Hi Dr Raffensperger, thanks for coming on to do this AMA with us.

My very superficial impression of Kievan Rus' is that it was dominated, at least politically and commercially, by Norse peoples, but that over time the Rus' polities increasingly reverted to the control of native Slavic dynasties. I feel like I can already guess that this impression is incorrect or at best horrifically oversimplified, but what actually was the relationship between Norse, Slavic, and indeed other peoples within the Rus' polity? Were Norse traders actually a relatively transient community whose influence declined? Did a more hybridised identity emerge that flattened out the differences, so to speak?

When I read about trade networks in Rus, the big-ticket destination is always Constantinople. That's where the furs and honey go to and that's where the silk and silver come from. How important was two-way trade between, say, Scandinavia and Rus or Western Europe and Rus? Was it mainly about Rus' position on the river routes be Constantinople and the others, or were there vital goods that changed hands without ever originating from or going on to the Roman/Middle Eastern world?

I'm not a medievalist so when I think of that time I think Beowulf, William the Conquer, Crusades, and cathedrals. What does expanding the geography to include eastern Europe change about medieval events that people familiar with?

Did the Rus’ form these ties exclusively with Europe, or were they building similar connections with cultures to the south and east?

I know this is a controversial topic, but I'm always interested in a neutral opinion based on historical science. As we know, many political regimes instrumentalize history in order for it to fit their own ideology, and especially in the last years, both russian and ukrainian officials claimed their country to be the real and only "heir" of the Kievan Rus. For example, there were some ukrainian politicians who even suggested renaming the country to "Rus-Ukraine", or calling princes of the Rus ukrainian princes. Meanhwile, russian sources often treat the Rus like it's just Russia but in the past, and the recent statue of Vladimir the great in Moscow is another attempt to claim legitimacy.

Judging on your knowledge about the Rus and the historical development centuries after it's downfall, do you think there is a country that inherited much more elements of the Rus then the others, or is the traditional approach (that Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are all successors of the Rus) more rational?

My history teacher from high school told me that Ruthenian and Russian culture started diverging from eachother when Golden Horde conquered eastern Slavic principalities. How much (if even) he was right? And if he wasn't, then when the process of divergance beetwen the western and eastern parts of Eastern Slavic world started?

were the regional names (red, white, black Ruthenia} used by the Rus' as well? or were they just western names. if the Rus' did use them, what were the meaning of the colours?

On the eastern border, what kind of relationship did the Rus' have with the volga bulgars or with other turkic/siberian peoples.

What was the real relationship with east Rome? Allies or just friendly.

Thanks!

What exactly happened to the Khazars? After being conquered by the Rus, did they continue to be a Turkic ethnic group that intermarried/assimilated with the larger local Slavic population?

Similar to how the Oghuz Turks who founded the Ottoman empire intermarried with the larger Anatolian/Greek populations of Byzantium, and were ethnically assimilated into that larger group?

https://youtu.be/f8ZqBLcIvw0

Is this video the type of "othering" you seek to overturn?

To summarize the video: the Mongols imposed an authoritarian and extractive socio economic model on Russia, which was inherited by the tsars, and in turn inherited by the Soviets, and in turn inherited by the the post-Soviet oligarchs. Consequently, when compared to Western Europe, Russia is uniquely predisposed to poverty and autocracy.

What was a normative model of medieval rulership, if not the English example? What is the piece of the medieval European puzzle that I would be missing if I only examined english/french/H.R.E. history? More specifically, what was a feature of these societies that was common to most but would be missed if I only were to examine the more western dynasties?

I LOVE the sound of your current project and your general scholarly goal! This might be a rather big question for an AMA, but how do you balance discussing the similarities across Europe with the need to keep people from thinking that the medieval social system totes worked like the "feudal pyramid" they saw in their elementary school social studies textbook?

I like your "international" approach to the Kievan Rus. One of my favorite books is Richard Fletcher's Bloodfeud, which used examples from other similar cultures in northern Europe to fill in gaps in the record around a single event in northern England, during the reign of Cnute.

Could you say something about the past historiography of the Rus? In some of the old stuff I've seen, the same people who would ask "what is the future of the Anglo-Saxon race?" and whether the Germans had long heads or round heads were also likely the ones talking about Germanic Rus being overlords of native Slavs.

Dr. Raffensperger: As someone who has a fairly limited knowledge of medieval Eastern Europe what are the cultures/empires that I should check out, or at least a cursory list of the real powers, disrupters of that time?

What perhaps could be even better is a few of your books, and maybe one-three others that you perceive to be of value, that I can add to my list.

Thanks!

How many types of peasents were there and which rights did they have? Where there free peasants(like in flanders up until 1100 CE who had a right to bear arms.) Was their a difference between peasants working for nobility, clergy and non-noble landowners?

To many people, Medieval Europe geopolitically is dominated by England, France, Spain, The Holy Roman Empire, and the Byzantines.

Why is Kievan Rus seemingly so ignored by the other European powers during this period?

What was the relationship like between the Rus’ and other tribes and peoples in the region, particularly non-Slavic ones?

For example, there’s a birch bark letter (no. 29) from Veliky Novgorod that seems to indicate that some of the neighbouring Finnic tribes were educated in the Cyrillic writing system, and may have even done so without (yet) converting to Christianity.

What are the main cultural takeaways from the Rus’ eventual interactions with Mongols?

I am Carpatho-Rusyn with roots in the Priekopa and Hlivistia areas of Slovakia. I'm trying to understand what this sub-group was historically. I know there were the Lemkos, Galician, Hutsels, etc. To which group do the Carpatho-Rusyn belong or are they just that, Carpatho-Rusyn?

How republic actually was the republic of Novgorod? And how did it coincide with its vassal status to the Golden Horde?

On Ukraine specifically, a Jewish history class I took seemed to present the Kmelnytsky Uprising as largely a proto-Russian proxy movement (which has obvious echoes in the narratives Russia used to take Crimea). As you might guess, the focus of this topic wasn't the goyish politics but rather all the murder (and a bit on mapping Europe into sections based on flavor of Christianity), but how accurate was my impression?

Also, one issue that historians on this sub like to emphasize is that pre-modern politics wasn't as much a clear hierarchy with discrete borders as a set of interpersonal and sometimes contradictory relationships between elites, but I'm having trouble seeing how that applied to Jews, who seemed to be very much aware of what king (or at least grand duke) they lived under and in many cases had a status independent from the local aristocracy/szlachta/boyars. This also seems to have been the case with many large/free cities, which had self-rule charters directly from the crown, and Christian clergy. How did feudalism work with smaller/non-mainstream corporate groups?

Is there a scholarly consensus on whether Anna Porphyrogenita (wife of Vladimir) had any children?

How useful is it to talk about Rus more as a collection of independent principalities ruled by a single family vs a single state?

Is there any thought out there that the Eurasian steppe could be seen more as a commonality between other peripheral steppe societies, rather than a giant geographical disruption with trickles of transteppe trade? Is the state structure of kieven rus reflective or reminiscent of any other political powers along the “coasts” of the steppe?

Is the term "Kyivan Rus'" correct? I have seen more people using it since the Russian invasion, but most literature I read stick to "Kievan Rus'."

May be outside of your scope of work, but I’m wondering how the historical views of the opposing sides’ view of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and their previous relationships with that polity might be impacting the conflict?

Hello Mr. Raffensperger,

I have written an essay for university a couple of months ago about historical narratives employed by Russia to justify the war in Ukraine. Kievan Rus plays an important role in the narrative that Putin tries to employ. In his view Kievan Rus is the start of russia and ukraine is a part of that Russia. From what I could gather, both countries do have their "origins" (if you could call it that), in Kievan Rus, but it far from binds them together. What is your view on the Kievan Rus and it's relationship between Ukraine and Russia?

Edit: I did not use your books in my paper, but by the looks of they could have been very useful!

Hi Dr, thank you for taking the time to answer some questions!

I'm a graduate student in Medieval History and while my studies primarily focus on Northern Europe and especially England, it's become increasingly apparent to me how diverse, integrated, and dynamic medieval people and societies were. So your AMA is a great help to me and my studies and an opportunity to broaden my perspective on the time period.

I've recently become interested in the spread of Norse and Scandinavian people's (especially during the Viking age) in places like Southern and Eastern Europe and in particular the establishment of the Kievan Rus.

My question is, what were the antecedents to the treaty that essentially established the Varangian Guard? I know the "Varangians"/ Rus were in conflict with the Byzantines for some time before the treaties were established, but what were the nature of the conflicts?

Additionally, was the clause that demanded military service from the Varangians meant as a way to essentially subjugate them and bring them into the Byzantine sphere of influence? Or was it essentially reparations and the Rus was left largely independent following these treaties?

Thank you again for doing this AMA!

How much did the Ottoman Empire influence Russia.

Is the Song of Igor's Campaign a forgery?

What was the role of Africans in this world you’re studying?

Hi! How old is the idea of Ukrainians being the lil brother Russians. That ive heard some of that rhetoric being used recently, but the only time I can remember it being used before was in the late 1800s and 1900s right before the collapse of Tsarust Russia and the push for panslavism.

Do these ideas have any root in medieval Rus? Was their any such nationalist rhotirc in the medival Rus view their Slavic neighbors?

Fellow historian here, thanks for doing this! I'm wondering if you might have a half dozen or so reading recommendations for someone working outside of medieval Europe to get a better sense of Ukranian history? I'm planning on including Ukraine as a case in my lecture on the formation of national identities etc and have only read some of Plokhy's works. Thanks!

Just wanted to start by saying I’ve read some of your work, and genuinely enjoyed it. I think your arguments in viewing Eastern Europe in the context of Western Europe is compelling and makes for a more cohesive historical context concerning the continent as a whole.

My question revolves around to what extent do you think that the cultures, customs, language, and memory of the Roman Empire provided a common ground for mutual comprehension between different cultural groups? We know that the Roman Empire had wide reaching impacts culturally beyond its own boundaries, so I’ve always wondered if some of the similarities shared between east and west in politics, culture, and what not had a deeper ancestor in a shared echoes of the Romans. I could be entirely off base but I would be curious to hear your opinion.

It occurred to be that most of what I know about the medieval era is very Western or Northern Europe focused. What was happening in the east? Especially like in places like Serbia?

I'm a big fan of games like the Witcher, which was written in Poland, and Assassin's Creed, which partly takes place in Constantinople. Is there anything (TV or movie, videogame, book, etc.) in pop culture that does a good job of capturing the look and lore an Eastern European medieval society?

How did roles like lord and knight, king, queen, princess, contrast with their counterparts in Western Europe?

Most importantly, to me, at least - of the multitude of kingdoms and empires that came and went over the centuries, why did none of the Balkan powers reach a level of dominance and historical significance enjoyed by the western European empires?

Sled-dogs, like Siberian Huskies, share an uncommonly large percentage of DNA with land race Middle Eastern livestock guardian dogs, like Kangel dogs from Turkey. This is puzzling because LGDs are mollaser type dogs bred to have very low prey drive and sled-dogs are spitz type dogs bred to utilize the chase aspect of prey drive. Two behaviors that are contradictory to each other. It also makes no sense that people in Sibera would get LGDs from the Middle East considering that there is little evidence of wide spread cross breeding with more local local breeds of LDG that are better suited to the weather. So basically, all this points to a significant amount of oops litters rather than purposeful breeding.

So what was going on trade wise that would explain how Turkish dog DNA ended up in Siberia?

Are you related to American politician Brad Raffensperger?

Maps of Kievan Rus sometimes show 2 pieces of territory in the South East that isn't connected to the rest of it's territory. What were these places, how did Kievan Rus get them, how were they administered?

Hi Dr. Raffensperger! I have another historiography question for you.

"Medieval" is a pretty loaded word, and in discourse about the USSR, for example, it gets used in revealing ways. So the reconstruction of Moscow in the '30s was conceived of as a chance to overcome the city's "medieval" character; on the other hand, Anglophone academics in the '60s saw the resulting Stalinist society as "medieval" and totalitarian.

So the question is, how has the word "medieval" historically been used — or not — to describe Slavic and Eastern Europe during the actual medieval period? Has there been a debate about its applicability? And has it been used disparagingly, the way it always seems to be used in the 20th century?

Hi Dr. Raffensperger, I apologize if this is outside your area of expertise, but it is a question I had recently and seems to go along with your current project of overturning the focus on England as the normative mode of medieval Europe.

Study of medieval music seems to start with chant (predominantly Christian) and follow to organum, polyphony, ars antiqua, and finally ars nova before getting into the more modern classical period.

Like with your project on governance it seems difficult to find sources for the development of music in Scandinavia and other non-Christian areas. Can you recommend any resources or do you have any suggestions for starting points to understand the development and growth (or extinction) of these other musical systems?

Does the Moscow as a third Rome theory help explain why Russia behaves the way it does?

https://youtu.be/f8ZqBLcIvw0

Is this video the type of "othering" you seek to overturn?

To summarize the video: the Mongols imposed an authoritarian and extractive socio economic model on Russia, which was inherited by the tsars, and in turn inherited by the Soviets, and in turn inherited by the the post-Soviet oligarchs. Consequently, when compared to Western Europe, Russia is uniquely predisposed to poverty and autocracy.

How do you stay motivated to keep up with your areas of interest outside of work?

I have a language question.

So, I hear often that the Ukrainian language (and Belarusian) diverged from Russian based on very heavy influence from Polish, and this suits the narrative that Russian is the pure East Slavic language (thus the more legitimate heir to Kievan Rus') and as Putin asserted, that Ukraine (and Belarus) are foreign constructs created to divide and weaken Russia. The theory is that Ukranian national consciousness was born during the Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth period, as basically all the Orthodox East Slavic speakers living in the Polish part were termed 'Ukrainian' while the ones living north within Lithuania were termed 'Belarusian', both groups falling under the Ruthenian label.

So in the pro-Putin Russian view, the Ukraine identity is artificial, created by the Catholic Poles, to divide the Orthodox East Slavic world, which before had one identity and unity and Moscow/Russia was the only East Slavic state to escape takeover. So how true is this narrative?

And what was the Ukrainian language like before this heavy influence from Polish during the Commonwealth period? This would bring us back to the 15-16th century at least, would it have been more or less a mutually intelligible dialect to the East Slavic spoken in Moscow and Novgorod?

oh wow I'm excited for this. I was at the Moesgaard Museum exhibit on the Viking-Age Rus' earlier this summer and I was delighted at how thoroughly it centered the river systems of Eastern Europe, and I'm thrilled you're here now.

My specialization is the reception of the medieval Norse world (broadly defined both temporally and geographically) and my questions are very loosely on that topic:

The source materials for the Kyivan Rus's early history is, to my understanding, fairly bad. Norse sagas are one of our best sources, and the Baltic coast and river systems tend to only be preserved in short mentions or legends that are, in my opinion, preserved in forms highly contingent on Scandinavia's westward-focused political situation.

1. Have you found any methods or unusual source materials useful to dealing with latin Christendom's narrative disinterest in the Rus' (/Khazar/Bulghar/etc.) and why do you think these is this disinterest that is obviously contradicted by the political marriage networks you've demonstrated?

2. The medieval bias I demonstrated bleeds quite strongly into modern medievalist media in Anglo-American contexts. What do you think gets lost in something like The Northman, that portrays Rus' Ukraine as a sort of backwater with loose political organization and imo a very weirdly animist religion - what were your thoughts on it specifically, if you've seen the film, and more generally have you noticed any trends in the portrayal of medieval Eastern Europe in modern media that are particularly interesting or troubling to you?

Those are broad questions, so please feel free to tackle them as much or as little as you like. Thanks again, and looking forward to your thoughts!

Just curious, have your knowledge includes Bulgaria?

Is the story of Kiev/Rus being founded by Norse peoples true, or possibly apocryphal? If it’s true, how did they come to dominate the Slavic populations of the area and assert their legitimacy as rulers?

Great work! I'll certainly get it asap. I myself am more focused on the 20th and 19th century and Im always happy to see medievalists chiming in on reddit for Eastern Europe's medieval ages. My question:

I've read here that some scholars argue for a view on the Kievan Rus' as a collection of principalities while you argue for it to be viewed as one kingdom. If so, and in line of your effort to include medieval eastern Europe as part of medieval Europe, do we have any kind of maps or indications on how the Kievan Rus' elite viewed their western neighbors geographically?

edit: Just saw you signed off for the AMA. A pity but maybe I'll find an answer in your work.

How strong was the Rus' military? We know of the famous battle on the ice, but other than that I don't hear a lot from them aside from the war against Napoleon (which is already way past the medieval time period). For them to become such a massive world super power, they surely must have had a pretty impressive military, no? Or even back then it was all about quantity over quality?

What are your thoughts on Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile of England, as a possible daughter of Yaroslav I? Is the only argument against this connection the absence of Edward’s children being recognized by contemporary sources as first cousins of Philip I of France?

Could you elaborate on the ruling systems?

At the start of the Rus history we see many slavic tribes such as the Kryvichs, Drevlyans, Polanians etc inhabiting the territory of the would-be Rus. But, as far as i can tell, they quickly fade into history and basically were never heard of in 100-200 years after the Rus foundation. So my questions is, how could they get assimilated into one east slavic entity so quickly? I mean, in Germany Saxons, Alamanns, Bavars and other tribes had their own cultures and dialects long after the formation of the unified German kingdom and Holy Roman Empire. In fact, their dialects basically formed - at least partly - the modern difference between various German dialects. But how come the Kryvichs or Drevlyans simply went poof without a trace?

Hello Dr. Raffensperger, I am curious on the nature of the trade links that would run through kieven rus as from first glance a lot of trade and contact for kieven rus to the rest of Europe seemed to lay north to south, south to North along river lines. However, I am curious on whether we know of any trade that's more tied to western Europe by virtue of overland trade? Was there any major overland routes through say Poland or Hungary or was the cultural and economic links more solidly tied North and south by sea routes and entities like the Romans? Thank you.

How come so big variety of baltic people just went instinct without alot of influence?

In Serhii Plokhys book "The Origin of Slavic Nations", he makes a argument that the term "Rus Lands" was used to describe either inner Rus (Kyiv, Chernihiv and Pereiaslav, the areas that didnt pay tribute) while the outer areas of Rus were part of Rus as a whole but seen as different. Theres a lot of textual analysis and its hard to know how early this concept may have lived but he says it for sure existed after Yaroslav died. Do you share the same opinion on this distinction and those that in some ways make everyone else at that point in time "less" Rus then the center? Examples included Galicians and Volhynians referring to themselves as such vs later adopting the term Rusians.

Hi Dr Raffensperger,

I have a question relating to another Russian conflict, specifically the Russo-Georgian War, on the Wikipedia page it states that the Don and Terek Cossacks are belligerents on the Russian side. I though Cossacks were frontiersmen in the renaissance era and as such was perplexed to see them listed on this page. Could you possibly define what a Cossack is in a modern context and whether they are playing a role symbolic or practical in todays conflict in Ukraine?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

Thank you for doing the AMA. I've been studying this period of European history as a hobby. I had hit a wall when I came to the Eastern Europe and particularly the Rus. I look forward to reading your content.

Thank you for shedding some light on the history of Rus'. Now it's even more important that nations of the world have a better understanding of this topic.

I'm probably late with my question but, as a Ukrainian, I would like to ask: what is your opinion on international use of Russia as the name of state/land/nation while russians call their state Rossiya, a word that can't be associated with Rus' as easily. It's a minor thing but it plays a very important role in modern relations of Ukraine and russia, as most people until recent events thought that we are the same people, playing into the hands of putin and every other russian leader. Can we agree that this name from the first time they started using it was a part of propaganda aimed to claim as much land as possible? Wouldn't it be fair to call their state Rossia in English so it was clear that Rus' and Rossia aren't the same thing, even if one name derived from the other?

Less of a serious question, but have you played Crusader Kings and if so, what do you think is missing or not well represented?

good day. A question I've had ever since I read Riasanovsky's <<the history of Russia>>. He describes the dissolution of the Kievan Rus as, among others, a breakup into three different polities that each chose a different "ideology", so to speak : Muscovy the autocratic state, Novgorod the Republic, and Galicia-Volynia the traditionally European. How adequate is this viewpoint, especially vis-à-vis how it connects to the formation of nationhood in the modern (and present) era?

Does the Ukrainian view on history specificy an attitude towards the Teutonic Order and Northern Crusades?

Were there any Jewish communities of note in Kyivan Rus'?

Where there any republics in eastern Europe? If so what where they and how Democratic where they?

Hello Dr. Raffensperger! I'm currently reading Reimagining Europe, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I was hoping you could clarify your use of the term 'Europe' a little further, in that while you do deal with this in your book, at times it feels a bit anachronistic to refer to Europe existing in the medieval period at all. What do you see as the defining feature (or features) of Europe in this period?

Additionally, your current project sounds fascinating! I've often heard historians of the Crusader states see use of ruler/heir co-regents as inspired by Angevin England, when of course Byzantium, and other polities, also used such a system. I look forward to your findings.

My family comes from Eastern Europe, specifically the city of Rivne and the surrounding area. My paternal grandmother had the last name Burachinski. Supposedly, that had some noble background in the city of Yasnobir. I can’t seem to find any evidence of this, however. Would you be able to at least point me in the right direction?