Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Kyivan Rus
Meanwhile, Scandinavians - known as Varangians or Rus to the Slavs - had been explor-
ing, trading and setting up small states east of the Baltic since the 6th century AD. Trav-
elling south from the Rus power centre of Novgorod (near modern-day St Petersburg) in
879, King Oleh stopped just long enough to declare himself ruler of Kyiv. The city hand-
ily lay between Novgorod and Constantinople on the Dnipro River, and under Oleh's ur-
ging it became capital of a huge, unified Rus state. At its largest, under the rule of Vo-
lodymyr the Great (978-1015), this empire stretched from the Volga to the Danube and
to the Baltic, its prosperity based on trade along the Dnipro. Despite Nordic rule, the ter-
ritory's underlying culture remained essentially Slavic.
As well as consolidating Rus territory, Volodymyr firmly established Orthodox Chris-
tianity as the pre-eminent religion. By accepting baptism in 989 and marrying the Byzan-
tine emperor's daughter (at Khersones outside Sevastopol), he opened the door to Byzan-
tine artistic influences and cast Kyivan Rus as a European, rather than Islamic Asian,
state. St Sofia's Cathedral in Kyiv is still testament to Kyivan Rus' greatness and the im-
portance of Orthodox Christianity within the state.
After the death of Kyivan Rus' last great ruler, Yaroslav the Wise, in 1054, the empire
began disintegrating into separate princedoms. When Mongol warriors sacked Kyiv in
1240, it largely ceased to exist. According to Russian and Western historians, who be-
lieve present-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus all stem from Kyivan Rus, the centres of
power then simply shifted north and west, with Russia evolving from the northern
princedoms of Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal. Some Ukrainian historians, however,
prefer to treat Russia as a distinct civilisation - emanating from and returning to
Novgorod after 1240.
For an easy-to-absorb, chronological listing of Ukrainian events from the 9th to the 20th
centuries, set alongside those in the rest of the world, head to
www.brama.com/ukraine/
Mongols, Tatars & Turks
The Mongol invasion that sounded the death knell for Kyivan Rus in 1240 was led by
Genghis Khan's grandson Batu. As a result of his handiwork, a large swathe of the Rus
empire was subsumed into the so-called Golden Horde ('horde' meaning region) of the
Mongol Empire. This encompassed much of eastern and southern Ukraine, along with
parts of European Russia and Siberia, with the now vanished city of Sarai, on the Volga,
as its capital.