POST-CLASSICAL RUSSIA:

Kiev & Moscow

RUSSIA’S GEOGRAPHY:

  • The Steppe:
  • rich soil =
  • modern-day Ukraine & Kazakhstan
  • The Taiga:
  • subarctic region
  • bogs & lakes
  • Siberia:
  • Includes tundra in northern latitudes
  • Great Rivers:
  • Run north to south

RUSSIA’S EARLY INHABITANTS

  • Vast ethnic mix whose territories shifted through Russia’s history
  • in east
  • in north
  • in south

RISE OF THE KIEVAN STATE

  • Patterns of trade arose between Western Russian areas
  • Caravan trade along
  • Scandinavians ( ) active along
  • 700s-800s CE
  • Trade with
  • Vikings as for Byzantine Emperors

THE KIEVAN RUS

  • Established trading cities
  • Cultures mix =
  • = 1st prince of KievanRus, 855 CE
  • , Grand Prince of Kiev, 980 CE
  • chose Orthodox Church
  • Made church appointments  Russian Orthodoxy
  • Grand Prince Yaroslav, 1019 CE

EARLY BYZANTINE INFLUENCS: CYRIL & METHODIUS

  • Developed Alphabet
  • Byzantine influence on Russian Christianity

THE BOYARS

  • Boyars =
  • Kievan princes must negotiate with them

DECLINE OF KIEV, 1100s-1200s CE

  • Princes argue & war, succession disputes, invaders, decline of Byzantine Empire
  • Kingdom of established
  • (“ ” or “ ”) invade
  • 1237-1238 and 1240-1241
  • destroyed after refusal to surrender
  • Led to further cultural division from W. Europe
  • Slowed transmission of late Middle Ages & Renaissance from W. Europe
  • Mongol influence through 1400s

RUSSIA REEMERGES: MOSCOW – “THE THIRD ROME”

  • Rebuilt after Mongol destruction
  • Benefited most from Mongol rule, because Princes…
  • Begin to
  • Defeat Mongols at (1380)
  • Grand Prince Ivan III (“ ”) ends Mongol rule – 1480s
  • – Constantinople fell to Ottoman Turks
  • relocated to Moscow
  • Moscow preserves under powerful leadership of  “ ”

IVAN IV “THE TERRIBLE”: RUSSIA’S FIRST CZAR

  • r.1533-1584 CE
  • took title of Czar (“ ”)
  • saw himself as heir to
  • on throne at age
  • extremely paranoid
  • torture & murder suspected enemies ( )
  • St. Basil’s Cathedral