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{{Short description|State in Europe, c. 880 to 1240}} | |||
{{accuracy}} | |||
{{About||other historical states known as Rus'|Rus (disambiguation){{!}}Rus}} | |||
{{History of Ukraine}} | |||
{{Pp-move-indef}} | |||
{{History of Russia}} | |||
{{Pp-semi-indef}} | |||
] | |||
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2024}} | |||
'''Kievan Rus′''' or '''Kievan Ruthenia''' was the early, mostly ]{{fn|1}} state dominated by the city of ] from about ] to the middle of the ]. From the ] point of view , Kievan Rus' is considered a ] of three modern East Slavic nations: ], ] and ]. The reigns of ] (]-]) and his son ] (]-]) constitute the ] of ], which saw the acceptance of ] and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code, the '']''. | |||
{{Infobox former country | |||
| native_name = | |||
| conventional_long_name = Kievan Rus' | |||
| common_name = Rus' | |||
| p1 = Novgorod Slavs{{!}}Ilmen Slavs | |||
| p2 = Krivichs | |||
| p3 = Chud | |||
| p4 = Volga Finns | |||
| p5 = Dregoviches | |||
| p6 = Radimichs | |||
| p7 = Polans (eastern){{!}}Eastern Polans | |||
| p8 = Severians | |||
| p9 = Drevlians | |||
| p10 = Vyatichi | |||
| p11 = Volhynians | |||
| p12 = White Croatia | |||
| p13 = Tivertsi | |||
| p14 = Ulichs | |||
| s1 = Principality of Kiev | |||
| s2 = Novgorod Republic | |||
| s3 = Principality of Chernigov | |||
| s4 = Principality of Pereyaslavl | |||
| s5 = Vladimir-Suzdal | |||
| s6 = Principality of Volhynia | |||
| s7 = Principality of Galicia | |||
| s8 = Principality of Polotsk | |||
| s9 = Principality of Smolensk | |||
| s10 = Principality of Ryazan | |||
| s11 = Mongol Empire | |||
| image_coat = ] ] | |||
| symbol_type = ] depicted on coins:<br />Left: ] (10–11th century)<br />Right: ] (11th century) | |||
| coa_size = 60px | |||
| image_flag = | |||
| flag_border = no | |||
| flag_type = | |||
| image_map = Location of Kyivan Rus.png | |||
| image_map_caption = A map of Kievan Rus' after the death of ] in 1054 | |||
| government_type = ] | |||
| demonym = ] | |||
| event_start = | |||
| year_start = {{circa}} 880 | |||
| event1 = Conquest of ] | |||
| date_event1 = 965–969 | |||
| event2 = ] | |||
| date_event2 = {{circa}} 988 | |||
| event3 = '']'' | |||
| date_event3 = 1050s{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2011|p=11}} | |||
| event4 = ] | |||
| date_event4 = 1237–1241 | |||
| event_end = ] | |||
| year_end = 1240 | |||
| capital = {{nowrap|] {{small|(882–1240)}}}} | |||
| legislature = ] | |||
| title_leader = ] | |||
| leader1 = ] | |||
| year_leader1 = {{circa}} 882–912 (first) | |||
| religion = {{Plainlist}} | |||
*] {{small|(native faith of ])}} | |||
*] {{small|(] until 10th century)}} | |||
*] {{small|(official since 10th cent.)}} | |||
*] {{small|(locally practiced)}} | |||
*] {{small|(native faith of ])}} | |||
{{endplainlist}} | |||
| common_languages = {{Plainlist}} | |||
*] | |||
*] (literary)<ref>{{cite book |series=California Slavic Studies |title=Slavic Culture in the Middle Ages |date=2021 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520309180 |pages=141}}</ref> | |||
*] | |||
*] | |||
{{endplainlist}} | |||
| currency = ] | |||
| stat_year1 = 1000<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/knigi/urlanis/urlanis.pdf |page=89 |author=Б.Ц.Урланис |script-title=ru:Рост населения в Европе |language=ru|access-date=17 November 2016 |archive-date=23 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923223243/http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/knigi/urlanis/urlanis.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
| stat_area1 = 1330000 | |||
| stat_pop1 = 5.4 million | |||
| area_km2 = | |||
| area_rank = | |||
| GDP_PPP = | |||
| GDP_PPP_year = | |||
| HDI = | |||
| HDI_year = | |||
| today = | |||
| iso3166code = omit | |||
}} | |||
<!-- If you are editing this page only to change Kiev to Kyiv — there is a longstanding consensus that in unambiguously historical topics "Kiev" is retained. (WP:KIEV) --> | |||
'''Kievan Rus'''',{{efn|"The Rise of Kievan Rus'"{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=55}}}}{{efn|"In these early centuries East Slavic tribes and their neighbours coalesced into the Christian state of Kievan Rus."{{sfn|Martin|2009b|p=1}}}} also known as '''Kyivan Rus{{'}}''',<ref name=":0">{{cite book |last1=Rubin |first1=Barnett R. |last2=Snyder |first2=Jack L. |title=Post-Soviet Political Order: Conflict and State Building |date=1998 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |page=93 |quote=As the capital of Kyivan Rus ...}}. {{Cite web |title=The Golden Age of Kyivan Rus' |url=https://gis.huri.harvard.edu/golden-age-kyivan-rus |access-date=30 October 2022 |website=gis.huri.harvard.edu |language=en |archive-date=30 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221030190556/https://gis.huri.harvard.edu/golden-age-kyivan-rus |url-status=live}} {{Cite web |date=5 March 2020 |title=Ukraine – History, section "Kyivan (Kievan) Rus" |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/History#ref404367 |access-date=2 July 2020 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en |archive-date=6 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906050708/http://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/History#ref404367 |url-status=live}} | |||
== Early history of Rus′ == | |||
* {{Cite web |last=Zhdan |first=Mykhailo |date=1988 |title=Kyivan Rus' |url=http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CK%5CY%5CKyivanRushDA.htm |access-date=2 July 2020 |website=Encyclopedia of Ukraine |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326031245/http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CK%5CY%5CKyivanRushDA.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Katchanovski|Kohut|Nesebio|Yurkevich|2013|p=196}} was the first ] state and later an amalgam of principalities{{sfn|Martin|2009b|p=1–5}} in ] from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Curtis |first1=Glenn Eldon |title=Russia: A Country Study |date=1998 |publisher=Federal Research Division, Library of Congress |isbn=978-0-8444-0866-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GaC4wmxgdT4C |language=en |quote=Kievan Rus', the first East Slavic state, emerged in the ninth century A.D. and developed a complex and frequently unstable political system that flourished until the thirteenth century, when it declined abruptly.}}</ref><ref name="channon">John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical Atlas of Russia'' (Penguin, 1995), p.14–16.</ref> Encompassing a variety of polities and peoples, including ], ],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rus {{!}} people {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rus |access-date=1 April 2022 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en |archive-date=24 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220324025811/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rus |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Little |first=Becky |title=When Viking Kings and Queens Ruled Medieval Russia |url=https://www.history.com/news/vikings-in-russia-kiev-rus-varangians-prince-oleg |access-date=1 April 2022 |website=HISTORY |date=4 December 2019 |language=en |archive-date=6 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220406145926/https://www.history.com/news/vikings-in-russia-kiev-rus-varangians-prince-oleg |url-status=live}}</ref> and ], it was ruled by the ], founded by the ] prince ].<ref name="Kievan"> {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518074730/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/317574/Kievan-Rus/ |date=18 May 2015 }}, Encyclopædia Britannica Online.</ref> The name was coined by Russian historians in the 19th century to describe the period when ] was at the center. At its greatest extent in the mid-11th century, Kievan Rus' stretched from the ] in the north to the ] in the south and from the ] of the ] in the west to the ] in the east,<ref> {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326031245/http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CK%5CY%5CKyivanRushDA.htm |date=26 March 2023 }}, Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.</ref><ref>''See'' {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210511144541/http://izbornyk.org.ua/litop/map_980_1054.htm |date=11 May 2021 }}.</ref> uniting the East Slavic tribes.<ref name=channon/> | |||
According to the '']'', the earliest chronicle of Kievan Rus′, a ] (]) named ] first established himself in ], located in modern Russia (he was selected as common ruler by several ] and ] tribes) in about ] before moving south and extending his authority to ]. The chronicle cites him as the progenitor of the ]. The Primary Chronicle says: | |||
According to the '']'', the first ruler to unite East Slavic lands into what would become Kievan Rus' was ] ({{Reign|879|912}}). He extended his control from ] south along the ] river valley to protect trade from ] incursions from the east,<ref name=channon/> and took control of the city. ] ({{Reign|943|972}}) achieved the first major territorial expansion of the state, fighting a war of conquest against the ]. ] ({{Reign|980|1015}}) ] with his own baptism and, by decree, extended it to all inhabitants of Kiev and beyond. Kievan Rus' reached its greatest extent under ] ({{Reign|1019|1054}}); his sons assembled and issued its first written legal code, the '']'', shortly after his death.{{sfn|Bushkovitch|2011|p=11}} | |||
<blockquote> | |||
''Upon year 6367 (]): Varangians from over the sea had tribute from ]s, ], ], ], ]....'' | |||
The state began to decline in the late 11th century, gradually disintegrating into various rival regional powers throughout the 12th century.<ref>], Historical Atlas of East Central Europe (1993), p.15.</ref> It was further weakened by external factors, such as the ], its major economic partner, and the accompanying diminution of ] through its territory.<ref name="occawlonline.pearsoned.com">{{cite web |url=http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/stearns_awl/chapter15/objectives/deluxe-content.html |title=Civilization in Eastern Europe Byzantium and Orthodox Europe |publisher=occawlonline.pearsoned.com |date=2000 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100122074001/http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/stearns_awl/chapter15/objectives/deluxe-content.html |archive-date=22 January 2010}}</ref> It finally fell to the ] in the mid-13th century, though the ] would continue to rule until the death of ] in 1598.<ref>Picková, Dana, O počátcích státu Rusů, in: Historický obzor 18, 2007, č.11/12, s. 253–261</ref> The modern nations of ], ], and ] all claim Kievan Rus' as their cultural ancestor,{{efn|'For all the salient differences between these three post-Soviet nations, they have much in common when it comes to their culture and history, which goes back to Kievan Rus', the medieval ] state based in the capital of present-day Ukraine,'{{sfn|Plokhy|2006|p=10–15}}}} with Belarus and Russia deriving their names from it, and the name Kievan Rus' derived from what is now the capital of Ukraine.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":0" /> | |||
<br>''Upon year 6370 (]): Drove the Varangians back beyond the sea, refused to pay them tribute, and set out to govern themselves. But there was no law among them, and tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other. They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to custom." Thus they went overseas to the Varangians, to the Rus. These particular Varangians were called Rus, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans and Angles, and still others Goths , for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Ves then said to the Rus, "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come reign as princes, rule over us". Three brothers, with their kinfolk, volunteered. They took with them all the Rus and came.'' | |||
</blockquote> | |||
== Names == | |||
These ]s first settled in ], then moved southward to ] eventually reaching ], finally putting an end to the ]' collecting tribute from Kievans. The so-called Kievan Rus was founded by prince ] (Helgu in Khazarian records) about 880. During the next thirty-five years, Oleg and his warriors subdued the various Eastern Slavic and Finnic tribes. In ], Oleg led an attack against ], and in ] he signed a commercial treaty with the ] as an equal partner. The new Kievan state prospered because it controlled the trade route from the ] to the ] and the ] and because it had an abundant supply of ]s, ], and ] for export. | |||
{{main|Names of Rus', Russia and Ruthenia|Ruthenia}} | |||
Given the postulated pro-Scandinavian bias of the Russian Primary Chronicle, some Slavic historians have debated the role of the Varangians in the establishment of Kievan Rus′ (see ]). By the reign of ] (r. 945-972) Kievan rulers had adopted Slavic religion and names, but their ] still consisted primarily of Scandinavians. Svyatoslav's military conquests were astonishing: he dealt lethal blows to two of his strongest neighbours, Khazaria and the ], which collapsed soon after his raids. | |||
]'', a copy of the ]]] | |||
During its existence, Kievan Rus' was known as the "] land" ({{langx|orv|ро́усьскаѧ землѧ́ |translit=rusĭskaę zemlę}}, from the ethnonym {{langx|orv|{{Slavonic|orv|Роусь}} |translit=Rusĭ|label=none}}; {{Langx|grc|Ῥῶς |translit=Rhos|label=]}}; {{langx|ar|الروس|rtl=yes |translit=ar-Rūs}}), in Greek as {{Langx|grc|Ῥωσία |translit=Rhosia|label=none}}, in Old French as {{lang|fro|Russie, Rossie}}, in Latin as {{Lang|la|Rusia}} or {{lang|la|Russia}} (with local German spelling variants ''Ruscia'' and ''Ruzzia''), and from the 12th century also as {{lang|la|]}} or {{Lang|la|Rutenia}}.<ref name="Nazarenko">{{in lang|ru}} ''Назаренко А. В.'' {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304030958/http://dgve.csu.ru/download/Nazarenko_2001_01.djvu |date=4 March 2016 }} // {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120131082057/http://dgve.csu.ru/bibl/Nazarenko_2001.shtml |date=31 January 2012 }} — М.: Языки русской культуры, 2001. — c. 40, 42—45, 49—50. — {{ISBN|5-7859-0085-8}}.</ref>{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=72–73}} Various ] have been proposed, including {{lang|fi|Ruotsi}}, the ] designation for Sweden or ''Ros'', a tribe from the middle Dnieper valley region.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=56–57}} | |||
According to the prevalent theory, the name ''Rus{{'}}'', like the ] name for ] (''*rootsi''), is derived from an ] term for 'men who row' (''rods-'') because rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of ] (''Rus-law'') or ''Roden''.<ref name="Blöndal2007">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vFRug14ui7gC&pg=PA1 |title=The Varangians of Byzantium |last=Blöndal |first=Sigfús |date=1978 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-03552-1 |page=1 |access-date=2 February 2014 |archive-date=14 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230414031004/https://books.google.com/books?id=vFRug14ui7gC&pg=PA1 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="auto">Stefan Brink, 'Who were the Vikings?', in '' {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230414030955/https://books.google.com/books?id=wuN-AgAAQBAJ |date=14 April 2023 }}'', ed. by Stefan Brink and Neil Price (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), pp. 4–10 (pp. 6–7).</ref> The name ''Rus{{'}}'' would then have the same origin as the Finnish and ] names for Sweden: ''Ruotsi'' and ''Rootsi''.<ref name="auto"/><ref name="etymonline.com">"Russ, adj. and n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/169069. Accessed 12 January 2021.</ref> | |||
== The Golden Age of Kiev == | |||
[[File:Historic core of Rus'.png|thumb|''Rus' land'' in the narrow sense.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Motsia |first=Oleksandr |date=2009 |title=|script-title=uk:«Руська» термінологія в Київському та Галицько-Волинському літописних зводах |trans-title="Ruthenian" question in Kyiv and Halych-Volyn annalistic codes |url=http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/5284/02-Motsya.pdf |journal=Arkheolohiia |issue=1 |pages= |doi=10.6084/M9.FIGSHARE.1492467.V1 |issn=0235-3490 |access-date=25 January 2023 |archive-date=2 February 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202101523/http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/5284/02-Motsya.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
The region of ] dominated the state of Kievan Rus′ for the next two centuries. The ] (]) of Kiev controlled the lands around the city, and his theoretically subordinate relatives ruled in other cities and paid him tribute. The zenith of the state's power came during the reigns of ] (Vladimir the Great, r. ]-]) and ] (the Wise; r. ]-]). Both rulers continued the steady expansion of Kievan Rus′ that had begun under Oleg. ].]] | |||
{{legend|LightSalmon|1. After ]}} | |||
{{legend|Yellow|2. After A. M. Nasonov}} | |||
{{legend|LimeGreen|3. After ]}}]] | |||
When the Varangian princes arrived, the name Rus' was associated with them and came to be associated with the territories they controlled. Initially the cities of Kiev, ], and ] and their surroundings came under Varangian control.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=72}}<ref>{{Cite book |last= |first= |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1077080265 |title= |publisher=Ladomir |year=2014 |editor-last=Melnikova |editor-first=E. A. |location=Moscow |script-title=ru:Древняя Русь в средневековом мире: энциклопедия |trans-title=Early Rus in the medieval world: encyclopedia |oclc=1077080265 |editor-last2=Petrukhin |editor-first2=V. Ya. |editor-link2=Vladimir Petrukhin |editor-last3=Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences}}</ref>{{Rp|page=697}} From the late tenth century, ] and ] tried to associate the name with all of the extended princely domains. Both meanings persisted in sources until the Mongol conquest: the narrower one, referring to the triangular territory east of the middle Dnieper, and the broader one, encompassing all the lands under the hegemony of Kiev's grand princes.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=72}}<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Флоря |first1=Борис Николаевич |title=Исторические судьбы Руси и этническое самосознание восточных славян в XII—XV веках |journal=Славяноведение |date=1993 |volume=2 |page=12-15 |url=https://shron1.chtyvo.org.ua/Floria_Borys/Ystorycheskye_sudb_Rusy_y_tnycheskoe_samosoznanye_vostochnkh_slavian_v_XII-XV_vekakh_k_voprosu_o_zar.pdf |access-date=21 December 2023 |language=ru}}</ref> | |||
The Russian term {{Transliteration|ru|Kiyevskaya Rus'}} ({{langx|ru|Ки́евская Русь}}) was coined in the 19th century in ] to refer to the period when the centre was in Kiev.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Tolochko |first=A. P. |year=1999 |title=Khimera "Kievskoy Rusi" |journal=Rodina |language=ru |issue=8 |pages=29–33}}</ref> In the 19th century it also appeared in Ukrainian as {{Transliteration|uk|Kyivska Rus'}} ({{langx|uk|Ки́ївська Русь}}).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Колесса |first1=Олександер Михайлович |title=Столїтє обновленої українсько-руської лїтератури: (1798–1898) |date=1898 |publisher=З друкарні Наукового Товариства імені Шевченка під зарядом К. Беднарського |location=Львів |page=26 |quote=В XII та XIII в., в часі, коли південна, Київська Русь породила такі перли літературні ... (In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, at a time when southern, Kyivan Rus' gave birth to such literary pearls ...)}}</ref> Later, the Russian term was rendered into Belarusian as {{Transliteration|be|Kiyewskaya Rus'}} or {{transliteration|be|Kijeŭskaja Ruś |translit-std=ungegn}} ({{langx|be|Кіеўская Русь}}) and into Rusyn as {{Transliteration|rue|Kyïvska Rus'}} ({{langx|rue|Київска Русь}}).{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} | |||
Vladimir rose to power in Kiev after the death of his father ] in ] and after defeating his half-brother ] in ]. As Prince of Kiev, Vladimir's greatest achievement was the ] of Kievan Rus′, a process that began in ]. The annals of Rus'''¹''' state that when Vladimir had decided to accept a new faith instead of the traditional idol-worship (]) of the Slavs, he sent out some of his most valued advisors and warriors as emissaries to different parts of Europe. After visiting the ], the ]s and the ], they finally arrived in Constantinople. There, they were so astounded by the beauty of the cathedral of ] and the liturgical service held there, that they made up their minds there and then about the faith they would like to follow. Upon their arrival home, they convinced Vladimir that the faith of the Greeks was the best choice of all, upon which Vladimir made a journey to Constantinople and arranged a marriage between himself and Princess Anna, the sister of the ] emperor ]. | |||
In English, the term was introduced in the early 20th century, when it was found in the 1913 English translation of ]'s ''A History of Russia'',<ref>], '''', vol. 3, pp. 98, 104</ref> to distinguish the early polity from successor states, which were also named ''Rus{{'}}''. | |||
Vladimir's choice of Eastern Christianity may also have reflected his close personal ties with ], which dominated the ] and hence trade on Kiev's most vital commercial route, the ]. Adherence to the ] had long-range political, cultural, and religious consequences. The church had a liturgy written in ] and a corpus of translations from the Greek that had been produced for the ] peoples. The existence of this literature facilitated the conversion to Christianity of the ] and introduced them to rudimentary ], science, and ] without the necessity of learning ]. In contrast, educated people in medieval ] and ] learned ]. Enjoying independence from the Roman authority and free from tenets of Latin learning, the East Slavs developed their own literature and fine arts, quite distinct from those of other Orthodox countries. See ] and Old ] for details. | |||
The ] Rus' from Scandinavia used the ] name {{Langx|non|]|label=none}}, which, according to ], means "land of towns". | |||
==History== | |||
Yaroslav, known as "The Wise", also struggled for power with his brothers. Although he first established his rule over Kiev in ], he did not have uncontested rule of all of Kievan Rus until ]. Like Vladimir, Yaroslav was eager to improve relations with the rest of Europe, especially the Byzantine Empire. Yaroslav's granddaughter, Eupraxia the daughter of his son ], was married to ]. Yaroslav also arranged marriages for his sister and three daughters to the kings of ], ], ], and ]. He built the first great edifice of Kievan Rus′, the ] in Kiev. Yaroslav promulgated the first East Slavic law code, ] (Justice of Rus′); built ] and ]; patronized local clergy and monasticism; and is said to have founded a school system. Yaroslav's sons developed the great ] (monastery), which functioned in Kievan Rus′ as an ecclesiastical academy. ] constructed in the eleventh century. The cathedral remains a symbol of the ] of ].]] | |||
===Origin=== | |||
Prior to the emergence of Kievan Rus' in the 9th century, most of the area north of the ] was primarily populated by ] tribes.{{sfn|Martin|2004|p=2–4}} In the northern region around ] were the ]<ref>Carl Waldman & Catherine Mason, {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092832/https://books.google.com/books?id=kfv6HKXErqAC&pg=PA415 |date=22 March 2023 }}, p.415.</ref> and neighboring ], who occupied territories surrounding the headwaters of the ], ] and ] rivers. To their north, in the ] and ] regions, were the Finnic ] tribe. In the south, in the area around Kiev, were the ],<ref>{{cite book |last= Freeze |first= Gregory L. |author-link= |date= 2009 |title= Russia: A History |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=_xBkabfpfXwC |location= New York |publisher= Oxford University Press |page= 3|isbn= 978-0-19-956041-7}} | |||
*{{cite book |last= Chadwick |first= Nora K. |author-link= |date= 2013 |title= The Beginnings of Russian History: An Enquiry Into Sources |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=RyrFvw39YrgC |location= New York |publisher= Cambridge University Press |page= 17|isbn= 978-1-107-65256-9}}</ref> the ] to the west of the Dnieper, and the ] to the east. To their north and east were the ], and to their south was forested land settled by Slav farmers, giving way to ] populated by nomadic herdsmen.{{sfn|Martin|2004|p=4}} | |||
There was once controversy over whether the ] were ] or Slavs (see ]), however, more recently scholarly attention has focused more on debating how quickly an ancestrally ] people assimilated into Slavic culture.{{efn|"The controversies over the nature of the Rus and the origins of the Russian state have bedevilled Viking studies, and indeed Russian history, for well over a century. It is historically certain that the Rus were Swedes. The evidence is incontrovertible, and that a debate still lingers at some levels of historical writing is clear evidence of the holding power of received notions. The debate over this issue – futile, embittered, tendentious, doctrinaire – served to obscure the most serious and genuine historical problem which remains: the assimilation of these Viking Rus into the Slavic people among whom they lived. The principal historical question is not whether the Rus were Scandinavians or Slavs, but, rather, how quickly these Scandinavian Rus became absorbed into Slavic life and culture."{{sfn|Logan|2005|p=184}}}} This uncertainty is due largely to a paucity of contemporary sources. Attempts to address this question instead rely on archaeological evidence, the accounts of foreign observers, and legends and literature from centuries later.{{sfn|Martin|2009b|p=2}} To some extent the controversy is related to the ] of modern states in the region.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=55}} This often unfruitful debate over origins has periodically devolved into competing nationalist narratives of dubious scholarly value being promoted directly by various government bodies in a number of states. This was seen in the ] period, when ] sought to distance the Rus' from any connection to Germanic tribes, in an effort to dispel Nazi propaganda claiming the Russian state owed its existence and origins to the supposedly racially superior Norse tribes.<ref>Elena Melnikova, 'The "Varangian Problem": Science in the Grip of Ideology and Politics', in ''Russia's Identity in International Relations: Images, Perceptions, Misperceptions'', ed. by Ray Taras (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), pp. 42–52.</ref> More recently, in the context of resurgent nationalism in post-Soviet states, Anglophone scholarship has analyzed renewed efforts to use this debate to create ethno-nationalist foundation stories, with governments sometimes directly involved in the project.<ref>Jonathan Shepard, "Review Article: Back in Old Rus and the USSR: Archaeology, History and Politics", ''English Historical Review'', vol. 131 (no. 549) (2016), 384–405 {{doi|10.1093/ehr/cew104}} (p. 387), citing Leo S. Klejn, ''Soviet Archaeology: Trends, Schools, and History'', trans. by Rosh Ireland and Kevin Windle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 119.</ref> Conferences and publications questioning the Norse origins of the Rus' have been supported directly by state policy in some cases, and the resultant foundation myths have been included in some school textbooks in Russia.<ref>Artem Istranin and Alexander Drono, "Competing historical Narratives in Russian Textbooks", in ''Mutual Images: Textbook Representations of Historical Neighbours in the East of Europe'', ed. by János M. Bak and Robert Maier, Eckert. Dossiers, 10 (: Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, 2017), 31–43 (pp. 35–36).</ref> | |||
In the centuries that followed the state's foundation, ]'s descendants shared power over Kievan Rus′. Princely succession moved from elder to younger brother and from uncle to nephew, as well as from father to son. Junior members of the dynasty usually began their official careers as rulers of a minor district, progressed to more lucrative principalities, and then competed for the coveted throne of Kiev. In the ] and the ], the princes and their retinues, which were a mixture of ] and ]n elites, dominated the society of Kievan Rus′. Leading soldiers and officials received income and land from the princes in return for their political and military services. Kievan society lacked the class institutions and autonomous towns that were typical of West European feudalism. Nevertheless, urban merchants, artisans, and laborers sometimes exercised political influence through a city assembly, the '']'' (council), which included all the adult males in the population. In some cases, the veche either made agreements with their rulers or expelled them and invited others to take their place. At the bottom of society was a small stratum of slaves. More important was a class of tribute-paying peasants, who owed labor duty to the princes; the widespread personal ] characteristic of Western Europe did not exist in Kievan Rus′, however. | |||
While Varangians were Norse traders and ],<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Kievan_Rus/ |title=Kievan Rus |website=] |access-date=24 May 2020 |archive-date=14 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414072503/https://www.worldhistory.org/Kievan_Rus/ |url-status=live}} | |||
== The Rise of regional centers == | |||
*{{Cite book |author=Nikolay Karamzin |title=History of the Russian State |publisher=Steiner |location=Stuttgart |date=1818 |url=http://www.zdravrussia.ru/monarchs/ixxivek/?pag=1 |access-date=2 August 2020 |archive-date=27 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201027215233/http://www.zdravrussia.ru/monarchs/ixxivek/?pag=1 |url-status=live}} | |||
].]] | |||
*{{Cite book |author=Sergey Solovyov |title=History of Russia from the Earliest Times |publisher=Steiner |location=Stuttgart |date=1851 |url=https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Sergej_Solovev/istorija-rossii-s-drevnejshih-vremen/ |access-date=2 August 2020 |archive-date=11 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210511093545/https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Sergej_Solovev/istorija-rossii-s-drevnejshih-vremen/ |url-status=live}}</ref> many Russian and Ukrainian nationalist historians argue that the Rus' were themselves Slavs.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Graham |title=Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities |date=10 September 1998 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-59968-9 |page=31 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BtzEeq9QcRMC |language=en |quote=The Ukrainophile claim is that, in the words of the 1991 declaration of Ukrainian independence, the Ukrainians have a 'thousand-year tradition of state-building'... As in Russophile historiography, the 'Normanist theory' that Rus' was in fact established by Viking envoys, is rejected as a German invention.}}</ref>{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=56}}<ref>Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, pp. 23–28 (Oxford Press, 1984).</ref><ref> {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180907221348/http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CN%5CO%5CNormanisttheory.htm |date=7 September 2018 }} Normanist theory</ref> Normanist theories focus on the earliest written source for the ], the '']'', which was produced in the 12th century.<ref>Riasanovsky, p. 25.</ref> Nationalist accounts on the other hand have suggested that the Rus' were present before the arrival of the Varangians,<ref>Riasanovsky, pp. 25–27.</ref> noting that only a handful of Scandinavian words can be found in Russian and that Scandinavian names in the early chronicles were soon replaced by Slavic names.<ref name=stone>], '''' (2006), pp. 2–3.</ref> | |||
Nevertheless, the close connection between the Rus' and the Norse is confirmed both by extensive Scandinavian settlement in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine and by Slavic influences in the Swedish language.<ref>{{cite web |last=Williams |first=Tom |date=28 February 2014 |title=Vikings in Russia |url=https://blog.britishmuseum.org/vikings-in-russia/ |access-date=15 January 2021 |website=blog.britishmuseum.org |publisher=The British Museum |quote=Objects now on loan to the British Museum for the BP exhibition Vikings: life and legend indicate the extent of Scandinavian settlement from the Baltic to the Black Sea . . . |archive-date=21 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210121221006/https://blog.britishmuseum.org/vikings-in-russia/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Franklin |first1=Simon |title=The Emergence of Rus: 750–1200 |last2=Shepard |first2=Jonathan |publisher=Harlow |year=1996 |isbn=0-582-49090-1 |series=Longman History of Russia |location=Essex}}</ref> Though the debate over the origin of the Rus' remains politically charged, there is broad agreement that if the proto-Rus' were indeed originally Norse, they were quickly ], adopting Slavic languages and other cultural practices. This position, roughly representing a scholarly consensus (at least outside of nationalist historiography), was summarized by the historian, F. Donald Logan, "in 839, the Rus were ]; in 1043 the Rus were ]".{{sfn|Logan|2005|p=184}} | |||
Kievan Rus′ was not able to maintain its position as a powerful and prosperous state, in part because of the amalgamation of disparate lands under the control of a ruling clan. As the members of that clan became more numerous, they identified themselves with regional interests rather than with the larger patrimony. Thus, the princes fought among themselves, frequently forming alliances with outside groups such as the ]s, ], and ]. During the years from 1054 to 1224 no less than 64 principalities had a more or less ephemeral existence, 293 princes put forward succession claims, and their disputes led to 83 ]s. | |||
], an Arab traveler during the 10th century, provided one of the earliest written descriptions of the Rus': "They are as tall as a ], blond and ruddy, so that they do not need to wear a tunic nor a cloak; rather the men among them wear garments that only cover half of his body and leaves one of his hands free."<ref>{{cite book |last=Fadlan |first=Ibn |title=(Richard Frey) Ibn Fadlan's Journey to Russia |year=2005 |publisher=Markus Wiener Publishers |location=Princeton, NJ}}</ref> ], who was twice an envoy to the ] court (949 and 968), identifies the "Russi" with the ] ("the Russi, whom we call Norsemen by another name")<ref>''Rusios, quos alio nos nomine Nordmannos apellamus''. {{in lang|pl}} Henryk Paszkiewicz (2000). ''Wzrost potęgi Moskwy'', s.13, Kraków. {{ISBN|83-86956-93-3}}</ref> but explains the name as a Greek term referring to their physical traits ("A certain people made up of a part of the Norse, whom the Greeks call the Russi on account of their physical features, we designate as Norsemen because of the location of their origin.").<ref>''Gens quaedam est sub aquilonis parte constituta, quam a qualitate corporis Graeci vocant Rusios, nos vero a positione loci nominamus Nordmannos''. James Lea Cate. The University of Chicago Press, 1938</ref> ], a 10th-century Byzantine historian and chronicler, refers to the Rus' as "]" and notes that they tended to adopt Greek rituals and customs.<ref>Leo the Deacon, ''The History of Leo the Deacon: Byzantine Military Expansion in the Tenth Century'' (] & Denis Sullivan, eds., 2005), {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092823/https://books.google.com/books?id=RCDsV41k8A0C&pg=PA193 |date=22 March 2023 }}.</ref> | |||
The ] brought a shift in European trade routes that accelerated the decline of Kievan Rus′. In ] the forces of the ] sacked Constantinople, making the ] trade route marginal. As it declined, Kievan Rus′ splintered into many principalities and several large regional centers: | |||
], ], ], ], ], ] (modern ''Chernihiv''), and ]. The inhabitants of those regional centers then evolved into three nationalities: ] in the southeast and southwest, ] in the northwest, and ] in the north and northeast. | |||
=== Calling of the Varangians=== | |||
=== Novgorod Republic === ], mid-11th century]] | |||
{{Main|Calling of the Varangians}} | |||
''Main article: ]'' | |||
]'' by ]: ] and his brothers ] arrive at the lands of the ].]] | |||
According to the ''Primary Chronicle'', the territories of the East Slavs in the 9th century were divided between the Varangians and the Khazars.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=59}} The Varangians are first mentioned imposing tribute from Slavic and Finnic tribes in 859.{{sfn|Cross|Sherbowitz-Wetzor|1930|p=6}}{{npsn|date=January 2023}} In 862, various tribes rebelled against the Varangians, driving them "back beyond the sea and, refusing them further tribute, set out to govern themselves".{{sfn|Cross|Sherbowitz-Wetzor|1930|p=6}} | |||
In the north, the ] prospered as part of Kievan Rus′ because it controlled trade routes from the ] to the ]. As Kievan Rus′ declined, Novgorod became more independent. A local oligarchy ruled Novgorod; major government decisions were made by a town assembly, which also elected a prince as the city's military leader. In the ], Novgorod acquired its own archbishop, a sign of increased importance and political independence. In its political structure and mercantile activities, Novgorod resembled the north European towns of the ], the prosperous alliance that dominated the commercial activity of the ] between the ] and the ], more than the other principalities of Kievan Rus′. | |||
{{bquote|They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to the Law." They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Rus'. ... The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Ves then said to the Rus', "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us". They thus selected three brothers with their kinfolk, who took with them all the Rus' and migrated.{{sfn|Cross|Sherbowitz-Wetzor|1953|p=7}}}} | |||
=== North-east === | |||
''Main article: ]'' | |||
Modern scholars find this an unlikely series of events, probably made up by the 12th-century Orthodox priests who authored the ''Chronicle'' as an explanation how the Vikings managed to conquer the lands along the Varangian route so easily, as well as to support the legitimacy of the Rurikid dynasty.<ref name="Konstam">{{Cite book |last=Konstam |first=Angus |date=2005 |title=Historical Atlas of the Viking World |location=London |publisher=Mercury Books London |pages=165 |isbn=1904668127 |quote=This unlikely invitation was clearly a vehicle to explain the annexation of these territories by the Vikings, and to lend authority to a later generation of Rus rulers.}}</ref> The three brothers—], ]—supposedly established themselves in Novgorod, ] and ], respectively.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=55, 59–60}} Two of the brothers died, and Rurik became the sole ruler of the territory and progenitor of the ].<ref>Thomas McCray, '''' (2006), p. 26</ref> A short time later, two of Rurik's men, ], asked him for permission to go to Tsargrad (]). On their way south, they came upon "a small city on a hill", Kiev, which was a tributary of the Khazars at the time, stayed there and "established their dominion over the country of the ]."{{sfn|Martin|2009a|p=37}}{{sfn|Cross|Sherbowitz-Wetzor|1953|p=7}}<ref name="Konstam"/> | |||
In the northeast, Slavs colonized the territory that eventually became ] by bringing into subjection and merging with the Finno-Ugric tribes already occupying the area. The city of Rostov was the oldest center of the northeast, but it was supplanted first by ] and then by the city of ], which become the capital of ]. There was recorded a large wave of ]s from Kiev region northward, to escape continuing excursions of the Turkic nomads from the "Wild Steppe". As the southern lands were being depopulated and more boyars, nobles, artisans arrived to the court at Vladimir, the combined ] of Vladimir-Suzdal′ asserted itself as a major power in Kievan Rus′. | |||
The ''Primary Chronicle'' reports that Askold and Dir continued to Constantinople with a navy to ] in 863–66, catching the Byzantines by surprise and ravaging the surrounding area,{{sfn|Cross|Sherbowitz-Wetzor|1953|p=8}}{{npsn|date=January 2023}} though other accounts date the attack in 860.{{sfn|Ostrogorsky|1969|p=228}}{{sfn|Majeska|2009|p=51}} ] vividly describes the "universal" devastation of the suburbs and nearby islands,{{sfn|Logan|2005|p=172–73}} and another account further details the destruction and slaughter of the invasion.<ref>''The Life of St. George of Amastris'' describes the Rus' as a barbaric people "who are brutal and crude and bear no remnant of love for humankind". David Jenkins, {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190805182832/https://library.nd.edu/byzantine_studies/documents/Amastris.pdf |date=5 August 2019 }} (University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), p.18.</ref> The Rus' turned back before attacking the city itself, due either to a storm dispersing their boats, the return of the Emperor, or in a later account, due to a miracle after a ceremonial appeal by the Patriarch and the Emperor to the Virgin.{{sfn|Ostrogorsky|1969|p=228}}{{sfn|Majeska|2009|p=51}} The attack was the first encounter between the Rus' and Byzantines and led the Patriarch to send missionaries north to engage and attempt to convert the Rus' and the Slavs.{{sfn|Majeska|2009|p=52}}<ref name=Obolensky245>Dimitri Obolensky, ''Byzantium and the Slavs'' (1994), {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092835/https://books.google.com/books?id=jv6jcwjW9WUC&dq=saints+cyril+and+methodius&pg=PA245 |date=22 March 2023 }}.</ref> | |||
In ] ] of Vladimir-Suzdal′ dealt a severe blow to the waning power of Kievan Rus′ when his armies sacked the city of Kiev. Prince Andrey then installed his younger brother, who ruled briefly in Kiev while Andrey continued to rule his realm from Suzdal′. Thus, political power began to drift away from Kiev in the second half of the twelfth century. In ], in the wake of the ], the ] moved from Kiev to the city of Vladimir, and Vladimir-Suzdal′ replaced Kiev as a religious center for the northern regions. | |||
===Foundation of the Kievan state=== | |||
=== South-west === ] from the ], supposedly executed by Galician masters in the 1080s.]] | |||
] | |||
Rurik led the Rus' until his death in about 879 or 882, bequeathing his kingdom to his kinsman, ], as regent for his young son, ].{{sfn|Martin|2009b|p=3}} According to the ''Primary Chronicle'', in 880–82, Oleg led a military force south along the ] river, capturing ] and ] before reaching Kiev, where he deposed and killed Askold and Dir: "Oleg set himself up as prince in Kiev, and declared that it should be the "mother of Rus' cities".{{sfn|Cross|Sherbowitz-Wetzor|1953|p=7–8}}{{efn|Normanist scholars accept this moment as the foundation of the Kievan Rus' state, while anti-Normanists point to other ''Chronicle'' entries to argue that the East Slav Polianes were already in the process of forming a state independently.{{sfn|Martin|2009a|p=37–40}}}} Oleg set about consolidating his power over the surrounding region and the riverways north to Novgorod, imposing tribute on the East Slav tribes.{{sfn|Martin|2009a|p=37}} | |||
To the southwest, the ] of ] had developed trade relations with its Polish, Hungarian, and ] neighbors and emerged as the local successor to Kievan Rus′. In the early thirteenth century, ] united the two previously separate principalities, conquered Kiev, and assumed the title of grand duke of Kievan Rus′. His son, ] (Danylo; r. ]-]) was the first ruler of Kievan Rus′ to accept a crown from the Roman ], apparently doing so without breaking with ]. Early in the ], the patriarch of the ] in Constantinople granted the rulers of ] a metropolitan to compensate for the move of the Kievan metropolitan to Vladimir. Lithuanian rulers also requested and received a metropolitan for Novagrudok shortly afterwards. Early in the 15th century, these Metropolia were ruled again from Kiev by the "Metropolitan of Kiev, Halych and all Rus′". | |||
In 883, he conquered the ], imposing a fur tribute on them. By 885 he had subjugated the Poliane, Severiane, Vyatichi, and ], forbidding them to pay further tribute to the Khazars. Oleg continued to develop and expand a network of Rus' forts in Slavic lands, begun by Rurik in the north.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1973|p=23}} | |||
However, a long and unsuccessful struggle against the Mongols combined with internal opposition to the prince, and foreign intervention weakened Galicia-Volhynia. With the end of the ] branch of the ] in the mid-fourteenth century, Galicia-Volhynia ceased to exist; Poland conquered ]; Lithuania took ], including Kiev, conquered by ] in ] ]. Lithuanian rulers then assumed the title of the monarchs of ]. | |||
The new Kievan state prospered due to its abundant supply of furs, beeswax, honey and slaves for export,<ref name=Moss37>Walter Moss, A History of Russia: To 1917 (2005), {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092830/https://books.google.com/books?id=BXgNSFIEJ2QC&dq=russian+history&pg=PA37 |date=22 March 2023 }}.</ref> and because it controlled three main trade routes of ]. In the north, Novgorod served as a commercial link between the Baltic Sea and the ] to the lands of the ], the Khazars, and across the ] as far as ], providing access to markets and products from Central Asia and the Middle East.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=96}}{{sfn|Martin|2009a|p=47}} Trade from the Baltic also moved south on a network of rivers and short portages along the Dnieper known as the "]," continuing to the Black Sea and on to Constantinople.{{sfn|Martin|2009a|p=40, 47}} | |||
Kiev was a central outpost along the Dnieper route and a hub with the east–west overland ] of Central Europe.{{sfn|Martin|2009a|p=40, 47}} and may have been a staging post for ] traders between Western Europe, Itil and China.<ref name=Perrie06>{{Cite book |last1=Perrie |first1=Maureen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GQcviLmjNm0C&q=13+978-0-521-81227-6 |title=The Cambridge History of Russia: Volume 1, From Early Rus' to 1689 |last2=Lieven |first2=D. C. B. |last3=Suny |first3=Ronald Grigor |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-81227-6 |language=en |access-date=28 July 2022 |archive-date=22 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092821/https://books.google.com/books?id=GQcviLmjNm0C&q=13+978-0-521-81227-6 |url-status=live}}</ref> These commercial connections enriched Rus' merchants and princes, funding military forces and the construction of churches, palaces, fortifications, and further towns.{{sfn|Martin|2009a|p=47}} Demand for luxury goods fostered production of expensive jewelry and religious wares, allowing their export, and an advanced credit and money-lending system may have also been in place.<ref name=Moss37/> | |||
=== Early foreign relations === | |||
==== Volatile steppe politics ==== | |||
The rapid expansion of the Rus' to the south led to conflict and volatile relationships with the ] and other neighbors on the ].{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=62, 66}}{{sfn|Martin|2004|p=16–19}} The Khazars dominated trade from the Volga-Don steppes to eastern ] and the northern ] during the 8th century, an era historians call the ']',<ref>Victor Spinei, ''The Romanians and the Turkic Nomads North of the Danube Delta from the Tenth to the Mid-Thirteenth Century'' (2009), {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092829/https://books.google.com/books?id=2vl538CMBsAC&pg=PA47 |date=22 March 2023 }}</ref> trading and frequently ] with the ] against Persians and Arabs. In the late 8th century, the collapse of the ] led the ] and the ] to migrate west from Central Asia into the ] region,<ref>Peter B. Golden, ''Central Asia in World History'' (2011), {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092827/https://books.google.com/books?id=PtT5p-6V5FcC&pg=PA63 |date=22 March 2023 }}.</ref> leading to military conflict, disruption of trade, and instability within the Khazar Khaganate.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=62–63}} The Rus' and Slavs had earlier allied with the Khazars against Arab raids on the Caucasus, but they increasingly worked against them to secure control of the ]s.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1973|p=20}} | |||
] (red), the "]" (purple) and other trade routes of the 8th–11th centuries (orange)]] | |||
The Byzantine Empire was able to take advantage of the turmoil to expand its political influence and commercial relationships, first with the Khazars and later with the Rus' and other steppe groups.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=62}} The Byzantines established the ] of ], formally known as Klimata, in the Crimea in the 830s to defend against raids by the Rus' and to protect vital grain shipments supplying Constantinople.{{sfn|Majeska|2009|p=51}} Cherson also served as a key diplomatic link with the Khazars and others on the steppe, and it became the centre of Black Sea commerce.<ref>Angeliki Papageorgiou, {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129050835/http://blacksea.ehw.gr/forms/fLemmaBodyExtended.aspx?lemmaID=11973 |date=29 November 2014 }}, ''Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World'' (Foundation of the Hellenic World, 2008).</ref> The Byzantines also helped the Khazars build a fortress at ] on the Don river to protect their northwest frontier against incursions by the Turkic migrants and the Rus', and to control caravan trade routes and the portage between the Don and Volga rivers.<ref>Kevin Alan Brook, The Jews of Khazaria (2006), {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092826/https://books.google.com/books?id=hEuIveNl9kcC&pg=PA31 |date=22 March 2023 }}.</ref> | |||
The expansion of the Rus' put further military and economic pressure on the Khazars, depriving them of territory, tributaries and trade.{{sfn|Martin|2004|p=15–16}} In around 890, Oleg waged an indecisive war in the lands of the lower ] and Dnieper rivers with the ] and the ], who were likely acting as vassals of the Magyars, blocking Rus' access to the Black Sea.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1973|p=62}} In 894, the Magyars and Pechenegs were drawn into ] between the Byzantines and the ]. The Byzantines arranged for the Magyars to attack Bulgarian territory from the north, and Bulgaria in turn persuaded the Pechenegs to attack the Magyars from their rear.<ref name=":1">John V. A. Fine, ''The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century'' (1991), {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092840/https://books.google.com/books?id=Y0NBxG9Id58C&pg=PA137 |date=22 March 2023 }}.</ref><ref name=":2">Spanei (2009), .</ref> | |||
Boxed in, the Magyars were forced to migrate further west across the ] into the Hungarian plain, depriving the Khazars of an important ally and a buffer from the Rus'.<ref name=":1"/><ref name=":2"/> The migration of the Magyars allowed access for the Rus' to the Black Sea,{{sfn|Vernadsky|1973|p=28}} and they soon launched excursions into Khazar territory along the sea coast, up the Don river, and into the lower Volga region. The Rus' were ] into the Caspian Sea region from 864,{{efn|Abaskun, first recorded by ] as ''Socanaa'', was documented in Arab sources as "the most famous port of the Khazarian Sea". It was situated within three days' journey from ]. The southern part of the Caspian Sea was known as the "Sea of Abaskun".<ref>B. N. Zakhoder (1898–1960). ''The Caspian Compilation of Records about Eastern Europe'' ( {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210501171821/http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/Rest/index.html |date=1 May 2021 }}) (in Russian).</ref>}} with the first large-scale expedition in 913, when they extensively raided Baku, Gilan, Mazandaran and penetrated into the Caucasus.{{Explanatory footnote|The Khazar khagan initially granted the Rus' safe passage in exchange for a share of the booty but attacked them on their return voyage, killing most of the raiders and seizing their haul.}}{{sfn|Vernadsky|1973|p=32–33}}<ref>Gunilla Larsson. {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423152901/https://books.google.com/books?id=fOoiAQAAIAAJ&q=kievan+rus+raid+gilan |date=23 April 2023 }} Uppsala Universitet, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, 2007. {{ISBN|91-506-1915-2}}. p. 208.</ref><ref> {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092842/https://books.google.com/books?id=nnApAQAAIAAJ&q=kievan+rus+raid+gilan+shirvan |date=22 March 2023 }}. Mouton, 1994. (originally from the ], digitalised on 9 March 2010)</ref> | |||
As the 10th century progressed, the Khazars were no longer able to command tribute from the Volga Bulgars, and their relationship with the Byzantines deteriorated, as Byzantium increasingly allied with the Pechenegs against them.<ref>Moss (2005), {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092824/https://books.google.com/books?id=BXgNSFIEJ2QC&q=Pechenegs&pg=PA29 |date=22 March 2023 }}.</ref> The Pechenegs were thus secure to raid the lands of the Khazars from their base between the Volga and ] rivers, allowing them to expand to the west.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=66}} Relations between the Rus' and Pechenegs were complex, as the groups alternately formed alliances with and against one another. The Pechenegs were nomads roaming the steppe raising livestock which they traded with the Rus' for agricultural goods and other products.{{sfn|Martin|2004|p=17}} | |||
The lucrative Rus' trade with the Byzantine Empire had to pass through Pecheneg-controlled territory, so the need for generally peaceful relations was essential. Nevertheless, while the ''Primary Chronicle'' reports the Pechenegs entering Rus' territory in 915 and then making peace, they were waging war with one another again in 920.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=67}}{{sfn|Cross|Sherbowitz-Wetzor|1930|p=71}}{{npsn|date=January 2023}} Pechenegs are reported assisting the Rus' in later campaigns against the Byzantines, yet allied with the Byzantines against the Rus' at other times.<ref>Moss (2005), {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092824/https://books.google.com/books?id=BXgNSFIEJ2QC&q=Pechenegs&pg=PA29 |date=22 March 2023 }}.</ref> | |||
====Rus'–Byzantine relations==== | |||
{{more citations needed|section|date=January 2023}} | |||
]''}}]] | |||
After the Rus' attack on Constantinople in 860, the Byzantine ] sent missionaries north to convert the Rus' and the Slavs to Christianity. Prince ] had requested the Emperor to provide teachers to interpret the holy scriptures, so in 863 the brothers ] were sent as missionaries, due to their knowledge of the Slavonic language.<ref name=Obolensky245/><ref>Saints Cyril and Methodius, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150505010631/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1345803/Saints-Cyril-and-Methodius|date=5 May 2015}} ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.</ref>{{fv|date=January 2023|reason=Doesn't mention "Rus'" anywhere. 'They started their work among the Slavs in 863', that's all. WP:SYNTH.}}{{sfn|Cross|Sherbowitz-Wetzor|1930|p=62–63}}{{npsn|date=January 2023}} The Slavs had no written language, so the brothers devised the ], later replaced by ] (developed in the ]) and standardized the language of the Slavs, later known as ]. They translated portions of the Bible and drafted the first Slavic civil code and other documents, and the language and texts spread throughout Slavic territories, including Kievan Rus'.{{cn|date=January 2023}} The mission of Cyril and Methodius served both evangelical and diplomatic purposes, spreading Byzantine cultural influence in support of imperial foreign policy.<ref>Obolensky (1994), {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322092837/https://books.google.com/books?id=jv6jcwjW9WUC&dq=saints+cyril+and+methodius&pg=PA244 |date=22 March 2023 }}.</ref>{{deadlink|date=January 2023}} In 867 the Patriarch announced that the Rus' had accepted a bishop, and in 874 he speaks of an "Archbishop of the Rus'."{{sfn|Majeska|2009|p=52}} | |||
Relations between the Rus' and Byzantines became more complex after Oleg took control over Kiev, reflecting commercial, cultural, and military concerns.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=66–67}} The wealth and income of the Rus' depended heavily upon trade with Byzantium. ] described the annual course of the princes of Kiev, collecting tribute from client tribes, assembling the product into a flotilla of hundreds of boats, conducting them down the Dnieper to the Black Sea, and sailing to the estuary of the Dniester, the Danube delta, and on to Constantinople.{{sfn|Martin|2004|p=17}}{{sfn|Vernadsky|1973|p=28–31}} On their return trip they would carry silk fabrics, spices, wine, and fruit.{{sfn|Majeska|2009|p=52}}{{sfn|Vernadsky|1973|p=22}} | |||
The importance of this trade relationship led to military action when disputes arose. The ''Primary Chronicle'' reports that the Rus' ] again in 907, probably to secure trade access. The Chronicle glorifies the military prowess and shrewdness of Oleg, an account imbued with legendary detail.{{sfn|Majeska|2009|p=52}}{{sfn|Vernadsky|1973|p=22}} Byzantine sources do not mention the attack, but a pair of treaties in ] and ] set forth a trade agreement with the Rus',{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=67}}<ref>John Lind, Varangians in Europe's Eastern and Northern Periphery, Ennen & nyt (2004:4).</ref> the terms suggesting pressure on the Byzantines, who granted the Rus' quarters and supplies for their merchants and tax-free trading privileges in Constantinople.{{sfn|Majeska|2009|p=52}}{{sfn|Logan|2005|p=192}} | |||
The ''Chronicle'' provides a mythic tale of Oleg's death. A sorcerer prophesies that the death of the ] would be associated with a certain horse. Oleg has the horse sequestered, and it later dies. Oleg goes to visit the horse and stands over the carcass, gloating that he had outlived the threat, when a snake strikes him from among the bones, and he soon becomes ill and dies.{{sfn|Vernadsky|1973|p=22–23}}{{sfn|Cross|Sherbowitz-Wetzor|1930|p=69}}{{npsn|date=January 2023}} The ''Chronicle'' reports that ] succeeded Oleg in 913, and after some brief conflicts with the Drevlians and the Pechenegs, a period of peace ensued for over twenty years.{{cn|date=January 2023}} | |||
]'s avenge to the Drevlians, ''Radziwiłł Chronicle'']] | |||
In 941, Igor led another ] on Constantinople, probably over trading rights again.{{sfn|Majeska|2009|p=52}} A navy of 10,000 vessels, including Pecheneg allies, landed on the ]n coast and devastated the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus.{{sfn|Ostrogorsky|1969|p=277}} The attack was well timed, perhaps due to intelligence, as the Byzantine fleet was occupied with the Arabs in the Mediterranean, and the bulk of its army was stationed in the east. The Rus' burned towns, churches and monasteries, butchering the people and amassing booty. The emperor arranged for a small group of retired ships to be outfitted with ] throwers and sent them out to meet the Rus', luring them into surrounding the contingent before unleashing the Greek fire.{{sfn|Logan|2005|p=193}} | |||
] wrote that "the Rus', seeing the flames, jumped overboard, preferring water to fire. Some sank, weighed down by the weight of their breastplates and helmets; others caught fire." Those captured were beheaded. The ploy dispelled the Rus' fleet, but their attacks continued into the hinterland as far as ], with many atrocities reported as victims were crucified and set up for use as targets. At last a Byzantine army arrived from the Balkans to drive the Rus' back, and a naval contingent reportedly destroyed much of the Rus' fleet on its return voyage (possibly an exaggeration since the Rus' soon mounted another attack). The outcome indicates increased military might by Byzantium since 911, suggesting a shift in the balance of power.{{sfn|Ostrogorsky|1969|p=277}} | |||
Igor returned to Kiev keen for revenge. He assembled a large force of warriors from among neighboring Slavs and Pecheneg allies, and sent for reinforcements of Varangians from "beyond the sea".{{sfn|Logan|2005|p=193}}{{sfn|Cross|Sherbowitz-Wetzor|1930|p=72}} In 944, the Rus' force advanced again on the Greeks, by land and sea, and a Byzantine force from Cherson responded. The Emperor sent gifts and offered tribute in lieu of war, and the Rus' accepted. Envoys were sent between the Rus', the Byzantines, and the Bulgarians in 945, and a ] was completed. The agreement again focused on trade, but this time with terms less favorable to the Rus', including stringent regulations on the conduct of Rus' merchants in Cherson and Constantinople and specific punishments for violations of the law.{{sfn|Cross|Sherbowitz-Wetzor|1930|p=73–78}}{{npsn|date=January 2023}} The Byzantines may have been motivated to enter the treaty out of concern of a prolonged alliance of the Rus', Pechenegs, and Bulgarians against them,<ref>Spinei, p.93.</ref> though the more favorable terms further suggest a shift in power.{{sfn|Ostrogorsky|1969|p=277}} | |||
====Sviatoslav==== | |||
]'', meeting between ] and Sviatoslav]] | |||
Following the death of ] in 945, his wife ] ruled as ] in Kiev until their son ] reached maturity (c. 963).{{efn|If Olga was indeed born in 879, as the '']'' seems to imply, she would have been about 65 at the time of Sviatoslav's birth. There are clearly some problems with chronology.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2018|p=41–42}}}} His decade-long reign over Kievan Rus' was marked by rapid expansion through the conquest of the Khazars of the ] and the ]. By the end of his short life, Sviatoslav carved out for himself the largest state in Europe, eventually moving his capital from Kiev to ] on the ] in 969.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} | |||
In contrast with his mother's conversion to ], Sviatoslav, like his ], remained a staunch ]. Due to his abrupt death in an ambush in 972, Sviatoslav's conquests, for the most part, were not consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to establish a stable succession led to a ] feud among his sons, which resulted in two of his three sons being killed.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} | |||
===Reign of Vladimir and Christianisation=== | |||
{{Main|Christianization of Kievan Rus'}} | |||
{{Further|Conversion of Vladimir the Great}} | |||
], ] and ]]] | |||
], in ]]] | |||
It is not clearly documented when the title of grand prince was first introduced, but the importance of the Kiev principality was recognized after the death of Sviatoslav I in 972 and the ensuing struggle between ] and ]. The region of Kiev dominated the region for the next two centuries. The grand prince (or grand duke) of Kiev controlled the lands around the city, and his formally subordinate relatives ruled the other cities and paid him tribute. The zenith of the state's power came during the reigns of Vladimir the Great ({{Reign|980|1015}}) and Prince ] ({{Reign|1019|1054}}). Both rulers continued the steady expansion of Kievan Rus' that had begun under Oleg.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} | |||
Vladimir had been ] when his father Sviatoslav I died in 972, but fled to ] in 977 after his half-brother Yaropolk killed his other half-brother Oleg.{{sfn|Martin|2007|pp=1–2}} According to the ''Primary Chronicle'', Vladimir assembled a host of Varangian warriors, first subdued the ] and then defeated and killed Yaropolk, thus establishing his reign over the entire Kievan Rus' realm.{{sfn|Martin|2007|pp=1–2}} | |||
Although sometimes solely attributed to Vladimir, the ] was a long and complicated process that began before the state's formation.{{sfn|Katchanovski|Kohut|Nesebio|Yurkevich|2013|p=74}} As early as the 1st century AD, ] converted to Christianity, and the '']'' even records the legend of ]'s mission to these coastal settlements, as well as blessing the site of present-day Kyiv.{{sfn|Katchanovski|Kohut|Nesebio|Yurkevich|2013|p=74}} The ] migrated to through the region in the 3rd century, adopting ] in the 4th century, leaving behind 4th- and 5th-century churches excavated in Crimea, although the ] invasion of the 370s halted Christianisation for several centuries.{{sfn|Katchanovski|Kohut|Nesebio|Yurkevich|2013|p=74}} Some of the earliest Kievan princes and princesses such as ] and ] reportedly converted to Christianity, but ], ] and ] remained pagans.{{sfn|Katchanovski|Kohut|Nesebio|Yurkevich|2013|p=74–75}} | |||
The ''Primary Chronicle'' records the legend that when Vladimir had decided to accept a new faith instead of traditional ], he sent out some of his most valued advisors and warriors as emissaries to different parts of Europe. They visited the Christians of the ], the ]s, and the ] before finally arriving in Constantinople. They rejected Islam because, among other things, it prohibited the consumption of alcohol, and Judaism because the god of the Jews had permitted his ] to be deprived of their country.{{sfn|Martin|2004|p=6–7}} They found the ceremonies in the Roman church to be dull. But at Constantinople, they were so astounded by the beauty of the cathedral of ] and the liturgical service held there that they made up their minds there and then about the faith they would like to follow. Upon their arrival home, they convinced Vladimir that the faith of the ] was the best choice of all, upon which Vladimir made a journey to Constantinople and arranged to marry ], the sister of Byzantine emperor ].{{sfn|Martin|2004|p=6–7}} Historically, it is more likely that he adopted Byzantine Christianity in order to strengthen his diplomatic relations with Constantinople.{{sfn|Katchanovski|Kohut|Nesebio|Yurkevich|2013|p=75}} Vladimir's choice of Eastern Christianity may have reflected his close personal ties with Constantinople, which dominated the Black Sea and hence trade on Kiev's most vital commercial route, the ].<ref name="Franklin"/> According to the ''Primary Chronicle'', Vladimir was baptised in {{circa}} 987, and ordered the population of Kiev to be baptised in August 988.{{sfn|Katchanovski|Kohut|Nesebio|Yurkevich|2013|p=75}} The greatest resistance against Christianisation appears to have occurred in northern towns including Novgorod, Suzdal, and Belozersk.{{sfn|Katchanovski|Kohut|Nesebio|Yurkevich|2013|p=75}} | |||
Adherence to the ] had long-range political, cultural, and religious consequences.<ref name="Franklin"/> The church had a ] written in ] and a corpus of translations from Greek that had been produced for the ]. This literature facilitated the conversion to Christianity of the ] and introduced them to rudimentary ], science, and ] without the necessity of learning ] (there were some merchants who did business with Greeks and likely had an understanding of contemporary business Greek).<ref name="Franklin">{{cite journal |last=Franklin |first=Simon |title=Greek in Kievan Rus' |journal=Dumbarton Oaks Papers |year=1992 |volume=46 |pages=69–81 |doi=10.2307/1291640 |jstor=1291640}}</ref> Following the ] of 1054, the Kievan church maintained communion with both Rome and Constantinople for some time, but along with most of the Eastern churches it eventually split to follow the Eastern Orthodox. That being said, unlike other parts of the Greek world, Kievan Rus' did not have a strong hostility to the Western world.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Colucci |first=Michele |title=The Image of Western Christianity in the Culture of Kievan Rus' |journal=Harvard Ukrainian Studies |year=1989 |volume=12/13 |pages=576–586}}</ref> | |||
=== Reign of Yaroslav === | |||
]]] | |||
], known as "the Wise", struggled for power with his brothers. A son of ], he was prince of Novgorod at the time of his father's death in 1015.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/652106/Yaroslav-I |title=Yaroslav I (prince of Kiev) – Encyclopædia Britannica |publisher=Britannica.com |date=22 May 2014 |access-date=7 August 2014 |archive-date=17 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141017153710/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/652106/Yaroslav-I |url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
Although he first established his rule over Kiev in 1019, he did not have uncontested rule of all of Kievan Rus' until 1036. Like Vladimir, Yaroslav was eager to improve relations with the rest of Europe, especially the Byzantine Empire. Yaroslav's granddaughter, ], the daughter of his son ], was married to ]. Yaroslav also arranged marriages for his sister and three daughters to the kings of Poland, France, Hungary and Norway.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} | |||
Yaroslav promulgated the first law code of Kievan Rus', the '']''; built ] and ]; patronized local clergy and ]; and is said to have founded a school system. Yaroslav's sons developed the great ] (]).{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} | |||
=== Succession issues === | |||
{{See also|War of succession#Analysis}} | |||
] | |||
In the centuries that followed the state's foundation, ] shared power over Kievan Rus'. The means by which royal power was transferred from one Rurikid ruler to the next is unclear, however, historian ] mentioned that 'Scholars have debated what the actual system of succession was or whether there was any system at all.'{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=82}} According to historian Nancy Kollmann, the ] was used with the princely succession moving from elder to younger brother and from uncle to nephew, as well as from father to son. Junior members of the dynasty usually began their official careers as rulers of a minor district, progressed to more lucrative principalities, and then competed for the coveted throne of Kiev.<ref>Nancy Shields Kollmann, "Collateral Succession in Kievan Rus'." ''Harvard Ukrainian Studies'' 14 (1990): 377–87.</ref> Whatever the case, according to professor Ivan Katchanovski 'no adequate system of succession to the Kievan throne was developed' after the death of ] ({{Reign|1019|1054}}), commencing a process of gradual disintegration.{{sfn|Katchanovski|Kohut|Nesebio|Yurkevich|2013|p=1}} | |||
The unconventional power succession system fomented constant hatred and rivalry within the royal family. ] was frequently deployed to obtain power and can be traced particularly during the time of the Yaroslavichi (sons of Yaroslav), when the established succession system was skipped in the establishment of ] as the Grand Prince of Kiev ({{Reign|1113|1125}}),<!--Why was the established rota system 'skipped'?--> in turn creating major squabbles between the ''Olegovichi'' (sons of ]) from Chernigov, the ''Monomakhovichi'' from Pereyaslavl, the ''Izyaslavichi'' (sons of ]) from ]–], and the ]. The position of the grand prince of Kiev was weakened by the growing influence of regional clans.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} | |||
===Fragmentation and decline=== | |||
The rival ] was contesting the power of the Grand Prince by occupying Novgorod, while ] was fighting for the Black Sea port of ] belonging to Chernigov. Three of Yaroslav's sons that first allied together found themselves fighting each other especially after their defeat to the Cuman forces in 1068 at the ].{{Citation needed|date=September 2013}} | |||
The ruling Grand Prince Iziaslav fled to Poland asking for support and in a couple of years returned to establish the order. The affairs became even more complicated by the end of the 11th century driving the state into chaos and constant warfare. On the initiative of Vladimir II Monomakh in 1097 the ] of Kievan Rus' took place near Chernigov with the main intention to find an understanding among the fighting sides.{{Citation needed|date=September 2013}} | |||
By 1130, all descendants of ] had been exiled to the Byzantine Empire by ]. The most fierce resistance to the Monomakhs was posed by the Olegovichi when the ] ] managed to become the Grand Prince of Kiev. The '']'', who had initially established in the lands of ] by 1189, were defeated by the Monomakh-Piast descendant ].{{Citation needed|date=September 2013}} | |||
The decline of Constantinople—a main trading partner of Kievan Rus'—played a significant role in the decline of the Kievan Rus'. The ], along which the goods were moving from the Black Sea (mainly Byzantine) through ] to the Baltic, was a cornerstone of Kievan wealth and prosperity. These trading routes became less important as the Byzantine Empire declined in power and Western Europe created new trade routes to Asia and the Near East. As people relied less on passing through the territories of Kievan Rus' for trade, the economy of Kievan Rus' suffered.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Russia : a historical introduction from Kievan Rus' to the present |last=Thompson, John M. (John Means) |others=Ward, Christopher J., 1972– |isbn=978-0-8133-4985-5 |edition=Eighth |location=New York, NY |pages=20 |oclc=987591571 |date=25 July 2017}}</ref> | |||
The last ruler to maintain a united state was Mstislav the Great. After his death in 1132, Kievan Rus' fell into recession and a rapid decline, and Mstislav's successor ], instead of focusing on the external threat of the ], was embroiled in conflicts with the growing power of the ]. In March 1169, a coalition of native princes led by Andrei Bogolyubsky of Vladimir ].<ref>{{citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mMoFBAAAQBAJ&q=The+Sack+of+Kiev+of+1169%3A+Its+Significance+for+the+Succession+to+Kievan+Rus%27&pg=PA323 |title=The Emergence of Russia 750–1200 |first1=Simon |last1=Franklin |first2=Jonathan |last2=Shepard |pages=323–4 |publisher=Routledge |date=1996 |isbn=978-1-317-87224-5 |access-date=14 November 2020 |archive-date=23 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423152840/https://books.google.com/books?id=mMoFBAAAQBAJ&q=The+Sack+of+Kiev+of+1169%3A+Its+Significance+for+the+Succession+to+Kievan+Rus%27&pg=PA323 |url-status=live}}</ref> This changed the perception of Kiev and was evidence of the fragmentation of the Kievan Rus'.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Pelenski |first=Jaroslaw |title=The Sack of Kiev of 1169: Its Significance for the Succession to Kievan Rus' |journal=Harvard Ukrainian Studies |year=1987 |volume=11 |pages=303–316}}</ref> By the end of the 12th century, the Kievan state fragmented even further, into roughly twelve different principalities.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kollmann |first=Nancy |title=Collateral Succession in Kievan Rus |journal=Harvard Ukrainian Studies |year=1990 |volume=14 |pages=377–387}}</ref> | |||
], one of the successor states of Kievan Rus']] | |||
The ] brought a shift in European trade routes that accelerated the decline of Kievan Rus'. In 1204, the forces of the ] sacked Constantinople, making the ] trade route marginal.<ref name="occawlonline.pearsoned.com"/> At the same time, the ] (of the ]) were conquering the ] region and threatening the ].{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} | |||
In the north, the ] prospered because it controlled trade routes from the ] to the Baltic Sea. As Kievan Rus' declined, Novgorod became more independent. A local ] ruled Novgorod; major government decisions were made by a town assembly, which also elected a prince as the city's military leader. In 1136, Novgorod revolted against Kiev, and became independent.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|page=85}} Now an independent ], and referred to as "Lord Novgorod the Great" it would spread its "mercantile interest" to the west and the north; to the Baltic Sea and the low-populated forest regions, respectively.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|page=85}} | |||
In 1199, ] united the two previously separate principalities of Galicia and ].{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=124}} His son ] ({{Reign|1238|1264}}) looked for support from the West.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=126}} He accepted a crown from the Roman ].{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=126}} | |||
===Final disintegration=== | |||
Following the Mongol invasion of ] (or the Kipchaks), in which case many Cuman rulers fled to Rus', such as ], the state finally disintegrated under the pressure of the ], fragmenting it into successor principalities who paid tribute to the ] (the so-called ]). Just prior to the Mongol invasion, Kievan Rus' had been a relatively prosperous region. International trade as well as skilled artisans flourished, while its farms produced enough to feed the urban population. After the invasion of the late 1230s, the economy shattered, and its population were either slaughtered or ]; while skilled laborers and artisans were sent to the Mongol's steppe regions.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Halperin |first=Charles J. |url=http://archive.org/details/russiagoldenhord0000halp |title=Russia and the Golden Horde : the Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-253-35033-6 |location=Bloomington |pages=75–77 |language=en}}</ref> | |||
On the southwestern periphery, Kievan Rus' was succeeded by the ]. Later, as these territories, now part of modern central ] and ], fell to the ], the powerful, largely Ruthenized ] drew heavily on the cultural and legal traditions of the Rus'. From 1398 until the ] in 1569, its full name was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.history.org.ua/?termin=Velyke_Kniazivstvo_Lytovske |title=Русина О.В. ВЕЛИКЕ КНЯЗІВСТВО ЛИТОВСЬКЕ // Енциклопедія історії України: Т. 1: А-В / Редкол.: В. А. Смолій (голова) та ін. НАН України. Інститут історії України. – К.: В-во "Наукова думка", 2003. – 688 с.: іл. |access-date=21 December 2019 |archive-date=21 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160421035233/http://history.org.ua/?termin=Velyke_Kniazivstvo_Lytovske |url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
On the north-eastern periphery of Kievan Rus', traditions were adapted in the ] principality that gradually gravitated towards Moscow. To the very north, the ] and ] feudal republics were less autocratic than Vladimir-Suzdal-Moscow until they were absorbed by the ]. Modern historians from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine alike consider Kievan Rus' the first period of their modern countries' histories.{{sfn|Katchanovski|Kohut|Nesebio|Yurkevich|2013|p=1}}{{sfn|Plokhy|2006|p=10–15}} | |||
== Society == | |||
=== Culture === | |||
]]] | |||
{{Main|Culture of Kievan Rus'}} | |||
{{see also|Kievan Rus' law|Russkaya Pravda|Demographic history of Russia#Kievan Rus, Mongol invasion and vassalage}} | |||
The lands of Kievan Rus' were mostly made up of forests and steppes (see ] and ]), while its main rivers all originated in the ]: the ], and primarily populated by ] and ].{{sfn|Martin|2009b|p=1–2}} All tribes were ]s to a certain degree, but the Slavs were primarily agriculturalists, growing cereal grains and crops, as well as raising livestock.{{sfn|Martin|2009b|p=2}} Before the emergence of the Kievan state, these tribes had their own leaders and gods, and interaction between tribes was occasionally marked either by trading goods or fighting battles.{{sfn|Martin|2009b|p=2}} The most valuable commodities traded were captive slaves and fur pelts (usually in exchange for silver coins or oriental finery), and common trade partners were ] ], ] ] and ] ].{{sfn|Martin|2009b|p=2}} By the early 9th century, bands of Scandinavian adventurers known as ] and later ] started plundering various (Slavic) villages in the region, later extracting tribute in exchange for protection against pillaging by other Varangians.{{sfn|Martin|2009b|p=2}} Over time, these relationships of tribute for protection evolved into more permanent political structures: the Rus' lords became princes and the Slavic populace their subjects.{{sfn|Martin|2009b|p=2, 5}} | |||
=== Economy === | |||
{{Further|Money of Kievan Rus'}} | |||
].]] | |||
In the early 10th century, Kievan Rus' mainly traded with other tribes in ] and ]. "There was little need for complex social structures to carry out these exchanges in the forests north of the steppes. So long as the entrepreneurs operated in small numbers and kept to the north, they did not catch the attention of observers or writers". The Rus' also had strong trading ties to ], particularly in the early 900s, as treaties in 911 and 944 indicate. These treaties deal with the treatment of runaway Byzantine slaves and limitations on the amounts of certain commodities such as ] that could be bought from Byzantium. The Rus' used log rafts floated down the ] by ] tribes for the transport of goods, particularly ].<ref>Franklin, Simon, and Jonathan Shepard (1996). ''The Emergence of Rus 750–1200''. Harlow, Essex: Longman Group, Ltd., pp. 27–28, 127.</ref> | |||
During the Kievan era, trade and transport depended largely on networks of rivers and portages.<ref name="Cuisenier1979">{{cite book |author=William H. McNeill |authorlink=William H. McNeill (historian) |editor=Jean Cuisenier |title=Europe as a Cultural Area |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xbjbroz9hQQC&pg=PA32 |access-date=8 February 2016 |series=World Anthropology |date=1 January 1979 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-080070-8 |pages=32–33 |quote=For a while, it looked as if the Scandinavian thrust toward monarchy and centralization might succeed in building two impressive and imperial structures: a Danish empire of the northern seas, and a Varangian empire of the Russian rivers, headquartered at Kiev.... In the east, new hordes of steppe nomads, fresh from central Asia, intruded upon the river-based empire of the Varangians by taking over its southern portion.}}</ref> By this period, trade networks had expanded to cater to more than just local demand. This is evidenced by a survey of glassware found in over 30 sites ranging from Suzdal, Drutsk and Belozeroo, which found that a substantial majority was manufactured in Kiev. Kiev was the main depot and transit point for trade between itself, ] and the ] region. Even though this trade network had already been existent, the volume of which had expanded rapidly in the 11th century. Kiev was also dominant in internal trade between the towns of Rus'; it held a monopoly on glassware products (glass vessels, glazed pottery and window glass) up until the early- to mid-12th century until which it lost its monopoly to the other towns in Rus'. Inlaid ] production techniques was borrowed from Byzantine. Byzantine amphorae, wine and olive oil have been found along the middle Dnieper, suggesting trade between Kiev, along trade towns to Byzantium.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Simon |first=Frank |url=https://archive.org/details/emergenceofrus750000fran/page/280/mode/2up?q=beloozero |title=The Emergence of Rus, 750–1200 |publisher=Longman |year=1996 |pages=281 |isbn=978-0-582-49091-8}}</ref> | |||
In winter, the ruler of Kiev went out on rounds, visiting ], ], ], ], and other subordinated tribes. Some paid tribute in money, some in furs or other commodities, and some in slaves. This system was called ].{{sfn|Martin|2004|p=12–13}}<ref>История Европы с древнейших времен до наших дней. Т. 2. М.: Наука, 1988. {{ISBN|978-5-02-009036-1}}. С. 201.</ref> | |||
=== Religion === | |||
{{Further|Culture of Kievan Rus'#Religion|Conversion of Vladimir the Great}} | |||
{{multiple image | |||
| width = 120px | |||
| image1 = St. Sophia Cathedral in Polotsk - Miniature.JPG | |||
| alt1 = | |||
| caption1 = ] (rebuilt in the mid-18th century after destruction by the Russian army) | |||
| image2 = DSC00281 2009 Великий Новгород, Кремль, Софийский собор.jpg | |||
| alt2 = | |||
| caption2 = ], mid-11th century | |||
| image3 = Владимир Успенский собор 2008.JPG | |||
| alt3 = | |||
| caption3 = ], 1160 | |||
}} | |||
According to Martin (2009), 'Christianity, Judaism, and Islam had long been known in these lands, and ] personally converted to Christianity. When ] assumed the throne, however, he set idols of Norse, Slav, Finn, and Iranian gods, worshipped by the disparate elements of his society, on a hilltop in Kiev in an attempt to create a single pantheon for his people. But for reasons that remain unclear he soon abandoned this attempt in favour of Christianity.'{{sfn|Martin|2009b|p=6}} | |||
=== Architecture === | |||
{{Main|Architecture of Kievan Rus'}} | |||
{{See also|List of buildings of pre-Mongol Kievan Rus'}} | |||
The architecture of Kievan Rus' is the earliest period of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian architecture, using the foundations of Byzantine culture, but with great use of innovations and architectural features. Most remains are Russian Orthodox churches or parts of the gates and fortifications of cities.{{cn|date=February 2024}} | |||
==Administrative divisions== | |||
{{See also|List of tribes and states in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine}} | |||
] | |||
The East Slavic lands were originally divided into princely domains called ''zemlias'', "lands", or '']'' (from a term meaning "power" or "government").<ref name=":6">{{Cite web |last=Zhukovsky |first=Arkadii |date=1993 |title=Volost |url=http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CV%5CO%5CVolostIT.htm |access-date=24 January 2023 |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine |archive-date=5 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205104201/http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CV%5CO%5CVolostIT.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> A smaller clan-sized unit was called a ''verv'', or '']'', headed by a ''kopa'' or '']''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Verv |url=http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CV%5CE%5CVervIT.htm |access-date=24 January 2023 |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine |archive-date=1 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230101151555/http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CV%5CE%5CVervIT.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
From the 11th to 13th centuries the principalities were divided into '']'', its centre usually called a ''pryhorod'' (or '']'' a fortified settlement).{{sfn|Katchanovski|Kohut|Nesebio|Yurkevich|2013|p=11}}<ref name=":6" /> A volost consisted of several ''vervs'' or '']'' (commune or community).<ref name=":6" /> A local official was called a ''volostel'' or '']''.<ref name=":6" /> | |||
] assigned priority to the major principalities to reduce familial conflict over ].{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=82}} | |||
# ] and Novgorod, for the eldest son ], who became grand prince. | |||
# ] and ], for ] | |||
# ] and ], for ] | |||
# ], for ] | |||
# ], for ] | |||
Not mentioned by Yaroslav were ], ruled by Yaroslav's older brother ] that was to remain under the control of his descendants, and the ], eventually taken by the dynasty of his grandson Rostyslav.{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=82}} | |||
== Foreign relations == | |||
===Military history=== | |||
{{Further|List of wars involving Kievan Rus'}} | |||
{{excerpt|Military of Kievan Rus'}} | |||
===Steppe peoples=== | |||
From the 9th century on, the ] nomads had an uneasy relationship with Kievan Rus'. For over two centuries they launched sporadic raids into Rus', which sometimes escalated into full-scale wars, such as the 920 war on the Pechenegs by Igor of Kiev, reported in the '']'', but there were also temporary military alliances e.g., the 943 Byzantine campaign by Igor.{{efn|] describes the Pechenegs as long-standing allies of the ], whom they invariably accompanied during the 10th-century ].{{cn|date=January 2023}}}} In 968, the Pechenegs ].<ref>{{cite book |first1=Steven |last1=Lowe |first2=Dmitriy V. |last2=Ryaboy |title=The Pechenegs, History and Warfare}}</ref> | |||
] was a ] ] who led a series of invasions on Kievan Rus'. In 1096, Boniak attacked Kiev, plundered the ], and burned down the prince's palace in ]. He was defeated in 1107 by ], Oleg, Sviatopolk and other princes of Rus'.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |script-title=ru:Боняк |trans-title=Boniak |language=ru |encyclopedia=] |url=http://slovari.yandex.ru/%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%8F%D0%BA/%D0%91%D0%A1%D0%AD/%D0%91%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%8F%D0%BA/ |year=1969–1978 |access-date=10 January 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130706115500/http://slovari.yandex.ru/%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%8F%D0%BA/%D0%91%D0%A1%D0%AD/%D0%91%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%8F%D0%BA/ |archive-date=6 July 2013}}</ref> | |||
===Byzantine Empire=== | |||
{{See also|Rus'–Byzantine War (disambiguation){{!}}Rus'–Byzantine War}} | |||
Byzantium quickly became the main ] and cultural partner for Kiev, but relations were not always friendly. One of the largest military accomplishments of the Rurikid dynasty was the attack on Byzantium in 960. Pilgrims of the Rus' had been making the journey from ] to ] for many years, and ], the Emperor of the ], believed that this gave them significant information about the arduous parts of the journey and where travelers were most at risk, as would be pertinent for an invasion. This route took travelers through domain of the ], journeying mostly by river. In June 941, the Rus' staged a naval ambush on Byzantine forces, making up for their smaller numbers with small, maneuverable boats. These boats were ill-equipped for the transportation of large quantities of treasure, suggesting that looting was not the goal. The raid was led, according to the ], by a king called Igor. Three years later, the treaty of 944 stated that all ships approaching Byzantium must be preceded by a letter from the Rurikid prince stating the number of ships and assuring their peaceful intent. This not only indicates fear of another surprise attack, but an increased Kievan presence in the ].<ref>Franklin, Simon, and Jonathan Shepard (1996). ''The Emergence of Rus 750–1200''. Harlow, Essex: Longman Group, Ltd. pp. 112–119</ref> | |||
===Mongols=== | |||
{{See also|Schechter Letter|Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus'}} | |||
] by ]'']] | |||
The ] invaded Kievan Rus' in the 13th century, devastating numerous cities, including ], ], ], ] and Kiev. The ] in 1240 by the Mongols is generally understood as the end of Kievan Rus'. ] went on to subjugate Galicia and Volhynia, raid Poland and Hungary, and founded the ] at Sarai in 1242.{{sfn|Martin|2007|p=155}} The conquests mostly halted due to a succession crisis following khan ]'s death, leading Batu to return to Mongolia to select the clan's next overlord.{{sfn|Martin|2007|p=155}} | |||
== Historical assessment == | == Historical assessment == | ||
]'s battle with the ]'', by ]]] | |||
<div class="boilerplate" id="npov"> | |||
: ] ''The ] and ] of the statement below are disputed | |||
Kievan Rus' was not only the largest European state in terms of area but also one of the most culturally advanced. At the time when only a few European monarchs could spell their name, most children in ] were literate. As ]s attest, they exchanged love letters and prepared cheet sheets for schools. At the time when Paris was full of sewage and refuse, Novgorod boasted a sewage system and wood pavings. When most legal codes of Europe regarded torture as a preferred way of eliciting truth and often abused death penalty, the Russkaya Pravda confined punishments to fines and didn't provide for capital punishment at all. | |||
Kievan Rus', although sparsely populated compared to Western Europe,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pop-in-eur.html |title=Medieval Sourcebook: Tables on Population in Medieval Europe |publisher=Fordham University |access-date=30 July 2021 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100110054310/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pop-in-eur.html |archive-date=10 January 2010}}</ref> was not only the largest contemporary European state in terms of area but also culturally advanced.<ref name="Sherman">{{cite book |last=Sherman |first=Charles Phineas |title=Roman Law in the Modern World |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zh6ksO3bn0YC&q=%22Roman+Law+in+the+Modern+World%22&pg=PP7 |year=1917 |publisher=The Boston Book Company |location=Boston |page=191 |chapter=Russia | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=zh6ksO3bn0YC&q=advanced+culture+OR+cultural+Kiev+novgorod&pg=PA191 |quote="The adoption of Christianity by Vladimir... was followed by commerce with the ]. In its wake came Byzantine art and culture. And in the course of the next century, what is now Southeastern Russia became ''more advanced in civilization than any western European State of the period'', for Russia came in for a share of Byzantine culture, then vastly superior to the rudeness of Western nations." | access-date = 14 November 2020 | archive-date = 23 April 2023 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230423152844/https://books.google.com/books?id=zh6ksO3bn0YC&q=%22Roman+Law+in+the+Modern+World%22&pg=PP7 | url-status = live}}</ref> Literacy in Kiev, Novgorod and other large cities was high.<ref name="TikhomirovGorodaLit">{{cite book |last=Tikhomirov |first=Mikhail Nikolaevich |authorlink=Mikhail Tikhomirov |title=Drevnerusskie goroda (Cities of Ancient Rus) |url=http://www.archeologia.ru/Library/Book/3bcf6c93aa36/Info |year=1956 |location=Moscow |language=ru |page=261 |chapter=Literacy among the citi dwellers | chapter-url = http://www.archeologia.ru/Library/Book/3bcf6c93aa36/page261 | access-date = 18 March 2006 | archive-date = 25 April 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100425045655/http://www.archeologia.ru/Library/Book/3bcf6c93aa36/Info | url-status = dead}}</ref>{{efn|"It is to the credit of Vladimir and his advisors they built not only churches but schools as well. This compulsory baptism was followed by compulsory education... Schools were thus founded not only in Kiev but also in provincial cities. From the "Life of St. Feodosi" we know that a school existed in Kursk around the year of 1023. By the time of Yaroslav's reign (1019–54), education had struck roots and its benefits were apparent. Around 1030, Iaroslav founded a divinity school in Novgorod for 300 children of both laymen and clergy to be instructed in "book-learning". As a general measure, he made the parish priests "teach the people"."{{sfn|Vernadsky|1973|p=277}}}} Novgorod had a ] and ] not often found in other cities at the time.<ref name="Mikla">{{cite book |last=Miklashevsky |first=N. | display-authors = etal | script-title = ru:ИСТОРИЯ ВОДОПРОВОДА В РОССИИ | trans-title = History of water-supply in Russia | chapter-url = http://ecoflash.narod.ru/likbez_8.htm |year=2000 |publisher=? |location=Saint Petersburg, Russia |language=ru |isbn=978-5-8206-0114-9 |page=240 |chapter=Istoriya vodoprovoda v Rossii | access-date = 18 March 2006 | archive-date = 10 March 2006 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060310120423/http://ecoflash.narod.ru/likbez_8.htm | url-status = live}}</ref> The '']'' confined punishments to fines and generally did not use ].{{efn|"The most notable aspect of the criminal provisions was that punishments took the form of seizure of property, banishment, or, more often, payment of a fine. Even murder and other severe crimes (], organised horse thieving, and ]) were settled by monetary fines. Although the death penalty had been introduced by Vladimir the Great, it too was soon replaced by fines."{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=95}}}} Certain ] were accorded to women, such as property and ] rights.<ref name="TikhomirovRP">{{cite book |last=Tikhomirov |first=Mikhail Nikolaevich |authorlink=Mikhail Tikhomirov | script-title = ru:Пособие для изучения Русской Правды |url=http://www.hist.msu.ru/ER/Etext/RP/ |edition=2nd |year=1953 |publisher=Издание Московского университета |location=Moscow |language=ru |page=190 | access-date = 18 March 2006 | archive-date = 14 June 2006 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060614003824/http://www.hist.msu.ru/ER/Etext/RP/ | url-status = live}}</ref>{{sfn|Martin|2004|p=72}}{{sfn|Vernadsky|1973|p=154}} | |||
The economic development of Kievan Rus may be translated into demographic statistics. Around ], Kiev had a population of 50,000 people, Novgorod and Chernigov both had around 30,000 people (Martin, Medieval Russia, p. 61). By comparison, in the 12-century ], where urbanization was as advanced as anywhere in Europe north of the Mediterranean, ] had around 12,000 inhabitants, and England's second city, ], about 5,000. (Bartlett, England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, p. 332). In most other Northern countries - ], ], ] - the largest "city" had around 1,000 inhabitants (see Bartlett, Making of Europe). | |||
The economic development of Kievan Rus' may be reflected in its demographics. Scholarly estimates of Kiev's population around 1200 range from 36,000 to 50,000 (at the time, Paris had about 50,000, and London 30,000).{{sfn|Martin|2004|p=61}} Novgorod had about 10,000 to 15,000 inhabitants in 1000, and about double that number by 1200, while Chernigov had a larger land area than both Kiev and Novgorod at the time, and is therefore estimated have had even more inhabitants.{{sfn|Martin|2004|p=61}} Constantinople, then one of the largest cities in the world, had a population of about 400,000 around 1180.<ref name="popu">J. Phillips, ''The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople'' page 144</ref> Soviet scholar ] calculated that Kievan Rus' had around 300 urban centres on the eve of the Mongol invasion.<ref name="TikhomirovGorodaPop">{{cite book |last=Tikhomirov |first=Mikhail Nikolaevich |authorlink=Mikhail Tikhomirov |title=Drevnerusskie goroda (Cities of Ancient Rus) |url=http://www.archeologia.ru/Library/Book/3bcf6c93aa36/Info |year=1956 |location=Moscow |language=ru |pages=36, 39, 43 |chapter=The origin of Russian cities | chapter-url = http://www.archeologia.ru/Library/Book/3bcf6c93aa36/page9 | access-date = 18 March 2006 | archive-date = 25 April 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100425045655/http://www.archeologia.ru/Library/Book/3bcf6c93aa36/Info | url-status = dead}}</ref> | |||
Unsurprizingly, Kievan Rus' left a powerful legacy. The leader of the ] united a large territory inhabited by ] into an important, albeit unstable, state. After Vladimir accepted ], Kievan Rus' came together under a church structure and developed a ]-Slavic synthesis in culture, statecraft, and the arts. On the northeastern periphery of Kievan Rus', those traditions were adapted to form the Russian ] state. | |||
Kievan Rus' also played an important genealogical role in European politics. ], whose stepmother belonged to the ] that ruled the Byzantine Empire from 867 to 1056, married the only legitimate daughter of the king who Christianized Sweden. His daughters became queens of Hungary, France and Norway; his sons married the daughters of a ] and Byzantine emperor, and a niece of the Pope; and his granddaughters were a German empress and (according to one theory) the queen of ]. A grandson married the only daughter of the last ] king of England. Thus the ] were a well-connected royal family of the time.{{efn|"In medieval Europe, a mark of a dynasty's prestige and power was the willingness with which other leading dynasties entered into matrimonial relations with it. Measured by this standard, Yaroslav's prestige must have been great indeed... . Little wonder that Iaroslav is often dubbed by historians as 'the father-in-law of Europe.'"<ref>{{cite book |first=Orest |last=Subtelny |title=Ukraine: A History |location=Toronto |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=1988 |isbn=0-8020-5808-6 |page=35 |authorlink=Orest Subtelny}})</ref>}}{{efn|"By means of these marital ties, Kievan Rus' became well known throughout Europe."{{sfn|Magocsi|2010|p=81}}}} | |||
== Notes == | |||
] (2006) proposed to "denationalize" Kievan Rus': contrary to what modern nationalist interpretations had been doing, he argued for 'separating Kievan Rus' as a multi-ethnic state from the national histories of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. This applies to the word Rus' and to the concept of the Rus' Land.'{{sfn|Halperin|2010|p=2}} According to Halperin (2010), 'Plokhy's approach does not invalidate analysis of rival claims by Muscovy, Lithuania or Ukraine to the Kievan inheritance; it merely relegates such pretensions entirely to the realm of ideology.'{{sfn|Halperin|2010|p=3}} | |||
{{fnb|1}} People speaking ''East Slavic'' dialects were known from 9th century as ''Rus'' (also referred to as ancient '''Russians''' or '''Ruthenians'''). Later, they diverged into three major nations — modern ''Belarusians'', ''Russians'', and ''Ukrainians'', and also into several minor ethnic groups, including ''Carpatho-Ruthenians''. ]'s battle with the ]'', by ].]] | |||
== In popular culture == | |||
==See also== | |||
*Finnish ] band ] has produced various songs on its albums '']'' (2007) and '']'' (2011) which feature Scandinavian names (''Jarisleif'' in "In the Court of Jarisleif" for ]) and ] for toponyms (such as '']'' in "]" for ], and '']'' in "Miklagard Overture" for ]) connected to Kievan Rus'. According to Bosselmann (2018) and DiGioia (2020), ] are used by Turisas 'as a way to convey the historical context of the songs' subject matter', namely 'the stories of the ] populations and their travels eastwards along the way known as the ] to Constantinople'.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=DiGioia |first1=Amanda |date=2020 |title=Multilingual Metal Music: Sociocultural, Linguistic and Literary Perspectives on Heavy Metal Lyrics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=USYNEAAAQBAJ |location=Bingley |publisher=Emerald Group Publishing |pages=85 |isbn=9781839099489 |access-date=27 January 2023 |archive-date=27 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230127120306/https://books.google.com/books?id=USYNEAAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Velasco Laguna |first1=Manuel |date=2012 |title=Breve historia de los vikingos (versión extendida) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eq1vEAAAQBAJ |location=Madrid |publisher=Nowtilus |pages=168 |isbn=9788499673479 |access-date=27 January 2023 |language=es |archive-date=27 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230127121143/https://books.google.com/books?id=eq1vEAAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
== Gallery == | |||
*] | |||
*] | |||
=== Collection of maps === | |||
*] | |||
<gallery> | |||
*] | |||
File:CHODZKO(1861) CARTE DES PAYS SLAVO-POLONAIS AUX VIII ET IX SIECLE.jpg|Map of 8th- to 9th-century Rus' by Leonard Chodzko (1861) | |||
*] | |||
File:Polska Rosja Skandynawia w IX w.jpg|Map of 9th-century Rus' by Antoine Philippe Houze (1844) | |||
File:LEROY-BEAULIEU(1893) p1.097 RUSSIA IN THE 9th CENTURY.jpg|Map of 9th-century Rus' by F. S. Weller (1893) | |||
File:Europe 1000.jpg|Map of Rus' in Europe in 1000 (1911) | |||
File:Shepherd-c-066-067.jpg|Map of Rus' in 1097 (1911) | |||
File:Histoire de Pologne par Joachim Lelevel - atlas 1844 (126669792) (cropped).jpg|Map of 1139 by ]; northeast is identified as "trans-forest colonies" (Zalesie) | |||
File:Центры Руси по Идриси.jpg|Fragment of the 1154 {{lang|la|]}} by ] | |||
File:Kyiv Rus T.png|Overview of principalities of Kievan Rus' | |||
</gallery> | |||
=== Art and architecture === | |||
<gallery> | |||
File:Funeral of ruthenian noble by Siemiradzki.jpg|] of a ] chieftain as described by the ] traveler ], who visited ]-] ] in the 10th century.<br>] (1883) | |||
File:Maket Sofii.JPG|Model of the original ]; used on modern ] of Ukraine | |||
File:Kievan Nativity.jpg|''The Nativity'', a Kievan (possibly Galician) illumination from the ] | |||
File:Rider armor and horse equipment Iron. 12th-13th centuries S. Lipovets, Kiev province, mound 264, military burial. State Hermitage, inv. No. 904-1, 2, 6-8, 10, 12.jpg|Rider armor and horse equipment. Iron, 12th–13th centuries, S. Lipovets, Kiev province, mound 264, military burial. State Hermitage Museum. | |||
</gallery> | |||
==See also== | |||
*'']'' – 10th-century Byzantine source written by emperor ] | |||
*] | *] | ||
*] | *] | ||
*] | *] | ||
*] – genre of Old East Slavic literature | |||
*] | |||
*] | |||
== References == | == References == | ||
=== Explanatory notes === | |||
*{{loc}} - | |||
{{Notelist}} | |||
== |
=== Citations === | ||
{{Reflist}} | |||
* | |||
* | |||
=== Primary sources === | |||
{{Middle Ages wide 2}} | |||
*{{Cite book |last1=Cross |first1=Samuel Hazzard |last2=Sherbowitz-Wetzor |first2=Olgerd P. |date=1930 |title=The Russian Primary Chronicle, Laurentian Text. Translated and edited by Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (1930) |url=https://www.mgh-bibliothek.de/dokumente/a/a011458.pdf |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |publisher=The Mediaeval Academy of America |pages=325 |isbn=|access-date=26 January 2023}} | |||
**{{Cite book |last1=Cross |first1=Samuel Hazzard |last2=Sherbowitz-Wetzor |first2=Olgerd P. |orig-year=1953 |title=SLA 218. Ukrainian Literature and Culture. Excerpts from The Rus' Primary Chronicle (Povest vremennykh let, PVL) |publisher=Electronic Library of Ukrainian Literature, University of Toronto |date=2013 |url=http://sites.utoronto.ca/elul/English/218/PVL-selections.pdf |location=Toronto |pages=16 |access-date=26 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140530225833/http://www.utoronto.ca/elul/English/218/PVL-selections.pdf |archive-date=30 May 2014 |ref={{sfnref|Cross|Sherbowitz-Wetzor|1953}} }} | |||
=== Secondary sources === | |||
] | |||
{{refbegin}} | |||
] | |||
*{{cite book |last1=Bushkovitch |first1=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Le-n7ZYjGWkC |title=A Concise History of Russia |date=2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=New York |isbn=9781139504447 |pages=491 |access-date=26 January 2023 |archive-date=23 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423152841/https://books.google.com/books?id=Le-n7ZYjGWkC |url-status=live}} | |||
] | |||
*{{Cite book |last1=Gleason |first1=Abbott |authorlink1=Abbott Gleason |date=2009 |title=A Companion to Russian History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JyN0hlKcfTcC |location=Chichester |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |pages=566 |isbn=9781444308426 |access-date=26 January 2023}} | |||
] | |||
**{{Cite book |last1=Martin |first1=Janet |date=2009a |title=A Companion to Russian History |chapter=Chapter Three: The First East Slavic State |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JyN0hlKcfTcC |location=Chichester |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |pages=34–50 |isbn=9781444308426 |access-date=26 January 2023}} | |||
] | |||
**{{Cite book |last1=Majeska |first1=George |date=2009 |title=A Companion to Russian History |chapter=Chapter Four: Rus' and the Byzantine Empire |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JyN0hlKcfTcC |location=Chichester |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |pages=51–65 |isbn=9781444308426 |access-date=26 January 2023}} | |||
] | |||
*{{Cite book |last1=Katchanovski |first1=Ivan |last2=Kohut |first2=Zenon E. |authorlink2=Zenon Kohut |last3=Nesebio |first3=Bohdan Y. |last4=Yurkevich |first4=Myroslav |date=2013 |title=Historical Dictionary of Ukraine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-h6r57lDC4QC |location=]; ]; ] |publisher=Scarecrow Press |pages=992 |isbn=9780810878471 |access-date=22 January 2023 |archive-date=23 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423152841/https://books.google.com/books?id=-h6r57lDC4QC |url-status=live}} | |||
] | |||
*{{Cite book |last1=Logan |first1=F. Donald |authorlink1=F. Donald Logan |date=2005 |title=The Vikings in History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7K2ywwGox6IC |location=New York |publisher=Routledge (Taylor & Francis) |pages=205 |isbn=9780415327565 |access-date=26 January 2023 |archive-date=23 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423152845/https://books.google.com/books?id=7K2ywwGox6IC |url-status=live}} (third edition) | |||
] | |||
*{{cite book |last=Magocsi |first=Paul R. |authorlink=Paul Robert Magocsi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z0mKRsElYNkC |title=A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples |year=2010 |pages=896 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |location=Toronto |isbn=978-1-4426-1021-7 |access-date = 26 January 2023 |archive-date = 23 April 2023 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230423152843/https://books.google.com/books?id=Z0mKRsElYNkC |url-status = live}} | |||
*{{cite book |title=Medieval Russia: 980–1584 |last=Martin |first=Janet |url= |year=1993 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=0521368324}} (original). Later editions cited in this article: | |||
**{{cite book |title=Medieval Russia: 980–1584 |last=Martin |first=Janet |url= |year=1995 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=New York |isbn=0521362768}} (first published) | |||
**{{cite book |title=Medieval Russia: 980–1584 |last=Martin |first=Janet |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sRCc3TtL9bIC |year=2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9780521368322 |access-date=11 October 2015 |archive-date=23 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423152842/https://books.google.com/books?id=sRCc3TtL9bIC |url-status=live}} (digital printing 2004) | |||
** {{cite book |title=Medieval Russia: 980–1584. Second Edition. E-book |last=Martin |first=Janet |authorlink=Janet L. B. Martin |url=https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/book/802816/medieval-russia-980-1584/janet-martin/ |year=2007 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-511-36800-4}} | |||
*{{cite book |last=Martin |first=Janet |editor-last=Freeze |editor-first=Gregory |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GNeFDyRSp0wC |title=Russia: A History |chapter=From Kiev to Muscovy: The Beginnings to 1450 |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2009b |pages=1–30 |isbn=978-0-19-150121-0 |access-date=27 January 2023 |archive-date=27 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230127141118/https://books.google.com/books?id=GNeFDyRSp0wC |url-status=live}} (third edition) | |||
*{{Cite book |last1=Ostrogorsky |first1=George |authorlink1=George Ostrogorsky |date=1969 |title=History of the Byzantine State |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofbyzanti00ostr/page/228/mode/2up |location=New Brunswick, New Jersey |publisher=Rutgers University Press |pages=760 |isbn=|access-date=26 January 2023}} | |||
*{{cite book |title=The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus |last=Plokhy |first=Serhii |authorlink=Serhii Plokhy |year=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-521-86403-9 |pages=10–15 |url=http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/64039/excerpt/9780521864039_excerpt.pdf |access-date=27 April 2010 |archive-date=6 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606203420/http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/64039/excerpt/9780521864039_excerpt.pdf |url-status=live}} | |||
**{{Cite journal |last1=Halperin |first1=Charles J. |date=2010 |title=Review Article. "National Identity in Premodern Rus'" |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/ruhi/37/3/article-p275_5.xml |journal=] |publisher=Brill Publishers |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=275–294 |doi=10.1163/187633110X510446 |access-date=2 February 2023 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326162800/https://brill.com/view/journals/ruhi/37/3/article-p275_5.xml |url-status=live}} | |||
* {{Cite journal |last1=Ostrowski |first1=Donald |date=2018 |title=Was There a Riurikid Dynasty in Early Rus'? |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/css/52/1/article-p30_2.xml |journal=Canadian-American Slavic Studies |volume=52 |issue=1 |pages=30–49 |doi=10.1163/22102396-05201009}} | |||
*{{cite book |last=Vernadsky |first=George |authorlink=George Vernadsky |title=Kievan Russia |year=1973 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0-300-01647-6 |page=412 |chapter=Russian Civilization in the Kievan Period: Education |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1HEdAP9N6ikC}} | |||
*{{Country study}} – {{Webarchive |url=https://archive.today/20120711211231/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/rutoc.html |date=11 July 2012}} | |||
{{refend}} | |||
==Further reading== | |||
] | |||
{{Main|Bibliography of the history of the Early Slavs and Rus'|Bibliography of Ukrainian history}} | |||
] | |||
*]. ''A History of Russia, Mongolia and Central Asia''. Blackwell, 1999. | |||
] | |||
*Franklin, Simon and Shepard, Jonathan, ''The Emergence of Rus, 750–1200''. (Longman History of Russia, general editor Harold Shukman.) Longman, London, 1996. {{ISBN|0-582-49091-X}} | |||
] | |||
*], ''The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 1200–1304''. (Longman History of Russia, general editor Harold Shukman.) Longman, London, 1983. {{ISBN|0-582-48150-3}} | |||
] | |||
*]. ''A History of the Vikings''. 2nd ed. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1984. | |||
] | |||
*{{Cite book |last=Obolensky |first=Dimitri |authorlink=Dimitri Obolensky |title=The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500–1453 |year=1974 |orig-year=1971 |location=London |publisher=Cardinal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RlBoAAAAMAAJ |isbn=978-0-351-17644-9}} | |||
] | |||
*]. ''The Origin of Rus{{'}}''. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1991. | |||
] | |||
*Stang, Håkon. ''The Naming of Russia''. Meddelelser, Nr. 77. Oslo: University of Oslo Slavisk-baltisk Avelding, 1996. | |||
] | |||
*Alexander F. Tsvirkun E-learning course. History of Ukraine. Journal Auditorium, Kyiv, 2010. | |||
] | |||
*Velychenko, Stephen, ''National history as cultural process: a survey of the interpretations of Ukraine's past in Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian historical writing from the earliest times to 1914''. Edmonton, 1992. | |||
] | |||
*Velychenko, Stephen, "Nationalizing and Denationalizing the Past. Ukraine and Russia in Comparative Context", Ab Imperio 1 (2007). | |||
] | |||
*Velychenko, Stephen "New wine old bottle. Ukrainian history Muscovite-Russian Imperial myths and the Cambridge-History of Russia," | |||
] | |||
] | |||
==External links== | |||
] | |||
{{Commons category|Kievan Rus}} | |||
] | |||
{{Wiktionary|Kievan Rus}} | |||
] | |||
* | |||
* | |||
*{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131109080307/http://www.angelfire.com/or3/kievan_rus/ |date=9 November 2013 |title=Graphic History of Kievan Rus' from c. 800 to 988 }} | |||
* – '']'' | |||
* | |||
{{Middle Ages}} | |||
{{Ukraine topics}} | |||
{{Russia topics}} | |||
{{Belarus topics}} | |||
{{History of Europe}} | |||
{{Authority control}} | |||
{{Coord|50.450|N|30.525|E|type:country|display=title}} | |||
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Latest revision as of 17:46, 10 December 2024
State in Europe, c. 880 to 1240 For other historical states known as Rus', see Rus.
Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus', was the first East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century. Encompassing a variety of polities and peoples, including East Slavic, Norse, and Finnic, it was ruled by the Rurik dynasty, founded by the Varangian prince Rurik. The name was coined by Russian historians in the 19th century to describe the period when Kiev was at the center. At its greatest extent in the mid-11th century, Kievan Rus' stretched from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south and from the headwaters of the Vistula in the west to the Taman Peninsula in the east, uniting the East Slavic tribes.
According to the Primary Chronicle, the first ruler to unite East Slavic lands into what would become Kievan Rus' was Oleg the Wise (r. 879–912). He extended his control from Novgorod south along the Dnieper river valley to protect trade from Khazar incursions from the east, and took control of the city. Sviatoslav I (r. 943–972) achieved the first major territorial expansion of the state, fighting a war of conquest against the Khazars. Vladimir the Great (r. 980–1015) spread Christianity with his own baptism and, by decree, extended it to all inhabitants of Kiev and beyond. Kievan Rus' reached its greatest extent under Yaroslav the Wise (r. 1019–1054); his sons assembled and issued its first written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda, shortly after his death.
The state began to decline in the late 11th century, gradually disintegrating into various rival regional powers throughout the 12th century. It was further weakened by external factors, such as the decline of the Byzantine Empire, its major economic partner, and the accompanying diminution of trade routes through its territory. It finally fell to the Mongol invasion in the mid-13th century, though the Rurik dynasty would continue to rule until the death of Feodor I of Russia in 1598. The modern nations of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine all claim Kievan Rus' as their cultural ancestor, with Belarus and Russia deriving their names from it, and the name Kievan Rus' derived from what is now the capital of Ukraine.
Names
Main articles: Names of Rus', Russia and Ruthenia and RutheniaDuring its existence, Kievan Rus' was known as the "Rus' land" (Old East Slavic: ро́усьскаѧ землѧ́, romanized: rusĭskaę zemlę, from the ethnonym Роусь, Rusĭ; Medieval Greek: Ῥῶς, romanized: Rhos; Arabic: الروس, romanized: ar-Rūs), in Greek as Ῥωσία, Rhosia, in Old French as Russie, Rossie, in Latin as Rusia or Russia (with local German spelling variants Ruscia and Ruzzia), and from the 12th century also as Ruthenia or Rutenia. Various etymologies have been proposed, including Ruotsi, the Finnish designation for Sweden or Ros, a tribe from the middle Dnieper valley region.
According to the prevalent theory, the name Rus', like the Proto-Finnic name for Sweden (*rootsi), is derived from an Old Norse term for 'men who row' (rods-) because rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roslagen (Rus-law) or Roden. The name Rus' would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden: Ruotsi and Rootsi.
When the Varangian princes arrived, the name Rus' was associated with them and came to be associated with the territories they controlled. Initially the cities of Kiev, Chernigov, and Pereyaslavl and their surroundings came under Varangian control. From the late tenth century, Vladimir the Great and Yaroslav the Wise tried to associate the name with all of the extended princely domains. Both meanings persisted in sources until the Mongol conquest: the narrower one, referring to the triangular territory east of the middle Dnieper, and the broader one, encompassing all the lands under the hegemony of Kiev's grand princes.
The Russian term Kiyevskaya Rus' (Russian: Ки́евская Русь) was coined in the 19th century in Russian historiography to refer to the period when the centre was in Kiev. In the 19th century it also appeared in Ukrainian as Kyivska Rus' (Ukrainian: Ки́ївська Русь). Later, the Russian term was rendered into Belarusian as Kiyewskaya Rus' or Kijeŭskaja Ruś (Belarusian: Кіеўская Русь) and into Rusyn as Kyïvska Rus' (Rusyn: Київска Русь).
In English, the term was introduced in the early 20th century, when it was found in the 1913 English translation of Vasily Klyuchevsky's A History of Russia, to distinguish the early polity from successor states, which were also named Rus'. The Varangian Rus' from Scandinavia used the Old Norse name Garðaríki, which, according to a common interpretation, means "land of towns".
History
Origin
Prior to the emergence of Kievan Rus' in the 9th century, most of the area north of the Black Sea was primarily populated by eastern Slavic tribes. In the northern region around Novgorod were the Ilmen Slavs and neighboring Krivichi, who occupied territories surrounding the headwaters of the West Dvina, Dnieper and Volga rivers. To their north, in the Ladoga and Karelia regions, were the Finnic Chud tribe. In the south, in the area around Kiev, were the Poliane, the Drevliane to the west of the Dnieper, and the Severiane to the east. To their north and east were the Vyatichi, and to their south was forested land settled by Slav farmers, giving way to steppelands populated by nomadic herdsmen.
There was once controversy over whether the Rus' were Varangians or Slavs (see anti-Normanism), however, more recently scholarly attention has focused more on debating how quickly an ancestrally Norse people assimilated into Slavic culture. This uncertainty is due largely to a paucity of contemporary sources. Attempts to address this question instead rely on archaeological evidence, the accounts of foreign observers, and legends and literature from centuries later. To some extent the controversy is related to the foundation myths of modern states in the region. This often unfruitful debate over origins has periodically devolved into competing nationalist narratives of dubious scholarly value being promoted directly by various government bodies in a number of states. This was seen in the Stalinist period, when Soviet historiography sought to distance the Rus' from any connection to Germanic tribes, in an effort to dispel Nazi propaganda claiming the Russian state owed its existence and origins to the supposedly racially superior Norse tribes. More recently, in the context of resurgent nationalism in post-Soviet states, Anglophone scholarship has analyzed renewed efforts to use this debate to create ethno-nationalist foundation stories, with governments sometimes directly involved in the project. Conferences and publications questioning the Norse origins of the Rus' have been supported directly by state policy in some cases, and the resultant foundation myths have been included in some school textbooks in Russia.
While Varangians were Norse traders and Vikings, many Russian and Ukrainian nationalist historians argue that the Rus' were themselves Slavs. Normanist theories focus on the earliest written source for the East Slavs, the Primary Chronicle, which was produced in the 12th century. Nationalist accounts on the other hand have suggested that the Rus' were present before the arrival of the Varangians, noting that only a handful of Scandinavian words can be found in Russian and that Scandinavian names in the early chronicles were soon replaced by Slavic names.
Nevertheless, the close connection between the Rus' and the Norse is confirmed both by extensive Scandinavian settlement in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine and by Slavic influences in the Swedish language. Though the debate over the origin of the Rus' remains politically charged, there is broad agreement that if the proto-Rus' were indeed originally Norse, they were quickly nativized, adopting Slavic languages and other cultural practices. This position, roughly representing a scholarly consensus (at least outside of nationalist historiography), was summarized by the historian, F. Donald Logan, "in 839, the Rus were Swedes; in 1043 the Rus were Slavs".
Ahmad ibn Fadlan, an Arab traveler during the 10th century, provided one of the earliest written descriptions of the Rus': "They are as tall as a date palm, blond and ruddy, so that they do not need to wear a tunic nor a cloak; rather the men among them wear garments that only cover half of his body and leaves one of his hands free." Liutprand of Cremona, who was twice an envoy to the Byzantine court (949 and 968), identifies the "Russi" with the Norse ("the Russi, whom we call Norsemen by another name") but explains the name as a Greek term referring to their physical traits ("A certain people made up of a part of the Norse, whom the Greeks call the Russi on account of their physical features, we designate as Norsemen because of the location of their origin."). Leo the Deacon, a 10th-century Byzantine historian and chronicler, refers to the Rus' as "Scythians" and notes that they tended to adopt Greek rituals and customs.
Calling of the Varangians
Main article: Calling of the VarangiansAccording to the Primary Chronicle, the territories of the East Slavs in the 9th century were divided between the Varangians and the Khazars. The Varangians are first mentioned imposing tribute from Slavic and Finnic tribes in 859. In 862, various tribes rebelled against the Varangians, driving them "back beyond the sea and, refusing them further tribute, set out to govern themselves".
They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to the Law." They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Rus'. ... The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Ves then said to the Rus', "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us". They thus selected three brothers with their kinfolk, who took with them all the Rus' and migrated.
Modern scholars find this an unlikely series of events, probably made up by the 12th-century Orthodox priests who authored the Chronicle as an explanation how the Vikings managed to conquer the lands along the Varangian route so easily, as well as to support the legitimacy of the Rurikid dynasty. The three brothers—Rurik, Sineus and Truvor—supposedly established themselves in Novgorod, Beloozero and Izborsk, respectively. Two of the brothers died, and Rurik became the sole ruler of the territory and progenitor of the Rurik dynasty. A short time later, two of Rurik's men, Askold and Dir, asked him for permission to go to Tsargrad (Constantinople). On their way south, they came upon "a small city on a hill", Kiev, which was a tributary of the Khazars at the time, stayed there and "established their dominion over the country of the Polyanians."
The Primary Chronicle reports that Askold and Dir continued to Constantinople with a navy to attack the city in 863–66, catching the Byzantines by surprise and ravaging the surrounding area, though other accounts date the attack in 860. Patriarch Photius vividly describes the "universal" devastation of the suburbs and nearby islands, and another account further details the destruction and slaughter of the invasion. The Rus' turned back before attacking the city itself, due either to a storm dispersing their boats, the return of the Emperor, or in a later account, due to a miracle after a ceremonial appeal by the Patriarch and the Emperor to the Virgin. The attack was the first encounter between the Rus' and Byzantines and led the Patriarch to send missionaries north to engage and attempt to convert the Rus' and the Slavs.
Foundation of the Kievan state
Rurik led the Rus' until his death in about 879 or 882, bequeathing his kingdom to his kinsman, Prince Oleg, as regent for his young son, Igor. According to the Primary Chronicle, in 880–82, Oleg led a military force south along the Dnieper river, capturing Smolensk and Lyubech before reaching Kiev, where he deposed and killed Askold and Dir: "Oleg set himself up as prince in Kiev, and declared that it should be the "mother of Rus' cities". Oleg set about consolidating his power over the surrounding region and the riverways north to Novgorod, imposing tribute on the East Slav tribes.
In 883, he conquered the Drevlians, imposing a fur tribute on them. By 885 he had subjugated the Poliane, Severiane, Vyatichi, and Radimichs, forbidding them to pay further tribute to the Khazars. Oleg continued to develop and expand a network of Rus' forts in Slavic lands, begun by Rurik in the north.
The new Kievan state prospered due to its abundant supply of furs, beeswax, honey and slaves for export, and because it controlled three main trade routes of Eastern Europe. In the north, Novgorod served as a commercial link between the Baltic Sea and the Volga trade route to the lands of the Volga Bulgars, the Khazars, and across the Caspian Sea as far as Baghdad, providing access to markets and products from Central Asia and the Middle East. Trade from the Baltic also moved south on a network of rivers and short portages along the Dnieper known as the "route from the Varangians to the Greeks," continuing to the Black Sea and on to Constantinople.
Kiev was a central outpost along the Dnieper route and a hub with the east–west overland trade route between the Khazars and the Germanic lands of Central Europe. and may have been a staging post for Radhanite Jewish traders between Western Europe, Itil and China. These commercial connections enriched Rus' merchants and princes, funding military forces and the construction of churches, palaces, fortifications, and further towns. Demand for luxury goods fostered production of expensive jewelry and religious wares, allowing their export, and an advanced credit and money-lending system may have also been in place.
Early foreign relations
Volatile steppe politics
The rapid expansion of the Rus' to the south led to conflict and volatile relationships with the Khazars and other neighbors on the Pontic steppe. The Khazars dominated trade from the Volga-Don steppes to eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus during the 8th century, an era historians call the 'Pax Khazarica', trading and frequently allying with the Byzantine Empire against Persians and Arabs. In the late 8th century, the collapse of the Göktürk Khaganate led the Magyars and the Pechenegs to migrate west from Central Asia into the steppe region, leading to military conflict, disruption of trade, and instability within the Khazar Khaganate. The Rus' and Slavs had earlier allied with the Khazars against Arab raids on the Caucasus, but they increasingly worked against them to secure control of the trade routes.
The Byzantine Empire was able to take advantage of the turmoil to expand its political influence and commercial relationships, first with the Khazars and later with the Rus' and other steppe groups. The Byzantines established the Theme of Cherson, formally known as Klimata, in the Crimea in the 830s to defend against raids by the Rus' and to protect vital grain shipments supplying Constantinople. Cherson also served as a key diplomatic link with the Khazars and others on the steppe, and it became the centre of Black Sea commerce. The Byzantines also helped the Khazars build a fortress at Sarkel on the Don river to protect their northwest frontier against incursions by the Turkic migrants and the Rus', and to control caravan trade routes and the portage between the Don and Volga rivers.
The expansion of the Rus' put further military and economic pressure on the Khazars, depriving them of territory, tributaries and trade. In around 890, Oleg waged an indecisive war in the lands of the lower Dniester and Dnieper rivers with the Tivertsi and the Ulichs, who were likely acting as vassals of the Magyars, blocking Rus' access to the Black Sea. In 894, the Magyars and Pechenegs were drawn into the wars between the Byzantines and the Bulgarian Empire. The Byzantines arranged for the Magyars to attack Bulgarian territory from the north, and Bulgaria in turn persuaded the Pechenegs to attack the Magyars from their rear.
Boxed in, the Magyars were forced to migrate further west across the Carpathian Mountains into the Hungarian plain, depriving the Khazars of an important ally and a buffer from the Rus'. The migration of the Magyars allowed access for the Rus' to the Black Sea, and they soon launched excursions into Khazar territory along the sea coast, up the Don river, and into the lower Volga region. The Rus' were raiding and plundering into the Caspian Sea region from 864, with the first large-scale expedition in 913, when they extensively raided Baku, Gilan, Mazandaran and penetrated into the Caucasus.
As the 10th century progressed, the Khazars were no longer able to command tribute from the Volga Bulgars, and their relationship with the Byzantines deteriorated, as Byzantium increasingly allied with the Pechenegs against them. The Pechenegs were thus secure to raid the lands of the Khazars from their base between the Volga and Don rivers, allowing them to expand to the west. Relations between the Rus' and Pechenegs were complex, as the groups alternately formed alliances with and against one another. The Pechenegs were nomads roaming the steppe raising livestock which they traded with the Rus' for agricultural goods and other products.
The lucrative Rus' trade with the Byzantine Empire had to pass through Pecheneg-controlled territory, so the need for generally peaceful relations was essential. Nevertheless, while the Primary Chronicle reports the Pechenegs entering Rus' territory in 915 and then making peace, they were waging war with one another again in 920. Pechenegs are reported assisting the Rus' in later campaigns against the Byzantines, yet allied with the Byzantines against the Rus' at other times.
Rus'–Byzantine relations
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After the Rus' attack on Constantinople in 860, the Byzantine Patriarch Photius sent missionaries north to convert the Rus' and the Slavs to Christianity. Prince Rastislav of Moravia had requested the Emperor to provide teachers to interpret the holy scriptures, so in 863 the brothers Cyril and Methodius were sent as missionaries, due to their knowledge of the Slavonic language. The Slavs had no written language, so the brothers devised the Glagolitic alphabet, later replaced by Cyrillic (developed in the First Bulgarian Empire) and standardized the language of the Slavs, later known as Old Church Slavonic. They translated portions of the Bible and drafted the first Slavic civil code and other documents, and the language and texts spread throughout Slavic territories, including Kievan Rus'. The mission of Cyril and Methodius served both evangelical and diplomatic purposes, spreading Byzantine cultural influence in support of imperial foreign policy. In 867 the Patriarch announced that the Rus' had accepted a bishop, and in 874 he speaks of an "Archbishop of the Rus'."
Relations between the Rus' and Byzantines became more complex after Oleg took control over Kiev, reflecting commercial, cultural, and military concerns. The wealth and income of the Rus' depended heavily upon trade with Byzantium. Constantine Porphyrogenitus described the annual course of the princes of Kiev, collecting tribute from client tribes, assembling the product into a flotilla of hundreds of boats, conducting them down the Dnieper to the Black Sea, and sailing to the estuary of the Dniester, the Danube delta, and on to Constantinople. On their return trip they would carry silk fabrics, spices, wine, and fruit.
The importance of this trade relationship led to military action when disputes arose. The Primary Chronicle reports that the Rus' attacked Constantinople again in 907, probably to secure trade access. The Chronicle glorifies the military prowess and shrewdness of Oleg, an account imbued with legendary detail. Byzantine sources do not mention the attack, but a pair of treaties in 907 and 911 set forth a trade agreement with the Rus', the terms suggesting pressure on the Byzantines, who granted the Rus' quarters and supplies for their merchants and tax-free trading privileges in Constantinople.
The Chronicle provides a mythic tale of Oleg's death. A sorcerer prophesies that the death of the prince would be associated with a certain horse. Oleg has the horse sequestered, and it later dies. Oleg goes to visit the horse and stands over the carcass, gloating that he had outlived the threat, when a snake strikes him from among the bones, and he soon becomes ill and dies. The Chronicle reports that Prince Igor succeeded Oleg in 913, and after some brief conflicts with the Drevlians and the Pechenegs, a period of peace ensued for over twenty years.
In 941, Igor led another major Rus' attack on Constantinople, probably over trading rights again. A navy of 10,000 vessels, including Pecheneg allies, landed on the Bithynian coast and devastated the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus. The attack was well timed, perhaps due to intelligence, as the Byzantine fleet was occupied with the Arabs in the Mediterranean, and the bulk of its army was stationed in the east. The Rus' burned towns, churches and monasteries, butchering the people and amassing booty. The emperor arranged for a small group of retired ships to be outfitted with Greek fire throwers and sent them out to meet the Rus', luring them into surrounding the contingent before unleashing the Greek fire.
Liutprand of Cremona wrote that "the Rus', seeing the flames, jumped overboard, preferring water to fire. Some sank, weighed down by the weight of their breastplates and helmets; others caught fire." Those captured were beheaded. The ploy dispelled the Rus' fleet, but their attacks continued into the hinterland as far as Nicomedia, with many atrocities reported as victims were crucified and set up for use as targets. At last a Byzantine army arrived from the Balkans to drive the Rus' back, and a naval contingent reportedly destroyed much of the Rus' fleet on its return voyage (possibly an exaggeration since the Rus' soon mounted another attack). The outcome indicates increased military might by Byzantium since 911, suggesting a shift in the balance of power.
Igor returned to Kiev keen for revenge. He assembled a large force of warriors from among neighboring Slavs and Pecheneg allies, and sent for reinforcements of Varangians from "beyond the sea". In 944, the Rus' force advanced again on the Greeks, by land and sea, and a Byzantine force from Cherson responded. The Emperor sent gifts and offered tribute in lieu of war, and the Rus' accepted. Envoys were sent between the Rus', the Byzantines, and the Bulgarians in 945, and a peace treaty was completed. The agreement again focused on trade, but this time with terms less favorable to the Rus', including stringent regulations on the conduct of Rus' merchants in Cherson and Constantinople and specific punishments for violations of the law. The Byzantines may have been motivated to enter the treaty out of concern of a prolonged alliance of the Rus', Pechenegs, and Bulgarians against them, though the more favorable terms further suggest a shift in power.
Sviatoslav
Following the death of Igor in 945, his wife Olga ruled as regent in Kiev until their son Sviatoslav reached maturity (c. 963). His decade-long reign over Kievan Rus' was marked by rapid expansion through the conquest of the Khazars of the Pontic steppe and the invasion of the Balkans. By the end of his short life, Sviatoslav carved out for himself the largest state in Europe, eventually moving his capital from Kiev to Pereyaslavets on the Danube in 969.
In contrast with his mother's conversion to Christianity, Sviatoslav, like his druzhina, remained a staunch pagan. Due to his abrupt death in an ambush in 972, Sviatoslav's conquests, for the most part, were not consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to establish a stable succession led to a fratricidal feud among his sons, which resulted in two of his three sons being killed.
Reign of Vladimir and Christianisation
Main article: Christianization of Kievan Rus' Further information: Conversion of Vladimir the GreatIt is not clearly documented when the title of grand prince was first introduced, but the importance of the Kiev principality was recognized after the death of Sviatoslav I in 972 and the ensuing struggle between Vladimir and Yaropolk. The region of Kiev dominated the region for the next two centuries. The grand prince (or grand duke) of Kiev controlled the lands around the city, and his formally subordinate relatives ruled the other cities and paid him tribute. The zenith of the state's power came during the reigns of Vladimir the Great (r. 980–1015) and Prince Yaroslav I the Wise (r. 1019–1054). Both rulers continued the steady expansion of Kievan Rus' that had begun under Oleg.
Vladimir had been prince of Novgorod when his father Sviatoslav I died in 972, but fled to Scandinavia in 977 after his half-brother Yaropolk killed his other half-brother Oleg. According to the Primary Chronicle, Vladimir assembled a host of Varangian warriors, first subdued the Principality of Polotsk and then defeated and killed Yaropolk, thus establishing his reign over the entire Kievan Rus' realm.
Although sometimes solely attributed to Vladimir, the Christianization of Kievan Rus' was a long and complicated process that began before the state's formation. As early as the 1st century AD, Greeks in the Black Sea Colonies converted to Christianity, and the Primary Chronicle even records the legend of Andrew the Apostle's mission to these coastal settlements, as well as blessing the site of present-day Kyiv. The Goths migrated to through the region in the 3rd century, adopting Arian Christianity in the 4th century, leaving behind 4th- and 5th-century churches excavated in Crimea, although the Hunnic invasion of the 370s halted Christianisation for several centuries. Some of the earliest Kievan princes and princesses such as Askold and Dir and Olga of Kiev reportedly converted to Christianity, but Oleg, Igor and Sviatoslav remained pagans.
The Primary Chronicle records the legend that when Vladimir had decided to accept a new faith instead of traditional Slavic paganism, he sent out some of his most valued advisors and warriors as emissaries to different parts of Europe. They visited the Christians of the Latin Church, the Jews, and the Muslims before finally arriving in Constantinople. They rejected Islam because, among other things, it prohibited the consumption of alcohol, and Judaism because the god of the Jews had permitted his chosen people to be deprived of their country. They found the ceremonies in the Roman church to be dull. But at Constantinople, they were so astounded by the beauty of the cathedral of Hagia Sophia and the liturgical service held there that they made up their minds there and then about the faith they would like to follow. Upon their arrival home, they convinced Vladimir that the faith of the Byzantine Rite was the best choice of all, upon which Vladimir made a journey to Constantinople and arranged to marry Princess Anna, the sister of Byzantine emperor Basil II. Historically, it is more likely that he adopted Byzantine Christianity in order to strengthen his diplomatic relations with Constantinople. Vladimir's choice of Eastern Christianity may have reflected his close personal ties with Constantinople, which dominated the Black Sea and hence trade on Kiev's most vital commercial route, the Dnieper River. According to the Primary Chronicle, Vladimir was baptised in c. 987, and ordered the population of Kiev to be baptised in August 988. The greatest resistance against Christianisation appears to have occurred in northern towns including Novgorod, Suzdal, and Belozersk.
Adherence to the Eastern Church had long-range political, cultural, and religious consequences. The church had a liturgy written in Cyrillic and a corpus of translations from Greek that had been produced for the Slavic peoples. This literature facilitated the conversion to Christianity of the Eastern Slavs and introduced them to rudimentary Greek philosophy, science, and historiography without the necessity of learning Greek (there were some merchants who did business with Greeks and likely had an understanding of contemporary business Greek). Following the Great Schism of 1054, the Kievan church maintained communion with both Rome and Constantinople for some time, but along with most of the Eastern churches it eventually split to follow the Eastern Orthodox. That being said, unlike other parts of the Greek world, Kievan Rus' did not have a strong hostility to the Western world.
Reign of Yaroslav
Yaroslav, known as "the Wise", struggled for power with his brothers. A son of Vladimir the Great, he was prince of Novgorod at the time of his father's death in 1015.
Although he first established his rule over Kiev in 1019, he did not have uncontested rule of all of Kievan Rus' until 1036. Like Vladimir, Yaroslav was eager to improve relations with the rest of Europe, especially the Byzantine Empire. Yaroslav's granddaughter, Eupraxia, the daughter of his son Vsevolod I, was married to Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor. Yaroslav also arranged marriages for his sister and three daughters to the kings of Poland, France, Hungary and Norway.
Yaroslav promulgated the first law code of Kievan Rus', the Russkaya Pravda; built Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod; patronized local clergy and monasticism; and is said to have founded a school system. Yaroslav's sons developed the great Kiev Pechersk Lavra (monastery).
Succession issues
See also: War of succession § AnalysisIn the centuries that followed the state's foundation, Rurik's descendants shared power over Kievan Rus'. The means by which royal power was transferred from one Rurikid ruler to the next is unclear, however, historian Paul Magocsi mentioned that 'Scholars have debated what the actual system of succession was or whether there was any system at all.' According to historian Nancy Kollmann, the rota system was used with the princely succession moving from elder to younger brother and from uncle to nephew, as well as from father to son. Junior members of the dynasty usually began their official careers as rulers of a minor district, progressed to more lucrative principalities, and then competed for the coveted throne of Kiev. Whatever the case, according to professor Ivan Katchanovski 'no adequate system of succession to the Kievan throne was developed' after the death of Yaroslav the Wise (r. 1019–1054), commencing a process of gradual disintegration.
The unconventional power succession system fomented constant hatred and rivalry within the royal family. Familicide was frequently deployed to obtain power and can be traced particularly during the time of the Yaroslavichi (sons of Yaroslav), when the established succession system was skipped in the establishment of Vladimir II Monomakh as the Grand Prince of Kiev (r. 1113–1125), in turn creating major squabbles between the Olegovichi (sons of Oleg I) from Chernigov, the Monomakhovichi from Pereyaslavl, the Izyaslavichi (sons of Iziaslav) from Turov–Volhynia, and the Polotsk Princes. The position of the grand prince of Kiev was weakened by the growing influence of regional clans.
Fragmentation and decline
The rival Principality of Polotsk was contesting the power of the Grand Prince by occupying Novgorod, while Rostislav Vladimirovich was fighting for the Black Sea port of Tmutarakan belonging to Chernigov. Three of Yaroslav's sons that first allied together found themselves fighting each other especially after their defeat to the Cuman forces in 1068 at the Battle of the Alta River.
The ruling Grand Prince Iziaslav fled to Poland asking for support and in a couple of years returned to establish the order. The affairs became even more complicated by the end of the 11th century driving the state into chaos and constant warfare. On the initiative of Vladimir II Monomakh in 1097 the Council of Liubech of Kievan Rus' took place near Chernigov with the main intention to find an understanding among the fighting sides.
By 1130, all descendants of Vseslav the Seer had been exiled to the Byzantine Empire by Mstislav the Great. The most fierce resistance to the Monomakhs was posed by the Olegovichi when the izgoi Vsevolod II managed to become the Grand Prince of Kiev. The Rostislavichi, who had initially established in the lands of Galicia by 1189, were defeated by the Monomakh-Piast descendant Roman the Great.
The decline of Constantinople—a main trading partner of Kievan Rus'—played a significant role in the decline of the Kievan Rus'. The trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks, along which the goods were moving from the Black Sea (mainly Byzantine) through eastern Europe to the Baltic, was a cornerstone of Kievan wealth and prosperity. These trading routes became less important as the Byzantine Empire declined in power and Western Europe created new trade routes to Asia and the Near East. As people relied less on passing through the territories of Kievan Rus' for trade, the economy of Kievan Rus' suffered.
The last ruler to maintain a united state was Mstislav the Great. After his death in 1132, Kievan Rus' fell into recession and a rapid decline, and Mstislav's successor Yaropolk II of Kiev, instead of focusing on the external threat of the Cumans, was embroiled in conflicts with the growing power of the Novgorod Republic. In March 1169, a coalition of native princes led by Andrei Bogolyubsky of Vladimir sacked Kiev. This changed the perception of Kiev and was evidence of the fragmentation of the Kievan Rus'. By the end of the 12th century, the Kievan state fragmented even further, into roughly twelve different principalities.
The Crusades brought a shift in European trade routes that accelerated the decline of Kievan Rus'. In 1204, the forces of the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople, making the Dnieper trade route marginal. At the same time, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword (of the Northern Crusades) were conquering the Baltic region and threatening the Lands of Novgorod.
In the north, the Novgorod Republic prospered because it controlled trade routes from the River Volga to the Baltic Sea. As Kievan Rus' declined, Novgorod became more independent. A local oligarchy ruled Novgorod; major government decisions were made by a town assembly, which also elected a prince as the city's military leader. In 1136, Novgorod revolted against Kiev, and became independent. Now an independent city republic, and referred to as "Lord Novgorod the Great" it would spread its "mercantile interest" to the west and the north; to the Baltic Sea and the low-populated forest regions, respectively.
In 1199, Prince Roman Mstislavych united the two previously separate principalities of Galicia and Volhynia. His son Daniel (r. 1238–1264) looked for support from the West. He accepted a crown from the Roman papacy.
Final disintegration
Following the Mongol invasion of Cumania (or the Kipchaks), in which case many Cuman rulers fled to Rus', such as Köten, the state finally disintegrated under the pressure of the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus', fragmenting it into successor principalities who paid tribute to the Golden Horde (the so-called Tatar Yoke). Just prior to the Mongol invasion, Kievan Rus' had been a relatively prosperous region. International trade as well as skilled artisans flourished, while its farms produced enough to feed the urban population. After the invasion of the late 1230s, the economy shattered, and its population were either slaughtered or sold into slavery; while skilled laborers and artisans were sent to the Mongol's steppe regions.
On the southwestern periphery, Kievan Rus' was succeeded by the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia. Later, as these territories, now part of modern central Ukraine and Belarus, fell to the Gediminids, the powerful, largely Ruthenized Grand Duchy of Lithuania drew heavily on the cultural and legal traditions of the Rus'. From 1398 until the Union of Lublin in 1569, its full name was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia.
On the north-eastern periphery of Kievan Rus', traditions were adapted in the Vladimir-Suzdal principality that gradually gravitated towards Moscow. To the very north, the Novgorod and Pskov feudal republics were less autocratic than Vladimir-Suzdal-Moscow until they were absorbed by the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Modern historians from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine alike consider Kievan Rus' the first period of their modern countries' histories.
Society
Culture
Main article: Culture of Kievan Rus' See also: Kievan Rus' law; Russkaya Pravda; and Demographic history of Russia § Kievan Rus, Mongol invasion and vassalageThe lands of Kievan Rus' were mostly made up of forests and steppes (see East European forest steppe and Central European mixed forests), while its main rivers all originated in the Valdai Hills: the Dnieper, and primarily populated by Slavic and Finnic tribes. All tribes were hunter-gatherers to a certain degree, but the Slavs were primarily agriculturalists, growing cereal grains and crops, as well as raising livestock. Before the emergence of the Kievan state, these tribes had their own leaders and gods, and interaction between tribes was occasionally marked either by trading goods or fighting battles. The most valuable commodities traded were captive slaves and fur pelts (usually in exchange for silver coins or oriental finery), and common trade partners were Volga Bolghar, Khazar Itil and Byzantine Chersonesus. By the early 9th century, bands of Scandinavian adventurers known as Varangians and later Rus' started plundering various (Slavic) villages in the region, later extracting tribute in exchange for protection against pillaging by other Varangians. Over time, these relationships of tribute for protection evolved into more permanent political structures: the Rus' lords became princes and the Slavic populace their subjects.
Economy
Further information: Money of Kievan Rus'In the early 10th century, Kievan Rus' mainly traded with other tribes in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. "There was little need for complex social structures to carry out these exchanges in the forests north of the steppes. So long as the entrepreneurs operated in small numbers and kept to the north, they did not catch the attention of observers or writers". The Rus' also had strong trading ties to Byzantium, particularly in the early 900s, as treaties in 911 and 944 indicate. These treaties deal with the treatment of runaway Byzantine slaves and limitations on the amounts of certain commodities such as silk that could be bought from Byzantium. The Rus' used log rafts floated down the Dnieper River by Slavic tribes for the transport of goods, particularly slaves to Byzantium.
During the Kievan era, trade and transport depended largely on networks of rivers and portages. By this period, trade networks had expanded to cater to more than just local demand. This is evidenced by a survey of glassware found in over 30 sites ranging from Suzdal, Drutsk and Belozeroo, which found that a substantial majority was manufactured in Kiev. Kiev was the main depot and transit point for trade between itself, Byzantium and the Black Sea region. Even though this trade network had already been existent, the volume of which had expanded rapidly in the 11th century. Kiev was also dominant in internal trade between the towns of Rus'; it held a monopoly on glassware products (glass vessels, glazed pottery and window glass) up until the early- to mid-12th century until which it lost its monopoly to the other towns in Rus'. Inlaid enamel production techniques was borrowed from Byzantine. Byzantine amphorae, wine and olive oil have been found along the middle Dnieper, suggesting trade between Kiev, along trade towns to Byzantium.
In winter, the ruler of Kiev went out on rounds, visiting Dregovichs, Krivichs, Drevlians, Severians, and other subordinated tribes. Some paid tribute in money, some in furs or other commodities, and some in slaves. This system was called poliudie.
Religion
Further information: Culture of Kievan Rus' § Religion, and Conversion of Vladimir the Great Saint Sophia Cathedral in Polotsk (rebuilt in the mid-18th century after destruction by the Russian army)Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod, mid-11th centuryDormition Cathedral, Vladimir, 1160According to Martin (2009), 'Christianity, Judaism, and Islam had long been known in these lands, and Olga personally converted to Christianity. When Vladimir assumed the throne, however, he set idols of Norse, Slav, Finn, and Iranian gods, worshipped by the disparate elements of his society, on a hilltop in Kiev in an attempt to create a single pantheon for his people. But for reasons that remain unclear he soon abandoned this attempt in favour of Christianity.'
Architecture
Main article: Architecture of Kievan Rus' See also: List of buildings of pre-Mongol Kievan Rus'The architecture of Kievan Rus' is the earliest period of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian architecture, using the foundations of Byzantine culture, but with great use of innovations and architectural features. Most remains are Russian Orthodox churches or parts of the gates and fortifications of cities.
Administrative divisions
See also: List of tribes and states in Belarus, Russia and UkraineThe East Slavic lands were originally divided into princely domains called zemlias, "lands", or volosts (from a term meaning "power" or "government"). A smaller clan-sized unit was called a verv, or pogost, headed by a kopa or viche.
From the 11th to 13th centuries the principalities were divided into volosts, its centre usually called a pryhorod (or Gord a fortified settlement). A volost consisted of several vervs or hromadas (commune or community). A local official was called a volostel or starosta.
Yaroslav the Wise assigned priority to the major principalities to reduce familial conflict over succession.
- Principality of Kiev and Novgorod, for the eldest son Iziaslav I of Kiev, who became grand prince.
- Principality of Chernigov and Tmutarakan, for Sviatoslav II of Kiev
- Principality of Pereyaslavl and Rostov-Suzdal, for Vsevolod I of Kiev
- Principality of Smolensk, for Vyacheslav Yaroslavich
- Principality of Volhynia, for Igor Yaroslavich
Not mentioned by Yaroslav were Principality of Polotsk, ruled by Yaroslav's older brother Iziaslav of Polotsk that was to remain under the control of his descendants, and the Principality of Galicia, eventually taken by the dynasty of his grandson Rostyslav.
Foreign relations
Military history
Further information: List of wars involving Kievan Rus' This section is an excerpt from Military of Kievan Rus'. The military of Kievan Rus' served as the armed forces of Kievan Rus' between the 9th to 13th century. It was mainly characterised by infantry armies of town militia that were supported by druzhyna cavalry.Steppe peoples
From the 9th century on, the Pecheneg nomads had an uneasy relationship with Kievan Rus'. For over two centuries they launched sporadic raids into Rus', which sometimes escalated into full-scale wars, such as the 920 war on the Pechenegs by Igor of Kiev, reported in the Primary Chronicle, but there were also temporary military alliances e.g., the 943 Byzantine campaign by Igor. In 968, the Pechenegs attacked and besieged the city of Kiev.
Boniak was a Cuman khan who led a series of invasions on Kievan Rus'. In 1096, Boniak attacked Kiev, plundered the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, and burned down the prince's palace in Berestovo. He was defeated in 1107 by Vladimir Monomakh, Oleg, Sviatopolk and other princes of Rus'.
Byzantine Empire
See also: Rus'–Byzantine WarByzantium quickly became the main trading and cultural partner for Kiev, but relations were not always friendly. One of the largest military accomplishments of the Rurikid dynasty was the attack on Byzantium in 960. Pilgrims of the Rus' had been making the journey from Kiev to Constantinople for many years, and Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire, believed that this gave them significant information about the arduous parts of the journey and where travelers were most at risk, as would be pertinent for an invasion. This route took travelers through domain of the Pechenegs, journeying mostly by river. In June 941, the Rus' staged a naval ambush on Byzantine forces, making up for their smaller numbers with small, maneuverable boats. These boats were ill-equipped for the transportation of large quantities of treasure, suggesting that looting was not the goal. The raid was led, according to the Primary Chronicle, by a king called Igor. Three years later, the treaty of 944 stated that all ships approaching Byzantium must be preceded by a letter from the Rurikid prince stating the number of ships and assuring their peaceful intent. This not only indicates fear of another surprise attack, but an increased Kievan presence in the Black Sea.
Mongols
See also: Schechter Letter and Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus'The Mongol Empire invaded Kievan Rus' in the 13th century, devastating numerous cities, including Ryazan, Kolomna, Moscow, Vladimir and Kiev. The siege of Kiev in 1240 by the Mongols is generally understood as the end of Kievan Rus'. Batu Khan went on to subjugate Galicia and Volhynia, raid Poland and Hungary, and founded the Golden Horde at Sarai in 1242. The conquests mostly halted due to a succession crisis following khan Ogedei's death, leading Batu to return to Mongolia to select the clan's next overlord.
Historical assessment
Kievan Rus', although sparsely populated compared to Western Europe, was not only the largest contemporary European state in terms of area but also culturally advanced. Literacy in Kiev, Novgorod and other large cities was high. Novgorod had a sewage system and wood pavement not often found in other cities at the time. The Russkaya Pravda confined punishments to fines and generally did not use capital punishment. Certain rights were accorded to women, such as property and inheritance rights.
The economic development of Kievan Rus' may be reflected in its demographics. Scholarly estimates of Kiev's population around 1200 range from 36,000 to 50,000 (at the time, Paris had about 50,000, and London 30,000). Novgorod had about 10,000 to 15,000 inhabitants in 1000, and about double that number by 1200, while Chernigov had a larger land area than both Kiev and Novgorod at the time, and is therefore estimated have had even more inhabitants. Constantinople, then one of the largest cities in the world, had a population of about 400,000 around 1180. Soviet scholar Mikhail Tikhomirov calculated that Kievan Rus' had around 300 urban centres on the eve of the Mongol invasion.
Kievan Rus' also played an important genealogical role in European politics. Yaroslav the Wise, whose stepmother belonged to the Macedonian dynasty that ruled the Byzantine Empire from 867 to 1056, married the only legitimate daughter of the king who Christianized Sweden. His daughters became queens of Hungary, France and Norway; his sons married the daughters of a Polish king and Byzantine emperor, and a niece of the Pope; and his granddaughters were a German empress and (according to one theory) the queen of Scotland. A grandson married the only daughter of the last Anglo-Saxon king of England. Thus the Rurikids were a well-connected royal family of the time.
Serhii Plokhy (2006) proposed to "denationalize" Kievan Rus': contrary to what modern nationalist interpretations had been doing, he argued for 'separating Kievan Rus' as a multi-ethnic state from the national histories of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. This applies to the word Rus' and to the concept of the Rus' Land.' According to Halperin (2010), 'Plokhy's approach does not invalidate analysis of rival claims by Muscovy, Lithuania or Ukraine to the Kievan inheritance; it merely relegates such pretensions entirely to the realm of ideology.'
In popular culture
- Finnish folk metal band Turisas has produced various songs on its albums The Varangian Way (2007) and Stand Up and Fight (2011) which feature Scandinavian names (Jarisleif in "In the Court of Jarisleif" for Grand Prince Yaroslav) and Old Norse exonyms for toponyms (such as Holmgard in "To Holmgard and Beyond" for Veliky Novgorod, and Miklagard in "Miklagard Overture" for Constantinople) connected to Kievan Rus'. According to Bosselmann (2018) and DiGioia (2020), Scandinavian names are used by Turisas 'as a way to convey the historical context of the songs' subject matter', namely 'the stories of the Scandinavian pre-Christian populations and their travels eastwards along the way known as the Way of the Varangians to the Greek to Constantinople'.
Gallery
Collection of maps
- Map of 8th- to 9th-century Rus' by Leonard Chodzko (1861)
- Map of 9th-century Rus' by Antoine Philippe Houze (1844)
- Map of 9th-century Rus' by F. S. Weller (1893)
- Map of Rus' in Europe in 1000 (1911)
- Map of Rus' in 1097 (1911)
- Map of 1139 by Joachim Lelewel; northeast is identified as "trans-forest colonies" (Zalesie)
- Fragment of the 1154 Tabula Rogeriana by Muhammad al-Idrisi
- Overview of principalities of Kievan Rus'
Art and architecture
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Ship burial of a Rus' chieftain as described by the Arab traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan, who visited north-eastern Europe in the 10th century.
Henryk Siemiradzki (1883) - Model of the original Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv; used on modern 2 hryvni of Ukraine
- The Nativity, a Kievan (possibly Galician) illumination from the Gertrude Psalter
- Rider armor and horse equipment. Iron, 12th–13th centuries, S. Lipovets, Kiev province, mound 264, military burial. State Hermitage Museum.
See also
- De Administrando Imperio – 10th-century Byzantine source written by emperor Constantine VII
- History of Belarus
- History of Russia
- History of Ukraine
- Rus' chronicle – genre of Old East Slavic literature
- Slavic studies
- European Russia
References
Explanatory notes
- "The Rise of Kievan Rus'"
- "In these early centuries East Slavic tribes and their neighbours coalesced into the Christian state of Kievan Rus."
- 'For all the salient differences between these three post-Soviet nations, they have much in common when it comes to their culture and history, which goes back to Kievan Rus', the medieval East Slavic state based in the capital of present-day Ukraine,'
- "The controversies over the nature of the Rus and the origins of the Russian state have bedevilled Viking studies, and indeed Russian history, for well over a century. It is historically certain that the Rus were Swedes. The evidence is incontrovertible, and that a debate still lingers at some levels of historical writing is clear evidence of the holding power of received notions. The debate over this issue – futile, embittered, tendentious, doctrinaire – served to obscure the most serious and genuine historical problem which remains: the assimilation of these Viking Rus into the Slavic people among whom they lived. The principal historical question is not whether the Rus were Scandinavians or Slavs, but, rather, how quickly these Scandinavian Rus became absorbed into Slavic life and culture."
- Normanist scholars accept this moment as the foundation of the Kievan Rus' state, while anti-Normanists point to other Chronicle entries to argue that the East Slav Polianes were already in the process of forming a state independently.
- Abaskun, first recorded by Ptolemy as Socanaa, was documented in Arab sources as "the most famous port of the Khazarian Sea". It was situated within three days' journey from Gorgan. The southern part of the Caspian Sea was known as the "Sea of Abaskun".
- The Khazar khagan initially granted the Rus' safe passage in exchange for a share of the booty but attacked them on their return voyage, killing most of the raiders and seizing their haul.
- If Olga was indeed born in 879, as the Primary Chronicle seems to imply, she would have been about 65 at the time of Sviatoslav's birth. There are clearly some problems with chronology.
- Ibn Haukal describes the Pechenegs as long-standing allies of the Rus' people, whom they invariably accompanied during the 10th-century Caspian expeditions.
- "It is to the credit of Vladimir and his advisors they built not only churches but schools as well. This compulsory baptism was followed by compulsory education... Schools were thus founded not only in Kiev but also in provincial cities. From the "Life of St. Feodosi" we know that a school existed in Kursk around the year of 1023. By the time of Yaroslav's reign (1019–54), education had struck roots and its benefits were apparent. Around 1030, Iaroslav founded a divinity school in Novgorod for 300 children of both laymen and clergy to be instructed in "book-learning". As a general measure, he made the parish priests "teach the people"."
- "The most notable aspect of the criminal provisions was that punishments took the form of seizure of property, banishment, or, more often, payment of a fine. Even murder and other severe crimes (arson, organised horse thieving, and robbery) were settled by monetary fines. Although the death penalty had been introduced by Vladimir the Great, it too was soon replaced by fines."
- "In medieval Europe, a mark of a dynasty's prestige and power was the willingness with which other leading dynasties entered into matrimonial relations with it. Measured by this standard, Yaroslav's prestige must have been great indeed... . Little wonder that Iaroslav is often dubbed by historians as 'the father-in-law of Europe.'"
- "By means of these marital ties, Kievan Rus' became well known throughout Europe."
Citations
- Slavic Culture in the Middle Ages. California Slavic Studies. University of California Press. 2021. p. 141. ISBN 9780520309180.
- ^ Bushkovitch 2011, p. 11.
- Б.Ц.Урланис. Рост населения в Европе (PDF) (in Russian). p. 89. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 17 November 2016.
- ^ Magocsi 2010, p. 55.
- Martin 2009b, p. 1.
- ^ Rubin, Barnett R.; Snyder, Jack L. (1998). Post-Soviet Political Order: Conflict and State Building. London: Routledge. p. 93.
As the capital of Kyivan Rus ...
. "The Golden Age of Kyivan Rus'". gis.huri.harvard.edu. Archived from the original on 30 October 2022. Retrieved 30 October 2022. "Ukraine – History, section "Kyivan (Kievan) Rus"". Encyclopedia Britannica. 5 March 2020. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2020.- Zhdan, Mykhailo (1988). "Kyivan Rus'". Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
- Katchanovski et al. 2013, p. 196.
- Martin 2009b, p. 1–5.
- Curtis, Glenn Eldon (1998). Russia: A Country Study. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. ISBN 978-0-8444-0866-8.
Kievan Rus', the first East Slavic state, emerged in the ninth century A.D. and developed a complex and frequently unstable political system that flourished until the thirteenth century, when it declined abruptly.
- ^ John Channon & Robert Hudson, Penguin Historical Atlas of Russia (Penguin, 1995), p.14–16.
- "Rus | people | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 24 March 2022. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
- ^ Little, Becky (4 December 2019). "When Viking Kings and Queens Ruled Medieval Russia". HISTORY. Archived from the original on 6 April 2022. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
- Kievan Rus Archived 18 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine, Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
- Kyivan Rus' Archived 26 March 2023 at the Wayback Machine, Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
- See Historical map of Kievan Rus' from 980 to 1054 Archived 11 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine.
- Paul Robert Magocsi, Historical Atlas of East Central Europe (1993), p.15.
- ^ "Civilization in Eastern Europe Byzantium and Orthodox Europe". occawlonline.pearsoned.com. 2000. Archived from the original on 22 January 2010.
- Picková, Dana, O počátcích státu Rusů, in: Historický obzor 18, 2007, č.11/12, s. 253–261
- ^ Plokhy 2006, p. 10–15.
- (in Russian) Назаренко А. В. Глава I Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine // Древняя Русь на международных путях: Междисциплинарные очерки культурных, торговых, политических связей IX—XII вв. Archived 31 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine — М.: Языки русской культуры, 2001. — c. 40, 42—45, 49—50. — ISBN 5-7859-0085-8.
- Magocsi 2010, p. 72–73.
- Magocsi 2010, p. 56–57.
- Blöndal, Sigfús (1978). The Varangians of Byzantium. Cambridge University Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-521-03552-1. Archived from the original on 14 April 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
- ^ Stefan Brink, 'Who were the Vikings?', in The Viking World Archived 14 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine, ed. by Stefan Brink and Neil Price (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), pp. 4–10 (pp. 6–7).
- "Russ, adj. and n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/169069. Accessed 12 January 2021.
- Motsia, Oleksandr (2009). «Руська» термінологія в Київському та Галицько-Волинському літописних зводах ["Ruthenian" question in Kyiv and Halych-Volyn annalistic codes] (PDF). Arkheolohiia (1). doi:10.6084/M9.FIGSHARE.1492467.V1. ISSN 0235-3490. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
- ^ Magocsi 2010, p. 72.
- Melnikova, E. A.; Petrukhin, V. Ya.; Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, eds. (2014). Древняя Русь в средневековом мире: энциклопедия [Early Rus in the medieval world: encyclopedia]. Moscow: Ladomir. OCLC 1077080265.
- Флоря, Борис Николаевич (1993). "Исторические судьбы Руси и этническое самосознание восточных славян в XII—XV веках" (PDF). Славяноведение (in Russian). 2: 12-15. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
- Tolochko, A. P. (1999). "Khimera "Kievskoy Rusi"". Rodina (in Russian) (8): 29–33.
- Колесса, Олександер Михайлович (1898). Столїтє обновленої українсько-руської лїтератури: (1798–1898). Львів: З друкарні Наукового Товариства імені Шевченка під зарядом К. Беднарського. p. 26.
В XII та XIII в., в часі, коли південна, Київська Русь породила такі перли літературні ... (In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, at a time when southern, Kyivan Rus' gave birth to such literary pearls ...)
- Vasily Klyuchevsky, A History of Russia, vol. 3, pp. 98, 104
- Martin 2004, p. 2–4.
- Carl Waldman & Catherine Mason, Encyclopedia of European Peoples (2006) Archived 22 March 2023 at the Wayback Machine, p.415.
- Freeze, Gregory L. (2009). Russia: A History. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-19-956041-7.
- Chadwick, Nora K. (2013). The Beginnings of Russian History: An Enquiry Into Sources. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-107-65256-9.
- Martin 2004, p. 4.
- ^ Logan 2005, p. 184.
- ^ Martin 2009b, p. 2.
- Elena Melnikova, 'The "Varangian Problem": Science in the Grip of Ideology and Politics', in Russia's Identity in International Relations: Images, Perceptions, Misperceptions, ed. by Ray Taras (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), pp. 42–52.
- Jonathan Shepard, "Review Article: Back in Old Rus and the USSR: Archaeology, History and Politics", English Historical Review, vol. 131 (no. 549) (2016), 384–405 doi:10.1093/ehr/cew104 (p. 387), citing Leo S. Klejn, Soviet Archaeology: Trends, Schools, and History, trans. by Rosh Ireland and Kevin Windle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 119.
- Artem Istranin and Alexander Drono, "Competing historical Narratives in Russian Textbooks", in Mutual Images: Textbook Representations of Historical Neighbours in the East of Europe, ed. by János M. Bak and Robert Maier, Eckert. Dossiers, 10 (: Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, 2017), 31–43 (pp. 35–36).
- "Kievan Rus". World History Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
- Nikolay Karamzin (1818). History of the Russian State. Stuttgart: Steiner. Archived from the original on 27 October 2020. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
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- Smith, Graham (10 September 1998). Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities. Cambridge University Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-521-59968-9.
The Ukrainophile claim is that, in the words of the 1991 declaration of Ukrainian independence, the Ukrainians have a 'thousand-year tradition of state-building'... As in Russophile historiography, the 'Normanist theory' that Rus' was in fact established by Viking envoys, is rejected as a German invention.
- Magocsi 2010, p. 56.
- Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, pp. 23–28 (Oxford Press, 1984).
- Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine Archived 7 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine Normanist theory
- Riasanovsky, p. 25.
- Riasanovsky, pp. 25–27.
- David R. Stone, A Military History of Russia: From Ivan the Terrible to the war in Chechnya (2006), pp. 2–3.
- Williams, Tom (28 February 2014). "Vikings in Russia". blog.britishmuseum.org. The British Museum. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
Objects now on loan to the British Museum for the BP exhibition Vikings: life and legend indicate the extent of Scandinavian settlement from the Baltic to the Black Sea . . .
- Franklin, Simon; Shepard, Jonathan (1996). The Emergence of Rus: 750–1200. Longman History of Russia. Essex: Harlow. ISBN 0-582-49090-1.
- Fadlan, Ibn (2005). (Richard Frey) Ibn Fadlan's Journey to Russia. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers.
- Rusios, quos alio nos nomine Nordmannos apellamus. (in Polish) Henryk Paszkiewicz (2000). Wzrost potęgi Moskwy, s.13, Kraków. ISBN 83-86956-93-3
- Gens quaedam est sub aquilonis parte constituta, quam a qualitate corporis Graeci vocant Rusios, nos vero a positione loci nominamus Nordmannos. James Lea Cate. Medieval and Historiographical Essays in Honor of James Westfall Thompson. p.482. The University of Chicago Press, 1938
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- ^ Cross & Sherbowitz-Wetzor 1930, p. 6.
- ^ Cross & Sherbowitz-Wetzor 1953, p. 7.
- ^ Konstam, Angus (2005). Historical Atlas of the Viking World. London: Mercury Books London. p. 165. ISBN 1904668127.
This unlikely invitation was clearly a vehicle to explain the annexation of these territories by the Vikings, and to lend authority to a later generation of Rus rulers.
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- ^ Martin 2009a, p. 37.
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- ^ Ostrogorsky 1969, p. 228.
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- The Life of St. George of Amastris describes the Rus' as a barbaric people "who are brutal and crude and bear no remnant of love for humankind". David Jenkins, The Life of St. George of Amastris Archived 5 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine (University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), p.18.
- ^ Majeska 2009, p. 52.
- ^ Dimitri Obolensky, Byzantium and the Slavs (1994), p.245 Archived 22 March 2023 at the Wayback Machine.
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- Martin, Janet (1993). Medieval Russia: 980–1584. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521368324. (original). Later editions cited in this article:
- Martin, Janet (1995). Medieval Russia: 980–1584. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521362768. (first published)
- Martin, Janet (2004). Medieval Russia: 980–1584. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521368322. Archived from the original on 23 April 2023. Retrieved 11 October 2015. (digital printing 2004)
- Martin, Janet (2007). Medieval Russia: 980–1584. Second Edition. E-book. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-36800-4.
- Martin, Janet (2009b). "From Kiev to Muscovy: The Beginnings to 1450". In Freeze, Gregory (ed.). Russia: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 1–30. ISBN 978-0-19-150121-0. Archived from the original on 27 January 2023. Retrieved 27 January 2023. (third edition)
- Ostrogorsky, George (1969). History of the Byzantine State. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. p. 760. Retrieved 26 January 2023.
- Plokhy, Serhii (2006). The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (PDF). New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 10–15. ISBN 978-0-521-86403-9. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 27 April 2010.
- Halperin, Charles J. (2010). "Review Article. "National Identity in Premodern Rus'"". Russian History (Brill journal). 37 (3). Brill Publishers: 275–294. doi:10.1163/187633110X510446. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
- Ostrowski, Donald (2018). "Was There a Riurikid Dynasty in Early Rus'?". Canadian-American Slavic Studies. 52 (1): 30–49. doi:10.1163/22102396-05201009.
- Vernadsky, George (1973). "Russian Civilization in the Kievan Period: Education". Kievan Russia. Yale University Press. p. 412. ISBN 0-300-01647-6.
- This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Country Studies. Federal Research Division. – Russia Archived 11 July 2012 at archive.today
Further reading
Main articles: Bibliography of the history of the Early Slavs and Rus' and Bibliography of Ukrainian history- Christian, David. A History of Russia, Mongolia and Central Asia. Blackwell, 1999.
- Franklin, Simon and Shepard, Jonathan, The Emergence of Rus, 750–1200. (Longman History of Russia, general editor Harold Shukman.) Longman, London, 1996. ISBN 0-582-49091-X
- Fennell, John, The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 1200–1304. (Longman History of Russia, general editor Harold Shukman.) Longman, London, 1983. ISBN 0-582-48150-3
- Jones, Gwyn. A History of the Vikings. 2nd ed. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1984.
- Obolensky, Dimitri (1974) . The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500–1453. London: Cardinal. ISBN 978-0-351-17644-9.
- Pritsak, Omeljan. The Origin of Rus'. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1991.
- Stang, Håkon. The Naming of Russia. Meddelelser, Nr. 77. Oslo: University of Oslo Slavisk-baltisk Avelding, 1996.
- Alexander F. Tsvirkun E-learning course. History of Ukraine. Journal Auditorium, Kyiv, 2010.
- Velychenko, Stephen, National history as cultural process: a survey of the interpretations of Ukraine's past in Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian historical writing from the earliest times to 1914. Edmonton, 1992.
- Velychenko, Stephen, "Nationalizing and Denationalizing the Past. Ukraine and Russia in Comparative Context", Ab Imperio 1 (2007).
- Velychenko, Stephen "New wine old bottle. Ukrainian history Muscovite-Russian Imperial myths and the Cambridge-History of Russia," Stephen Velychenko. New Wine Old Bottle. Ukrainian History, Muscovite /Russian Imperial Myths and the Cambridge History of Russia
External links
- Historical map of Kievan Rus' from 980. to 1054.
- Historical map of Kievan Rus' from 1220. to 1240.
- Graphic History of Kievan Rus' from c. 800 to 988 at the Wayback Machine (archived 9 November 2013)
- Rus' – Encyclopedia of Ukraine
- Chronology of Kievan Rus' 859–1240.
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