Архангельск

Christensen C.S. Bjarmaland – the forgotten history of the Vikings in Northern Russia. A description of the Vikings, the Bjarmians, the area around the delta of Northern Dvina and the wealth of nature in the Russian forests in the years 890-1250

The Vikings’ rise in Northern Russia is a chapter in European history that is yet to be written. Political, linguistic and mental barriers have meant that this period of Northern Russia’s great expansion was sadly neglected by historians. But after 1990, with the opening of Russia’s archives for western researches, we can finally begin collecting the small pieces for a jigsaw puzzle of the Vikings’ journey in the area of the Kola Peninsula. Recent archaeological finds help us to support the theory that the Viking voyages in the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean have had greater significance and extent than previously thought. This article will shed new light on Bjarmaland, the Bjarmians and why the Vikings for many centuries pilgrimage to the area where Arkhangelsk is today. Were they in the area at all? And how there still are traces in our modern society of this era. Furthermore, the trade connections between Vikings, Bjarmians and Russians will be put into a larger perspective and the Vikings’ trade routes in both Eastern and Western Europe will be described.

Christensen C.S. Denmark-Russia relations in the years 1493-1924: Vikings, the Baltic Sea, Sweden, Poland-Lithuania, royal dynasties, Tsar Peter III, naval officers and trade companies

For more than 1,000 years there have been relations between Denmark and Russia in political, cultural and economic affairs. There has never been a real bilateral war between the two countries. However, it is not said that the relationship has always been harmonious or close, neither in state nor in popular terms. 525 years ago, in the year 1493, the Danish-Russian relations were finally written down in the so-called Treaty of Copenhagen on the 8th of November. Since then diplomatic relations between the two countries have been parts of the foreign policy of both countries. In the following half a century, especially Russia had interfered in the historic destiny of Denmark, whereas Denmark tried to interfere in the development of Russian agriculture and industry in the beginning of the 1900s. In this article it will be analysed what has meant the connection between Denmark and Russia throughout the ages and what have been the reasons for the political actions in the two respective countries toward each other.