Rurikids - Legacy

Legacy

Russian and Ukrainian historians have debated for many years about the legacy of the Rurikid dynasty. The Russian view, "resting largely on religious-ecclesiastical and historical-ideological claims and on political-juridical theories formulated in Moscow between the 1330's and the late 1850's," and views the Principality of Moscow as the sole heir to the Kievan Rus' civilization. The Ukrainian nationalist view came into being somewhat later "between the 1840's and the end of the 1930's," and views the Ukrainian descendants of the Rurikid dynasty as its only true successors. The Soviet theory "allotted equal rights to the Kievan inheritance to the Three Slavic peoples, that is the Russians, the Ukrainians, and the Belorussians."