inhabitants are so different from other people as concerns regulated law and customary right both the secular and spiritual.” This Gotlandic distinctiveness had a long history.
What is not mentioned in Guta Saga is the ‘Bulverket’ in Tingstäde träsk which was probably built as a fortification in relation to ravages by Norwegian Vikings and a winter tradingplace. If so, the ‘Bulverket’ has not been built later than the end of the 900s or early 1000s, the time when these Viking kings ravaged Gotland. In 1007 came a Norwegian fleet under the 13 year old Olaf Haraldsson (later Christianized and called Olaf the Saint) on a ravaging expedition to the Baltic Sea. The campaign was however led by the king trainer Hrane who had been on Viking ravaging expeditions several times before. As Olaf was the most famous Gotlandic saint when Guta Saga was written down, this could of course not be mentioned.
Both documents show the way beyond themselves, deep in the ancient world, where only the abandoned settlements, burial grounds, picture stones and prehistoric finds speak for themselves in its dumb but expressive language. People came to Gotland already in the Paleolithic, during the time of the Ancylus Lake, when the climate was warm and moist and Gotland was abounding with water, and prey of all kinds were swarming. But for how long has there been a social organization? Can we find any hint to the cause and origin of the Merchant Farmers’ Republic?
What do our Stone Age discoveries say? Yes, they speak in the beginning of a people of seal hunters and fishermen. Of astronomers who were able to read the sky and document an astronomical calendar. They must have had knowledge of what we today call the Metonic cycle. The Metonic calendar assumes that 19 solar years are equal to 235 lunar months, which is in turn equal to 6940 days.
The power and glory of the old Gotlanders was built, as we know, on foreign trade far more than its own products. How far back can we trace the merchandizing on Gotland? At least to the Neolithic period. It is quite clear that the Gotlanders early begun to use the good trading position of their home island for trade.
Already the boom during the Bronze Age would have meant a strong community organization where we can see the great piles of stones, cairns, and those for Gotland unique stone ships.
The outlines of an organized form of society with trade contacts with the Roman Empire can on Gotland be traced back to at least around the beginning of our era.
This seems at the beginning of the Roman Iron Age, also called ‘Time of emperors’, to have been one of the Gotlandic ancient culture’s most prosperous economic booms. Roman authors like Pliny the Elder and Tacitus write about the mighty people on the island in Mare Suebicum (Baltic Sea). This culture was built on regular trade exchange with the continental tribes, and directly and indirectly with the Roman Empire, where the Roman basilicas appear to be prototypes for the large Gotlandic halls of that time known as ‘kämpgravar’. The structure of this society appears to have had that in the Nordic region character of ancient great family. The peculiarity of this cultural image is precisely the singular style of the break between people with their artistically trained, partially refined personal luxury and world-knowledge and their daily lives in a district of simple shepherds. For those who built the huge halls in accordance with ancient inherited traditions and laid Roman wine ladles from Capua in Italy in the tombs and lost Emperor silver denarius behind the headboard must have been not only wealthy but also globetrotters. (see ‘The largest known Nordic building from the Roman Iron Age’ with the measures 67 x 11 metres). The Gotlanders most probably controlled the northern part of the Amber Road and were at the right place when the Gothic federation was formed. In Roman times, a main route ran south from the Baltic coast in Prussia through the land of the Boii (modern Czech Republic and Slovakia) to the head of the Adriatic Sea (modern Gulf of Venice).
The period followed the lifting of the ban on icons (iconoclasm) and lasted until the fall of the dynasty in 1056. .
The Gotlandic merchants were firmly involved in Constantinople from 838, which they called Miklagar∂r. The grandson of one of the Gotlandic varangians became in 886 emperor under the name of Leo VI.
The Gotlandic merchants’ presence in Constantinople is documented from 838 and they converted to Christianity in Constantinople in 865 according to the patriarch Photius.
The Gotlanders have integrated the Macedonian art in the high standing Gotlandic art where we know of the tradition of picture stones back to the first century.
We can today see the result of this in the Gotlandic churches.
I have researched the history of the Gotlandic Merchant Republic during 25 years and produced various books about it.
During the latest two years I have full time researched the relation between the Macedonian art and its influence on the Gotlandic churches. This research is presented on 701 pages and 1400 photos. The book weighs 2.9 kilos.
This extract is about Baptismal fonts in sandstone that dates back to the 900s.
My problem is that it is not possible to study the Macedonian art in any Swedish University. Expertise about it is non-existent in Sweden. This is confirmed by my mentor during this work, who has been professor in Art history at the universities in Oslo and Stockholm.
Therefore it is not possible to have this revolutionary research reviewed at any Swedish University.
Therefore I hope that some expert in the Macedonian Renaissance art would be interested in reviewing my solid research work in the subject.
Interested experts will get access to my private drop box where I have a pdf-copy of the book.
Exerpt from Gotland the Pearl of the Baltic Sea, Center of commerce and culture in the Baltic Sea region for over 2000 years. Stavgard förlag 2013. ISBN: 978-91-87481-05-5
Historians and linguists have tried in various ways to interpret and fit the epic into the Swedish history without much success.
However, it is now proven that it has its home in the Gotlandic history. Together with the Gotlandic picture stones and Guta Saga the Beowulf epos constitutes Gotland’s finest historical records.
The Gotlandic history is misleading and difficult to understand if it is bundled with the Swedish history, that so far has been done.
They both have their separate history.
Gotland only became part of Sweden in 1679.
We know from Arabic writers in the 800s that al- Rus’ were merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region, who came rowing on the Russian rivers. From there comes later the name Russia.
The Byzantine Patriarch Photius, in a circular letter 867, calls the Gotlandic merchants Rhos.
The etymology of the name al-Rus’/Rhos needs clarification. Many scholars have wrongly maintained that the word al-Rus’ must be identical with the Finnish word Ruotsi and Estonian Rootsi.
Sven Ekbo (1981) convincingly connects the word to Old Norse ro∂r meaning ‘expedition of rowing ships’.
On the Russian rivers in the 800s there were rowing Gotlandic merchants, Varangians, who the Arabic writers accordingly called al-Rus’.
In the Baltic Sea there were no Vikings.
The Gotlandic merchants were called Varangians.
A couple of hundred years later there came rowing Svear to Finland and Estonia who went on crusades
and conquered their lands and were then called Ruotsi and Rootsi.
Please note that there is no sign of Scandinavians in Kiev until Olof Skötkonung married off his daughter Ingegerd to Jaroslav in Kiev in 1019.
The large amount of Scandinavians come in the 1040s with Ingvar and his warriors.
This linguistic usage tells us already a lot.
In Eastern Europe, the Arabs have thus had time to peacefully get acquainted with the Gotlandic mer- chants, and for them make two Gotlandic words, al- Rus’ and Warang, the Old Norse Vaeringi.
In the west, however, the Arabs have not had a clue about the Vikings’ language, and therefore in their perplexity seized back on an old word for pagans, that from the Quran familiar word madjù, ‘magician’.
It fits pretty well with the fact that in the west there were mostly sudden passing military assaults, which did not allow any linguistic contact.
After Bagdad was founded in 762 the Gotlandic merchants traded with the Islamic Caliphate which they called Særkland. They sold furs, weapons and slaves and were paid in hard cash.
Gotland has to- day the worlds largest collection of coins from the Islamic Caliphate, most of them minted in Bagdad. Between the Baltic Sea and the Volga the Gotlanders founded bases which today are called the Rus’ Khaganate. Most of these bases were destroyed in about 860.
The first documented contact with a delegation of Gotlandic merchants (Rhos) to visit Miklagarðr (Constantinople) is in 838.
There are three separate written sources that mention it and a coin with the emperor Theophilos was found in the large silver hoard at Spillings. Miklagarðr means the large farm in contrast to the small farms they had at home in Gotland.
A Gotlandic fleet with 200 ships besieged Constantinople in 860-861 with the outcome of longlasting agreemets between the Gotlanders and the Byzantine Emperor.
The most authoritative source on the first Christianization of the Rhos is an encyclical letter from the Patriarch Photius, datable to early 867.
Referencing to the Rhos-Byzantine War of 860-861, Photius informs the Oriental patriarchs and bisops that, after the Bulgars turned to Christ in 864, the Rhos followed suit so zealously that he found it prudent to send a bishop to their land.
This fits very well with Guta Saga, which is the fore- word to Guta Lagh written down about 1220, that says: ‘Although the Gotlanders were heathen, they nevertheless sailed on trading voyages to all countries, both Christian and heathen. The merchants saw Christian customs in Christian lands. Some of them allowed themselves to be baptised, and brought priests to Gotland.
Botair of Akebäck was the name of the one who first built a church in the place which is now called Kulstäde’.
The church in Kulstäde was according to Guta Saga burned down, but in 897 the church in Visby was allowed to remain.
We today know of 55 wooden churches, probably all from the 900s. From the beginning of the 1000s the wooden churches were replaced with Romanesque stone churches in Macedonian Renaissance art.
Macedonian Renaissance art (867-1056) was a period in Byzantine art which began in the period follow- ing the death of Emperor Theophilus in 842 and the lifting of the ban on icons, iconoclasm.
The Gotlanders were deeply involved in Miklagar∂r during that time and the early Gotlandic churches are highly influenced by Armenian church buildings and the Byzantine art.
In 886 the grandson to the Gotlandic Varangian Ingr became Emperor under the name Leo VI.
The Gotlandic church was like the Armenian and Georgian churches independant and did never submit to any bishop.
During the first 300 years the Gotlandic Church was Byzantine with Byzantine ritual and paintings. Passing bishops inaugurated new churches.
In 1164 the Gotlanders made a treaty with the bishop who lived closest to them, the one in Linköping, to undertake the duties of a bishop against special conditions regulated by the Gotlanders.
The highest authority för the Gotlandic church was the Gutna Althingi and the Gotlanders never submitted to the Catholic Pope.
The real development of crucifixes starts with small crucifixes carved in ivory from the 800s in the Byzantine empire.
At the same time crucifixes in wood appear on Gotland with the ivory ones as model.
At that time a grandchild to a Gotlandic merchant was emperor in Miklagar∂ar (Constantinople).
His son Constantin Porforogenetos writes a book where he describes the road the Gotlandic merchants (Varangians) took to Miklagar∂r.
There are three types of crucifixes
The first type has straight legs, four nails and a halo or kings crown. This type you find until about 960. After 960 Christ has bowed legs but still 4 nails.
This is the Byzantine cross. The Byzantine Christ is the ruling Christ why he has a halo or kings crown. On the Catholic cross there are only 3 nails and Christ has a crown of thorn .
The Catholic cross appear end of the 1100th.
The earliest documented Catholic cross is in 1217.
The Catholic Christ is the suffering Christ why he has a crown of thorns and the later type with bowed legs
As Kiev became an important station on the trade route for the Gotlandic mer- chants on their way from the Baltic Sea to Miklagarðr (Istanbul), the Varangians took Kiev from the Khazarians in 882 and appointed one of their own, Oleg, as ruler. Archaeological excavations show that a line of strong-holds was esta- blished in the Kiev area along the Dnjepr in the last two decades of the 800s. Tax collection was probably a motivation for establishing these strongholds. From Arabic sources we know that one of the al-Rus’ trade routes ended in Miklagarðr where they sold furs and swords.
Garðaríki (Kievan Rus’) was after that ruled by a resident Varangian nobility, that became the nucleus of the Kievan Rus’ polity, whose ‘Golden Age’ was from late 800s to mid 1200s, when it disintegrated after the Mongol invasion. (1237– 1240).
They are referred to as Kievan Rus’ and Garðaríki.
From end 700s silver from the Islamic Caliphate started to flow. The Gotlanders who knew the Russian rivers since earlier went all the way to the river Volga and the Kaspian Sea. They were on the Russian rivers called Varangians and al-Rus’ (expeditions of rowing ships). The Gotlanders founded, end 700s and first half of the 800s, between the Baltic Sea and the Volga bases which today are called the Rus’ Khaganate. This was a state, or a cluster of city-states all through Russia to the Volga. The Spilling’s Treasure can be dated to the Rus’ Khaganate.
To understand the history of the Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medie- val Churches, one must fully realize that Gotland was an independent Merchant Republic, the hub of the Baltic Sea region, which from time immemorial had its relations mainly east and south and controlled trade on the Russian rivers from time to time. Already 800- 500 BCE Gotlandic merchants had a large trading emporium in Achmulova on the Volga.
The Gotlandic history is misleading and dif cult to understand if it is bundled with the Swedish history, that so far has been done. They both have their se- parate history.
We know that the Varangians, by Arabic writers in the 800s called al- Rus’, were merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region, who came rowing on the Russian rivers. From there comes later the name Russia.
The Byzantine Patriarch Photius, in a circular letter in 867, calls the Gotlandic merchants Rhos and informs the Oriental patriarchs and bishops that, after the Bulgars turned to Christ in 864, the Rhos followed suit so zealously that he found it prudent to send to their land a bishop.
Sven Ekbo (1981) convincingly connects the word al-Rus’ to Old Norse ro∂r meaning ‘expedition of rowing ships’.
On the Russian rivers in the 800s there were rowing Gotlandic merchants, Varangians, who the Arabic writers accordingly called al-Rus’. In the Baltic Sea there were no Vikings, only Varangians.
The Gotlandic Merchant Farmers’ counted their birth position and their social class socially higher than burghers and peasants of other nations. The diffe- rence can obviously be explained, that they were aware, that they had a higher form of freedom, namely to be free from land lords and liability to taxation. The Gotlandic society before the 1600s was considered to be an ‘ethnie’, a group with a perceived common origin, language and history.
The governor of Tobolsk, Siberia’s capital, Count Matjev Gagarin (1711-1719) was considered to be of Varangian origin and higher than Tsar Peter who was just a Romanov.
Bibliography you nd in the books:
”Gotland the Pearl of the Baltic Sea Center of commerce and culture in the Baltic Sea region for over 2000 years” ISBN:978-91-87481-05-5
”The Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medieval Churches” ISBN:978-91-87481-49-9 (701 pages 1400 photos)
Burs February 20th 2017 Tore Gannholm