21. Origins of Kyivan Rus’

The question of the origins of Kyivan Rus’ still produces controversy among historians. The oldest, or Normanist theory rests mainly on a literal interpretation of the Primary Chronicle and stresses the role of the Varangians as the first leaders and organizers of the state. Ukrainian historians, beginning with Mykhailo Maksymovych and followed by Mykola Kostomarov, Volodymyr Antonovych, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Dmytro Bahalii, Dmytro Doroshenko, Mykola Chubaty, and others, have generally downplayed the Varangian influence on the formation of Rus’. The Soviet historiography categorically rejected the Normanist theory, considering it bourgeois. However, it remains, with certain modifications, the basis of Western historiography of Russia and Ukraine.

The issue of the nationality of the inhabitants of the Kyivan state is also a matter of continuing controversy. The discussion was initiated by the Russian historian Mikhail Pogodin, who claimed that the original inhabitants of contemporary Ukraine fled north under pressure from the Mongols, and that they later became the modern Russian nation. The Ukrainians, meanwhile, arrived much later from somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains. Pogodin's views were expanded on by the philologist Aleksei Sobolevsky. This theory was disputed by Ukrainian historians such as Mykhailo Maksymovych, Mykola Dashkevych, Pavlo Zhytetsky, and Ahatanhel Krymsky. Mykhailo Hrushevsky sought to demonstrate that Ukrainians were autochthonous in their territories, and that the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia was the successor to the Kyivan state. Hrushevsky's theories were for the most part adopted by Ukrainian historians and by some others. Because these theories did not correspond to the political objectives of the Soviet leadership, a panel of historians was commissioned in the 1930s by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to draw up a new historical schema of Eastern Europe; its basic premise was that Kyivan Rus’ had been founded by a single old-Rus’ nationality, out of which Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians developed in the 14th and 15th centuries. This theory was given official approbation with the publication of Tezy pro 300-richchia vozz'iednannia Ukraïny z Rosiieiu, 1654–1954 (Theses about the 300th Anniversary of the Reunification of Ukraine with Russia, 1954). The émigré Ukrainian scholarship based itself on Hrushevsky's approach, and continued to expand its corollaries along historical (Mykola Chubaty, Nataliia Polonska-Vasylenko, M. Zhdan, Omeljan Pritsak), archeological (Yaroslav Pasternak), and linguistic (Stepan Smal-Stotsky, George Yurii Shevelov) lines.

22. Christian influence on cultural development of Kyivan Rus’

Christianity brought about positive changes in the outlook of people. If the basis of polytheistic beliefs of ancient Slavs lay the fear of natural forces of nature, hostile and ruling, then Christianity fostered hope pa rescue, capture a sense of the outside world.

In the process of dissemination and promotion of Christianity in Russia is gradually losing the Byzantine form, absorbing elements of a local Slavic customs, rituals, aesthetic needs of the Eastern Slavs. Byzantine church canons gradually adapted to the peculiarities of ancient ethnic group. It should be noted that in the fight against "paganism" Christians destroyed priceless monuments of art of the ancient pagan world, including masterpieces of wooden sculptures, ancient forbidden dances, etc. skomoroshi action.

However, Christianity has had great influence on the intellectual culture of Kievan Rus.As is known, with its introduction of a literary language in Russia became Church Slavonic, established about a hundred years before the adoption of Christianity Bulgarian educators Cyril and Methodius.