Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale, continues his lecture course on Ukrainian history by tracing the shift from post-Viking Kyivan states toward the consolidation of Muscovite power. He situates this political transition within his larger argument about how modern nations emerge, asking why some societies coalesce into durable polities and others do not. The lecture connects medieval state formation to the deeper questions running through the course: what it means for a nation to exist, how Polish, Russian, and Jewish self-understanding are bound up with Ukrainian history, and how the multilingual, post-colonial Ukrainian nation fits into that longer story. Delivered as part of Yale's open course on the making of modern Ukraine, with closed captions available in Ukrainian and Russian. This is class seven of the series, building on prior sessions covering earlier state formations in the region.