Talk:Kievan Rus'

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[edit] Old talk

  1. Should there be added reference that Rurik was invited by local population? This is how it was presented in Russian chronicles.
  1. End of article is somewhat wrong.
To the southwest, the principality of Galicia-Volhynia? had highly developed trade relations with its Polish, Hungarian, and Lithuanian neighbors and emerged as another successor to Kievan Rus'. In the early thirteenth century, [Prince Roman Mstislavich]? united the two previously separate principalities, conquered Kiev, and assumed the title of grand duke of Kievan Rus'. His son, [Prince Daniil]? (Danylo; r. 1238-1264) was the first ruler of Kievan Rus' to accept a crown from the Roman papacy, apparently doing so without breaking with Orthodoxy. Early in the 14th century, the patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople granted 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 combined 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 ceased to exist; Lithuania took Volhynia, and Poland annexed Galicia.

As you know, it was Casimir the Great, king of Poland, who almost _forced_ Constantinople of making metropolite in Galicia. Casimir the Great was legal heir to last prince of Galicia, with whom he make deal, that after his death he will rule Galicia - that last prince, moreover, was (IIRC, at least partially) from Piast dynasty.

However from entry it seems the opposite. I will change it very soon now (c), that is as soon as i will finish my other urgent projectds, then few articles on wikipedia, then others... szopen 00:41, 20 March 2002 (UTC)

I would be most grateful if you can improve on it. I only provided a good start... Graham Chapman 00:52, 20 March 2002 (UTC)
Well, i will try, although i am not historian and i hope that someone more skillful will do it. Entry is already very good. Last two paragraphs are not false; they are just facts choosen so final impression is false. szopen 00:56, 20 March 2002 (UTC)
hm: here what i've found:
"After the conversion of the Ruthenians in this region to Christianity, the Bishopric of Halicz, suffragan to Kiev, was established for their benefit between 1152 and 1180. Halicz had been made a metropolitan see in 1345 by John Calecas, Patriarch of Constantinople, but in 1347 it was again placed under the jurisdiction of Kiev, at the request of the Grand Duke Simeon of Moscow. Its metropolitan rank was restored to Halicz only after the Polish occupation of the province about 1371; "
Seems i was partially wrong, partially right :) szopen 05:22, 20 March 2002 (UTC)

The history of Russia table that appears at the top of the article might give readers the false impression the todays Russia and Russians are the logical successors of Kievan Rus, dropping it would be a bad idea but I think we need a clear reference to Ukraine and the History of Ukraine article right above it. Does any one have a better idea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.76.33.66 (talk) 14:52, 21 April 2004 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV for series inclusion

While I am not sure what the best solution to the problem would be, it's clear that the fundamental position that underlies the proposal is correct: it is quite biased and tenditious to have an article on "Kievan Rus'" and then place it for basic identification framework in an article on "Russia," a nation which arose much later and NOT solely from Rus' in its original name, ethnicity, language or politics and culture.

I would add a second assertion: that this article arguably should also be referenced/incorporated into the entry on Belarus'. I don't think my point is as urgent as the one recommended directly above, but I think it is valid.

This issue needs some further attention/guidance to arrive at a better NPOV result. Genyo 02:30, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Genyo, have you already seen discussion on Ruthenians? - Szopen 09:25, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Szopen, I sure have, and yes, it is relevant. But what do you propose be done to solve the problem mentioned by the previous contributor? multiple links? the recasting of the article on Kievan Rus' into a more equal-time incorporation into a series on the history of Ukraine, which arguably is the first place for such an article? How about dividing the Kievan Rus' article into subsections for each area? (The areas later to be called "Ukraine", "Russia," and Belarus'?)
What do you (and others, for that mattter) say about that?
I think it'd be great to do this in an organized consensus-developing way instead of a volley of revision wars. - Genyo 12:15, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I've added a a small forward to the history of Russia table as a stop gap measure, it probably needs a few tweaks. A few questions:

  1. Is there some way to make the box automaticly scale is the size of the table will change?
  2. Is the problem explained clearly enough, or should it be expanded?
  3. Is there anything important that should also be mentioned that I have overlooked?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.76.33.67 (talk) 12:56, 23 April 2004 (UTC)

If modern Russia is mentioned Ukraine should be mentioned as well. There is no nationalism in that. However, obviously the paragraph shoud be edited. Another solution is to remove the frame entirely.Yeti 14:11, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's nice to mention that Ukraine and Belarus that share their history with modern Russia, I agree. But it should be done in accurate manner, not by brute inaccurate nationalistic changes. And don't forget common policy for the Wikipedia - "most used items preferred" - that is used when ambiguation problem arises. Whatever Ukrainian nationalists think, it's a matter of fact that Russia is the most powerful and so most often referenced country of those that share territory and history of Kievan Rus. Remember - not everything that derogates Russians is good. :-) Drbug 20:59, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
It seems that I've made maximum that is possible at this point. Drbug 21:32, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

DrBug, the point is NOT to derogate Russia--the point is to not derogate her neighbors. Secondly, the point isn't that Ukraine and Belarus' share a common history with Russia--the point is that Russia simply didn't exist a thousand years ago, and that instead Russia and Ukraine and Belarus' share a common inheritance--though unequally--in the state of Kievan Rus' The problem arises in Russian imperialistic claims that Kievan Rus' was something else, was Russia, which is patently false. Kievan Rus' was a foreign period in the history of Russia, though one that was partly formative of Russian identity. And that is the problem underlying the "Series" issue. Genyo 01:16, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

History and evolution of Kievan Rus and used terms do not reflect mainstream English historiography and contain antirussian bias. Drbug 11:30, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

How so? Using terms w/o backing them up is meaningless. --Jiang 22:58, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Date of Founding of Kievan Rus

Kievan Rus', Rurik, Rulers of Kievan Rus' are confusing as to when KR was founded. The date of 860 is when Rurik supposedly came to Novgorod. And there was no such thing as Kievan Rus at least until Oleg. Please fix who knows better. Mikkalai 21:06, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pro-Swedish changes reverted

I don't think it proper to include in the article on the common history of three Slavic states so many minor details about Swedish connections. We might add as much info about Danish, Polish, Finnish, and Greek contacts of the Rus, thereby turning the article into partisan mess. Some added info is not correct, i.e., Yaroslav the Wise did not marry *two* Swedish princesses (not that it matters so much whom he married). If we mention Yaroslav's Swedish wife, why not mention Greek wife of his father, and Greek, Polish, German wives of his sons? Yaroslav was hardly Svyatoslav's successor, as there were three or four princes ruling in between. It is not important for the history of Kievan state that some Varangian once living in Rus was elected king of Sweden. If you think that this Swedish-oriented information is of great importance, please add it to the articles on Yaroslav the Wise, Svyatoslav, etc and not to the first article in the series dedicated to Russian history. Ghirlandajo 11:27, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, if I have stepped on some toes, but you make some pretty strong assertions about their slavicness as early as the mid-10th century. This was the time of a very multi-cultural Kievan Rus. Solve that or we are going to exchange some editing. Moreover, your anti-normanist POV is quite evident in your edits.--Wiglaf 11:43, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] The name of the country/renaming this article

Wouldn't it be correct to call the mediaeval state which is the subject of this article Old Ruthenia rather than Kievan Rus'? Firstly, Rus' with the ' sign at the end looks awkward to an English speaker. Secondly, the name Ruthenia is known in English and it's nothing but the latinised form of the name of the state referred to in this article. Finally, the inhabitants of that country themselves didn't define it with the adjective Kievan. As a matter of fact, there wasn't even any need to do so, as there was just one Ruthenia they knew - that was the state they lived in.

Finally, it should be noticed the article is Russian-oriented (this shouldn't be seen as an accusation, but as a statement, as the fact I'm mentioning may have to do with the lack of information rather than the author's intentions). In addition to the artificial and biassed name Kievan Rus' (it implies the old principality with the centre in Kiev (Kyiv) was the predecessor of Muscovite Rus, i.e. Russia), the article uses the Russian transcription of the names of objects in the Ukrainian capital, as well as the princes' names. E.g., the prince the article refers to as Vladimir was known in the contemporary chronicles as Volodimer (Volodymyr in modern Ukrainian). - 62.163.35.236 09:17, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that's a good idea. I am not Russian or Ukrainian - I am not even European at all - and from my limited experience of this subject, it is known as "Kievan Rus'" in English and names are spelled in the more-familiar Russian versions (Vladimir rather than Volodimer). The article shouldn't be moved. Adam Bishop 15:47, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Names reflect usage in English language. Unfortunately they vcame into English thro Russian, but you cannot change the usage. As for factual bias, feel free to correct the facts, but be prepared to provide proofs for your changes. You may also want to add contemporary names of princes into the corresponding articles. mikka (t) 21:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
"the predecessor of Muscovite Rus": the name cannot imply anything. There were also other territories named Rus. mikka (t) 21:07, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
The name Kievan Rus’ is pretty much universally used in the literature I've read, and I don't see it as Russian-biased. This transliteration of the old name is neutral, and it's the same as the modern term русь in Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian (right?). Every possible translation seems to be seen as extremely biased by someone (Russians see Ruthenia as a Polish term, other translations tend to evoke confusion, at least in me, about what is Russian for Rus’ and for Russia). After long debate it was settled that on Wikipedia the term Ruthenia would be used as a translation of Rus’ only when referring to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. —Michael Z. 2005-07-19 04:42 Z

This anon attempts to make a fork, Old Ruthenia, of this article. This is inadmissible. The term is of zero usage in English language. I put "Old Ruthenia" to the vote for deletion. mikka (t) 21:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Name usage

Can someone add some info when this term came into the usage and how the entity was called at these old times? The Ruthenia article is not very helpful. mikka (t) 19:38, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

IIRC the term was coined by German scholars working at the Russian Academy of Sciences in the late 18th century. In the Old East Slavic language, the land was known as "zemlya rus'kaya", i.e., "the Russian land" (or the "Rusian land", if a spelling quirk matters to our Ruthenian friends). --Ghirlandajo 19:48, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
"Russian land" was not limited to Kievan Rus. I am speaking about political terminology here. Was in "Kiev lands", "Igor's lands" or something else? I know there were various principalities. Were there hierarchy, unions, etc.? Did Kiev actually rule the whole lands in its peak, or only collected the tribute? mikka (t) 01:31, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Source citation

There is a large quote from the "Primary Chronicle" within the article. It should be given a citation providing biblio data for the translated edition that was used as the source. I do not have all of the available English translations here, so I cannot do it, but thought to mention this omission in case someone else can add the necessary data. P.MacUidhir 06:52, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template

User:Andrew Alexander, User:Irpen, User:AndriyK, and User:Ghirlandajo, and anyone else involved in this edit war over the past few days, can you PLEASE stop removing and re-adding the template, and discuss it here first? I can understand the misplaced sense of nationalism that is occurring here, when you think a larger country is stealing your smaller country's history, but this is getting ridiculous. It seems perfectly logical to me to include the History of Russia template; if you are offended, it is your fault, not the fault of the template or the article. So, stop the edit warring, I don't want to have to protect the page and/or block anyone. Adam Bishop 05:54, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Adam, I fully support your zeal. This edit war is a part of a much larger one involving tens of articles and introduced by AndriyK a fortnight ago. See Portal talk:Ukraine/New article announcements, Talk:Mikhail of Chernihiv, Talk:St Volodymyr's Cathedral, Talk:Russkaya Pravda, to name just a few articles concerned. See also Administrator's noticeboard under AndriyK. --Ghirlandajo 08:13, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear Adam, please explain your point of view. The template doesn't seem relevant. No one pastes a bunch of links about history of modern Romania into the article about ancient Rome. It would be considered a vandalism. Yet it's OK for a bunch of links about Muscovy, Imperial Russia, Revolution of 1905, Revolution of 1917, Russian Civil War, Soviet Union, and Russian Federation to be right at the top of the article about ancient Kiev. While somebody's history may seem unimportant, one needs to apply single fair standard to the way history articles are written. Posting a large number of links about a different place isn't helping the reader.--Andrew Alexander 01:16, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

It is not only in Russia but even in Britannica, the History of Russia starts with Kievan Rus [1]. Britannica's history of RU starts from the following chapters: Prehistory and the rise of the Rus, Kiev, The rise of Kiev, The decline of Kiev, etc... I am sorry that the traditional historiographic view that Kievan Rus' is part not only of Ukrainian but also of the Histories of other nations upset some but this is how it is. --Irpen 01:27, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Dear Irpen, while it's OK for history of Russia to contain a reference to Kievan Rus, overburdening this page with Russian historical links isn't helpful. It's confusing. It's more than enough to provide a single link to history of Russia at the end of the article. Single link to history of Romania at the end of ancient Rome article is OK as well.--Andrew Alexander 01:37, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Template simply states that this article is a part of History of RU series. Nothing else. It is just there was an editor (user:172), who made a History of Russia a WP:FA, almost on his own. The series was built, organized and templates created. If you or I will take an effort to make a comparable History of UA series, we will make a template and put it right next to it. Please consider adding this to your "to do" list. I would have done it myself, should I have seen myself able to complet such a gigantic and nobel task. --Irpen 01:42, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear Irpen, one can always make a link to that series at the end of the article. Instead of posting all the links of some series at the top. While it's noble to write informative and balanced articles in your free time, it's not noble to spam the links to those articles in confusing places.--Andrew Alexander 01:54, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Information is Spam only when it's irrelevant. It is only you who thinks it is irrelevant. The way Wikipedia works is that it is ruled by consensus. That several people reverted this change of yours shows, that this seems relevant enough for everyone else. --Irpen 01:59, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

How is Revolution of 1905 relevant to Kievan Rus?--Andrew Alexander 02:32, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Could anyone else PLEASE talk to the guy? I will make a History of UA similar template over the weekend to make him feel better, and will put it next to History of RU (it would be a good think to do anyway) but I am afraid he will then strike out both. Would hate to see my work wasted. I hope there won't be wars on which one goes first. They will my placed ALPHABETICALLY. First will go Belarus. --Irpen 04:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Andrew Alexander, I must say that your removing of the template, it is highly unproductive and comes accross as hostile. Perhaps it'd be of much greater value on your part if you were to try and add information, add any relevant clarification, add other templates, just as User:Irpen suggested - not remove. One more time: please stop removing the template while discussion is still in progress, please be patient as other members of the community may not have as much time on their hands as you do, but their input is no less valuable than yours - or of any of us, don't you think? You don't believe that what you know or believe is the only truth around here, if you want to remain reasonable, do you? Just look through the article's edit history, take a glance over it, how quickly can you count how many editors made their input to this article which you set yourself out to cut short? If you want to be respected, please have respect for those other contributors as well and listen carefully to what they have to say, before trying hastily to push your beliefs through, however sincere they may be. Hoping for better - for more productive collaborative work with you in the future - Introvert talk 10:26, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Having History of Russia template has nothing to do with including it here, it's narrow minded to use national history templates here (Russian or Ukrainian or both). Consider adding History of Great Britain (Italy, France, Spaine) template to Ancient Rome :D

Kievan Rus, East slavs are related to Russian history (as well as Ukrainian etc.). But Russian (or Ukrainian etc.) history in total is unrelated to Kievan Rus. It's much better to make Template:Kievan Rus which structure we have to discuss. It may give links to towns, tribes, principalities, rules, architecture, literature, military, neighbours, relations, succesors, modern countries (forgive bad English). So I will remove this template soon. Ilya K 15:51, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

A Kievan Rus' template would be a pretty good idea, especially if it stops this ridiculousness. But I don't understand how any of you can say Russian (or Ukrainian, or Belarussian) history does not stretch all the way back to Kievan Rus'. Of course it does! I don't know how you learn about your own histories, but over here if you want to learn about Russian history, you will also learn about Kievan Rus'. So these arguments don't make any sense to me. By the way, there is a Template:Italian History box which links to Ancient Rome, is this not similar to the situation here? (There are also Template:UKHBS and Template:History of England which include links to Roman Britain...) Adam Bishop 17:55, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
First. You have not understood me. I didn't say that Russian history does not stretch back to Kievan Rus. Consider non-symmetric relation ("a in b" is not the same as "b in a"). You say that if I want to learn Russian history, I want to learn Kievan Rus. Right! Thats why Russian history template has link to Kievan Rus. In other words Russian history includes Kievan Rus (as well as Ukrainian history includes Kievan Rus). The same situation is with England and Italy. They include Roman period. But none of them are included in Ancient Rome, because Ancient Rome doesn't include their national history in whole. Why someone wants to make exception for Russia? Link to History of Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia is relevant here. Detailed Russian history topics list is not relevant at all. I also ask you to see this reversion by User:Introvert [2]. Although i explained my edit, User:Introvert called me vandal and reverted it. I'm against revert wars and ignoring others opinions. You tend to blame User:AndriyK and his newbies for it by it's only partially true. I don't agree with AnriyK position to revert everything, but other side plays same rules. Ilya K 19:18, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Well I know it's that Halloween time again, but who are you trying to trick? You blanked the template and I restored it back to the version by one of the highly respectable editors. Please be more careful with your edits of templates. - Introvert talk 02:06, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

What do footnotes and trademarks have in common may I ask? They all are part of the WP:MOS and part of the [[template:Style]] added to each of these articles. I just made a template:History of Ukraine. As soon as we have others seen it for a couple of days and get rid of blunders, if I made any, we will add it to the articles in the series too. Would this make some feel better? It is there simply because the article is part of the series. And it is in every article in the series. The question is whether it is stilistically an improvement or a disaster. Is this a useful convenience or a clutter? I think it is the former. Thanks for a civilized discussion at last. Let's hope we won't ever return to name calling. Peace, --Irpen 19:25, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, I disagree. Footnotes and trademarks in Wikipedia are simple subjects which are unambiguosly embraced into style guidelines of Wikipedia. But Kievan Rus is a complex subject which is not unambiguosly embraced in history of Ukraine or Russia. Why not in Medieaval history or in pheodal countries or slavic countries? And again, imagine France, Great Britain and so on history templates to Ancient Rome? Providing links to Russian revolution from Kievan Rus is useless, as well as not providing links to Kievan Rus related subjects. Kievan Rus relates with history of Russia, Ukraine, Belorus. It relates with Great dutches of Kiev, Rus chronclies, slavic tribes. These are first level relations. But relating to some distant subjects randomly selected from large set of transitively related subjects is a profanation. Ilya K 19:37, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Just as an example, please take a look at Ancient Rome. No History_of_Turkey_Britain_France_Libia_Romania_etc_Italy templates there. --Andrew Alexander 20:10, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

As stubby as the Ancient Rome is, it does have the Legacy section. So what does it prove, that it lacks the template? May be, the authors just haven't gotten to adding a template in there, may be they don't see it important - but here, for Kievan Rus', the authors did see the importance of it and went through labors to create it and put it in. Now, just as another example, you may want to look at the direct successor of Ancient Rome, Byzantine Empire... and check out the exemplar template in it, template:History of Greece. - Introvert talk 01:55, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
What would be a really great addition to the article is having maps in it. Would it be possible to find/create historical maps? Anyone can shoulder this task? - Introvert talk 01:55, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

To All: The purpose of this discussion is to determine whether the template History of Russia series, added into the article in July 2003, needs now to be removed from the article, or modified, or replaced by another, and why would this be necessary. How can we productively discuss that if the template is not there to see? While the discussion is still in progress, I ask times and again, please don't remove the template from the article. Nor replace with another just yet, without having achieved at some consensus. Such removal is inappropriate and will have to be reverted. Please calm down, please discuss historically - not politically - and let's hope that once this ill haste gets down to the solid ground, other editors, especially experts in medieval history, would find it possible to participate and provide good input to help resolve the issue so that it makes sense to most, and serves Wikipedia better. - Introvert talk 02:22, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately the Russian nationalists on this page do not answer simple questions. They ignore you and put back the History of Russia links and then ask everyone not to delete it. I asked already, will repeat the question, how does Revolution of 1905 relate to Kievan Rus? Not just that, it's put at the very top of this article. How much abuse does this article have to take before a reasonable administrator put an end to this propaganda fest? --Andrew Alexander 03:35, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Andrew Alexander, please stop calling names and reread WP:Civil. Now, the issue here that it is hard to discuss the need or lack of the need of the template if we do not see it. No one will die if we wait with the template removal until we see that it needs removed (if). m--Irpen 03:47, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Here is original template, if you can't find it :) - Ilya K 10:46, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] History of East Slavs

Please remade the template or take it off from the artcle. The periods are put in messy order. The whole temlate looks confusing. --Alex Kov 05:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map?

Does not anyone have a copyright free map of the Kievan Rus? It is very unclear from the description, whe it was situated, and how it correlates with modern states. It would also be helpful for the debate over the claims to the heritage of Kievan Rus etc.Compay 12:19, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Standardization of Kievan Rus' names


Because the transliterations of Kievan Rus' names vary so greatly from article to article, I propose the enaction of a standard system of transliteration and translation of these names.
The following rules will apply:
1. е, ю, я will become ye, yu, ya after vowels or at the beginning of words and e, iu, ia after consonants. This is the traditional method.
2. The modern Russian endings -ий and -ый will be represented as -i and y, respectively.
3. Place names will be those used by contemporaries, not modern ones.
With these rules in mind, we could gradually phase in a standard for Kievan Rus' names that would look much nicer than the hodgepodge we have now.
Kazak 07:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
P.S. If a vote is necessary, by all means...

I don't care which translit we'll use as long as we are consistent. I know there are editors with more educated views on this and I will wait for more opinions. --Irpen 07:07, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
That's what I'm going for. Consistency. I was under the impression that the articles were not receiving much attention (other than AndriyK's periodic meddling) so I went at it alone. If this was a mistake then I apologize. Kazak 07:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm confused about some assumptions you are making. For example, if we're using contemporary names, where does the letter ё come from? I thought it was a modern Russian innovation.
Which transliteration standard is this following? —Michael Z. 2006-01-29 07:27 Z
No '"ё". I added it on instinct, sorry. It's a modified Library of Congress standard, without the use of "i" as "й". Kazak 07:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
For Russian we use a modified BGN/PCGN system (although for all I know the modifications converge).
Are there any naming conventions? The spelling of names in old manuscripts varies. Are we going to transliterate from transcriptions of original manuscripts or from more modern Russian or Ukrainian orthography? How to handle old Cyrillic letters і/ї/и, е/є, yat (ѣ), etc? —Michael Z. 2006-01-29 07:49 Z
Old Cyrillic letters are covered by ALA-LC but not by BGN/PCGN. I really dislike ALA-LC, however. It's less intuitive than BGN, it still needs to be modified, and if we are going to modify a system, why not go with what's already commonly used in WP anyway? BGN/PCGN would require far less modifications than any other system (if in the end we decide that a modification is necessary).—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 16:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it would make more sense to use old Russian names for everything. For "ѣ" we could just use "ie" (to distinguish it from "e"). Also, I would like to propose a convention to finally solve the Chernigov/Chernihiv dispute. The issue is complex and cannot be resolved on a case-by-case basis. Personally, i dislike the "ya/yu/ye" after consonants, because to be they seem to imply "ъя/ъю/ъе". Because the "ja/ju/je" used in Polish and Lacinka would be confusing to English readers (the reason we do not use the ideal GOST system), I propose instead the Library of Congress standard. It's attractive in its own way and has accepted status in the United States, in addition to providing for all the archaic letters. A vote on this, perhaps? Kazak 01:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

In addition, I think we should change all of the names to their western equivalents when possible (i.e. Константин - Constantine, Юрий - George, Фёдор - Theodore, etc.), since the Grand Princes were, after all, monarchs. Kazak 03:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Kazak, by "old Russian" do you mean the ancient names of Old Rus’? (sorry to be picky, but you know...) I'm not crazy about using anglicized names, but if so, then a transliteration of the original should also provided in the first line. Could be tricky, and we risk ending up with Old East Slavic, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian, in Cyrillic and transliterated all in one line (although it can get moved down a bit if very long). —Michael Z. 2006-01-30 04:31 Z
I was referring to "Old East Slavic" (I think it's pretty generally known as "Old Russian" in every language - старорусский язык, староруська мова, etc.) About the names. If you think about it, it's pretty standard to anglicize names of monarchs. It's Emperors Peter and Paul, not Piotr and Pavel. The only exception I can think of is that of Ivan (John), which is not translated.
Kazak 04:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay. I was thinking of older names like Danylo/Daniil/Daniel of Halych and Mykhailo/Mikhail/Michael of Cherni**v. Fortunately, most of them are purely Slavic, so one needn't worry about translating Sviatopolk or Iziaslav. —Michael Z. 2006-01-30 05:20 Z


Well, actually, I did mean that Danylo/Daniil would become Daniel, and so on. All the -polk and -slav names, of couse, would have no English equivalents. I think Vladimir-Walter or Olga-Helga would we a little extreme, too. Let's stick to the following:

Russian name ----- Ukrainian name ----- English name
Александр Олександр Alexander
Алексей Олексій Alexis
Андрей Андрій Andrew
Василий Василь Basil
Георгий Георгiй George
Григорий Григор Gregory
Даниил Данило Daniel
Константин Костянтин Constantine
Михаил Михайло Michael
Фёдор Феодор Theodore
Юрий Юрий George

If you can think of any others, feel free to add them. Those are just the ones I thought of off the top of my head.
Kazak 08:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

How does this not fall under original research? I think we should go with the names which are the most common in the English academic works about the time period, and yes, that would generally mean reviewing each name on the case by case basis. It's sure much more work than coming up with a nifty translit scheme and a names table, but since the subject is mostly well-researched (we are not talking about how to transliterate names of some obsure Siberian villages, in which case a unified translit system is indispensable), it is the proper way to go. Current proposition is well-meant, but it's a genuine recipe for disaster. Considering all the scandals around Wikipedia:Transliteration of Russian into English alone, I think we should think twice (if not more), when coming up with something just as ambiguous, controversial, and vaguely defined.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 13:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
How is that original research? It's fact, not "research". And I'm talking about a unified system just for the Kievan Rus articles. At present it's such a mess that some articles are titled "Sviatoslav" and some "Svyatoslav". I highly doubt that cleaning them up and making them presentable would be a "disaster". Kazak 17:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
The unified system you are trying to implement is not accepted anywhere else (please tell me if I am wrong), and thus constitutes original research (by you alone or in collaboration with other editors—doesn't matter). The "disaster" I am referring to applies to the system's arbitrary definition, which is bad because it is non-controversial and is not commonly used in academic circles. If it is implemented, sooner or later people will surface questioning its basis and trying to tweak certain names or convert everything to another system. Trust me, I had enough experience with Russian transliteration problems here on Wikipedia to know for sure that it's only a matter of time until this system will become a short fuse to fierce edit wars instead of a catalyst of a productive editing environment. The idea sounds good, but so at the time did the Russian transliteration guidelines (another unified system, by me; now, unfortunately, a part of a policy, which some people dream to see axed and others will defend with their lives). I am not against consistency (if anything, I would be a typical hobgoblin by Michael Z.'s standards :)), but one-time convenience is a high price to pay for something that will become a mess of a different kind. Trust me, I learned it the hard way.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 17:28, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Well said. --Ghirla | talk 17:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
We don't have to use the LC system or the one I proposed (which does indeed, on second thought, seem to be 'orginial research'), but we should still stick to one. I'm offering to do all the work here, I just need the green light. If you want I can standardize everything to be in line with the Wikipedia standard. All I'm saying is we should clean up the Kievan Rus' series and use one unified transliteration system - it doesn't matter which. I like the LC system much better, but if it violates some sort of rule I'll be just as happy to work with what we already have.
P.S. The Library of Congress system, I believe, is a standard used by most historical researchers in their indexes.
Kazak 18:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Current Wikipedia standard is a modification of BGN/PCGN, which is essentially a standard for transliterating geographic names (even though it's currently used for pretty much any transliteration of Russian, and not only in Wikipedia, if only because it's the easiest for an English-speaking person to grasp). A lot of people voiced their grievances with that system, which is why Michael Z. started a discussion at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic)—a fairly recent and a very ambitious attempt to review/amend/fix/standardize everything Cyrillics-related (including current Russian transliteration guideline/policy). Perhaps you will want to incorporate your ideas into the discussion there. There is certainly room for a section on Kievan Rus if you want to include it, even though I personall believe that case-by-case basis is a necessary evil as far as the names of Kievan Rus rulers go.
I, for one, very much appreciate your attempts to bring order to the naming system, but, unfortunately, it may not be as quick and easy an endeavor as you possibly hope it would.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 18:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

And please all, do not ever move any articles without proposing the move first except of the obvious cases or moving by the ArbCom order. We do not have to wait until we agree on the unified standard (which may take months) and in the meanwhile we can keep moving article based on the case by case discussions but there should always be a discussion first or, at least, an opportunity for a discussion, that is propose first and wait a little. We've seen one mover which brought the terrible amount of bad blood that still didn't heal. I appreciate Kazak's committment, and everyone's interest in keeping things consistent. We can discuss the general issue for as long as necessary, but moving articles is a separate matter. Let's just all be careful. --Irpen 19:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

So, what is the final verdict? Do we anglicize the above names, or not? Will it be Sviatoslav/Iziaslav or Svyatoslav/Izyaslav? Kazak 22:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not competent to answer "Do we or don't we.." but if others correct by transliterations in article text, I would not pounce. In-text corrections are easier to agree and undo than changes of the titles. I will leave it to others to voice the opinions on this. Again, thanks much for trying to bring some order into this. I remember trying to do the same to a very narrow issue, the many princes named Konstantin. Never finished, still a mess and still lacks consistensy. Cheers, --Irpen 22:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I would like to try to come to a consensus with the major Kievan Rus' editors on the matter. Would this be an appropriate place to discuss the issue? I regret having already moved a few articles, but I was unaware of the extent of the AndriyK scandal at the time.
Kazak 22:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The title is POV

Initially I was not against the name “Kievan Rus” for this article. But the adjective “Kievan” is aggressively used by the Ukrainian nationalists in their attempts to “privatize” Ancient Rus’s history (take, for example, a constant “cold war”, around Russian History template in the beginning of the article, which is being regularly removed and reinstated, even though events in the adjacent paragraph, the Calling of Varangians, happened in territory modern Russia!). So I propose to change the article’s name to more neutral and scientific “Ancient Rus”. The reasons are as follows:

1) Kievan Rus is an artificial modern term, which was never used in the Middle Ages. The inhabitants of Ancient Rus called their land simply “Rus” or “Russian Land” (“Zemlya russkaya”)
2) In both Russian and English languages the term Kievan Rus is used together with another term “Ancient Rus” (“Drevnyaja Rus” in Russian). In Russian historical community the term “Ancient Rus” is regarded as more “scientific”.
3) It is more correct to talk about “Kievan period” in Ancient Rus history. Ancient Rus as a political and ethnic phenomenon emerged not in Kiev, but in Northern Russia (Novgorod and Staraya Ladoga). Kiev was not even in possession of Rus until very dubious conquest by Oleg (882), according to the traditional view. Modern discoveries allow to question this date, it is probable that Kiev was under Khazars’ control until 940-s or even until Svyatoslav’s campaign in 960-s. Kievan period ended with Andrey Bogolyubsky’s capture of Kiev in 1169, when the center of power moved to Vladimir. Thus, even if we take the most cautious dates for the beginning and the end of Ancient Rus, the annals of Saint Berthan's mention of “Kahan of Rhos” in 839 and Mongol invasion in 1240, we will have the lifespan for Ancient Rus’ of 400 years, while Kievan period will cover less than a half of this time.
4) Ancient Rus never was a monocentric state, like, for example, classical Roman Empire. Even in the heyday of Kiev it had another almost equally important center: Novgorod. E. g., all great Kievan princes (Igor, Svyatoslav, Vladimir, Yaroslav) started their “career” in Novgorod, and came to power with the help of Novgorod warriors (druzhina). Later Kiev was only primus inter pares among other important regional centers: Vladimir, Chernigov, Galich, Novgorod, Pskov, Polotsk, etc.
I don’t want to change the name myself, but I propose to the community to discuss the possibility of renaming the article into “Ancient Rus” ((or, if we use Chaucer’s spelling, Ruce), and, probably, to vote on it.Gestr 14:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I concur. Kievan Rus is a modern derivation abused by Uke nationalists to distort history. Let's move the article either to Ancient Rus or (better still) to Rusian Land, as it was known back then. --Ghirla | talk 15:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Guys please, you can't be serious. Kievan Rus is a well established term with 2390 hits in Google Books alone. The first hit in the list is the book "Medieval Russia, 980-1584" by Janet Maring, Janet Martin. I don't want even to bother to check Britannica. When I went to middle and high school, and these times were as Soviet as the times could get Soviet, the term 'Kievan Rus' was used in schools textbooks (in Russian and in Ukrainian alike) and don't tell me please about the influence of Ukrainian nationalist scholarship on the Soviet curriculum. I could never imagine the issue even exists much less for it to pop up here. Someone (and I don't want to point finger :) already made a fork once out of this by pasting the whole article under the Old Ruthenia name. This is one of the list questionably titled historican article on the European topic Wikipedia-wide. Please move on. --Irpen 15:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, the issue is valid. The term is kind of old-fashioned now, when Kiev became the capital of a state hostile to other East Slavs and swarming with nationalists to boot. Under pressure from Uke editors, we moved Old Russian language to Old East Slavic language, although the former is a well-established term, while the latter is clearly a wikineologism. Let's be consistent here. --Ghirla | talk 15:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Irpen, I haven't understood your last phrase, but I must remind to you, that the established "scientific" term in Russian, in school textbooks and everywhere, is "Drevnyaja Rus", "Ancient Rus". "Kievan Rus" is also used, but it is more of a kind of popular term, used in popular articles, fiction books and movies. I am not sure what the situation is in English, that is why I propose to discuss this matter. Even if "Kievan Rus" is more scientifically accepted (in which I am not sure), we still can reject it as POV. Remember, in other articles such well established terms as "Old Russian Language" were changed into completely meaningless and artificial mumble, "Old East Slavic", "Old Ruthenian" etc.Gestr 15:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I did not participate in the Old Russian language change and I would have studied the issue before voting there, but my feeling is that Old Russian is more appropriate because it is more widely used in literature and the "correct/incorrect" debate in this case is inaplicable. You may also note that I fiercely opposed moving academically established Russkaya Pravda article name to Ruska Pravda. Even if the latter resembles the old pronunciation better(I am not sure, just guessing) the former is established in serious literature. Similarly, here. We do not change encyclopedias because of some abstract or concrete "Ukrainian nationalists" and we don;t move articles because of them in either direction. The Kiev article is not at "Kyiv" location precisely because the usage in English doesn't respond quickly to political anouncements. Similarly, we changed Kharkov to Kharkiv simply because we checked the major papers usage and Britannica. In either case "Ukrainian nationalists" had nothing to do with the name being changed or not of Wikipedia articles and some Wikipedians with Ukrainian nationalist tendencies will be totally amused by someone's associating me (user:Irpen) with Ukrainian nationalism. If you want my position on the renaming issue in general, start from here and click on links. --Irpen 16:24, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Changing the title will keep editors from adding or deleting a POV template? I doubt it.
This is the English Wikipedia. The naming convention suggests using (Modern) English for titles, and that seems sensible. I don't see the point here of switching to Middle English, Old East Slavic, or Modern Russian translation for the title. Kievan Rus’ is established in popular and academic literature.
By the way, the use of Old East Slavic and Ruthenian for the respective language articles is based on modern academic usage, and that naming had input from a Slavonics scholar and was approved by consensus, so there's little point in grumbling about it unless you want to propose another move. —Michael Z. 2006-02-1 16:46 Z
These are double standards in their purest form. --Ghirla | talk 08:54, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not think the renaming of the article is warranted as the name Kievan Rus' is much more established in the English-language scholarship than anything else. On the other hand, I have created redirect Ancient Rus and think we could use it if the term Kievan Rus' is incorrect (e.g. pre-Oleg) or created POV problems abakharev 00:54, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

We've had essentially the same discussion over at the Byzantine Empire article. I really don't understand this nonsense and I'm really starting not to care - why don't you take your nationalistic disputes to your own language Wikipedias? Adam Bishop 04:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

We cherish our nationalistic disputes and don't need a wise-ass like you bad-mouthing them. I would leave, but there's no Canadian-language Wikipedia, so you'll just have to suffer me. —Michael Z. 2006-02-02 05:20 Z
Well not you, obviously. I mean Gestr and Ghirlandajo. Adam Bishop 06:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
You'd better advise this to Uke anons who assault the article almost daily. --Ghirla | talk 08:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I presonally think that the naming is justified, as Kievan Rus, even though it is more widespread in popular literature Russian and English; professional historians (e.g. Gumelev) always refer to the period as Drevnerusskiy, ie Ancient Rus. --Kuban kazak 08:58, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
The question is - should we stick to the popular name abused by nationalists or to the correct/NPOV one? --Ghirla | talk 09:02, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
If there is a move proposed I will support it, and I think there are enough discussion issues above to at least start the voting.--Kuban kazak 09:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Dear community members, I haven't heard a single thought against the substance of my arguments. All this talk "stop your nationalistic disputes" is clearly addressed to nobody: nationalistic dispute will continue as long as Ukrainian and other nationalisms exist, as long as people attempt to imagine seamless historical narratives for their nations, and to project their current "identity" to the stone age. What I propose is to change one English term (Kievan Rus) into another (Ancient Rus). As I understand the second term also exists in English, and it is not an artificial construction. I put forward the arguments for this change. What are the arguments against? I have heard only one: "Kievan Rus" is more current in English. But for the purpose of the discussion it says nothing (where current? in comic books?). It would be much better to hear the opinion of professional English-speaking historians about both terms.Gestr 10:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Just move the article and the new name will become predominant within days, as was the case with Old Russian language. The term "Ancient Rus" certainly exists, even in this Wikipedia you may find an extensive article on Culture of Ancient Rus, sitting there since 2004. --Ghirla | talk 10:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
In that case Ghirla would you like me to do the honours?--Kuban kazak 13:11, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
By the way, it was said here that "Kievan Rus" has 2390 hits in Google Books. But "Ancient Rus" has 6620! [3] So, which term is more "current" then?Gestr 13:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree! Also may I strongly suggest that you register on wiki and create a personal talk page. - Kuban kazak 13:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Should we move Old East Slavic language back to Old Russian language then, as well? Even in Ukrainian it's староруська мова, not старосхіднослов'янська мова. Kazak 21:44, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

That's "Old Ruthenian". Anyway, let's try to stick to Modern English for this Wikipedia. —Michael Z. 2006-02-03 06:24 Z

Please stop moving article and discuss first! If someone is unhappy with an outcome of discussion, go post the proposal at WP:RM and not the other way around. I repeat that the current name of the article is justified by the prevailing usage in English language and as per our naming conventions, the prevailing usage in English is the most important factor to take into account deciding on the article's name. If someone's going to argue that this name is used in English literature for decades because of the influence of Ukrainian nationalist scholarship on the Western Academia in the 20th century, this would be a very novel idea (about the influence, I mean). Qiite the opposite is true and the influence of Russian historiography on the terms used in the West is huge and undeniable. I do not consider this good or bad and, besides, it's irrelevant. Whatever prevailing usage is, reasons aside, that's how our articles should be called. The term "Kievan Rus'" gives 2390 hits in Google Books alone. The first hit in the list is the book "Medieval Russia, 980-1584" by Janet Maring, Janet Martin. So, I am sure that the term is recognizable by the English speaking audience, the main readership of WP, and the article's title will survive a WP:RM vote, but everyone is welcome to submit it for a vote and try to make a case there.

The dispute of the Old Language name is entirely separate. I never took part in it and if it is brought up, I will look for prevailing English usage statistics first of all. Whoever is unhappy by how the language article is called, take it to that's article talk page and propose a move. I have no problem with that. But leave this one alone (that is don't move it anymore without a WP:RM vote. --Irpen 22:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, "Ancient Rus" gets 6880 hits on Google books. Kazak 22:33, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

You just have to look correctly. Check the collocation: "Ancient Rus" 196 hits, "Kievan Rus" 1660 hits. Can we move on to other things now? --Irpen 22:49, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Again, I am not satisfied with the outcome of the argument. Your insistence that the term "Kievan Rus" is "more recognizable" to the English-speaking audience doesn't convince me. I still think the title is POV and scientifically incorrect. For the purpose of convenience, I think, we should keep in mind, that not everybody even knows what Kiev is, and, what they will be looking for, is probably "Ancient Rus" or even "Ancient Russia". In any case, I think we need to make redirect pages for all those terms. So, how do I need to proceed then? What are the rules? Also, I don't think it is a good idea to delete the information about self-appellation of Kievan Rus. Whatever is the name of the article, the readers should know how people of that time called themselves! Also I deleted two new maps, because the second is a poorer version of the map which already exists on site, and the first, Rus of "9th century" doesn't correspond to real historical situation of any time:) Gestr 09:43, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I showed you that "Kievan Rus" is used in books more frequently than "Ancient Rus". How is this not "convincimg"? Is the counting rigged? You may go check other encyclopedias and come back tell us what you find out.

As to redirects, you are right. No rules prohibit creation of redirects from sensible titles. "Sensible" is pretty much inclusive and a redirect from Ancient Rus is alredy created. The types of redirects that are not allowed would not be created in good faith anyway. Under whatever name you think this may be found in English or whatever name you think the reader looking for this article might enter into a search string, redirect is always a good idea. What's not allowed are only redirects that are POV pushing through promotion of POV term or non-existing term. Like it's not OK to make Little Russian a redirect to Ukrainian and instead the redirect should be to Little Russia, an article about the etymology and usage of the term. You cannot also invent a term and start pushing it into usage by creating a redirect article under it. Most of the rest is not a problem. Ancient Rus redirect is certainly a good idea. --Irpen 10:06, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

The term-currency alone is not enough. For example, "ancient Russia" gives about 700 hits. There is no drastic difference in currency between those terms. And, again, I believe the term is incorrect, with it even the structure of the article looks absurd: it starts with the events 2000 km from Kiev, and, in general, talks very little about Kievan period itself. "Ancient Rus" is more inclusive term than "Kievan Rus". For example, a paragraph about Novgorod or Vladimir of 12-13 century (or Staraya Rusa of 9th century) in Kievan Rus article is illogical, but in "Ancient Rus" article it is on its place. If we preserve the name, we would have to make a speical "Ancient Rus" article, where we will speak about the origins of Rus, pre-Kiev Rus, regional centers, first century after the Mongol conquest (before the rise of Moscow), etc. I think renaming "Kievan Rus" article is a better idea, because, again, Kevan Rus is only a period in history of Ancient Rus civilization.Gestr 10:43, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Basically, the title "Kievan Rus" should be reserved for a section currently entitled "Golden Age of Kiev". Everything that predated and followed that "golden age" should be termed "Ancient Rus". --Ghirla | talk 11:11, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
So, do we need to start voting? --Gestr 13:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
We may start voting if you are so sure that your proposal will be supported. I'd prefer to wait until Monday for more feedback from interested parties. --Ghirla | talk 15:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Gestr, if you think Kievan Rus is "POV and scientifically incorrect", you should take up your case with the editors of scores of books, starting with the Encyclopædia Britannica. This is the name used most often, and belongs as the title of this article, per the naming conventions.

"Ancient Rus (self-appellation: Земля Руская, "The Russian Land") or Kievan Rus′ (as it became known in later Western historiography)"

The current intro looks like the waffling result of a committee of self-conscious, um, "non-Kievan people", whose point is not to introduce the article, but to... I don't know what. The historiography of the name can be mentioned somewhere in the article with a link to etymology of Rus’.

Also, I don't believe that Zemlya Ruskaya ('Land of the Rus’') was a self-appelation for the Kievan state, or any other principality of Rus’. It is a general name for the lands inhabited by East Slavs.

Isn't "as it became known in later Western historiography" the same as "as it is known today"? Redundant—just start the line with "Kievan Rus’..." and it says the same thing. —Michael Z. 2006-02-03 17:02 Z

That is what I am saying. The article is NOT about Kiev principality (or some non-existent "Kiev State": the modern concept of "state" is hardly applicable to this medieval polity :)). It is about "Russian Land" as a whole. And I wouldn't recourse here to artificial constructs like "Land of Rus" etc. Remember, the word "Russian" itself has multiple meanings and doesn't presuppose a shared "identity" between an office clerk of Putin's age and a warrior of Oleg or Igor :) At most I can agree with "Rusian" with one s. So, basically, the point is clear. If we talk here about all "Russian Land", the name "Ancient Rus" is more appropriate. If we talk about Kiev as a local principality, it should have a special article among "regional centers". And such article is necessary, because each city had its own tradition in government.Gestr 17:42, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Of course the modern concept of state isn't applicable to much of anything before the twentieth century, but this article is about the political history of the Rus’ city-states, which are most often collectively referred to by the principal one, Kiev, a.k.a. the Kievan state, or principality, or Kievan Rus’. Medieval Rus’, is an appropriate term for the lands and culture; I think ancient is usually reserved for the Roman era and earlier.
You know the score: Russian is potentially confusing and slightly archaic in this usage, Rusian is just not quite a real word; Rus’ is a correctly-formed adjective: Rus’ lands, the Rus’ people, etc, analogous to London boroughs, United States citizens, etc. —Michael Z. 2006-02-03 18:14 Z

Gestr, that "Drevnyaya Rus'" is a common term in Russian, as well as "Russkaya zemlya", does not make direct translation of these terms valid alternative names of the article in English. English usage itself is what matters. The names you brought up could be described in an etymology section, but this does not belong, especially in the bolded from to the first paragraph or, expecially, the first line. Besides, while "ancient" is the best translation into English of the word "Drevniy", it is rather inexact because in Russian "drevnost'" is applicable to the medieval times in the Rus context and in English, "ancient" is used more for the time of antiquity and not for what's considered to belong to the Middle Ages. Please leave the intro alone for now and concentrate on improving the article instead. Changing the intro is the easiest way to affect the article's general impact and should be done with care. Thanks, --Irpen 10:14, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Would another solution be to name this article "Principality of Kiev", and make similar articles about the other states (Principality of Novgorod, etc)? Adam Bishop 03:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Creating separate principality articles could not hurt but in no way this would be a replacement to this article. Right now, most of the material for principality articles is written in the history sections of their historic capitals and could be spun off if there are editors willing to expand them.

However, the notion of the Old East Slavic state comprised by these principalities unified, sometimes loosely, sometimes tighter and sometimes not, at all exists strongly in historiography. This unified etnity deserves an article on its own (this one) and the issue at hand is how the etnity is most frequently called among the English language historic books and other sources because this is how such article should be called. The answer to this question is Kievan Rus'. That this name of the etnity is so wide-spread because of the influence of Ukrainian nationalist scholars in the East Slavic historic thought is a total nonsense because if any scholarship is the most influential here, it is the Russian one rather than the Ukrainian. I don't see the prevailance of the Russian scholarship as good or bad, it may be biased but in any case it is academically a very strong and solid scholarship that we must use. The Ukrainian scholarship, so far, failed even to introduce modern Ukrainian names for the historic places that are in modern Ukraine (btw, this is the reason we are using Chernigov for Chernihiv in the medieval context and, again, this is not a judgemental issue but an issue of reflecting the usage).

In any case, the reasons why this or that term is most widely used is secondary and the fact that it is primarily used is primary. The most frequent term in English is " Kievan Rus' ". As such, I suggest we move on from this discussion and get back to the article's improvement. --Irpen 03:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Political correctness has created a lot of confusions along the way.
First of all, after the founding of Kievan Rus' the tribes were no longer called Eastern Slavs, even though that is their primary designation according to their location on the world map, they got a particular name – Rusy (-ы). That is, it would be historically correct to change the name Eastern Slavs into Rusy.
The eastern Slavic tribes that were named Rusy - the only name for the people occupying Kievan Rus' given to the Eastern Slavs by the Vikings who had been asked to unite and rule the tribes, as well as the only historically correct name used by all historians all over the world when referring to that region of that time. (Ruthenia and the like are merely periodical titles given by foreigners.)
There were no Ukrainians, no Byelorussians, just Rusy who were ruled by the same dynasty and spoke the same language.
Secondly, different spelling or pronunciation of the name Vladimir in Russian, Byelorussian or Ukrainian doesn't tie Vladimir to any of the countries to a more degree. He was the ruler of Kievan Rus', not Ukraine and not modern Russia.
The fact that Moscow has become the capital of Rus’ doesn’t make Kievan Rus’ a Ukranian state, neither does it mean that Ukraine did not derive from Rus’ (the name commonly considered to be the old version of the name Russia, therefore so much political controversy).
It was due to historical evolution which produced 3 countries out of one; despite all current political differences, let us not deviate from mere logic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.224.45.157 (talk) 08:13, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map

There is another map: Image:Kievan_Rus_en.jpg, translated by User:Voyevoda from the german original map. It shows the important cities, but it is big. Use or not, I don't care, its your article. --Captain Blood 21:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Sources of the article

If the main source of this article is the famous "Encyclopedia of Ukraine" this article is very partial. I would like to know what other sources were used in writing of this article. --Vasile 15:20, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


Not even "Encyclopedia of Ukraine" didn't dare to name Kievan Rus a "state". --Vasile 21:39, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, I would like to know what is the meaning of the word "creation" in the sentence "creation of a written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda".--Vasile 22:25, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


"Kyivan Rus'" at the web-based Encyclopedia of Ukraine defines it as "The first state to arise among the Eastern Slavs".

Kubijovyč's Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopædia, Vol. 1, the main section "History: Archaeology", article "The Medieval (Kievan Rus’) Period (800–1345 A.D.)" by V. Kozlovsky and Y. Pasternak, section "Kiev", p. 554, says "The medieval Ukrainian state (Kievan Rus’) was born on the territory of present-day Kiev." The main section "History: Medieval History of Ukraine: The Princely Era", article "Kievan Rus’ Before the time of Volodymyr the Great" by N. Chubaty, p. 581 says "The first historical state in eastern Europe was Kievan Rus’, the fatherland of present-day Ukrainians."

Subtelny (1988) argues that both the Slavs and Varangians made important contributions to Kievan Rus’. In reference to "as early as the 6th–7th centuries": "Murky though our knowledge of this period is, it can be assumed that the East Slavs in general and the Polianians in particular were well on the way to laying the foundation for the vast political, commercial, and cultural entity that would be called Kievan Rus′" (p. 26) and "...the lands along the Dnieper...[about 1100] constituted the core of Kievan Rus′, a mighty political conglomerate well on the way to creating one of the most sophisticated societies and flourishing economies in Europe at the time" (p. 22). —Michael Z. 2006-02-21 18:29 Z [updated]

This is state-backed history, simply "POV". --Vasile 00:06, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Kubijovyč was published by the University of Toronto in 1963—which state do you say it was backed by? —Michael Z. 2006-02-21 17:40 Z
Differently from the US, the most of the Canadian universities have a significative state component. The Ukrainian community played an important role in western Canada at the beginning of the 20th century. You can imagine there is a history of relation of this community with the federal gov or with Alberta provincial gov. --Vasile 02:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
So you're saying that the Ukrainian Canadians lobbied the federal government to mandate the use of the word "state" for Kievan Rus’ in the 1963 Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopædia? Whatever tinfoil hat you're wearing, I want to get me some of that stuff. (by the way, Toronto is in Ontario, not Alberta). —Michael Z. 2006-02-22 07:00 Z

Please cite sources that say otherwise. --Irpen 00:20, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

What does it mean: "Ukrainian" (sic!) "Kievan state" (sic!) "was born" in Kiev? How can so politically motivated and anti-historical text be cited as a "source"? Fortunately, our article is not really written based upon such sources, according to it, so called "Kievan Rus" "was born" in what was to be later called "Novgorod".62.113.83.93 13:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Keep in mind that the context of that article is Ukrainian history, in an encyclopedia of Ukraine. It doesn't say it wasn't the medieval Belarusian and Russian state. —Michael Z. 2006-02-21 17:37 Z

[edit] Golden Age

Source: EB article "Bylina":

"The oldest byliny belong to a cycle dealing with the golden age of Kievan Rus"

Source: Library of Congress country studies

The Golden Age of Kiev
Kiev dominated Kievan Rus' for the next two centuries (see fig. 2). The grand prince controlled the lands around Kiev, while his theoretically subordinate relatives ruled in other cities and sent him tribute. The zenith of Kievan Rus' came during the reigns of Prince Vladimir (978-1015) and Prince Iaroslav the Wise (1019-54)... Google for more. --Irpen 03:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Predecessor state

Source: Columbia encyclopedia

KIEVAN RUS [Kievan Rus] , medieval state of the Eastern Slavs. It was the earliest predecessor of modern Ukraine and Russia.

Now, Vasile, would you please reread the source: Wikipedia:What_is_a_troll#Pestering:

"Another form of trolling can occur in the form of continual questions with obvious or easy to find answers." --Irpen 03:07, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Russian nationalistic POV

The claim that Rus was the most advanced state in Europe is a a very bizarre POV, I have yet to encounter such opinion in scholary works on history. --Molobo 17:25, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

As if you read any... It is not said anywhere that Kievan Rus was "the most advanced state in Europe". If you don't stop pestering, I will add symmetrical tags to *all* the major articles on Polish history. Cheers, Ghirla -трёп- 17:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
The article says "one of the most culturally advanced" states in Europe, which is both true, and which few historians would disagree with. If you think it's controversial, I can easily add a citation; although it seems you're more interested in opening a new front against Ghirlandajo, than actually contributing to this article. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 17:33, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
It would be good to provide a reference for such a bold statement. I don't doubt it's true, but it needs to be properly referenced with an inline citation of an academic source. Currently it is a bold and unsourced POV, I am afraid. A citations for other facts - like high literacy and no capital punishment - would also be most welcomed. Also, I see some Harvard referencing in text (like (Bartlett, England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, p. 332)) - this should be transformed into footnotes, and at the very least books used in Hr in text should be added to the references section.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:46, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
The problem here is the way the information is presented. Whether it is true or not I don't know; I don't really care either, it just seems like the inferiority complex of Eastern Europe has manifested itself once again, and it's very tiresome. If Kiev and Novgorod had high literacy rates, great, just say that. It's not necessary to say "ho ho, look how smart they were, and Charlemagne didn't even know how to write!" You do not need to say how bad everyone else supposedly was in order to point out how good Kiev was. Besides, Kiev was as culturally backwards as the rest of Europe in comparison to, say, the Caliphate. Why don't we mention that as well? Adam Bishop 03:32, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removing tags is vandalism

But I doubt it will stop anyone. Sadly the article is highly POV but users supporting this POV will continue to enforce it. Sadly an expert is needed to distinguish what is true and what is part of this nationalistic POV. --Molobo 17:41, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

No need for tag; the only part of the article disputed in the talk page is a sentence which you made up, rather than any actual sentence in the article. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 17:43, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Molobo. Tags have to be explained in good faith at talk. You can't just damage articles throwing tags around at whim. Unexplained tags is OK to remove. --Irpen 17:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I have replaced the tag with something more appopriate; I think that the addition of inline citations would be enough to defuse the problem (and improve the article).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

In addition if you want to compare it to developed countries do so, rather then to depopulated areas like England or France. Please compare it to Byzantium, Genoa, Pisa, Venice etc if you want to talk that Kievan Rus was "one of the most developed countries". --Molobo 18:16, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Removing citation request tags is definetly vandalism. Please provide the requested references, Ghirla, instead of deleting the requests.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:05, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] East vs West Slavic cultural achievements

I would add a literary dimension too. While its neighbours - including Poland - had no literary tradition in their native language at all, Kievan Rus managed to produce one of the most powerful literatures of the period. Please remind me what is date for the first sizable extract of original literature in Polish language? --Ghirla -трёп- 19:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

While its neighbours - including Poland - had no literary tradition in their native language at all. Wrong argument. Poland integrated itself nicely in developed structers of West rather then dig down and stay with less developed tribal culture of Slavic tribes past as Rus did and used Latin and German language. [4] Integration into European Civilization

Ok, I rephrase your words: Poland submitted her Slavic identity and language in order to adopt the Latin heritage and underwent a heavy Germanization. This fact probably explains why this country failed to develop a distinctitive cultural traditions in architecture and art and contented itself with second-hand imitations of Western models throughout its history. --Ghirla -трёп- 19:23, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
"Poland submitted her Slavic identity and language in order to adopt the Latin heritage and underwent a heavy Germanization."

All countries evolve taking influences from their neighbours and other civilisations.Poland of course was influenced by the Western world, likewise Russia was influenced by Mongol Empire, becoming its cultural legacy for centuries to come. True that parts of Polish realm were Germanised, but Russia on the other hand compared to Poland was unable to form itself and required Scandinavian and German rulers throughout its history. Of course Poland has neither Latin, German or "Slavic" identity(whatever the "Slavic identity" absurdity is supposed to be) but simply Polish identity.

This fact probably explains why this country failed to develop a distinctitive cultural traditions in architecture and art and contented itself with second-hand imitations of Western models throughout its history.

Your claim that Poland has no achievements in culture is rather obvious false statement and similiar to that of Russian nationalists of XIX century who had seen only Russia and West, denying national identity of nations occupied by Russian Empire. I really thought you could do better Ghirlandajo. As it is your statements are unconnected to the issue. If at all-they just prove that while other parts of Europe where Rus was located integrated themselfs with European civilisation, Rus itself was still isolated in many ways from it. --Molobo 19:26, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Without question the most significant development of the formative era of Poland's history was the gradual absorption of the country into the culture of medieval Europe. After their relatively late arrival as pagan outsiders on the fringes of the Christian world, the Western Slavs were fully and speedily assimilated into the civilization of the European Middle Ages. Latin Christianity came to determine the identity of that civilization and permeate its intellect and creativity. Over time the Central Europeans increasingly patterned their thought and institutions on Western models in areas of thought ranging from philosophy, artistic style, literature, and architecture to government, law, and social structure. The Poles borrowed especially heavily from German sources, and successive Polish rulers encouraged a substantial immigration of Germans and Jews to invigorate urban life and commerce. From its beginning, Poland drew its primary inspiration from Western Europe and developed a closer affinity with the French and Italians, for example, than with nearer Slavic neighbors of Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine heritage. --Molobo 19:14, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Molobo, I'll cite your source for you: http://countrystudies.us/poland/5.htm. When you pillage the text of others without acknowledging it, it's a copyvio. --Ghirla -трёп- 19:28, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

If you would fallow the link you would see that it is from History of Poland on Wiki, where I haven't contributed yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Molobo (talk • contribs)

Molobo, this isn't Wiki but even if it were, Wiki is GFDL. Reuse is allowed with reference. Pasting the stuff and signing with your name is a copyvio. That you "haven't contributed" there yet, is perhaps because edit warring consume too much of your time. --Irpen 20:02, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Please remind me what is date for the first sizable extract of original literature in Polish language?

IIRC Bogurodzica-dated at between X and XIII century. --Molobo 19:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Nationalist fables again: "The first written Polish consists of a list of names in the Papal Bull issued in 1136 by Pope Innocent II to the archbishop of Gniezno; the oldest recorded sentence is a gloss translating a quotation in a document from 1270. Extant manuscripts containing any appreciable amount of connected Polish text date back no earlier than the 14th century." (the latest edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica). Now compare it to the likes of Ostromir Gospel and Novgorod Codex. --Ghirla -трёп- 19:23, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Again you don't understand Ghirlandajo, Poles used European languages because they integrated with European civilisation.

--Molobo 19:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

"Integrate with European Civilisation"? I've got to tell you (speaking as a Brit), that most people over here can't tell the difference between Poland and Russia. Poles may see themselves as Western Europeans, but do the Western Europeans agree? --Latinus 20:01, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I would argue that foremost Poles seem themselfs as Poles Latinus. We are talking here about historic analysis, taking into account law system, culture, religion. Of course public opinion is also interesting but it doesn't create historic and politic analysis like those in the article. Anyway this really is off topic and I don't know why Ghirlandajo brought it up. --Molobo 20:23, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Culture? So your are arguing, from the Western European point of view that, for example, Tchaikovski is somehow inferior to Chopin? --Latinus 20:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

They are far ahead in future in the time of Rus, and thus not subject of the article. If you interested in those issues regarding Russian discord with the West and Poles(who Russians named Judas of Slavdom) I recommend reading on Golden Freedom vs Tartar Yoke, Tsar versus szlachta, Holy Roman Empire versus Third Rome(for many Russian nationalists Poles are traitors of alledged "Slavdom" because they accepted rule of Pope, instead of becoming Russian subjects of course), Panslavism,Slavophile movement etc. It's a very complicated and lenghty subject. Or take Britannica : [5] Historically, western Slavs were integrated into western Europe; their societies developed along the lines of other western European nations. Eastern and southern Slavs suffered Mongol and Turkish invasions and evolved more autocratic, state-centred forms of government. --Molobo 20:59, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Molobo, please praise the achievements of Polish culture in the Polish culture article. This has nothing to do with Kievan Rus and its talk. That you paste stuff from other pages isn't new either. The new part is that this time you didn't even have any decency to acknowledge the authorship and presented the text as yours. In any case, please chill out (for now) and stop pasting stuff (forever). If you would also stop revert warring, I would have given you this Barnstar.
You have several valuable compatriots WP contributors who never run edit wars. While I disagree with them sometimes on issues, I take my hat off to their patience and contributions. You just delete, revert and paste most of the time. If you drain my patience to an end that I will put aside some time for an ArbCom, I would just request the restriction for your right to revert and a parole on pasting. With these two restrictions you may actually end up starting to write for articles. Your good English and devotion would be enough a motivation. But please don't force me to do it. Just seize trolling and start contributing. --Irpen 19:55, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Molobo, please praise the achievements of Polish culture in the Polish culture article. This has nothing to do with Kievan Rus and its talk.

Irpen in case you haven't noticed it was Ghirandajo who started comparing Poland and Polish culture to Rus. I agree that is has nothing to do with the article, perhaps you should point it out to Ghirandajo ?

The new part is that this time you didn't even have any decency to acknowledge the authorship and presented the text as yours

You don't need to use such attacks Irpen, everybody can see that the link I provided is to History of Poland on Wikipedia. And I didn't entered this text there. --Molobo 20:03, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

You just delete, revert and paste most of the time.

Adress such issues on my talk page, anyway I give on my main pages articles that I created or contributed to so your statement is incorrect. --Molobo 20:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, everyone who is interested to continue this discussion, please go to Talk:Culture of Poland. I wil archive it tomorrow to keep this page helpful for further article development since this discussion is totally off-topic. Anyone is welcome to copy-paste it to talk:Culture of Poland. --Irpen 21:10, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Common sense in tags demanding for refs

Please do not uglify the article with requests for things that are common knowledge. I mean such refs are useful to add but we are too far from perfection. Use the templates for the facts that are doubtfull only. --Irpen 21:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

This is not common knowledge. Please don't use a weasel word like 'common knowledge' - if it is for you, than please provide relevant citations. Template fact indicates what should be referenced, and if you think it 'uglifies' an article, then please go to Wikipedia:Templates for deletion and suggest it's deletion.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 06:10, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, the "fact" template has every reason to exist. Please reread my previous post. However, it looks ugly and it was made ugly on purpose, to prompt people to act on them quickly and if no one acts, to remove challenged info. Now, that's the difference. Are you challenging the info as suspicious or you simply want the article to be better and have refs? The tags is for the former case, the talk page postings is for the latter. As for calling "common knowledge" a "weasel word", what was this I wonder then? Please don't be unfair towards articles which happen to be not your top priority as compared to your own creations which you cherish. --Irpen 06:22, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems that we disagree on the use of this template. Can you point me to the where it is written that it should not be used that way? As the article has some references, I cannot put a {{unreferenced}} on it, but it has quite a few bold statements that should be specifically referenced (and if this is the same Library of Congress source, then note so inline). As for your PLC example, I'd argue that saying that Poland is a successor to PLC is common knowledge (just as the fact that Russia is a successor to KR), while it's religious tolerance (or no death penalty in KR) is a more specific fact that should be referenced. I'd also like to point out that providing references is not hard, especially tnx to the wonderful Google Print. Finally, I agree that template fact is somewhat ugly, but if it makes people act faster (and I think it does) than just posting on talk pages, then I'll use it.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it is right to disrupt the colleagues with throwing tags ("fact" or "dubious" at least for now) for the easily checkable and commonly known info. I mean, we should rigorously reference everything when we are anywhere close to FAC but for now, please don't do it. It's easy to tie down the hands of anyone by permanently demanding refs. I had to spend a better time of the day for satisfying these calls for the references to support a very well known info . If I didn't have to do it, I would have been able to do some more important work (for now) edits. Please, don't get me wrong! I totally agree that referencing is important but there must be some common sense when to demand it. Tagging of common knowledge info in yet rather raw articles is over the top.

This article is not yet at stage of stylising and we should improve the content with good-faith info. I do not deny that truly dubious info can be tagged, but please bother to do a 5 minute research at google books, home library, or at least Britannica and Columbia before claiming that something is "dubious" ar requires citations. --Irpen 07:07, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't see that referencing is less useful than content creation.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 13:56, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
LOL. --Ghirla -трёп- 14:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
It's sad to see that you have such contempt for Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Please no righteous demagogy. No one refutes here WP:Cite, WP:Verify, etc. We are talking common sense here. Be reasonable. 7 (!) tags added to one paragraph in once shot, especially to the info that is easily googlable and seen in most encyclopedia is an annoying overkill. It is much easier to understand when others do the same to your articles. Just be reasonable when deciding to tag smth. See Talk:Cossack for more. --Irpen 19:57, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

If you do, than you can just ignore the relevant templates.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 13:56, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ref requests

Provide for references regarding the staments that I marked, they seem pretty bold and POV. --Molobo 20:16, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Rus didn't represent all Slavs. So I believe it should be renamed to combining Byzantine-East Slavic traditions. It certainly didn't represent West Slavs after all. Let's avoid confusion. --Molobo 20:16, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Population figures

As expected they aren't so impressive compared to other places in Europe: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pop-in-eur.html --Molobo 22:56, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the earlier discussion was about the sizes of urban centres. —Michael Z. 2006-03-18 22:10 Z

[edit] Further reading

I have added some further reading. I can't actually remember what the Fennell book is like (although I read it long ago). Franklin & Shepard is the best English-language introduction I have seen, and Obolensky is a good read (but isn't there something newer that covers the same ground ?). Is there anything on the late Kievan Rus period which is more up-to-date than Fennell and more focussed than Martin ? Angus McLellan (Talk) 13:09, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response to Molobo's nationalistic POV

"The claim that Rus was the most advanced state in Europe is a a very bizarre POV, I have yet to encounter such opinion in scholary works on history. --Molobo 17:25, 15 March 2006 (UTC)"

First it it was the most advanced state of its time. It's achievenments are numerous:

Constantinople: Rus' took the city, and unlike their western nieghbors, instead of burning it, (see Rome, burning of) learned its culture, religion and way of life. This was before the state of Rus celebrated it's 100th birthday, a feat unmatched in history.

Economic Reforms: Rus' was the first state that openly allowed a woman (Olga r. 945-962) to fully govern it. The results were an increase in tax collection efficiency, dramatic increase in culture and religion, and the establishment of the inter-continental dimplomatic system. Olga continiued to govern Rus' even after her son, Sviatoslav came of age, with two exceptions: foreign policy and the army.

Mongol Invasion: Rus' was the first country to defeat the Mongols military, and end the Mongol Yoke.

But I am sure there were more advanced states, this is just my nationalistic POV, right? WRONG! Check my facts if you don't believe me. And Malboro, don't be jealous of the achievenments of others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.164.130.206 (talk) 04:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Ridiculous nationalistic drivel. Byzantium was easily the most advanced european state from its foundation until the Fourth Crusade. Furthermore, the Rus never took Constantinople, they only raided the monasteries and villages on the coast - and when they did they were led by vikings anyway. Only the franks and turks managed to actually capture the city. 91.109.170.193 19:18, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Did Ancient Rus' extend to Transnistria at any point in time?

We have a debate on this at Talk:History of Transnistria. Several sources say yes, but are apparently being disproved by other sources. There is a good bit of anti-Russian nationalism involved, unfortunately. In Transnistria itself, the history itself seems to say yes, it was indeed part of Rus' at times -- as in this sentence for instance: "В X – XI веках территория, ныне именуемая Приднестровьем, входила в состав Древнерусского государства" which is from http://www.obnovlenie.info/text.php?cat=34 - please, experts, help out on Talk:History of Transnistria with just the facts and no POV pushing of any kind. - Mauco 01:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The course of the Dniester was controlled by Kievan Rus. Please check Tivertsi. --Ghirla -трёп- 13:45, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Christianisation of Rus'

The paragraphy on the Christianisation of Rus' seems to imply that prior to Vladimir I Christianity was unknown in Rus'. Whilst a large-scale 'Christianisation' policy was not pursued until Vladimir's "Conversion" in 988, the Primary Chronicle talks of Christians among the Rus' before 988 - when they concluded treaties with Byzantium. Indeed, one Rus' ruler - Olga wife of Igor' and regent for her son, Sviatoslav, (who took the Christian name Helen) - was baptised in sometime between 946-960. This ought to be mentioned to avoid infering that Vladimir brought the first Christians to Rus'. 128.232.243.154 17:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)C128.232.243.154 17:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Early Rus'

The following is incorrect, Rus' originated around Kiev. North western Russia was inhabited by asian abrbaric tribes. Please fix.

"The Rus' people probably dominated what is now northwestern Russia since the eighth century. In the early ninth they became loosely organized under the Rus' Khaganate, which may be regarded as a predecessor state to the Kievan Rus'."

Were the Rus' not around the area of Staraia Lagoda prior to moving to Kiev? Thus the above statement has some accuracy.
Uh... North-Western Russia has never been inhabited by any Asian tribes. There were Slavs, Balts, Finns and Scandinavians, but I'm unaware of any Asians. Unless you're referring to Finno-Ugric tribes, of course, but then they're as Asian as Estonians, Finns, Komi, etc. Humanophage 6:57 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Kievan Rus originated in present-day northwestern Russia, not in Kiev. As a country where the rulers and the leading class were Scandinavians. Maybe the people of those countries that now claim Kievan Rus as their own, and fight each other like rabid dogs all the time as evidenced here, should do as their ancestors did and let themselves be ruled by Scandinavians so that there could be some law and order? Allan Akbar
"Kievan Rus originated in present-day northwestern Russia" - thats nonsence. The state "Kievan Rus" originated in Kiev and is called after that. All other states, dynasties and ethnic groups, including nypotetical "Rus Khaganate" or "Northwestern Rus", whatever, were not Kievan Rus. I thinks, such simple thing is clear even for a kid. Scandinavians did a "great job", but they were not Kievan Rus. --202.249.213.31 13:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template

Why was the former country template moved off the article? ([6] and many other times) Many pages in Wiki have such templates, so why this country should not have? It seems to me the template standardizes all articles about the former countries in the good way and gives readers a possibility to get the short summury of the article. Whats the problem. --133.41.84.206 08:33, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

This is the problem. --Irpen 08:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I found no answer to my questions nor arguments against templates and images. Just accusition of other users in sockpuppeting... Sounds much like Wikipedia:Assume bad faith :-) Please, give answers to my question. --133.41.84.206 09:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] For Alex Kov

Alex, there is nothing to discuss here. Attempts at nationalist rewriting of medieval history are given short shrift these days. If you persist in your revert-warring and sockpuppeteering, we'll have to think about community ban. Your template is a vehicle for nationalist mythology. It is not acceptable for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it contains no useful information and encumbers the lead:

  • The people of this state *did not* refer to the polity as Кыѥвьска Рѹсь. The term was introduced by Russians in the 19th century. Any attempt to render it in a medieval language, let alone to put this imaginary spelling to the top of the article, are bogus.
  • Kievan Rus did not have the official coat of arms or national emblem. Yaroslav's trident has no more legitimacy than his brother's bident. Every prince had his personal emplem. It's not clear why Yaroslav's emblem should be given priority.
  • The link to the modern Ukrainian currency, hryvnia, is highly misleading. Introduced in the late 20th century, it has nothing to do with grivna, the currency of medieval Rus.
  • There is no evidence that Kievan Rus (and Kiev, for that matter) did exist in the 9th century. Oleg's Rus was a successor state to Rus Khaganate, a featured article all links to which you strive to remove. Successor states of Kievan Rus included not only Halych-Volynia but also Vladimir-Suzdal and Novgorod Republic.

In short, the template contains no additional information of useful nature. All it contains is original research with nationalist overtones. Other edits removed by me also have no place in the article. Primary sources, such as extensive excerpts from medieval chronicles, should be removed per WP:RS. On the other hand, sourced information about the origins of Kievan Rus is highly relevant and should not be deleted on somebody's whim. --Ghirla-трёп- 17:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Total agreement with Ghirla. Content issues aside, the infobox is an aesthetic nightmare. There already is a history box at the top, which at least provides some context that is arguably better in a box than the article itself. Inclusion of the infobox makes the article look terrible. If the "infobox" contains any "info" that belongs in the article, it should be placed in the text. Tim Shuba 21:51, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the rude comment. I think that your edit wars and avoiding disscussion leads you community ban or blocking, as it was in past days. Any way lets discuss

  • The people of this state *did not* refer to the polity as Кыѥвьска Рѹсь. The term was introduced by Russians in the 19th century. I agree with it. Lets Change it to "Рѹсь". You just simply accusing all scholarship to be bogus.
  • Kievan Rus did not have the official coat of arms or national emblem. Yaroslav's trident has no more legitimacy than his brother's bident. Every prince had his personal emplem. It's not clear why Yaroslav's emblem should be given priority. Of course, Rus has no COA either "national emblem". But there were personal crests of the ruling Dynasty, many of which had a "trident"-like motive. For that see recent research on knyaz dynasties of Eastern Europe. By the way, neither french lilie or english lions were the symbols of the state but personal crests of the rulers of these countries... May be you dont like trydent because its the COA of Ukraine nowadays, nevertheless it doesnt turn any trrydent symbol into "national" amblem of Ukraine. So, leave away the nationalistic bias of your own. Yaroslav's trident was just a his personal crest, made in the motive of other Rurikids tamgas and crests. Yaroslav was one of the greatest rulers of Rus, so i dont undersnatd your objections to his symbol.
  • The link to the modern Ukrainian currency, hryvnia, is highly misleading. Introduced in the late 20th century, it has nothing to do with grivna, the currency of medieval Rus. I agree. We can change it to grivna as like. But it s not the argument to revert the whole template.
  • There is no evidence that Kievan Rus (and Kiev, for that matter) did exist in the 9th century. Oleg's Rus was a successor state to Rus Khaganate, a featured article all links to which you strive to remove.Kiev had already existed in 9 th c. You should study better. Some theories presuumes that Oleg's Rus was a successor state to Rus Khaganate, but they are not main-stream. We even dont know whether the Knaganate existed as a real polity and where it was located. Therefore its too tricky to paste Rus Khaganate as a predecessor of Kievan Rus. Its better to put in links to Eastern Slavs and Vikings. The quality of the likn to Khanate (Featered article) has no relation to this problem.

Successor states of Kievan Rus included not only Halych-Volynia but also Vladimir-Suzdal and Novgorod Republic. I absolutly agree with this statement. All three were in the template you called idiotic. All three were removed by you. So I see no point to argue.--Alex Kov 09:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

Hope nobody minds if I introduce an outside view. I am not qualified to engage in disputes over infobox content. Let me point out however that attempts to eliminate it altogether go against current Wikipedia trends. Quite simply, it has become common practice to create infoboxes in articles about former states. I do not see why such an infobox cannot exist here. To give relevant examples, we have infoboxes for: Republic of Venice, Byzantine Empire, Roman Empire, and Holy Roman Empire. More importantly, we have them in Grand Duchy of Moscow, Russian Empire, Khanate of Kazan, Astrakhan Khanate, Crimean Khanate, Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Based on this let me suggest that the attempts to remove the infobox stop, and a real discussion about what it should contain begin. Balcer 15:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree with the above. Preserving the status quo at all costs is not the best way to do things. If there are disagreements over the content of infoboxes, they can be discussed, but removing and starting a revert war over it is counterproductive. --Hillock65 17:45, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Balcer, problem is that if one removes stuff that should not be there, there is nothing left! When we have a relatively little-documented polity that flourished one thousand years ago, we have so many subtleties that it is impossible to condense the straight answers into a box which allows only a brief entry per field. Details belong to the text and they are there.

Just look at what's being put in the box?

  • COA: first, user tries the trident in modern Ukrainian colors (obvious nationalist drivel), now he tries instead the personal emblem of one of the princes that ruled Rus'. How does it a COA? I understand that the user likes to see a trident resembling a modern UA-COA still, even devoid of his ORish colors, but that's plain silly. Every prince had the emblem of his own, including the Kievan ones that ruled before and after Yaroslav
  • Capital: we can with a good plausibility state that Kiev qualifies as the "capital" of the polity but definitely not for an entire period covered by the article. The Golden age of Kiev that revert warriors are welcome to de-redlink once they stop warring and start writing, was only a part of the time frame covered by this article.
  • Religion: look what they are inserting! Orthodox Christianity is a dab page! That's for one! Two, Byzantine Christianity became smth like Kievan "official religion" only later. For a rather long pre-Christianization time covered by the article the Rus' was Pagan. Much of the post-Baptism of Kiev time, much of the Rus still remained pagan. Degree and time-scale of the penetration of Christianity is uncertain, belongs to the article and cannot be reduced to one box entry
  • system of government: "monarchy", firstly an anachronism, secondly not so simple. The Veche system played a varying role depending on the time and location. The article covers the period of several centuries
  • rule: "empire", no comment
  • Is there anything left?

The box was created by a notoriously disruptive user exclusively to push his ORish nationalist fringecruft to the top of the article. And the article does not need another hot spot, a box whose content will only attract edit warring and which, whatever you put inside, will be misleading at best and false/POV-pushing at worst. --Irpen 19:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

If there are problems with the infobox currently proposed, the obvious solution is to make a better infobox. Could you put one together? I really think this article deserves a good infobox, since that is becoming a standard for many good articles. If so many of the entries are disputed, let's just have the name, map and dates in there, but let's have something. Balcer 19:22, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I see that there is a conflict with the other infobox, but that does not mean that something can be rearranged to have the infobox about Rus included as well. I also understand that someone seems to have an allergic reaction to anything that remotely resembles Ukraine. That is understandable, and it is also unerstandable that a lot of Ukrainian modern symbols are based on old Rus symbols, like Yaroslav's COA and the currency name. Does it make them unacceptable because the coulours and symbols resemble modern Ukrainian? I don't think this xenophobic line of argument stands to any criticism. It is always better to include more information than to exclude all of it for the fear that it might resemble modern Ukrainian ones.

  • I looked at the previous versions[7] and saw that the trident is not designated as the COA of Rus but rather of Yaroslav I. It is clearly marked as one of the COA of one of the rulers. What is wrong with that?
  • As far as capital go, I am surprised that this question is debated since the name of the article is very clear about it. One can also successfully argue that Rome at some instances was not the capital of that ancient state. If there are doubts that Kyiv was the capital and there are examples of other places, they should be added rather than deleted at all.
  • The same goes for religion, currency and other fields. What prevents opponents to add that pagan from ... to and Orthodox from ... to. The same goes for Grivna as currency. What is wrong with providing additional information and explaining what periods it covered?

Anyway it is better to provide additional information than label opponents as nationalist and POV pusher and start a revert war over one's stubbornes to accept alternative versions of the article. --Hillock65 19:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

To Hillock: so, can you say why Yaroslav's COA belongs to the top of the article over that of any other prince? The answer to the Rus COA issue is complex and cannot be reduced to one box.
Rus was a centralized state with a unified "capital" only for a relatively short period of time. It is impossible to explain in one sentence. Besides, another academic school of thought claims that it was rather a two-centered Kievan-Novgorodian polity. Also, for some time Halych princes were the most influential ones and even attaining the title of GD of Kiev they stayed in Halych, same as much later the Metropolitans in Moscow and Vladimir were called the "Metropiltan of Kiev and all Rus'" despite being located elsewhere. Also, when Rus was dominated by Chernigov princely line, one can make a claim of the Chernigov domination. I recommend a recent book by Martin Dimnik "The Dynasty of Chernigov, 1146-1246", 2003, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521824427. Check many of this book's reviews that state that it challenges the established oversimplified claim of Kiev dominance from yet a new angle.
Religion: do you know which version of Paganism they preached? Was it the same for all. Eastern Orthodox Christianity is a misnomer to the pre-schism time of the Kiev Baptism. Orthodox Christianity is even worse. Ambiguous too. Byzantine Christianity might fit, but not universally as in the very west, the Roman influence was significant.
"Additional info" should be added to the article and not the box that would grow indefinitely.
Oh, and take your Ukrainophobia speculations to LiveJournal please.
To Balcer: what's the point of having "just something." Why not strive to improve the article content instead. Boxen is not the mantra. They are not always helpful. --Irpen 19:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I do not see why it is impossible to design a good infobox for this article. Why give up a priori? All the points you raised can be addressed in the infobox. Multiple capitals besides Kiev? We can just indicate that, with appropriate comments and time periods (check Roman Empire for illustration). Or even say None if during certain time periods there was no dominant capital (see Holy Roman Empire). All of this can be addressed with a little bit of effort. Balcer 20:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't envision any useful version but why don't you try your version here? Oh, and btw, if you agree with my objections to the current one, please remove it as the revert warriors were now joined by a newly created single-purpose account, who did just two things until now, revert warred and harassed me at my talk. --Irpen 20:22, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Just to be clear (if above is addressed to me) I don't have my version. As I mentioned at the beginning, I am trying to serve as an outside voice trying to inject some reason and calmness into this fight. As I freely admit, my expertise on Kievan Rus' is much too limited for me to propose compromise solutions here. Balcer 20:31, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort. At least you see that the current version is faulty. Your keeping it is unhelpful but I have no doubt that it will than be removed by someone else. This current nonsense simply does not belong to the top of the article. --Irpen 20:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Balcer, there are examples where similar cases have been explained and infoboxes used. All these arguments of mindboggling complexity go down just to a simple fear that it may resemble modern Ukrainian symbols. So what if they do, add another COA of other princes if you know. By the same token, nobody is making such a big deal over similar infoboxes at other articles and notbably Muscovy. Russian Orthodox is listed as an official religion there (!), why don't you apply all these stringent norms to that article and that infobox as well? I don't see a concensus of editors on this page for the removal of the infobox. On the contrary the only disagreement is over what should and should not be there. --Hillock65 20:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Muscovy has less to do with my country and I care about it much less than of this article. Feel free to go there and correct it. Your new stage of ridiculous Ukrainiphobia accusations does not require a response. Please stay on topic. --Irpen 20:47, August 24, 2007

Right. If "my" and "not my" are reasons for double standards than no further comments are necessary. As well, I remember pretty well when it did matter [8]. How convenient when you need to push POV. As far as accusations, I never even mentioned Ukrainophobia, yet you mentioned it twice. I wonder why...--Hillock65 21:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Well these are your words:

I also understand that someone seems to have an allergic reaction to anything that remotely resembles Ukraine. That is understandable... Does it make them unacceptable because the coulours and symbols resemble modern Ukrainian? I don't think this xenophobic line of argument stands to any criticism.

Alex Kov's talks just the same lines too. If this is not the accusations of Ukrainophobia, than tell me what it was. --Irpen 21:31, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, since you are asking, I will tell you what this is: it is bias and double standards. Your objections above clearly stem from the "fear" that the symbols of Rus resemble modern Ukrainian ones too much. I also pointed at the same practice at Moscovy, you instead gave me the lamest exuse I've ever heard, that it is "not mine" and consequently you don't care (your edits there however prove this to be a lie). However, if you instist on classifying your bias and prejudice as Ukrainophobia, who am I to argue with the self-admitted warrior with Ukrainian nationalism? I only hope that worriors like you at least make an effort not to exhibit such obvious double standards and prejudice. --Hillock65 22:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not insisting on your "classifying my bias" in any way. Views and opinions on these matters from your mindset, while fringe, are not unfamiliar to me.

Talking about double standards, let me remind you the inconsistency you displayed with attacking a perfectly sourced image with a verifiable source and elaborate fairuse rationale, going as low as even replacing the rationale with the deletion tag on one hand, but uploading and inserting images of non-verifiable origin and notability you find in livejournal blog to your masterpiece "Ukrayinophobia" uk-wiki article. Sort the problems with your own double standards before daring to even invoke them. I will look at the Muscovy article since you asked.

I really don't have to respond to the rest of this. And besides, I see that at least 6th sock of one known to me user resumed the revert warring over the box saying no word at talk despite multiple explanations here are given.

Anyway, back to the topic, I outlined above why practically every single field in Kov's infobox now revert-warred by accounts that keep popping up like mushrooms is questionable. If you absolutely insist that "some" infobox is needed, please offer it here at the talk page, taking into account what was said above by multiple users. Thanks, --Irpen 22:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Answer to Irpen

Рѹсь (cu)
Kievan Rus′
← Image missing
 
← Image missing
 9th century – 12th century Coat of arms of Halych-Volhynia →
 
Image missing →
 
Image missing →

Trydent of Yaroslav I of Kievan Rus′

Trydent of Yaroslav I
Location of Kievan Rus′
Map of the Kievan Rus′, 11th century
Capital Kiev
Religion Paganism
Orthodox Christianity (988)
Government Monarchy
Historical era Middle Ages
 - Established 9th century
 - Disestablished 12th century
Currency gryvna

To Irpens arguments

  • COA: first, user tries the trident in modern Ukrainian colors (obvious nationalist drivel), now he tries instead the personal emblem of one of the princes that ruled Rus'. How does it a COA? I understand that the user likes to see a trident resembling a modern UA-COA still, even devoid of his ORish colors, but that's plain silly. Every prince had the emblem of his own, including the Kievan ones that ruled before and after Yaroslav
  • Image is in white and black coloures. You dont like "yelow" and "blue" for some reasons, so Ive changed them. It states clearly that it is a Yaroslav trident not COA. The trident like symbols and tamgas were the symdol of Rurikids in 10 - 13 ctnturies. See the page in my talk with Ghirla. --Alex Kov 13:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
    Please see also here about the "heraldry" of Rus princes an here about trydents of Rus till 12th c.. And read any book on heraldy for beginners before talking about COA and personal symbols of monarchs.--Alex Kov 13:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Capital: we can with a good plausibility state that Kiev qualifies as the "capital" of the polity but definitely not for an entire period covered by the article. The Golden age of Kiev that revert warriors are welcome to de-redlink once they stop warring and start writing, was only a part of the time frame covered by this article.
  • This statement proves that the author who wrote it dont know the history of Kievan Rus. Kiev became the capital of Rus about 882. It had been plaing the role of the capital even after the disintegration of Rus in 12 century into several principalities. Almost all princes were aiming the Kievan trone. I would advice Irpen to read books in order to avoid making such ignorant comments.--Alex Kov 13:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Religion: look what they are inserting! Orthodox Christianity is a dab page! That's for one! Two, Byzantine Christianity became smth like Kievan "official religion" only later. For a rather long pre-Christianization time covered by the article the Rus' was Pagan. Much of the post-Baptism of Kiev time, much of the Rus still remained pagan. Degree and time-scale of the penetration of Christianity is uncertain, belongs to the article and cannot be reduced to one box entry
  • system of government: "monarchy", firstly an anachronism, secondly not so simple. The Veche system played a varying role depending on the time and location. The article covers the period of several centuries
  • Ignorant comment again. See monarchy to learn what does it mean. You may find that diferent types of monarchies and monadrchical systems, including those which co^existed with parliment-like institutions. The prine (knyaz) was a monarch, so no doubt that Rus was a monarchy. The question is what kind of monarchy it was. Reader can find debates of it in article. But there is no reason to throw away the "monarchy" from infobox.
  • rule: "empire", no comment
  • Of course yo have no comment, because you dont read books on Rus. Sure it was not the empire and there was no the emperor. But the governing system and the corelations with Kiev and principalities were very simmilar to the German "Hole Roman Empire". See Tolocko Junior books or Voitovich work about princes. So, we cannot say that Rus was the "empire" by form, but it was by the "essence". Im not insist on this point, however. --Alex Kov 13:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Is there anything left?

Yes. My last pece of advice. Read books about subject and then interfere into disscussion. At least do not obstacle other yousers edits because you dont know the topic. Make request at the talk page, firstly.--Alex Kov 13:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This infobox proposal looks pretty reasonable to me, and Alex Kov has addressed objections presented adquately enough. I do not see why it should not be included in the article. Yes, it is not 100% perfect, but no infobox ever is, and offering objections on such grounds is a bit unreasonable.
Anyway, if anyone objects, let them propose an alternative infobox that addresses the problems they see in this one. Then, hopefully, through discussion, we can converge to a compromise version. Balcer 18:42, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
You fundamental premise is flawed, that the article has to have an infobox, or necessarily benefits from one. Sometimes a properly designed box works well. Too often, it encourages bad prose in the article text and detracts from a pleasant article layout. Having some set of required junk in a box is far less preferable to having well-written paragraphs about the same material. Whether to include a box or not and what it might look like is a content issue, similar to the choice, placement, and size of images. The idea that editors should be limited from choosing whether such a box belongs or not in a specific article is absurd. To take it to the extreme, we can take all layout decisions out of the hands of these pesky human editors and just create a Template:Article to make sure we stifle all creativity. Bah! Tim Shuba 20:42, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Obviously the article does not have to have an infobox. Nevertheless, they are becoming pretty standard all over Wikipedia, and as such must be broadly thought by the community to be more useful than not. More importantly their proliferation means that readers may be coming to expect an infobox in developed articles on certain subjects, and by this token think less of articles that do not have one. Just look at the list of articles where the "former country template" is used. If there is an important reason why this article must be singled out by not having one, it should be clearly presented. Otherwise, if some of the editors involved want to have an infobox in the article, the reasonable reaction is to include one in some compromise form, not to flatly reject its inclusion.
Quite frankly, this relentless revert war aimed to exclude this infobox is starting to seem a little bit bizarre, and driven by emotions more than anything else. Balcer 21:27, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
A lot of things that are detrimental to the community and the quality of articles are pretty standard. Readers who click on the "discussion" tab on certain types of articles expect to see gross incivility, factionalism, real and perceived abuse of the system, and so on. So yes, the dispute here is indicative of other things. I'd be plenty happy to have infoboxes on all articles with a switch to turn them on or off, something like the table of contents. That various people strongly disagree about the intrinsic value of infoboxes is an issue that can be dealt with, at least in principle. Yet no infobox or lack thereof will do anything about the underlying problems, which are rotting away sections of the encyclopedia, driving away worthwhile contributors and increasingly, spilling into real life and gaining media attention. To the extent that the war to exclude the box is bizarre, with which I won't disagree, the war to include the box is equally bizarre. Tim Shuba 23:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other infoboxes

I am afraid the article looks crowded with two infoboxes side by side. Can we delete or move the other infobox maybe below, so that they are not side by side? --Hillock65 15:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Ive made this style of the front template to combine infobox and improme the article--Alex Kov 16:33, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

v • d • e
History of Belarus • History of Russia • History of Ukraine

But this user [9] is breaking all the work.--Alex Kov 16:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Early History of Rus´

Here is something which do not fit. How can three (actually four) peoples; Meri (Merja), Tshuudi / Chuds (Vadja / Vod), Karelians (Izhoras) and Vepsäs (Ves), (not tribes) be a minority within two Slav peoples, of which only one (Krivitshis) belonged to Eastern Slavonic block, the other being Vendi (Veneti) immigrants from Baltic shore coming from Polatsik (original inhabitants Balts, then followed by Juuttis / Danes from Jutland), when forming a common trading place at the neck of Olhava River two kilometres down stream of Ilmajärvi (Air Lake)? Monk Nestor seems to have been made "little" exaggeration in his history.

Secondly, where are mentioned the Madjaarit (Magy-ers) who settled at the shore of Dinjeper Etelköz on the place of three Ugri (Uhorski) Hills c. 835-894? They had concentraded there 20.000 horse warriors, the best of Magy-ers army, the rest 30.000 were scattered to other places in Etelköz between Dinjeper and Dinjester. They ruled by the time the Slav peoples living at the time also in the Etelköz area, which later, only after 894-895, when Magy-ers left to Pannonia, become what is now called the cradle of Kievan (Kijev) Rus Gaganate.

What about Viatsit (Vjatitsit) who were part of a Finno Ugrian Ud-murt originated Vitka tribe which moved and settled to the area between Upper Oka and Dinjeper and lived there at the time of Etelköz?

How could Askold and Dyr (Dir) settle themselves among the Magy-ers in 860 ?. The story as written down by Nestor more than a hundred years later needs to be thought with rational thinking by historians combining all Byzantine, Norsemen, Finno Ugrian, Turkic-Tatar, Arabian and Persian sources to have even a golden central way in reliability of history for Early History of Rus´.

How can declined Kasaari (Khazar) Gaganate rule Kiev (Kijev) after their defeat to Arabs? Why they had to allied with Byzantine Emperor against "pagan" Petsenags?

The first time in European history I hear that whole population of Rus changed their religion from "paganism" to Orthodox Christianity just like that in a year or so. Bishop Leontij, who was not of Slav origin, appeared to Rosta / Rostov and suddenly all Meris (Merjas) were Orthodoxs (at least according to Nestor Chonicle).

All Karelians were Christianized in one year according to Russian Primary Chronicle, but for Western Roman Catholic Church it took more than 150 years to convert the Russian named "Swedes", living in Finland to even nominal Christianity. Strange is it? The question is of same Finno Ugrian people under name Finns which were divided to different tribes just as Hämes (Jems) Kainus, (Kvens) and Karelians (Korielas) speking Finnish with different dialects.

For German "kalparitarit" / "sword crusaders" it took 27 years to have whole small piece of land called today Estonia under their control in 1201-1227 beating the Aestes (with Danish help), tribe after tribe, a population of only 200.000 people.

How many questions remain open in the history of Early Rus´. I just ask. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.127.206 (talk) 09:19, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Golden Age?

Besides this:

"The church had a liturgy written in Cyrillic and a corpus of translations from the Greek that had been produced for the Slavic peoples. The existence of this literature facilitated the conversion to Christianity of the Eastern Slavs and introduced them to rudimentary Greek philosophy, science, and historiography without the necessity of learning Greek. In contrast, educated people in medieval Western and Central Europe learned Latin. Enjoying independence from the Roman authority and free from tenets of Latin learning, the East Slavs developed their own literature and fine arts, quite distinct from those of other Orthodox countries."

What is to suggest it was a Golden Age? Please see other Golden Age listings which usually document great achievements in art, literature, science and so on. This simply says they were exposed to Greek influences and developed a unique style. Is that a Golden Age? Please provide more details about the achievements of the time if possible. THanks! --Michaelrayw2 (talk) 22:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Locked?

Why is this locked?

Kiev Rus is a civilization that really doesn't have bad things in them. Soon every page will be locked, and wikipedia will just become a free encyclopidea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fijj (talk • contribs) 17:56, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Editprotected

{{editprotected}} Please add an interwiki link for the Macedonian version. Thank you.

Done. Also, please think about registering an account. 20:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)