Three hundred and seventy-eight years — from the calling of the Varangian Rurik to Novgorod in 862 to the fall of Kyiv under the blow of the Mongols on 6 December 1240 — on the expanse from the Baltic to the Black Sea, the first East Slavic state existed. Kyivan Rus' was born on the route from the Varangians to the Greeks, adopted Christianity from Constantinople in 988, gave Europe dynastic marriages with France, Hungary and Norway — and broke up into a dozen and a half principalities before it was utterly destroyed by the hordes of Batu. On its ruins both Ukraine and Belarus and Russia have grown — and to this day they argue over who is its lawful heir.
The route from the Varangians to the Greeks
Kyivan Rus' was born of the great river road that linked the Baltic Sea with the Black. From Scandinavian Birka the merchants ascended to Ladoga, Ilmen and Novgorod, then by portage to the Western Dvina and the Dnipro — and down the Dnipro, past the rapids, to Byzantine Constantinople, which the Slavs called Tsargorod.
The Dnipro was the backbone of the whole civilisation of Rus': on it stood Liubech, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Kaniv, Pereiaslav. Along it went furs, honey, wax and slaves — to the south; silk, spices, weapons, icons and wine — to the north. He who held the crossings of the Dnipro held Rus'.
862: the calling of Rurik
The "Tale of Bygone Years," compiled by the monk Nestor around 1113, relates that in 862 the tribes of the Ilmen Slovenes, the Krivichi, the Chud and the Merya, weary of internecine strife, sent envoys overseas to the Varangians-Rus': "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come and rule and reign over us." Three brothers responded to the call — Rurik, Sineus and Truvor. The eldest sat down in Novgorod.
Meanwhile, southwards down the Dnipro, towards Kyiv, two of Rurik's boyars — Askold and Dir — descended. They freed the Polianians from the power of the Khazars and established themselves in Kyiv as the first princes of Rus' on the Dnipro. Thus in the north and in the south of Eastern Europe, at one and the same time, two centres of one future state were born.
860: Askold's raid on Tsargorod
On 18 June 860, while Emperor Michael III was campaigning in Asia Minor against the Arabs, two hundred Slavic boats unexpectedly appeared before the walls of Constantinople. This was the first campaign of Rus' known to European history. The city, with its million inhabitants, hid from an unknown enemy; Patriarch Photius in his sermon called them "a people obscure and insignificant, but now made famous; a people of no honour, but now made glorious."
According to the chronicle, Askold took a rich ransom from Tsargorod and returned to Kyiv as a victor. From that time Rus' entered world history: Byzantium had to reckon with a new power in the north. Scholars still argue whether that Askold was identical with the Askold of the "Tale" — but the campaign of 860 is beyond doubt: of it both the Greek chronicles and Byzantine eyewitnesses themselves write.
882: Oleh seizes Kyiv
After the death of Rurik in 879 the regent for his young son Ihor became his kinsman Oleh — in the chronicles surnamed the Wise. In 882 Oleh with his druzhyna descended the Dnipro, lured Askold and Dir out of Kyiv by a stratagem — pretending to be merchants sailing to the Greeks — and killed them both on the bank. The Kyivans accepted the new power without a fight.
The chronicle puts into the mouth of Oleh words that became the watchword of a millennium: "Let Kyiv be the mother of the cities of Rus'." Thus in 882 Novgorod and Kyiv, the north and the south, the Varangian element and the Slavic, were united — and Kyivan Rus' was born as a single state with its capital above the Dnipro. Down to 1240 Kyiv will bear the title of the city of the grand prince.
907: the shield on the gates of Tsargorod
In 907 Oleh gathered a great army — by the chronicle, two thousand boats with forty men in each — and marched on Tsargorod. The Greeks shut the entrance to the Bosphorus with a chain, but Oleh ordered the boats to be set on rollers and led the fleet overland — "by the dry as by the sea." Emperor Leo VI sent envoys with a peace proposal: a ransom and favourable trade privileges.
As a sign of victory Oleh nailed his shield to the gates of Tsargorod. The treaty of 907 (supplemented by the agreement of 911) gave the merchants of Rus' the right of duty-free trade in Constantinople, maintenance at the expense of the empire and free entry into the city. This was the first international treaty of Rus' with a great power — and the beginning of the diplomatic history of Slavic Europe.
Ihor and Olha: treaties and the war with the Drevlianians
After the death of Oleh around 912, his ward Ihor Rurikovych (912—945) ascended the Kyivan throne. Twice he marched on Tsargorod — in 941 the Greeks burned his fleet with "Greek fire," in 944 a new treaty was concluded. Ihor took to wife the Varangian woman Olha from Pskov, who would become one of the outstanding figures of the early Middle Ages.
In the autumn of 945 Ihor went to gather tribute from the Drevlianians for a second time — to return with a small druzhyna into the land from which he had only just taken the poliuddia. The Drevlianian prince Mal decided that the prince had become as rapacious as a wolf, and killed Ihor near Iskorosten — by the account, by tying him to two bent-down trees and tearing him in two. Olha, a thirty-year-old widow with the young son Sviatoslav in her arms, took power.
Olha's revenge and baptism (945—957)
Olha's revenge on the Drevlianians became one of the bloodiest tales of the chronicle. The first envoys she ordered buried alive, the second burned in the bath-house, on the funeral feast over Ihor's grave she fell upon the third with her druzhyna. At last in 946 she took Iskorosten: she asked from each yard three doves and three sparrows — and, tying burning tinder to their feet, burned the city together with its inhabitants.
Having confirmed her power, Olha carried out the first tax reform of Rus': she introduced "pohosty" — stationary points for the collection of tribute — and "uroky" — fixed rates. In 957 she personally came to Constantinople and received baptism at the hands of Patriarch Polyeuctus; her godfather was Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Christianity she did not pass on to her son Sviatoslav: he remained a pagan and a warrior.
Sviatoslav the Brave (945—972)
Sviatoslav Ihorovych — the most warlike of the princes of Kyivan Rus', a steppe knight without armour, who lived as his druzhyna did: he slept on a damp saddle-cloth, ate a piece of horseflesh on the grill. The chronicler recorded his watchword: "I come against you" — a warning to the enemy before the attack. In 965 he marched on the Khazar Khaganate, utterly broke it in the battle near Sarkel and forever removed this mighty neighbour from Rus'.
Then — the Balkans. In 968 Sviatoslav took the Bulgarian capital Preslav, announced his intention to move there the capital of his state. Byzantium understood the threat: in 971 Emperor John Tzimiskes surrounded Sviatoslav at Dorostolon. Sviatoslav concluded peace and retreated. At the Dnipro rapids in the spring of 972 he was ambushed by the Pecheneg khan Kuria, who cut off his head and made of the prince's skull a ritual cup.
Volodymyr: the choice of faith (980—988)
The younger son of Sviatoslav by the housekeeper Malusha, Volodymyr, ascended the Kyivan throne in 980, having won a fratricidal war against his elder brothers Yaropolk and Oleh. The first years he ruled as a pagan: on the Old Kyiv Hill he set up idols of Perun, Khors, Dazhboh, offered human sacrifices. But an empire cannot be held together on arrows and rites of blood — one faith is needed.
According to the chronicle, in 986 envoys came to Kyiv from the Mohammedans, the Khazar Jews, the Roman Catholics and the Greek Byzantines. Volodymyr questioned them and sent his own envoys to look at the foreign rites. The envoys liked only Saint Sophia in Constantinople: "We knew not whether we stood in heaven or on earth." In 988 Volodymyr himself was baptised in Greek Cherson (today Sevastopol) and returned the city to Byzantium as a wedding gift for the princess Anna.
The baptism of Rus' and the uniting of the lands
Returning from Cherson, Volodymyr ordered the idols cast into the Dnipro: Perun was let down from the Hill, tied to a horse and dragged to the river. The Kyivans had to wade into the water and be baptised — the same rite of mass baptism was then repeated at Novgorod, Chernihiv, Pereiaslav. Thus in 988—989 the thousand-year Christianity of Rus' began.
Volodymyr settled his twelve sons as governors in the twelve chief cities — from Novgorod to Tmutarakan, from Polotsk to Volodymyr-Volynskyi. For the first time Rus' became a centralised state from the Baltic to the Black Sea, with one dynasty, one faith and one trading space. Contemporaries called Volodymyr "Krasne Sonechko" — the Bright Sun; the Church canonised him as Equal-to-the-Apostles.
The Tithe Church of 996
In 996 on the Old Kyiv Hill — where the pagan idols had stood not long before — Volodymyr consecrated the Tithe Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God. It was built by Greek masters from Constantinople; the prince appointed for its maintenance a tenth part of all his revenues — whence its name. This was the first stone temple of Kyivan Rus'.
Together with the church Volodymyr brought from Cherson icons, the relics of Saint Clement, the first Greek priests and books in the Slavic language — in the Cyrillic script, translated by Cyril and Methodius in the 9th century. Thus the written culture of Rus' began: within two generations Yaroslav the Wise would gather a library in Kyiv, and a century later Nestor would sit down to write the "Tale of Bygone Years."
Sviatopolk the Accursed: the murder of Borys and Hlib (1015)
On 15 July 1015 Volodymyr died in his country palace at Berestove. Kyiv was seized by his elder nephew Sviatopolk, set by his father on the throne of Polotsk but discontented with so small a portion. In order to make his position firm, he sent murderers against two of his younger brothers — Borys, prince of Rostov, and Hlib, prince of Murom. Both, forewarned, refused to raise the sword against a brother and accepted death with humility.
Borys was stabbed in his tent during prayer by the river Alta, Hlib was butchered by his own cook near Smolensk. The chronicle named Sviatopolk "the Accursed" — by the nickname of Cain. Borys and Hlib became the first Rus' saints, canonised already in the lifetime of contemporaries; they were venerated as intercessors of the princely house and as martyrs of brotherly love. The younger brother Yaroslav, prince of Novgorod, marched out with an army against Sviatopolk.
1019: Yaroslav becomes sole prince
The war lasted four years. Sviatopolk twice lost and twice regained Kyiv with the Polish help of his father-in-law Bolesław the Brave. The decisive battle took place on that same Alta where Borys had perished: in 1019 Yaroslav utterly broke the army of Sviatopolk. The Accursed fled to the west and died somewhere in the "Czech wilderness," as the chronicle writes, "a stinking spirit went forth from his grave."
Yaroslav ascended the Kyivan throne in 1019 and ruled until 1054 — thirty-five years that became the golden age of Kyivan Rus'. In his youth he was lame, on which account he got the nickname "the Limper," but this physical defect contemporaries compensated with another nickname — "the Wise." Four daughters, six sons, a library, a cathedral, a code of laws — and diplomatic ties with all of Europe.
Saint Sophia of Kyiv 1037 and the "Ruska Pravda"
In 1037, on the site of his victory over the Pechenegs near Kyiv, Yaroslav laid the foundation of Saint Sophia's Cathedral — a vast thirteen-domed temple modelled on the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople. Greek masters adorned it with mosaics and frescoes, among them the famous Oranta — the Mother of God with raised hands. At that same time the first Metropolitan appeared in Kyiv — and Saint Sophia became the chief cathedral of all Rus'.
Around 1036 Yaroslav drew up the "Ruska Pravda" — the first written code of laws of the Eastern Slavs. Its short redaction protected the life and property of a free man: for murder — a blood-feud or 40 hryvnias of vyra; for theft — a fine; for striking a man in the face — 12 hryvnias. This was a code European in spirit, of the rank of the Frankish "Lex Salica" or the Visigothic "Lex Visigothorum." Rus' became a state of law.
Hilarion: "The Sermon on Law and Grace" (1051)
In 1051 Yaroslav for the first time in history placed on the Kyivan metropolitan see not a Greek sent from Tsargorod, but a Rus' of his own — the presbyter Hilarion from the princely village of Berestove. This was a direct challenge to Constantinople, which considered Rus' its canonical territory. Hilarion led the Rus' Church for only a few years, but in that time he wrote his immortal work.
"The Sermon on Law and Grace," delivered in Saint Sophia of Kyiv around 1050, is the first Rus' theological and political work. Hilarion set Volodymyr beside the Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine, Rus' beside Byzantium, the grace of Christianity above the Old Testament law. This was a programme of the spiritual independence of Rus' — and the beginning of Rus' literature as such, established in its own forms.
The dynastic marriages of Yaroslav
Yaroslav the Wise made Kyiv the centre of European dynastic diplomacy. His four daughters he gave to kings: Anne — to Henry I of France in 1051 (she became Queen of France, regent for her son Philip I; her signature in Cyrillic, "ANA RINA," is preserved on the charters of Saint-Denis); Anastasia — to Andrew I of Hungary; Elisabeth — to Harald III of Norway, the legendary hero of the sagas.
The sons of Yaroslav married no less solidly: Iziaslav — to a Polish princess, Sviatoslav — to a granddaughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II, Vsevolod — to a Byzantine princess of the Monomachos house. Thus one Kyivan house became kin to all the leading dynasties of Europe of its time — from Paris to Saxony, from Norway to Constantinople. This was the peak of the international prestige of Kyivan Rus'.
The testament of Yaroslav of 1054
In February 1054 the seventy-six-year-old Yaroslav died in his palace. Before his death he gathered his sons and pronounced a testament that was to determine the fate of Rus' for the next century and a half: "If you live in love among yourselves, God will be with you… But if you live in hatred… you will ruin the land of your fathers and your grandfathers." To the eldest Iziaslav he left Kyiv as grand prince, the others he set by seniority on the chief thrones.
Yaroslav's system of rota succession — "by the steps" — was a brilliant theory and a catastrophic practice. By it, after the death of the eldest brother, the throne passed to the next by age, not to a son. Every prince had to pass through all the steps, from the farthest Tmutarakan to Kyiv. On paper — just. In life — the source of bloody internecine war for one hundred and fifty years.
The triumvirate of the Yaroslavychi and the Battle of the Alta of 1068
The first fourteen years after the death of Yaroslav, his three elder sons — Iziaslav of Kyiv, Sviatoslav of Chernihiv and Vsevolod of Pereiaslav — ruled Rus' in concord. This triumvirate of the Yaroslavychi enlarged the "Ruska Pravda," founded the first monasteries — among them the Kyiv Caves Lavra in 1051, in which Anthony and Theodosius laboured.
All ended in 1068: from beyond the Don the Cumans moved on the south of Rus' — new Turkic-speaking nomads who had replaced the broken Pechenegs. In September the Yaroslavychi met the Cumans on the same Alta — and suffered a crushing defeat. Iziaslav fled to Kyiv, refused to give weapons to the Kyivans — and the Kyivans drove him out, for the first time in the history of Rus' staging a civic uprising against a prince. The Cuman threat would now be permanent — for 175 years.
The Liubech Council of 1097
By the end of the 11th century the strife among the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Yaroslav had turned Rus' into a fire: princes marched against each other with their own, and afterwards with Cuman, druzhynas, burning cities and slaying the peaceful population. The elders summoned a general council of princes at Liubech in the autumn of 1097. There gathered Sviatopolk of Kyiv, Volodymyr Monomakh, Oleh and David Sviatoslavychi and others.
The council approved the formula of principle that in fact destroyed the state: "Let each hold his patrimony." There was no longer a common Rus' — instead arose a patrimonial Rus', where every prince inherited his father's holding from father to son. This was the formal feudal fragmentation: Kyiv remained the nominal capital, but real power over the lands it no longer had. Twenty years later Volodymyr Monomakh would have time to unite Rus' for the last time — and it would break up for good.
Volodymyr Monomakh: the last unifier (1113—1125)
In April 1113 Sviatopolk died in Kyiv, and the city broke out in a rising against the moneylenders: merchants and craftsmen plundered Jewish and boyar yards. The Kyivan council of elders sent envoys to the Pereiaslav prince Volodymyr Monomakh — grandson of Yaroslav by his father and grandson of the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX by his mother Anna. Monomakh came and in twelve years of his rule (1113—1125) for the last time united Rus'.
He wrote the "Instruction to the Children" — a personal testament that became one of the best-known works of Old Rus' literature. In it the prince counselled his son: to rise early, not to be slothful, to read books, not to drink, not to wrong widows and orphans, to keep one's word. He made 83 campaigns, personally fought with 19 Cuman warriors, outlived his brothers and nephews. After his death in May 1125 Rus' would never again be one.
1147: Yuri Dolgorukiy founds Moscow
The youngest son of Volodymyr Monomakh, Yuri Dolgorukiy (around 1090—1157), received from his father the north-eastern frontier of Rus' — the principality of Rostov-Suzdal. The land there was not a Dnipro land but forest, sparsely settled — but in this very backwater the power of the future was growing. In 1147 a small settlement first entered the chronicle: Yuri invited his ally Sviatoslav Olhovych of Chernihiv, "Come to me, brother, to Moskov."
The nickname "Dolgorukiy" — the Long-Armed — Yuri received for his constant campaigns to the south: he reached out his arm to Kyiv. Twice he occupied the golden throne (in 1149 and in 1155), died in Kyiv in 1157, poisoned by boyars at a feast. He was buried at Berestove, beside the grave of Yaroslav the Wise. Moscow at that time was only a watch-village on the Moscow river.
1169: the sack of Kyiv by Andrei Bogolyubsky
The eldest son of Yuri Dolgorukiy, Andrei Bogolyubsky (around 1111—1174), was the first of the north-eastern princes to understand: Kyiv was no longer the centre of the world. In 1155 he willfully abandoned the Vyshhorod given him by his father and returned to his Vladimir-Suzdal land. He took with him the miracle-working Vyshhorod icon of the Mother of God, which became the famous Theotokos of Vladimir — and built in Vladimir-on-the-Klyazma the Cathedral of the Dormition that was to surpass Saint Sophia of Kyiv.
In March 1169 the united army of twelve northern princes under the nominal command of Andrei's son took Kyiv by storm — for the first time since 1015. The city was given over to plunder for three days: churches were burned, inhabitants killed, by thousands driven into captivity. Andrei Bogolyubsky did not himself sit down in Kyiv — he ordered his younger brother to be placed there, while he himself remained in Vladimir. Kyiv ceased to be the capital.
1199: the rise of the principality of Galicia-Volhynia
While the north-east was rising under Vladimir-Suzdal, in the south-west of Rus' its own new power was growing — the land of Galicia-Volhynia. In Halych the Rostyslavychi reigned, in Volodymyr-Volynskyi the Mstyslavychi. In 1199 the Volhynian prince Roman Mstyslavovych (around 1152—1205) took advantage of the death of the last Halych Rostyslavych and united both lands under his hand.
Thus there arose the state of Galicia-Volhynia — after Kyiv the greatest centre of Rus', with its capital first at Halych, then at Kholm and Lviv. Roman crushed the boyar opposition, waged victorious wars against the Polish princes and the Lithuanians, had claims on Kyiv. The Galicia-Volhynia chronicler called him "the autocrat of all Rus'." For half a century this land would become the chief heir of the Kyivan tradition — and it would be this land, not Vladimir-Suzdal, that would bear the brunt of the first Mongol invasion of the south.
"The Tale of Igor's Campaign" (1185)
In the spring of 1185 the prince of Novhorod-Siversky, Ihor Sviatoslavovych, without consulting the other princes, set out with a small druzhyna into the Cuman Steppe. His campaign ended in catastrophe: at the battle on the Kayala the Cumans surrounded and broke the Rus' army, and took Ihor himself prisoner. This was an ordinary failed expedition of the age of feudal strife — one of dozens.
But an unknown poet from the prince's circle made of it the most famous work of Old Rus' literature. "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" is a poetic narrative that mixes a lament for the fallen, a reproach to the brother-princes who do not come to the aid, and the famous "Lament of Yaroslavna" from the walls of Putyvl. The text was found at the end of the 18th century in the Spaso-Yaroslavsky Monastery; the original burned in Moscow in 1812. Specialists still argue over its authenticity — but the "Tale" has long since become the cultural canon of all three East Slavic peoples.
31 May 1223: the Battle of the Kalka
For the first time Rus' heard of the Mongols in 1222: the Cuman khan Kotian fled to Halych to his son-in-law Mstyslav the Bold and cried out that "an unknown enemy has come who is destroying everything in his path." These were the leading tumens of Chinggis Khan — Jebe and Subedei, who were moving through the Caucasus on a reconnaissance raid. The southern princes — Mstyslav of Kyiv, Mstyslav the Bold of Halych, Danylo Romanovych of Volhynia, Mstyslav of Chernihiv — agreed to march together with the Cumans.
On 31 May 1223 on the river Kalka in the Azov steppe, the Rus' and Cuman regiments met the Mongol army. The allies did not find a single command, advanced piecemeal and suffered utter defeat. Six princes perished, among them Mstyslav of Kyiv; of the rank-and-file fighters one in ten returned. The Mongols laid the captive princes under boards on which they feasted, and smothered them alive. Then they turned back into the steppe — the warning was only the beginning.
1237—1238: the invasion of Batu on the north-east
Fifteen years after the Kalka, in December 1237, on the north-eastern Rus' moved the grandson of Chinggis Khan, Batu, with an army of 150 thousand. On 21 December Riazan fell after a five-day siege — the city was burned, all the inhabitants slaughtered. In January 1238 the Mongols broke the combined host of the Riazan and Vladimir princes near Kolomna; in February the capital Vladimir-on-the-Klyazma itself fell.
On the bank of the river Sit on 4 March 1238 the army of the grand prince Yuri Vsevolodovych perished; the prince himself laid down his head on the field of battle. By the beginning of the summer Batu had ruined fourteen cities of north-eastern Rus', reached as far as Torzhok, and would have taken Novgorod with a little more effort, but the spring thaw halted the Mongol cavalry. The hordes withdrew into the steppe. This was only the first stage of Batu's western campaign — ahead still lay the as yet unruined southern Rus'.
6 December 1240: the fall of Kyiv
In the autumn of 1240 Batu approached Kyiv. The grand prince Michael of Chernihiv fled to Hungary; the defence of the city was led by the voievoda of the Galicia prince Danylo — Dmytro. According to the chronicle, the creaking of the carts, the bellowing of the camels and the neighing of the horses of the Mongol army were such that in the city "no man could hear the voice of another." For the storm Batu brought up wall-breaking engines — siege towers and rams.
On 6 December 1240 the Mongols broke through the Liadski Gates. The Kyivans fought to the last, falling back from wall to wall, at last shutting themselves up in the Tithe Church of Volodymyr. The walls of the temple, overloaded with people and treasures, did not hold — and collapsed upon the defenders. The wounded Dmytro fell into captivity. The khan, learning of the voievoda's courage, granted him his life. Kyiv was burned to the ground. Of forty thousand inhabitants only two hundred saw the morning. The ancient capital of Rus' ceased to exist.
1253: Daniel of Galicia receives the crown from the Pope
The king of the Galicia-Volhynia state, Danylo Romanovych (around 1201—1264), son of the famous Roman Mstyslavovych, had outlived everything — his father's death, exile, return, wars with boyars, Poles, Hungarians, Lithuanians. In 1245 he broke the coalition of Hungarian forces near Yaroslav, and then swore allegiance to Batu in Sarai — otherwise the Horde would have levelled both Galicia and Volhynia with the earth.
In 1253 the papal legate Opizo arrived at Dorohychyn and crowned Danylo King of Rus' — in return for a promise of the union of the churches and the organisation of a crusade against the Tatars. Pope Innocent IV excommunicated Alexander Nevsky, who had refused such a crown. Danylo took the crown, but the western crusade never came. Eleven more years he fought as he could — and died in 1264. The Galicia-Volhynia state outlived Kyivan Rus' by a hundred years and became the chief southern heir of its tradition.
The legacy of Rus': the dispute of three peoples
Kyivan Rus' left to Eastern Europe a millennium-long inheritance: the Cyrillic script in which men write from the Adriatic to Kamchatka; Saint Sophia of Kyiv, preserved down to our days; the "Tale of Bygone Years," which was read both by the Muscovite tsars and by the Galician chroniclers; the legal code of the "Ruska Pravda," which lies at the base of Lithuanian and Muscovite and Cossack law alike. Without the baptism of 988 there would have been neither the Lavra, nor the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, nor a Shevchenko with a Gogol.
Who is the lawful heir of Rus' is a hot and political question. The classic of Ukrainian historiography Mykhailo Hrushevsky in his work "The Ordinary Scheme of 'Russian' History and the Matter of a Rational Arrangement of the History of the Eastern Slavs" (1904) proposed a line of succession of Rus' — the state of Galicia-Volhynia — the Lithuanian-Rus' state — the Hetmanate — modern Ukraine, placing Ukraine as the direct heir of Kyiv. The Russian imperial and later the Soviet tradition, on the contrary, derived from Rus' only Moscow through Vladimir-Suzdal. The Belarusian school emphasises the Polotsk and Lithuanian lines. Modern academic thought recognises a common inheritance of the three East Slavic peoples — and it is Ukraine, on the territory of which the capital of Rus' stood, that has inherited from her her geography, the cultural network of cities and the name "Rusyns," from which the name "Ukrainians" has grown.