A History of Russia, Part 1

From Viking trade settlement to major threat to world peace, the history of Russia is a sprawling tapestry of many different ethnic groups and cultures and of revolution and war stretching over the past 1200 years. In the first section of this two-part class, learn what Oleg of Novgorod had in common with Putin, what Western European ambassadors in the Middle Ages thought of Russia, and what made Peter and Catherine “great” but Ivan “terrible.”