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If ever there were a golden age for all the Eastern Slavs, it was in Kiev in the eleventh century, the time of Yaroslav the Wise. He lies buried in the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom (St. Sophia) which he built as a great imitation of the cathedral in Constantinople, in which the Eastern Slavs had first been amazed by the beauty of the Eastern Orthodox worship.
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Early Russian history was recorded by monks who wrote chronicles that were based on legends, oral traditions, and their own personal reflections. The earliest of these is the Primary Chronicle, which describes events in Kievan Russia up to the year 1110. Many medieval Russian cities, including Novgorod and Moscow, kept chronicles. The practice of chronicle writing. continued through the seventeenth century.
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Only a few Russian churches survived the Mongol attack in anything like their original form. This little masterpiece is one of the simplest, yet most perfect medieval churches in all of Russia—the Church of the Protection of the Virgin, on a picturesque bend of the River Nerl, near Vladimir. It was built in the late 12th century, when the mother icon of Russia had already become the protector of the new northern capital, Vladimir.
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Cultural development and regular contact with the West abruptly ended in 1240, when a massive nomadic horde of Mongols Kiev. The Mongol domination of most of Kievan Rus’ came as Europe’s Renaissance flourished beyond Russia’s borders. Fate was similarly cruel 200 years later: just when Russia was throwing off the “Mongol yoke,” Constantinople was occupied by the Muslim Turks, destroying Russia’s most significant religious and cultural ties. Russia did not become fully engaged with
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In the mid-twelfth century the center of Russia moved north from Kiev to Muscovy. Moscow’s early rulers gradually acquired territory and wealth, and made Moscow the center of Christianity in Russia. In 1380, Muscovite Prince Dmitry Donskoi defeated the Mongols in the battle of Kulikovo Field, adding military prestige to Moscow’s reputation.
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In 1598, Ivan the Terrible’s feeble-minded son Fedor died, ending the hereditary dynastic line of Riurik. Boris Godunov, a nobleman who had been acting as regent, was elected to rule. His short reign (1598-1605) was plagued by famines in which thousands died. In 1604, a pretender to the throne claimed to be Ivan the Terrible’s son Dmitry who actually had died as a child. This “False Dmitry” marched on Muscovy with Polish support and seized power from Boris Godunov, only to be deposed the followi
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Literature blossomed in the second half of the nineteenth century, dominated by authors Fedor Dostoevsky and Count Leo Tolstoy. In his writings, Tolstoy attempted to break with romanticisim and present real life as it exists. Through his novels, Dostoevsky expressed the tension between realism and a positive message. Dostoevsky wrote of the Russian idea; of universal reconciliation through love and suffering as an antidote to the West’s problems. He held firmly to the idea that Russia was on a s
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On March 1, 1881, Tsar Alexander II was killed by a bomb thrown by I. Grinevitskii, a student and a member of the revolutionary organization “The National Will.” The Cathedral of the Resurrection on the Blood was built to commemorate the spot where the assassination took place. Alexander II is buried in the Cathedral of the St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.
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Unrest led to massive strikes and peasant demonstrations, and even rebellion in the armed forces in 1905. On government orders, over a hundred workers who had gathered before the Winter Palace to ask for the tsar’s help were shot and killed, setting the stage for further unrest and, finally, concessions by the tsar to create Russia’s first democratically elected parliament: the Duma. Briefly, Russia became a limited constitutional monarchy. This system collapsed in 1917, when the Bolsheviks laun
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In Russia, Cyrillic was first written in the Middle Ages in clear cut, legible language. Later cursive forms developed. In the early eighteenth century, under Peter the Great, the forms of letters were simplified, with some appropriate only to Greek being removed. Further unnecessary letters were expunged in 1918, leaving the alphabet as it is today—still in use in many Slavic Orthodox countries.
