HISTORY

The history of Russia began in the 9th century, according to an excerpt from Dmitrii Likhachev, "The four tribes who had been forced to pay tribute to the Varangians--Chuds, Slavs, Merians, and Krivichians] drove the Varangians back beyond the sea, refused to pay them further tribute, and set out to govern themselves. But there was no law among them, and tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other." (Likhachev 1) The Slavs were also the first settlers of Novgorod, which for a few hundred years was dominant. They adopted the Eastern Orthodox Catholicism from Byzantium (which continues to this day to be the religion of the region.) In the 14th century, Moscow began to be the dominant center of culture, and finally the tsardom began in Russia. In the 18th century, that tsardom turned into an empire, and into what we have read in history books starting from World War 1, into a Soviet Union, and what it is now; a federal-democracy.

The peoples of Russia are hardy people. Only the Mongols successfully invaded the cold realm of Russia in the 13th century, leaving a bloody path behind them. They have fought countless wars, participated in both the World Wars, the Cold War, and the disastrous Afghanistan invasion. They have been slaughtered by would-be-conquerors and their own dictator. They have transformed from a serfdom into a communist state, which later was thrown down and replaced with democracy. Through it all, they have continued to survive, albeit slowly.