VARANGIANS (Ger. Wareiger, or M.:trivet.), a Norman people of the Baltic coast, who greatly damaged by their piracies the commerce of the republic of Novgorod, and sub jugated repeatedly the Slavic and Finnish peoples of northern and central Russia. They forced the Krivitehes, Tschudes, and other tribes to pay tribute, and wrested from the Russians the districts now known as Revel, Petersburg, and Archangel; the Russians retreating into Finland and Karelia. Gradually the two nations became intermixed, and toward the 9th c., the names Russian and Varangian appear to have been considered synonymous. In 862, the rulers of this Russo-Varangian nation, Rurik (q.v.), Sineous, and Truvor, were invited by the federative state of Novgorod, in which the Slaves were dominant, to put themselves at its head, and Rurik accepting the invitation, founded the Russian monarchy. Sec Rcssrx. The Varangians were at first distinguishable in vari
ous ways above the other peoples of the Novgorod state; but being far inferior in num ber, were soon forced to adopt the Slavic tongue, conform to Slavic manners, and so become merged in the predominant population. The great success which attended this experiment of the Novgorod confederacy, induced other Slavic states which were located on the Dnieper to put themselves under the protection of the warlike Varangians; and accordingly we find, soon after 862, a second Slavic state at Kiev, under the rule of Oskold, a Varangian chief, and the conqueror of the barbarous Chazars. After Rurik's death, his successor in power, the Regent Oleg, united Kiev to Novgorod, making Kiev the capital—a position it held till supplanted by Moscow (q.v.).