Russia Ancient History
While relatively versed in country’s modern-day history, very few visitors who travel to Russia are familiar with the ancient history that has significantly shaped Russia’s traditional culture. Historically, the area known as current-day Russia was primarily inhabited by disunited tribes. This region was familiar with invasion by multiple ethnic groups including Goths, Huns, Turks, Iranians, and Scandinavians. In the 8th century, the capital Slavic city was overtaken by a Scandinavian group, the Varangians. Slowly, these two cultures were assimilated together. This dynasty lasted for many centuries, during which the term “Rhos” or “Russ” was first applied, and the people became affiliated with the Orthodox Church. During the 10th and 11th centuries, the state of Kievan Rus prospered and diversified trade with both Europe and Asia.
Following this era, the nomadic Turkish people that conquered southern Russia were overrun by eastern invaders and Mongols. These invaders ruled the south and central regions of present-day Russia, but the western areas were largely assimilated into Lithuania and Poland. The break up of the Kievan Rus state divided the Russian people into many smaller groups whom then remained under predominantly nomadic rule. This stunted the country’s economic and social growth. Russia, however, was still able to organize its own war of reconquest, and finally conquered its enemies and took their territories under Russian control. Russia remained the only functional Christian state on the Eastern European belt, and therefore claimed the succession to the Eastern Roman Empire.
Russia continued to battle against nomadic tribes. Suffering capture, Russians were sold on Crimean slave markets. Every year thousands of Russians were victimized by nomad attacks, despite the tens of thousand of soldiers protecting the southern borderland. Setting a goal to regain all Russian territories lost to the Mongolian invasion, the manor system was created giving noblemen a manor in exchanged for obligation to serve in the army. Travel in Russia offers a look at the countryside that still bears memory to the feudal system. Ivan the Great, the grand duke of all the Russias, consolidated many surrounding areas under Moscow’s control. His grandson, Ivan the Terrible, was the first officially crowned Tsar of Russia in 1547. The 16th and 17th centuries brought established settlements in Siberia, the discovery of the strait between America and Asia, and the birth of an expansive Russian Empire. The Romanov Dynasty, beginning with Tsar Michael Romanov in 1613, gained control of the nation. Peter the Great, a Romanov, ruled from 1689-1725. He is responsible for bringing economic ideas and culture from Western Europe and implementing them into Russian society. Catherine the Great continued this effort, and helped establish Russia as a leading international power on equal footing with Britain, France and Germany from 1762-1796. She helped expand Russia’s borders, taking territories that were previously apart of the Kievan Rus boundaries.
Russian, taking on the War of Polish Succession and the Seven Years War after the rule of Peter the Great, established itself as a major European Power. In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia and, after grueling battles and some successes, was forced to retreat with only 10% of its initial invading forces surviving the Russian army and winter cold. Russia fought the War of 1877-1878 and helped establish independence for the countries of Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire. The scars of the country’s many battles can still be visited during Russia travel, they are found throughout Russia’s most sought after historical cities. Peasant unrest and suppression along with a growing liberal political movement made the Romanov dynasty unstable under the rule of Tsar Nicholas II. With the onset of WWI, rioting broke out in major Russian Empire cities leading to the Russian Revolution and the overthrow of the Romanovs in 1917. At the close of this revolt, the Bolsheviks claimed power in St. Petersburg and Moscow under Vladimir Lenin, a Marxist politician. The Bolsheviks established themselves as the Communist Party, created the Red Army, and triumphed over the anti-socialist monarchist and bourgeois in civil war. From this victory, the Soviet Union was formed in 1922.
