About Russian Beginnings

CK_5_TH_HG_P104_230.QXD 2/14/06 2:23 PM Page 209 At a Glance continued ◗ Ivan III (the Great) and Ivan IV (the Terrible) expanded Russian territory and the authority of the czars. ◗ Peter the Great sought to modernize and westernize Russia in order to enable it to compete with European nations for trade, territory, and prestige. ◗ The desire to find a warm-water port was one factor that encouraged Russian expansion. ◗ Catherine the Great, while once interested in reforming certain abuses of Russian government, became as autocratic as her predecessors after a peasant revolt and the French Revolution. ◗ The lives of peasants worsened under Peter and Catherine. Teaching Idea What Teachers Need to Know You may want to teach section B, A. History and Culture “Geography,” before “History and Culture.” Byzantine Influence in Russia The rise of Russia is closely related to the history of the Byzantine Empire, which students in Core Knowledge schools should have encountered in Grades 3 and 4. For a thousand years after the fall of the Roman Empire in the west, the Eastern or Byzantine Empire continued to build on ancient Greek and Roman tra- ditions and culture. For example, Byzantine architects used the Roman dome to build magnificent churches, such as Hagia Sophia in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople (now called Istanbul). Byzantine artists also created beautiful mosaics and icons. Students in Core Knowledge schools should have studied Hagia Sophia and Byzantine mosaics as part of the art curriculum for Grade 3. However, they may not be acquainted with icons, which are special pictures of Jesus, Mary, and the saints. Icons are meant to help Christians during worship and meditation. Constantinople was a great religious center, home of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which had split with the Roman Catholic Church in 1054. Constantinople was also the center of a vast trading network that connected Europe with the Middle East and Asia. Trade brought the Byzantine Empire great riches as well as new cultural influences. The influence of the Byzantine Empire in Russia dates at least to the 860s, when the Byzantine Emperor sent two monks to convert the Slavic people of Eastern Europe to Orthodox Christianity. At the time, the Slavs were pagans who worshipped many gods. The two monks sent to convert them were two brothers named Cyril and Methodius. Cyril and Methodius invented a new alphabet, called the Cyrillic alphabet after Cyril. The Cyrillic alphabet was loosely based on the Greek alphabet. Cyril and Methodius then taught the Slavs to read and write using the Cyrillic alphabet so that they could read the Bible. History and Geography: World 209 CK_5_TH_HG_P104_230.QXD 2/14/06 2:23 PM Page 210 VI. Russia: Early Growth and Expansion A little more than a century later, Christianity began to spread around Slavic and Russian territories, but many people remained pagans. Once such person was Prince Vladimir, the ruler of the city-state of Kiev, which would become the first Russian state. According to legend, the prince sent emissaries to investigate the major monotheistic religions of his day: Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholic Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. When his emissaries visited Constantinople and saw Hagia Sophia, they were astonished and overwhelmed by the beauty of the church, its dome, and its mosaics. Surely, they thought, this is the house of the true God. Vladimir selected Orthodox Christianity as his own religion, and decided it would also be the religion of his people. It is also possi- ble that he may have been influenced to convert to Christianity by the economic and political advantages of an alliance with Byzantium, as well as in order to get approval to marry the Byzantine emperor’s sister. He ordered the old pagan idols thrown into the Dnieper River and conducted mass baptisms in the same river. Adoption of Eastern Orthodox Christianity had a number of benefits for the Russians. It strengthened the commercial ties between Russia and the Byzantine Empire and also provided the basis for the development of a national identity among the various Russian city-states by giving them something in common. Over time, princes of the various city-states adopted the written language of the empire, as well as its architecture, music, and art. Like the Byzantine emperor, the Russian czars (also spelled tsars) would claim jurisdiction over the church in Russia, thus strengthening their own power. Similar to the monarchs of western Europe, the Russian czars also came to believe in the theory of the divine right of kings—that they ruled as the representative of God on Earth, and as such, their authority was absolute. Moscow as the Third Rome Over time Kiev became less important and Moscow, to the north, became more important. Moscow became the headquarters of the Russian church. When the Byzantine Empire fell to the Turks in 1453, the rulers of Moscow announced that Moscow was “The Third Rome.” Rome had been the capital city of Christianity and so the “spiritual center of the world,” but then the popes and the Roman Catholic church had fallen into heresy and false belief. After 1054, when the Orthodox Church split with the Roman Catholic Church, Constantinople had become the new “spiritual center of the world,” the “Second Rome.” When Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, the Russians thought Moscow was poised to take its place and become the latest spiritual center of the world, the “Third Rome.” The Czars Ivan III Beginning in 1236, Mongols, nomadic warriors from Central Asia, had invad- ed and conquered large parts of Russia. Students in Core Knowledge schools should have learned about the Mongols in the Grade 4 section on China. The same people who swept south to conquer China swept north to conquer large parts of Russia. In return for acknowledging the Mongols as their rulers and pay- ing tribute to them, the princes of the various states were allowed to keep their lands and titles. The Mongols remained in power until 1480 when Ivan III declared Russia free of Mongol rule. 210 Grade 5 Handbook.

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