Comment by madspindel
3 hours ago
Vikings took slavs as slaves. In Swedish "slav" means "slave". Vikings was rowers from Roslagen. In Finland they use the name Ruotsi for Sweden and Venäjä for Russia.
3 hours ago
Vikings took slavs as slaves. In Swedish "slav" means "slave". Vikings was rowers from Roslagen. In Finland they use the name Ruotsi for Sweden and Venäjä for Russia.
I rewatched the Vikings recently (highly recommended, perhaps not historically accurate, but no horned helmets). It was a bit ... don't know, eye opening or strange or hard to believe to learn that the Vikings played a crucial role in that part of the continent and Constantinople. I know that the term "Viking" is not an ethnic identification, more like a profession/warrior, but I don't have another word in my vocabulary.
Ivar the Boneless, Varangians. When I was growing up in Ukraine, this was never ever mentioned in any literature, school, college. That the names like Oleg or Igor were not native threw a twist too, but they are very common names over there in UA/RU, on par with Ivan and Dmitry.