Between the forests and steppes of today's Ukraine and Russia sat an East Slavic tribe caught between two powers: the Severians. Subject first to the Khazars, then to Kiev, they became a load-bearing part of the Rus.
The Severians (Old Russian Severjane) were an East Slavic tribal confederation in the south of the East Slavic world, on the rivers Desna, Seim and Sula – in the border region of today's Ukraine and Russia around towns like Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversky. Their name probably means "the northern ones" (from Slavic sever, "north"), which could be explained from the viewpoint of other peoples or from an older place of settlement. They belong to the tribes from which the Kievan Rus grew together.
The land of the Severians lay on an important frontier: the transition between the forested zone in the north and the open steppe in the south. This position was blessing and curse at once. The fertile soils and rivers made the land rich, but the nearness to the steppe exposed the Severians to the pressure of the horse peoples – above all the powerful Khazars. They lived in fortified strongholds, practised farming, trade and crafts and stood in exchange with both the steppe and the forest world.
Before the rise of Kiev, the Severians stood under the overlordship of the Khazar Khaganate, that powerful horse empire on the lower Volga which controlled the trade between Europe and the Orient and whose elite converted to Judaism. The Primary Chronicle reports that the Severians paid tribute to the Khazars. This dependence shaped their early history: they lived in the shadow of a great power that offered security in return for dues – until a new power came from the north.
This new power was the Rus. According to the Primary Chronicle, the Kievan prince Oleg freed the Severians around 884 from tribute to the Khazars and instead subjected them to Kiev – for a deliberately "light tribute", to win them over. Later Prince Sviatoslav finally shattered the Khazar Khaganate around 965. Thus the Severians switched from the steppe power to the river power: from subjects of the Khazars they became subjects of the Rus – and a firm component of the emerging Kievan realm.
The land of the Severians became the core of one of the most important principalities of the Rus: Chernigov (Chernihiv). This town developed into one of the most significant centres of the Kievan Rus, rich in churches and princely burial mounds. Novgorod-Seversky ("Novgorod of the Severians") too bears the tribal name to this day. Out of the tribal land grew a princely landscape that played a great role in the history of the Rus – up to the famous medieval "Tale of Igor's Campaign", which tells of a campaign of a Seversky prince against the steppe peoples.
Like many Slavic tribal names, that of the Severians too outlasted in the landscape. The area was called Severia (the Seversk land) in the Middle Ages, and the name lives on in Novgorod-Seversky and in regional designations. Thus the Severians are further proof of the pattern of the East Slavs: the tribe as a political unit vanished with the rise of the principalities, but its name remained attached to the landscape.
The Severians show exemplarily how the Kievan Rus arose: not as conquest by a single people, but as the growing-together of many East Slavic tribes under a Norse-Slavic princely dynasty. Beside the Krivichs, Drevlians, Polans and others, the Severians were one of the load-bearing tribes of this realm. Their switch from the Khazars to Kiev marks a key moment: the shift of power from the steppe to the rivers.
The Severians are the tribe at the seam between two worlds – the steppe of the horse peoples and the rivers of the Rus. Their history tells of the transition of a whole region from the sphere of the Khazar Khaganate into that of the Kievan Rus. For our picture of the East Slavs they are indispensable: they show that the early Rus did not arise in empty space but on the lands of self-assured tribes that had had their own lords before.
The main source is the Primary Chronicle (Povest vremennykh let), which, however, was written down only some 250 years after the early events and survives only in later copies – its early dates must be read with caution. Byzantine and Arabic sources supplement this on the Khazars and their Slavic tributaries. The counterweight is provided by archaeology (ramparts, burial mounds and hoards in the Desna area, centres like Chernigov). We keep evidence and interpretation apart: position, Khazar tribute and switch to Kiev are well attested; the exact derivation of the name and the early tribal structure remain uncertain.
To understand the Severians, one must know their lords: the Khazars. Their khaganate on the lower Volga was a great power of the early Middle Ages, controlling the trade between the Caliphate, Byzantium and the north and dominating the steppe. The empire became famous because its ruling class adopted Judaism – a unique case in history. For the Slavic tribes in the south, among them the Severians, nearness to the Khazars meant tribute, but also a share in a vast trade network that brought silver and goods into their forests.
The wealth of the Severian land shows itself in its burial mounds. Near Chernigov lies the Chorna Mohyla ("Black Grave"), one of the largest burial mounds of the Kievan Rus from the 10th century. In it were found splendid grave goods: weapons, armour, a Byzantine coin hoard and two aurochs horns fitted with silver and artful mounts. Such princely graves show that Chernigov belonged to the most powerful centres of the Rus – and that the land of the Severians did not grow poor after the switch to Kiev but rose to one of the richest principalities.
From the land of the Severians comes one of the most famous works of East Slavic literature: the Tale of Igor's Campaign (Slovo o polku Igoreve). It tells of the ill-fated campaign of Prince Igor of Novgorod-Seversky against the steppe people of the Cumans (Polovtsy) in 1185. The poem, composed in artful, image-rich language, is a national epic of the East Slavs – even though its authenticity was long disputed, since the original burned in Moscow in 1812. That a Seversky prince of all people is the hero of this epic shows what importance the old tribal land still held in the High Middle Ages.
"Oleg ruled over the Polans, the Drevlians, the Severians … and on the Severians he laid a light tribute."after the Primary Chronicle (Povest vremennykh let), public domain, own translation
The Rus (Kiev) · The Drevlians · The Krivichs.
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