5 ms·

Yes, and the link of it to Russia is rather thin.

by varjag 5y ago

trhway 5y ago
The "thinness" is subject to interpretation (and today especially because of Ukraine situation it has become a political issue with Ukraine actively developing its own independent history and claiming Kievan Rus for itself, and also in Russia there are people who don't like the idea of the state's Viking ie. non-Slavic origination) which one can decide for theselves by looking at historic facts. Yes, the south and western dukedoms (on the territory of modern Ukraine an Belarus) of Kievan Rus were for around 2 centuries under Mongols and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and thus the link was pretty much broken there. Where is the north/east dukedoms have existed without interruption, growing and expanding and ultimately getting unified into Moscow dukedom (later tzardom) which continuing expanding became the Russian empire. The Russian aristocrats direct descendants of the one of the early Kievan Rus Viking ruler - Rurik (whose descendants ruled the Rus and later the Moscow dukedom for centuries) - are still around.
- paganel 5y ago
  Not an expert in Russian history by any means but I think that the instinct to associate Kievan Rus with Russian (and not necessarily Ukrainian only) history is also due to the fact that the Orthodox faith came to Muscovy Russia via Kiev, where it had been brought by the byzantines, of course.
  - trhway 5y ago
    Definitely. Until the rise of Ukranian nationalism during 19th century, it was only of Russian interest as Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later Poland, both Catholic, who owned those territories for several centuries actively suppressed the Orthodox church there.
- caskstrength 5y ago
  > Ukraine actively developing its own independent history and claiming Kievan Rus for itself I mean, it is not like all "real" Rus people packed their bags and left for Moscow at some moment in time and then some "unrelated" people set shop in Kyiv bringing funny not-a-true-language with them. Obviously, Ukrainians are direct descendants of people who inhabited that part of Rus. > Where is the north/east dukedoms have existed without interruption, growing and expanding and ultimately getting unified into Moscow dukedom The norther part of Rus escaped the Mongol devastation because if was unimportant backwater. There was nothing there to "interrupt". > The Russian aristocrats direct descendants of the one of the early Kievan Rus Viking ruler - Rurik (whose descendants ruled the Rus and later the Moscow dukedom for centuries) - are still around. Rurik is a legendary figure. Who are these people who are "still around" claiming to be Rurik bloodline? Sound funny as hell.
  - trhway 5y ago
    >I mean, it is not like all "real" Rus people packed their bags and left for Moscow at some moment in time and then some "unrelated" people set shop in Kyiv bringing funny not-a-true-language with them. Obviously, Ukrainians are direct descendants of people who inhabited that part of Rus. No. The area got depopulated by Mongols and largely stayed that way due to Crimean Tatars until Grand Duchy of Lithuania started the "Reconquista" in the modern West and Central Ukraine and later Grand Duchy of Moscow pushed south too with it culminating in the Russian Empire completely pushing Crimean Tatars out and taking over most of that territory, and it was gradually repopulated during that process with the Central and East Ukraine mostly with people migrating from Russia. As a result the "funny not-a-true-language" which is very close to the language of Russian peasants, and 100+ years ago Ukranian cities were speaking mostly Russian while villages - Ukranian. I'm half Ukranian myself and watch some modern Ukranian TV including in Ukranian, and i fail to see it as a separate language. >The norther part of Rus escaped the Mongol devastation because if was unimportant backwater. There was nothing there to "interrupt". No. The Mongols were generally stopped by forests, mountains and seas. In this case it was forest. Calling Novgorod in particular "unimportant backwater" is strange to say the least. >Rurik is a legendary figure. Who are these people who are "still around" claiming to be Rurik bloodline? Sound funny as hell. Rurik was in the 2nd half of 9th century. There are a lot of unknown about him. His descendants are pretty known though. Do you doubt the history of Vladimir the Great, a great grandson of Rurik? I mean do you doubt the whole dynasty or only starting from specific place? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik_dynasty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik_dynasty (more in Russian https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D1%8E%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B8 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D1%8E%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA...) And there is nothing surprising in the dukes/tzars bloodline of 11 centuries recorded length - even for my minor aristocracy family (from Grand Duchy of Lithuania) the oldest documents i've seen so far are from the late 13xx and that is without digging deep into the family archive :)
    - caskstrength 5y ago
      > No. You are entitled to your opinions, but statement like this doesn't make intellectually curious conversation, to say the least. > The area got depopulated by Mongols and largely stayed that way due to Crimean Tatars until Grand Duchy of Lithuania started the "Reconquista" in the modern West and Central Ukraine When you read "depopulated" in history books it doesn't mean mongols literally executed every single man, woman and child and left barren wasteland behind them. Your own Lithuanian sources claim (semi-legendary) battle in early 14th century with Principality of Kiev led by Stanislav of Kiev[0], which is an obvious indication of some form of statehood and military in the region. Unless that guy named "Stanislav" was a just a mongol or tatarin with uncharacteristic name, of course... > and later Grand Duchy of Moscow pushed south too with it culminating in the Russian Empire completely pushing Crimean Tatars out and taking over most of that territory, Grand Duchy of Moscow pushing Crimean Tatars out of Kyiv? What? > and it was gradually repopulated during that process with the Central and East Ukraine mostly with people migrating from Russia. "The process" where Russia entered the game was actually massive (and successful) Kozak rebellion against Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in lands that you are alleging were "mostly unpopulated" at the time. > As a result the "funny not-a-true-language" which is very close to the language of Russian peasants So why don't Russian peasants speak Ukrainian now? Also where did Belarusian language came from? Some other Russian village nearby? Even Russian scientists/linguists don't entertain that silly "peasant language" notion. You can read summary even on wikipedia[1], but here are some quotes: "According to Lomonosov, the differences that subsequently developed between Great Russian and Ukrainian (which he referred to as Little Russian) could be explained by the influence of the Polish and Slovak languages on Ukrainian and the influence of Uralic languages on Russian from the 13th to the 17th centuries.", "Soviet scholars set the divergence between Ukrainian and Russian only at later time periods (14th through 16th centuries). According to this view, Old East Slavic diverged into Belarusian and Ukrainian to the west (collectively, the Ruthenian language of the 15th to 18th centuries), and Old East Slavic to the north-east, after the political boundaries of the Kyivan Rus were redrawn in the 14th century. ". Doesn't it surprise you that Lomonosov who was born in early 18th century doesn't immediately recognize Ukrainian as just a language of Russian peasants? > 100+ years ago Ukranian cities were speaking mostly Russian while villages - Ukranian Makes sense since Ukrainian-language schools were banned in territories controlled by Russian Empire in 1804. Also, you don't need to go as far as 100+ years ago because Kyiv was overwhelmingly Russian-speaking very recently (I am a Russian-speaking person from Kyiv). Doesn't have anything to do with "peasant language" though. > I'm half Ukranian myself and watch some modern Ukranian TV including in Ukranian, and i fail to see it as a separate language. I know a people from Western Ukraine who understand Polish without ever officially studying it. Does it make Polish not a "real" separate language? What about Italian? Language of Roman peasants, perhaps? > No. sigh > The Mongols were generally stopped by forests, mountains and seas. In this case it was forest. Calling Novgorod in particular "unimportant backwater" is strange to say the least. Isn't (wasn't) Novgorod situated in the marshes and Mongols supposedly stopped just couple of hundred kilometers on their way to it because they didn't want to traverse the marshlands? Anyway, Moscow was an insignificant outpost during Mongol invasion and Grand Duchy of Moscow is what eventually became Tsardom of Russia, not Novgorod. > Rurik was in the 2nd half of 9th century. There are a lot of unknown about him. There is nothing that is really "known" about him. I mean, the only "contemporary" written mention of the guy is Primary Chronicle. The Chronicle is a rare case of agreement between Russian and Ukrainian historians where both camps suggest it is mostly a work of literature (not history) which is mainly concerned with narrative and biblical undertones[2]. I'm sure there was a Varangian chieftain with similar name somewhere around that time and then some time later it was fashionable to claim his bloodline, but seriously "tracing" one's ancestry to the guy is laughable. > Do you doubt the history of Vladimir the Great, a great grandson of Rurik? I mean do you doubt the whole dynasty or only starting from specific place? As I said before I doubt some random dude in 2021 claiming his ancestry to legendary 9th century chieftain of some Varangian clan. Doesn't mean I doubt Vladimir the Great existed. > And there is nothing surprising in the dukes/tzars bloodline of 11 centuries recorded length Where is it recorded in that particular case though? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_on_the_Irpin_River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_on_the_Irpin_River [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_Chronicle#Assessment_and_critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_Chronicle#Assessment_a...
Mikeb85 5y ago
Not really. The Rus empire was a thing, capital was Kyiv. It was a decently large empire that encompassed most of eastern Europe. It certainly encompased Moscow, Novgorod, etc... It eventually fell to the Mongols. 2 centuries later Moscow overthrew the Mongols and reunited (and grew) the empire. There's no continuous history per se, but east slavic peoples (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarussian) have always been essentially the same people. The Rus and Russian empires were the same people even if there was an interruption and the capital changed because of historic circumstances. When my family came to North-America from the Austro-Hungarian empire, they were even known as Rusyn/Ruthenian (they're Ukrainian)... No one has ever disputed that the modern Russian empire represented the same people as the (Kyivan) Rus empire until very recently. Like, I know a bunch of Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs and Slovaks and they can all more or less understand each other. Slavs are far more similar than different (language, culture, food, temperament, etc...). Edit - it's ok to admit a shared history while also wanting some countries that weren't historically independent to stay independent and forge a new national identity. Trying to rewrite history is petty.
- varjag 5y ago
  > There's no continuous history per se, but east slavic peoples (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarussian) have always been essentially the same people. They appear to you the same due to few centuries of cultural subjugation by one dominant power. Otherwise they are as diverse as anywhere else in Europe. > No one has ever disputed that the modern Russian empire represented the same people as the (Kyivan) Rus empire until very recently. Outside of Russia, few cared for particular details of the founding lore of a backwater empire. Inside the empire, see above.

Yes, and the link of it to Russia is rather thin.

by varjag 5y ago

Yes, and the link of it to Russia is rather thin.

The "thinness" is subject to interpretation (and today especially because of Ukraine situation it has become a political issue with Ukraine actively developing its own independent history and claiming Kievan Rus for itself, and also in Russia there are people who don't like the idea of the state's Viking ie. non-Slavic origination) which one can decide for theselves by looking at historic facts. Yes, the south and western dukedoms (on the territory of modern Ukraine an Belarus) of Kievan Rus were for around 2 centuries under Mongols and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and thus the link was pretty much broken there. Where is the north/east dukedoms have existed without interruption, growing and expanding and ultimately getting unified into Moscow dukedom (later tzardom) which continuing expanding became the Russian empire. The Russian aristocrats direct descendants of the one of the early Kievan Rus Viking ruler - Rurik (whose descendants ruled the Rus and later the Moscow dukedom for centuries) - are still around.

paganel 5y ago
Not an expert in Russian history by any means but I think that the instinct to associate Kievan Rus with Russian (and not necessarily Ukrainian only) history is also due to the fact that the Orthodox faith came to Muscovy Russia via Kiev, where it had been brought by the byzantines, of course.
- trhway 5y ago
  Definitely. Until the rise of Ukranian nationalism during 19th century, it was only of Russian interest as Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later Poland, both Catholic, who owned those territories for several centuries actively suppressed the Orthodox church there.
caskstrength 5y ago
> Ukraine actively developing its own independent history and claiming Kievan Rus for itself I mean, it is not like all "real" Rus people packed their bags and left for Moscow at some moment in time and then some "unrelated" people set shop in Kyiv bringing funny not-a-true-language with them. Obviously, Ukrainians are direct descendants of people who inhabited that part of Rus. > Where is the north/east dukedoms have existed without interruption, growing and expanding and ultimately getting unified into Moscow dukedom The norther part of Rus escaped the Mongol devastation because if was unimportant backwater. There was nothing there to "interrupt". > The Russian aristocrats direct descendants of the one of the early Kievan Rus Viking ruler - Rurik (whose descendants ruled the Rus and later the Moscow dukedom for centuries) - are still around. Rurik is a legendary figure. Who are these people who are "still around" claiming to be Rurik bloodline? Sound funny as hell.
- trhway 5y ago
  >I mean, it is not like all "real" Rus people packed their bags and left for Moscow at some moment in time and then some "unrelated" people set shop in Kyiv bringing funny not-a-true-language with them. Obviously, Ukrainians are direct descendants of people who inhabited that part of Rus. No. The area got depopulated by Mongols and largely stayed that way due to Crimean Tatars until Grand Duchy of Lithuania started the "Reconquista" in the modern West and Central Ukraine and later Grand Duchy of Moscow pushed south too with it culminating in the Russian Empire completely pushing Crimean Tatars out and taking over most of that territory, and it was gradually repopulated during that process with the Central and East Ukraine mostly with people migrating from Russia. As a result the "funny not-a-true-language" which is very close to the language of Russian peasants, and 100+ years ago Ukranian cities were speaking mostly Russian while villages - Ukranian. I'm half Ukranian myself and watch some modern Ukranian TV including in Ukranian, and i fail to see it as a separate language. >The norther part of Rus escaped the Mongol devastation because if was unimportant backwater. There was nothing there to "interrupt". No. The Mongols were generally stopped by forests, mountains and seas. In this case it was forest. Calling Novgorod in particular "unimportant backwater" is strange to say the least. >Rurik is a legendary figure. Who are these people who are "still around" claiming to be Rurik bloodline? Sound funny as hell. Rurik was in the 2nd half of 9th century. There are a lot of unknown about him. His descendants are pretty known though. Do you doubt the history of Vladimir the Great, a great grandson of Rurik? I mean do you doubt the whole dynasty or only starting from specific place? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik_dynasty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik_dynasty (more in Russian https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D1%8E%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B8 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D1%8E%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA...) And there is nothing surprising in the dukes/tzars bloodline of 11 centuries recorded length - even for my minor aristocracy family (from Grand Duchy of Lithuania) the oldest documents i've seen so far are from the late 13xx and that is without digging deep into the family archive :)
  - caskstrength 5y ago
    > No. You are entitled to your opinions, but statement like this doesn't make intellectually curious conversation, to say the least. > The area got depopulated by Mongols and largely stayed that way due to Crimean Tatars until Grand Duchy of Lithuania started the "Reconquista" in the modern West and Central Ukraine When you read "depopulated" in history books it doesn't mean mongols literally executed every single man, woman and child and left barren wasteland behind them. Your own Lithuanian sources claim (semi-legendary) battle in early 14th century with Principality of Kiev led by Stanislav of Kiev[0], which is an obvious indication of some form of statehood and military in the region. Unless that guy named "Stanislav" was a just a mongol or tatarin with uncharacteristic name, of course... > and later Grand Duchy of Moscow pushed south too with it culminating in the Russian Empire completely pushing Crimean Tatars out and taking over most of that territory, Grand Duchy of Moscow pushing Crimean Tatars out of Kyiv? What? > and it was gradually repopulated during that process with the Central and East Ukraine mostly with people migrating from Russia. "The process" where Russia entered the game was actually massive (and successful) Kozak rebellion against Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in lands that you are alleging were "mostly unpopulated" at the time. > As a result the "funny not-a-true-language" which is very close to the language of Russian peasants So why don't Russian peasants speak Ukrainian now? Also where did Belarusian language came from? Some other Russian village nearby? Even Russian scientists/linguists don't entertain that silly "peasant language" notion. You can read summary even on wikipedia[1], but here are some quotes: "According to Lomonosov, the differences that subsequently developed between Great Russian and Ukrainian (which he referred to as Little Russian) could be explained by the influence of the Polish and Slovak languages on Ukrainian and the influence of Uralic languages on Russian from the 13th to the 17th centuries.", "Soviet scholars set the divergence between Ukrainian and Russian only at later time periods (14th through 16th centuries). According to this view, Old East Slavic diverged into Belarusian and Ukrainian to the west (collectively, the Ruthenian language of the 15th to 18th centuries), and Old East Slavic to the north-east, after the political boundaries of the Kyivan Rus were redrawn in the 14th century. ". Doesn't it surprise you that Lomonosov who was born in early 18th century doesn't immediately recognize Ukrainian as just a language of Russian peasants? > 100+ years ago Ukranian cities were speaking mostly Russian while villages - Ukranian Makes sense since Ukrainian-language schools were banned in territories controlled by Russian Empire in 1804. Also, you don't need to go as far as 100+ years ago because Kyiv was overwhelmingly Russian-speaking very recently (I am a Russian-speaking person from Kyiv). Doesn't have anything to do with "peasant language" though. > I'm half Ukranian myself and watch some modern Ukranian TV including in Ukranian, and i fail to see it as a separate language. I know a people from Western Ukraine who understand Polish without ever officially studying it. Does it make Polish not a "real" separate language? What about Italian? Language of Roman peasants, perhaps? > No. sigh > The Mongols were generally stopped by forests, mountains and seas. In this case it was forest. Calling Novgorod in particular "unimportant backwater" is strange to say the least. Isn't (wasn't) Novgorod situated in the marshes and Mongols supposedly stopped just couple of hundred kilometers on their way to it because they didn't want to traverse the marshlands? Anyway, Moscow was an insignificant outpost during Mongol invasion and Grand Duchy of Moscow is what eventually became Tsardom of Russia, not Novgorod. > Rurik was in the 2nd half of 9th century. There are a lot of unknown about him. There is nothing that is really "known" about him. I mean, the only "contemporary" written mention of the guy is Primary Chronicle. The Chronicle is a rare case of agreement between Russian and Ukrainian historians where both camps suggest it is mostly a work of literature (not history) which is mainly concerned with narrative and biblical undertones[2]. I'm sure there was a Varangian chieftain with similar name somewhere around that time and then some time later it was fashionable to claim his bloodline, but seriously "tracing" one's ancestry to the guy is laughable. > Do you doubt the history of Vladimir the Great, a great grandson of Rurik? I mean do you doubt the whole dynasty or only starting from specific place? As I said before I doubt some random dude in 2021 claiming his ancestry to legendary 9th century chieftain of some Varangian clan. Doesn't mean I doubt Vladimir the Great existed. > And there is nothing surprising in the dukes/tzars bloodline of 11 centuries recorded length Where is it recorded in that particular case though? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_on_the_Irpin_River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_on_the_Irpin_River [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_Chronicle#Assessment_and_critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_Chronicle#Assessment_a...

Mikeb85 5y ago

Not really. The Rus empire was a thing, capital was Kyiv. It was a decently large empire that encompassed most of eastern Europe. It certainly encompased Moscow, Novgorod, etc... It eventually fell to the Mongols. 2 centuries later Moscow overthrew the Mongols and reunited (and grew) the empire. There's no continuous history per se, but east slavic peoples (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarussian) have always been essentially the same people. The Rus and Russian empires were the same people even if there was an interruption and the capital changed because of historic circumstances. When my family came to North-America from the Austro-Hungarian empire, they were even known as Rusyn/Ruthenian (they're Ukrainian)... No one has ever disputed that the modern Russian empire represented the same people as the (Kyivan) Rus empire until very recently. Like, I know a bunch of Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs and Slovaks and they can all more or less understand each other. Slavs are far more similar than different (language, culture, food, temperament, etc...). Edit - it's ok to admit a shared history while also wanting some countries that weren't historically independent to stay independent and forge a new national identity. Trying to rewrite history is petty.

varjag 5y ago
> There's no continuous history per se, but east slavic peoples (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarussian) have always been essentially the same people. They appear to you the same due to few centuries of cultural subjugation by one dominant power. Otherwise they are as diverse as anywhere else in Europe. > No one has ever disputed that the modern Russian empire represented the same people as the (Kyivan) Rus empire until very recently. Outside of Russia, few cared for particular details of the founding lore of a backwater empire. Inside the empire, see above.