Religion Instead of Nation: How Moscow Appropriated Rus'

The Hostile Takeover of Millennial History

The year 988 became for Moscow what a hostile brand takeover is for a modern corporation: a formally legal act that allows the appropriation of someone else's history, reputation, and right to a name.

In reality, both the "Russian Empire" itself and the Russian language as a state language are only about 300 years old. Muscovy emerged as a peripheral principality that enriched itself by leveraging the Horde's military power to dominate other Rus' lands. It did not inherit Rus' – it occupied, distorted, and renamed it.

Religion as a Substitute for Nationality: A Rudiment That Won't Die

Until the 20th century, religious affiliation functioned as a marker of national identity. There were no "French" – there were Catholics and Huguenots. There were no "Ottomans" – there were Muslims and rayah. Rus' also identified itself through religion: "Rus'" meant belonging to the "Rus' canon" of Christian faith, as opposed to "Greek," "Latin," or "Busurman" (Muslim).

But other peoples evolved from religious to national identity. The French, Poles, Czechs, Germans – all traveled this path. Russia did not. It remained stuck in the medieval model, where faith replaces origin and the church defines the nation.

"Russkiy" in the Russian understanding is not an ethnos but a confessional-political operating system. That is why there exist "russkiye Tatars," "russkiye Jews," "russkiye Muslims" – oxymorons impossible in the logic of a normal nation but natural in imperial logic. Because "russkiy" here means not "a people" but "a subject of the Moscow tsar."

Ethnic Muslim = Ethnic Russian: The Symmetry of Absurdity

The term "ethnic Muslim" seems strange because Islam is a religion, not an ethnos. But from the perspective of identity structure, it is equivalent to the term "ethnic russkiy." Both denote not religious practice but cultural-historical belonging, where faith serves as the core of identity.

The difference lies only in mechanism:

Jewishness is an ethnos that created religion as a tool for self-preservation in diaspora. Judaism did not create Jews – Jews created Judaism. Religion here consolidates blood and memory.

Russkiy-ness (Muscovite) is an ideological construct created by church and state on the ruins of conquered and enslaved nations and tribes. Here religion does not preserve ethnos but displaces and replaces it. Muscovite Orthodoxy became a brand of belonging to empire, not to kinship.

Muslim-ness is a different case. In some regions (Chechnya, Bosnia, Turkey), Islam became the matrix of cultural ethnos, but not an ethnos in itself. Religion creates cultural identity but does not transmit blood.

Thus:

• for Jews, religion is a mechanism of ethnic self-preservation;
• for Russians, a mechanism of creating supra-national imperial loyalty;
• for Muslims, a mechanism of cultural solidarity.

Outwardly similar, but essentially three different evolutionary lines.

The 14th Century Hostile Takeover: How Metropolitans Divided Rus'

In 1299, Metropolitan Maximus transferred his residence from Kyiv to Vladimir-on-Klyazma. The formal reason was the Mongol invasion. The real reason was greed. Kyiv was not destroyed and retained its sacred status. Vladimir, lying closer to trade routes (and later Moscow), offered money, lands, and privileges.

In 1325, Metropolitan Peter finally settled in Moscow. This was not a religious choice but an economic one: an alliance with the most greedy and cruel principality that had enriched itself through collaboration with the Horde. The Church chose power over faith, money over Christ.

In 1448, the Moscow church unilaterally declared autocephaly, breaking with Constantinople after the Council of Florence. This was an ecclesiastical putsch: Moscow proclaimed itself the "Third Rome" not because it had the right, but because it was profitable to do so.

The 14th century was not a tragedy of division. It was an era of corrupt decay, when church hierarchs sold spiritual unity for land and gold. Muscovy bought itself sanctity the way one buys a trademark in bankruptcy.

Moscow: A Parasitic Model That Freezes Development

Russia did not evolve from the medieval model because evolution is unprofitable for it. Its entire statehood is built on parasitism: first on transit between the Horde and Europe, then on the conquest and enslavement of colonial peoples, now on resource extraction.

Church and state in Russia are not institutions of development but institutions of control and extraction. They do not serve society – they milk it. Modernization threatens them because:

1. An educated society is harder to rob – it demands rights, transparency, and justice.
2. Secularization destroys the sanctity of power – without "divine right," only crude violence remains.
3. National identity threatens empire – when a Tatar or Yakut recognizes himself as a nation rather than a "Russian subject," the empire collapses.

Therefore, Russia deliberately preserves the archaic model: Orthodoxy as state ideology, "russkiy-ness" as a substitute for nation, medieval rhetoric of the "Third Rome" as legitimization of plunder.

It did not get stuck in development accidentally – it freezes itself deliberately, because its state machine feeds not on creation but on appropriation.

Linguistic Falsification: How the Moscow Chancellery Stole the Rus' Language

The Rus' language of Kyivan Rus' was a living, vernacular tongue closest to modern Ukrainian. It preserved softness, Balkan and Slavic features, and the natural poetry of oral speech.

Muscovy did not inherit it – it created a hybrid:

• Church Slavonic (Bulgarian liturgical language) as syntactic foundation;
• Finno-Turkic dialects as phonetic substrate;
• Chancellery jargon as functional purpose.

The Moscow language was formed not as a means of communication but as an instrument of command. It was never a natural continuation of the Kyivan school – it was deliberately constructed as the language of empire, where a word means not "thought" but "power."

Modern Russian is not the heir of Rus' but a colonial creole of a state that appropriated Rus' and its language.

Ukrainian, however, is the direct descendant of that living, vernacular Rus' language that survived outside power and church. It preserved the organicity, poetry, and softness that Moscow chancellery language lost as early as the 15th century.

Thus:

• the language of Rus' became Ukrainian;
• the language of Muscovy became Russian;
• the difference between them is not dialect but a rupture in identity itself.

Conceptual Substitution: "Kievan Rus'" as Historical Manipulation

The term "Kievan Rus'" is an invention of 19th-century historians, created to distinguish the "ancient Rus'" state from the "Muscovite" one. But in sources from the 11th-13th centuries, no "Kievan Rus'" existed – there was simply Rus', without geographical specification.

This was not a state in the conventional sense but a civilization founded on the Christianization of 988. Baptism became the foundation of the cultural and political space of Eastern Europe. Kyiv, Halych, Chernihiv were the centers of this Rus'. Moscow had no relation to it whatsoever.

When Muscovy appropriated the name "Rus'," it stole not only history but also the right to self-naming. A Ukrainian is the direct heir of Rusyn culture, language, and tradition. A Muscovite is a product of church-state engineering, fused from Slavic, Finnic, and Turkic elements under the control of Orthodox ideology.

Rusyns are not a mythical offshoot of the Russian people. They ARE the true Rus', the one that existed before Moscow's falsification.

Conclusion: Russkiy-ness as Imperial Control Technology

Moscow's "russkiy-ness" is not about ethnos or nation – it is an imperial control technology. Its main trick is to pass off subordination as kinship.

It did not evolve from the medieval model "religion = nationality" because it is unprofitable to do so. After all:

1. A nation-state demands development – empire lives by plundering colonies.
2. A nation demands equality – empire lives by rigid hierarchy.
3. Secularization demands rationality – empire lives by the sanctity of violence.

The true Rus' remained where it originated – in Kyiv. Moscow still tries to prove that stealing a name makes it an heir.

But history, language, and culture testify otherwise. Ukraine is the heir of Rus'. Russia is the heir of the Horde that stole Rus' symbolism to legitimize plunder.

And until Moscow renounces this falsification, it will remain what it has always been: a parasitic system based on appropriating others' history and exploiting colonies.

Oleh Cheslavskyi — independent historian and analyst specializing in deconstructing imperial narratives.

Originally published at spilno.org