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former federation of East Slavic tribes
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Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus', was the first East Slavic state and, later, an amalgam of principalities, in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century. Encompassing a variety of polities and peoples, including East Slavic, Norse, and Finnic, it was ruled by the Rurik dynasty, founded by the Varangian prince Rurik. During its existence, the state was known as Rus', with the modern compound name, first mentioned in a 1582 Polish text, being widely adopted and popularized by Russian imperial historiography starting from the 19th century. At its greatest extent in the mid-11th century, Kievan Rus' stretched from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south and from the Carpathian Mountains in the west to the Taman Peninsula in the east, uniting the East Slavic tribes.
According to the Primary Chronicle, the first ruler to unite East Slavic lands into what would become Kievan Rus' was Varangian prince Oleg the Wise (r. 879–912). He extended his control from Novgorod south along the Dnieper river valley to protect trade from Khazar incursions from the east, and took control of the city of Kiev, laying the foundation of the state and becoming prince of Kiev. Sviatoslav I (r. 943–972) achieved the first major territorial expansion of the state, fighting a war of conquest against the Khazars. Vladimir the Great (r. 980–1015) spread Christianity with his own baptism and, by decree, extended it to all inhabitants of Kiev and beyond. Kievan Rus' reached its greatest extent under Yaroslav the Wise (r. 1019–1054); his sons assembled and issued its first written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda, shortly after his death.
The state began to decline in the late 11th century, gradually disintegrating into various rival regional powers throughout the 12th century. It was further weakened by external factors, such as the decline of the Byzantine Empire, its major economic partner, and the accompanying diminution of trade routes through its territory. It finally fell to the Mongol invasion in the mid-13th century, though the Rurik dynasty would continue to rule until the death of Feodor I of Russia in 1598. The modern nations of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine all claim Kievan Rus' as their cultural ancestor, with Belarus and Russia deriving their names from it.
During its existence, Kievan Rus' was known as rusĭskaja zemlja, translated as the "land of Rus'", or the "Rus' land" (Old East Slavic: роу́сьскаꙗ землꙗ́), with Rus' being derived from the ethnonym Роусь, Rusĭ (Medieval Greek: Ῥῶς, romanized: Rhos; Arabic: الروس, romanized: ar-Rūs), in Greek as Ῥωσία, Rhosia, in Old French as Russie, Rossie, in Latin as Rusia or Russia (with local German spelling variants Ruscia and Ruzzia), and from the 12th century also as Ruthenia or Rutenia. Various etymologies have been proposed, including Ruotsi, the Finnish designation for Sweden or Ros, a tribe from the middle Dnieper valley region.
According to the prevalent theory, the name Rus', like the Proto-Finnic name for Sweden (*rootsi), is derived from an Old Norse term for 'men who row' (rods-) because rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roden, later known as Roslagen. The name Rus' would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden: Ruotsi and Rootsi.
When the Varangian princes arrived, the name Rus' was associated with them and came to be associated with the territories they controlled. Initially the cities of Kiev, Chernigov, and Pereyaslavl and their surroundings came under Varangian control. From the late tenth century, Vladimir the Great and Yaroslav the Wise tried to associate the name with all of the extended princely domains. Both meanings persisted in sources until the Mongol conquest: the narrower one, referring to the triangular territory east of the middle Dnieper, and the broader one, encompassing all the lands under the hegemony of Kiev's grand princes.
The first known use of the term Kievan Rus' (Polish: Ruś Kijowska) comes from the 1582 chronicle by Polish historian Maciej Stryjkowski, where it was used to describe the region of Rus' state immediately adjacent to Kyiv. In 1837 it was adopted by Kyiv University rector Mykhailo Maksymovych in relation to the Principality of Kiev; known for his Ukrainophile political orientation, Maksymovych later spread that definition to the whole realm, seeing Kyiv as the original point where Rus' statehood emerged, establishing the base for the future Russian Empire. The Russian term Kiyevskaya Rus' (Russian: Ки́евская Русь) was used in 19th-century Russian historiography to refer to the period when Kyiv served as the leading political centre. This term, alternatively spelled as Kievan Russia, is often used to refer to the period spanning from the 9th century to the mid-13th century.
In the 19th century, the name Kyivan Rus' also appeared in Ukrainian as Kyivska Rus' (Ukrainian: Ки́ївська Русь). Later, the term was rendered into Belarusian as Kiyewskaya Rus' or Kijeŭskaja Ruś (Belarusian: Кіеўская Русь) and into Rusyn as Kyïvska Rus' (Rusyn: Київска Русь). In English, the term was introduced in the early 20th century, when it was found in the 1913 English translation of Vasily Klyuchevsky's A History of Russia, to distinguish the early polity from successor states, which were also named Rus'. Another notable work which contributed to the establishment of the term among the English-speaking audience was George Vernadsky's 1948 work Kievan Russia.
During the Soviet period, after 1934 the term "Kievan Rus'" was introduced as the standard name of the medieval polity in government-published schoolbooks. The term was additionally popularized by historical works of Boris Grekov. The name "Kievan Rus'" was also present in an official publication by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union dedicated to the 300th anniversary of Pereyaslav Council in 1954. In modern Ukraine the term has been gradually eliminated from educational literature in favour of the original term Rus' or Rus'-Ukraine.
A alternative name of Rus' used by Varangians was the Old Norse toponym Garðaríki, which, according to a common interpretation, means "land of towns". The territories of Staraya Ladoga and Rurikovo Gorodische were initially called Garðar, before Garðaríki was used as a denomination for the entire state after the Varangians moved to the Middle Dnieper.
Prior to the emergence of Kievan Rus' in the 9th century, most of the area north of the Black Sea was primarily populated by eastern Slavic tribes. In the northern region around Novgorod were the Ilmen Slavs and neighboring Krivichi, who occupied territories surrounding the headwaters of the West Dvina, Dnieper and Volga rivers. To their north, in the Ladoga and Karelia regions, were the Chud: various Baltic Finnic peoples. In the south, in the area around Kiev, were the Poliane, the Drevliane to the west of the Dnieper, and the Severiane to the east. To their north and east were the Vyatichi, and to their south was forested land settled by Slav farmers, giving way to steppelands populated by nomadic herdsmen. Some of the East Slavic tribes belonged to the Luka-Raikovetska culture, while others to the Volyntsevo culture.
There was once controversy over whether the Rus' were Varangians or Slavs (see anti-Normanism); however, more recently, scholarly attention has focused more on debating how quickly an ancestrally Norse people assimilated into Slavic culture. This uncertainty is due largely to a paucity of contemporary sources. Attempts to address this question instead rely on archaeological evidence, the accounts of foreign observers, and legends and literature from centuries later. To some extent the controversy is related to the foundation myths of modern states in the region. This often unfruitful debate over origins has periodically devolved into competing nationalist narratives of dubious scholarly value being promoted directly by various government bodies in a number of states. This was seen in the Stalinist period, when Soviet historiography sought to distance the Rus' from any connection to Germanic tribes, in an effort to dispel Nazi propaganda claiming the Russian state owed its existence and origins to the supposedly racially superior Norse tribes. More recently, in the context of resurgent nationalism in post-Soviet states, Anglophone scholarship has analyzed renewed efforts to use this debate to create ethno-nationalist foundation stories, with governments sometimes directly involved in the project. Conferences and publications questioning the Norse origins of the Rus' have been supported directly by state policy in some cases, and the resultant foundation myths have been included in some school textbooks in Russia.
While Varangians were Norse traders and Vikings, many Russian and Ukrainian nationalist historians argue that the Rus' were themselves Slavs. Normanist theories focus on the earliest written source for the East Slavs, the Primary Chronicle, which was produced in the 12th century. Nationalist accounts on the other hand have suggested that the Rus' were present before the arrival of the Varangians, noting that only a handful of Scandinavian words can be found in Russian and that Scandinavian names in the early chronicles were soon replaced by Slavic names.
Nevertheless, the close connection between the Rus' and the Norse is confirmed both by extensive Scandinavian settlement in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine and by Slavic influences in the Swedish language. Though the debate over the origin of the Rus' remains politically charged, there is broad agreement that if the proto-Rus' were indeed originally Norse, they were quickly nativized, adopting Slavic languages and other cultural practices. This position, roughly representing a scholarly consensus (at least outside nationalist historiography), was summarized by the historian, F. Donald Logan, "in 839, the Rus were Swedes; in 1043 the Rus were Slavs".
Ahmad ibn Fadlan, an Arab traveler during the 10th century, provided one of the earliest written descriptions of the Rus': "They are as tall as a date palm, blond and ruddy, so that they do not need to wear a tunic nor a cloak; rather the men among them wear garments that only cover half of his body and leaves one of his hands free." Liutprand of Cremona, who was twice an envoy to the Byzantine court (949 and 968), identifies the "Russi" with the Norse ("the Russi, whom we call Norsemen by another name") but explains the name as a Greek term referring to their physical traits ("A certain people made up of a part of the Norse, whom the Greeks call [...] the Russi on account of their physical features, we designate as Norsemen because of the location of their origin."). Leo the Deacon, a 10th-century Byzantine historian and chronicler, refers to the Rus' as "Scythians" and notes that they tended to adopt Greek rituals and customs.
According to the Primary Chronicle, the territories of the East Slavs in the 9th century were divided between the Varangians and the Khazars. The Varangians are first mentioned imposing tribute on the northern tribes in 859. In 862, various tribes rebelled against the Varangians, driving them "back beyond the sea and, refusing them further tribute, set out to govern themselves".
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 Rus'. ... The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Ves then said to the Rus', "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 with their kinfolk, who took with them all the Rus' and migrated.
Modern scholars find this an unlikely series of events, probably made up by the 12th-century Orthodox priests who authored the Chronicle as an explanation how the Vikings managed to conquer the lands along the Varangian route so easily, as well as to support the legitimacy of the Rurikid dynasty. The three brothers—Rurik, Sineus and Truvor—supposedly established themselves in Novgorod, Beloozero and Izborsk, respectively. Two of the brothers died, and Rurik became the sole ruler of the territory and progenitor of the Rurik dynasty. A short time later, two of Rurik's men, Askold and Dir, asked him for permission to go to Tsargrad (Constantinople). On their way south, they came upon "a small city on a hill", Kiev, which was a tributary of the Khazars at the time, stayed there and "established their dominion over the country of the Polyanians."
The Primary Chronicle reports that Askold and Dir continued to Constantinople with a navy to attack the city in 866, catching the Byzantines by surprise and ravaging the surrounding area, though other accounts date the attack in 860. Patriarch Photius vividly describes the "universal" devastation of the suburbs and nearby islands, and another account further details the destruction and slaughter of the invasion. The Rus' turned back before attacking the city itself, due either to a storm dispersing their boats, the return of the Emperor, or in a later account, due to a miracle after a ceremonial appeal by the Patriarch and the Emperor to the Virgin. The attack was the first encounter between the Rus' and Byzantines and led the Patriarch to send missionaries north to engage and attempt to convert the Rus' and the Slavs.
According to the Primary Chronicle, Rurik led the Rus' until his death around 879, bequeathing his kingdom to his kinsman, Oleg, as regent for his young son, Igor. It then says that Oleg captured Smolensk and later Kiev in 882. He killed Askold and Dir and made Kiev the new capital. Oleg set about consolidating his power over the surrounding region and the riverways north to Novgorod, imposing tribute on the East Slav tribes. Although the Primary Chronicle states that Oleg transferred his capital to Kiev, this account differs from what most Latin and Greek sources report for the next century, in which Kiev is still presented as only an outpost for Novgorod/Gorodische.
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