#kyivan rus

[vintage-ukraine]

Archeological dig of the Xth century household in Kyiv, 1976

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

30th May 1999: the procession towards the rebuilt Saint Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery belltower. Saint Sophia's is in the background.

The medieval monastery was destroyed by the Soviets in the 1930s.

[inkyami]

A poster I did for "Heroic epics of the peoples of Russia" project by Nikolay Rastorguev Foundation and the Moscow's Department of Culture

Rus Byliny (plural) — oral epic poems in Kyivan and Novgorod Rus, counting more than 400 poems and mostly focusing on the semi-historic deeds of bogatyrs ("great warrior"). Despite common traits, they show a variety of themes, structure and dates of origin. The centerpiece is the most famous bogatyr trio — Ilya of Murom, Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha Popovitch with their respective antagonists, while the foreground focuses on much more archaic heroes — Svyatogor and Mikula Selyaninovitch. Heroes of that period inhabit almost a mythological world, and often posses chthonic traits themselves. Even by the time of the Boratyr Trio their stories centered on no longer belonging to the "modern" world.

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[grayjoy15]

Day 15: Camaraderie - the exiled princes at the court of Yaroslav the Wise

Clockwise, from top left: Levente (Árpád), Vladimir of Novgorod, Harald Hardrada, Andrew I of Hungary, Edward the Exile, Edmund Aetheling

[allethnicities]

Ethnonyms: Ukrainians / Ukraintsi, historically Rusyny, Rusychi, Rusy, Ruthenians, Little Russians, Cherkasy

Total population: about 46,000,000

Ethnolinguistic classification: Indo-European → East Slavic → Slavic

Homeland: Ukraine

Regions with significant populations: Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Poland, Canada, the United States of America, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Romania, the Republic of Moldova, the Republic of Belarus, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Argentine Republic, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Italian Republic, the French Republic

Languages and dialects: Ukrainian, Ukrainian Sign Language

Religion: Eastern Orthodoxy, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Latin Catholicism

Related ethnic groups: Russians, Belarusians, Rusyns

Ukrainians are an East Slavic nation native to the historic and ethnic territory of Ukraine, and are commonly treated as the sixth-largest nation in Europe; the ethnonym has deep roots in earlier forms such as Rusyny, Rusychi, and Rusy, which were later rendered in Latin as Ruthenians, showing how modern Ukrainian identity emerged out of the older world of Kyivan Rus’ and its successor traditions. In modern usage, Ukrainian identity is not defined by a single rigid marker: one influential reference describes Ukrainians as people whose native language is Ukrainian or who identify themselves as Ukrainian, and notes that contemporary Ukrainian civic identity can include permanent residents of different ethnic origins and languages, which helps explain why the group is culturally cohesive yet internally diverse. Their history has been shaped by the legacy of Kyivan Rus’, the Cossack Hetman state, centuries of imperial rule, Soviet-era migration and Russification, and then independence, so regional differences in dialect, memory, religion, and political outlook remain important. Religiously, Ukrainian life has long been influenced by Christianity, especially Eastern Orthodoxy and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic tradition, though the broader population also includes other Christian confessions as well as Muslims and Jews. Ukrainians also have a very large diaspora: one encyclopedia states that more than one-quarter of all Ukrainians in the world live outside Ukraine, and Reuters reported in 2025 that Ukrainian officials estimated the diaspora at about 25 million people, underscoring how Ukrainian identity extends far beyond the country’s borders.

[memories-of-ancients]

Gold temple pendant with two birds, Kyivan Rus, 12th century

from The Walters Art Museum

[thelittleukrainianwell-armedgirl]

Don't mess with kyivan women.

[dontforgetukraine]

A nearly 1,000-year-old Polovtsian "Baba" (warrior) statue was evacuated from the frontline near Hektova Balka and transferred to the Dmytro Yavornytskyi National Historical Museum in Dnipro. The 3rd Brigade’s Khorunzha Service conducted the rescue under heavy shelling, saving the statue from destruction by Russian forces. A member of the service stated that the statue would be returned to its original location after the war but would undergo research at the museum in the meantime. This is the second Polovtsian sculpture saved from the frontlines in recent months. The Polovtsi, also known as Cumans, were a nomadic Turkic people who inhabited the area north of the Black Sea and left a lasting influence on Kyivan Rus and other kingdoms. Their "Baba" statues, found throughout Eastern Europe, were erected between the 11th and 13th centuries as sacred tombstone figures representing ancestors. More than 2,000 have survived, though many are now threatened due to their proximity to the war zone. Photo 3: Polovtsian stone sculptures (babas) of IX-XIII centuries on Mount Kremenets in Izium city (Kharkiv Oblast) after Russian shelling during the Battle of Izium in 2022. One statue was completely destroyed by a projectile. Nearby monument to WWII heroes (in the background on the right) is partially destroyed. (Photo: Wikipedia) —Euromaidan Press

Photo credit: Oleksandr Alfyorov FB