Whose Rus': Why Russians Consider Themselves the Heirs of Kyivan Rus' (19.09.2022)
An extended conversation-lecture between Vitaliy Dribnytsia and a historian (S. Olefir) on why Russians consider themselves the heirs of Kyivan Rus’. Key points: Russian historiography from Tatishchev onward traditionally inscribed Ukrainian lands into its own history; it artificially splits a single story into “Kyiv before the Mongols” and “Vladimir-Moscow after”; and Novgorod — an independent republic seized by Moscow only in 1471 — is likewise retroactively ascribed to “Russia.” The material supplements the analysis of how the name “Rus’” became “Russia.”
Key moments
- 00:23 Framing the problem: Russians consider themselves above all the heirs of the Old Rus' state
- 02:00 Russian statehood formed earlier than Ukrainian; the chronicles survived on the territory of Russia
- 03:38 Tradition of appropriation: Russian historians from Tatishchev onward folded Ukrainian lands into the history of Russia
- 04:06 Principle: the history of a state is written within the borders that existed at the time of writing
- 05:36 The Russian narrative artificially splits a single story into two halves: Kyiv before the Mongols / Vladimir-Moscow after
- 07:11 The role of posadniks: Vladimir sat in Novgorod as posadnik under his father, Yaroslav in Novgorod under Vladimir
- 08:01 Novgorod was an independent republic from the time of Rus' fragmentation; Moscow seized it only in 1471
- 08:10 Novgorod had a chance to become a fourth East Slavic subject alongside Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia