Download or read book History of Ukraine-Rus' written by Mykhailo Hrushevsky and published by CIUS Press. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 2 is the central volume of the first cycle of the History of Ukraine-Rus'—a cycle in which Mykhailo Hrushevsky explores, chiefly, the history of the Ukrainian lands during the medieval period, until the dissolution of the Rus' state on western Ukrainian territories in the fourteenth century. This middle volume of the cycle describes the crucial Kyiv-centered period of the evolution of the medieval Rus' polity. During that period—in particular, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries—the Kyivan princely and military retinue system reached the height of its development. Kyiv controlled vast territories in eastern Europe; the political activities and influence of Rus' princes were at their peak; and Old Rus' culture, art, and literature flourished. However, as Hrushevsky demonstrates, the underlying structure of the Kyivan state was progressively losing strength and falling into decline. He points to two major trends in this process. The first was the detachment of individual lands and the weakening of relations between them. And the second was the decline of the main political center—Kyiv. The political system of Rus' became greatly weakened by internecine princely conflicts and by warfare with nomadic invaders from the steppe. In the end, under the onslaught of the most powerful of such nomadic hordes—the Tatar-Mongol army—Kyiv fell in the 1240s and its role as a political center of the Old Rus' state came to an end.