Topic: With the emergence of the kingdom of Russia, discuss why the aristocrats, or boyars, had less power

than their counterparts in Western Europe. Prior to the Russian kingdom, a full-fledged Russian civilization had yet to emerge. The Slavic people--who inhabited Russian land at the time-- practiced extensive agriculture and maintained an animist religion. Their political organizations mainly fell in family tribes and villages. Those early Russians lacked advances in economics and politics, however, they had a rich tradition of folk music and oral legends. Some very loose regional kingdoms developed, but they were small and did not contain much power or impact. The Scandinavians established a regular trade with Constantinople. Luxury products from Byzantium were exchanged for furs and other crude products. These Scandinavian traders--of a higher status than the Slavs--set up some governments along the trade routes to Byzantine. The city of Kiev was centrally located and became a prosperous trading center. A monarchy emerged at the city of Kiev along the trade route. Rurik, a native of Denmark, was the first prince of the Russian kingdom, Kievan Rus' around 855 C.E. The kingdom was still loosely organized through alliances with regional, landed aristocrats and flourished until the 12th century. Prince Vladimir I was a Rurik descendant who ruled Kievan Rus' from 980 to 1015. He converted not only himself, but the entire population of the kingdom to Orthodox Christianity. This critical conversion made Kievan Rus' the largest single state

in Europe, but it was highly decentralized. A formal law code was passed that reduced the severity of traditional punishments and replaced community vendettas with staterun courts. Although Kievan Rus' borrowed many things from Byzantium, it was in shape to replicate the major institutions such as the elaborate bureaucracy or educational system. The princes were attracted to the Byzantium concepts of luxurious ruling and lifestyles, and large power. Religion monopolized Kievan Rus' culture--no philosophical or scientific achievements emerged in this postclassical periods. Russia's differed from Western Europe in areas of religion, social, economic, and politics. The Russian peasants were fairly free farmers even though an aristocratic landlord class existed. Those Russian aristocrats, called boyars had less political power than their counterparts in Western Europe. The Russian aristocrats held less power because they did not control large estates of peasant farmers from which they could collect a portion of the yearly produce or a monetary gain. They could not fund large armies to gain vast territories which would yield more money and products. The Russian kingdom began to decline in the 12th century. There were challenges from rival princes who set up regional governments and there were often succession disputes. The decline of the Byzantium empire led to a fall in the trade and wealth of the Russian kingdom--their main trading partner was Byzantium. The Russian kingdom also depended heavily of the greater prosperity and sophisticated manufacturing of the Byzantine Empire. The final blow to Kievan Rus' was two Mongol invasions from central Asia.