Modern
The historical people known as Vikings, who hailed from Scandinavia in Northern Europe, are well-known today for their exploits in the west. But the merchant-warriors also made their way into Eastern Europe, where they helped found a medieval federation in territory now known as Belarus, Ukraine and part of Russia.
The name Russia is derived from Rus', a medieval state populated primarily by the East Slavs. However, the proper name became more prominent in later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants "Rus land". This state is denoted as Kievan Rus' after its capital city by modern historiography.
Their origin and identity are much in dispute. Traditional Western scholars believe them to be Scandinavian Vikings, an offshoot of the Varangians, who moved southward from the Baltic coast and founded the first consolidated state among the eastern Slavs, centring on Kiev.
The Viking in Russia came as traders not conquerors. They first appeared in the region in the 6th century and has some run ins with the Khazar. The Norwegians and Danish Vikings were centered primarily in western Europe, but the Swedes looked eastward to the Baltic and what is now Russia.
The Russians were formed from East Slavic tribes, and their cultural ancestry is based in Kievan Rus'. Genetically, the majority of Russians are identical to their East and West Slavic counterparts; unlike northern Russians, who belong to the Northern European Baltic gene pool.
From about 1500 BC a group of people called the Slavs settled into the area which is now Poland and Western Russia. Although they were often under threat from other groups who wanted their land, they held their ground there until the arrival of the Vikings in the 9th century.
There are several popular historical and political myths about the connection between Russia and Scandinavia. The first myth: the territory of The Ancient Rus was abundantly inhabited by the Scandinavians (the Vikings). But DNA tests show that modern ethnic Russians have almost no "Scandinavian" DNA (Haplogroup).
Co-official name: Russian Federation, formerly the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) (among other names) from 1917 to 1991.
As the Kievan Rus' was evolving and separating into different states, what we now know as Russia was being called Rus' and Russkaya Zemlya (the land of the Rus').
Show creator Michael Hirst confirms that the Rus were victorious, calling the battle a “total wipeout.”
Rucia, Ruzzia, Ruzsia were alternative spellings. During the 12th century, Ruscia gradually made way for two other Latin terms, "Russia" and "Ruthenia". "Russia" (also spelled Rossia and Russie) was the dominant Romance-language form, first used by Liutprand of Cremona in the 960s and then by Peter Damian in the 1030s.
Historians say that the Finno-Ugric people were the first inhabitants of Russia, with many of our customs and fairytales descending from their civilization: the cult of ancestors, the love of forests and villages, our patience and communality. But what remains of the ancient civilization is contested.
Russian Empire (1721–1917)
The scholarly consensus holds that they were originally Norse people, mainly originating from present-day Sweden, settling and ruling along the river-routes between the Baltic and the Black Seas from around the 8th to 11th centuries AD.
Genetic studies show that Russians are closest to Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and other Slavs.
Old Norse was a North Germanic language once spoken in Scandinavia, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and in parts of Russia, France and the British Isles and Ireland. It was the language of the Vikings or Norsemen.
The first modern state in Russia was founded in 862 by King Rurik of the Rus, who was made the ruler of Novgorod. Some years later, the Rus conquered the city of Kiev and started the kingdom of the Kievan Rus.
Slavic tribes and Viking tribes were closely linked, fighting one another, intermixing and trading. “The presence of Slavic warriors in Denmark was more significant than previously thought; this image emerges from new research” Gardeła adds in the release.
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space.
Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family. It is a descendant of Old East Slavic, a language used in Kievan Rus', which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid 13th centuries.
Once the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.; commonly known as the Soviet Union), Russia became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Russia is a land of superlatives.
The Third Rome refers to a nickname given to Moscow after it succeeded Rome and Istanbul as the capital of Christianity. It emphasizes the significance of the Russian Orthodox Church to Moscow.
Moscow, third Rome (Russian: Москва, третий Рим; Moskva, tretiĭ Rim) is a theological and political concept asserting Moscow as the successor to ancient Rome, with the Russian world carrying forward the legacy of the Roman Empire.
King Alfred and the Danes
King Alfred ruled from 871-899 and after many trials and tribulations (including the famous story of the burning of the cakes!) he defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Edington in 878.