Main content
World history
Course: World history > Unit 4
Lesson 6: The Russian EmpireHow did Russia begin?
Using the Russian Primary Chronicle to explore the early Nordic and Slavic beginnings of the "Land of Rus'" or the "Kievan State", including the start of the Rurukid Dynasty by Rurik.
Want to join the conversation?
- What did Ivan the Great do to reestablish Russia (or the area that we would now call Russia anyway)? And was Ivan the Great just another name for Ivan the Terrible, or was that somebody else? I seem to remember Ivan the Terrible being the one who brought "Russia" back together, but I'm probably wrong.(13 votes)
- Ivan the terrible and Ivan the great are two different guys. "Ivan" in Russian, is the same as "John" in English. Two different guys. About 50 years apart. The great came before the terrible.(11 votes)
- How did Estonia, Lativia, and Lithuania come into existence? Was their creation concurrent?(8 votes)
- What is the relationship between the origins of Russia and its historical connections to other European powers?(6 votes)
- The penetration of foreigners and foreign ideas into Russia was slow and gradual. The process was welcomed with mixed by those who prized the technical and mechanical learning they could derive from the West while fearing Western influence on society and manners. This ambivalent attitude toward Westerners and Western ideas became characteristic of later Russians.
The first foreigners to come were the Italians, who helped build the Kremlin at the end of the fifteenth century. But they were not encouraged to teach the Russians their knowledge, and they failed to influence even the court of Ivan III in any significant way. The English, who arrived in the mid-sixteenth century as traders to the White Sea, were welcomed by Ivan the Terrible.
https://bigsiteofhistory.com/russia-and-the-west-the-late-middle-ages-in-eastern-europe/(2 votes)
- Atthe Russian Primary Chronicle is read, and it mentions that the Eastern Slavs ask the Varangians to rule over them, and that they choose three brothers and Rurik settles in Novgorod. What happened to the other two brothers? 4:04(6 votes)
- How did eastern orthodox Christianity went there?(3 votes)
- Eastern Orthodox Christianity spread to Russia and other areas in Eastern Europe through the Byzantine Empire. Ever since the Great Schism of 1054, Christianity in Europe Split into the Roman Catholic Church in the west and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the East. Being located in the east, Eastern Orthodox missionaries enjoyed success in Eastern Europe due to the proximity. That's why there are still heavy Orthodox and even Greek influences in Eastern Europe and the Balkans to this day.(6 votes)
- how is "huns" a racially charged term and can you pls stop with critcal race theory and why cant the blacks get over slavery it was roughly 200 years ago(0 votes)
- My, my, my.
"Huns" was a racial slur from the time it began to be used, and continues to be a racial slur in the 21st century.
Critical Race Theory helps explain much of the trouble in many parts of the world in the 21st Century. It is a useful tool.
And, why don't white people get over the idea of racial superiority? It is unseemly to assume that one is better than another because of his or her skin color or ancestry.
(By the way, if you want to erase your rant and my response, all it takes is to use the little "more" tab next to the flag, and it will all disappear.)(7 votes)
- У меня вопрос, говоришь ли ты по-русски. Иосиф Сталин сегодня такой же, как Путин в своих речах, идеологических идеях и т. Д ..... ? Я жил и встречался с Путиным, и он немного похож на Сталина.(1 vote)
- Привет!
Во-первых, это лучше разместить на видео, скажем, о Сталине, Ленине или Коммунистической партии в России.
Во-вторых, у них была одна идеология, потому что они были в одной партии. Если бы они вышли из строя, заняв такие влиятельные должности, их наверняка вытеснили бы - или что еще хуже.
Извините, если это сбивает с толку, поскольку я использовал онлайн-переводчик.(2 votes)
- how did Kievan rus help the development of Europe and Russia?(1 vote)
- At, he shows the major trade centers in modern Russia. How did the Rus' know about these? Did they learn of them from Western Europeans? 1:29(1 vote)
- Can I say that the Slavs were the Huns who led the decline of the Roman Empire of the West and the Gupta Empire in India?(0 votes)
- Why would you want to say such a thing?
"Huns" is a racially charged term, "Slavs" is an ethnic designation.(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] What
we're going to talk about in this video are the origins
of the Russian people. And in particular, we're
going to talk about the eastern Slavs who
not just modern Russians, but also Ukrainians and Belorussians view as their ancestors. So let's think about the world in the ninth century. The early ninth century, we
see the reign of Charlemagne that we talk about in some
depth in other videos. As we get into the 10th century, you see the reign of Otto the Great, Holy Roman Emperor over
the Germanic kingdoms. The ninth century is also
the time of Tang China. You have the Abbasid Muslim Caliphate in control over most of the Middle East and North Africa. And it is also the Viking age. So we have here in this magenta color, this would be modern day Sweden, but it was also the
home of the Varangians, or whom we later would
refer to as the Vikings, and we know them to be great seafarers. In Western Europe, they're viewed as raiders of towns along the coast. But you have to remember, these histories are often written by
the western Europeans, not by the Vikings themselves. But they were also known as traders. What you see here are
two of the major centers of power and trade in the ninth century. You have Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and you have Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. You also see these major
waterways in eastern Europe, in particular, the Dnieper
and the Volga Rivers. And so you have these
significant trade routes going from the Baltic Sea either via the Dnieper,
crossing the Black Sea to Constantinople, or
going from the Baltic to the Volga all the
way to the Caspian Sea and eventually making
their way to Baghdad. And this is well documented. There is archeological evidence of Viking jewelry along these routes. There's evidence of artifacts
from these far off lands in Viking territory, and we believe what the Varangians traded were first they hunted in
this area of northern Europe. Now, the people who lived in this area were known as the Slavs. And there were several
broad groups of Slavs that you will hear historians refer to. You have the Western Slavs, who you could view as
some of the ancestors of modern Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks. You have the Southern Slavs in what would eventually be referred to as the Balkans. And then you have the Eastern Slavs in what will eventually be
Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Now to be clear, they
weren't unified groups. There were many many many, for example, Eastern Slavic tribes. Our best account of the early history, especially in the period as
we get into the ninth century comes from what is known as
the Russian Primary Chronicle. And keep in mind, this was written at a much later period. It was written in the early 12th century. It is sometimes ascribed
to the Kievan monk Nestor. So at previous times, it was
known as Nestor's Chronicles, but we don't even have
surviving accounts of this. We have surviving accounts
of copies of this, or what we believe are copies of this. What I'll share is a version of the Russian Primary Chronicle known as the Laurentian Text from 1377. And this is, of course,
an English translation. It gives us some of the earliest accounts of the relationship between the Varangians and the Eastern Slavs
and how what we have come to identify as the Russian people and the Ukrainian people
and the Belorussian people, how they got their start. So right before this passage, it talks about how the
Varangians tried to get tribute from some of the Eastern Slavic tribes. And it says the tributaries
of the Varangians drove them back beyond the sea and, refusing them further tribute, set out to govern themselves. So they pushed them back
beyond what we now call the Baltic Sea, and they
decided to govern themselves. There was no law among them. Tribe rose against tribe, and they began to war one against another. 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 Russes. So they went back to the Russes, and they said, these warring
Eastern Slavic tribes said, 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. The oldest, Rurik, located
himself in Novgorod. Right over here. Novgorod literally means new town. Gorod means town. The district of Novgorod became known as the land of Rus'. So a lot of really
interesting things going on. The Varangians, first,
are trying to get tribute from these tribes, which is
a way of saying tax them, making them subservient to these Vikings. And even though these Eastern Slavs were able to push them back, according to the Primary Chronicle, they said hey we need your help. We want you to rule over us. There's very few times in history where people are asking a foreign group to rule over them. And so this is an interesting question. Remember, this history
is written under the rule of one of the descendants of Rurik. So do you think it was actually this way? Or do you think the Varangians
maybe forced themselves on the Eastern Slavs and
later created this narrative, that they were invited to come in? But according to the Primary Chronicle, we have Rurik coming from Scandinavia to Novgorod and establishing
the land of Rus'. Now the word Rus is really interesting. Most historians believe
it to be the source of what we now say Russia, or even Belarus, which means white Rus. Some historians think
it comes from the name of Sweden at the time. Some believe that the Rus
were a subgroup of Varangians, of Vikings. Some believe that the word is derived from those who row. But either way, the Primary
Chronicle goes on to tell us from 870 to 879, on his deathbed, Rurik bequeathed his realm to Oleg, who belonged to his kin, and entrusted to Oleg's
hands his son Igor, for he was very young. And then from 880 to
882, Oleg set himself up as prince in Kiev and declared
that it should be the mother of Russian cities. So Rurik's immediate successor is Oleg. And in the early 880s, he goes and establishes himself in Kiev, expanding the land of Rus'. This is Kiev right over here, and because Oleg was able to take Kiev, the state that emerges from Rurik and Oleg not only is it known as
the Land of the Rus', but it's also known as the Kievan State, and they're often known
as the Kievan Rus'. And you can see here
how that state expands over the next few hundred years. As we get to the year 900, you have this off-white color, and you can see, it is in control of both Novgorod and Kiev. As you get to 1015, it's
taken even more territory, and by 1113, which is near
the peak of the Kievan state, you see that it has taken control of a good chunk of Eastern Europe. And as the state expands, its character changes as well. As you get to the end of the 10th century, you have a major event in
one of Rurik's descendants, Vladimir, often known
as Vladimir the Great, he decides to convert to
Eastern Orthodox Christianity. And in a future video, I might
talk about his rationales, or what historians view as
his rationales for conversion. And as we will see, over time, and because of not only his conversion, but essentially the conversion of the entire Kievan state, over time, especially
with the eventual decline of the Byzantine Empire, what would eventually be Russia becomes a center of Eastern
Orthodox Christianity. Now the Kievan state lasts
as an independent state until we get to the 13th century. And from many other videos, you might be guessing what
happens in the 13th century. You have Genghis Khan
and then his descendants emerge out of Central and Eastern Asia, and in 1240, you have the Mongol invasion, at which point, many of the principalities within the Land of Rus' become tributaries to the Mongolians. And they would be so for
the next, roughly, 200 years until Ivan the Great comes along and is able to exert
independence from the Mongols for the Rus, but we will cover that in a future video.