Rus' and Russia: a Norse Word for Rowing? Sources and Corrections

The name Russia probably goes back to a Norse word for rowing. Old Swedish roþer, rowing, named a stretch of the Uppland coast; Finns turned it into Ruotsi, still their word for Sweden, and the Slavs borrowed it as Rus'. In 839 men who called themselves Rhos turned out to be Swedes, and in 911 the Rus' sent envoys to the Greeks with Norse names. Most linguists accept this chain; some historians still dispute it. This page gives the source for every slide.

Every factual claim in our carousel on the name of the Rus', and in its caption, with its source. It is the eighth in our place-name series, after the Isle of Man, the Faroe Islands and Shetland, and this time the name is a whole people's. Some of the Rus' later served the Byzantine emperors; that story has its own page, our Varangian Guard sources. Everything here is medieval: Rus' was the name of a medieval people and state centred on Kyiv, and nothing on this page is about modern states. Section numbers 01 to 05 match the number at the top of each slide; 07 to 10 are the later slides' places in the carousel. The cover is an AI-generated illustration. The photographs in 01 to 05 and 07 are real, credited below.

How we cite. The chronicle we read in Samuel H. Cross's translation, "The Russian Primary Chronicle" (Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature 12, 1930), with his introduction. The year 839 is from the Annales Bertiniani in G. Waitz's edition (1883); the translations of the Latin are ours. For the name we follow Thorsten Andersson, "Rus' und Wikinger" (Arkiv för nordisk filologi 122, 2007), and Vilhelm Thomsen's classic The Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia (1877), which Andersson corrects on the sound changes. The Dnieper rapids are in Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, ch. 9 (ed. Moravcsik, trans. Jenkins, 1967). Liudprand of Cremona we read only as Cross and Thomsen quote him in their footnotes, which agree. Ibn Fadlan is in Lunde and Stone's translation, Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness (2012), cited by section. Runestones are from Runor, the Swedish National Heritage Board's database, in its English translations, linked where they appear. Word meanings are from Cleasby and Vigfusson's Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874). The case against a Norse origin we take from George Y. Shevelov's article "Rus'" in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine (1993). We did not read the 1953 edition of the chronicle, Janet Nelson's translation of the annals, Ekbo's and Mägiste's 1958 papers on the Finnish sound changes, or the Old East Slavic text itself.

Slide by slide

Cover. "Say 'Russia' and you are probably saying an old Norse word for rowing."

Andersson's English summary: "It is true that Rus' ultimately derives from OSw. roþer m. 'rowing', but the connection would appear to be an indirect one, mediated by a place-name, OSw. Roþrin." In the body he calls this the general view, nach allgemeiner Auffassung (p. 6). The cover says "probably" because scholars disagree on the middle step, a place-name or the noun itself; because Gottfried Schramm, as Andersson reports, treats the source of the Finnish form as unexplained; and because some historians reject the Norse origin (see 02).

The picture is an AI-generated illustration made for this post, not a photograph: a crew in plain wool at the oars of a small wooden boat on a misty forest river, a man in a red hood at the stern, two more boats behind. It shows no particular river, boat or event.

01. Ingelheim, 839: "They said they were Rhos. They were Swedes."

The Annales Bertiniani for 839, in the part written by Prudentius of Troyes: an embassy from the emperor Theophilos was received by Louis the Pious quinto decimo Kalendas Iunii in Ingulenheim, on 18 May at Ingelheim. With it came quosdam, qui se, id est gentem suam, Rhos vocari dicebant, men who said that they, that is their people, were called Rhos. Quorum adventus causam imperator diligentius investigans, comperit, eos gentis esse Sueonum: looking more carefully into why they had come, the emperor found they were of the people of the Swedes. Exploratores potius regni illius nostrique quam amicitiae petitores ratus: taking them for spies rather than seekers of friendship, he held them until he could be sure.

It is the earliest Western record of the name that we read. It is not certainly the first anywhere: Shevelov cites earlier Greek mentions of Rhos, which we did not check.

Sources: Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 839, ed. Waitz, pp. 19 to 20. Photo: Andreas Praefcke, "Ingelheim Kaiserpfalz img02", April 2015, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0. Cropped by us, with text added. Standing walls of the Carolingian palace at Nieder-Ingelheim, partly rebuilt: the palace site, not the hall where the Rhos stood.

02. roþer, Ruotsi, Rus': a word for rowing, passed from mouth to mouth

The coast. Andersson (pp. 6 to 7) points to the Old Swedish place-name Roþrin, "in älterer Form Roþer", "heute in der Form Roden", the medieval name of the Uppland coast: "Heute lebt der Name in Roslagen ... fort", today it lives on in Roslagen. Thomsen (p. 95) says those coastal tracts "in the middle ages were bound to furnish ships in time of war". Roslagen itself is not the source; Thomsen found that name "too modern".

The Finns. Thomsen (p. 92): "In Finnish it is Ruotsi (and Ruotsalainen, a Swede), in Esthonian Rots ... Not only must this be the same name as the Slavonic Rus', but it cannot be doubted that the Slavonic name took its origin from the Finnish appellation." Cross (p. 132) gives a parallel: the same vowel change "occurs similarly in the Russian Sum', derived from Finnish Suomi". Andersson (p. 8) says Ekbo and Mägiste solved the sound changes in 1958 and that Ekbo's etymology has "praktisch allgemeine Zustimmung", practically general agreement. Thomsen's own route, through a genitive roþs- as in a word for "rowers", fails: "Diese Erklärung scheitert aber an der Morphologie", because rodhs- is a late medieval form. So the slide says "a word for rowing", not "the rowers". Andersson (p. 6) adds that the meaning moved: "Die Bedeutung von Rus', das zunächst also Svear bezeichnete, verschob sich allmählich", first the Swedes, then a ruling class that included Slavs, then the people.

The dispute. "Most linguists accept this; some historians dispute it." Cross (p. 121) traces the debate to Bayer and Müller in the 1700s, who took the Rus' for Scandinavians, and to Lomonosov, who opposed them in 1749. Kunik (1844) and Thomsen (1877) made the Norse case; Ilovaiski (1871) and Gedeonov (1876) answered it. Cross grants that the other side's contribution "has lain primarily in keeping the question open and in exposing weaknesses in the Normanist system, particularly in connection with the credibility of the Primary Chronicle." Shevelov calls the hypotheses "disputed, inconclusive". He asks why a state founded by Swedes would take a Finnish name, and notes Greek Rōs in sources older than the Varangian route. Anti-Normanists, from Maksymovych in 1837, derive Rus' from the Ros and Rusna rivers near Kyiv and see the Varangians as "multiethnic, multilingual companies". Shevelov's answer: that view "does not explain ... that the names of known Varangian dukes and warriors are of Swedish origin" (see 04).

Sources: Andersson (2007), pp. 6 to 9; Thomsen (1877), pp. 92 to 97; Cross (1930), pp. 121, 132; Shevelov (1993). Photo: Wolfmann, Saga Oseberg replica in Tønsberg harbour, August 2019, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped by us, with text added. Visitors rowing a modern replica of a Norwegian ship: it shows rowing, not a Rus' or Swedish boat.

03. 862, the calling: "Our whole land is great and rich, but there is no order in it"

The chronicle for 860 to 862, in Cross's translation: the tribes drove the Varangians out, then fell to feuding. "They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Russes: these particular Varangians were known as Russes, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans, Angles, and Goths." They said: "Our whole land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us." "The oldest, Rurik, located himself in Novgorod", and "On account of these Varangians, the district of Novgorod became known as the land of Rus." Rurik is Norse Hrœrekr (Cross, p. 122).

"It is a legend, written down in the early 1100s, 250 years later." Cross reports Shakhmatov's dating, 1111 with Sylvester's revision of 1116, but himself prefers one work of about 1113; the oldest copy, the Laurentian, was written in 1377. The authorship is disputed, so we say "Kyiv's chronicle". Before 945 the chronicler had no native written sources and worked his dates back from Greek ones; Cross allows "some conceivable doubt whether Rurik and his relatives ... were actual personages", while Oleg and Igor "are soundly attested ... by the treaties" (p. 114).

"Novgorod, which the Norse called Hólmgarðr": Thomsen (p. 80), "probably because it stood on a holm situated at the point where the Volkhov issues from lake Ilmen".

Sources: Cross (1930), pp. 78, 89 to 93, 114, 122, 144 to 145; Thomsen (1877), p. 80. Photo: Ulaisaeva, Rurik's Gorodishche, July 2018, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped by us, with text added. The Volkhov 2 km south of Novgorod, near where it leaves Lake Ilmen. The church is 12th century or later, not Viking Age.

04. 911, Karl, Ingjald, Farulf: a treaty sealed by men with Norse names

The treaty in Cross's translation: "We of the Rus nation: Karl, Ingjald, Farulf, Vermund, Hrollaf, Gunnar, Harold, Karni, Frithleif, Hroarr, Angantyr, Throand, Leithulf, Fast, and Steinvith, are sent by Oleg, Great Prince of Rus" (p. 151). Cross (p. 122): "not one is Slavic, while all of them can be reduced to Scandinavian originals". Those spellings are normalised. Thomsen's appendix gives the Slavonic manuscript forms and their Norse equivalents: Karly is Karli, Ingel'd or Igel'd is Ingjaldr, Farlof is Farulfr, Fost is Fasti, Frelaf is Friðleifr, Ruar is Hróarr. Farulfr, he notes, is "common in certain parts of Sweden, unknown in the rest of Scandinavia".

The year. Cross heads the treaty 912, but its text is dated "this second of September, in the year of Creation 6420" (p. 154). The Byzantine year 6420 began on 1 September 911, so the date falls in 911; that is our own calculation. "Helgi in Norse": Cross (p. 122), "The name Oleg itself corresponds to the Norse Helgi".

The stone. Runor's translation of Sö 148 at Innberga, Södermanland: "Þjóðulfr (and) Búi, they raised this stone in memory of Farulfr, their father. He met his end in the east in Garðar (Russia)." The "(Russia)" is the database's gloss; the stone says Garðar, plural of garðr, "a yard, a stronghold" (Thomsen, p. 80). The slide does not say this Farulfr was the envoy, and neither do we.

Sources: Cross (1930), pp. 122, 151, 154; Thomsen (1877), appendix; Runor, Sö 148. Photo: Berig, "Sö 148, Innberga", June 2008, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped by us, with text added.

05. Hólmgarðr, Kænugarðr, Aifur: they mapped the river in their own tongue

The towns. Thomsen (p. 81): "The Old Norse name of Kiev was Kœnugarðr". What Kænugarðr means is open: Thomsen's "Accommodated to the Old Norse kæna, a kind of boat ?" carries his own question mark, so the slide gives no meaning.

The rapids. Constantine VII, writing around 950, follows the Rus' down the Dnieper to Constantinople. At Kyiv they buy dugouts, "furnishing them with oars and rowlocks and other tackle" (p. 59). He names the barrages "in Russian" and "in Slavonic": "the first barrage, called Essoupi, which means in Russian and Slavonic 'Do not sleep!'", the second "called in Russian Oulvorsi, and in Slavonic Ostrovouniprach, which means 'the Island of the Barrage'". The fourth is "called in Russian Aeifor, and in Slavonic Neasit, because the pelicans nest in the stones of the barrage". Cross (pp. 124 to 125), after Thomsen and Pipping, reads the Rus' names as Norse: Oulvorsi as hólmfors, island fall, Gelandri as gjallandi, the roaring, Varouforos as báru-fors, wave fall, Leanti as hlæjandi, the laughing; the seventh is not "satisfactorily restored". Hence "most of the Rus' names read as Norse".

Aifur. Runor's translation of G 280 at Pilgårds, Gotland: "They came far and wide in Eifor." Cross (p. 124) reads it as the rapid "mentioned on a Runic inscription from Gotland as Aifur", the accepted reading.

Sources: De Administrando Imperio, ch. 9, pp. 56 to 63; Cross (1930), pp. 124 to 125; Thomsen (1877), pp. 80 to 81; Runor, G 280. Photo: unknown author, "Dniprovi porohy 1920" (Dnieper rapids), a 1920s postcard from the Dnipropetrovsk museum of the history of pilots and pilotage, via Wikimedia Commons. Commons marks it public domain under its PD-Ukraine tag: a Ukrainian work published before 1 January 1956 whose author, if known, died before that date. Cropped by us, with text added. White water over rocks, people on the shore: the rapids a century ago, before a dam flooded them, not in the Viking Age.

07. Finns still call Sweden Ruotsi. What does your language call Sweden? Comment below

"Finns still call Sweden Ruotsi": Thomsen (p. 92), quoted in 02. Andersson (p. 7) sets it beside "die französischen und finnischen Namen für 'Deutschland', Allemagne und Saksa": Finns call Germany Saksa, after the nearest German tribe, the Saxons.

"Know an older form we missed? Send the source and we'll pin the correction." Corrections are listed below.

Photo: Johan Rydberg, "Grisslehamn, Sweden", July 2016, via Unsplash and Wikimedia Commons, CC0. Cropped by us, with text added. The sea off Grisslehamn in Roslagen, the coast that keeps the old name Roþer.

08. The Norse named people too

Bynames were conferred rather than claimed, as the sources present them, though some men took on a name and some bynames were inherited. The Norse even had a word for a man who went east to trade: Cleasby and Vigfusson give "Holmgards-fari, one who trades to Holmgard". Our free Viking name generator draws on given names and bynames attested in medieval sources.

09. Sworn on steel

"When the pagan Rus' swore Igor's treaty with the Greeks in the 940s, they laid down their shields and their naked swords." The treaty sets out the oath: "The unbaptized Russes shall lay down their shields, their naked swords, their armlets, and their other weapons, and shall swear" (Cross, p. 163). Cross files it under 945; 944 is the year usually given, which we did not confirm, so the slide says "the 940s".

The knife is from our personalized Viking blades collection: you choose the words and we laser-engrave them, letter for letter, exactly as you approve them. The one on the slide reads WITS FOR THE ROAD: a seax-style blade with a dark forged finish and a bright edge, on a burl wood handle with three brass pins. It is not a replica of any Rus' or Viking find.

10. A ring for the neck

"On the Volga in 922, Ibn Fadlan wrote that a Rus' man gave his wife a neck-ring for every 10,000 silver coins he made." Lunde and Stone, section "Brooches, torques and beads": a Rus' man, "as soon as he accumulates 10,000 dirhams, has a torque made for his wife". A torque is a neck-ring, the dirham a silver coin. Lunde and Stone note these Rus' had taken on local customs, so we use his word, Rus'. His account of a Rus' funeral is traced in our Viking quotes sources.

"Ours is a king's chain with wolf heads and Thor's hammer." It is our King's Chain Wolf Head Necklace with Thor's Hammer: a woven king's chain with two wolf-head beads and a ring holding a Thor's hammer pendant, cast in zinc alloy and finished by hand, in 50, 60 or 70 cm. It is not a replica of any Rus' find.

Caption. Saksa, the khagan and the Northmen

"Finns turned the word into Ruotsi, still their name for Sweden (just as Saksa, Germany, comes from the Saxons)." Andersson, p. 7; see 07.

"... some historians derive Rus' from the Ros river near Kyiv instead, and the Norse names below are the main argument against them." Shevelov; see 02 and 04.

"Their ruler, they said, was a 'khagan'." Rex illorum chacanus vocabulo, their king, called khagan (Annales Bertiniani, p. 20).

"A century later Liudprand of Cremona wrote that the Greeks call them Rusii, 'whom we call Northmen'." Antapodosis I.11: Rusios, quos alio nos nomine Nordmannos appellamus. In V.15 the Greeks name them a qualitate corporis, from a bodily quality, and "we" a positione loci, from where they live, Northmen; their king was Inger, Igor, Norse Ingvarr (Cross, p. 122). The "bodily quality" is a pun: Thomsen (p. 47) calls it "a wrong etymology, the name of the Russ being confounded with the Greek adjective rhousios, 'red, red-haired.'"

"Oleg is Helgi, Olga is Helga, Igor is Ingvarr." Cross (p. 122): "The name Oleg itself corresponds to the Norse Helgi, as Olga to Helga and Igor to Ingvarr." The calling and the treaty names are in 03 and 04.

"A Swedish runestone (U 687) says a man 'died in Holmgarðr in Ólafr's church'; another (Sö 171) says a man 'fell in Holmgarðr, the ship's leader with the seamen'." Runor's translations of U 687 at Sjusta, Uppland, for Spjallboði, and of Sö 171 at Esta, Södermanland, for Sigviðr.

The rest of the caption repeats the cover and 01 to 05. As it says, slide 1 is an AI-generated illustration. Each photo's file and licence is linked above.

What we do not claim

• That Russia is named after Roslagen, or that Rus' means "the rowers". Roslagen keeps a later form of the old coastal name; the root means rowing, and what the name first meant is disputed.
• That the name comes from a genitive roþs-. Andersson shows that form is late medieval.
• That Rus' means red-haired, or comes from the Ros river. The first is Liudprand's pun; the second is one side of the debate, which we report and do not adopt.
• That the Rus' were simply Vikings. Louis found the men of 839 were Swedes, Liudprand calls the Rus' Northmen, and Ibn Fadlan's Rus' had taken on local customs.
• That Rurik founded Russia in 862, or certainly lived. The story was written down about 250 years later.
• That the chronicle has one agreed date, or was written by Nestor. Shakhmatov gives 1111 and 1116, Cross about 1113, and the authorship is disputed.
• That the Vikings founded Kyiv. The chronicle names Kii, Shchek and Khoriv as its builders; Askold and Dir, Rurik's men, took it (Cross, p. 145).
• That Kænugarðr means boat town. Thomsen offers it with a question mark.
• That Garðaríki means land of towns, or that Russian gorod comes from Norse garðr. Thomsen: garðr "does not in Old Norse signify a town", and the Slavonic word "occurs in all Slavonic languages and cannot therefore well be borrowed".
• That the first treaty is of 912, or Igor's certainly of 944.
• That Ibn Fadlan saw oval brooches. In the same section the translation says "a circular brooch".
• That the cover shows a real event, the boat in 02 a Rus' boat, or the church in 03 the Viking Age; or that our knife or necklace copies any find.

Corrections

None yet. If you find an error, tell us, with a citation.

Frequently asked questions

Where does the name Russia come from?

Russia comes from Rus', the medieval name of a people and a state centred on Kyiv. Most linguists trace Rus', through Finnish Ruotsi, to Old Swedish roþer, rowing, probably by way of Roþer, the old name of the Uppland coast in Sweden. Some historians derive it instead from the Ros river near Kyiv, so the Norse origin is probable rather than certain.

Why do Finns call Sweden Ruotsi?

Ruotsi, Finland's word for Sweden, comes from Old Swedish roþer, rowing, probably through Roþer, the old name of the Uppland coast; Estonian has Rots. Vilhelm Thomsen argued in 1877 that the Slavonic name Rus' was taken from the Finnish one, and most linguists still accept that. Finns likewise call Germany Saksa, after the Saxons.

Who were the Rus'?

In 839 men who called themselves Rhos reached the Frankish emperor Louis the Pious, who found they were Swedes. Liudprand of Cremona wrote that the Greeks called them Rusii, "whom we call Northmen", and the envoys of the Rus' treaty of 911 have Norse names. Over time the name passed to a ruling class that included Slavs, and then to the whole people.

Did Rurik found Russia in 862?

The Russian Primary Chronicle says the northern tribes invited Rurik and his brothers in 862, but it was compiled in Kyiv in the early 1100s, about 250 years later, with its early dates worked back from Greek sources. Its translator Samuel Cross allowed some doubt whether Rurik was a real person; Oleg and Igor are attested by their treaties with the Greeks.

What did the Norse call Novgorod and Kyiv?

Norse sources call Novgorod Hólmgarðr and Kyiv Kænugarðr, and the Rus' lands Garðar, the strongholds. Swedish runestones remember men who died in Holmgarðr and in Garðar, and around 950 the emperor Constantine VII recorded the Rus' names of the Dnieper rapids, most of which read as Norse.