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Per Ngram, "Russian" is preferred. That is no surprise, since this is a modern term and "русский" is always translated as "Russian". Plokhy also insists on using "Muscovy" until 1721, but this is not what most historians follow. I took a look at Google Books and there are plenty of results for "gatherer of the Russian lands" (100+), and only a few for "gatherer of the Rus lands". As a result, we must follow the common name. This is a well-established name and we need a lot more than just Plokhy to move the article. Mellk (talk) 22:20, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Strange. There is an obvious technical problem with Ngrams in this case if it cannot find a single example of "Rus' lands". It seems to not understand what the ' in (Rus') stands for; it puts a space before and after it.
Scholar gives a more mixed picture if we leave Rus' outside of the quotation marks. We get results including both Rus' land(s), Russian land(s), lands of Rus', lands of Kievan/Kyivan Rus', lands of ancient Rus' etc. Same with Google Books. Unfortunately, it's difficult to quantify which term is more prevalent. I guess we should mention both of them in the lead section at the very least.
Incidentally, the original modern Russian term some of them mention is sobiratel’ russkoi zemli, which transcribes to собиратель русскои земли (?). The 1884 book title of Dmitry Ilovaysky calls both Muscovy and Lithuania Собиратели Руси (in this case, that unambiguously means Gatherers of Rus', not Gatherers of Russia). On the other hand, ruwiki provides Объединение Руси или собирание русских земель (в историографии XIX века «собирание Русской земли»). Could you explain the difference? NLeeuw (talk) 23:10, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
PS: "русский" is always translated as "Russian". If we're talking about the modern language (or the modern ethnicity, but not the nationality), then yes, although until the mid-19th century it was officially called "российский" ("rossiyskiy").
But we're not talking about language or ethnicity, but land(s) (zemla, zemli, zemel'). The ruwiki intro provides three variations, Руси (of Rus' [singular noun]), русских (of [the] Rus'... [plural adjective]), and Русской (of [the] Rus'... [singular adjective]). I think most specialised historians of the past 20 years would not translate any of these three words as "Russian" in this context. Precisely because these refer back to Kievan Rus', and not forward to the Tsardom of Russia and later, Rus' makes more sense than Russian.
If the concept did refer to language rather than land(s), or to refer forward to Tsarist Russia rather than backward to Kievan Rus', we would expect the earliest attestations to say собиратель российской земли, собиратель российский, собиратель России or something, but that's not what we see. NLeeuw (talk) 23:46, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think most specialised historians of the past 20 years would not translate any of these three words as "Russian" in this context. This is not what I can see in Google Books. The name "русская земля" was widely applied to the land up to the 18th century (then it became more of a poetic term). Picking 1547 as the date when "Russian" is appropriate is very much arbitrary. Mellk (talk) 00:03, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, "российский" did not displace "русский". Both are translated as "Russian" in English. Russia: Experiment with a People sums this up: "The RSFSR was Russia, but it was also not Russia - or else it would have been called that. The first word in the title was Rossiiskaya rather than Russkaya. The former referred to the state in which the Russians and other people lived; the second to Russian ethnicity. In the title, too, was the reference to federalism. This was yet another indication that the RSFSR was not meant to be a Russian national state but a state which embraced a multiplicity of nations." Mellk (talk) 00:26, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I guess what was meant here was that this is pertaining to "Русь", but "русский" is quite literally derived from the word. Not just "русский" but also "русинский", "руський", and so on. It is true that all East Slavs used to identify themselves as belonging to "Русь", but is it a good idea to lump all East Slavs together until more modern times? I do not think so. Otherwise, it does not make sense to refer to Ruthenians. But understandably this is complicated. Mellk (talk) 11:21, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I took a look at the Google Scholar link and most of the results are for "Russian lands". "Gatherer of the Russian lands" (собиратель земель русских) is the sobriquet given to later grand princes of Moscow. Often this is mentioned in quotes e.g. Russia: The Tsarist and Soviet Legacy (p. 11). But this is a well-established term in historiography, as seen in for example the chapter "Moscow and 'The Gathering of the Russian Lands,' 1328–1533" in Russia and the Soviet Union. In this context, it refers to consolidation under Moscow.
The article about unification is a broader topic, covering both consolidation in Lithuania and Moscow. But I have not really seen many English-language sources mention this term when referring to Lithuania. But the "gathering of the Russian lands" continued until the 17th and 18th century (or even WWI) with the annexation of Little Russia and White Russia. This argument is also about the same as if we should refer to "Little Rus" or "Little Russia". Mellk (talk) 23:53, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. Could you confirm whether this is correct?
Объединение Руси = Unification of Rus'
собирание русских земель = gathering of [the] Rus'/Russian lands [plural]
собирание Русской земли = gathering of the Rus'/Russian land [singular]
собиратель земель русских = gatherer of the Rus'/Russian lands
It seems that the first three, as mentioned on ruwiki, all refer to a process rather than a person. You also seem to agree that the sobriquet "gatherer" (собиратель) has also been applied to multiple princes of Moscow, not just one, as many of them appear to have made their own contribution to the process. So perhaps we should rename it to "gathering" rather than "gatherer"? We can always decide on how to translate the adjective later. NLeeuw (talk) 00:15, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Correct. Also, it depends on the what the scope of the article should be. If the article should be about the "gathering" process more broadly, then I would like to see more English-language sources that refer to the GDL "gathering" such lands. Otherwise, I think it would be sufficient to briefly mention that historians like Ilovaysky referred to the "gathering of Rus" and others like Ustryalov referred to annexations of such territories until the 18th century. Mellk (talk) 00:36, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ngrams seems to indicate that gathering of the Russian lands is more widely used than gatherer of the Russian lands in English-language Google Books. Unfortunately, we once again get technical errors for Rus' lands in both cases, so we cannot quantify how frequently those variations are used.
However, Scholar is much clearer:
I think these results are pretty decisive. gathering of the Russian lands appears to be the WP:COMMONNAME by a wide margin. The others may be mentioned in the lead section as WP:ALTNAMEs. @Mellk Do you agree? NLeeuw (talk) 21:39, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think that makes sense. We can mention both in the lead anyway. The only issue is that gathering of the Russian lands already redirects here and so a technical move request is needed. I tried to move the article but wasn't able to.
It looks like there are a few more results for "lands of Rus" compared to "Rus lands". This can probably be included in a footnote, but it is still far behind "Russian lands". For example, Visions of Empire: How Five Imperial Regimes Shaped the World (2019) says: "Once again Russia justified its share of the spoils—Lithuania and Belorussia, together with what remained of Ukraine and Livonia—in terms of the 'gathering of the lands of Rus,' many of which had been under the 'alien' rule of Poland." (p. 226). Once again, we have a more modern context. I did quite a bit of reading and it looks like this is frequently mentioned in quotation marks ("the gathering of the Russian lands"). It also seems that it is also used to describe Russian policy under Ivan the Terrible. Mellk (talk) 11:20, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Great. I've filed a WP:RM/TR.
Yes, I've also found a lot of lands of Rus' variations in this context. If the variations get very long, then a footnote would be warranted indeed. As it stands, however, the article is quite small. I think we should increase the main text first, explain where it comes from, who used it and for what purposes, criticisms, debates and discussions, potential alternatives, and so on. I've had the intention to expand this page for some time, but initially I didn't really know where to begin until I read this interesting passage in Plokhy 2006 about Soviet historians disagreeing whether the GDL was or wasn't a legitimate "gatherer of Rus' lands."
Incidentally, it might be significant that Plokhy does not use "the" here, implying that "Rus' lands" is uncountable rather than a known set of territories. That is a good point, because sometimes Wikipedians (though not necessarily the sources they cite) may write that the conquest of territory X was part of the "gathering of the Rus' lands", when territory X (e.g. Siberia) was never part of Kievan Rus' to begin with, and therefore arguably not "a Rus' land". Arguably, only if we follow the interpretation of "the Russian lands", from the perspective of what the Russian Empire would eventually become at its greatest extent, Siberia was arguably a territory that was "gathered" at some point to form part of what "Russia" would eventually become, rather than a territory that once formed part of Kievan Rus' that could be "gathered" by anyone seeking to pick up the pieces after the Mongols fragmented Kievan Rus' in the 13th century.
It all depends very much on how we interpret русских земель etc. and whether we are reasoning backwards from what Kievan Rus' once was (which I think is what the term originally described, as used by Ilovaysky and others), or reasoning forwards towards what Tsarist Russia (which I'm using as a shorthand for both the Tsardom and the Empire) would eventually become. The backwards reasoning would exclude Siberia and other territories, while the forwards reasoning would include pretty much everything within the borders of the Russian Empire in 1914. (I think it would be a stretch to even include Alaska, Sagallo etc. as "Russian lands", much less "the Russian lands", but I'm getting ahead of myself). We should follow what WP:RS have said about this, and so far I don't think I've seen any instances of them reasoning forward. NLeeuw (talk) 12:17, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on the context. But I do not think it would generally refer to Siberia. Hence, why northern/central/southern Russia only refers to the European part of Russia and not Siberia, even historically speaking. It has also been used to refer to non-Russian territories for the sake of justifying conquest, but I think the focus on the article should be the most common use of the term (that is, the period of centralization c. 1500).
I would also note that Halperin only calls "Russian land" incorrect when referring to the Kievan period, but he says that "Russian" is a legitimate translation for the periods after this, but he did not do this for the sake of consistency. It seems he also uses terms like Ros/Rus' tsardom but I have not seen anyone else use such terms. Hence, why I am wary of prominently mentioning such terms. Mellk (talk) 13:05, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with respect to Siberia not being a "Rus' or Russian land" in the sense discussed here.
It is difficult to choose when to translate русских as Rus' or Russian. Many scholars are inconsistent. I've just found Pelenski's 1977 translation of the oldest attestation, which is the gatherer of the Russian land[s]. Remarkably, Pelenski felt justified adding an [s] between brackets here, but not later on in the same sentence for Vladimir, the New Constantine who baptized the Russian land, even though the original apparently says "land" in singular both times. Elsewhere in his paper, Pelenski carefully distinguishes Rus'ian and Russian as adjectives, but strangely, not here.
Halperin 2022 paraphrased the opening passage of Donskoy's vita as: Here the identification of Moscow and the Rus’ Land reaches its zenith: Vladimir baptized the Rus’ Land, Metropolitan Petr is the defender of the Rus’ Land, Ivan Kalita, the first Muscovite grand prince, is the “gatherer of the Rus’ Land” (sobiratel’ russkoi zemli), and Dmitrii Donskoi is tsar of the Rus’ Land, his patrimony.
sedmitza.ru has a modern Russian translation, but we are, of course, interested in a critical edition of the source text in Church Slavonic.
Do you know a good source for the original Church Slavonic text of Donskoy's vita? NLeeuw (talk) 13:16, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, many historians treat Rus/Russian as synonymous and even use both at the same time. Sometimes it seems arbitrary. Some also suggest against using terms like Rusian or Rus'ian. I have read quite a few books that say that such terms are awkward and hence they are not used. Others of course still use this. You can even have chapters where one author uses one and another uses the other or both. Mellk (talk) 14:24, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Edit: Got it! http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/default.aspx?tabid=4985. The phrase in question is:
  • Church Slavonic: Внук же бысть православнаго князя Ивана Даниловича, събрателя Руской земли,
  • CS romanised: Vnuk zhe byst' pravoslavnago kniazia Ivana Danilovicha, sŭbratelja Ruskoĭ zemli
  • Modern Russian: Внук же он православного князя Ивана Даниловича, собирателя Русской земли,
  • MR romanised: Vnuk zhe on pravoslavnogo kniazia Ivana Danilovicha, sobiratelja Russkoi zemli,. NLeeuw (talk) 13:53, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pelenski 1977: he was a grandson of Grand Prince Ivan Danilovič, the gatherer of the Russian land[s],
  • Halperin 2022 paraphrase: Ivan Kalita, the first Muscovite grand prince, is the “gatherer of the Rus’ Land” (sobiratel’ russkoi zemli),. Not sure which version Halperin 2022 was paraphrasing from, but it is neither CS nor MR if it doesn't use a я at the end of either събрателя or собирателя. The double ss in Russkoi implies he's using a modern Russian version rather than the CS original. NLeeuw (talk) 14:01, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I found another translation which also includes the original text (p. 92) in The Battle of Kulikovo Refought (2017):

    ...Grand Prince Dmitrii, who was born of noble and honorable parents, Grand Prince Ivan Ivanovich and Grand Princess Aleksandra, he was a grandson of Grand Prince Ivan Danilovich, the unifier of Russian lands, great-grandson of the Grand Prince Daniil Aleksandrovich of Moscow, great-great-grandson of Grand Prince and miracle maker Aleksandr Iaroslavich Nevskii, of the saintly root of Tsar Vladimir, the new Constantine, the beautiful light whom God had set in a fertile garden and who enlightened the whole Russian land with the holy baptism.

    Mellk (talk) 14:29, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dating Donskoy's vita and the meaning of събрателя Руской земли

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As Halperin and Pelenski pointed out, it's difficult to date Donskoy's vita, but Pelenski went for 1455/6. I think Halperin, Salmina, Plokhy and Ostrowski have all commented on this, but let me check the literature on that first. NLeeuw (talk) 13:25, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Μ. Α. Салмина (M. A. Salmina), '"Slovo o zhitii i o prestavlenii velikogo kniazia Dmitriia Ivanovicha, tsaria Ruskogo"-- pamiatnik XVI v.?' in Проблемы изучения культурного наследия [Problemy izuchen'ya kul'turnogo naslediia], Moscow, 1985, pp. 159–62. Is this perhaps a paper you could get access to? NLeeuw (talk) 13:32, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Donald Ostrowski, Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304–1589. Camlhridge, 1998, pp. 156–61. dated the 'Expanded Redaction' of the Encomium to Dmitrii Ivanovich to between 1449 and the 1470s. according to Halperin 2001, 254–255. This would then be the time when the attribution of the phrase събрателя Руской земли to Ivan Kalita was first written down.
The question remains, what did the vita's author even mean with Руской земли? And what exactly did he "gather"? Normally, we all seem to interpret "gathering" as outright annexation, but Ivan Kalita (r. 1325–1340) did very little of that. If it just refers to getting the title grand prince of Vladimir, he wasn't the first prince of Moscow to do that (Yury received the jarlig already in 1318), and it wasn't permanently in the hands of the Muscovite princes from then on either (with Tver and Novgorod-Suzdal getting it a few more times after Kalita). I'm not aware of any territories permanently annexed to Muscovy during Kalita's reign.
So perhaps, this first mention of this phrase could something else than permanent annexation? It could be a gathering of forces for a military campaign, as noted by Halperin 2022, pp. 40–41:
Only a single entry in the Old Recension of the Novgorod First Chronicle referred to the Novgorodian Land: in 1137 Prince Sviatoslav Ol’govich gathered the “entire Novgorodian Land” (vsiu zemliu novgorod’skuiu) to make war on his brother Gleb.[Footnote]: NPL, 6645 (1137–1138), 25. Obviously in this citation the phrase the Novgorodian Land denoted a collective of people, probably military, which is common in early Rus’ terminology; see Slovar’ russkogo iazyka XI–XVII vv., vol. 5 (Moscow: Nauka, 1978), s.v. zemlia, definition 9, 376 right column–377 left column. Alternative terms in Novgorodian sources also carried both geographic and (in the literal sense of the word) popular meanings. In this chapter my focus is simply on identifying the presence of such terms, not with exploring their alternative geographic or social definitions. NLeeuw (talk) 14:28, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Synodal NPL s.a. 6645: Потомь же Святославъ Олговиць съвъкупи всю землю Новгородьскую, и брата своего /л.19./ приведе ГлЂбъка, куряны съ Половьци, идоша на Пльсковъ прогонитъ ВсЂволода.
sNPL romanised: Potomĭ zhe Sviatoslavŭ Olgovicĭ sŭvŭkupi vsiu zemliu Novgorodĭskuiu, i brata svoego /l.19./ privede Glěbŭka, kuriany sŭ Polovĭtsi, idoša na Plĭskovŭ progonitŭ Vsěvoloda.
Michell & Forbes 1914: Then Svyatoslav Olgovits collected the whole Novgorod land and fetched his brother Glebko; [and with] men of Kursk [and] with Polovets people went to Pleskov to drive away Vsevolod;
Is съвъкупи / sŭvŭkupi / "collected/gathered" related to събрателя / sŭbratelja / "gatherer"? NLeeuw (talk) 14:41, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
An even better example is at the end of the Kievan Chronicle account of the Siege of Vyshgorod in 1173:
Hypatian Codex: и тако вьзвратишасѧ всѧ сила Андрѣӕ кнѧзѧ Суждальского совокупилъ бо бѧшеть всѣ землѣ. и множеству вои не бѧше числа. пришли бо бѧху высокомыслѧще. а смирении ѿидоша в домъı своӕ.
Hypat romanised: I tako vĭzvratishasę vsę sila Andrěӕ knęzę Suzhdalĭskogo. sovokupilŭ bo bęshetĭ vsě zemlě. i mnozhestvu voi ne bęshe chisla. prishli bo bęhu vysokomyslęshe. a smirenii ōidosha v domy svoӕ.
Heinrich 1977: And so all the forces of Andrej, prince of Suzdal', returned; he had gathered all the land, a countless multitude of warriors. They had come in pride; they went away to their homes in humility.
Pelenski 1988: And all the forces of Prince Andrej of Suzdal' returned. He had gathered all the lands and of the multitude of his warriors there was no count. They had come in pride, but departed to their homes humble.
Nobody is suggesting here that Andrey Bogolyubsky annexed "all the land" (of Kievan Rus') in 1173, because he was defeated. совокупилъ / sovokupilŭ / "gathered" has a strictly military sense here, not one of political geography and conquest / annexation. совокупилъ / sovokupilŭ seems related to MR wikt:совокупный sovokúpnyj "combined" and wikt:совокупность sovokúpnostʹ ("the sum total"). Seems like it's also related to wikt:совокупление sovokuplénije "coupling, sexual intercourse" and wikt:совокупляться sovokupljátʹsja, "to have sex", but originally "to get connected, to get linked", which seems closer to the meaning "to gather, to collect" that we're looking for.
wikt:собиратель "gatherer" derives from wikt:собирать "to gather, collect, harvest"/ Derived from Old East Slavic съборъ (sŭborŭ), "gathering", "meeting". The modern Russian word wikt:сбор (sbor) still has meaning no. #3, namely (military) muster, assembly). So gathering or mustering troops ahead of a battle or campaign can very well be described by using this terminology, including in combination with zemlia, without actually meaning conquest or annexation, because it happens before a campaign, not after. In the case of Andrey of Suzdal in 1173, he "gathered all the land" before the battle, but was defeated in battle, and did not conquer or annex any lands after the battle. NLeeuw (talk) 15:21, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
PS: I might add that in about 90% of all cases (88 in total) in which Heinrich 1977's English translation of the Kievan Chronicle uses a variation of the verb "to gather" or the noun "gathering", it refers to gathering troops or forces for an upcoming battle or campaign. I can't easily check whether all those are variations of the Church Slavonic term совокупи(лъ), but I should point out that it's not common in the KC to connect it to the word zemlia. In fact, the passage about Andrey in 1173 might be an exception.
I do see a similar example under the year 1180, where a certain Sviatoslav (probably Vsevolodich, i.e. Sviatoslav III of Kiev, during the 1180 ru:Северный поход Святослава Всеволодовича)
Ipa / Xle: скоупи / совокоупи всю Черниговьскоую / чрънѣговскую стороноу.
romanised: skoupi / sovokupi vsiu Chernigovĭskuiu / chŭrněgovskuiu storonu.
Heinrich 1977: gathered all the territory of Černigov
wikt:страна / strana, originally Proto-Slavic *storna, can mean both "land / country" and "folk, people". совокоупи + стороноу again means mustering the troops before a military campaign, not conquering or annexing lands after a successful military campaign.
So all Ivan Kalita may have done as a so-called събрателя Руской земли may have been gathering troops for a military campaign. Which? Well, the most evident example would be his suppression of the Tver Uprising of 1327 with the help of Suzdalian and Tatar troops. Let's see if we could find support for that. NLeeuw (talk) 16:57, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As a policy

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@Mellk: Hi, you said earlier that It also seems that it is also used to describe Russian policy under Ivan the Terrible. Where did you find that? It may or may not be true.

In 2001, Halperin stated: The 'Expanded Redaction' of the Encomium lauds Ivan Daniilovich (Kalita) as 'gatherer of the Rus' land' (sobiratel' russkoi zemli). Marshall Poe, 'Butterfield's Sociology of Whig History: A Contribution to the Study of Anachronisms in Modern Historical Thought', Clio. A Journal of Literature, History and the Philosophy of History, 25, 1996, pp. 355–56, errs in calling the phrase 'an invention of eighteenth-century nationalist historiography'. Extrapolating the policies of all fourteenth-century Muscovite princes from this phrase is another matter.

Halperin 2001 is correct that the phrase appears as early as Donskoy' vita / Encomium in c. 1455, and is not just a later nationalist invention from the 18th or 19th century. But, as I reasoned above under "the meaning of събрателя Руской земли", it's not clear what the phrase actually means, let alone that we can say whether it described a comprehensive policy of Muscovite princes in the 14th or later centuries.

Halperin 2022, p. 83–84, notes that Ivan IV the Terrible did use the phrase the Rus' Land a lot, but so did a lot of Polish and Lithuanian nobles at the time, including in references to territories controlled by the GDL/PLC (such as Belarus, Galicia, Volynia etc.), and not by Muscovy. Halperin: in a 1577 epistle to Prince Aleksandr Polubenskii in Lithuania, Ivan IV referred to his grandfather, Ivan III the Great, as the “gatherer of the Rus’ Land.” Ivan the Great did not “gather” Galicia into the Muscovite state. So exactly what Ivan the Terrible meant with "gatherer" and with "Rus' Land" is not that plain. We can't take these texts at face value, but need to consider their contexts.

In addition, Halperin mentions the theory that Lithuania might also have thought of itself as a gatherer of Rus' lands: Plokhy proposes that Lithuania presented itself, albeit only briefly, as successor of the Rus’ Land. He cites a 1338 treaty between Gediminas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, and the Master of the Livonian Order as evidence of Gediminas’s aspiration to be “gatherer” of the Rus’ Land (a term later applied to Grand Prince Dmitrii Donskoi and Ivan III) in which the Rus’ Land presumably denoted the Lithuanian state. However, the treaty ascribes only geographic, not political, dimensions to the Rus’ Land, mentioning the Lithuanian (Lettowen in the German original) and Rus’ Lands (Ruslande or Ruscelande in the German original, ruskoi zemle in Slavonic) to which a German merchant could travel. The Rus’ Land refers to Rus’ territory under Gediminas’s rule. By 1385 the Union of Krewo between Poland and Lithuania, however, the “Rus’ lands” denoted the Rus’ lands that Jogaila, the Grand Duke of Lithuania who became Wladyslaw, King of Poland upon his conversion to Catholicism, pledged to attach to Poland.

Was gathering the Rus' land(s) a "policy" in Ivan IV's Muscovy, or in Gediminas' Lithuania? It's not evident in either case. NLeeuw (talk) 17:37, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Rowell, Stephen Christopher (2003). Chartularium Lithuaniae res gestas magni ducis Gedeminne illustrans (PDF) (in Latin and Lithuanian). Vilnius: Vaga [lt]. ISBN 5-415-01700-3. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
This critical edition of lots of GDL source texts includes the text of the 1338 treaty in Medieval Low German (Nederduytsch) on pages 258 and 260 (330 and 332 of the PDF file). It's funny, I can read that quite easily, it is very close to medieval Dutch (Dietsch / Duytsch). I'm tempted to put it all on Wikisource, and translate it to English. But the most important question here is whether Gediminas is presented as a gatherer of Rus' lands or not. Plokhy 2006 argues so, but Halperin 2022 is skeptical. Plokhy: A different system of political names and ethnonyms was employed by the authors of the peace treaty of 1338 between Gediminas, the alleged Lithuanian “gatherer” of the Rus' lands, and the Master of the Livonian Knights, Eberhard Mannheim. Gediminas was called the koningh of Lithuania whose power extended over the Lithuanians and the Rus' inhabiting the Lithuanian and Rus' Lands. It was in the name of those two lands and peoples that Gediminas concluded the treaty. Halperin does seem to agree that The Rus’ Land refers to Rus’ territory under Gediminas’s rule. I'll do a word-by-word comparison of the Lithuanian translation next to it, to see if this makes sense. NLeeuw (talk) 18:23, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some apparently relevant excerpts from the 1338 treaty. Note: the English translation is based on a DeepL autotranslation of the modern Lithuanian translation. I'm using that as my exemplar rather than relying on my own understanding of the Low German text, even if it seems very close to my native language.
Text: Vort scal de Dudesche kopman varen also wyde, alse de koningh van Lettowen ret over Ruscen unde over Lettowen, seker lyves unde ghudes.
Lith: Toliau, vokiečių pirklys gali važiuoti saugus dėl savo gyvybės ir turto per Rusią ir Lietuvą taip toli, kiek siekia Lietuvos karaliaus valdžia.
Eng: Further, a German merchant can travel safely for his life and goods through Rus' / Ruthenia and Lithuania as far as the authority of the King of Lithuania extends.
Text: Vortmer scal de kopman hebben eynen vrighen wegh, de ghe heren is de loyse wegh: svan de Dusche kopman kumt int lant tho Lettowen ofte to Ruslande, so magh he varen in dat lant, wor dat he wil; des ghe lik de Ruscesche efte de Lettowesche copman, svan he kumt to Ryghe, so magh he varen, wor he wil, innt lant tho Liflande also verne, alse de mester ret.
Lith: Toliau, pirklys gali keliauti netrukdom as tuo keliu, kuris vadinam as laisvuoju: kai atvyksta vokiečių pirklys į Lietuvos žemę arba Rusią, jis gali keliauti, kur nori; lygiai taip pat rusų arba lietuvių pirklys, kai atvyksta į Rygą, gali keliauti Livonijos žemėje, kur jis nori, ir taip toli, kiek siekia magistro valdžia.
Eng: Furthermore, a merchant may travel unhindered along what is called the free road: when a German merchant arrives in the land of Lithuania or in Ruthenia / Rus' Land, he may travel wherever he wishes; likewise a Ruthenian / Rus' or Lithuanian merchant, when he arrives in Riga, may travel within the land of Livonia, wherever he wishes, and as far as the authority of the master.
These formulae repeat several times for all sorts of scenarios. I'm inclined to accept the idea that Gediminas saw himself as King of Lithuania, but reigning over two lands called Lithuania and Ruthenia / Rus' Land, inhabited by Lithuanians and Ruthenians / Rus', where German merchants could travel as they pleased, under the authority and protection of the king of Lithuania.
It ends with Moreover, if a Lithuanian or a Ruthenian / Rus' wishes to sue a German over an old matter, he must apply to the person to whom he is subordinate; and so must a German in Lithuania or Rus'.
This peace is made in the year of God's birth one thousand three hundred and thirty-eight [1338], on the day of All Saints, with the consent of the magistrate, the marshal of the land, and of many other noblemen, and of the council of the city of Riga, who have kissed the cross on that occasion; by the consent of the King of Lithuania, his sons and all his nobles; they also performed their sacred rites on that occasion; and by the consent of the Bishop of Polatsk [Ploscowe], the Prince of Polatsk [Ploscowe] and the City, the Prince of Vitebsk and the City of Vitebsk [Vitebeke]; they all kissed the cross in confirmation of the said Treaty of Peace.
This peace shall be kept unbroken for ten years.
Kissing the cross as a confirmation or oath is a very Kievan Rus' thing to do. I had never heard of that before I read the Kievan Chronicle. It's strange to read that in a legally binding treaty written in a language close to my native tongue.
Plokhy goes on to interpret the 1338 treaty:
The document was also approved by the Orthodox bishop of Polatsk, the Lithuanian princes of Polatsk and Vitsebsk, and the elites of the two cities. Nevertheless, their cities and lands were not mentioned in the treaty (as they had been in the previous trade agreements), being represented instead by the general term “Rus' Land.” Although it is risky to discern order in terminological usage at a time when it often did not exist, it might be assumed nevertheless that in this context the term “Rus' Land” was employed not only as an ethnocultural but also as a political designation of part of the Lithuanian state. The disappearance of the names of separate principalities from the text of the treaty and the endorsement of the notion of the Rus' Land as a counterpart of the Lithuanian Land could not but promote the loyalty of the Rus' elites to the idea of a broader Rus' community.
I'm inclined to agree that this is what the treaty is in effect doing. I don't think Halperin is correct when he says the treaty ascribes only geographic, not political, dimensions to the Rus’ Land. It is the territory where the authority (ret, recht?) of the king of Lithuania extends, and where German merchants and their goods are under his legal protection. That is a political definition of the Rus' Land within his royal authority. NLeeuw (talk) 18:55, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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