The eldest of these, Rurik, settled in Novgorod; the second, Sineus, at Byelo-ozero; and the third, Truvor, in Isborsk.

From them our land is called Rus.

After two years the brothers of Rurik died.

He alone began to rule over the Novgorod district, and confided to his men the administration of the principal towns." This simple legend has given rise to a vast amount of learned controversy, and historical investigators have fought valiantly with each other over the important question, Who were those armed men of Rus?
For a long time the commonly received opinion was that they were Normans from Scandinavia.

The Slavophils accepted the legend literally in this sense, and constructed upon it an ingenious theory of Russian history.
The nations of the West, they said, were conquered by invaders, who seized the country and created the feudal system for their own benefit; hence the history of Western Europe is a long tale of bloody struggles between conquerors and conquered, and at the present day the old enmity still lives in the political rivalry of the different social classes.
The Russo-Slavonians, on the contrary, were not conquered, but voluntarily invited a foreign prince to come and rule over them! Hence the whole social and political development of Russia has been essentially peaceful, and the Russian people know nothing of social castes or feudalism.