This lecture considers the question of the origins of Russia and Russians. A wide range of comparisons are explored: both in terms of key concepts, and in terms of contrasting episodes in history, modern and classical. Students that week were reading Ibn Fadlan’s account (922 CE) of an encounter with the Rus’ at the mouth of the Volga Rr on the Caspian Sea, and those parts of the [Kievan] Russian Primary chronicle (written ca 1110 CE) about the origins of the creation of the “Rus’ian” state at the end of the C10th. Copyright 2013 Adrian Jones / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Early Imperial Russia

The Origin of Russia and Russians I

Adrian concludes his lecture series by discussing the Time of Troubles in Russia which followed the death of Ivan IV in 1584: the periods of Tsars Fedor Ivanovich and Boris Godunov, and the ensuing civil war. He tries to set these events in a wider European context. Copyright 2014 Adrian Jones / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Consequences of Ivan the Terrible

Adrian now begins to discuss the reign of Ivan IV "The Terrible" or more accurately Ivan "The Awesome" in detail. He discusses Ivan IV's reign in four two-hour lectures. Copyright 2014 Adrian Jones / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Ivan the Terrible, Part III

Ivan the Terrible, Part II

Ivan the Terrible, Part I

Adrian Jones discusses the retinue of the Grand Prince, the group that gradually evolved into an aristocracy. He questions some of the stereotypes about autocracy in Russia, emphasising oligarchical aspects of the Russian polity. Copyright 2014 Adrian Jones / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Emergence of the Aristocracy

Adrian Jones discusses Muscovite rural society and then moves on to discuss the late onset (in Muscovy!) of serfdom, the system of land tenure, and the implications for the distinct lack of a legal culture in Russia. Adrian then turns to discussing the boyars and their chancery clerks, their way of life and their role in the administration of state. Copyright 2013 Adrian Jones / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Muscovite Society

Adrian Jones explores the political and social implications of the Orthodox faith in the lands of the Rus’. Copyright 2013 Adrian Jones / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

The Russian Orthodox Church

Adrian Jones introduces Andrei Tarkovsky's great film Andrei Rublëv (1964, 1966-69), sometimes spelt as "Roublev" or "Rublyov". The film traces episodes in the fourteenth-century life of one of the greatest of Russian icon painters. Copyright 2013 Adrian Jones / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

The Rise of Muscovy

The Rise of Muscovy (handout)

Tarkovsky's Film 'Andrei Rublëv'

Adrian Jones contrasts the different Kievan (C10th-C13th) and Tatar-Mongol (C13th to C15th) eras, tracing their different influences on medieval Russian history. Adrian refers wherever possible to illustrations from the period. He places events and polities in Russia in the wider context of Eurasian history. Copyright 2013 Adrian Jones / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Kiev Russia and Tatar-Mongols

The lecture opens with a response to Adrian's previous lecture by Adrian's teaching assistant, a Russo-Ukrainian scholar, Dmytro Ostapenko. History is all about argument and evidence. Dmytro critiques Adrian's "Normanist" point of view about the C9th-C10th origins of the Russian state (i.e., that the Rusi’an state was Varangian-Viking inspired). Dr Dmytro Ostapenko offers a stricter view of what is meant by “statehood”. Dr Ostapenko cites evidence discussing how bands had already evolved into Slavic tribes and kings (and hence a state) and he discusses a wider range of what he believes are indigenous Slavic cultural and economic influences on state formation. Adrian then replies and as he does he discusses more of the Viking and Slav evidence, focussing on the Russian Primary Chronicle (circa 1115) and relations between forest and steppe, as viewed in the light of Arab-Persian (Ibn Fadhlan, Ibn Khurdadbeh), Carolingian (Bertinian Annals 832), Byzantine (C10th Constantine VII Porphyrogenitas on the Administration of the Empire) and Khazar sources. Copyright 2013 Adrian Jones / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

The Origin of Russia and Russians II

In this subject, students examine the emergence, consolidation and development of Russian state and society in a hitherto 'wild' region in eastern Europe. The formative phase in the political, social and intellectual history of the Tsardom of Muscovy is traced. The focus is on the interplay of strange dichotomies like those between autocracy and oligarchy, patriarchy and communalism, xenophobia and Westernism, in shaping Russian state, society and culture in the turbulent era of Ivan the Terrible.