What territory did the Yotvingians live in? At the origins of historical truth

Rice. 1. Western Baltic (Yatvingian) hydronyms. 1 - hydronyms of Yatvingian origin; 2 - other names of rivers; 3 - approximate Prussian-Yatvingian and Galindo-Yatvingian borders.

If the question of whether the Yotvingians belong to the Baltic language group and their place among the Baltic tribes is no longer debatable, then the question of the territory of settlement of the Yatvingian tribes in the 1st and the very beginning of the 2nd millennium AD. very far from its resolution.

The oldest and most reliable source on the history of the Yotvingians are Russian chronicles, where the Yotvingians are mentioned from the end of the 10th century. The first news about the military campaign of the Kyiv princes against the Yotvingians dates back to 983. The struggle of the Russian princes against the Yotvingians did not stop during the 11th and 12th centuries, but was episodic. In this regard, chronicle news of the XI-XII centuries. about the Yatvingians are very fragmentary and do not allow us to outline even approximately the limits of the Yatvingian territory of this time. More detailed information about the Yotvingians dates back to the 13th century. The Yotvingian country at that time lay north of the city of Vizna, beyond the river. Biebrzej. Russian and Polish historians of the last century, based on the indirect data of Russian chronicles, based on the information of Polish chroniclers of the XV-XVI centuries. and cartography of geographical names derived from the word "Yatvingians", it was believed that until the 13th century. The Yotvingians occupied, in addition to Suvalkia, the territories of the Polish Podlasie, the Beresteysky volost and the Upper Ponemanye. Opinion on the initial wide settlement of the Yatvingian tribes in the Polish (T. Narbut, D. Schultz, Ya. Yaroshevich) and Russian (N.P. Barsov, V.B. Antonovich, A.M. Andriyashev, P.D. Bryantsev, I Filevich, M.K. Lyubavsky) historiography has become widespread. Attempts have been made to provide archaeological and anthropological confirmation of this point of view. So, R. Eichler, N. Yanchuk and the famous researcher of Lithuanian antiquities E.A. Voltaire, emphasizing the non-Slavic nature of the stone graves of the Bug region, attributed these monuments to the Yotvingians. Yu.D. Talko-Grintsevich noted an admixture of the Yotvingians in the anthropological structure of the population of Podlyashya.

Only a few researchers opposed the generally accepted opinion about the wide settlement of the Yatvingian tribes. So, Yu. Kulakovsky denied the plausibility of the message of the Polish chroniclers of the XV-XVI centuries. about the resettlement of the Yotvingians from Prussia to Volhynia and concluded that the Yotvingians in the XIII century. belonged only to the area north of the river. Nareva. In his opinion, the available sources do not allow us to judge the settlement of the Yotvingians at an earlier time. N.P. Avenarius claimed that the Yotvingians never lived in Podlasie, south of the river. Nareva. Yatvyazh settlements in the vicinity of Drogichin, reported by Dlugosh and Matvey Mekhovit, according to N.P. Avenarius were settlements of captive or fugitive Yotvingians. Archaeological argumentation of N.P. Avenarius has been repeatedly criticized and at the present time cannot be considered convincing.

Opinion received in the XIX century. the spread of the widespread settlement of the Yatvingian tribes in pre-chronic times, in recent decades, has been resolutely rejected by Polish historians and archaeologists. A. Kaminsky, who re-examined the materials on the history of the Yotvingians and their territory in the 13th century, notes that in written sources (Russian, Polish, German) there are no definite indications of the widespread settlement of the Yatvingian tribes. In Podlasie, besides stone graves, which are considered Mazovian by Polish archaeologists, there are no other burial monuments of the early Middle Ages that could be attributed to the Yotvingians. Considering the toponymic data, A. Kaminsky believes that areas with names derived from the tribal name "Yatvyag" can be traces of Yatvingian settlements only in the Yatvingian territory of the 13th century. Outside this region, such settlements should be associated with places inhabited by Yatvingian prisoners, settlers or refugees. Cases of such resettlements are repeatedly noted by Russian chronicles and letters of the Teutonic Order.

For the period before the thirteenth century the researcher considers it possible to attribute the district of the river to the Yatvyazh territory. Slina, whose name may be associated with the origin of the name of one of the Yatvingian tribes - Zlintsy, and the upper Svisloch region, where the river is located. Yatvyaz and several villages of the same name, where J. Razvadovsky discovered specific relics of the Western Baltic language.

In this regard, some researchers believe that the ancient Yatvingian territory should be limited to a small area of ​​northeastern Poland, where the Yotvingians lived in the 13th century. The lands of the Polish Podlasie, Beresteiskaya volost and Upper Ponemanye, according to these researchers, were never occupied by the Yatvingian tribes.

However, despite the seriousness of the arguments of Polish researchers, it is impossible to agree with them. There is no reason to limit the Yatvingian territory to the XII-XIII centuries. exclusively by Suvalkiya, since the data of linguistics and hydronymy undeniably testify to a wider settlement of the Yatvingian tribes. Special linguistic surveys in search of traces of the Yatvingian language in the wide territory of the Middle and Lower Bug and Upper Ponemanye have not yet been carried out. Meanwhile, fragmentary studies carried out here at different times found such traces in the most diverse places. So, the remnants of the Yatvingian population as early as the beginning of the 19th century. were preserved in the Skidel volost of the Grodno district, along the banks of the rivers Kotra and Pelyasa. It has already been noted above that the Polish linguist J. Razvadovsky described the relics of the Yatvingian speech in the area of ​​the river. Svisloch. V. Kurashkevich discovered traces of the Yatvingian language in the vicinity of Drogichin, Melnik and to the south, on the left bank of the Western Bug. E.A. Voltaire, when describing the dialects of the contemporary Lithuanian population of the Slonim district, emphasized its undoubted Western Baltic features and came to the conclusion that the so-called Lithuanians of this section of the Upper Ponemanye are not actually Lithuanians, but were Western Balts in their origin.

Recently V.N. Toporov showed that the name of the river. Kshna, the left tributary of the Western Bug, is of Yatvingian origin. The notion that the Yatvingian tribes did not enter the southern Podlasie is erroneous, they simply never looked for Baltic hydronyms here.

I'M WITH. Otrembsky writes about the great influence of the Yotvingian language on the Polish language. As a result of this influence, the Polish language territory was divided into two parts: western and eastern. The territory of Yatvingian influence was eastern Poland. A noticeable influence of the Yatvingian-Prussian group of Baltic languages ​​is found in all Mazovian and Pomeranian dialects of the Polish language.

To identify the territory of settlement of the Yatvingian tribes, hydronymy is a reliable source. A significant hydronymic layer of undoubtedly Baltic origin over a vast territory could not have been formed as a result of settlements of captives or Yotvingian refugees.

More A.L. Pogodin, based on the study of hydronymic material, came to the conclusion that the entire Ponemanye and the Bug region partially (below Brest) are included in the circle of lands once occupied by the Baltic tribes. The works of K. Buga, J. Razvadovsky and others confirmed the presence in the hydronymics of this territory of a significant layer of Baltic origin, which means that the Slavs who came here found the Balts in this territory.

Among the hydronyms of Baltic origin in Suvalkia, Ponemanye and Pobuzhye, river names specifically Yatvingian (Western Baltic) stand out. In a short article specifically dedicated to this topic, K. Buga showed that the names of rivers with the suffix -da are Yatvingian, and compiled the first list of such hydronyms (Golda, Grivda, Nevda, Segda, Sokolda, Yaselda).

The list of hydronyms of Yatvingian (Western Baltic) origin can be significantly expanded (Fig. 1). Some of them, such as Skroda, also have a Western Baltic etymology. Such hydronyms of the Prussian-Yatvingian type as Zelva-Zelvnyaka, Kirsna, Kshna, Yatvyaz and Slina are also plotted on the map (the latter, as noted above, are associated by researchers with the name of one of the Yatvingian tribes - Zlintsy).

Rice. 2. Distribution of the Yatvingian burial mounds. 1 - burial grounds with stone mounds; 2 - eastern and southern boundaries of the distribution of the Yatvingian hydronymy; 3 - Prussian-Yatvingian and Galindo-Yatvingian borders; 1 - Pazharchiai; 2 - Liepinai; 3 - Vistutis; 4 - Aukshtoji; 5 - Petroshkay; 6 - Shurpils; 7 - Elenevo; 8 - Dry valleys; 9 - Prudishki; 10 - Water is alive; 11 - Wasp; 12 - Korkliny; 13 - Skardub; 14 - Charnokovshchizna; 15 - Bela Voda; 16 and 17 - Switzerland; 18 - Brody; 19 - Mierunishki; 20 - Botsvinka Nova; 21 - Bozvinka; 22 - Grunayki; 23 - Okrasin; 24 - Chervonny Dvor; 25 - Dubrovka Mala; 26 - Kal; 27 - Stone Struga; 28 - Petrasheny: 29 - Throat; 30 - Russian All; 31 - Katy; 32 - Grodzisk; 33 - Yasudovo; 34 - Kladzevo; 35 - Yasinova Dolina; 36 - Theolin; 37 - Window New; 38 - Rostolty; 39 - Bogdanki: 40 - Repniki; 41 - Gatski-Raiki; 42 - Pauls; 43 - Kutovo; 44 - Denteleyevo; 45 - Losinka; 46 - Krivich; 47 - Luzhani; 48 - Maltsy; 49 - Pobikrov; 50 - Not at home; 51 - Chekanovo; 52 - Meadows; 53 - Tsetseli; 54 - Batsiki Far; 55 - Batsiki Middle; 56 - Stavshtsi; 57 - Lisovshchizna; 58 - Military; 59 - Koshcheiniki; 60 - Kustichi; 61 - Volochin; 62 - Stavy; 63 - Rudavets; 64 - Menkovichi; 65 - Jedwabne; 66 - Yatskovichi; 67 - Shields; 68 - Reed; 69- Green Gorka; 70 - Shells; 71 - Rataichitsy; 72 - Svtsevo; 73 - Khotinovo; 74 - Shestakovo; 75 - Klyukovo; 76 - Bagels; 77 - Joy; 78 - Ugly; 79 - Chakhets; 80 - Detkovichi, 81 - Volpa; 82 - Belavichi; 83 - Old All; 84 - Golynka; 85 - Pavlovichi; 86 - Koshcheyevo; 87 - Dubovo; 88 - Sokolovo-Milkanovichi; 89 - Milkanovichi; 90 - Mezhevichi; 91 - Volovniki; 92 - Brezhyanka; 93 - Sulyatichi; 94 - Gorodilovka; 95 - Weakadele; 96 - Migonis; 97 - Beijonis; 98 - Teeth; 99 - Chepeluny; 100 - Versoca; 101 - Senkans; 102 - Konyavele, 103 - Nashkunay; 104 - Rudnya; 105 - Morgues; 106 - Bagota; 107 - Truth-Yasovshchizna; 108 - Belyuntsy; 109 - Mitskonis; 110 - Beginning; 111 - Versekele; 112 - Vilkonis; 113 - Puzele; 114 - Supplies; 115 - Karnachikha; 116 - Opanovtsy; 117 - Goats; 118 - Schlavence; 119 - Taboliche; 120 - Crayfish; 121 - Kiyutsy; 122 - Ganelka; 123 - Venzhevshchizna; 124 - Squares; 125 - Syrni; 126 - Tanevnchi; 127 - Pugachi; 128 - Zenyanishi; 129 - Prudzyany; 130 - Devenishkes; 131 - Kastkiskes; 132 - Kozarovshchizna; 133 - Acorns; 134 - Skuas; 135 - Kotlovka.

Throughout the distribution area of ​​the Yatvingian hydronymy, peculiar funerary monuments are known that have no analogues either among the funerary structures of the Slavic tribes, or among the burial monuments of the East Baltic (Lithuanian and Latvian) tribes. These are stone mounds (Fig. 2), which include both burial mounds, entirely made of stone, and stone and earth mounds, in which stone was an essential component. Stone mounds usually have a turfed surface and therefore often do not differ in appearance from Slavic or Lithuanian mounds. Since the mapped area is one of the areas that are the most poorly studied in archaeological terms, the absence of stone mounds in certain areas of the Yatvingian hydronymic territory, apparently, must be explained by the fact that they have not yet been identified here. The same areas where more or less extensive excavations of mounds have ever been carried out usually yield a significant number of stone mounds.

The difference between the stone mounds and the burial sites of the Slavic and Eastern Baltic tribes and the coincidence of the range of these mounds with the area of ​​distribution of the Yatvingian hydronymy already allows us to raise the question of whether the stone mounds belong to the group of burial sites of the Western Baltic (in the considered territory of the Yatvingian) tribes. But not only the coincidence of the territory of the distribution of stone mounds with the Yatvingian hydronymic area indicates that these monuments belong to the group of Western Baltic antiquities. Researchers of the archeology of the Western Baltic tribes have repeatedly emphasized that for a long time these tribes were characterized by the use of stone in the construction of funerary monuments.

The rite of burial under stone mounds spread among all the Western Baltic tribes as early as the 1st millennium BC. In the 1st millennium A.D. among the Prussian tribes, barrow burials are replaced by burials in ground burials with the obligatory use of barrow-shaped or flat stone structures in the form of masonry or pavements. Grave structures made of stone are preserved among the Prussian tribes until the 13th-14th centuries. In western Mazovia, where the Galindian tribes lived, ground burials appeared already in the 1st millennium BC. and coexist with stone mounds.

Unlike the Prussian-Galindian tribes, the Yotvingians throughout the entire 1st millennium AD. the burial rite was preserved, and in some places of the ancient Yatvingian territory, the burial rite in stone mounds was retained, as will be shown below, until the end of the 13th century. The use of stone to mark burials in certain areas of the territory of the settlement of the Yatvingian tribes survived until the 17th century. Among the areas where the Yatvingian hydronymy is widespread, Suvalkiya is the best explored. Therefore, the review of the archeology of the Western Baltic tribes is usually limited to Prussia and Suvalkia. On the eve of the Second World War, German archaeologists, in their studies on the ancient history of the Western Balts, left the areas east and south of Suwalkia unshaded on the maps and accompanied the inscriptions “unexplored territory”. Since then, the situation has changed little. Thanks to extensive excavation studies carried out in recent years by the Yatvyazh complex expedition, Suvalkia remains the most explored area of ​​the Yatvyazh hydronymic territory. Therefore, acquaintance with the stone mounds of the Yotvingians is best to start with Suvalkia.

The Yatvyazh burial mounds of Suvalkiya usually consist of several dozen low, flat mounds with a diameter of 6 to 16-18 m. The surface of the kurgans is usually turfed, and only at the foot are large cobblestones that form the frame of the kurgan foundations.

Rice. 3. Sections of stone mounds. 1 - sod layer; 2- stones; 3 - sand; 4 - mainland; 5 - remains of cremations.

I - Rostolty (according to K. Yazdzhevsky), II - Aukshtoyn, 9 (according to Sh. Krukovsky), III - Switzerland, group two, 2 (according to E. Antonevit), IV - Osova, 39 (according to D. Yaskapis and Ya. Yaskapis), V - Living Water, 1 (according to V. Zemlinsky-Odoeva), VI - Osova, 47 (according to Y. Yaskapis), VII - Bagota (according to V.A. Shukevich), VIII - Beyzhonis (scheme according to M. Alsekaite-Gimbutnene), IX - Svishchey, 12 (excavations of the author), X - Karanachikha (scheme to V.A. Shukevich).

For II-IV centuries. along with the rite of cremation, the rite of burial of unburned corpses is characteristic. Bio-ritualism is observed at the same time among the Prussian tribes. A characteristic feature of the Yatvingian burial mounds is the presence of a more or less noticeable depression at the top of the mound. Several such burial mounds were excavated by Polish archaeologists in the Belorogi tract near Cape Switzerland. The height of the embankments did not exceed 0.5 m. The structure of the embankments was the same (Fig. 3, III). Under the sod layer there was a stone cover, folded in several tiers of stones tightly adjacent to each other. Burial pits oriented from northwest to southeast, filled with stones, were opened under the stone cover at a shallow depth. As a rule, there was one skeleton in the grave pit, in rare cases, two or three skeletons. The dead were partially burned. In some burial mounds, traces of vertical pillars were found around the burial pits, indicating that some kind of wooden dominoes were erected over the burials. The presence of depressions on the tops of mounds with corpses is a consequence of the subsidence of the mound as the burial chamber-domovina rots. The clothing material of cremations in the Yatvingian mounds of Suvalkiya is quite diverse. These are spears, axes, buckles, neck torcs, the so-called provincial-Roman brooches, various plaques, glass beads. Swords are very rare. The ceramic material belongs to the types characteristic of the East Masurian culture of the 2nd-4th centuries. In the stone cover of some burial mounds, urnless cremations were discovered in the form of accumulations of ashes, coals and calcined bones placed among the stones. Stone burial mounds with corpses of the same type in Suvalkia were investigated in the villages of Osov, Zhivaya Voda, Shurpilakh, Russkaya Vesi. All of them date from the same time - from the 3rd to the beginning of the 5th century. In the mounds at the vil. Zhivaya Voda, cases of finding several different-time grave pits with corpses under one mound were noted.

Stone mounds with corpses from the first half of the 1st millennium are known not only in Suvalkia. In the 30s of the XX century. such mounds were explored at the villages of Rostolty and Kutovo, near the river. Nareva. The tops of the mounds had characteristic depressions. The Rostolt mound, in addition to the surface cover, composed of stones tightly adjacent to each other, had an inner stone core (Fig. 3). Among the stones of this part of the mound, the remains of cremations (small calcined bones), an iron knife, fragments of pottery and a Roman green glass bead with white eyes were discovered. The main burial (corpse) was made in an oval pit under the kurgan (5X3 m, depth 2.5 m), oriented NW-SE. Along with the deceased lay a bronze ladle, a bone comb, fragments of a Roman glass vessel, and some other things. Burial date 3rd century.

The mound of the Kutovsky mound was built of stone mixed with sand. There are similar mounds among the Yatvingian kurgans of Suvalkiya. In the central pit, filled with stones, the skeleton had completely decayed. In the same barrow, several more grave pits were discovered, in one of which calcined bones and a bone comb were found. The researcher of these mounds K. Yazdzhevsky emphasizes the similarity of their ceramic material with the simultaneous ceramics from the archaeological sites of the Prussian tribes and believes that the studied mounds belong to the Yotvingian ships.

A stone mound with a corpse of the same type was also investigated in vil. Kotlovka. In appearance (the presence of a noticeable depression on the tops of the mounds), researchers include mounds near the villages of Losinka, Krivich, Pavly, Repniki, Bogdanki among the Yatvingian mounds of the first half of the 1st millennium.

Stone mounds with burials of the unburned dead are also known on the right bank of the Neman in the territory of the Lithuanian SSR. 26 mounds made of stones and containing corpses were excavated in 1888 and 1889. E.A. Voltaire at vil. Slabadele (Slobodka). The grave goods of these kurgans are generally poorer than in the stone kurgans of Suvalkiya, but almost the entire complex of finds has analogies among the collection of Suvalk kurgans. Lithuanian archaeologists date the Slabadel burial mounds to the 4th century BC. A.Z. Tautavičius erroneously classified these burial mounds as Eastern Lithuanian. The burial mounds of the Eastern Lithuanian tribes were made of sand or clay, and only at the base had a ring made of cobblestones. There are no items in the collection of the Slabadel barrows that would be characteristic exclusively of the funerary antiquities of the Eastern Lithuanian tribes. All this, together with the location of the mounds in question in the area of ​​distribution of the Yatvingian hydronymy, allows us to attribute them to the Yatvingian monuments.

To the same group of monuments, we also include part of the mounds with corpses, explored near the villages of Migonis, Pamarnikas and Skvorbi. In two burial mounds at vil. Migonis (No. 14 and 19), stones were found along the slope of the embankment and boulders that formed the frame of the barrow foundations. One must think that the Migonis mounds were left by a mixed Lithuanian-Yatvingian population. R. Volkaite-Kulikauskiene dates these mounds to the 4th-5th centuries. Mounds at the villages of Pamarnikas and Skvorby are located in central Lithuania. I.S. Abramov, who carried out excavations here in 1909 and 1910, notes that he encountered barrows with a continuous stone cover under the turf. And mound number 8 at the village. Pamarnikas and burial mounds No. 2 and 4 at the village. The squarbies turned out to be built entirely of stone. Such arrangement of burial mounds is not typical for Lithuanian funerary monuments.

Poor knowledge of the eastern regions of the Yatvingian hydronymic territory does not allow us to answer the question of whether the Yotvingians occupied Upper Ponemanye in the first half of the 1st millennium. Stone mounds with corpses of this time are not yet known here. In the Slonim district, mounds with a stone cover and a depression at the top are known, but they cannot yet be attributed to the Rostolt type. The fact is that the neighboring Dregovichi mounds of the 11th-12th centuries. sometimes there are the same sagging mounds over rotten dominoes with corpses. True, the Dregovichi mounds never have stone covers, but still, before the excavations, the Slonim mounds remain unidentified.

In the III-IV centuries. the rite of cremation coexisted among the Yotvingians with the rite of cremation. It has already been noted above that in some burial mounds with burials of the unburned dead among the stones of the embankment there are cremations. Starting from the 5th c. cremation becomes the only burial rite. The fact that the burial places and the cremations in the stone mounds of Suvalkiya and neighboring regions belong to the same population does not raise any objections. Burial mounds with corpses and cremation in the same burial grounds, the presence of both types of burial in one mound, the similarity of grave goods and ceramic material has been repeatedly noted by many researchers.

Stone mounds with cremations, as a rule, do not have funnel-shaped depressions on the tops. Otherwise, their device does not differ from burial mounds (Fig. 3, II, IV-VI). Usually, under the turf, a cover is opened, composed of stones in one or several tiers. There are mounds made entirely of stones, there are mounds (like the Rostolt) with an inner core made of stones. Remains of cremations (often without urns, less often in urns) in mounds of the middle of the 1st millennium are found under the embankment in small grave pits and among the stones of the embankment. The number of cremations in one mound varies - from 2-3 to 15-16.

Some cremations of the middle of the 1st millennium are accompanied by a rich inventory. The collection of grave goods from the Yatvingian cremations of Suvalkiya includes iron spears and umbons, bits and spurs, belt plaques and buckles, crossbow-shaped brooches, toilet tweezers, knives, amber beads and some other items of women's jewelry. Urns with cremation V-VII centuries. are biconical pots typical of Suwalkia with a slightly curved rim. The bend is always at the top of the vessel. Single vessels are ornamented along the edge with a nail pattern.

In Suvalkia, Yatvingian mounds with cremations, in addition to those burial grounds that have already been mentioned in connection with the characteristics of the rite of cremation, were studied in Prudishki, Elenev, Petrasheny, Sukhodolakh, Yasinova Dolina, Bilvinovo, Neshki, Korkliny and other places.

The same stone mounds with cremations are also known in Upper Ponemanye. Thanks to the large excavation studies carried out at the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century. V.A. Shukevich and E.A. Voltaire, stone mounds are relatively well studied in the northern part of the Upper Neman basin. The earliest among those investigated is one of the burial mounds at vil. Verseke, built entirely of stone and containing two cremations. The remains of one of the burnings were in an earthen vessel covered with a sharp-ribbed pot. Similar vessels are known from the cultural layer of the first half of the 1st millennium of the settlement Mpgonis, as well as in Poland and the Middle Dnieper region of the 3rd-4th centuries. In this regard, A.Z. Tautavičius dated the Versecian burial mound to the 4th century BC. Stone mounds with burnings at the villages of Bagote, Versekele, Vilkonis and Mitskonis date back to the 5th-8th centuries. Apparently, burial mounds with cremation, partly made of stone, near the villages of Devenishkes and Kastkishkes, should be attributed to the same group of monuments. It must be assumed that among the stone mounds of the southern part of the Upper Ponemanye there are mounds with cremations of the second half of the 1st millennium, but they have not yet been excavated.

The stone mounds of the Upper Ponemanye are similar in structure to those of the Suwalki. These are also flat mounds, round in plan, up to 0.5-0.8 m high. The number of cremations in one mound ranges from one or two to six (Fig. 3, VII). A.Z. Tautavičius attributed the mounds of Lithuania built of stones to the monuments of the Eastern Lithuanian tribes, with which one cannot agree. The insignificant differences in the size of the stone mounds of the Upper Ponemanye and Suvalkiya, which he emphasizes, are not significant, and the funeral rite in both mounds is the same. Just as in Suvalkia, these are the remains of cremations committed on the side, or in burial pits under the burial mounds (Bagota, Mitskonis) or among the stones of the mounds (Versekele, Vilkonis, etc.). Only occasionally are cases noted when calcined bones were scattered over a small area at the base of the barrows, but this detail also has analogies in the Yatvingian barrows of Suvalkia. True, in the Upper Neman stone mounds, in comparison with the Suwalki ones, urn burnings are less common, but this is a very minor sign of difference. To determine the ethnicity of the stone mounds of the Upper Ponemanye, the similarity of the main features with the Suwalki mounds and their significant difference from the unconditional East Lithuanian mounds is much more important. It is also significant that in the stone mounds of the Upper Ponemanye no items identified by A.Z. Tautavičius among those characteristic only of the Eastern Lithuanian tribes. Items from these mounds (axes, spears, shield umbons, buckles, etc.) belong to the types common among many Baltic tribes, including the Yatvingian ones.

Burials according to the rite of burning in the Yatvingian stone mounds of the last quarter of the 1st millennium are almost always devoid of grave goods, and therefore it is difficult to identify them. Among the Prussian tribes, starting from the 6th century, there is a significant impoverishment of grave goods. A sharp decrease in the number of finds, and then their almost complete disappearance from about this time, began among the Yotvingians both in Suvalkia and in Upper Ponemanye. In addition, like the Prussians, the Yatvingian tribes in the 7th-10th centuries. urn-less cremation predominates, therefore, burials of this time cannot be distinguished by ceramic material. As an example of the Yatvingian stone mounds of this time, one can name the mounds at the village. Yasudovo, where early cremations date back to the 9th century. , or burial mounds at vil. Aukshtoje, where, on the contrary, late cremations can be dated to the 8th-9th centuries.

The latest cremations in the Yatvingian stone mounds are determined by the finds of pottery ceramics of the ancient Russian appearance of the 10th-12th centuries. The presence of such ceramics in stone burial mounds with burns does not deny the Yatvingian belonging of these monuments. Such ceramics is common not only in the monuments of the Slavic tribes. It has also been found in Eastern Lithuanian mounds, Lithuanian Pilkalnis, Latgalian settlements, and Prussian tribes. Therefore, the finding of ancient Russian pottery in the mounds of the Yotvingians - the closest neighbors of the Slavs - is natural.

In terms of their structure, stone mounds at the turn of the 1st and 2nd millennia do not differ from the previous ones. Only the number of cremations in one mound is reduced to one or two. Such burial mounds are known almost throughout the territory of distribution of the Yatvingian hydronymy. In the interfluve of the Upper Neman and Viliya, they are sometimes found in the same burial grounds together with the burial mounds of the middle and second half of the 1st millennium and are identical with them in structure. In the southern part of the Upper Ponemanye, a part of the mounds at the vil. Sulyatichi. Of the three burial mounds excavated here by F.D. Gurevich, one had a stone cover typical for the Yatvingian burial monuments and included one cremation. Burial mounds with a stone cover were explored in this part of the Upper Ponemanye before, but the researchers did not find any burials in them, since the excavations were carried out in a small well or a narrow trench.

In Suvalkiya, very few stone mounds with cremation accompanied by ancient Russian pottery are known. These are the mounds already mentioned above near the villages of Yasudov and Osov. It is possible that by the beginning of the 2nd millennium in Suvalkiya, the kurgan burial rite was replaced by barrowless burials with stone pavements. But this assumption, due to the complete lack of study of the funerary monuments of Suwalkia of this time, cannot be supported by actual materials.

In the Middle Bug region, stone mounds with burning at the turn of the 1st and 2nd millenniums are known from the excavations of S.A. Dubinsky and Brest Museum of Local Lore. According to their structure, they repeat the stone mounds of an earlier time and differ from the latter only in smaller sizes. All of them have a stone cover under the turf, folded into one or three tiers. Each mound usually contains one cremation. The remains of cremations, sometimes accompanied by fragments of ancient Russian pottery vessels, often without urns and without inventory, are either among the stones that make up the covering of the embankment (Batsiki, Dalnie, Klyukovo, Tsetseli), or at the base of the mounds (Batsiki Near, Tsetseli), or in a small burial mound pit (Voyokaya). In addition to single melted ingots of glass and bronze, nothing is found during corpse burnings at the turn of the 1st and 2nd millennia.

During the XI-XII centuries. the rite of cremation in stone mounds is gradually replaced by the rite of cremation. The change of rites did not occur simultaneously in different regions. So, in some places of the Neman-Viliya interfluve, the rite of cremation lasted until the beginning of the 13th century, and in the Brest Bug region, the last burnings in stone mounds date back to the 11th century. Many stone mounds with corpses from the first centuries of the 2nd millennium are located in the same burial grounds as the mounds with burning. The structure of stone mounds remains unchanged. As before, mounds have a cover made of stones in one or several tiers (Fig. 3, IX); there are mounds built entirely of stone. The dead were laid either on the mainland or in a pit under the kurgan. Most of the buried had a western orientation. At the same time, throughout the territory of the distribution of stone mounds, there is an eastern orientation that is not typical for the Slavs. At late corpses, grave goods are usually found in stone mounds. In female burials, these are ring-shaped temporal rings with trailing ends, less often - ring-shaped rings with a spiral curl at the end. In the Middle Bug region, small wire rings with an S-shaped curl are also common. Very rarely come across three-bead rings. In the barrows between the Neman and Viliya rivers, the remains of a headband (a headdress according to A.A. Spitsyn) are often found - bronze or silver plaques with an embossed pattern. Beaded necklaces were not common. Only in a few burial mounds were found beads (from one to six in a burial) - small ones made of blue, light green and frosted glass, clay or earthenware, silver-plated glass and occasionally bronze, covered with grain. Bracelets and rings from stone mounds belong to the types widely known from Slavic antiquities. In addition, there are spiral rings and bracelets, typical for the monuments of the Baltic tribes. Iron knives and pottery vessels of the Slavic type are found in both male and female burials. In addition, axes, spears, flints, buckles were found in male burials.

Stone mounds with corpses of the XI-XIII centuries. are known almost throughout the territory of distribution of the Yatvingian hydronymy. In the interfluve of the Neman and Willia, they were studied by E.A. Voltaire, S. Gloger, V.A. Shukevich and S. Yarotsky (cemeteries near the villages of Venzhevshchizna, Vilkonys, Karnachikha, Kiyutsi, Kozarovshchina, Opankovtsy, Puzele, etc. Many such mounds were excavated in the Bug region. At the end of the 19th century they were studied by T. Lunevsky, S. Gloger, K. Stolivo (village Luzhki), R. Eichler (Nevyadoma and Chekanov), L. Paevsky (village Uglyany), at the beginning of the 20th century S.A. Dubinsky (Batsiki Dalnie, Tsetseli) and in recent years the Brest Museum of Local Lore (at the villages Voyskaya, Zelenaya Gurka, Koshcheiniki, Kustichi, Lisovshchizna, Rataichitsy, Svishchevo, Trostyanitsa, Khotinovo) and the author (near the village of Svishchevo). In Suvalkia, stone mounds with corpses from the first centuries of the 2nd millennium were explored only in Yasudovo. Such mounds in the southern part of Upper Ponemanya remain unexplored.

Stone mounds with corpses of the XI-XIII centuries. have never been considered comprehensively by researchers. Referring to individual burial mounds or small areas, archaeologists paid attention exclusively to the Slavic nature of women's jewelry and, in this regard, considered these monuments to be Slavic. So, A.A. Spitsyn, shortly after receiving the first information about large excavations of stone mounds and graves in the Lida district, proposed that these monuments be considered antiquities of the Russian population of Black Rus'. Polish archaeologists attribute the burial mounds of the Middle Bug region, regardless of their structure, to the monuments of the East Slavic tribes (dregovichi). Yu.V. Kukharenko, without giving any reasons, believes that the stone mounds of the Middle Bug may belong to the Buzhans. In one of the reports A.A. Spitsyn also considered these mounds as Buzhan monuments, but not in the ethnographic, but in the geographical sense of the word.

Rice. 4. Scheme of the evolution of the Yatvingian burial mounds.

To determine the ethnicity of stone mounds with corpses of the XI-XIII centuries. it is important that these sites originate from earlier stone mounds, whose Yatvingian belonging seems to be indisputable (Fig. 4). The fact that these monuments do not go beyond the range of Yatvingian hydronymy also indirectly indicates their connection with the Yotvingians. In the X-XIII centuries. in the Middle Bug region and in the southern part of the Upper Ponemanye, along with stone mounds, ordinary Slavic mounds are well known, made of sand or clay and not having any stone structures. The earliest of them contain cremations of the 10th century, in the 11th-13th centuries. - dead bodies. In the Bug region, such barrows were excavated by N.P. Avenarius, S.A. Dubinsky and others, in the Upper Ponemanye - M. Fedorovsky, M.A. Tsybyshev, E. Golubovich, F.D. Gurevich and others. They are located both as separate burial grounds and in groups together with stone mounds. These mounds, of course, were left by the Slavic population.

Slavic colonization took place non-simultaneously in all areas of the territory under consideration. The Slavs penetrated into the southern part of Upper Ponemanya already in the middle of the 1st millennium. The preservation of a significant number of hydronyms of Baltic origin in this territory indicates that the Slavs not only found the Balts here, but also lived on the same territory with them for some time, until the latter were Slavicized. Therefore, the presence in the Middle Bug and Upper Ponemanye of two types (Slavic and Yatvingian) mounds of the X-XIII centuries. reflects the diversity of the population of this time. Part of the stone mounds probably belonged to the already Slavicized Yotvingians. In this regard, the Slavic character of women's jewelry in late stone mounds also finds an explanation.

The so-called "stone graves" are directly connected with the Yatvingian stone mounds. However, due to the special area of ​​their distribution and some specific features of these monuments, it is better to separate their consideration into a separate topic.

Gerullis G. Zur Sprache der Sudauer-Jatwinger. Festschrift Adalbert Bezzenberger. Goettingen, 1921; Buga K. Lietuviu kalbos źodynas. Kaunas, 1925. II. C. LXXIV-LXXXIX; Otrembsky Ya.S. Yotvingian language // Questions of Slavic linguistics. M., 1961. Issue. 5. S. 3-8.

Kohn A. Vorhistorische Gräber bei Czekanów und Niewiadoma in Polen // ZE. Berlin, 1878. H. S. 256; Yanchuk N. A few words about the archaeological and ethnographic excursion to the Sedlec province in 1891 // Memorable book of the Sedlec province for 1892. Sedlec, 1892. P. 223-255; Voltaire E.A. On the question of the Yotvingians // Yearbook of the Russian Anthropological Society at St. Petersburg University. SPb., 1908. Issue. II. pp. 1-9.

Notes on the western part of the Grodno province // Ethnographic collection published by the Russian Geographical Society. SPb., 1858. Issue. III. pp. 47-73.

Avenarius N.P. Drogichin Nadbuzhsky and its antiquities // Materials on archeology of Russia. 1890. Issue. IV. pp. 27-34.

Voltaire E.A. To the question of the Yatvingians. pp. 2-8; Gurevich F.D. On the issue of archaeological sites of the annalistic Yotvingians // Brief reports of the Institute of the History of Material Culture. 1950. Issue. XXXIII. pp. 111, 112.

M. Teppen (Toerren M. Geschichte Masurens. Danzig, 1870. S. 1-17; his own. Atlas zur historisch-comparativen Geographie von Preussen. Gotha, 1858. Table I) belongs to the number of researchers who denied the widespread settlement of the Yotvingians. ).

Antonevich E. On the archaeological study of the ancient population of the Baltic states // Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR. Series. societies. Sciences. 1957. Issue. II. P. 172. This point of view is shared by F.D. Gurevich (Gurevich F.D. Ethnic composition of the population of the Upper Poneman region according to archaeological data of the second half of the 1st millennium AD // Research on archeology of the USSR. L., 1961. P. 177-179).

Yanchuk N. Decree. op. P. 235. According to T. Narbut, the Lithuanians called this part of Ponemanye (to the south of the Pelyasa river) Yatvyagiya (Narbutt T. Dzieje starożytne narodu litewskiego. Wilno, 1842. II. P. 170).

Kuraszkiewicz W. Domniemany ślad Jadźwingów na Podlasiu // Studia z filologii polskiej i słowiańskiej. Warszawa, 1955. I, pp. 334-348.

Volter E.A. Die Litauer im Kreise Slonim (Zur litauische Dialektenkunde) // Mitteilungen der litauischen literarischen Gesellschaft. Tilsit-Heidelberg, 1895, IV, 2, pp. 166-187; Voltaire E.A. Traces of the ancient Prussians and their language in the Grodno province // News of the Department of the Russian language and literature of the Academy of Sciences. SPb., 1912. XVI, 4. S. 151-160. True, E.A. Voltaire believes that these are the descendants of immigrants from Prussia. However, Ya.S. Otrembsky convincingly shows that all the features of the Lithuanian dialect in the Slonim district speak of their Yatvingian origin (Otrembsky Ya.S. Decree. Op. P. 7, 8).

Toporov V.N. Two notes from the field of Baltic toponymy. On the southern border of the Yotvingians // Rakstu krājums veltijums akademikim profesoram Dr. Jānim Endzellnam vina 85 drives im 65 darba gadu atcerei. Riga, 1959. S. 251-256.

Otrembski T. Udział Jaćwingów w ukształtowaniu jeżyka polskiego // Acta Baltico-Slavica. Białystok, 1964. I. S. 207-216.

The time of the appearance of the Slavs in this territory cannot be determined from the data of hydronymy. K. Buga, on the basis of linguistic data, believed that the Eastern Slavs came into contact with the Yotvingians between the 7th and 10th centuries (Вūga K. Kalbu mokslas bei mūsii senové. Kaunas, 1913, p. 12).

When compiling the map, the following works were mainly used: Voltaire E.A. Lists of populated places in the Suvalka province as material for the historical and ethnographic geography of the region. SPb., 1901; Nesteruk F.Ya., Korchagin A.K. Rivers of the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR and the BSSR. Bibliographic index of domestic and foreign literature for the period 1890-1939. M.; L, 1941; Tyulpanov A.I., Borisov I.A., Blagutin V.I. Brief reference book of rivers and reservoirs of the BSSR. Minsk, 1948; Lasinskes M., Macevicius J., Jabłońskis J. Lietuvos TSR upiu kadastras. Vilnius, 1959. Due to the lack of a catalog of rivers, the Lower Bug region remained unmapped. The regions inhabited in antiquity by the Prussian and Galindian tribes were also not mapped.

Vūga K. Die Vorgeschichte der Aistischen (Baltischen) Stämme im Lichte der Ortsnamenforschung. Streitberg Festgabe. Leipzig, 1924, p. 34.

Engel C., W. La Baume. Kulturen und Völker der Frühzeit im Preußenlande. Konigsberg, 1937, p. 141; Alseikaite-Gimbutiene M. Die Bestattung in Litauen in der vorgeschichtlichen Zeit. Tübingen, 1946, pp. 77, 84.

Engel C., W. La Baume. Decree. op. pp. 211-213; Gaerte W. Urgeschichte Ostpreussens. Konigsberg, 1929, pp. 322-328.

Yatvingians - the medieval name of one of the groups of Western Baltic tribes. This term was used by Eastern Slavs, Poles and partially Lithuanians. The Prussians and the Teutonic Knights called the yavtyags ships. A. Kaminsky proved the identity of these names (Kamiński A. Decree. Op. P. 25-31). In historiography, it is generally accepted that the Prussian definition of Yotvingians is inherited from the name Soudinoi, mentioned in Ptolemy's geography.

Talko-Hryncewicz J. Przyczynek do paleoetnologii Litwy. Cmentarzysko na Arjańskiej Gorce w majętności Unji pod Wierzbolowem, pow. Wolkowyszki, gub. Suwalska // Prace i Máterjaly antropologiczno-archeologiczne i entograficzne. Krakow, 1920. I. 1-9. pp. 48-51.

The archeology of the Yotvingians begins from the first centuries of the 1st millennium. The initial stage of the East Masurian culture, identified by the archaeologist K. Engel and considered by followers as the culture of the Yotvingian-Sudovs, falls on the 1st century. By the first half of the II century. the first mention of the Yotvingians in written sources (Ptolemy) also applies. The earlier stone mounds of Suvalkiya could belong to the still undivided western Baltic tribes.

Antoniewicz J., Kazunksi M., Okuliсz J. Sprawozdanie z badań w 1955 na cmentarzysku kurhanowym w miejsc. Szwajcaria, pow. Suwałki // WA. 1956. XXIII, 4. S. 308-324; Antoniewicz J., Kazunksi M., Okuliсz J. Winiki badań przeprowadzonych w 1956 roku na cmentarzysku kurhanowym w meijsc. Szwajcaria, pow Suwałki // WA. 1958. XXV, 1-2. pp. 22-57; Antoniewicz J. Badania kurhanow z okresu rzymskiego dokonane w 1957 r. w miejscowości Szwajcaria pow. Suwałki // WA. 1961. XXVII, 1. C. 1-26.

Budzinsky A. Archaeological research in the Grodno, former Augustow, now Suwalk and Lomzhinsky provinces in the period from 1857 to 1869 // A memorial book of the Suwalki province for 1875 Suwalki, 1875. P. 95; Kaczyński M. Cmentarzysko w okresu wedrowek ludów w miejscowości Osowa, pow. Suwałki // WA. 1955. XXII, 3-4. pp. 346-365; Jaskanis J. Sprawozdanie z badań w 1956 na cmentarzysku kurhanowym w miejscowości Osowa, pow. Suwałki // WA. XXV, 1-2. pp. 75-98; Jaskanis D., Jaskanis J. Sprawozdanie z badań w 1957 na cmentarzysku kurhanowym w miejscowości Osowa, pow. Suwałki // WA. XXVII, 1, pp. 27-48; Jaskanis J. Wyniki badan przeprowadzonych na cmentarzysku kurhanowym w wiejscowości. Osowa, pow. Suwałki w latach 1958-1959 // Rocznik białostocki. Białystok, 1961. I. S. 131-192.

Yatvingians is a conventional common name for a large group of Western Baltic tribes that lived in the 1st - early 2nd millennium AD. e. in the area from the Masurian Lakes and the Narew River in the west to the Neman in the east, from Suwalki in the north to the Western Bug basin (with Dorogichin and Brest) in the south. The most famous tribes are the Sudovs (they are also called the “Prussian tribe”), the Dainovas, the Poleksens (or Poleshans), and the Yotvingians themselves (Etvez).

Here is what is said about the Yatvingians in the first volume of the Encyclopedia of the Vialikag of the Principality of Lithuania (p. 58):

“The Yatvingians occupied the territory of modern western Belarus, the northeastern regions of Poland, and the southern regions of Lietuva.

The prevailing idea is that the Yotvingians were divided into 4 large tribes. In the northern part of their territory lived Dainova - a neighbor of the Letuvis; in the northwest - the ship (the land of Sudovia), the territory of which bordered on the overhead and sides (the land of Bartia); in the southwestern part, on the Elk (Lykha) river, lived the Polexens - neighbors of the Halids and Mazovshans; in the central and eastern parts - the Yotvingians proper, who were the first to encounter Kievan Rus, which expanded its power in the 10th-11th centuries, and later with the Galician-Volyn princes. There could have been smaller Yatvingian tribes, whose names, however, have not been preserved. The Yatvingians did not seek to unite, create their own state, and the Lithuanian prince Mindovg did not want to join them to his state ”(my translation - A.T.).

In my opinion, in the ethnic sense (i.e., according to such criteria as physical type, language, religious beliefs, features of material culture, marriage and funeral rites), some neighbors of the Yotvingians (in particular, the tribes of Barts, Galinds, Nadrovs) can also be considered Yatvingians. In any case, they understood each other's speech - there is documentary evidence of this.

Our émigré historian Vatslav Panutsevich stated in his book “3 History of Belarus and Krychyny-Lithuania” (1965) that the Yatvingian tribes are of Gothic origin, and that they settled on our territory at the end of the Neolithic era. In principle, the idea is not new. Back in 1673, Theodosius Sofonovich in his Chronicle wrote the following about the Yotvingians:

“The Yatvezhs were one people with Lithuania and with the old Prussians, they went with the Goths, whose capital place was Dorogichin, and Podlyashie all the way to Prus, from Volhynia, having settled down, they kept Novgorodok Lithuanian and the surrounding volosts.”

Linguists believe that the Yatvingian dialects were close to those of the Prussians. The most significant and valuable monument of the Yatvingian language is the handwritten Polish-Yatvingian dictionary "Roganske gwary z Narewu", found in the late 1870s in the southern part of Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

It includes more than 200 lexemes, many of which reveal important features of the life and culture of the Yotvingians (for example, aucima - "village, village", Naura - "Narev" (name of the river), resi - "cattle", taud - "people", waltida - "health", ward - "word", weda - "road", wulks - "wolf", etc.). In addition, the dictionary contains a significant part of the Yatvingian verbs, pronouns and numerals.

The material of the dictionary makes it possible to reveal a number of phonetic and morphological features of the Yatvingian language. Their analysis allowed researchers to identify the Yatvingian dialects as close to the Prussian language, and also revealed their connection with the Gothic languages ​​(based on a significant number of Germanisms). Let me remind you that the Germanic tribes of the Goths at the beginning of our era lived on the southern coast of the Baltic from the Vistula to Narew and Neman (where they arrived by sea from southern Scandinavia in the second half of the 1st millennium BC) and that from the last quarter of the 2nd century AD. e. these tribes began to gradually move in a southeasterly direction. Thus, the judgment that the Yotvingians are the descendants of the Goths will not be a "stretch". By the way, modern flyuvis call Belarusians “guds”, i.e. goths.

The Yotvingians also had their own script in the form of runes (in Belarusian - “rezaў”). In many places in the western part of our country, stones with runic inscriptions have been preserved. Unfortunately, so far no one has tried to decipher them.

Therefore, one cannot agree with the hypothesis of Zdzisław Sitko, set forth in the book "In the footsteps of Lithuania", according to which the Yotvingians were not an ethnic group, but "outcasts" from various tribes.

But, unlike the Krivichi, Dregovichi and Radimichi, the Yotvingians did not unite in a stable union of tribes for a long time, they did not build cities. Their main occupations were fishing and hunting, but the main thing was war. They constantly fought either with their neighbors or among themselves. The burial inventory of men testifies that they were warriors: a spear, a shield, a battle ax, spurs, flint, and horse harness were usually placed in the graves. Temple rings, beads, neck hryvnias, rings are found in the graves of women.

The Russian historian N. M. Karamzin wrote about the Yotvingians: “this people, who lived in dense forests, eating from fishing and beekeeping, most of all loved wild freedom and did not want to pay tribute to anyone.” He called them in his "History ..." "wild, but courageous people", "self-willed" and even "predatory".

The graves of the Yotvingian tribesmen were lined with stones, therefore such burials are called "stone graves" or "stone mounds". Having determined the places where such graves were found, scientists established the region where the Yatvingian tribes lived. The map shows that this is almost all of Western Belarus.

In Belarusian legends, the Yotvingians are inhabitants of the forests, dressed in bear skins and constituted a special tribe - mysterious and "witchcraft". I note in this regard that the Slavicization of the Yotvingians began no earlier than the 10th century, that is, 200-250 years later than the Krivichi or Dregovichi. The same applies to the spread of Christianity among them. The ethnographer Pavel Shpilevsky wrote in his notes “Journey through Polesye and the Belorussian Territory” (1853-55) that the Yotvingian language is “a mixture of the Old Lithuanian language with Russian, Ukrainian and Polissian”. In fact, it was about the Slavicized Baltic dialect.

In the annals, the word "yatvyag" is first found under the year 944 (the text of the written contract mentions the yatvyag Gunarev - a representative from one of the tribes). The last time - in the XVI century in one of the Polish chronicles.

The first written report about the military campaign of the Kyiv prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich against the Yotvingians is dated 983.

The Galician-Volyn princes went to war against the Yotvingians: in 1112 - Yaroslav; in 1196 - Roman; in 1227-1256 Daniel Romanovich. Wars with them were waged by the Polish kings Boleslav IV "Curly" (campaigns of 1164, 1165, 1167), Casimir "The Just" (reigned in 1177-1194) and Boleslav V "Shameful" (XIII century).

In 1254, the Galician-Volhynian prince Daniel, the Mazovian prince Zemovit and the master of the Teutonic Order entered into an alliance against the Yotvingians with the aim of defeating them and seizing lands. In 1256 and 1264 the Yotvingians suffered severe defeats. Using this defeat, the Teutons in the period from 1278 to 1283. destroyed all the major settlements of the Yotvingians. At the same time, part of the population was destroyed (cut out), part was withdrawn to Prussia (the Germans settled them in Sambia, west of Königsberg), part fled to their neighbors.

The names of the famous leaders of the Yotvingians of that time are known - Skimant (died in 1256) and Komat (died on June 22, 1264). The peasants of the Grodno and Kovno provinces sang songs about them even in the middle of the 19th century!

The fate of the Yotvingians was different. Some of them died in clashes with the invaders in the XII-XIII centuries, or were taken into captivity and assimilated. The other part finally created tribal principalities, from which the "annalistic lithuania" later arose. And some part hid in the forest thickets, retaining their ethnographic features for a long time. Here is how S. M. Solovyov described the descendants of these forest Yotvingians who lived in the middle of the 19th century in the Skidel area:

“They differ sharply from Belarusians and Lithuanians in their swarthy face, black clothes, manners and customs, although everyone already speaks Belarusian with a Lithuanian accent.”

Some historians and ethnographers classify the Yotvingians as extinct peoples. However, it is not. According to the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire for 1857, 30,297 residents of the Grodno province still considered themselves Yotvingians. The descendants of the "forest Yotvingians" still live on the territory of modern Poland (in Suvalkia), in the Grodno and Brest regions of Belarus. Separate cases of the use of the ancient Yatvingian language were also recorded.

Location of one of the lands of the Lithuanian state of the XIII century. - Deinov is still uncertain. Mentions of Deinova (Denowe) in ancient written documents (Mindovg's charter of the middle of the 13th century, Western Russian chronicles) do not provide opportunities for a certain localization of this land. The well-known researcher of Lithuanian antiquity T. Narbutt, based on the location of the modern village of Deynovy (to the west of the city of Lida, Grodno region), where, according to legend, the capital of the Deinovo principality conquered by Lithuania was located, placed the Deinovo land on the southern outskirts of the ancient Lithuanian state. According to the assumption of this researcher, the Deinovo land bordered on the Grodno principality along the river. Kotre.

Fig 1. Distribution map of toponyms of the "Deinova" type: 1 - toponyms Deinova, Deinovka, Deinovshchizna, Daynova, Daynovka, Daynovskaya; 2 - toponyms Danova, Danovka, Danovski; 3 - the location of the capital of the Deinovsky principality (according to legend); 4 - northern, eastern and southern borders of the settlement of the Yatvingian tribes (according to the data of hydronymy and archeology); 5 - Yatvingian-Prussian and Yatvingian-Galindian borders (according to A. Kaminsky).

The opinion of T. Narbutt was shared by the Polish historian I. Yaroshevich, the author of the article “The most remarkable antiquities in the Vilna province”, E.A. Voltaire and others. F.V. Pokrovsky. In the same area, N.P. localized the Deynovskaya land. Barsov. Based on the cartography of settlements that have preserved the ancient regional name (Deynova, Daynova, Doinovka, Dainuvka, Dainishki), N.P. Barsov believed that the Deynovskaya land was located in the interfluve of the upper Neman and Viliya along the tributaries of the Neman - the Merechanka, Ditva and Zhizhma.

The Polish historian G. Lovmiansky made an attempt to localize Deinova solely on the materials of the charter of Mindovg of 1259, in which the volosts of this land were named. Assuming that Sentane is the present Shveitainen southwest of Margrabov, Dernen - Dzyarnov east of Lake Selment and Kresmen - modern Kresmen northwest of Raigorod, the researcher believes that in the XIII century. Dejnovskaya land was located between the Masurian lakes and the river. Biebrzej, being the southern part of Sudovia. In the works of recent years, the point of view of G. Lovmyansky has received wide recognition.

A. Kaminsky, in his monograph dedicated to the Yotvingians, believes that Deinova is identical with Yatvingia. Deynov, according to A. Kaminsky, is the Lithuanian name of the Yotvingians, which explains the prevalence of a significant part of toponyms like "Deinova" in the border area between Lithuania and Russia. At the same time, the Polish historian admits that Deinova is not only a Lithuanian definition of the land of the Yotvingians, but also the name of one of the Yotvingian volosts bordering Lithuania.

Researchers involved in the localization of the Deinovo land have not yet used archaeological sources. Meanwhile, it is the archaeological materials, together with toponymic data, that make it possible to outline the range of the ancient Deinova quite definitely.

The cartography of all known toponyms derived from "Deinova" clearly reveals the main area of ​​their distribution - part of the interfluve of the Viliya and the Upper Neman (Fig. 1). 80% of all geographical names of this type are concentrated here. Outside the interfluve, toponyms such as "Deynovy" are few and very scattered. In the actual Yatvingian land of the XIII century. and in the borderland of the Yotvingians with the Galinds and Mazovshans, seven names such as Danovo, Danovka, Danovski are known. It is difficult to say whether they are connected by their origin with Deynova or have a different etymology.

Almost all toponyms of the “Deinova” type are located in the Western Baltic (Yatvyazh) hydronymic area, occupying its northeastern part (Fig. 1). Stone burial mounds of the Yatvingian appearance in the interfluve of the Viliya and the upper Neman have been known since the middle of the 1st millennium AD, which, along with hydronymy, excludes the assumption of a relatively late (in the early Middle Ages) settlement of this region by the Western Baltic population. The stone mounds of the right-bank part of the Upper Ponemanye are undoubtedly monuments of the Yatvingian population. Toponymic data, along with the above-mentioned legends about the existence of the Deinovo Principality here, allow us to suggest that these burial structures belonged to the northeastern group of the Yatvingian tribes - the Deinovo.

An analysis of the materials from the stone mounds of the Viliya-Neman interfluve does not reveal significant differences between them and the Yatvingian kurgans of Suvalkiya. The differences found are of a secondary nature. Thus, the Suwalki burial mounds differ from the Upper Ponemanye stone mounds in their proportions - the former are usually lower than the latter, but their diameter is larger than the Upper Neman burial mounds. In the Upper Neman stone mounds, urn burials are less common than in Suwalki. Finally, in the stone mounds of the right-bank part of the Upper Ponemanye, artifact finds are relatively common, some of which have analogies in the Eastern Lithuanian mounds, while the Suvalka mounds of the Yotvingians of the second half of the 1st millennium AD, as a rule, are devoid of material. However, the noted differences do not yet give grounds for separating the Neman-Vilian stone mounds into a special Yatvingian group of sites.

A more significant feature is the independent development of funerary monuments in the 2nd millennium AD for the area of ​​concentration of toponyms of the "Deynova" type. As is known, the rite of burial in stone mounds among the Upper Neman Yotvingians existed until the 12th-13th centuries. At the end of the XII and in the XIII century. in the interfluve of the upper Neman and Viliya, stone mounds are replaced by stone graves. Unlike barrow structures, the latter do not have surface mounds. On the surface, the stone graves of the territory under consideration have a flat pavement of cobblestone in the form of a circle, oval or quadrangle. Often on one (western) or two (western and eastern) sides of such graves, a very large stone is laid.

The first excavation studies of the stone graves of the Upper Ponemanye were carried out in the 80-90s of the last century by the local historian V.A. Shchukevich and E.A. Voltaire. In 1903-1906. V.A. Shchukevich continued excavations of these monuments. In total, more than 400 stone graves were excavated, the materials of which are still the main source in the study of these monuments.

Soon after receiving information about the excavations of stone graves in Upper Ponemanye, A.A. became interested in them. Spitsyn. The funerary monuments of the population of Black Rus' at that time had not yet been identified. Therefore, A.A. Spitsyn suggested that the stone graves explored by V.A. Shchukevich and E.A. Voltaire, "until further investigations" can presumably be attributed to the antiquities of the Russian population of Black Rus'. Subsequent archaeological work on the territory of Black Rus' showed that the burial monuments of the Slavic population here are different from stone mounds and stone graves and are identical to the East Slavic mounds of the Upper Dnieper, Volhynia and the Western Dvina basin. However, researchers continued to consider the Upper Neman stone graves as Slavic funerary monuments. In a monograph devoted to the archeology of the Belarusian Ponemanye, F.D. Gurevich singled out stone graves as a separate group of funerary monuments, the ethnicity of which remains unclear. The researcher's attempt to consider stone graves as antiquities of an ethnically mixed population, which included settlers from Prussia and Suvalkia, Mazovians, Latvians, with a predominance of Russians, does not seem to be successful. Such an idea is based solely on the analysis of clothing materials from the stone graves of the Upper Ponemanye and does not take into account the specifics of the burial structures.

When characterizing the archaeological sites of the Upper Ponemanye, F.D. Gurevich did not pay attention to the presence of a significant group of stone mounds here. The latter are considered by the researcher among the Slavic or East Lithuanian earth mounds. Meanwhile, there is no doubt that the stone graves of the Vilian-Neman interfluve and the stone mounds of the same territory belong to the same ethnic group of the population and the former are an evolution of the latter. Stone graves and stone mounds often form single burial grounds (such are the burial grounds of Syrni, Markenenty, St. Selo, Karnachikha, Kozlyany, Opanovtsy, Puzele, Raki, etc.). There are transitional forms between these funerary monuments. Sometimes it is very difficult, and sometimes even impossible, to draw a line between a stone mound and a stone grave. In a number of cases, stone graves have a masonry of two tiers of stone with a total height of 0.35-0.40 m. Some burials often have the same height, attributed by researchers to burial mounds. Such mounds are built from one to three tiers of stones. Large boulders on the western (rarely on the western and eastern) sides, the same as those near stone graves, are also found near mound-shaped mounds made of stones. According to the peculiarities of the funeral rite and inventory, late stone mounds do not differ in any way from round and oval stone graves of the early period of their existence. The gradual evolution of stone mounds into stone graves can be traced in almost all the studied burial grounds. Expressed by F.D. Gurevich's guess about the resettlement in the area between the Viliya and the upper Neman of the Mazovian population from the Polish Podlasie, where there are similar stone graves, has no basis. In the Bug region, the same evolution of stone mounds into stone graves took place, as in Upper Ponemanye.

Thus, the stone graves of the Vilian-Neman interfluve in their origin are connected with the Yatvingian burial monuments - stone barrows. The territory of their distribution reveals areas where in the XII-XV centuries. the Baltic-speaking population survived, and not Lithuanian, but Yatvingian.

Burials in stone graves were performed according to the rite of inhumation. The orientation of the dead is predominantly western. In the burial grounds of Venzovshchizna, Rudnya and Salanyatsishki, cases of eastern orientation were noted, and in the burial grounds of Olshany and Puzela, three burials had a meridional orientation.

The clothing material of stone mounds with corpses and stone graves between the Viliya and Neman rivers is of the same type. A common find in female burials is the remains of head rims consisting of various embossed plaques bordered with small glass beads. The head ornaments also include three-bead and ring-shaped temporal rings with trailing ends. In late burials, they are replaced by earrings in the form of a question mark, in Russian antiquities dating back to the 14th-15th centuries, and earrings consisting of a small-diameter wire ring, to which wire darts with beads are hung. Neck ornaments were not typical for the population that left the stone mounds. Beads are found only in a few burials. They are glass or paste small sizes. The necklaces also included bronze spirals, cowrie shells and bells. The set of breast pendants is small - keys, bells, crosses.

Quite frequent finds in stone mounds are horseshoe-shaped clasps with stylized animal heads, bracelets (predominantly lamellar) and rings.

Male burials of stone graves differ from Slavic barrow burials in the prevalence of weapons. Axes and spears are a common find in male corpses. Some knives can also be classified as weapons. Occasionally there are sabers and spurs. Other items from male burials include oval and V-shaped armchairs, whetstones, buckles and rings.

Most of the decorations from the stone graves of Ponemanye have analogies among East Slavic antiquities. There is no doubt that the ancient Russian culture had a great influence on the culture of the population that left the stone graves. At the same time, the analysis of the inventory also reveals specific differences between the monuments under consideration. These are the mass distribution of weapons in male burials, a peculiar type of female head rim, the presence of some adornments that are common almost exclusively among the Balto-speaking tribes (spiral bracelets, diamond-shaped pendants with an eyelet, spirals, buckles with stylized animal heads, rectangular buckles with concave sides and circumferential - with a straight frame).

Fig 2. 1 - stone tombs; 2-area of ​​concentration of toponyms like "Deynova"; 1-Tseremets; 2-Ulbins; 3-Kiyutse; 4-Salanyatsishki (?) 5-Puzele; 6-Crayfish; 7-Verky; 8-Uhlans; 9-Koalins; 10-Slavence; 11-Ending; 12-venzovshchizna; 13-Ganelki; 14-Sobakintsy; 15-Dvorchane; 16-Springs; 17-Wilderness; 18-Tobolice; 19-Squares; 20-Matsiki; 21-Syrni; 22-Kulbachin; 23-Dunich-Mogilitsy; 24-Opanovtsy; 25-Polyanki; 26-Olshany; 27- Skuratov (?); 28-Markenty; 29-Hotenchitsy; 30-33-Krasnitsa, Staroe Selo, Ivashkevichi, Klepachi.

The considered stone graves are concentrated in those areas between the Viliya and Neman rivers, where a concentration of toponyms of the Deinova type is found and where, according to legend, the Deinovo principality was located (Fig. 2). This fact and the indisputable Yatvingian origin of the Upper Neman stone graves give reason to believe that the monuments in question were left by that group of Yotvingians, which was called the Deinova. When examining the dialects of the population of the Upper Ponemanye, a case was recorded when the local population, who now speaks the Lithuanian language, but retained clear signs of their Western Baltic origin in the language, called themselves Dainava. In this regard, the assumption that in ancient times not only the territory (land), but also one of the Yatvingian tribes, who settled in part of the Neman-Vil interfluve and after which the region was named, was called Deynova, seems very likely. Recently, on the basis of linguistic research, a Polish researcher E. Nalepa came to a similar conclusion. He believes that the Deinova, along with the Yotvingians, Sudins and Poleksians, were separate Yatvingian tribes and were part of an alliance of tribes formed by the Yotvingians themselves, who gave the name to the entire union.

If this is so, it becomes clear why the Lithuanians called all the Yotvingians Deinova. This was the name of one of the Yatvingian tribes, which for a long time neighbored with the Lithuanian tribes. Of all the Yatvingian tribes, the Lithuanians knew only Deinova, the name of this tribe was extended by them to all the Yatvingian tribes. A similar case took place among the Latvian tribes, which were neighbors with one of the Slavic tribes - the Krivichi, and until now the Latvians call all Russians "krievs".

The news of written sources about Deinov does not contradict the proposed conclusions. The text of the Western Russian chronicle testifies to Yatvyagia and Deynov as different lands of the Lithuanian state. In the charter of Mindovg in 1259, apparently, it is not about the Deynov of the Viliya-Neman interfluve, but about the Suvalka Yatvyagia. In this charter, Deynova is named, also called Yatvyagia (“Denowe tota quam etiam quidam Jetwesen vocant...”). For the Lithuanians, the Suvalka Yatvyagia was also Deinovo, but in contrast to the Deinovo land proper, also called Yatvyagia.

Narbutt T. Dzieje narodu litewskiego. Wilno, 1840. Vol. VII. Applications. S. 70.

Iaroszewiсz I. Obras Litwy pod wzgledem jej cywilizacyi // Cześć. Wilno. 1. 1844. S. 27.

Commemorative book of the Vilna province for 1851. Vilna, 1851. Part II. pp. 104-111.

Voltaire E.A. Deinova. Brockhaus Encyclopedic Dictionary. T. X. SPb., 1893. S. 296.

Pokrovsky F.V. Archaeological map of the Vilna province. Vilna, 1893. S. 94, 95.

Barsov N.P. Essays on Russian historical geography. Warsaw, 1885. S. 237.

Lowmiański H. Studja nad poczatkami społeczeństwa i państwa Litewskiego. Wilno, 1932. Vol. II. pp. 39, 44.

Soloviev A.V. Political outlook of the author of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" // Historical Notes. 1948. V. 25. S. 80, 81, 100-103; Pashuto V.T. Formation of the Lithuanian state. M., 1959. S. 29 and map; Nalepa J. Jaćwiegowie. Białystok, 1964. C. 46 and map.

Kaminski A. Jaćwieg. Terytorium, ludność, stosunki gospodarcze i społeczne. Lodź, 1953, pp. 32-36, 80-86.

Sedov V.V. Yotvingian burial mounds // Soviet archeology. 1964. No. 4. S. 36-51.

Analysis of funeral rites and clothing material of the Yatvingian stone mounds of Suvalkiya, Upper Ponemanye and Middle Bug (Sedov V.V. Op. Op.).

Reports of the Archaeological Commission (OAK) for 1882-1888 S. SSXXX; OAK, 1889, pp. 52, 53; Archaeological excavations in Lida and Troksky districts // Government Bulletin. 1889. No. 185; Abstract by V.A. Shchukevich about archaeological sites in Lida and Troksky districts (Proceedings of the Vilna branch of the Moscow Preliminary Committee for the Arrangement of the IX Archaeological Congress in Vilna. Vilna, 1893, pp. 99, 100); Szukiewiz W. Kurhany kamienne w pow. Lidzkim (gub. Wileńska) // Swiatowit. 1899. T. 1. S. 35-45; Archive of the IA Academy of Sciences of the USSR. D. AK No. 1888/130, 1890/130, 1894/90, 1906/27.

In addition, single stone graves were excavated by S. Gloger, F.V. Pokrovsky (Pokrovsky F.V. op. op. pp. 25, 26), P.S. Rykov (Rykov P.S. A burial ground near the Markenenty estate // Notes of the North-Western branch of the Russian Geographical Society. 1914. Book 4. P. 18-22) and F.D. Gurevich (Gurevich F.D. Antiquities of the Belarusian Ponemanya. M.; L., 1962. S. 193).

Spitsyn A.A. Estimated antiquities of Black Rus' // Notes of the Russian Archaeological Society. SPb., 1899. T. XI. Issue. 1-2. pp. 303-310.

Gurevich F.D. Decree. op. S. 135.

There. pp. 138-142.

Sometimes the stone graves of the western Balts are compared with the Novgorod zhalniks. The latter are markedly different from the Poneman graves. Novgorod zhalniki are ground burials, fenced on the surface with a circle, oval or quadrangle of stones, leading in origin to Slovenian kurgan burials with a stone ring at the base. In addition, single stone graves are known in the Novgorod land, similar to the Neman-Bug, which are undoubtedly connected with the Prussian-Yatvingian group of the Balts.

An exception is the stone graves in Markenenty, where cremations were discovered (Rykov P.S. Decree. op. pp. 20-22).

Voltaire E.A. Traces of the ancient Prussians and their language in the Grodno province // News of the Department of the Russian language and literature of the Academy of Sciences. SPb., 1912. T. XVI. Book. 4. P. 159. For the Yatvingian origin of this population, see the article by Ya.S. Ogremsky "Yatving language" (Issues of Slavic linguistics. M., 1961. Issue 5. P. 3-8).

Nalepa J. Decree. op. S. 46.

Troyden is named Prince Yatvyazhsky and Deinovsky (PSRL. T. XVII. St. Petersburg, 1907. P. 238). With the identity of the concepts of Yatvyagiya and Deynov, this would not make sense.

Valentin SEDOV

The Yatvingians (Jatvingorum, Jetvorum gens) are one of the four tribes of the Baltic-Letsky group, known from Russian chronicles since the 10th century, when people from the Yatvingian land served in princely squads. Campaigns against them by Vladimir in 983 and Yaroslav in 1038, 1040 and 1044 indicate their danger to free movement along the communication routes from Kiev to the Bug region, the Dniester region and the so-called Cherven cities. The neighborhood of the Yotvingians with Poland and the Mazovians is revealed in the uprising of Maslav; the memory of their terrible raids was preserved for a long time in the current provinces of Lublin, Sedlets and Lomzhinska. The Yatvingians were pushed back to the Narew. In the XIII century, a devastating struggle was waged against them by two Slavic peoples - Polish and Galician-Russian. The Ipatiev Chronicle not only preserved for us a list of leaders and princes of the Yatvingian, their courts and cities, but also gives us some idea of ​​their way of life and everyday needs. In 1279, they sent ambassadors to Volodymyr Volynsky with a request to save them from starvation and sell them live, for which they are happy to give wax, squirrel skins, beavers, black kunas or silver.

The weapons of the Yotvingians were not enough to fight the Volyn army: sulits or throwing darts could not withstand helmets and shields, spears and arrows. The fierce courage of the leaders of the Yotvingians is praised by chroniclers. "Skomond, a knight and their sorcerer, a greyhound like a beast, died in a battle with Volhynia and his head was stuck on a stake." When the “Yatvez princes” died and people lingered without a sovereign, Narimont Romanovich, according to the Lithuanian chronicle, having learned about this, took them under his power without resistance, hacked down the cities of Raygrod over the river Bebreya (Beaver) and began to be called Prince Yatvyazhsky and Donovsky or Deinovsky.
The dwellings of the Yotvingians were wooden, built on embankments or settlements. The names of the leaders are undoubtedly of Lithuanian origin: Nebri, Stegut Zebrovich, Nebyast, Komat, Steykint, Mintel, Mudeiko, Pestilo, Shurpa, Shutra, Ankad, Skomond and Yundil are still found between the names of noble and peasant families of Lithuanian provinces.

With the weakening of the military forces of the Yatvingian princes, their conversion to Christianity by the Teutonic Order and the Mazovian rulers of Yatvyagia began in 1264, under Boleslav the Shy. Like many other Prussian tribes, the Yotvingians were not exterminated, but partly merged with the Mazovshans, partly with the Little Russians in the Grodno province, partly with the Lithuanians of Prussia and Prineman Lithuania. There is no trace left of the Yatvingian villages, because the houses were cut down from wood. The Yotvingians did not go further than the family and tribal unions that were formed during a common danger under the command of an outstanding foreman or princeling of courage.

The Polish chronicler compares the Yotvingians with a predatory beast, Avenarius, calling them brave, but not cultured - with eternal vagabonds. Spending most of his life in war or hunting. the Yotvingians died far from their homes, in dense forests or in open battle. Their bones did not rest in the family cemetery, under the mound, or in a carefully built stone grave; the Yotvingians lay down where death found them. The graves of the Bielsk and Drogichin lands reveal a Lithuanian character; geographical nomenclature proves that the Yotvingians inhabited the western part of the present Grodno province, the southern part of the Suwalki province and the nadbozhny parts of Lomzhinsky and Lublin.

MYSTERIOUS ANCIENT TRIBE

In Belovezhskaya Pushcha, on the road to Gorodnya, there is a small hill called Mount Batory. They say that once King Bathory hunted the Yotvingians in these places. Shot these poor savages like bison or bears. So says folk tradition.

Long gone are the days, disappeared Yatvingian people and their language . But from the depths of centuries, the names of settlements scattered within the Grodno and Brest regions have come down to our time. It happened so. that information about the historical homeland of the Yotvingians. this ancient and rather mysterious tribe is scarce in the literature, and the available information is largely contradictory and confusing.

The reasons for this situation are not clear, although the Yotvingian tribe. as they say in encyclopedias, it occupied significant spaces from the Masurian Lakes (Poland). Prussia (now the Kaliningrad region) in the west and northwest to the Narev River (Neman basin) in the southeast

South of the Neman met only ethnic " yatvyazh islands ", that is, small areas occupied by the Yotvingians. By the end of the 10th century, these separate small territories were already surrounded by Slavic peoples

In the toponymy of our republic, the memory of this disappeared tribe has been preserved in names with the basis of Yapsh (Yatvyaz, Etvez. Yatvez, Yatvssk, etc.). These names are found in Volkovysk. Dyatlovsky, Baranovichi, Ivatsevichi, Grodno. Korslich and other areas and are the most ancient ethnotoponyms. In the eastern part of Belarus, such names are not registered. Information about the Yotvingian tribe is found from the 10th to the 17th centuries. The location of toponyms fully corresponds to the former territory of the settlement of the Yotvingians

The Polish chronicle of the 12th century says: "... The land of the Yotvingians. Where is the air balm, honey forests, rivers rich in fish, productive lands, hardworking plowmen, fearless warriors ... The land of the Yotvingians. With whom the Polish king always fights, trying to convert them into the true faith; but neither by the sword, nor by preaching, nor by bribery it was possible to remove them from the pagan faith, nor by the sword of death to destroy their snake race ... ".

Yotvingian name derived from the term i pit, which means detachment, flock. They lived in the forests and dressed in animal skins. Here he once gained fame for his cruel raids on the neighboring possessions of Ancient Rus' and Poland. Yotvingian leader Komyat whose deeds are still reminiscent of the old songs and legends of the Grodno and Brest regions. Preserved temples and goddesses of the Yotvingians. where sacrifices were made to pagan gods.

Living next to other tribes, the Yotvingians. or rather, the Yatvingian union of the Baltic tribes, were active participants and witnesses of East Slavic history for three centuries. Relations between them were for the most part tense.

The Slavs do not have the energy of a young, promising ethnic group, as evidenced by numerous campaigns, which led to clashes between local tribes and Slavic squads. , resistance arose as a natural reaction of self-defense. The Slavs strengthened themselves, built, mainly along the rivers, their outpost fortresses. This is how Gorodnya (Grodno), Volkovysk and Slonnm, known from the 12th - 13th centuries, came into being. From here, campaigns against the Yotvingians were made. Information about this is stored in the Ipatiev Chronicle (Vsevolod Yuryevich Gorodnensky's campaign against Lithuania in 1136).

From about that time, Novogorodok (Novogrudok) (some historians consider it one of the ancient centers of Yatvyagna) became a Slavic city and fell under the rule of the Polotsk princes.

Chronicle sources of the end of the 13th century say that the Yotvingians were completely destroyed. They stopped talking about them, and for a whole century this land was a desert. Later Mazowieckis and Prussian settlers appear here. According to A.Yu. Vidugns and F. D. Klimchuk. it was during this period that the movement of the remaining Yotvingians to the territory of the Brstsko-Pinsk Polissya to the upper reaches of the Yaselda and Vygonovsky Lake was noted.

Thus, it is impossible to completely destroy an entire ethnic group. which is also confirmed by the Volyn chronicler of the 13th century;”: “... Yatvyaz as a country no longer existed, but there were separate settlements in local forests and swamps.

To this day, near the city of Kobrin, a barrow has been preserved on the right bank of the Mukhavets. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, there were a lot of piled kopts around the barrow. surrounded by oddly shaped rocks. Popular legend says that the mound is the remains of the ancient Yatvingian temple of the goddess Mazhanna. still mentioned in the songs and legends of this region. This idea is confirmed by A.F. Rogalev. who in his book "Belaya Rus and Belorussians" writes: "Modern scientific research in the field of hydrotoponyms suggests that by the 12th - 13th centuries, the Yatvingian settlements reached the Mukhavets River."

The resettlement of the Yotvingians from the region of the original Yatvingia to the regions of the Brest and Grodno regions were associated with the unfavorable political situation that had developed north of the Neman by the 12th century. Until the 12th century, the Yotvingians, like the Prussian tribe, opposed the Russian, Polish and Lithuanian squads. They still had enough strength for this, but later the crusaders enter the historical arena

On the eve of the invasion of the Crusaders, the Yatvingians had to leave to the southeast, to the forests of Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Just with these events, the name of the rather mysterious territory PoIIoxin (Poloxia) appears in historical documents.

A point of view is expressed, according to which Poland was inhabited by Polesyans, whose ethnic name is Polish form of the Yotvingian name. It is possible that this ethnonym gradually spread to the rest of the Yatvingian tribes, and this happened with the participation of the Polish, due to the establishment of close military and political relations between Poland and the Yotvingian. And later, Poland united with the Order of the Crusaders to fight the Yotvingians. The Polish princes repeatedly made military campaigns against the Yotvingians. in the Polish chronicles, when describing the next military raid of the Poles with their king Casimir the Just on the Balts in 1192, the battle with the "Gets" and "Podlyasyans" is described. or. otherwise, with the Prussians and Yotvingians.

The territory of the Yotvingians has always been within the sphere of political interests of the Polish kings. Because certain groups Podlyasyan (Yatvyag) starting from the second half of the 12th century and at the beginning of the 13th century, they were forced to move to the southern regions. This was the second reason why the Yotvingians ended up within the Brest Polissya.

At the beginning of the XIV century to designate the lands of Beresteisky. Kamenetsky and Kobrinsky districts (this included the territory of the present Drogichinsky district), the name Podlyashs (Podlessia) now Brest Polissya appears, the population of which began to be called Polesyans. and the modern form is poleshuki

The name Pollexia - Podlasie, which at different times denoted the territory north and south of the Narew River. indirectly reflected in the name Lithuanian Polissya, which was used by Ssmenov-Gyan-Shansky in his work "Picturesque Russia".

The name Lithuanian Polissya is associated with the territory of the former Grodno province (which included the western regions of the current Brest region), as well as the Vilna and Kovno (Kovno - the former name of Kaunas) provinces.

The fact that the ethnonym Polesyans continued to function even after the assimilation of the Yotvingians is evidenced by ethnographic materials of the 19th century, which say that Polesyans lived here with their characteristic dialects (shades of language). In turn, they were divided into Buzhans and Pinchuks

The Neman River was the eastern border of the continuous Yatvingian settlement. The upper course of the Neman has long been a natural historical boundary that separated the Slavs and the Balts from the 6th-7th centuries. Lithuanian ethnic groups dominated to the north. They treated the Yotvingians as foreign inclusions.

To designate the Yotvingians, the Lithuanians had the ethnonym Dainava (day nova). This term appeared in the documents of Prince Mndovg in the middle of the 13th century, but this word functioned among the people much earlier.

In "Picturesque Russia" Ssmsnov-Tyan-Shansky mentions Dainovskos Principality, which existed in the southeastern part of the Lida district until the XIV century. Evidence of this is the presence in the modern Lida region of two settlements with the name Daynova. one of which is near the city of Lida itself, and the second, according to the author of Picturesque Russia, was considered the capital of the former principality. In the same work, the inhabitants of the Dainovsky Principality are ranked among the Slavic population, which is no different from the Belarusians. This statement reflects the real historical fact of the glorification of the descendants of the ancient people of the Yotvingians. The Russian historian of the 19th century II P. Barsov placed the Dainovo region along the right tributaries of the Neman. These are the Lida, Oshmyansky and part of the Vilna counties, as evidenced by the presence of ten toponyms Dainava. Dainovka. Daynovtsy, etc. The listed names are located entirely within the historical Principality of Dainova.

Territories of distribution of toponyms associated with ethnonyms yatvyaz (yatvez) and daynova. without intersecting, complement each other and cover almost the entire territory of the Grodno region. The border between these names is the Neman River, which once again confirms the opinion about the functioning of the ethnonym Daynova in the Lithuanian ethnic environment, and ethnonym Yatvez- in the Slavic ethnic environment. This opinion is confirmed by the fact that in the territory of the former Slonim district at the beginning of the 20th century there was a village with the double name Yatvyaz-Daiyova (now the village of Yatvez, Dyatlovsky district). Living in contact with other peoples, these remaining Yotvingian groups adopted the customs of neighboring Lithuanians and Belarusians. As early as the 17th century, there were islands of Yotvingian settlements in Ponsmagne. but already speaking Lithuanian and Belarusian.

The names of the villages Zbirogy (Brest region) from the Yatvingian personal name Zbirog can serve as confirmation of the traces of the Yatvingian presence on the territory of the Brest Polissya. and also Zditovo (Berezovsky and Zhabinkovsky) from the Yatvingian personal name Zdit or Dit. Based on the materials of V. A. Zhuchkevich, it is very typical for the trampling of northern Poland in the places of ancient settlement of the Yotvingians.

The young Belarusian poet Sergei Ivanov dedicated the poem "The Soul of ZyamlG" to the ancient mysterious tribe of the Yatvingians, excerpts from which were published in the journal "Spadchyna" (1990. No. 4). Some of them are used in this material.