https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Russia
History
The history of Russia may be conveniently divided into four consecutive periods: (1) the period of Independent Principalities; (2) the Mongol Domination; (3) the Tsardom of Muscovy; and (4) the Modern Empire.
1. A Conglomeration of Independent Principalities .—The first period, like the early history of many other countries, begins
Origin of the Russians.
with a legend. Nestor, an old monkish chronicler of Kiev, relates that in the middle of the 9th century the Slav and Finnish tribes inhabiting the forest region around Lake Ilmen, between Lake Ladoga and the upper waters of the Dnieper, paid tribute to military adventurers from the land of Rūs, which is commonly supposed to have been a part of Sweden. In the year 859 these tribes expelled the Northmen, but finding that they quarrelled among themselves, they invited them, three years later, to return. Our land, said the deputation sent to Rūs for this purpose, is great and fertile, but there is no order in it; come and reign and rule over us. Three brothers, princes of Rūs, called respectively Rurik, Sineus and Truvor, accepted the invitation and founded a dynasty, from which many of the Russian princes of the present day claim descent.
Who were those warlike men of Rūs who are universally recognized as the founders of the Russian Empire? This question has given rise to an enormous amount of discussion among learned men, and some of the disputants have not yet laid down their arms; but for impartial outsiders who have carefully studied the evidence there can be little doubt that the men of Rūs, or Variags, as they were sometimes called, were simply the hardy Norsemen or Normans who at that time, in various countries of Europe, appeared first as armed marauders and then lived in the invaded territory as a dominant military caste until they were gradually absorbed by the native population. Lake Ilmen and the river Volkhov, on which stands Novgorod, Rurik's capital, formed part of the great waterway from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and we know that by this route travelled from Scandinavia to Constantinople the tall fair-haired Northmen who composed the famous Varangian bodyguard of the Byzantine emperors.
The new rulers did not long confine their attention to the tribes who had invited them. They at once began to conquer
Early conditions. The grand-princes.
the surrounding country in all directions, and before two centuries had passed they had established themselves firmly at Kiev on the Dnieper, invaded Byzantine territory, threatened Constantinople with a fleet of small craft, obtained as consort for one of their princes, Vladimir I. , ( q.v. ), a sister of the Byzantine emperor on condition of the prince becoming a Christian, adopted Christianity for themselves and their subjects, learned to hold in check the nomadic hordes of the steppe, and formed matrimonial alliances with the reigning families of Poland, Hungary, Norway and France. In short, they became a considerable power in eastern Europe, and might be regarded as one of the claimants for the inheritance of the decrepit East Roman Empire. Unfortunately for the political future of this new state, its internal consolidation did not keep pace with its territorial expansion. In theory the whole Russian land was a gigantic family estate belonging to the Rurik dynasty, and each member of that great family considered himself entitled to a share of it. It had to be divided, therefore, into a number of independent principalities, but it continued to be loosely held together by the dynastic sentiment of the descendants of Rurik and by the patriarchal authority—a sort of patria potestas —of the senior member of the family, called the grand-prince, who-ruled in Kiev, “the mother of Russian cities.” His administrative authority was confined to his own principality, but when territorial disputes arose between two or more of his relations, his paternal influence was exercised in the interests of peace and justice. What added to the practical difficulties of this arrangement was that the post of grand-prince was not an hereditary dignity in the sense of descending from father to son, but was always to be held by the senior member of the dynasty; and in the subordinate principalities the same principle of succession was applied, so that reigning princes had to be frequently shifted about from one district to another, according as they could establish the strongest claim to vacant principalities. What constituted in this primitive system of inheritance the strength of a claim was often not easily determined, and even when the legal question was clear enough the law was not always respected by the contending parties. Hence family quarrels became very frequent. These princes were, in fact, men of like passions with ourselves, and acted as powerful men generally do in a rude state of society. Instead of conforming to abstract principles of public law and hereditary succession, they strove to enlarge their territories at the expense of their rivals, and to leave them at their death to their sons rather than to their brothers, nephews and more distant relations. In these circumstances, the traditional authority of the grand-prince, never very great, rapidly declined, and the complicated law of succession, never scrupulously respected, was gradually replaced by “the good old rule, the simple plan, that he should take who has the power, and he should keep who can.” Yaroslav, surnamed the Great, a man of commanding personality, was the last grand-prince who upheld vigorously the old system. After his death in 1054 the process of disintegration went on apace and the family feuds multiplied at an alarming rate. During the next 170 years (1054-1224) no less than 64 principalities had a more or less ephemeral existence, 293 princes put forward succession-claims, and their disputes led to 83 civil wars.
During these interminable struggles of rival princes, Kiev, which had been so long the residence of the grand-prince and of the metropolitan, was repeatedly taken by storm and ruthlessly pillaged, and finally the whole valley of the Dnieper fell a prey to the marauding tribes of the steppe. Thereupon Russian colonization and political influence retreated northwards, and from that time the continuous stream of Russian history is to be sought in the land where the Vikings first settled and in the adjoining basin of the upper Volga. Here new principalities were founded and new agglomerations of principalities came into existence, some of them having a grand prince who no longer professed allegiance to Kiev. Thus appeared the grand-prince of Suzdal or Vladimir, of Tver, of Ryazan and of Moscow—all irreconcilable rivals with little or no feeling of blood-relationship. The more ambitious and powerful among them aspired not to succeed but to subdue the others and to take possession of their territory, and the armed retainers, who were wont formerly to wander about as free lances, gave up their roving mode of life, settled down permanently in one principality, became landed proprietors, and sought to share as boyars the princes' authority.
Among the principalities of that northern region the first place was long held by Novgorod. Since the days when Rurik
Republic of Novgorod.
had first chosen it as his headquarters, the little town on the Volkhov had grown into a great commercial city and a member of the Hanseatic league, and it had brought under subjection a vast expanse of territory, stretching from the shores of the Baltic to the Ural Mountains, and containing several subordinate towns, of which the principal were Pskov, Nizhniy-Novgorod and Vyatka. Unlike the ordinary Russian principalities, it had a republican rather than a monarchical form of government. Indeed, it was not so much a principality as a municipal republic of the Venetian type. It always had a prince, no doubt, but he was engaged by formal contract without much attention being paid to hereditary rights, and he was merely leader of the troops, while all the political power remained in the hands of the civil officials and the Vetche , a popular assembly which was called together in the market-place, as occasion required, by the tolling of the great bell. Descendants of Rurik, impregnated with the pride of a dominant military caste, did not much like serving those truculent, wilful burghers, and some of them, after a time, voluntarily laid down their office and retired to more congenial surroundings. Those of them who tried to have their own way and came into conflict with the authorities had always to yield in the long run, and they were liable to be treated very unceremoniously, so that the vulgar adage, “If the prince is bad, into the mud with him!” became a maxim of state policy.