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Article: Moscow
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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MOSCOW
MOSCOW
(Moskva).
The etymology of
Moskva
and the question of whether the name was applied first to the city or to the river on which it is located both remain in dispute. Moscow is located in approximately the center of the East European plain on the Moscow River, a tributary of the Oka River, which flows into the Volga. Among distinguishing reasons for Moscow's rise to power over its neighbors in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries are the following. First, being centrally located among East Slavic principalities, its trade routes stretched far in all directions. Second, due to its central location, Moscow was protected to some extent by distance from hostile neighbors to ...