All hail Kievan Rus!

I've been lurking the forums for quite a while now and I think i've gathered enough ideas to start a timeline. It's gonna focus on Kievan Rus (which will fight off the mongol hordes and survive, and end up as a Nordic-Slavic monarchy that incorporates Kievan Rus, the Baltics, and Poland.

Does anyone know how i'd accomplish that? Or can anyone link me to some good reading materials that could help?
 
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Why not have Yuri I of Galicia rule Hungary in union with Galicia instead of Charles Robert, he could use Hungary as his base.
 

whitecrow

Banned
I've been lurking the forums for quite a while now and I think i've gathered enough ideas to start a timeline. It's gonna focus on Kievan Rus (which will fight off the mongol hordes and survive, and end up as a Nordic-Slavic monarchy that incorporates Kievan Rus, Finland, Sweden, the Baltics, and Poland.
F*ck yeah! Its about time someone wrote a Kievan Rus wank :cool:
 
Yeah! I'm surprised a TL centering on it hasn't been done before. Usually if it survives it just ends up being an earlier Russia, which isn't what I wanna do. :p

I'm not sure how I could get Kievan Rus to even survive though, much less conquer. I'm thinking if I could find a battle they could win that could change the tide, I could use that as a pod, and then from there go against Poland/Lithuania and then to Sweden/Finland. :D
 
Yeah! I'm surprised a TL centering on it hasn't been done before. Usually if it survives it just ends up being an earlier Russia, which isn't what I wanna do. :p

I'm not sure how I could get Kievan Rus to even survive though, much less conquer. I'm thinking if I could find a battle they could win that could change the tide, I could use that as a pod, and then from there go against Poland/Lithuania and then to Sweden/Finland. :D

For one thing, wouldn't a surviving Kievan Rus' require a surviving Khazaria? The conquest of Khazaria removed the barrier that the Rus' had from further nomadic attacks, from the Pechenegs to the Cumans, and finally, the Mongols themselves.
 
So could the pod be that Khazaria survives, therefore letting Rus develop without Turkish attacks?
 
Relativly implausible, at leasy how you put it.

Kievan Rus' domination all over Russian lands wasn't unified, and the succession wars weren't uncommon both due to kievan successoral system and the particularism of regions that sons of the king recieved.
Iaroslav had to fight more than 15 years to impose his rule to all Rus', and at his death, the country turned back to a regional division where the king had more of a nominal (if not symbolic at times) supremacy.

Riuriks could manage to hold a more firm hold, and to maintain a more or less unified state, but I would tend to think it would require to or limit the expansion of Rus' in first place, or to accept having two Rus' states (one turned to Baltic and Scandinavia, the other to Constantinople).

Then they would still have to deal with Poland (that was more cohesive), to say nothing about Scandinavian themselves, but admittely, the northern Rus' state could pass for Norse-Slavic (while being a glorified Novgorod) and if absorbated by a neighbouring Scandinavian king, could really turn on that.
 
So could the pod be that Khazaria survives, therefore letting Rus develop without Turkish attacks?

If Khazaria survives, you won't end with a Kievan Rus' in first place, as it's more than probably that Kiev would stand as, at best, a slavic statelet (city-state or popular monarchy) under Khazar influence or suzerainty.
 
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whitecrow

Banned
Yeah! I'm surprised a TL centering on it hasn't been done before. Usually if it survives it just ends up being an earlier Russia, which isn't what I wanna do. :p

I'm not sure how I could get Kievan Rus to even survive though, much less conquer. I'm thinking if I could find a battle they could win that could change the tide, I could use that as a pod, and then from there go against Poland/Lithuania and then to Sweden/Finland. :D
Well, I don't recall during what battle it was, but there is a common tale that the Khazars proposed an alliance to Kievan Rus princes against the Mongols. Supposedly the Khazar argument was "if we fall to the Mongols, you (Kievan Rus) will be next". The princes refused though.

Still, even assuming the alliance was forged, it is likely that this would have slowed the Mongols rather than stopped them given how big Genghis Khans armies were.

However, your POD doesn't have to be something that wanks Kiev – it can be something that screws the Mongols. Say, for example, Genghis Khan dies early, leaving his generals to fight for the spoils of Asia and putting the conquest of Europe on hold.
 
Well, I don't recall during what battle it was, but there is a common tale that the Khazars proposed an alliance Kievan Rus princes against the Mongols. Supposedly the Khazar argument was "if we fall to the Mongols, you (Kievan Rus) will be next". The princes refused though.

Don't you confuse with Volga Bulgarians or Cumans? Khazars were petty much vanished when Mongols invaded Rus'

EDIT :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Rus%27 said:
The princes of Rus' first heard of the coming Mongol warriors from the nomadic Cumans. Previously known for pillaging settlers on the frontier, the nomads now preferred peaceful relations, warning their neighbors: "These terrible strangers have taken our country, and tomorrow they will take yours if you do not come and help us". In response to this call, Mstislav the Bold and Mstislav Romanovich the Old joined forces and set out eastward to meet the foe, only to be routed in 1223 at the Battle of the Kalka River, a defeat remembered to this day in Russia and Ukraine.
 
For one thing, wouldn't a surviving Kievan Rus' require a surviving Khazaria? The conquest of Khazaria removed the barrier that the Rus' had from further nomadic attacks, from the Pechenegs to the Cumans, and finally, the Mongols themselves.

Well, yes. That's just a great warrior prince Svyatoslav was not a great politician.
 
Well, I don't recall during what battle it was, but there is a common tale that the Khazars proposed an alliance to Kievan Rus princes against the Mongols. Supposedly the Khazar argument was "if we fall to the Mongols, you (Kievan Rus) will be next". The princes refused though.

Still, even assuming the alliance was forged, it is likely that this would have slowed the Mongols rather than stopped them given how big Genghis Khans armies were.

However, your POD doesn't have to be something that wanks Kiev – it can be something that screws the Mongols. Say, for example, Genghis Khan dies early, leaving his generals to fight for the spoils of Asia and putting the conquest of Europe on hold.
???? From the Khazars by the time one name left. With Cumans yes, the union concluded, but what it all end?:rolleyes:
Incidentally, Kievan Rus to the time of arrival of the Mongols was in decline - Kiev only lazy not won.
 
Well, I don't recall during what battle it was, but there is a common tale that the Khazars proposed an alliance to Kievan Rus princes against the Mongols. Supposedly the Khazar argument was "if we fall to the Mongols, you (Kievan Rus) will be next". The princes refused though.

That's the Cumans. Cuman alliances with Rus were the ongoing default state for the last century and a bit before that, they were just on and off (much like the deal with Hungary and even other Rus princes).

Scandinavia wasn't even a remote factor in Russian politics by the early 13th c, though with a 12 c. POD there may be more importance and obviously earlier is better. Kiev as Aley said was just a fat prize to be taken by whatever dynastic branch was ascendant (Vladimir-Suzdal, Galich, Smolensk, Chernigov). It didn't have a strong local dynasty in generations.
 
Scandinavia wasn't even a remote factor in Russian politics by the early 13th c, though with a 12 c. POD there may be more importance and obviously earlier is better.

Admittedly, it's partially due to the structural weakness of eastern scandinavian states : being shadowed and threatened by Danes and Norses didn't helped them to meddle with eastern Slavic matters.
 
Admittedly, it's partially due to the structural weakness of eastern scandinavian states : being shadowed and threatened by Danes and Norses didn't helped them to meddle with eastern Slavic matters.

Yes, 12th c. Sweden is very weak and stays weak until mid-13th. There's not much meddling they could do even if they really tried.

With the Mongols ravaging Suzdal lands and Sweden centralising the balance shifted, but an earlier POD butterflies that probably.
 
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