The double-headed eagle? Straight outta Byzantium (aka the Roman Empire). It only showed up on Golden Horde coins way later, during its decline in the 14th-15th centuries—sometimes, not always.
The Golden Horde was basically the toughest kingdom in Eurasia back then, by the way. Nowadays, people trash-talk it because of racism and stupidity, but in its day, it was kicking everyone’s ass fantastically.
Here’s the deal with “Kievan Rus”: it’s a 19th-century Russian historiography term, coined to separate Rus periods in convo. Back then, nobody called it “Kievan,” “Muscovite,” or “Novgorodian.” It was just Rus. During the Kievan phase, Kiev ran the show. During the Muscovite phase, Moscow did.
Kiev wasn’t Rus’s first big city. Historically, Rus spread from north to south—Novgorod and Ladoga down to Kiev, not the other way around. Once Rus stretched to Kiev, it clicked that it was a killer trading hub, so power over Rus slowly shifted there.
“Muscovy stole…”—nah. “Muscovy” and “Muscovite” were Western European buzzwords, popping up in their maps and chronicles. That’s where this meme-forcing BS started. Russians never called themselves that.
“Stole the name Rus in 1721”? Probably means Peter the Great renaming the Tsardom of Moscow to the Russian Empire. You don’t need a PhD to get that Rus was already called Rus, and Russians were Russians way before that. Grand Dukes of Moscow had “and of all Rus” in their titles forever. Peter just slapped an official rebrand on it to match reality.
[Leaving out unimportant point about etymology]
“Collected tribute for the Horde”? Almost right. Except it wasn’t just Moscow’s princes doing it—others did too.
“And oppressed the Slavs”? Oh, they oppressed them so bad they led the uprising against the Horde—like at the Battle of Kulikovo. The Horde was the real Slav-oppressor, not Moscow’s princes specifically.
“Peter rebranded the Muscovites”? Already hit this twice. Russians never called themselves Muscovites. The rebrand just lined up with how things already were.
“Malorossians”, or “Little Russians” was known long before Peter. The term was seen as a reference to an obvious chunk of the Russian people. Like:
— Who are you?
— Russian > Little Russian > Kievan.
That’s how the term worked—not to split them off or isolate them. Think “Sicilian”—lives in Sicily, big whoop.
Peter artificially cooked up the Russian language? That’s pure, unfiltered meme-forcing, like a baby’s tear. Obviously bullshit—you don’t even need to be a linguist to see it. He reformed the language so writing matched how people actually talked. Every language does this eventually; speech drifts from stiff old texts.
“Lithuanians saved Kiev from the Horde in 1362”? Yeah, there was a battle—Prince Algirdas’s Lithuanians loosened the Horde’s grip on parts of what’s now western Ukraine and “freed” Kiev… by glomming it onto their principality. Moscow’s principality smashed the Horde at Kulikovo just 18 years later, in 1380. Still, the Horde ran Rus for another century—until the Stand on the Ugra River, where Moscow’s crew took center stage. That’s when power in Rus swung to Moscow, waving the flag of freedom from the Horde.
“Ukrainians are the sole heirs of Rus”? Come on, that’s obvious nonsense. While Kievans were under Lithuanian thumb, Moscow yanked Rus from the Horde. Rus was a multi-ethnic mashup—its culture, language, and politics split off into Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians. Saying only Ukrainians get the legacy is nationalist drivel that doesn’t match history
Here’s a good deconstruction of this ahistorical nonsense: https://xcancel.com/khaos_l33t/status/1915333621705028091
The main points translated:
The double-headed eagle? Straight outta Byzantium (aka the Roman Empire). It only showed up on Golden Horde coins way later, during its decline in the 14th-15th centuries—sometimes, not always.
The Golden Horde was basically the toughest kingdom in Eurasia back then, by the way. Nowadays, people trash-talk it because of racism and stupidity, but in its day, it was kicking everyone’s ass fantastically.
Here’s the deal with “Kievan Rus”: it’s a 19th-century Russian historiography term, coined to separate Rus periods in convo. Back then, nobody called it “Kievan,” “Muscovite,” or “Novgorodian.” It was just Rus. During the Kievan phase, Kiev ran the show. During the Muscovite phase, Moscow did.
Kiev wasn’t Rus’s first big city. Historically, Rus spread from north to south—Novgorod and Ladoga down to Kiev, not the other way around. Once Rus stretched to Kiev, it clicked that it was a killer trading hub, so power over Rus slowly shifted there.
“Muscovy stole…”—nah. “Muscovy” and “Muscovite” were Western European buzzwords, popping up in their maps and chronicles. That’s where this meme-forcing BS started. Russians never called themselves that.
“Stole the name Rus in 1721”? Probably means Peter the Great renaming the Tsardom of Moscow to the Russian Empire. You don’t need a PhD to get that Rus was already called Rus, and Russians were Russians way before that. Grand Dukes of Moscow had “and of all Rus” in their titles forever. Peter just slapped an official rebrand on it to match reality.
[Leaving out unimportant point about etymology] “Collected tribute for the Horde”? Almost right. Except it wasn’t just Moscow’s princes doing it—others did too.
“And oppressed the Slavs”? Oh, they oppressed them so bad they led the uprising against the Horde—like at the Battle of Kulikovo. The Horde was the real Slav-oppressor, not Moscow’s princes specifically.
“Peter rebranded the Muscovites”? Already hit this twice. Russians never called themselves Muscovites. The rebrand just lined up with how things already were.
“Malorossians”, or “Little Russians” was known long before Peter. The term was seen as a reference to an obvious chunk of the Russian people. Like: — Who are you? — Russian > Little Russian > Kievan. That’s how the term worked—not to split them off or isolate them. Think “Sicilian”—lives in Sicily, big whoop.
Peter artificially cooked up the Russian language? That’s pure, unfiltered meme-forcing, like a baby’s tear. Obviously bullshit—you don’t even need to be a linguist to see it. He reformed the language so writing matched how people actually talked. Every language does this eventually; speech drifts from stiff old texts.
“Lithuanians saved Kiev from the Horde in 1362”? Yeah, there was a battle—Prince Algirdas’s Lithuanians loosened the Horde’s grip on parts of what’s now western Ukraine and “freed” Kiev… by glomming it onto their principality. Moscow’s principality smashed the Horde at Kulikovo just 18 years later, in 1380. Still, the Horde ran Rus for another century—until the Stand on the Ugra River, where Moscow’s crew took center stage. That’s when power in Rus swung to Moscow, waving the flag of freedom from the Horde.
“Ukrainians are the sole heirs of Rus”? Come on, that’s obvious nonsense. While Kievans were under Lithuanian thumb, Moscow yanked Rus from the Horde. Rus was a multi-ethnic mashup—its culture, language, and politics split off into Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians. Saying only Ukrainians get the legacy is nationalist drivel that doesn’t match history