Belarusians (East Slavs)

The development of the Russian state can be traced from Vladimir-Suzdal' through Muscovy to the Russian Empire.

Muscovy draws people and wealth to the northeastern periphery of Kievan Rus'; establishes trade links to the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, and the Caspian Sea and to Siberia; and creates a highly centralized and autocratic political system.

Muscovite political traditions, therefore, exert a powerful influence on Russian society.

The principality of Galicia-Volhynia to the southwest has highly developed trade relations with its Polish, Hungarian, and Lithuanian neighbors and emerges as another successor to Kievan Rus'.

In the early thirteenth century, Prince Roman Mstislavich had united the two previously separate principalities, conquered Kiev, and assumed the title of grand duke of Kievan Rus'.

His son, Prince Daniil (Danylo; r. 1238-64), is the first ruler of Kievan Rus' to accept a crown from the Roman papacy, apparently doing so without breaking with Orthodoxy.

Early in the fourteenth century, the patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople grants the rulers of Galicia-Volhynia a metropolitan to compensate for the move of the Kievan metropolitan to Vladimir.

However, a long and unsuccessful struggle against the Mongols combine with internal opposition to the prince and foreign intervention to weaken Galicia-Volhynia.

With the end of the Mstislavich Dynasty in the mid-fourteenth century, Galicia-Volhynia cease to exist; Lithuania takes Volhynia, and Poland annexes Galicia.

Moscow had been an insignificant trading outpost in the principality of Vladimir-Suzdal' when the Mongols invaded the lands of Kievan Rus'.

The outpost's remote, forested location offers some security from Mongol attack and occupation, and a number of rivers provide access to the Baltic and Black seas and to the Caucasus region.

More important to Moscow's development in what will become the state of Muscovy, however, is its rule by a series of princes who are ambitious, determined, and lucky.

The first ruler of the principality of Muscovy, Daniil Aleksandrovich (d. 1303), secured the principality for his branch of the Rurik Dynasty.

His son, Ivan I (r. 1325-40), known as Ivan Kalita ("Money Bags"), obtains the title "Grand Prince of Vladimir" from his Mongol overlords.

He cooperates closely with the Mongols and collects tribute from other Russian principalities on their behalf.

This relationship enables Ivan to gain regional ascendancy, particularly over Muscovy's chief rival, the northern city of Tver'.

In 1327 the Orthodox metropolitan transfers his residency from Vladimir to Moscow, further enhancing the prestige of the new principality.

Historians have debated the long-term influence of Mongol rule on Russian society.

The Mongols have been blamed for the destruction of Kievan Rus', the breakup of the "Russian" nationality into three components, and the introduction of the concept of "oriental despotism" into Russia, but most historians agree that Kievan Rus' was not a homogeneous political, cultural, or ethnic entity and that the Mongols merely accelerated a fragmentation that had begun before the invasion.

Historians also credit the Mongol regime with an important role in the development of Muscovy as a state.

Under Mongol occupation, for example, Muscovy develops its postal road network, census, fiscal system, and military organization.

Kievan Rus' also leaves a powerful legacy.

The leader of the Rurik Dynasty has united a large territory inhabited by East Slavs into an important, albeit unstable, state.

After Vladimir accepts Eastern Orthodoxy, Kievan Rus' comes together under a church structure and develops a Byzantine-Slavic synthesis in culture, statecraft, and the arts.

On the northeastern periphery of Kievan Rus', those traditions are adapted to form the Russian autocratic state.

Kievan Rus', as it was undergoing fragmentation, had faced its greatest threat from invading Mongols.

In 1223 an army from Kievan Rus', together with a force of Turkic Polovtsians, had faced a Mongol raiding party at the Kalka River.

The Kievan alliance was defeated soundly.

Then, in 1237-38, a much larger Mongol force had overrun much of Kievan Rus'.

In 1240 the Mongols had sacked the city of Kiev, then moved west into Poland and Hungary.

Of the principalities of Kievan Rus', only the Republic of Novgorod had escaped occupation, but it pays tribute to the Mongols.

One branch of the Mongol force had withdrawn to Saray on the lower Volga River, establishing the Golden Horde.

From Saray the Golden Horde Mongols rules Kievan Rus' indirectly through their princes and tax collectors.

The impact of the Mongol invasion on the territories of Kievan Rus' is uneven.

Centers such as Kiev never recover from the devastation of the initial attack.

The Republic of Novgorod continues to prosper, however, and a new entity, the city of Moscow, begins o flourish under the Mongols.

Although a Russian army defeats the Golden Horde at Kulikovo in 1380, Mongol domination of the Russian-inhabited territories, along with demands of tribute from Russian princes, will continue until about 1480.

The metropolitan of the Orthodox Church moves in 1299 to the city of Vladimir in the wake of the Mongol invasion, and Vladimir-Suzdal' replaces Kievan Rus as the religious center.

The union of Poland with Lithuania, under a dynasty founded by the Lithuanian grand duke Jagiello, dominates is the next major period in Poland's history.

The partnership proves profitable for the Poles, who will play a dominant role in one of the most powerful empires in Europe for the next three centuries.

Poland's unlikely partnership with the adjoining Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Europe's last heathen state, provides an immediate remedy to the political and military dilemma caused by the end of the Piast Dynasty.

At the end of the fourteenth century, Lithuania is a warlike political unit with dominion over enormous stretches of present-day Belarus and Ukraine.

Putting aside their previous hostility, Poland and Lithuania see that they share common enemies, most notably the Teutonic Knights; this situation is the direct incentive for the Union of Krewo in 1385.

The compact hinges on the marriage of the Polish queen Jadwiga to Jagiello, who becomes king of Poland under the name Wladyslaw Jagiello.

In return, the new monarch accepts baptism in the name of his people, agrees to confederate Lithuania with Poland, and takes the name Wladyslaw II.

In 1387 the bishopric of Wilno is established to convert Wladyslaw's subjects to Roman Catholicism.
(Eastern Orthodoxy predominates in some parts of Lithuania.)

From a military standpoint, Poland receives protection from the Mongols and Tatars, while Lithuania receives aid in its long struggle against the Teutonic Knights.

The Belorussians, whose lands had been incorporated into the expanding Grand Duchy of Lithuania after the disintegration of Kievan Rus' in the thirteenth century, at first exerted a strong religious and cultural influence on the pagan Lithuanians; but the position of the Orthodox Belorussians began to decline after the dynastic union of Lithuania and Poland in 1386 and the Lithuanians’ consequent conversion to Latin Christianity.

Ivan III is the first Muscovite ruler to use the titles of tsar and "Ruler of all Rus'."

Ivan competes with his powerful north-western rival Lithuania for control over some of the semi-independent former principalities of Kievan Rus' in the upper Dnepr and Donets river basins.

Through the defections of some princes, border skirmishes, and a long, inconclusive war with Lithuania that ends only in 1503, Ivan III is able to push westward, and Muscovy triples in size under his rule.

Internal consolidation accompanies outward expansion of the state.

By the fifteenth century, the rulers of Muscovy considers the entire Russian territory their collective property.

Various semi-independent princes still claim specific territories, but Ivan III forces the lesser princes to acknowledge the grand prince of Muscovy and his descendants as unquestioned rulers with control over military, judicial, and foreign affairs.

The grand princes of Muscovy began gathering Russian lands in the fourteenth century to increase the population and wealth under their rule.

The most successful practitioner of this process is Ivan III (the Great; r. 1462-1505), who conquers Novgorod in 1478 and Tver' in 1485.

Muscovy gains full sovereignty over the ethnically Russian lands in 1480 when Mongol overlordship ended officially, and by the beginning of the sixteenth century virtually all those lands are united.

Through inheritance, Ivan obtains part of the province of Ryazan', and the princes of Rostov and Yaroslavl' voluntarily subordinate themselves to him.

The northwestern city of Pskov remains independent in this period, but Ivan's son, Vasiliy III (r. 1505-33), later conquers it.