>>513406650
But then of course there was Kievian Rus, which is inconvenient for the Muscovite empire to talk about, since they literally stole the name.

I mean, "Race of thieves" is a label that's been applied to a lot of people, but has anyone deserved it more than Russians? (in spite of not being an actual ethnicity...)

>>513406754
Ehh... "out in the territories" has the same ring to it as "out in the borderlands", but that's ALL beside the point.

The point is that in the past, the world wasn't built around "countries", it was built around "city-states", among which Kievian Rus was prestigious enough to have their name stolen by mongols.