Geography
The region in the southwest of Russia and the modern nation of Ukraine; a fertile region of good farmland
plains
The man who shifted his base of power to the eastern Mediterranean, rebuilding the Greek city of Byzantium and renaming it Constantinople
The original name of the Byzantine Empire
the Eastern Roman Empire
The term for a sole rule with complete authority
autocrat
Fill in the blank: Mongol rule cut Russia off from _________________________ just as that region was making advances in arts and sciences
western Europe
The geographic feature that often marks the boundary of Europe and Asia
The Ural Mountains
The person under whom the Byzantine Empire reached its height
Justinian
The greatest achievement of the greatest Byzantine emperor
Justinian's Code
The religion that the Russians converted to
Orthodox Christianity
Fill in the blank: The Mongols brought peace to central Asia and ___________________________ between Europe and China, trade which benefited Russian merchants
encouraged trade
The region in the south of Russia; an open, treeless grassland with excellent pastureland
steppe
Theodora
The church that Justinian rebuilt into an immense, arching dome that he claimed surpassed the splendor of the temple of Solomon
the Hagia Sophia
The center of the first Russian state and the capital of present-day Ukraine
Kiev
Fill in the blank: The ______________________ of the Mongols served as a model for future Russian rulers
absolute power
The trait that links the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea
The Russian ruler who brought much of northern Russia under his rule and regained Russian territory from Lithuania
Ivan the Great
the patriarch
Slavs and Vikings
The nomadic Magyars from Asia who had raided Europe during the Viking era eventually settled in this country and converted to Roman Catholicism
Hungary
The region in the north of Russia; cold, snowy forests
taiga
The ruler of Russia who further centralized royal power by limiting the power of the nobles and tying Russian serfs to the land, essentially instituting feudalism in Russia at a time when it was fading in Europe
Ivan the Terrible
The event that officially split eastern and western Christianity in 1054
the Great Schism
The reason why early Russians form trade relationships with the Byzantine Empire to the south rather than with Western Europe to the west
This country eventually lost its independence to the Ottomans despite fighting to the death at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389
Serbia