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Soviet Union [USSR] Slavic Nationalities
Since the establishment of the Soviet Union, the most dominant
group of people numerically, politically, culturally, and
economically have been the Slavs, particularly the East Slavs.
Although little is known of the early history of the Slavs, they
had by the seventh century A.D. divided into three distinguishable
groups: the West Slavs, ancestors of the Poles, the Czechs, and the
Slovaks; the South Slavs, ancestors of the Bulgarians, the Serbs,
and the Croatians; and the East Slavs, ancestors of the Russians,
the Ukrainians, and the Belorussians. The East Slavic tribes
settled along the Dnepr River in the present-day Ukrainian Republic
in the first centuries after the birth of Christ and from there
spread northward and eastward. In the ninth century, these tribes
became part of the foundation of Kievan Rus', the medieval state of
the East Slavs ruled by a Varangian dynasty
(see Soviet Union USSR - The East Slavs and the Varangians
, ch. 1).
The East Slavs enhanced this political union in the tenth
century when they adopted Christianity as the state religion of
Kievan Rus'. Nevertheless, tribal and regional differences
persisted and became more marked as the realm of Kievan Rus'
expanded. To the northwest, East Slavic tribes mixed with the local
Baltic tribes, while in the north and northeast they mixed with the
indigenous Finno-Ugric tribes. By the time Kievan Rus' began to
disintegrate into a number of independent principalities in the
twelfth century, the East Slavs were evolving into three separate
people linguistically and culturally: Russians to the north and
northeast of Kiev, Belorussians to the northwest of Kiev, and
Ukrainians around Kiev itself and to the south and southwest of
Kiev. This process of ethnic differentiation and consolidation was
accelerated by the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' and its collapse
as a political entity in the thirteenth century. For several
centuries, the three East Slavic nationalities remained related
culturally, linguistically, and to a great extent religiously.
Nevertheless, each of them has been influenced by different
political, economic, religious, and social developments, further
separating them from each other
(see Soviet Union USSR - The Rise of Regional Centers
, ch. 1).
Data as of May 1989
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