Upload
others
View
1
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
(Adapted from World History: Human Legacy by Susan Ramirez, et al.) . The Rus and Kiev For thousands of years, hunter-‐gatherers, steppe nomads, and farmers managed to make a living in the sometimes harsh climate of the lands we now call Ukraine and Russia. Among the people who occupied the plains were the Slavs, who originated in the area of Eastern Europe that is today Poland and Ukraine. They do not enter the written historical record, however, until the 800s CE. The history of the Slavs is told in The Russian Primary Chronicle, written during the 1100s. According to this account, during the mid-‐800s, the Slavs along the Dnieper (NEE-‐puhr) River were fighting among themselves and asked for help from northern Europeans called the Rus. While there is an ongoing debate as who the Rus really were, most historians identify them as a Viking tribe from Sweden that, over time, became fully assimilated among the majority Slavic population. PRIMARY SOURCE “‘Our whole 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 kinsfolk, who took with them all the Rus, and migrated.” —The Russian Primary Chronicle The oldest of the three brothers, Rurik, took Novgorod, a trading center, and brought order to the Slavs there. In 882 Rurik’s successor, Oleg, ventured farther south to a town called Kiev. He united the whole region and ruled over it. That state came to be called Kiev after the town on the Dnieper. Oleg wanted to extend Kiev to the south, and in 907 he successfully attacked Constantinople. Legend claims that he nailed his shield to the city gates to celebrate his victory. That victory enabled Oleg to demand an
advantageous trade agreement. The agreement was the beginning of a close connection between the Byzantine Empire and the Russian people, for whom Kiev became an important center of trade. Christianity Among the Slavs: Cyril and Methodius Warfare and trade were not the only ways in which the Byzantine Empire affected Russia. Christianity spread to Russia from the Byzantine Empire. Before Rurik and Oleg arrived in Russia, the Slavs practiced a native religion. That belief system was based on nature and had many gods. In 863 a churchman in Constantinople sent two Greek monks to Moravia (now in the Czech Republic) to convert the Slavs to Christianity. The monks, Cyril and Methodius, were brothers. They spoke the Slavonic language and used it instead of the traditional Greek to celebrate mass. Use of the native language helped Cyril and Methodius
The Rise of Russia
convert many Moravian Slavs to Christianity. Cyril and Methodius did not travel far beyond Moravia. However, their desire to translate religious texts for a larger group of readers led them to develop a written alphabet for the Slavonic language. Based mainly on the characters of the Greek alphabet, it is called the Cyrillic alphabet. Use of the Cyrillic alphabet and the Slavonic mass became widespread in what are now Serbia and Bulgaria, Slavic regions of Southeastern Europe, and their use eventually spread even farther. As a result of the Greek brothers’ efforts, it was the Byzantine version of Christianity, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, that spread to Russia. Within some 100 years, Christianity was established and claimed an important convert when Grand Duke Vladimir I of Kiev gave up the old beliefs and was baptized a Christian. The Primary Chronicle reports that Vladimir sent out teams to observe the major religions of the times. Three of the teams returned with lukewarm accounts of Islam, Judaism, and Western Christianity. But the team from Byzantium told quite a different story: PRIMARY SOURCE “The Greeks led us to the [buildings] where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We only know that God dwells there among men, and . . . we cannot forget that beauty.” —The Russian Primary Chronicle This report convinced Vladimir to convert to Byzantine Christianity and to make all his subjects convert, too. In 989, a baptism of all the citizens of Kiev was held in the Dnieper River. He then married the sister of a Byzantine emperor. Kiev, already linked to Byzantium by trade, now looked to the empire for religious guidance. Vladimir imported teachers to instruct the people in the new faith. All the beliefs and traditions of Orthodox Christianity flourished in Kiev. Vladimir appreciated the Byzantine idea of the emperor as supreme ruler of the Church. So the close link between Church and state took root in Russia as well. Some historians say that Vladimir’s conversion was just a preliminary step in gaining economic and political advantages from the Byzantine Empire. Even if his conversion was politically motivated, Vladimir did build libraries, schools, and churches afterwards. In 988 Vladimir made Orthodox Christianity the state religion of Kievan Russia. Vladimir led the way in establishing Kiev’s power. He expanded his state west into Poland and north almost to the Baltic Sea. He also fought off troublesome Turkic nomads from the steppes to the south. In 1019, Vladimir’s son Yaroslav the Wise came to the throne and led Kiev to even greater glory, having religious texts translated into the Slavic language, improving cities, and developing a law code. But the decline of the Kievan state started with the death of Yaroslav in 1054. During his reign, Yaroslav had divided his realm among his sons, instead of following the custom of passing on the throne to the eldest son. Upon their father’s death, the sons tore the state apart fighting for the most desirable territories. And because this system of dividing the kingdom among sons continued, each generation saw new struggles. The Crusades—the numerous clashes between Christians and Muslims for control of the Holy Lands of the Middle East that began in 1095—added to Kiev’s troubles by disrupting trade. Then, just when it seemed that things could not get worse, a new threat emerged: The Mongols.
Russian Orthodox Cathedral