Russia is vast, as much an idea as a state. Its history is as diverse and dramatic as its landscapes, the history of a frontier of the post-Roman Barbarian world, a contact point of Byzantine and Latin Christendom. This class will introduce you to the fascinating panorama of medieval Russia from its early origins among the Slavs and Turkic nomads of the Eurasian steppe to the reign of the first Tsar, Ivan IV 'the Terrible'. Through illustrated lectures and online resources, you will discover some of the key moments that shaped the emergence of 'Russia' and the 'Russians'. From the early foundation of the loose federation of principalities known as Kievan Rus' to the kaleidoscopic struggles for power of the princely families in the 12th and 13th century 'Russia' and its 'borderlands' (the 'Ukraine'), through the age of the Mongol domination to the emergence of the 'Tsardom of Russia' in the 16th century, the 'Third Rome'