Byzantine monks followed the
Dnieper on their way northward and soon reached the heart of
Russia. They found the people worshipping strange gods
who were supposed to dwell in woods and rivers and in mountain
caves. They taught them the story of Jesus. There was
no competition from the side of Roman missionaries. These
good men were too busy educating the heathen Teutons to
bother about the distant Slavs. Hence Russia received its religion
and its alphabet and its first ideas of art and architecture
from the Byzantine monks and as the Byzantine empire (a
relic of the eastern Roman empire) had become very oriental
and had lost many of its European traits, the Russians suffered
in consequence.
Politically speaking these new states of the great Russian
plains did not fare well. It was the Norse habit to divide
every inheritance equally among all the sons. No sooner had
a small state been founded but it was broken up among eight
or nine heirs who in turn left their territory to an ever increasing
number of descendants. It was inevitable that these small
competing states should quarrel among themselves. Anarchy
was the order of the day. And when the red glow of the eastern
horizon told the people of the threatened invasion of a savage
Asiatic tribe, the little states were too weak and too divided
to render any sort of defence against this terrible enemy.
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