Russia' is the state descended from the grand principality that coalesced around Moscow in the fourteenth century and began the historical continuum that extended to the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and modern Russia. Powerful rivals included the city republics of Novgorod and Pskov, not forgetting the grand duchy of Lithuania. The dynamics of geopolitics in this century were structured by Moscow's rivalry with the grand duchy of Lithuania. Archbishop Evfimii also evoked Novgorod's past in architecture, rebuilding several churches according to their original twelfth-century designs. Architecture joined literature and icons in embellishing Moscow. The Cathedral of the Dormition, became a repository of Moscow's past and future pretensions. The Cathedral of the Dormition symbolically depicted God's blessing on Moscow, its antiquity and eminence and its ties to Constantinople, Kiev and Vladimir. Moscow reached even beyond Kiev to classical Antiquity to assert its status, a step paralleling Renaissance-era historiography throughout Europe.