Blacksmithing in Russia message. Blacksmith craft. Places in Russia named after blacksmiths

At first, ancient people beat spongy iron with mallets in a cold state in order to "squeeze the juice out of it", i.e. remove impurities. Then they guessed to heat the metal and give it the desired shape. In the X-XI centuries, thanks to the development of metallurgy and other crafts, the Slavs had a plow and a plow with an iron plowshare. On the territory of ancient Kiev, archaeologists find sickles, door locks and other things made by the hands of blacksmiths, gunsmiths and jewelers.

In the 11th century, metallurgical production was already widespread, both in the city and in the countryside. The first chimney was an ordinary hearth in a dwelling. Special bugles appeared later. For fire safety purposes, they were located at the edge of the settlements. The early kilns were round pits one meter in diameter thickly covered with clay, dug into the ground. Their popular name is "wolf pits". In the 10th century, above-ground stoves appeared, the air was pumped into them with the help of leather bellows. The furs were inflated by hand. And this work made the cooking process very difficult. Archaeologists still find signs of local metal production on the settlements - waste from the cheese-making process in the form of slag. At the end of the “cooking” of iron, the domnitsa was broken, foreign impurities were removed, and the kritsa was removed from the furnace with a crowbar. The hot cry was captured by pincers and carefully forged. Forging removed slag particles from the surface of the crown and eliminated the porosity of the metal. After forging, the kritsa was again heated and again placed under the hammer. This operation was repeated several times. For a new smelting, the upper part of the house was restored or rebuilt. In later domnitsa, the front part was no longer broken, but disassembled, and the molten metal flowed into clay containers.

But, despite the wide distribution of raw materials, iron smelting was carried out by far not in every settlement. The complexity of the process singled out blacksmiths from the community and made them the first artisans. In ancient times, blacksmiths themselves smelted the metal and then forged it. Necessary accessories for a blacksmith - a forge (smelting furnace) for heating a cracker, a poker, a crowbar (pick), an iron shovel, an anvil, a hammer (sledgehammer), a variety of tongs for extracting red-hot iron from the furnace and working with it - a set of tools necessary for smelting and forging works. The technique of hand forging almost did not change until the 19th century, but even fewer authentic ancient forges of history are known than domnits, although archaeologists periodically discover many forged iron products in ancient settlements and burial mounds, and their tools in the burials of blacksmiths: pincers, hammer, anvil, casting accessories. Written sources have not preserved to us the forging technique and the basic techniques of ancient Russian blacksmiths. But the study of ancient forged products allows historians to say that the ancient Russian blacksmiths knew all the most important techniques: welding, punching holes, torsion, riveting plates, welding steel blades and hardening steel. In each forge, as a rule, two blacksmiths worked - a master and an apprentice. In the XI-XIII centuries. the foundry business was partially isolated, and the blacksmiths were directly engaged in forging iron products. In Ancient Russia, any metal worker was called a blacksmith: "blacksmith of iron", "blacksmith of copper", "blacksmith of silver".

Simple forged products were made with a chisel. The technology of using an insert and welding a steel blade was also used. The simplest forged products include: knives, hoops and buds for tubs, nails, sickles, braids, chisels, awls, shovels and pans, i.e. items that do not require special techniques. Any blacksmith alone could make them. More complex forged products: chains, door breaks, iron rings from belts and harnesses, bits, lighters, spears - already required welding, which was carried out by experienced blacksmiths with the help of an apprentice.

Masters welded iron, heating it to a temperature of 1500 degrees C, the achievement of which was determined by sparks of white-hot metal. Holes were punched with a chisel in ears for tubs, plowshares for plows, hoes. The puncher made holes in scissors, tongs, keys, boat rivets, on spears (for fastening to the pole), on the shrouds of shovels. The blacksmith could carry out these techniques only with the help of an assistant. After all, he needed to hold a red-hot piece of iron with tongs, which, when small sizes it was not easy for the anvils of that time, to hold and guide the chisel, to hit the chisel with a hammer.

It was difficult to make axes, spears, hammers and locks. The ax was forged using iron inserts and welding strips of metal. Spears were forged from a large triangular piece of iron. The base of the triangle was twisted into a tube, a conical iron insert was inserted into it, and then the spear bushing was welded and a rampage was forged. Iron cauldrons were made from several large plates, the edges of which were riveted with iron rivets. The iron twisting operation was used to create screws from tetrahedral rods. The range above blacksmith products exhausts all the peasant inventory needed to build a house, Agriculture, hunting and defense. Old Russian blacksmiths X-XIII centuries mastered all the basic techniques of iron processing and determined the technical level of the village forges for centuries. The basic form of sickle and short-handled scythe were found in the 9th-11th centuries. Old Russian axes have undergone a significant change in the X-XIII centuries. acquired a form close to modern. The saw was not used in rural architecture. Iron nails were widely used for carpentry work. They are almost always found in every burial with a coffin. The nails had a tetrahedral shape with a bent top. By IX-X centuries in Kievan Rus patrimonial, rural and urban craft already existed. Russian urban craft entered the 11th century with a rich stock of technical skills. Village and city were still completely separated until that time. Served by artisans, the village lived in a small closed world. The sales area was extremely small: 10-15 kilometers in radius. The city blacksmiths were more skilled craftsmen than the village blacksmiths. During the excavations of ancient Russian cities, it turned out that almost every city house was the dwelling of an artisan. From the beginning of the existence of the Kievan state, they showed great skill in forging iron and steel of a wide variety of objects - from a heavy plowshare and a helmet with patterned iron lace to thin needles; arrows and chain mail rings riveted with miniature rivets; weapons and household implements from barrows of the 9th-10th centuries. Apart from blacksmith craft they owned locksmith and weapons business. All these crafts have some similarities in the ways of working iron and steel. Therefore, quite often artisans engaged in one of these crafts combined it with others. In the cities, the technique of smelting iron was more perfect than in the countryside. City forges, as well as domnitsa, were usually located on the outskirts of the city. The equipment of urban forges differed from the village ones - by greater complexity. The city anvil made it possible, firstly, to forge things that had a void inside, for example, a tribe, spear bushings, rings, and most importantly, it allowed the use of an assortment of figured linings for forgings of a complex profile. Such linings are widely used in modern blacksmithing when forging curved surfaces. Some forged products, starting from the 9th-10th centuries, bear traces of processing with the help of such linings.

In those cases where two-sided processing was required, both the lining and the chisel-stamp of the same profile were obviously used to make the forging symmetrical. Linings and stamps were also used in the manufacture of battle axes. The assortment of hammers, blacksmith tongs and chisels of urban blacksmiths was more diverse than that of their village counterparts: from small to huge. Starting from the IX-X centuries. Russian craftsmen used files to process iron. Old Russian city forges, metalwork and weapons workshops in the X-XIII centuries. had: forges, furs, simple anvils, anvils with a spur and a notch, inserts into the anvil (of various profiles), sledgehammer hammers, handbrake hammers, billhook hammers (for cutting) or chisels, punch hammers (beards), hand chisels, manual punches, simple tongs, tongs with hooks, small tongs, vise (primitive type), files, circular sharpeners. With the help of this diverse tool, which does not differ from the equipment of modern forges, Russian craftsmen prepared many different things. Among them are agricultural implements (massive plowshares and coulters, plow knives, scythes, sickles, axes, honey cutters); tools for craftsmen (knives, adzes, chisels, saws, scrapers, spoons, punches and figured hammers of chasers, knives for planes, calipers for ornamenting bones, scissors, etc.); household items (nails, knives, ironed arks, door breaks, staples, rings, buckles, needles, steelyards, weights, cauldrons, hearth chains, locks and keys, ship rivets, armchairs, bows and hoops of buckets, etc.); weapons, armor and harness (swords, shields, arrows, sabers, spears, battle axes, helmets, chain mail, bits, spurs, stirrups, whips, horseshoes, crossbows). The original complete isolation of artisans is beginning to be broken.

The production of weapons and military armor was especially developed. Swords and battle axes, quivers with arrows, sabers and knives, chain mail and shields were produced by master gunsmiths. The manufacture of weapons and armor was associated with especially careful metal processing, requiring skillful work techniques. Although the swords that existed in Russia in the 9th-10th centuries are mostly Frankish blades, archaeologists, nevertheless, in their excavations discover the presence of artisans-gunsmiths among Russian townspeople of the 9th-10th centuries. In a number of burials, bundles of forged rings for iron chain mail were found, which are often found in Russian military barrows from the 9th century. The ancient name of chain mail - armor - is often found on the pages of the annals. Making chain mail was labor intensive. Technological operations included: iron wire forging, welding, joining and riveting of iron rings. Archaeologists discovered the burial of a chain mail master of the 10th century. In the 9th-10th centuries, chain mail became an obligatory accessory of Russian armor. The ancient name of chain mail - armor - is often found on the pages of the annals. True, opinions are expressed about the origin of Russian chain mail about receiving them either from nomads or from the countries of the East. Nevertheless, the Arabs, noting the presence of chain mail among the Slavs, do not mention their import from outside. And the abundance of chain mail in the guard mounds may indicate that chain mail craftsmen worked in Russian cities. The same applies to helmets. Russian historians believe that the Varangian helmets differed too sharply in their conical shape. Russian helmets-shishaks were riveted from iron wedge-shaped strips. The well-known helmet of Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, thrown by him on the battlefield of Lipetsk in 1216, belongs to this type of helmet. It is an excellent example of Russian weapons and jewelry of the XII-XIII centuries.

The tradition has affected the overall shape of the helmet, but technically it is very different from the helmets of the 9th-10th centuries. Its entire body is forged from one piece, and not riveted from separate plates. This made the helmet significantly lighter and stronger. Even more skill was required from the master gunsmith. An example of jewelry work in the weapons technology of the XII-XIII centuries is, as is believed, the light steel hatchet of Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky. The surface of the metal is covered with notches, and on these notches (in the hot state) sheet silver is stuffed, on top of which an ornament is applied with engraving, gilding and niello. Oval or almond-shaped shields were made of wood with an iron core and iron fittings. A special place in blacksmithing and weapons business was occupied by steel and hardening of steel products. Even among the village kurgan axes of the 11th-13th centuries, a welded-on steel blade is found. Steel's hardness, flexibility, easy weldability and ability to accept hardening were well known to the Romans. But hardfacing steel has always been considered the most difficult task in all blacksmithing, because. iron and steel have different welding temperatures. Steel hardening, i.e. more or less rapid cooling of a red-hot object in water or in another way is also well known to the ancient blacksmiths of Russia. Urban blacksmithing was distinguished by a variety of techniques, the complexity of the equipment and the many specialties associated with this production. In the XI-XIII centuries, urban craftsmen worked for a wide market, i.e. production is on the rise. The list of urban artisans includes ironsmiths, domniks, gunsmiths, armor makers, shield makers, helmet makers, arrow makers, locksmiths, nail makers. In the XII century, the development of the craft continues. In metal, Russian masters embodied a bizarre mixture of Christian and archaic pagan images, combining all this with local Russian motifs and plots.

Improvements continue in the craft technique aimed at increasing the mass production. Posad craftsmen imitate the products of court craftsmen. In the XIII century, a number of new craft centers were created with their own characteristics in technology and style. But we do not observe any decline in the craft from the second half of the 12th century, as it is sometimes asserted, either in Kiev or in other places. On the contrary, culture grows, covering new areas and inventing new techniques. In the second half of the 12th century and in the 13th century, despite the unfavorable conditions of feudal fragmentation, Russian craft reached the most complete technical and artistic flourishing. The development of feudal relations and feudal ownership of land in the XII - the first half of the XIII century. caused a change in the form of the political system, which found its expression in feudal fragmentation, i.e. creation of relatively independent states-principalities. During this period, blacksmithing, plumbing and weapons, forging and stamping continued to develop in all principalities. In rich farms, more and more plows with iron shares began to appear. Masters are looking for new ways of working. Novgorod gunsmiths in the 12th - 13th centuries, using new technology, began to produce blades of sabers of much greater strength, hardness and flexibility.

In cities ancient Russia workshops differed from ordinary buildings in that the furnace was located not in the corner, but in the middle (they find production waste, semi-finished products, and sometimes tools). One of the most respected and early emerging crafts was ironworking. Domnitsa, where iron was smelted, was moved outside the city, which was determined not only by fire-fighting measures, but also by the proximity of raw materials: surface deposits of marsh and meadow ores were used to obtain iron. Within the city walls were mainly blacksmith workshops. Blacksmiths received iron in the form of krits (semi-finished products). They were forged to obtain pure metal. The variety of ferrous metal products is extremely large - from the simplest nails and staples to complex weapons.

Medieval blacksmiths were familiar with several grades of steel obtained by repeated forging forging or aging (languishing) in an earthen vessel in a furnace. The blacksmith's tools were distinguished by rationality - the forms of these things have not changed even now. All kinds of forging products required knowledge and application of various processing technologies. Moreover, each land used its own methods. So, in the north of Russia until the middle of the XII century. there was labor-intensive strip welding of steel and iron, which made it possible to create self-sharpening blades. Later, the technique was simplified to welding a steel strip onto an iron base. The demand for blacksmith products and the development of craftsmanship in the XII century. led to the allocation of various blacksmith specialties among urban artisans. According to written sources, armorers (gunsmiths), cutlers, locksmiths and others are known.

Products of Russian blacksmiths were also valued in other countries. It is no coincidence that in the Baltic States, the Czech Republic, and the Balkans, ordinary objects are found, such as padlocks and keys made in Russia. The lock was made like this: a spring was inserted into the cylindrical case, which was one or two thin plates soldered onto the rod. The second end of the spring rod was fixed in a small cylinder connected to the first plate. At the bottom of the large cylinder was a key hole. What could be easier? But it is enough to change the thickness or number of plates in the spring - and another key is needed. That is, each lock and key to it were single. It is not surprising that locksmiths emerged early as a separate specialty, because the lock had from 35 to 42 parts assembled by soldering. The body of the castle, as a rule, was decorated with overlaid parts made of copper alloys or completely covered with non-ferrous metal.

Non-ferrous metals were used quite widely, and their processing methods were common: casting, forging, stamping, embossing, embossing. Raw materials were either brought, often from afar (Scandinavia, Hungary), or often smelted from old or broken things. Craftsmen's products made of non-ferrous metals were in great demand: a variety of women's jewelry, costume details and accessories, religious objects and church utensils, weight weights, flails and maces for soldiers. By the middle of the XII century. along with other technologies, they invented casting in imitation forms, which made it possible to reproduce complex jewelry from a cheap lead-tin alloy. Such "splash" casting - the metal poured into the mold solidified on its walls with a thin layer, and the excess splashed out - made it possible to obtain hollow light decorations, and rare metal was saved.

"Copper smiths" were made in the XII-XIII centuries. decorations for both townspeople and residents of the district. They also made cult objects: cross-vests and encolpions, church decoration and utensils. One of the most impressive examples of such products are the arches from the church of the Vshchizh settlement (in the 12th-13th centuries it was a real city, its ruins were discovered at the end of the 19th century on the territory of the Bryansk region). They are cast using the wax model technique, that is, with the loss of shape. The openwork belt ornament is divided by ovals with images of heraldic birds. These arches are valuable not only for the elegance of execution, but above all for the master's signature, which was added during casting: "Lord, help your servant Konstantin." This is the rarest case, since almost all medieval art is anonymous. Among several dozens of epigraphic monuments, a few names of masters were found. Most often they are found on church objects. The exception was a jeweler named Maxim, who marked his casting molds, one of which was found in Kiev, and the second in the center of metallurgists - Serensk (the city was burned down during the Mongol-Tatar invasion; now the village of the same name in the Kaluga region stands in its place).