Kievan Rus and the culture of Europe

The Eastern Slavic tribes (Drevlians, Vyatichi, Severians and others) lived in the Dnieper basin as farmers and herders. According to the chronicles they asked the Varangians (Normans from Scandinavia) for a prince, and Rurik began to rule in Novgorod; this story is a chronicle tradition and historians debate how accurate it is. Prince Oleg took Kyiv in 882, founded the state of Kievan Rus and made a treaty with Byzantium allowing duty-free trade. After Igor was killed in 945, his wife Olga ruled for her young son Sviatoslav and visited Constantinople in the 950s; Sviatoslav (from 964) defeated the Khazar Khaganate. Under Vladimir (980–1015) Christianity was introduced as the state religion of Rus in 988. Under Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054) Kievan Rus flourished: St Sophia’s cathedral was built in Kyiv and the first written code, the “Rus Justice”, was compiled, in which fines were widely used. In the mid-11th century nomadic Kipchaks began to raid; Vladimir Monomakh (1113–1125) defeated them, but from the 1130s Rus entered a period of political fragmentation.