The Empire of Rus’: prehistory and the beginnings of formation

Background: The article attempts to study the processes of political consolidation of Slavic tribes in the IV–VIII centuries, to establish the main factors that influenced the formation of the early Slavic states; trace the prehistory of Rus’ and determine the beginnings of the Rus’ empire. Purpose: To identify a set of medieval sources for studying the history of the early Slavic states, to analyze the information of medieval writers about the Slavs and Rus’ people, their early state formations and titles of rulers to help establish the nature and degree of state-building processes. Analysis of written sources shows that the first reports of the early Slavic states appear in the Byzantine chronicles in the VI century during the era of the Great Migration, when large-scale migration in the Balkans formed large Slavic regions and Slavic expansion was a serious threat to the territories of the empire. Arab authors begin to mention the Slavs and Rus’ people later, in the VII–VIII centuries, during the beginning of Arab expansion within Byzantium and the development of international trade between Europe and the Arab East in which the Slavs played a leading role. According to sources the formation of Rus’ in southern Eastern Europe was preceded by the formation of large military-political associations of the Slavs - the unions of the Ants and Dulibs, Greater Croatia. Here as in the Baltic Pomerania and the Danube, they originated in the Slavic areas through which international trade routes passed. International trade contributed to the development of cities, strengthened the process of political consolidation and became an important factor in the formation of the early Slavic states and the formation of the Rus’ empire. Its territorial core was the Middle Dnieper region through which passed the routes connecting the north and south of the continent, as well as the transcontinental trade route between the European West and the Arab East. The establishment of control over water and land international routes was the main reason for the expansion of the Rus’ people which resulted in the formation of the largest European empire in the Middle Ages. Keywords: migrations of the Slavs, early Slavic states, the Ant Union, the Dulib Union, international trade routes, Rus’ people, Rus’ empire.