Hello historians!
I recently read a chapter from David Landes' The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (1998). He very briefly mentions how the Vikings 'went into Slavic lands, establishing themselves as a new ruling class ...' called the Rus, that ruled there for some seven hundred years. According to Wikipedia the origin of the Rus seems to be disputed. I'm curious and would like to know more about them. What happened to the Rus' reign and how much land did they actually rule over?
I'm thankful for any answers!
*Edit: Removed a second question related to Landes, but not the Rus.
If, and this is a big (but, outside of Russia, a relatively well supported) if the 'Rus' were actually Scandinavians, then what happened to them between the time they first settled and took over leadership of these areas and the time when we have better written records is one of two things: either the leadership style that they put in place remained by the individuals themselves were pushed out, or the more likely scenario, like many non-native ruling classes they were subsumed into the larger Slavic population.
As for how much land the 'Rus' ruled over, the important thing to note is that there isn't any evidence that this was a centralized sort of rule. We are likely taliing small polities or groups of polities and/or trading groups.
If we are to believe that the 'Rus' are a group of people non-native to Russia, the most comparable situation would be that of places like France or Italy, where Germanic nobility made up a thin slice of over-all population, and that nobility was eventually subsumed into the language and culture of that population. It took about four or five centuries for the process to be pretty much complete in France, if that makes a difference.
You might want to submit your question regarding Landes as a separate post so that it will have more visibility. People with the required expertise might not see it if it is hidden in a question about the Rus.