By Timothy Snyder

A little history can help us see through the myths.

Note to subscribers: today has been an unusually busy day for me, chiefly thanks to Ukrainian matters. Rather than keep everyone in the breathless present, I wanted to share a longer reflection about the past. In my haste, though, I made some typos, which I hope to have corrected in this version. Thanks for your patience. Another article from today, about the history of provocations, is here. And now for the essay, “Kyiv’s ancient normality.”…

More than a thousand years ago, Viking slavers found a route they were seeking to the south.  It followed the Dnipro River through a trading post called Kyiv, then down through rapids even they could not master.  They had slaves carry the boats, and left runes on the riverbank to mark their dead.  These Vikings called themselves the Rus.

The ancient domain of Khazaria was breaking up.  The Khazars had stopped the advance if Islam in the Caucasus in the eighth century, at around the same time as the Battle of Tours.  Some or all of the Khazar elite converted to Judaism.  The Vikings supplanted the Khazars as the tribute collectors of Kyiv, merging customs and vocabulary.  They called their leaders “khagans.”

As the Vikings came to understand, conversion to a monotheistic religion could mean control of territory.  The pagan Rus apparently considered Judaism and Islam before converting to Christianity.  The ruler believed to have converted, Valdemar (or Volodymyr, who Russians, much later, called Vladimir), had first ruled Kyiv as a pagan.  According to Arab sources, he had earlier ruled another city as a Muslim.

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