Shum-gora (Shum-hill)

Rurik, the founder of the Rurik dynasty and the first ruler of Russia, left few monuments associated with his name. The strongholds where Rurik «came» are called Ladoga and Novgorod. His «grave» is in Korela. Modern legend told about another place of his death. Such a legend (apparently of a very late origin, XIX-XX centuries) connects the so-called Shum-hill with the burial of Rurik. Shum-hill stands on the banks of the river Luga.

Shum-hill, or Peredolskaya Sopka, is one of the largest hills in the Russian North-West, 14 m high, with a base diameter of up to 70 m. The legend told us about a battle on the Luga River, in which Rurik had been killed and was buried. However, the legend is of a very late origin and cannot serve as reliable evidence in favor of this version.

It is interesting that the legends about Rurik were in demand by the German Nazis during the Great Patriotic War. Among the ideological measures of the Third Reich was the substantiation of the «primordial rights» of Germany to the Russian lands, in particular, to Novgorod, which was allegedly founded by the «German Rurik». The same idea was developed in the propaganda brochure: «Novgorod — the eastern pillar of the German Hansa», published in 1943 and distributed among the Wehrmacht soldiers who fought in the Leningrad sector.

Therefore, the discovery of the «grave of Rurik» acquired ideological significance for the Nazis. In 1942-1943. the Nazis, together with the burgomaster of Novgorod V. Ponomarev, organized excavations near the village of Nadbelie on the river. The Nazis did not find the grave.

The legend of Shum-hill is also one of similar local legends based on «folk tales» of obscure origin. Recent studies of Shum Mountain, in particular, geophysical ones (reconstruction of the underground content of the hill) cast doubt on the interpretation of the embankment as a burial hill. The location of a possible burial chamber at the top of the embankment is not typical for either Scandinavian or Slavic burial hills. Archaeologists Sergei Troyanovsky and Vladimir Konetsky suggested that Shum-Gora is not a burial hill, but an artificial hill, on which a small defensive castle could be built. Fortifications of similar type, called motte, were spread from northwestern France to the Elbe basin in Bohemia and Silesia in the 11th-12th centuries.

Scholars suggest that its creation could be associated with the name of Mstislav, the son of Vladimir Monomakh and Princess Gita, daughter of the Anglo-Saxon king Harald Goodwinson. Mstislav himself was married to the Swedish princess Christina. Historians believe that during his reign of Novgorod in 1088—1117 Mstislav brought «Western cultural influence» to the region, which could have manifested itself in the creation of a stronghold — a European-style castle in the Luga basin. This hypothesis is interesting, but it needs additional archaeological research.

Photos

A. I. Filyushkin

Tags: places of memory, before 13 century, По маршруту Александра Невского: Ледовое побоище, By the Vikings' Route, North-West Russia