The Skaggs-Files

Narrative

Kievan Rus achieved its greatest power and splendor under Yaroslav the Wise in the 11th century. Yaroslav made Kyiv a great city and built magnificent buildings, including the notable Cathedral of Saint Sophia (also known as the Hagia Sophia of Kyiv). Yaroslav did much to develop Rus education and culture. He also compiled the first Russian law code, the so-called Russkaya Pravda (Russian Justice).

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Burke calls him Great Duke of Russia. Snorri Sturlasson call him Prince of Holmgarth and shows his children as Holti-Nimble, Vissivald, Ellisif.

Donald Lines Jacobus (1883-1970), the "Founder of Scientific Genealogy in America" wrote an article in The American Genealogist (TAG) 9:13-15 entitled "The House of Rurik." I quote: "To correct the many errors that have appeared in print, and to aid those who follow the pastime
of tracing "royal ancestry," the following condensed account of the early Rurikides is here printed. It is based in large part on "Genealogies et Mariages Occidentaux des Rurikides Russes du Xe au XIIIe Siecle," published
at Rome in 1927 as Vol. IX, No. 1, of *Orientalia Christiana.* The author, N. de Baumgarten, is probably the best living authority on early Russian history, and every statement made on the fourteen genealogical tables of his monograph is fully supported by the citation of contemporary documents and chronicles."

I am not attacking Jacobus, who is a giant among genealogists and certainly needs no defenders. Neither am I disagreeing with Alexander Agamov, in Moscow, who has pointed out that there is no credible evidence that Rurik was ever "Prince of Kiev" and progenitor of the line beginning
with Igor, Grand Prince of Kiev, who married Olga. I hope Alexander Agamov is reading this. Some historians and genealogists, Russians in particular, have taken sharp issue with the theory that the Kievan Rus was founded by a "Dane" rather than a "Slav"----and the evidence for "The Varangian Theory" seems fragmentary and inconclusive, at best.

G. Andrews Moriarty and Walter L. Sheppard in TAG 28:91-95 also quote the N. de Baumgarten material as authoritative [specifically "Orientalia Christiana, No. 119, N. de Baumgarten, "Aux Origines de la Russie," p. 79. Both Jacobus and Moriarty/Sheppard headline their charts
with "Rurik (d. 879) Grand Prince of Kiev." Jacobus probably did not read 10th to 13th century Russian. But--- some of us may.

For anyone who might conceivably have access to the original, 1927, N. de Baumgarten source---is it provable that, "every statement made on the fourteen genealogical tables of his monograph is fully supported by the citation of contemporary documents and chronicles?"

Or, is it possible that Jacobus and the other experts simply
trusted in N. de Baumgarten's scholarship and professionalism---and did not really check out the facts themselves. The Editor of a journal, such as TAG, certainly cannot check out every fact and document himself. But, in
this particular case, Jacobus gives the N. de Baumgarten material his personal imprimatur, as cited above [TAG 9:13, Paragraph 2]

So----has N. de Baumgarten in his "Orientalia Christiana"---dealing with "The House of Rurik"---been totally discredited by subsequent rigorous scholarship---or does his judgment still seem credible to some serious scholars----or are there alternate explanations?

This is an intriguing question of interest to many folks who are descended from Anne of Kiev (c. 1024-c.1066) [Anna Yaroslavna] who married Henry I, King of France.

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Sources:
Abbrev: Agamov, Alexander
Title: Agamov, Alexander
Note:
Call number: