In the extensive and contradictory literature devoted to the beginning of Russia, one of the leading places belongs to the "Varangians", as well as the meaning of the chronicle remark about the identity of" Varangians "and"Rus". Soviet scientists have collected a huge amount of material in favor of the local, Dnieper origin of the ethnic and cultural community on the basis of which the Old Russian state arose. Foreign historiography, however, is dominated by the idea of bringing civilization to the Eastern Slavs by German-Scandinavian newcomers1 . And this is not only due to the reluctance of bourgeois authors to assimilate the Marxist understanding of the essence of the state. It is also important that Soviet scientists, focusing on the main socio-historical problems, did not re-examine many of the postulates of the Norman theory. The most important of them is precisely the idea of the German-speaking and Scandinavian origin of the "Varangians", with the "vocation" of which one chronicler began Russian statehood. However, such a responsible position is just a historiographical tradition based on a number of assumptions and one-sided interpretation of sources. The thesis of the identity of "Varangians" and Scandinavians has been repeatedly challenged by opponents of the" Norman concept " since its inception in the XVIII century. A fairly complete review of these works can be found in the articles of the Leningrad philologist V. B. Vilinbakhov2 . From the point of view of Normanists, all this literature is the fruit of the patriotic sentiments of individual scientists, and more often-the fantasy of amateurs. There are no words, M. V. Lomonosov's patriotic enthusiasm and the non-standard form of Yu. Venelin was weakened by the effectiveness of their argument. .Many specialists are not satisfied with the well-known ease of handling sources and V. B. Vilinbakhov. However, the anti-Normanist tradition has accumulated a large number of facts that are completely unjustifia ... Read more