TY - BOOK ID - 101847835 TI - The Rise and Demise of the Myth of the Rus’ Land PY - 2022 SN - 1802700560 1802700110 PB - Baltimore, Maryland : Project Muse, DB - UniCat KW - Nationalism KW - Russia KW - Historiography. KW - Consciousness, National KW - Identity, National KW - National consciousness KW - National identity KW - International relations KW - Patriotism KW - Political science KW - Autonomy and independence movements KW - Internationalism KW - Political messianism KW - East Slavic medieval history, russkaia zemlia, Russia, Ukraine, Russian nationalism,. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:101847835 AB - The concept of the Rus' Land (russkaia zemlia) became and remained an historical myth of modern Russian nationalism as the equivalent of "Russia," but it was actually a political myth, manipulated to provide legitimacy. Its meaning was dynastic--territories ruled by a member of the Riurikid/Volodimerovich princely clan. This book traces the history of its use from the tenth to the seventeenth century, outlining its changing religious (pagan to Christian) and geographic elements (from the Dnieper River valley in Ukraine in Kievan Rus' to Muscovy in Russia) and considers alternative "land" concepts which failed to rise to the ideological heights of the Rus' Land. Although the Rus' Land was never an ethnic or national concept, and never expanded its appeal beyond an elite lay and clerical audience, understanding its evolution sheds light upon the cultural and intellectual history of the medieval and early modern East Slavs. ER -