Beginning of a long and violent history of Russia

Author:

Stephanie Kio
She was christened in childhood with a lash,
Torn to pieces,
Scorched.
Her soul was trampled by the feet,
Inflicting blow upon blow,
Of Pechenegs,
Varangians,
Tartars,
And our own people –
Much more terrible than the Tartars.
In these few lines from a poem published in 1963, Yevgeny Yevtoshenko conveyed the history of Russia and, by extension, the history of the Soviet Union. A land unprotected by natural barriers, it has suffered invasion after invasion – from the east by Pechenegs, Tartars, Khazars and countless others, from the north and west by Varangians, Swedes, Lithuanians, Poles, French and Germans. It has been oppressed by its own rulers, who have included some of the cruellest tyrants the world has known. Such a history explains why the Russian people seem so passionately possessive of their land, so submissive to authoritarian rule. 'Russia\'s endurance became famous', wrote Yevtushenko. 'She did endure'.
The story begins in about 1.000 B.C. with the Cimmerians, farmers of the plains north of the Black Sea. Around 700 B.C., they were overrun by the first Asiatic horsemen, the Scythians, another long-vanished people, who left behind in burial mounds a fortune in golden ornaments – diadems, necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings – that today are nation treasures.
The Scythians in turn yielded to a new group of Asiatic nomads, the Sarmatians, and these were followed by the Goths and then the Huns; under their leader, Attila, the Huns went on to terrorize much of Europe, rampaging as far to the west as Orleans, where they were at last defeated by Visigoths and Gallo-Romans in 451 A.D. in the wake of the Huns came the Avars and then the Khazars.
The  Khazars were traders, and among the peoples they dealt with were the Slavs, a group of slash-and-burn farmers and fur trappers living in the forested area of present-day Kiev, Novgorod and Moscow. Little is known of their earlier history. Related to other Slavic peoples of Central Europe, these Eastern Slavs waited out the Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, Avars and other conquerors to become the enduring Russians, a name they acquired in a roundabout fashion during the ninth and 10th centuries.
The name was a Norse gift. Scandinavian traders, the Varangians, using the inland waterways of the Volkov and Dnieper Rivers to reach the rich market of Byzantium, passed right through the Slavic heartland. In time, these Norsemen, one group of whom are believed to have been called the Rus, established trading posts in the Slavs\' territory. Two of the trading posts, Kiev and Novgorod, grew into fortified towns ruled by Norse princes. And Kiev, strategically located just where the Dnieper breaks out of the forests into the steppe, eventually became the thriving centre of the infant Kiev state, the ancestral home to modern Russia.
Around 980, Kiev was under the rule of Vladimir, the first of the long series of autocrats who shaped Russia to their will. By this time most of the rulers of Europe, the Near East and North Africa had adopted one or another of the great monotheistic religions. Vladimir\'s agents were dazzled by the Eastern Orthodox Church. 'The Greeks led us to the buildings where they worshipped their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendour or such beauty, and we are at a loss to describe it'.  Impressed by this report, Vladimir arranged to be baptized into the Orthodox Church and forced all of his subjects to do the same.
Vladimir\'s choice of Eastern Orthodoxy over Western Catholicism had results of lasting significance. It isolated the country from the rest of Europe, provoked abiding suspicion of Western ideas, and incited tragic enmity between Russia and its Roman Catholic neighbours – practically the Poles.
Vladimir\'s bold stroke did indeed give the Kiev state a measure of unity. But not for long. Constantly battered by waves of nomadic invaders, it succumbed to the Tartars, who in the 13th century conquered much of Europe and Asia. The Tartars ruled Russia for more than 200 years, and the fledgling Russian state was reduced to a few small principalities paying tribute to their Tartar masters but tenuously linked by the Orthodox Church.
Kiev, in the midst of the Tartar-held Ukrainian region, was never to regain its political supremacy. Many modern Ukrainians, while claiming credit for the founding of Russia, do not consider themselves Russians. They are, they insist, Ukrainians, and they are a bit scornful of the neighbouring Slavs to the north, the Russians who took advantage of the Tartar conquest to gain the power they hold today.
These northern Slavs peopled the principality then known as Muscovy, its chief town a nondescript wooden settlement called Moscow. The Muscovites were only loosely controlled by the Tartars but acknowledged their dominance and paid them tribute. Muscovite princes, cannily using their tribute-paying role to better their own position, collected taxes for their overlords but pocketed some of the take. Eventually they were strong enough to challenge the Tartars.
By a fluke, they were also able to supplant Kiev as the spiritual capital of Russia. The head of the Russian Church, on tour, happened to die in Moscow, and the Muscovite princes seized the opportunity to persuade his successor to transfer his seat from Kiev to Moscow. Thus fortified with temporal and spiritual power, Muscovy finally threw off Tartar rule in 1380, and by 1462 a potent Moscow prince, Ivan III, asserted his authority over Novgorod and Kiev as well as Moscow, so uniting the Slavic principalities into the Russian nation. Ivan took to calling himself Tsar – the Russian equivalent to Caesar, which was the title of the Emperors of Rome. His contemporaries referred to him as Ivan the Great.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/history-articles/beginning-of-a-long-and-violent-history-of-russia-5002903.html
About the Author
Stephanie Kio runs several bilingual websites with different themes - including coffee makers website in English and Russian. On this website you can read more quality information on the best Cuisinart Home Coffee Makers and many other brands.