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Russia, Vladimir sent troops to assist Basil II quell a rebellion in…
Russia
Origins
By the 7th century BC, the Russian steppe was dominated by tribes of Iranian origin, such as the Scythians and Sarmatians.
Little is known about their religion, except that their pantheon was similar to that of their Indo-European cousins.
The Slavic Venedi arrived from the North around the 1st century BC and they are believed to be the ancestors of the modern Slavs.
They started expanding when the Germanic tribes migrated after the fall of Rome, taking territory from the nearby Iranian tribes.
Kievan Rus (882-1240)
Prelude
The Rurikids were the first real rulers of the region, creating the city of Novgorod. Oleg (r. 879-912), their second ruler, conquered Kiev from the Khazars in the South, making it his capital.
Thus, Oleg was the founder of the Kievan Rus (882-1240), becoming the Grand-Prince of many tribes.
With the Viking expansion in the 9th century into Europe, the first interactions between Slavs and Varangians/Rus were hostile, with the Rus coming out on top and creating the Rurikids dynasty in 862.
Rise (882-1054)
Kieven Rus was extremly diverse in culture and religion, and the tribes enjoyed a fair degree of autonomy.
From 907 on, they engaged in many raids to Constantinople, and managed to force the Byzantines to pay them tribute.
Under the regency of Princess Olga (r. 945-960), the realm subjugated the rebellious Drevlians and replaced tributes with taxes, in addition to improving relations with Byzantium.
Her son, Sviatoslav (r. 960-972), conquered the Khazar tribes to the East and assisted Byzantium against Bulgaria, but afraid of his growing power, Rome betrayed and killed him.
With the death of Sviatoslav, his sons Oleg, Yaropolk, plus the bastard Vladimir, disputed the succession, with Vladimir coming out on top in 978.
Vladimir engaged in some of the first wars against the Polish, and he converted to Orthodoxy in 988 to improve trade relations with Byzantium.
Thus, under the rule of Vladimir the Great, Orthodoxy became the official religion of Kievan Rus.
Sviatopolk, son of Vladimir, succeeded his father in 1015, but he was overthrown by his half-brother, Yaroslav, in 1019.
Yaroslav created the first codex of laws in Rus, which would eventually become the Russkaya Pravda
He greatly reformed the realm, and decisively beat the Pechenegs, nomadic Turks that had often raided Rus in the past centuries. To commemorate this, he built St. Sophia's cathedral.
Fall (1054-1240)
After their defeat, the Pechenegs had been conquered by the Cumans, who invaded the realm after the death of Yaroslav.
Kievan Rus would stagnate, losing important trade routes to the Cumans and the Great Schism of 1054, thus the realm became more decentralized.
By the 13th century, the Grand Prince held little power over Kievan Rus, and in 1223 the Rus made the terrible decision of siding with the Cumans against an incoming threat from the East: the Mongols.
The disunited Rus were easily beaten by Subutai and in 1240 Kiev was taken, ending Kievan Rus.
Thus, the Rus viewed the Mongols as being sent by God to punish them, and by 1250 all former Rus territories were in Mongol hands.
When Kievan Rus started to decline, Novgorod became mostly autonomous, prospering with trade.
In 1136, Prince Vsevolod of Pskov was overthrown by the merchants, and thus Novgorod became a Republic.
In 1236, Alexander Nevsky is elected Prince of Novgorod, and he beat the Teutonic Knights at the Battle on the Ice (1242).
After this, never again would Catholic Orders attempt to attack Russia.
Nevsky surrendered to the Mongols before they even approached Novgorod, and thus the city was spared and became a tributary. For his loyalty to the Khan, Nevsky was often rewarded with land by the Khan.
Vladimir sent troops to assist Basil II quell a rebellion in exchange for his sister's hand in marriage. Basil was so impressed by the soldiers that he made them the Varangian guard, who would serve as personal bodyguards for Byzantine emperors for centuries.