Publisher's Synopsis
Rambaud's concise but comprehensive history details how Russia became a mighty empire. From the intro: "We fail to discover, however far back we go towards the beginnings of the Russian State, any indication that this was ever destined to become a maritime power. In the ninth century, the Slavic tribes that were to form the first political organization designated by the name Russian, -the Slavo-Russian tribes, -occupied a territory securely shut in on the west, by the Poles and the Lithuanians; on the north, by the Finnish tribes, the Livonians, the Tchudis, and the Ingrians; on the east, Finnish tribes again, the Vesi, the Merians, the Muromians, and two Turkish tribes, the Meshtcheraks and the Khazars, that occupied all the northern coast of the Black Sea; allowing but a single one of the Slavo-Russian peoples to hold a position upon its shores. Except at this point, these Slavo-Russian tribes nowhere had access to the coast. The shores of the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean were Finnish; those of the Baltic, Finnish or Scandinavian; those of the Black Sea were held by the Khazars, the Caucasian tribes, the Byzantine Empire, and the Bulgarians, a Finnish tribe that had imposed its name and sovereignty upon a certain number of Slavic tribes."
