How Moscovia stole the name "Russia". An analysis of the funniest propaganda video on YouTube.

Hi everyone. Usually, the average Western viewer or listener is very little familiar in detail with the history of Eastern Europe, and especially Kievan Rus. But there is nothing strange about this, since the history of any region is often the most interesting and most carefully studied by those who care about this region. In our case, Russians and Ukrainians Which is why the vast majority of videos on English-language YouTube telling about the exceptional continuity of only Ukraine from Kievan

Rus are created by Ukrainians who are trying to make this point of view mainstream in the West. And the video that we will analyze today is no exception. Let's read what the author writes in the description of his channel: Busting Moscow's myths in bulk or one at a time. Exposing lies about Ukraine. My name's Yaroslav, I'm from Ukraine." Well, that sounds promising. Hello, dear viewers. In this video we will analyze Yaroslav's historical lies, manipulations and cheap propaganda about the history

of Russia and Kievan Rus. At the same time, I won't challenge the rights of Ukraine or Belarus to succession from Rus', I'm just going to destroy this pseudo-historical misunderstanding using facts, arguments, logic and, of course, historical sources. Enjoy watching. From the very beginning, it is worth noting that Yaroslav refers to extremely biased sources of information: this is Hrushevsky, Dashkevich, unexpectedly Karl Marx and Tim Snyder. Let's figure out "who is who". Hrushevsky was a Ukr

ainian nationalist and chairman of the Central Rada of the Ukrainian People's Republic, in modern Ukraine he's revered as one of the architects of the Ukrainian nation. It would be foolish to deny that Hrushevsky was extremely biased in his historical assessments and his goal was to promote only one narrative: "Rus' is Ukraine". Even at the dawn of his career, Hrushevsky was invited to a debate by historian Linichenko, who was born and raised in Kiev, but Mikhailo declined this invitation. Later

we will see why Hrushevsky's theses are untenable, since Yaroslav will very often refer to his arguments in this video. Next, author quotes the words of Karl Marx, who’s not an expert in the field of the history of ancient Rus'. One of the main ideologists of communism was an avid Russophobe, despised Russia for its conservatism and based literally his entire vision on Russian history through the writings of the Polish propagandist Dukhinsky, who spread the conspiracy theory that Russians are n

ot Slavs, which is not confirmed by any modern genetic research. Later, Marx himself, despite his own Russophobia, repeatedly recognized Dukhinsky's opinion as erroneous. By the way, Marx hated not only Russians, but almost all Slavs, except Poles, who, in his opinion, were "eternal fighters of the world revolution", and Marx's friend Engels wrote about Slavs with such hatred and contempt that I'm even afraid to quote his statements out loud, because YouTube may confuse them with the thoughts of

author of another radical German ideology... Dashkevich was indeed a professional historian and researcher… but of the history of the East, not Ukraine Meanwhile, Dashkevich's book "How Muscovy appropriated Kievan Rus" is total bunk from a historical research standpoint. In this book, Dashkevich espouses a fringe theory about the Finno-Ugr origins of Russians, deliberately suppresses and distorts historical facts and documents, as well as making the dumbest mistakes with the dates. But the funn

iest thing is that the author of the video seriously uses this propagandist fiction as an authoritative historical source. So for example, he cites as a historical fact a non-existent commission of the time of Catherine II I'm serious, if you search for the name of that "commission" on Google, there's nothing but articles from biased Ukrainian websites that support the same narrative as the guy who made this video. And all these sites, as one, refer to Dashkevich's book. The Russian leaders didn

't need to rewrite history to prove that Russia doesn't trace its statehood back to the Mongols. It's already obvious. If you think that Russia traces its statehood not from Rus, but from the Mongol Empire, Then by the same logic, you should consider Greece as the heir to the Ottoman empire and Spain as the successor of the Arab caliphate. And finally, Tim Snyder, one of the most important lobbyists of Ukraine's interests in Europe, who, like the above-mentioned authors, through historical omiss

ions and forgeries, build a simple picture of the world in front of their supporters about the great civilization of Ukraine and schizophascist Russia. I don't even need to give any examples, because Yaroslav himself demonstrates his (Snyder) historical lectures, bordering on the crossroads of very weak propaganda and elementary illiteracy. This is simply not true, because since the 15th century there has been the title of "Sovereign of All Russia", which denoted the claims of the Moscow prince

s to all the lands of former Rus'. The name "Muscovy" is a exonym, which was used by people outside of Russia itself and mainly in Poland. But why did this happen? In many ways, the term "Muscovy" is a product of Polish propaganda. In the middle of 13th century, after the Mongol invasion, the weakened lands of Rus' became an easy target for foreign invaders. This moment was taken advantage of by the Lithuanian princes, who, through conquest, threats, bribery, and sometimes on a voluntary basis,

annexed vast lands of Rus' to their state. Thus formed two centers of unification of the Russian lands: The first was located in Lithuania, which was ruled by a foreign pagan dynasty which later adopted the Catholic faith began to oppress the local Orthodox population. The second center was located in Moscow, ruled by the princes from Rurik dynasty, who continued to profess Orthodoxy and preserved it as the main religion of the country and the people. Of course, this situation hasn't been witho

ut propaganda. Russian state began to wage a consistent struggle against Lithuania and later with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for the return of Russian lands under the rule of Rurikids. In this situation, the Poles made every effort to challenge the legitimate rights of the descendants of Vladimir the Great and Yaroslav the Wise to Kiev, Polotsk and Smolensk. It was the Poles who stubbornly tried to impose on the inhabitants of other European countries the narrative of the "Asian Muscovit

es", contrasting them with the Ruthenians, who lived on lands subject to the Polish king. Yaroslav wants to impose on the viewer the idea that before Peter I absolutely all foreigners called Russia Muscovy, But this, of course, not true. The Venetian diplomat Ambrogio Contarini, returning from Persia, wrote: "On September 12, 1476, we finally entered the Russian land, with the blessing of God, and the first object that presented itself to our eyes at the entrance to it was a small village surrou

nded by a forest... On the 26th, I finally arrived to the city of Moscow, praising and thanking almighty God, who had saved me from so many troubles and misfortunes. This city belongs to Grand Duke Ivan, the Sovereign of Great and White Russia." Russian Monarchs and German Emperors' diplomatic contacts were commemorated by Hans Burgkmair's engraving: "Alliance with White Russians", which depicts the meeting of Emperor Maximilian with Russian ambassadors. The German diplomat Sigismund von Herbers

tein, who visited the court of Vasili III, left a brief description of "Russia and its capital, Muscovy.": "From the time of Rurik up to the present ruler, these sovereigns used only the title of grand dukes — either Vladimir, Moscow, or Novgorod, except Ivan Vasilyevich, who called himself the Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia. The current Vasili Ivanovich has appropriated the same title to himself: Great Sovereign Vasili, Tsar and lord of all Russia and Grand Duke of Vladimir, Moscow, Novg

orod, Pskov, Smolensk..." By the way, Yaroslav likes to refer to Wikipedia in his video, including the article about the Moscow Principality. Okay, let's follow the logic of Yaroslav himself: open this article, go down a little lower and see what’s written in the "name" section: "In spite of feudalism, the collective name of the Eastern Slavic land, Rus', was not forgotten, though it then became a cultural and geographical rather than the political term, as there was no single political entity o

n the territory. Since the 14th century various Muscovite princes added "of all Rus'" to their titles, after the title of Russian metropolitans, "the Metropolitan of all Rus". Dmitry Shemyaka was the first Muscovite prince who minted coins with the title "the Sovereign of all Rus'". Although initially both "Sovereign" and "all Rus'" was supposed to be rather honorific epithets, since Ivan III is transformed into the political claim over the territory of all the former Kievan Rus', a goal that th

e Muscovite prince came closer to by the end of that century, uniting eastern Rus'. Such claims raised much opposition and hostility from its main rival, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which controlled a large portion of the land of ancient Rus' and hence denied any claims and even the self-name of the eastern neighbor... Under the Polish-Lithuanian influence the country began to be called Muscovy in Western Europe." What’s most interesting, mixed with foreign engravings, Yaroslav shows a small p

art of the title of the Russian tsars, in which it is written "Tsar of Moscow". I bet Yaroslav be really pissed off if he found out what the actual full tsar title sounded like. Let's take an example of how the title of Alexei Mikhailovich, who was the father of Peter, sounded: "By the grace of God, We, the Great Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich, of All Great and Small and White Russia, Autocrat of Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod…" It’s not very clear what the meaning of the

reproach that the author makes against Moscow. At the end of the 13th century, all the other principalities also recognized the power of the Golden Horde over themselves, because they had no other choice. But it was the Moscow princes who most often demonstrated disobedience to the khans. The founder of the Moscow Principality, Daniel I, being the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky and occupying not the highest place in the princely hierarchy, behaved very boldly and decisively. In the autumn of 1

300, Daniel defeated the army of Prince Konstantin of Ryazan and the Horde detachment accompanying this army. Daniel's eldest son, Yuri, in 1321, having beaten out tribute from the sons of Mikhail Tversky, didn't transfer it to the Horde ambassador, but instead left for Novgorod, apparently planning to dispose of the money received in his own interests. At that time, Rus’ was in vassalage dependence on the Horde and such an act was quite brave. After the murder of Yuri by Dmitry Mikhailovichin i

n the Horde, Ivan Kalita came to power in Moscow, who, unlike his predecessors, really demonstrated full loyalty to the Horde, but did he have any other choice? Kalita's reign fell at a time when Uzbek Khan consolidated his power in the Horde. Obviously, it was possible to try to weaken the dependence on the Horde only by waiting for the Horde to weaken. And this was later used by Dmitry Donskoy, who, having gathered troops from all Russian principalities, inflict a serious defeat on the Horde f

rom Rus’, which led to a huge patriotic and religious upsurge in the territory of all Russian principalities, Donskoy was greeted from the battlefield as a national hero. The final liberation from the Horde occurred in 1480 by standing on the Ugra River, 8 years before that in 1472, Ivan III finally curtailed the payment of tribute to the Great Horde. This small passage requires a lot of detailed analysis. Yaroslav says that Russia paid tribute to the Crimean Khanate up to the 17th century, with

out specifying any details. In fact, the payment of tribute by Moscow to the Horde ended back in 1472 under Ivan III, so what does Yaroslav mean? He means the so called "pominki", these were relatively regular payments or gifts, which the Crimean khans, for their part, perceived as a continuation of the payment of tribute. these were relatively regular payments or gifts, which the Crimean khans, for their part, perceived as a continuation of the payment of tribute. Not only Russian monarchs paid

for the pominki, but also Lithuanian princes and Polish kings. In the case of relations between Crimea and Moscow, the pominki was first mentioned in 1474, when the union of Ivan III and Mengli Giray was concluded Russian side ensured that information about the paid pominki was not included in the contract itself. At the same time, Lithuanian Prince Kazimir IV also pays the pominki to the Crimean Khan. Later, the Moscow princes and Tsars successfully avoided the legal formalization of obligatio

ns to pay pominki in contracts with the Crimean khans, because of this, the size of the pominki was uncertain, changing over time, and their payment could stop for quite significant periods of time, especially during the Russian-Crimean conflicts. But in the case of Lithuania and Poland, the situation with the pominki was even worse: Prince of Lithuania and King of Poland Sigismund I in 1513 pledged to pay the pominki to Mengli Giray. That is, the payments of pominki from Lithuania and Poland we

re of a formal nature, which the Crimean Tatars could not achieve from Moscow for a long time. The official legal registration of the pominki by Moscow took place during the Troubles, when Russia's very existence was under threat and Moscow had to make concessions to Crimea in order to secure its southern borders. Finally, the pominki ceased to be paid by the Russian Tsardom and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the same time after the signing of eternal peace between these countries in 1686

. pominki was a form of economic, but, most importantly, not political dependence on the Crimean Khanate. For example, at the beginning of the 19th century, the United States was in the same dependence, paying tribute to the Barbary pirates, and US paying this tribute until the defeat of the pirates in 1815. Symbol, the name of which Yaroslav doesn’t pronounced, is used not only in the heraldry of Ukraine. The same symbolism is depicted on the flag and coat of arms of Staraya Ladoga, the city wh

ere Rurik's squad arrived after the Novgorodians invited the Varangians to Rus'. But I think it's obvious to everyone that for most this symbol in this interpretation is associated with the Ukrainian state, and not with the Old Russian dynasty, so these claims from Yaroslav look very strange. No, Mongolia didn't destroy Rus'. At this moment, Yaroslav specifically replaces the concepts. Mongols have left an indelible mark on the Russian principalities in the form of population decline and destroy

ed cities, but at the same time, the Russian principalities existed before the Mongol invasion and continued to exist after, they just fell into vassalage. the Galician-Volyn principality fell into exactly the same vassalage from the Mongols. And in 1259 the Galician-Volyn army together with the Horde to take campaign against Poland and Lithuania Galich also was plundered and burned during the Mongol invasion, just like the rest of the cities of Rus'. Therefore, it is absolutely unclear what th

e author means when he speaks of the Galician-Volyn principality as "the last stronghold of Rus, which the Mongols couldn't destroy" In this passage, Yaroslav uses a misleading analogy to portray the Vladimir-Suzdal principality as the periphery and outskirts of Kievan Rus. Actually, that's not true at all. After the start of fragmentation in Ancient Rus', nine Russian lands were assigned to separate branches of the Rurik dynasty, and the throne in Novgorod and Kiev became common and different p

rinces could claim. That's why Northeastern Rus’, represented by Vladimir-Suzdal, and later the Moscow Principality, had exactly the same legitimate rights to unify Russian lands and succeed Kievan Rus as the Southwestern Rus’, represented by Galician-Volyn Principality. In addition, one of the main arguments in favor of the succession of Moscow from Kievan Rus is spiritual heredity. In 1299, Metropolitan Maxim moved his kafedra, or department from Kiev to Vladimir It was an incredibly important

event that increased the already high authority of the Vladimir-Suzdal land, primarily for all Eastern Slavs, because the religious identity in the Middle Ages was much stronger than the national identity. And in 1325, Metropolitan Peter of Vladimir moved his department to Moscow. If we’re to draw analogies, the Northeastern Rus' is Prussia or Sardinia, which united a fragmented state under the rule of a single center. Yaroslav, let's play a game. Look, this is another coin with a disgusting Ar

abic script, now try to guess which prince it belongs to? Maybe Asian Muscovites, isn't it? Ouch! How is that? If anyone doesn’t know, this is a coin of one of the first East Slavic Princes, Svyatoslav Igorevich. Hey, Yaroslav, when will the new video about the Asian and non-Slavic essence of Kievan Rus be released? And again, the author refers to an obviously biased Ukrainianophile and Russophobe from Warsaw. Out of the whole 33 minute of this video, there's only one relatively neutral source.

And we'll come back to that a bit later. Yaroslav, obviously, won't tell you that pro-Russian sentiments were very strong among the Ruthenians. Even more interesting fact: hryvnia was adopted as the national currency of Ukraine only in 20 century. At this moment, Yaroslav uses one of the most stupid and illiterate manipulations in this video, comparing the appearance of Svyatoslav Igroevich from the 10th century and the appearance of the Zaporozhian Cossacks from the 16th century. i mean, there

is a difference of half a millennium between them. If you’re interested to know why Prince Svyatoslav had such an unusual appearance for the princes of Ancient Rus', then there is no definite answer to this question, but there are several versions: the first version is that Svyatoslav most likely borrowed a traditional Turkic hairstyle (aidar), since Rus' during his reign bordered on a huge number of the diverse Turkic peoples Khazars, Avars and Bulgars. However, there is a second, more boring s

tatement: the only source that describes Yaroslav's appearance is the chronicle of the Byzantine Historian Leo the Deacon. The Deacon himself wasn’t an eyewitness to the negotiations with Svyatoslav, it is possible that he could copy the description of Svyatoslav's appearance from the description of Attila's appearance, since he considered this East Slavic Prince to be another barbarian. Therefore, even if Svyatoslav Igorevich had such a hairstyle, it had a clear Asian and non-Slavic origin. Agr

ee, it turns out a little strange: the Khazar hairstyle, the Arabic script on the coins... Probably, if Svyatoslav had been born 300 years later and had become a prince in Moscow, Yaroslav would have been happy to call him a Non-Slavic Finno-Turkic Asian Muscovite. By the way, like Svyatoslav, the Zaporozhian Cossacks also borrowed their appearance from Asians. Right now, I'm showing you the coats of arms in many countries in Southern and Eastern Europe that have a character with a so-called ose

ledets on his head, and that's not a Zaporozhia Cossack at all, it's a Turk. Yaroslav has a very funny attitude towards Rusyns, he literally treats them as isolated savages who simply do not know that they are actually Ukrainians. No, man. If you think that Ukrainians are a separate people from Russians, then by exactly the same logic you should consider the Rusyns separate people from Ukrainians, since they managed to preserve their original language and culture despite the total Ukrainization

in Soviet and independent Ukraine. As far as I understand, according to Yaroslav's logic, this Latin inscription on the Spanish coat of arms does not read as "plus ultra", but as "plvs vltra"... It's true. But by "Ukraine" in this text, mean the outskirts of the lands of Pereyaslavl principality. By the way, Yaroslav mentioned the Ipatiev Chronicle as a source. So let's look at it in a little more detail, maybe there are more mentions of Ukraine in it? And yeah, there is! And again, in the conte

xt of the outskirts. It's worth noting that during the time of Kievan Rus, the word "Ukraine" didn't have a specific territorial meaning. Therefore, there were dozens of these "Ukraines" The modern Ukraine got its name from the lands along the Dnieper River, which for a long time were the outskirts of Poland-Lithuania. «The "border" in Polish is " kraj " ; hence " Ukrajina" is like a province located at the ends of the kingdom"» And there is nothing humiliating or insulting in this, for example,

the name of the Baltic Galind tribe comes from a word meaning "outskirts", or the name of the Mercia region comes from the Old English word "mearc", which translates as a "boundary". Well, or the name of the country "Denmark", which translates as "the borderland of the Danes". Oh, that's one of the funniest parts of this video. Yaroslav chooses only those maps that are beneficial for his propaganda narrative, and, apparently, considering his viewers blind, specifically ignores fragments of maps

where the territories of the Moscow Principality are mark to the word "Russia". The name "Moscovia" and the name "Russia" are used on this map, as we mentioned earlier, foreigners called this state both. It's easy to notice that Mоscovia occupies only a small part of the territory of Rusia and rather designates one of the regions than the whole country. Here are some more maps that use the terms "Russia" and "Muscovy" as absolute synonyms for the same state. I think this is more than enough to

refute Yaroslav's theses, because, as he said himself: Yaroslav is now trying to expose the title "Sovereign of All Russia", which totally contradicts his claim from the start of this video where he says "Peter the Great renamed Muscovy" Anyway, let's look at his arguments. Guys, let me show you a map of Kievan Rus and compare it with the borders of the Russian Tsardom and the Poland-Lithuania during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, so you can compare who controlled more lands. Fortunately, unlik

e Possevino who lived in the 16th century, now we have such an opportunity. As always, it’s completely unclear what Yaroslav wanted to prove with this quote. Such statements by Ivan the Terrible were only a confirmation of his broad ambitions during the Livonian War. Even if his title had eventually been supplemented, it would have made absolutely no difference, because Ivan was first of all the sovereign of all Russia, just as Napoleon was first of all the emperor of the French, and Victoria wa

s first of all the queen of the United Kingdom. Yaroslav is drawing yet another completely inappropriate analogy Yes, Yagailo, August Friedrich and Jan Kazimir could not inherit Kievan Rus, because they were representatives of another dynasty and rulers of completely another state and country. This can't be attributed in any way to Moscow princes, since they were not foreign invaders who later assimilated with the local population, such as Lithuania for example. The lands of this principality be

fore fragmentation were the territories of Kievan Rus, and Moscow Principality was founded by the Rurikids Going back to Possevino book, there's some stuff that Yaroslav would definitely not appreciate. For example, Possevino, like many other authors of that time, spreads the name "Muscovites" to all Eastern Slavs, writing about "Prince Vladimir of Moscow". The best way to explain this situation was another foreigner, the French mercenary Jacques Margeret, who wrote the book "The Russian State a

nd the Grand Duchy of Muscovy": "Russians have been called Muscovites for some time now, after they threw off the yoke of the Tatars and the Christian world learned something about them. Moscow, which bears the princely title, not the only one in the country, since the sovereign was once called the Grand Duke of Vladimir… Therefore mistaken to call them Muscovites, not Russians, as not only we who live far away do, but also their closer neighbors. When asked which nation they belong to, they ans

wer: Russians, and if asked from where, they answer: from Moscow, Vologda, Ryazan and other cities..." And concluding this video, I can't help but note Yaroslav's obvious Russophobia. I don't like to put labels, especially the label of any "phobia", when it is unreasonable, but here everything is more than obvious. Using the example of Yaroslav, we saw how, hiding behind the good intentions of fighting propaganda, these people, using manipulation, forgery, minor mistakes and lies, are trying to

create a picture of history that is beneficial primarily to themselves. Your like and subscription will be the best support for me, thanks for watching.