Lecture 6: Organization of the Kyivan Rus' state

Professor Paul Robert Magocsi — Ukraine: A History Course.

The Ukrainian Jewish Encounter is pleased to present a lecture series by Paul Robert Magocsi titled Ukraine: A History Course. Magocsi recorded 45 lectures in 2023 at the University of Toronto, where he holds the professorial Chair of Ukrainian Studies and is a history and political science professor. He is also a Board Member of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.

Magocsi, one of the world’s leading experts on Ukraine, explores this fascinating country in all its complexity, from its history, culture, geography, politics, and multi-ethnic composition. The lectures are an important counterweight to Russian propaganda and explain Ukraine’s importance to global security today.

Time stamps are available for each lecture. Auto-translate is available in Ukrainian, major European, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern languages, including Hebrew and Yiddish.

Recordings of the lecture series were made possible with the support of the Temerty Foundation.

All the lectures are available on YouTube here.

1:46 Nestor the Chronicler, Nestor the Monk
4:42 The Invitation to the Varangians. Painting depicting the arrival of Riuryk and his brother in northern Rus'
5:54 Slaves portaging Varangian ships on the Dnieper
10:45 Khazar Kaganate and Eastern European trade routes, 8th-10th centuries map 18:47 Trade routes map
26:13 Kyi, Shchek, Khoryv, and Lybid'
29:23 In 860, Rus' warriors with a fleet of 200 ships attacked Constantinople
33:55 Constantinople sea walls. Byzantium = Constantinople = Istanbul
42:45 Pechenegs, nomads

For further information, you may wish to consult: A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples (University of Toronto Press, 2010)

Robert Paul Magocsi
Chair of Ukrainian Studies University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada, September 2023.