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Yet Slavs paid due credit to the military ability of Norse warlords and invited some of them back as mercenaries to fight in internal wars. One of them, a Danish duke Ruryk (Hrcerekr, 862 -879) was invited by the aristocracy of the Slovenian tribe union. In 862 he murdered the local duke (kniafy Vadim the Brave and proclaimed himself the Duke of Ladoga and then Novgorod, sending one of his earls to govern Polack. Approximately at the same time Norse dukes Askold (HoskulOr) and Dir took over Kyiv (Kiev) on Dnepr. Ruryk died in 879. His successor Aleh (Oleg, Helgi, 879-912) seized Kyiv and murdered Askold and Dir, thus uniting both duchies into a single state, called Rus' or Ruthenia after rops, the Old Norse name for warbands. Rus’ thus got to control most of the waterways between the Baltic, Caspian and Black sees securing the interests of Norse traders. Yet none of the Norse dukes could claim to be the conqueror of local tribes. Their power was a result of the social deal they had to strike with the local communities. On peak of their power the Norse dukes of Rus’ in addition to transit trade did not hesitate to resort to plundering raids on Byzantium and Caspian countries, very' typical for Vikings. In 907 Aleh made a successful raid on Byzantium and concluded a mutually beneficial treaty with the latter in 911. His successor Ihar's (Igor, Ingvarr, 912-945) raids on Khazar Crimea in 940 and Byzantium in 941 though ended in crushing defeats. The weakened Rus’ could not prevent the secession of Polack, which occurred between 931 and 945. The newly emerged Duchy of Polack was headed by Rahvaiod (Rognvaldr), presumably of Norwegian royal dynasty. Ihar’s son Sviataslail (Sviatoslav, 945-972) initially managed to repel the Khazar threat, conclusively defeating Khazars in 965, but then waged an unsuccessful war on Byzantium in 967—971 and on his way home to Kyiv in 972 was caught in ambush and killed by nomadic Pechenegs, Constant wars took their toll as Rus’ laid in ruins. After Sviataslau’s death his sons Jarapolk (Yaropolk), who ruled in Kyiv, and Uladzimir (Vladimir, 970s — 1015), who governed Novgorod, started a civil war. Circa 978 Utadzimir one by one defeated and killed Jarapolk’s ally Rahvaiod, subduing Potack and Turau, and then Jarapo3k himself, restoring the unity and peace in Rus’. Utadzimir bore little resemblance to his Norse predecessors. Speaking Old Ruthenian rather than Old Norse and bearing a Slavic name, he completed the process of assimilation of Norsemen with Slavs. Unlike the previous dukes of Novgorod, Polack and Kyiv he preferred to concentrate on securing state interests instead of making plundering raids and achieve his goals by diplomacy and politics rather than sword. Under his rule Rus’ turned from a state-like corporation of traders and pirates into a full-fledged state. One of the first acts of his rule in Kyiv was a very symbolic expulsion of his contingent of Norse mercenaries to Byzantium, which indicated the end of the Norse domination on the lands between the Baltic, Caspian and Black sees. The Norse sub-period of Belarusian history brought about drastic changes with regard to the political development of the society. While in the earlier times intertribal wars had upset the traditional family structures and undermined the authority of family aristocracy, war in the Norse times grossly contributed to the emergence of the state. Internal peace and external security still were the things that society needed the most. Logically, these could be best provided and protected by those groups who possessed armed force i.e. chiefs and their warbands. Based on their force local Slavic, Baltic and Finno-Ugrian chiefs were in a good position to overcome the influence of family aristocracy but ultimately lost to the Norsemen whose military prowess by far surpassed that of Slavs, Balts and FinnoUgrians. Ruryk, Askold, Aleh and other Norse warlords picked up where Slavic and other local chiefs left off. Upon exterminating or subduing local warbands they inherited their cause of fighting against family aristocracy and successfully completed it. From that time on, the government on Belarusian and other lands of the region between the Baltic, Caspian and Black seas was based on power rather than traditional authority, which marked the transition from a patriarchal family society to a state. In this way local tribes ended up being governed by foreigners. The situation was a typical rather than unique pattern for European countries and ultimately was more of a blessing than a curse for local residents. As mighty as they were, the Norse dukes could not govern by brute force alone. Their warbands were well armed, skilled and numerous enough to join and spearhead the armed forces and the government of local tribes but not numerous enough to conquer them. Their predecessors, who had tried it in 840s and 850s, were badly defeated. Therefore the dukes of Ladoga, Novgorod, Kyiv and Polack had to reckon with the interests of that very family aristocracy and other layers of the society and strike a social deal with them. Dukes and their warriors provided order, protection and security in return for taxes, collected in the course ofpaluddzie (poludye), a yearly trip around the territory of Rus’. The new government turned out to be more popular and less self-indulgent and tyrannical than the government of local chiefs might have been. By the end of 10th century the process of assimilation in Rus’ erased even the ethnic differences between various segments within the governing group, which adopted a homogeneous culture including Nordic, Slavic and other local elements. Another element that differentiated the state from the patriarchal society was its territorial organization. Being traders as much as warriors, the Norsemen were mainly interested in controlling the waterways and concentrated their power in urban centres along these ways. The territorial character of Rus’ destroyed many old family and tribal connections, bringing it closer to the classic pattern of a state. The codification of customary law, undertaken by Aleh and other Ruthenian dukes, was one more step in the direction of a full-fledged state. The wars of the Norse sub-period also reached Lithuanians and Yatvingians who at that time were going through the process of disintegration of family ties in their society and its reorganization on the territorial basis. Small districts were uniting in lands where the authority was disputed by family aristocracy and the duke (kunigas) with his warband (draugija). Military and peaceful contacts with Rus’ boosted this process. Economically the biggest achievement of the wars of the Norse times was the discovery and development of new routes that were simultaneously used for trade and plundering. The same expeditions along these routes could be plundering raids as well as commercial enterprises. The goals of such trips could be swapped immediately depending on what the travellers deemed safer and more profitable. As a result the system of Ruthenian waterways helped the region inhabitants to exchange cultural innovations, technologies and wealth. The wealth accumulated by trade or war was not used to reproduce and multiply itself, though. In accordance with their ethics, dukes and their warriors used it to finance feasts, generous gifts and other attributes of the grand way of life. That had some practical meaning, too. An invitation to a feast or a gift imposed on the taker certain moral obligations to the giver. Most often the beneficiary was supposed to stand for his benefactor and protect him with arms. Thus the wealth cemented the relationship of brotherhood between the equal and the patron/client relationship between people from different layers of the society. Yet this relationship was based on moral rather than economic aspects of the wealth. Culture wise, the epic wars of the Norse epoch could not but be glorified in a written form. Rus’ did not create an epic of «Heimskringla» scale, but the most significant events were registered on the pages of early Ruthenian chronicles. Despite the claims to objectivity the account of those events was often reworked in the literary manner. The deeds of the main characters were narrated in an exaggerated legendary manner. That spawned a number of myths representing a popular explanation of the origins of Rus’ and its early history. Some of these myths were crafted so skilfully that they managed to deeply root in mass consciousness, survive well into the modern day and be widely used for different ends. A very typical of such myths is the legend of Rahvaiod and Rahnieda. As it was mentioned above, in 970s Uladzimir, who would later become the Duke of Kyiv, had seized Polack, killed its duke Rahvatod and forced Rahvalod’s daughter Rahnieda to marry him. Trying to avenge the death of her father, Rahnieda had made an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Uladzimir. The latter had initially wanted to execute her yet faced the resistance of his little son Iziaslau (Iziaslav) who tried to protect his mother. A confused Uladzimir had had to send them both back to Polack land, which ultimately resulted in the restoration of Rahvalod’s dynasty, albeit through the maternal line of descent. The way these events were presented in the chronicle bears traces of literary reworking and the true story' of Rahvatod and Rahnieda remains unknown. Despite this fact, the legend started living its own life. The loyalty of Rahnieda to her family and her land was later presented by the Dukes of Polack as the major justification of their right to rule Polack contrary to the numerous attempts of the Dukes of Kyiv to overthrow them. The very fact of seizure of Polack by Uladzimir and the subsequent bloodshed made Polack independence a lost but a just and noble cause, justified by blood and worth fighting for. Paradoxically, a military defeat turned into a moral victory and became a source of inspiration for the people of Polack to fight for their independence for centuries ahead. So strong is the influence of the legend that even today the emotional arguments in favour of Belarusian independence are still derived from it.