Kievan Rus in the context of "History of Christianity in Ukraine"

The history of Christianity in Ukraine dates back to the earliest centuries of the history of Christianity, to the Apostolic Age, with mission trips along the Black Sea and a legend of Andrew the Apostle even ascending the hills of Kiev. The first Christian community on territory of modern Ukraine is documented as early as the 4th century with the establishment of the Metropolitanate of Gothia, which was centered in the Crimean peninsula. However, on territory of the Old Rus in Kiev, Christianity became the dominant religion since its official acceptance in 989 by Vladimir the Great (Volodymyr the Great), who brought it from Byzantine Crimea and installed it as the state religion of medieval Kievan Rus (Ruthenia), with the metropolitan see in Kiev.

Although separated into various Christian denominations, most Ukrainian Christians share a common faith based on Eastern Christianity. This tradition is represented in Ukraine by the Byzantine Rite, the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches, which have been at various historic times closely aligned with Ukrainian national self-identity and Byzantine culture.

Medieval Serbian literature or Old Serbian literature (Serbian: Стара српска књижевност) refers to the literature written in medieval forms of Serbian language, up to the end of the 15th century, with its traditions extending into the early modern period.During the Middle Ages itinerant scribe monks from the Balkans travelled to Kievan Rus and beyond and their Church Slavonic writings became a common literary language for centuries among all Slavs.

Ruthenian and Ruthene are exonyms of Latin origin, formerly used in Eastern and Central Europe as common ethnonyms for East Slavs, particularly during the late medieval and early modern periods. The Latin term Rutheni was used in medieval sources to describe all Eastern Slavs of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, as an exonym for people of the former Rus', thus including ancestors of the modern Belarusians, Rusyns and Ukrainians. The use of Ruthenian and related exonyms continued through the early modern period, developing several distinctive meanings, both in terms of their regional scopes and additional religious connotations (such as affiliation with the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church).

In medieval sources, the Latin term Rutheni was commonly applied to East Slavs in general, thus encompassing all endonyms and their various forms (Belarusian: русіны, romanized: rusiny; Ukrainian: русини, romanized: rusyny). By opting for the use of exonymic terms, authors who wrote in Latin were relieved from the need to be specific in their applications of those terms, and the same quality of Ruthenian exonyms is often recognized in modern, mainly Western authors, particularly those who prefer to use exonyms (foreign in origin) over endonyms.

Pereyaslavets (East Slavic: Переяславец) or Preslavets (Bulgarian: Преславец) was a trade city located near mouths of the Danube. The city's name is derived from that of the Bulgarian capital of the time, Preslav, and means Little Preslav (Medieval Greek: Μικρᾶ Πρεσθλάβα). In Greek it was also known as Presthlavitza (Πρεσθλαβίτζα). Several theories exist regarding the exact location of the city: either at Preslav or in its vicinity in Bulgaria, or at Isaccea, Nufăru, Murighiol or Jurilovca in Romania.

A thriving trade centre of the First Bulgarian Empire, it was captured by Prince Svyatoslav of Kievan Rus in 968 (See Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria). During Svyatoslav's absence from the city following the Siege of Kiev (968), part of the citizens revolted and opened the gate to Bulgarian forces. According to Vasily Tatischev, Svyatoslav's governor Volk managed to escape.

A zolotnik (Russian: золотни́к, abbr.: zol.) is an obsolete Russian unit of weight, equal to 0.1505 avoirdupois ounces, 0.13715 troy ounce, or 4.2658 grams (about 65.83 grains). Used from the 10th to 20th centuries, its name is derived from the Russian word zoloto, meaning gold. As a unit, the zolotnik was the standard for silver manufacture, much as the troy ounce is currently used for gold and other precious metals.

This unit was originally based on a coin of the same name. The zolotnik circulated in the Kievan Rus until the 11th century; it was equal in weight to the Byzantine Empire's solidus.

In the Russian Empire, government agencies exerted varying levels of control over the content and dissemination of books, periodicals, music, theatrical productions, works of art, and motion pictures. The agency in charge of censorship in the Russian Empire changed over time. In the early eighteenth century, the Russian emperor had direct control, but by the end of the eighteenth century, censorship was delegated to the Synod, the Senate, and the Academy of Sciences. Beginning in the nineteenth century, it fell under the charge of the Ministry of Education and finally the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The history of censorship in the Russia began long before the emergence of the empire. The first book containing an index of prohibited works dates to the year 1073, in Kievan Rus. For several centuries these were mere translations of censorship lists from other languages; the first authentic old Russian censorship index was created only in the fourteenth century. The number of indices (as well as illegal publications) increased steadily until the beginning of the sixteenth century. Censorship first attained a kind of official status in the period of the Tsardom (1547–1721): it was encoded in law in the Stoglav and was directed against heresies, schisms, and other alleged deviations from religious dogmas and sacred texts.

Duchy of Belz or Principality of Belz was a duchy, formed in the late 12th century in Kievan Rus. During its history the duchy was a constituent part of some other political entities such as the Kingdom of Rus, the Kingdom of Hungary, Duchy of Masovia when eventually in the late 14th century was incorporated into Poland becoming later the Bełz Voivodeship.