How long can Russia stay disunited?

After the fragmentation of Kievan Rus, can Russia stay disunited for centuries after? Can there be many Russian principalities competing with each other for dominance as Sweden, Poland-Lithuania, or perhaps other powers manipulate them for their own gain?

And if disunited for long enough, is a movement like the Risorgimento or German pan-nationalism inevitable? Whoever controls Siberia might have a huge advantage, assuming they were able to beat the Tatar states to begin with.
 
After the fragmentation of Kievan Rus, can Russia stay disunited for centuries after? Can there be many Russian principalities competing with each other for dominance as Sweden, Poland-Lithuania, or perhaps other powers manipulate them for their own gain?

And if disunited for long enough, is a movement like the Risorgimento or German pan-nationalism inevitable? Whoever controls Siberia might have a huge advantage, assuming they were able to beat the Tatar states to begin with.
Disunited Russia won't get Siberia.
I guess some degree of Division is possible throughout, but consolidation into several blocs / grand-duchies is inevitable. Nationalism may bringe reunification, but only if the cultural chasms are not too deep. E.g. if some Eastern principality becomes Muslim, while others in the West turn Catholic, and maybe even a Protestant one, the concept of Rus may not be invoked later on. After all, there had been different Slavic tribal identities. Pan-Slavism is a different beast altogether and didn't unite Poles with Czechs or croats with Slovaks. Or maybe yugoslavia and czechoslovakia are indications of how unification and new divisions could go in the East, too.
 
Italy and Germany remained very fragmented until the late 19th century. Is there any reason to suppose the same could not have happened in Russia?
 
Italy and Germany remained very fragmented until the late 19th century. Is there any reason to suppose the same could not have happened in Russia?
No real geographic barrier. Even Germany and Italy have some in a sense.
 
No real geographic barrier. Even Germany and Italy have some in a sense.
Italy has many, Germany North of the Alps not really.
Italy and Germany both had the HRE and the Papacy as frameworks favouring microstates. Challenge: create a Russian equivalent...
 
What do we mean by a disunited Russia in the first place? If we are talking taking back the whole Kievan Rus that would mean Russia would have been disunited for a good 700-800 years.

The problem with a longer lasting Russian disunity is that the Mongols basically had a set up where the Yarlik which allowed one principality the privilege of collecting taxes from the others, this being the principality of Vladimir. You can't have a longer lasting because of the fact it's succession tended to be very chaotic, that the horde would break up sooner, rather than later. Now who unifies them could be up in the air or take a while.
 
What do we mean by a disunited Russia in the first place? If we are talking taking back the whole Kievan Rus that would mean Russia would have been disunited for a good 700-800 years.

The problem with a longer lasting Russian disunity is that the Mongols basically had a set up where the Yarlik which allowed one principality the privilege of collecting taxes from the others, this being the principality of Vladimir. You can't have a longer lasting because of the fact it's succession tended to be very chaotic, that the horde would break up sooner, rather than later. Now who unifies them could be up in the air or take a while.
In addition, outside of the Horde - which wasn't all too interested in Russian matters and considered it more as a periphery than an important land to control - there was no overarching organisation like the Holy Roman Empire to "encourage" disunity by protecting the states from outside threats. If the Rus' stays disunited (say, the Khan decides against giving the exclusive right of collecting tribute to Moscow/Vladimir), sooner or later the principalities within it would be picked off by Poland and Lithuania, and Sweden if we go long enough to the future.

Now, would a pan-Russian movement organize in a subjugated Russia, no matter under who? Definitely.
 
What do we mean by a disunited Russia in the first place? If we are talking taking back the whole Kievan Rus that would mean Russia would have been disunited for a good 700-800 years.

The problem with a longer lasting Russian disunity is that the Mongols basically had a set up where the Yarlik which allowed one principality the privilege of collecting taxes from the others, this being the principality of Vladimir. You can't have a longer lasting because of the fact it's succession tended to be very chaotic, that the horde would break up sooner, rather than later. Now who unifies them could be up in the air or take a while.

I mean after the fall of Kievan Rus. Though it isn't like Kievan Rus was exactly a stable, unified state either, especially by the end of it.

But I see what you're saying regarding the Mongols.

In addition, outside of the Horde - which wasn't all too interested in Russian matters and considered it more as a periphery than an important land to control - there was no overarching organisation like the Holy Roman Empire to "encourage" disunity by protecting the states from outside threats. If the Rus' stays disunited (say, the Khan decides against giving the exclusive right of collecting tribute to Moscow/Vladimir), sooner or later the principalities within it would be picked off by Poland and Lithuania, and Sweden if we go long enough to the future.

So effectively a disunited Russia never uniting under Moscow or whoever effectively just is going to lead to (Poland-)Lithuania taking the whole place over, with Sweden getting the scraps? And if not, the remaining principalities can just form an alliance against Lithuanian rule which also might naturally result in unification of what's left of Russia based on foreign pressure?
 
I mean after the fall of Kievan Rus. Though it isn't like Kievan Rus was exactly a stable, unified state either, especially by the end of it.

So effectively a disunited Russia never uniting under Moscow or whoever effectively just is going to lead to (Poland-)Lithuania taking the whole place over, with Sweden getting the scraps? And if not, the remaining principalities can just form an alliance against Lithuanian rule which also might naturally result in unification of what's left of Russia based on foreign pressure?

Which is kinda of my point, one could argue there wasn't even a "Russia" before the Tsardom of Russia under Ivan III or Ivan IV depending on your preference.
 
It could still be not united today, though European Russia is likely to coalesce into one state eventually. Even then you could have *Ukraine, *Belorussia, North Russia a.k.a Novgorod and one or several East Russian state/s which never had been united. The OTL Moscow wank would be called ASB by some here if it was a timeline, like many OTL success stories.
 
Which is kinda of my point, one could argue there wasn't even a "Russia" before the Tsardom of Russia under Ivan III or Ivan IV depending on your preference.

Yes, it was a cultural sphere more than anything else. Just like how Germany and Italy were, and outside Europe, China, Persia, and India, were cultural spheres, often fragmented into many states.

It could still be not united today, though European Russia is likely to coalesce into one state eventually. Even then you could have *Ukraine, *Belorussia, North Russia a.k.a Novgorod and one or several East Russian state/s which never had been united. The OTL Moscow wank would be called ASB by some here if it was a timeline, like many OTL success stories.

Ukraine and Belarus have managed to evolve their own cultural identities. This is by no means inevitable.

Moscow indeed is a wank (after all, what favours it over any of the other Golden Ring cities?), but everything I've read suggests it was a simply matter of bribery and religion (Ivan Kalita's relation with the church) and luck that ever made Moscow able to dominate the surrounding area.

But is any Russian state which gains the advantage Moscow had after Ivan Kalita guaranteed to unify Russia? If you split whoever maintains the leadership of the Russian church with whoever is the Grand Duke of Vladimir, don't you have a natural state of disunion? Especially if a state like Novgorod in the north is able to remain aloof from the situation. And even then, what is going to encourage these minor princes to sell their titles to the Grand Duke of Vladimir or the prince who holds the seat of the church? And could foreign powers exploit this--Lithuania is the most obvious in the 14th/15th century, but surely Sweden could too, even medieval Sweden might find reason to prolong it based on their interests in Finland/Karelia. The Golden Horde and other Mongol states will fade away, but what about the Tatar successor states of the Mongols? They'll want to have some say in what goes on in Russia, if only out of self-preservation. Really, butterflies aside, can it all last until the age of nationalism puts Russia together? Because what I see from this thread and my own knowledge is that the conditions in Russia were far more conducive to unity than in, say, Italy at the same time.
 
Yes, it was a cultural sphere more than anything else. Just like how Germany and Italy were, and outside Europe, China, Persia, and India, were cultural spheres, often fragmented into many states.



Ukraine and Belarus have managed to evolve their own cultural identities. This is by no means inevitable.

Moscow indeed is a wank (after all, what favours it over any of the other Golden Ring cities?), but everything I've read suggests it was a simply matter of bribery and religion (Ivan Kalita's relation with the church) and luck that ever made Moscow able to dominate the surrounding area.

But is any Russian state which gains the advantage Moscow had after Ivan Kalita guaranteed to unify Russia? If you split whoever maintains the leadership of the Russian church with whoever is the Grand Duke of Vladimir, don't you have a natural state of disunion? Especially if a state like Novgorod in the north is able to remain aloof from the situation. And even then, what is going to encourage these minor princes to sell their titles to the Grand Duke of Vladimir or the prince who holds the seat of the church? And could foreign powers exploit this--Lithuania is the most obvious in the 14th/15th century, but surely Sweden could too, even medieval Sweden might find reason to prolong it based on their interests in Finland/Karelia. The Golden Horde and other Mongol states will fade away, but what about the Tatar successor states of the Mongols? They'll want to have some say in what goes on in Russia, if only out of self-preservation. Really, butterflies aside, can it all last until the age of nationalism puts Russia together? Because what I see from this thread and my own knowledge is that the conditions in Russia were far more conducive to unity than in, say, Italy at the same time.
That´s true but I think you can only go to a certain point, I mean you have Belarus and Ukraine, now you can add Novgorod and maybe another states in Russia, after that it becomes hard.


The problem is that the core area of Russia early one is quite small and it´s hard to keep it divided, I mean it´s easier to make Russia smaller itself that have a Russia divided(so you could have Uralic states independent and Finnic areas under Sweden for example).


It seems the city was in a good position to defend from Mongol raids also.


At least to me it´s seems hard to have it kept disunited, at least in many little states. Like you said you could have Swedish puppet Novgorod and stuff like Lithuanian Smolensk the area that remains would probably be united more or less but hardly it has to be internally effective at all.
 
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