Baltai Švedijos runų įrašuose

ENThe earliest written specimens of the Germanic tribes - runes - are being analysed in many aspects. At the present moment investigation of the runes from the point of view of interdisciplinary subject is becoming a still stronger imperative in order to obtain more exhaustive and manysided information. In this report, attention has been focused on a rather narrow problem, that is, runes’ information about the Baltic tribes within the circle of interest of the Scandinavians in the Viking epoch. On the basis of analysis of runic inscriptions, archaeological material and written sources, we may obtain extra information on the Baltic tribes in the 10th-12th centuries. Inscriptions with direct mentioning of Baltic tribes, hydronyms or toponyms are known as many as nine The runes with inscriptions concerning the Baltic tribes are concentrated mostly in Sodermanland and Uppland The earliest dated runic inscriptions mentioning eastern Baltic, the stone of Bónestad cannot be dated earlier than the end of the 10th century. On the basis of archaeological material and runic inscriptions we cannot make a strong statement about existence of Scandinavian colonies in the eastern Baltic already in the epoch of Vendel (theory of Birger Nerman). This, however, does not mean that Baltic - Scandinavian contacts did not exist at that time (Vendel epoch).Comparison of the runic inscriptions and the written sources lead us to presume that the territory of the Balts was not the main goal of the “Eastern policy“ of Scandinavians during the Viking epoch. Eastern Baltic region, hence the territories of the, Baltic tribes, were part of eastern policy of the Scandinavian countries. Runic inscriptions may be the means to back the presumption based on archaeological materials about division of the eastern Baltic area into “zones of influence“ among the earliest political divisions in Denmark and Sweden. The southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea most probably was the object of attention of Denmark, however, its northern border of banish activity is to be specified on the basis of future investigations. Semigallians are seldom mentioned in chronicles, although they are quite well-known to the authors of the runic inscriptions. Thus, additional analysis of the archaeological material of Semigallians may enable us to specify the contacts between the Scandinavians and Semigallians. And finally, we may once again indicate different levels of respective contacts between the Scandinavians and the southern as well as northern Curonians.