A man from Reric

"The Slavs on the Dnieper" painting by by Nicholas Roerich. From "The Beginning of Russia. Slavs" series. 1905. Tempera on cardboard. 67 x 89 cm. Painting is depicting local villagers paying tribute to the Rus. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. 

Reric or Rerik was one of the Viking Age Slavic trading ports on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, located near Wismar in the present-day German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Reric was built around 700 by Slavs of the Obodrite tribe. 

At the turn of the 9th century, Obodrites were allied with Charlemagne in their wars against the Danes and another Slavic tribe Wiltzi. In 808 AD Rerik was destroyed by the Viking king Gudfred during his campaign in South Baltic...

The "Annales regni Francorum" report that ‘Godfrid destroyed the Slavic emporium of Reric...and taking the merchants from there, he weighed anchor and brought them to the portus of [Hedeby] along with his whole army.’

Hedeby is first mentioned in the Frankish chronicles of Einhard (804). But it is the sacking of the major Slavic trading centre Rerik In 808 by the Danish king Godfred and moving of the merchants from there to Hedeby that helped Hedeby to develop into a major trading centre.

If we know that South Baltic Slavic "Vikings" had large trading vessels which Norse Vikings lacked, moving Slavic merchants from Rerik to Hedebi by Godfrey makes a lot of sense. Danes got the merchants who knew the trading routes and who knew how to build merchant ships...

I talked about these large Slavic merchant ships my post "Ladia". These ships were so good for transporting large amount of goods along the Russian rivers and lakes that they were still used in the far north in the 19th century. These were captured sailing on the River Emajõgi in Estonia... 

What is very interesting is that One of the names used by chroniclers for Obodrites was Reregi... Also we have a tribe called Wagri, Wagiri, or Wagrians, who were part of the Obodrite confederation...

And then we have Rurik (830 – 879AD), the leader of the Varangians...Varangians who in the first half of the 9the century controlled trading routes between Baltic, Caspian and Black Sea...

According to Russian chronicles, Rurik was born 20 years after Danish king Godfrey, in 808, destroyed Rerik, major Slavic merchant port and moved Slavic merchants from Rerik to Hedebi...

It is widely believed that Rurik was "in some way" ethnically Scandinavian. The only similarly named figure described in the Carolingian Annales Fuldenses and Annales Bertiniani was Rorik of Dorestad (810–880AD), a Danish king from the royal Scylding house of Haithabu (Hedeby)...

Rorik of Dorestad was a member of one of two competing families reported in the Frankish chroniclers as having ruled the nascent Danish kingdom at Hedeby...

Rorik received lands in Friesland from Emperor Louis I. but he wanted more and and so reportedly he plundered Dorestad in 850, attacked Hedeby in 857, and looted Bremen in 859. The Emperor was enraged and stripped him of all his possessions in 860...

After that, Rorik disappears from the Western sources for a considerable period of time, while only two years later, in 862, the Russian chronicle's Rurik arrives in the eastern Baltic, builds the fortress of Ladoga, and later moves to Novgorod...

In 882 Frankish chronicles mention Rorik of Dorestad as dead (without a date of death specified). The Russian chronicle places the death of Rurik of Novgorod at 879, a three year gap prior than the Frankish chronicles...

According to Western sources, the ruler of Friesland (Rorik of Dorestad) was converted to Christianity by the Franks. This may have parallels with the Christianization of the Rus, as reported by Patriarch Photius in 867...

Now this is very very interesting indeed...

Was Rurik a personal name? Or was Rurik "a man from Rerik"? Or was Rurik "Rereg" an Obodrite?

Even if Rurik from Hedeby was Dane by origin, what are the chances that he had, under his command, experienced merchant sailors originally from Rerik, when he established control over the eastern trading routes?

Slavic merchants from Rerik probably already used these eastern trading routes, previous to the destruction of Rerik and the move of the Slavic merchants from Rerik to Hedeby...

Slavic (speaking) merchants would have had much better chance surviving trading trips through Eastern Slavic lands than Germanic (speaking) merchants...They would have been seen as "one of us" or "cousins" by the local Slavic tribes...

These previously established trading connections could then have been used by the mixed Danish (Norse) - Slavic enterprising groups as the starting point for military and political takeover of the territories along the eastern trading route...