The main cities of the Kiev principality in 12 13. Russian lands and principalities in the XII - the first half of the XIII century. II.Russian lands and principalities in the XII-XIII centuries
In modern historiography, the title "Kiev princes" is customary to designate a number of rulers of the Kiev principality and Old Russian state... The classical period of their reign began in 912 with the reign of Igor Rurikovich, who was the first to bear the title of "Grand Duke of Kiev", and lasted until about the middle of the 12th century, when the collapse of the Old Russian state began. Let us briefly consider the most prominent rulers of this period.
Oleg the Prophetic (882-912)
Igor Rurikovich (912-945) - the first ruler of Kiev, who was called the "Grand Duke of Kiev". During his reign, he conducted a number of military campaigns, both against neighboring tribes (Pechenegs and Drevlyans), and against the Byzantine kingdom. The Pechenegs and Drevlyans recognized Igor's supremacy, but the Byzantines, who were better equipped militarily, put up stubborn resistance. In 944, Igor was forced to sign a peace treaty with Byzantium. At the same time, the terms of the contract were beneficial for Igor, since Byzantium paid a significant tribute. A year later, he decided to attack the Drevlyans again, despite the fact that they had already recognized his power and paid tribute to him. Igor's guards, in turn, got the opportunity to cash in on the robberies of the local population. The Drevlyans set up an ambush in 945 and, capturing Igor, executed him.
Olga (945-964)- Widow of Prince Rurik, who was killed in 945 by the Drevlyan tribe. She headed the state until her son, Svyatoslav Igorevich, became an adult. It is not known when exactly she handed over power to her son. Olga adopted Christianity as the first of the rulers of Russia, while the whole country, the army and even her son were still pagans. Important facts of her reign were the submission of the Drevlyans, who killed her husband Igor Rurikovich. Olga established the exact amount of taxes that the lands subject to Kiev had to pay, systematized the frequency of their payment and terms. An administrative reform was carried out, dividing the lands subordinate to Kiev into clearly defined units, at the head of each of which a princely official "tiun" was installed. Under Olga, the first stone buildings appeared in Kiev, Olga's tower and the city palace.
Svyatoslav (964-972)- the son of Igor Rurikovich and Princess Olga. Characteristic feature reign was that most of his time was actually ruled by Olga, first because of Svyatoslav's minority, and then because of his constant military campaigns and absence from Kiev. Took power in about 950. He did not follow the example of his mother, and did not accept Christianity, which was then unpopular among the secular and military nobility. The reign of Svyatoslav Igorevich was marked by a series of continuous campaigns of conquest, which he conducted against neighboring tribes and states. The Khazars, Vyatichi, the Bulgarian kingdom (968-969) and Byzantium (970-971) were attacked. The war with Byzantium brought heavy losses to both sides, and ended, in fact, in a draw. Returning from this campaign, Svyatoslav was ambushed by the Pechenegs and killed.
Yaropolk (972-978)
Saint Vladimir (978-1015)- the Kiev prince, best known for the baptism of Rus. He was a prince of Novgorod from 970 to 978, when he seized the Kiev throne. During his reign, he continuously conducted campaigns against neighboring tribes and states. He conquered and annexed the tribes of the Vyatichi, Yatvyags, Radimichi and Pechenegs to his state. He carried out a number of state reforms aimed at strengthening the power of the prince. In particular, he began minting a single state coin, which replaced the previously used Arab and Byzantine money. With the help of invited Bulgarian and Byzantine teachers, he began to spread literacy in Russia, forcibly sending children to study. He founded the cities of Pereyaslavl and Belgorod. The main achievement is considered the baptism of Rus, carried out in 988. The introduction of Christianity as a state religion also contributed to the centralization of the Old Russian state. The resistance of various pagan cults, then widespread in Russia, weakened the power of the Kiev throne and was brutally suppressed. Prince Vladimir died in 1015 during another military campaign against the Pechenegs.
SvyatopolkCursed (1015-1016)
Yaroslav the Wise (1016-1054)- the son of Vladimir. He feuded with his father and seized power in Kiev in 1016, driving out his brother Svyatopolk. The time of Yaroslav's reign is represented in history by traditional raids on neighboring states and internecine wars with numerous relatives who claimed the throne. For this reason, Yaroslav was forced to temporarily leave the Kiev throne. He built the churches of St. Sophia in Novgorod and Kiev. The main church in Constantinople is dedicated to her, therefore the fact of such a construction spoke of the equality of the Russian church with the Byzantine one. As part of the confrontation with the Byzantine Church, he independently appointed the first Russian Metropolitan Hilarion in 1051. Yaroslav also founded the first Russian monasteries: the Kiev-Pechersky monastery in Kiev and the Yuryev monastery in Novgorod. For the first time he codified feudal law by issuing a set of laws "Russian Truth" and a church charter. He did a great job of translating Greek and Byzantine books into Old Russian and Church Slavonic languages, constantly spending large sums on the correspondence of new books. He founded a large school in Novgorod, in which the children of elders and priests studied literacy. He strengthened diplomatic and military ties with the Vikings, thus securing the northern borders of the state. He died in Vyshgorod, in February 1054.
SvyatopolkCursed (1018-1019)- secondary interim rule
Izyaslav (1054-1068)- the son of Yaroslav the Wise. According to his father's will, he took the throne of Kiev in 1054. Throughout almost the entire reign, he was at enmity with the younger brothers Svyatoslav and Vsevolod, who sought to seize the prestigious Kiev throne. In 1068, the troops of Izyaslav were defeated by the Polovtsy in a battle on the Alta River. This led to the Kiev uprising of 1068. At the veche meeting, the remnants of the defeated militia demanded to give them weapons in order to continue the fight against the Polovtsy, but Izyaslav refused to do this, which forced the Kievites to revolt. Izyaslav was forced to flee to the Polish king, his nephew. With the military help of the Poles, Izyaslav regained the throne for the period 1069-1073, was again overthrown, and for the last time ruled from 1077 to 1078.
Vseslav the Charodey (1068-1069)
Svyatoslav (1073-1076)
Vsevolod (1076-1077)
Svyatopolk (1093-1113)- the son of Izyaslav Yaroslavich, before the occupation of the Kiev throne, periodically headed the Novgorod and Turov principalities. The beginning of the Kiev principality of Svyatopolk was marked by the invasion of the Polovtsians, who inflicted a serious defeat on the troops of Svyatopolk in the battle near the Stugna River. This was followed by several more battles, the outcome of which is reliably unknown, but ultimately peace was made with the Polovtsy, and Svyatopolk took the daughter of Khan Tugorkan as his wife. The subsequent reign of Svyatopolk was overshadowed by the continuous struggle between Vladimir Monomakh and Oleg Svyatoslavich, in which Svyatopolk usually supported Monomakh. Svyatopolk also repulsed the constant raids of the Polovtsians led by the khans Tugorkan and Bonyak. Died suddenly in the spring of 1113, possibly poisoned.
Vladimir Monomakh (1113-1125) was a Chernigov prince when his father died. He had the right to the Kiev throne, but ceded it to his cousin Svyatopolk, because he did not want war at that time. In 1113, the Kievites revolted, and, having thrown Svyatopolk, invited Vladimir to the kingdom. For this reason, he was forced to adopt the so-called "statute of Vladimir Monomakh", which facilitates the position of the urban lower classes. The law did not affect the foundations of the feudal system, however, it regulated the conditions of enslavement and limited the profits of usurers. Under Monomakh, Russia reached the peak of its power. The Minsk principality was conquered, and the Polovtsians were forced to migrate east from the Russian borders. With the help of an impostor who pretended to be the son of a previously killed Byzantine emperor, Monomakh organized an adventure aimed at placing him on the Byzantine throne. Several Danube cities were conquered, however, it was not possible to further develop the success. The hike ended in 1123 with the signing of the peace. Monomakh organized the publication of improved editions of The Tale of Bygone Years, which have survived in this form. Also, Monomakh independently created several works: the autobiographical "Ways and Fishing", a set of laws "the charter of Vladimir Vsevolodovich" and "The Teaching of Vladimir Monomakh."
Mstislav the Great (1125-1132)- the son of Monomakh, formerly the prince of Belgorod. He ascended the throne of Kiev in 1125 without resistance from the rest of the brothers. Among the most outstanding deeds of Mstislav, one can name the campaign against the Polovtsy in 1127 and the plundering of the cities of Izyaslav, Strezhev and Lagozhsk. After a similar campaign in 1129, the Polotsk principality was finally annexed to the possessions of Mstislav. In order to collect tribute, several campaigns were made in the Baltic States, against the Chud tribe, but they ended in failure. In April 1132, Mstislav died suddenly, having managed, however, to transfer the throne to Yaropolk, his brother.
Yaropolk (1132-1139)- being the son of Monomakh, he inherited the throne when his brother Mstislav died. At the time of coming to power, he was 49 years old. In fact, he controlled only Kiev and its environs. By his natural inclinations he was a good warrior, but he did not possess diplomatic and political abilities. Immediately after accepting the throne, the traditional civil strife began, connected with the succession to the throne in the Pereyaslavl principality. Yuri and Andrey Vladimirovich drove out Vsevolod Mstislavich from Pereyaslavl, who had been put there by Yaropolk. Also, the situation in the country was complicated by the frequent raids of the Polovtsians, who, together with the allied Chernigovites, plundered the outskirts of Kiev. The indecisive policy of Yaropolk led to a military defeat in the battle on the Supoe River with the troops of Vsevolod Olgovich. The cities of Kursk and Posemye were also lost during the reign of Yaropolk. This development of events further weakened his authority, which was used by the Novgorodians, who announced their separation in 1136. The result of Yaropolk's reign was the actual collapse of the Old Russian state. Only the principality of Rostov-Suzdal was formally subservient to Kiev.
Vyacheslav (1139, 1150, 1151-1154)
Already in the middle of the XII century. the power of the Kiev princes began to have real significance only within the boundaries of the Kiev principality itself, which included lands along the banks of the Dnieper tributaries - Teterev, Irpen and the semi-autonomous Porosye, inhabited by vassals from Kiev "Black hoods". The attempt of Yaropolk, who became the prince of Kiev after the death of Mstislav I, to arbitrarily dispose of the "fatherlands" of other princes was resolutely suppressed.
Despite the loss of Kiev's all-Russian significance, the struggle for possession of it continued until the invasion of the Mongols. There was no order in the inheritance of the Kiev table, and it passed from hand to hand depending on the balance of forces of the fighting princely groups and, to a large extent, on the attitude towards them from the powerful Kiev boyars and the "Black Klobuk". In the context of the all-Russian struggle for Kiev, the local boyars strove to end the strife, and to political stabilization in their principality. The invitation by the boyars of Vladimir Monomakh to Kiev in 1113 (bypassing the then accepted order of succession) was a precedent used by the boyars to substantiate their "right" to choose a strong and pleasing prince and to conclude a "row" with him that protected them territorially. corporate interests. The boyars who violated this row of princes were eliminated by going over to the side of his rivals or by conspiracy (as, perhaps, Yuri Dolgoruky was poisoned, overthrown and then killed in 1147 during a popular uprising, Igor Olgovich Chernigovsky, unpopular among the people of Kiev). As more and more princes were drawn into the struggle for Kiev, the Kiev boyars resorted to a peculiar system of the princely duumvirate, inviting co-rulers to Kiev representatives from two of several rival princely groups, which for some time achieved the relative political equilibrium so necessary for the Kiev land.
As Kiev loses the all-Russian significance of individual rulers of the strongest principalities who have become "great" in their lands, it begins to satisfy with the appointment of their henchmen - "assistants" in Kiev.
The princely strife over Kiev turned the Kiev land into an arena of frequent hostilities, during which cities and villages were ruined, and the population was driven into captivity. Kiev itself was subjected to cruel pogroms both by the princes who entered it as victors and by those who left it as a vanquished and returned to their "fatherland". All this predetermined the emerging from the beginning of the XIII century. the gradual decline of the Kiev land, the outflow of its population to the northern and northwest areas countries that suffered less from princely strife and were virtually inaccessible to the Polovtsians. Periods of the temporary strengthening of Kiev in the reign of such prominent politicians and organizers of the struggle against the Polovtsians as Svyatoslav Vsevolodich Chernigov (1180-1194) and Roman Mstislavich Volynsky (1202 - 1205) alternated with the rule of colorless princes who replaced each other kaleidoscopically. Daniil Romanovich Galitsky, in whose hands Kiev passed shortly before the capture of Batu, had already limited himself to the appointment of his mayor from the boyars.
Vladimir-Suzdal principality
Until the middle of the XI century. The Rostov-Suzdal land was ruled by mayors who were sent from Kiev. Her real "reigning" began after she got the younger "Yaroslavich" - Vsevolod Pereyaslavl - and was entrenched in his descendants as their clan "volost". In the XII-XIII centuries. The Rostov-Suzdal land experienced an economic and political upsurge, which made it one of the strongest principalities in Russia. The fertile lands of the Suzdal "Opolye", boundless forests cut by a dense network of rivers and lakes, along which ancient and important trade routes to the south and east ran, the availability of iron ores available for "mining - all this favored the development of agriculture, cattle breeding, rural and forest industries. In the acceleration of economic development and the political rise of this forest land, the rapid increase in its population due to the inhabitants of the southern Russian lands subjected to Polovtsian raids was of great importance. land ownership that absorbed communal lands and involved the peasants In personal feudal dependence In the 12th - 13th centuries, almost all the main cities of this land arose (Vladimir, Pereyaslavl-Zalesskii, Dmitrov, Starodub, Gorodets, Galich, Kostroma, Tver, Nizhny Novgorod, etc.) , built by the Suzdal princes on the borders and within the principality as strongholds of serfs and administrative points comrades and settled with trade and craft settlements, the population of which was actively involved in political life. Under 1147, the chronicle first mentions Moscow, a small border town built by Yuri Dolgoruky on the site of the boyar Kuchka's estate confiscated by him.
In the early 30s of the XII century, during the reign of the son of Monomakh Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruky (1125-1157), the Rostov-Suzdal land gained independence. The military-political activity of Yuri, who intervened in all princely strife, stretched out his "long arms" to cities and lands far from his principality, made him one of the central figures in the political life of Russia in the second third of the 11th century. The struggle with Novgorod and the wars with Volga Bulgaria, begun by Yuri and continued by his successors, marked the beginning of the expansion of the principality's borders towards the Podvinye and the Volga-Kama lands. Ryazan and Murom fell under the influence of the Suzdal princes, who had previously “pulled” towards Chernigov.
The last ten years of Dolgoruky's life were spent in an exhausting struggle, alien to the interests of his principality, with the southern Russian princes for Kiev, the reign in which, in the eyes of Yuri and the princes of his generation, was united with the “eldership” in Russia. But already Dolgoruky's son, Andrei Bogolyubsky, seizing Kiev in 1169 and brutally robbing it, handed it over to the control of one of his vassal princes - "assistants", which testified to a turning point on the part of the most far-sighted princes in their attitude to Kiev, which had lost its significance an all-Russian political center.
The reign of Andrei Yuryevich Bogolyubsky (1157 - 1174) marked the beginning of the struggle of the Suzdal princes for the political hegemony of their principality over the rest of the Russian lands. The ambitious attempts of Bogolyubsky, who claimed the title of Grand Duke of all Russia, to completely subjugate Novgorod and force other princes to recognize his supremacy in Russia, failed. However, it was precisely in these attempts that the tendency to restore the state-political unity of the country based on the subordination of the appanage princes to the autocratic ruler of one of the most powerful principalities in Russia was reflected, which was beginning to break through.
The reign of Andrei Bogolyubsky is associated with the revival of the traditions of the power politics of Vladimir Monomakh. Relying on the support of the townspeople and the noblemen-vigilantes, Andrey abruptly cracked down on the rebellious boyars, expelled them from the principality, confiscated their estates. To be even more independent from the boyars, he moved the capital of the principality from a relatively new town- Vladimir-on-Klyazma, which had a significant trade and craft settlement. It was not possible to finally suppress the boyar opposition to the "autocratic" prince, as his contemporaries called Andrei. In June 1174 he was killed by the boyar conspirators.
The two-year strife, unleashed after the murder of Bogolyubsky by the boyars, ended with the reign of his brother Vsevolod Yuryevich the Big Nest (1176-1212), who, relying on the townspeople and the squads of the feudal lords, severely dealt with the rebellious nobility and became the sovereign ruler in his land. During his reign, the Vladimir-Suzdal land reached its highest prosperity and power, playing a decisive role in the political life of Russia at the end of the 12th - beginning of the 13th century. Extending his influence to other Russian lands, Vsevolod skillfully combined the power of arms (as, for example, in relation to the Ryazan princes) with skillful politics (in relations with the southern Russian princes and Novgorod). The name and power of Vsevolod were well known far beyond the borders of Russia. The author of "The Lay of Igor's Regiment" proudly wrote about him as the most powerful prince in Russia, whose numerous regiments could scatter the Volga with oars and scoop water out of the Don with helmets, on whose name all countries "trembled" and the rumor about which "was full of the whole earth. "
After the death of Vsevolod, an intensive process of feudal fragmentation began in the Vladimir-Suzdal land. The feuds of the numerous sons of Vsevolod over the grand princely table and the distribution of reigns led to a gradual weakening of the grand prince's power and its political influence on other Russian lands. Nevertheless, until the Mongol invasion, the Vladimir-Suzdal land remained the strongest and most influential principality in Russia, retaining political unity under the leadership of the Vladimir Grand Duke. When planning a campaign of conquest against Russia, the Mongol-Tatars linked the result of the surprise and power of their first strike with the success of the entire campaign. And it was no coincidence that North-Eastern Russia was chosen as the target of the first strike.
Chernigov and Smolensk principalities
These two large Dnieper principalities had much in common in the economy and political system with other southern Russian principalities, which were ancient centers of culture of the Eastern Slavs. Here already in the IX-XI centuries. large princely and boyar landownership developed, cities grew rapidly, becoming centers of handicraft production that served not only the nearby rural districts, but had developed external ties. The Smolensk principality had extensive trade relations, especially with the West, in which the upper reaches of the Volga, Dnieper and Western Dvina - the most important trade routes - converged. of Eastern Europe.
The allocation of the Chernigov land into an independent principality took place in the second half of the 11th century. in connection with the transfer of it (together with the Muromo-Ryazan land) to the son of Yaroslav the Wise Svyatoslav, for whose descendants she was entrenched. At the end of the XI century. interrupted the ancient ties of Chernigov with Tmutarakan, cut off by the Cumans from the rest of the Russian lands and falling under the sovereignty of Byzantium. At the end of the 40s of the XI I century. The Chernigov principality was divided into two principalities: Chernigov and Novgorod-Severskoe. At the same time, the Muromo-Ryazan land became isolated, falling under the influence of the Vladimir-Suzdal princes. The Smolensk land became isolated from Kiev at the end of the 20s of the XII century, when it went to the son of Mstislav I, Rostislav. Under him and his descendants ("Rostislavichi"), the Smolensk principality expanded geographically and strengthened.
The middle, connecting position of the Chernigov and Smolensk principalities among other Russian lands involved their princes in all the political events that took place in Russia in the XII-XIII centuries, and above all in the struggle for neighboring Kiev. The Chernigov and Seversk princes, indispensable participants (and often initiators) of all princely strife, indiscriminate in the means of fighting their opponents and more often than other princes, who resorted to an alliance with the Polovtsy, with whom they devastated the lands of their rivals, were especially politically active. It is no coincidence that the author of The Lay of Igor's Host called the founder of the dynasty of Chernigov princes Oleg Svyatoslavich “Gorislavich”, the first who began to “forge sedition with the sword” and “sow” the Russian land with strife.
The grand-ducal power in the Chernigov and Smolensk lands could not overcome the forces of feudal decentralization (zemstvo nobility and rulers of small principalities), and as a result, these lands at the end of the 12th - first half of the 13th century. split into many small princes, only nominally recognizing the sovereignty of the grand dukes.
Polotsk-Minsk land
Early on she discovered a tendency towards isolation from Kiev Polotsk-Minsk land. Despite the unfavorable soil conditions for agriculture, the socio-economic development of the Polotsk land proceeded at a high rate due to its advantageous location at the crossroads of the most important trade routes along the Western Dvina, Neman and Berezina. Lively trade relations with the West and the Baltic neighboring tribes (Livs, Lats, Curonians, etc.), which were under the sovereignty of the Polotsk princes, contributed to the growth of cities with a significant and influential trade and craft layer. A large feudal economy with developed agricultural industries, the products of which were exported abroad, also developed early here.
At the beginning of the XI century. The Polotsk land went to the brother of Yaroslav the Wise Izyaslav, whose descendants, relying on the support of the local nobility and townspeople, for more than a hundred years, with varying success, fought for the independence of their "fatherland" from Kiev. The Polotsk land reached its greatest power in the second half of the 11th century. in the reign of Vseslav Bryachislavich (1044-1103), but in the XII century. an intensive process of feudal fragmentation began in it. In the first half of the XIII century. it was already a conglomerate of small principalities, which only nominally recognized the power of the Polotsk Grand Duke. These principalities, weakened by internal strife, faced a difficult struggle (in alliance with the neighboring and dependent Baltic tribes) with the German crusaders who invaded the Eastern Baltic. From the middle of the XII I century. The Polotsk land became the object of an offensive by the Lithuanian feudal lords.
Galicia-Volyn land
The Galicia-Volyn land stretched from the Carpathians and the Dniester-Danube Black Sea region in the south and southwest to the lands of the Lithuanian tribe of Yatvingians and the Polotsk land in the north. In the west, it bordered on Hungary and Poland, and in the east - on the Kiev land and the Polovtsian steppe. Galicia-Volyn land was one of the oldest centers of arable agricultural culture of the Eastern Slavs. Fertile soils, a mild climate, numerous rivers and forests, interspersed with steppe spaces, created favorable conditions for the development of agriculture, cattle breeding and various trades, and at the same time the early development of feudal relations, large feudal princely and boyar land tenure. Handicraft production reached a high level, the separation of which from agriculture contributed to the growth of cities, which were here more than in other Russian lands. The largest of them were Vladimir-Volynsky, Przemysl, Terebovl, Galich, Berestye, Kholm, Drogichin, etc. A significant part of the inhabitants of these cities were artisans and merchants. The second trade route from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea (Vistula-Western Bug-Dniester) and overland trade routes from Russia to the countries of South-Eastern and Central Europe passed through the Galicia-Volyn land. The dependence of the Dniester-Danube downstream land from Galich made it possible to control the European shipping trade route along the Danube with the East.
Galician land until the middle of the XII century. was divided into several small principalities, which in 1141 were united by the prince of Przemysl Vladimir, Volodarevich, who transferred his capital to Galich. The Galician principality reached the highest prosperity and power under his son Yaroslav Osmomysl (1153-1187) - a large statesman of that time, which greatly raised the international prestige of its principality and successfully defended in its policy the general Russian interests in relations with Byzantium and the European states neighboring Russia. The author of "The Lay of Igor's Host" devoted the most pathetic lines to the military power and international authority of Yaroslav Osmomysl. After the death of Osmomysl, the Galician principality became the arena of a long struggle between the princes and the oligarchic aspirations of the local boyars. Boyar land tenure in the Galician land was ahead of princely land in its development and significantly surpassed the latter in its size. The Galician "great boyars", who owned huge estates with their own fortified castle-cities and had numerous military servants-vassals, resorted to conspiracies and revolts against the princes they disliked, entered into an alliance with the Hungarian and Polish feudal lords.
The Volyn land became isolated from Kiev in the middle of the 12th century, having become anchored as a clan "fatherland" for the descendants of the Kiev Grand Duke Izyaslav Mstislavich. Unlike the neighboring Galician land, a large princely domain was formed early in Volyn. Boyar land tenure grew mainly due to princely awards to service boyars, whose support allowed the Volyn princes to begin an active struggle to expand their "homeland". In 1199, the Volyn prince Roman Mstislavich managed for the first time to unite Galicia and Volyn lands, and with his occupation in 1203, g. Kiev, under his rule was the entire South and South-Western Russia - a territory equal to the large European states of that time. The reign of Roman Mstislavich is marked by the consolidation of the all-Russian and international position of Galicia-Volynsk
lands, successes in the fight against the Polovtsy, the fight against the rebellious boyars, the rise of Western Russian cities, crafts and trade. Thus, the conditions were prepared for the flourishing of South-Western Russia during the reign of his son Daniil Romanovich.
The death of Roman Mstislavich in Poland in 1205 led to the temporary loss of the achieved political unity of South-Western Russia, to the weakening of the princely power in it. In the struggle against the princely power, all groups of the Galician boyars united, unleashing a ruinous feudal war that lasted over 30 years.
The boyars entered into an agreement with the Hungarian and
Polish feudal lords who managed to seize Galician land and part of Volyn. In the same years, there was an unprecedented in Russia case of the reign of boyar Vodrdislav Kormilich in Galich. The national liberation struggle against the Hungarian and Polish invaders, which ended in their defeat and exile, served as the basis for the restoration and strengthening of the positions of the princely power. Relying on the support of the cities, the service boyars and the nobility, Daniil Romanovich established himself in Volhynia, and then, having occupied Galich in 1238, and Kiev in 1240, re-united all of Southwestern Russia and the Kiev land.
Novgorod feudal republic
A special political system, different from the reigns-monarchies, took shape in the XII century. in the Novgorod land, one of the most developed Russian lands. The ancient core of the Novgorod-Pskov land was made up of land between Ilmen and Lake Peipsi and along the banks of the Volkhov, Lovati, Velikaya, Mologa and Msta rivers, which were geographically divided into "pyatins", and
in the administrative - on "hundreds" and "graveyards". Novgorod "suburbs" (Pskov, Ladoga, Staraya Russa, Velikiye Luki, Bezhichi, Yuryev, Torzhok) served as important trading posts on trade routes and military strongholds on the borders of the land. The largest suburb that occupied a special in the system of the Novgorod Republic, autonomous position("Younger brother" of Novgorod) was Pskov, which was distinguished by a developed craft and its own trade with the Baltic states, German cities and even with Novgorod itself. In the second half of the XIII century. Pskov actually became an independent feudal republic.
Since the XI century. active Novgorod colonization of Karelia, Podvina, Prionezhie. and the vast northern Pomerania, which became Novgorod colonies, began. Following the peasant colonization (from the Novgorod and Rostov-Suzdal lands) and Novgorodian trade and industrial people, Novgorod feudal lords also advanced there. In the XII - XIII centuries. there already were the largest estates of the Novgorod nobility, who jealously did not allow feudal lords from other principalities to enter these areas and create princely land property there.
In the XII century. Novgorod was one of the largest and most developed cities in Russia. The rise of Novgorod was facilitated by its extremely advantageous location at the beginning of trade routes important for Eastern Europe, connecting the Baltic Sea with the Black and Caspian Seas. This predetermined a significant share of intermediary trade in Novgorod's trade relations with other Russian lands, with the Volga Bulgaria, the Caspian and Black Sea regions, the Baltic states, Scandinavia and northern German cities. Trade in Novgorod relied on handicrafts and various trades developed in the Novgorod land. Novgorod artisans, distinguished by a wide specialization and professional skill, worked mainly to order, but some of their products were supplied to the city market, and through merchants-buyers to foreign markets. Craftsmen and merchants had their own territorial ("street") and professional associations ("hundreds", "brothers"), which played a significant role in the political life of Novgorod. The most influential, uniting the elite of the Novgorod merchants, was the association of merchants-waxers ("Ivanskoe hundred"), who were mainly engaged in foreign trade. The Novgorod boyars also actively participated in foreign trade, in fact, they monopolized the most profitable trade in furs, which they received from their possessions "in Podvinye and Pomorie and from trade and fishing expeditions specially equipped by them to the Pechersk and Yugorsk lands.
Despite the predominance of the trade and craft population in Novgorod, the economy of the Novgorod land was based on agriculture and related industries. Due to unfavorable natural conditions grain farming was unproductive and bread made up a significant part of Novgorod's imports. Grain stocks in the estates were created at the expense of food rent collected from the smerds and were used by feudal lords for speculation in frequent lean years of famine, for entangling the working people in usurious bondages. In a number of regions, peasants, in addition to the usual rural trades, were engaged in the extraction of iron ore and salt.
In the Novgorod land, large boyar and then church land tenure took shape early and became dominant. The specifics of the position of princes in Novgorod, sent from Kiev as princes-governors, excluding the possibility of transforming Novgorod into a principality, did not contribute to the formation of a large princely domain, thereby weakening the position of the princely power in the fight against the oligarchic aspirations of the local boyars. It's already the end! v. Novgorod nobility largely predetermined the candidacies of princes sent from Kiev. So, in 1102, the boyars refused to accept the son of the Kiev Grand Duke Svyatopolk in Novgorod, declaring with a threat to the latter: "If your son has two heads, then you will eat him."
In 1136, the insurgents of Novgorod, supported by the Pskovites and the Ladozhians, expelled Prince Vsevolod Mstislavich, accusing him of “neglecting” the interests of Novgorod. In the Novgorod land that was freed from the power of Kiev, a peculiar political system was established, in which the republican governing bodies stood next to and above the princely power. However, the Novgorod feudal lords needed a prince and his squad to fight the antifeudal demonstrations of the masses and to protect Novgorod from external danger. In the first time after the uprising of 1136, the scope of the rights and activities of the princely power did not change, but they acquired an official-executive character, underwent regulation and were placed under the control of the mayor (primarily in the area of the court, which the prince began to administer together with the mayor). As the political system in Novgorod acquired an increasingly pronounced boyar-oligarchic character, the rights and sphere of activity of the princely power were steadily declining.
The lowest level of organization and management in Novgorod was the unification of neighbors - "caught" with the elected elders at the head. Five urban areas-"ends" formed self-governing territorial-administrative and political units, which also had special konchansk lands in collective feudal ownership. At the ends gathered their veche, electing the Konchansk elders.
The highest authority, representing all the ends, was considered the city veche meeting of free citizens, owners of city courtyards and estates. The bulk of the urban plebs, who lived on the lands and estates of the feudal lords in the position of tenants or enslaving and feudal-dependent people, were not entitled to participate in the passing of veche verdicts, but thanks to the publicity of the veche that gathered on Sophia Square or Yaroslav's courtyard, they could follow the course of the veche debate and with her violent reaction, she often exerted a certain pressure on the veterans. Veche considered the most important issues of domestic and foreign policy, invited the prince and entered into a number with him, elected a mayor who was in charge of administration and court and supervised the activities of the prince, and tysyatsky, who headed the militia and was of particular importance in Novgorod for commercial affairs.
Throughout the history of the Novgorod Republic, only representatives of 30-40 boyar families - the elite of the Novgorod nobility ("300 golden belts"), occupied the posts of mayor, Konchansk elders and tysyatskiy.
In order to further strengthen the independence of Novgorod from Kiev and turn the Novgorod bishopric from an ally of the princely power into one of the instruments of their political domination, the Novgorod nobility managed to achieve the election (since 1156) of the Novgorod bishop, who, as the head of the powerful church feudal hierarchy, became soon in one of the first dignitaries of the republic.
The veche system in Novgorod and Pskov was a kind of feudal "democracy", one of the forms of a feudal state, in which the democratic principles of representation and election of officials at the veche created the illusion of "democracy", participation of "the entire Novgovgorod in government, but where in reality is all the fullness of power was concentrated in the hands of the boyars and the privileged elite of the merchant class. Taking into account the political activity of the city plebs, the boyars skillfully used the democratic traditions of Konchan self-government as a symbol of Novgorodian freedom, which covered up their political domination and provided them with the support of the city plebs in the struggle against the princely power.
Political history of Novgorod in the XII - XIII centuries. It was distinguished by a complex interweaving of the struggle for independence with antifeudal demonstrations of the masses and the struggle for power between the boyar groups (representing the boyar families of the Sofia and Torgovaya sides of the city, its ends and streets). The antifeudal performances of the urban poor were often used by the boyars to remove their rivals from power, dulling the antifeudal nature of these performances before reprisals against individual boyars or officials... The largest anti-feudal movement was the uprising in 1207 against the mayor Dmitry Miroshkinich and his relatives, who burdened the townspeople and peasants with arbitrary extortions and usurious bondage. The rebels destroyed the city estates and villages of Miroshkinichi, and seized their debt bondage. Boyars hostile to the Miroshkinichs took advantage of the uprising to remove them from power.
Novgorod had to wage a stubborn struggle for its independence with neighboring princes, who were trying to subjugate the rich "free" city. The Novgorod boyars skillfully used the rivalry between the princes to choose strong allies among them. At the same time, the rival boyar groups drew the rulers of neighboring principalities into their struggle. The most difficult for Novgorod was the struggle with the Suzdal princes, who enjoyed the support of an influential group of Novgorod boyars and merchants who had trade interests with North-Eastern Russia. An important instrument of political pressure on Novgorod in the hands of the Suzdal princes was the termination of the supply of grain from North-Eastern Russia. The positions of the Suzdal princes in Novgorod significantly strengthened when their military assistance to the Novgorodians and Pskovians became decisive in repelling the aggression of the German Crusaders and Swedish feudal lords, who were striving to seize the western and northern Novgorod territories.
The Kiev principality was still considered the first among other Russian principalities. His prince continued to sing the title of "the great Kiev prince". Kiev has retained the historical glory of the "mother of Russian cities". It also remained the main religious center of the Russian lands. This principality had the largest arable land and many large estates and monastic farms. Thousands of skilled artisans worked in Kiev and the cities of the principality, whose products were famous not only in Russia, but also abroad. The Kiev principality occupied a large territory on the right bank of the Dnieper and almost the entire basin of the river. Pripyat.
But at the same time, since the 1140s. Kiev irrevocably lost control over the Russian lands and turned into one of the Russian principalities, which was less and less reckoned with by its strong neighbors and. The Chernigov-Seversk land did not recognize the power of the Kiev princes over itself. The energetic and power-hungry Rostov-Suzdal prince Yuri Dolgoruky openly pushed the Kiev rulers around. In Novgorod and Smolensk, the boyars themselves, without the knowledge of the Kiev princes, chose their own rulers. Only one condition was preserved without fail - the prince had to be from the Rurik dynasty. This dynasty itself grew and now included dozens of large and small princes, their children and grandchildren.
The water areas of the Dnieper became more and more deserted, the international route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" was dying. On the Dnieper, there were now basically only caravans serving the Russian lands. The Kiev bargaining under the mountain near the Dnieper also became more modest and quieter. Such a multilingual speech was no longer heard here, as it was before.
For the Kiev land, a large one remained in the past: European: politics, grandiose campaigns to the Balkans, to the center of Europe, deep into the Polovtsian steppe. Now, Kiev's foreign policy focused only on the struggle against North-Eastern Russia, with Yuri Dolgoruky and his heirs, and on the previous exhausting struggle with the Polovtsy.
If the Polovtsian danger could be contained, attracting other interested princes to the defense of the Russian borders, then there was no longer the strength to cope with the northeastern neighbor. First, Yuri Dolgoruky took away the Pereyaslavsky principality from Kiev, and then he himself established himself in Kiev and declared himself the great Kiev prince. Thus, for the first time, the northeast took over the south of the Russian lands. This indicated the increased power of Rostov-Suzdal Rus and the fact that the center of Russian statehood was gradually moving to the northeast.
The policy of Yuri Dolgoruky in relation to the Kiev principality was continued by the eldest son of Yuri and the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan Andrei Yurievich (about 1111-1174). He was nicknamed Bogolyubsky, because he spent almost all the time in his new residence in the village. Bogolyubovo, near the city of Vladimir on the river. Klyazma, which became the capital of North-Eastern Russia under him. Since then, the North-Eastern Russian principality began to be called Vladimir-Suzdal, or Vladimir.
Andrei Bogolyubsky did not recognize the power of the Kiev Grand Duke. They were in the 1160s. was one of the descendants of Vladimir Monomakh. The Vladimir-Suzdal prince, together with his allies - other Russian princes, approached Kiev in 1169 and after three days of siege took it by storm. It was historical event... For the first time in its history, Kiev was captured, taken "on the shield" not by the Pechenegs, not by the Polovtsians, but by the Russians themselves. For several days, the victors plundered the city, burned down churches, killed residents and took them prisoner, robbed the houses of wealthy citizens and monasteries. As the chronicler said, there were then in Kiev "groaning and melancholy on all people, inconsolable sadness and incessant tears."
Andrei Bogolyubsky received the title of Grand Duke of Kiev, but he did not rule in Kiev for a single day, and left for Vladimir, dear to his heart. This defeat emphasized that the era of Kiev among other Russian lands is over. Russia began to live according to different laws.
But the storm passed, and Kiev did not disappear from the pages of Russian history. He rebuilt after the fire, restored his economy and continued to live as the capital of a fairly large principality, which, however, lost its leading role. Beautiful stone palaces and temples have been preserved here. The famous St. Sophia of Kiev stood, as before, and the wonderful Golden Gate, erected by Yaroslav the Wise, delighted the eyes of people. Here, in the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, or Kiev-Pechersk Lavra (Greek Laura - the name of the largest male Orthodox monasteries subordinate directly to the patriarch), thousands of pilgrims came every year. All Russian chronicles continued to be created here and at the end of the 12th century. the famous Russian poem "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" appeared.
There were periods in the history of this principality when, under a strong and skillful ruler, it achieved certain successes and partially regained its former authority. This happened at the end of the XII century. under Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich, the grandson of Prince Oleg of Chernigov. In order to preserve his power in the struggle against the Smolensk prince, the pretender to the Kiev throne, Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich agreed that his opponent should also take the Kiev throne. The boyars of Kiev also supported this decision in order to avoid another internecine war. This was a new phenomenon in the history of the Russian lands. But it also did not save from strife. The co-rulers began to fight among themselves. Later, after the death of Svyatoslav, the ruler of the Galicia-Volyn principality Roman Mstislavich (? –1205), great-grandson of Vladimir Monomakh, began to lay claim to the Kiev throne. And again, the princes peacefully divided the Kiev throne, but not for long. The Smolensk prince, together with his allies, the Polovtsy, again took Kiev by storm and brutally plundered it, from this raid the Russian shrines - St. Sophia Cathedral, the Church of the Tithes and the Kiev-Pechersky Monastery - suffered greatly. There was nothing sacred for the Russian princes and their associates in the fierce struggle for power. Roman Mstislavich eventually defeated his rival and annexed the Kiev principality to his possessions in Galich and Volyn. Having the title of the Grand Duke of Kiev, he continued to rule in his land.
For the author of The Lay of Igor's Regiment, the Kiev principality was the first among all Russian principalities. He takes a sober view of the world of his day and no longer considers Kiev to be the capital of Rus. The Grand Duke of Kiev does not order other princes, but asks them to join "the golden stirrups ... for the Russian land", and sometimes asks: "Do you think to fly here from afar to guard the father's golden throne?" As he turned to Vsevolod Big Nest.
The author of the "Lay" has great respect for sovereign sovereigns, princes of other lands, and does not at all suggest redrawing political map Rus. When he speaks of unity, he means only what was quite real then: a military alliance against the "nasty", a single defense system, a single plan for a distant raid into the steppe. But the author of the Lay does not claim the hegemony of Kiev, since long ago Kiev turned from the capital of Rus into the capital of one of the principalities and was on almost equal terms with such cities as Galich, Chernigov, Vladimir on the Klyazma, Novgorod, Smolensk. Kiev was distinguished from these cities only by its historical glory and the position of the ecclesiastical center of all Russian lands.
Until the middle of the 12th century, the Kiev principality occupied significant areas on the right bank of the Dnieper: almost the entire Pripyat basin and the Teterev, Irpen and Ros basins. Only later did Pinsk and Turov isolate themselves from Kiev, and the lands west of Goryn and Sluch went to the Volyn land.
A feature of the Kiev principality was a large number of old boyar estates with fortified castles, concentrated in the old land of the glades to the south of Kiev. To protect these estates from the Polovtsy, as early as the 11th century, significant masses of nomads expelled by the Polovtsians from the steppes were settled along the Ros River (in the "Porosie"): the Torks, Pechenegs and Berendeys, united in the 12th century by a common name - Black Klobuki. They, as it were, anticipated the future border noble cavalry and carried border service in the vast steppe space between the Dnieper, Stugna and Ros. On the banks of the Ros, cities arose inhabited by the black nobility (Yuriev, Torchesk, Korsun, Dveren, etc.). Defending Russia from the Polovtsians, the Torks and Berendeys gradually adopted the Russian language, Russian culture and even the Russian epic epic.
The capital of the semi-autonomous Poros was either Kanev or Torchesk, a huge city with two fortresses on the northern bank of the Ros.
Black Klobuki played an important role in the political life of Russia in the 12th century and often influenced the choice of a particular prince. There have been cases when the Black Klobuki proudly declared to one of the pretenders to the Kiev throne: "We have both good and evil in us, prince," that is, that the achievement of the grand princely throne depends on them, border horsemen who are constantly ready for battle, located two days away. paths from the capital.
For half a century that separates "The Lay of Igor's Regiment" from the time of Monomakh, the Kiev principality lived a difficult life.
In 1132, after the death of Mstislav the Great, the Russian principalities began to fall away from Kiev one after another: either Yuri Dolgoruky would come from Suzdal to seize the Pereyaslavsk principality, then the neighboring Chernigov Vsevolod Olgovich, together with his Polovtsy friends, "went to fight villages and towns ... and people cut even before Kiev comes ... ".
Facial image of the Grand Duke Mstislav Vladimirovich. Titular book. 1672 g.
Novgorod was finally freed from the power of Kiev. The Rostov-Suzdal land was already acting independently. Smolensk accepted princes of its own accord. In Galich, Polotsk, Turov there were their special princes. The outlook of the Kiev chronicler narrowed to the Kiev-Cher-Nigov conflicts, in which, however, the Byzantine prince, and the Hungarian troops, and the Berendei, and the Polovtsy took part.
After the death of the unlucky Yaropolk in 1139, an even more unlucky Vyacheslav sat down on the Kiev table, but lasted only eight days - he was kicked out by Vsevolod Olgovich, the son of Oleg "Gorislavich".
The Kiev Chronicle depicts Vsevolod and his brothers as cunning, greedy and crooked people. The Grand Duke continually led intrigues, quarreled relatives, bestowed distant destinies in bearish corners to dangerous rivals in order to remove them from Kiev.
An attempt to return Novgorod was not crowned with success, since the Novgorodians expelled Svyatoslav Olgovich "about his malice", "about his violence."
Igor and Svyatoslav Olgovichi, brothers of Vsevolod, were unhappy with him, and all six years of the reign were spent in mutual struggle, violations of the oath, conspiracies and reconciliation. Of the major events, the stubborn struggle between Kiev and Galich in 1144-1146 can be noted.
Vsevolod did not enjoy the sympathy of the Kiev boyars; This was reflected both in the annals and in the characterization that VN Tatishchev took from sources unknown to us: “This great prince, the husband, was tall and fat velma, had few Vlasov on his head, a broad band, large eyes, and a long nose. Wise (cunning - BR) was in the councils and courts, for whoever he wanted, he could justify or accuse him. He had many concubines and more in fun than in punishment. Because of this, the people of Kiev were a great burden to him. And as he died, hardly anyone for him, except for his beloved women, wept, and they were more happy. But moreover ... the burdens from Igor (his brother. - BR), knowing his fierce and proud disposition, were feared. "
The main character"Words about Igor's regiment" - Svyatoslav Kievsky - was the son of this Vsevolod. Vsevolod died in 1146. Subsequent events clearly showed that the main force in the principality of Kiev, as well as in Novgorod and in other lands at that time, was the boyars.
Vsevolod's successor, his brother Igor, the very prince of a fierce disposition, whom the people of Kiev feared so much, was forced to swear allegiance to them at the veche "in all their will." But the new prince had not yet had time to leave the veche meeting to his place for dinner, when the "Kiyans" rushed to smash the courtyards of the hated tiuns and swordsmen, which reminded the events of 1113.
The leaders of the Kiev boyars, Uleb tysyatsky and Ivan Voitishich, secretly sent an embassy to Prince Izyaslav Mstislavich, the grandson of Monomakh, in Pere-Yaslavl with an invitation to reign in Kiev, and when he with troops approached the walls of the city, the boyars threw down their banner and, as it was agreed, surrendered to him. Igor was tonsured a monk and exiled to Pereyaslavl. A new stage of the struggle between the Monomashiches and the Olgoviches began.
The clever Kiev historian of the late 12th century, Abbot Moses, who possessed a whole library of chronicles of various principalities, compiled a description of these turbulent years (1146-1154) from excerpts from the personal chronicles of the warring princes. The result is a very interesting picture: one and the same event is described from different points of view, one and the same act was described by one chronicler as a good deed inspired by God, and by the other as the intrigues of the "all-evil devil."
The chronicler Svyatoslav Olgovich carefully conducted all the economic affairs of his prince and, with each victory of his enemies, meticulously listed how many horses and mares the enemies had stolen, how many haystacks were burnt, what utensils were taken from the church and how many pots of wine and honey stood in the prince's cellar.
Particularly interesting is the chronicler of the Grand Duke Izyaslav Mstislavich (1146-1154). This is a man who knew military affairs well, participated in campaigns and military councils, carried out diplomatic assignments of his prince. In all likelihood, this is a boyar, a Kiev tysyatsky Pyotr Borislavich, mentioned many times in the annals. He leads, as it were, a political account of his prince and tries to put him in the most favorable light, to show him as a good commander, an administrative ruler, a caring suzerain. Exalting his prince, he skillfully denigrates all his enemies, showing an outstanding literary talent.
To document his chronicle-report, intended, obviously, for influential prince-boyar circles, Pyotr Borislavich made extensive use of the genuine correspondence of his prince with other princes, Kievans, the Hungarian king and his vassals. He also used the minutes of the princely congresses and the diaries of the campaigns. Only in one case does he disagree with the prince and begin to condemn him - when Izyaslav acts against the will of the Kiev boyars.
The reign of Izyaslav was filled with a struggle with the Olgovichi, with Yuri Dolgoruky, who twice managed to seize Kiev for a short time.
In the course of this struggle, Prince Igor Olgovich, a prisoner of Izyaslav (1147), was killed in Kiev by the verdict of the veche.
In 1157, Yuri Dolgoruky died in Kiev. It is believed that the Suzdal prince, unloved in Kiev, was poisoned.
During these strife in the middle of the 12th century, the future heroes of The Lay of Igor's Regiment, Svyatoslav Vsevolodich and his cousin Igor Svyatoslavich, are repeatedly mentioned. For the time being, these are third-rate young princes who went into battle in the vanguard detachments, received small cities as their inheritance and "kissed the cross at all their will" senior princes. Somewhat later, they are consolidated in large cities: since 1164 Svyatoslav in Chernigov, and Igor in Novgoro de Seversky. In 1180, not long before the events described in the Lay, Svyatoslav became the Grand Duke of Kiev.
Treasure with hryvnia money bars
Due to the fact that Kiev was often a bone of contention between princes, the Kiev boyars entered into a "row" with the princes and introduced an interesting system of duumvirate, which lasted the entire second half of the 12th century.
Izyaslav Mstislavich and his uncle Vyacheslav Vladimirovich, Svyatoslav Vsevolodich and Rurik Rostislavich were duumvir-co-rulers. The meaning of this original measure was that representatives of two warring princely branches were simultaneously invited and thereby partly eliminated strife and established a relative balance. One of the princes, who was considered the eldest, lived in Kiev, and the other in Vyshgorod or Belgorod (he was in charge of the land). On campaigns they acted together and conducted diplomatic correspondence in concert.
The foreign policy of the Kiev principality was sometimes determined by the interests of one or another prince, but, in addition, there were two constant areas of struggle that required daily readiness. The first and foremost is, of course, the Polovtsian steppe, where feudal khanates were created in the second half of the 12th century, uniting separate tribes. Usually Kiev coordinated its defensive actions with Pereyaslavl (which was in the possession of the Rostov-Suzdal princes), and thus a more or less unified line of Ros - Sula was created. In this regard, the importance of the headquarters of such a general defense passed from Belgorod to Kanev. The southern border outposts of the Kiev land, located in the 10th century on Stugna and Sula, now moved down the Dnieper to Orel and Sneiporod-Samara.
The second direction of the struggle was the Vladimir-Suzdal principality. Since the time of Yuri Dolgoruky, the northeastern princes, liberated by their geographical position from the need to wage a constant war with the Polovtsy, directed their military forces to subjugate Kiev, using the border principality of Pereyaslav for this purpose. The arrogant tone of the Vladimir chroniclers sometimes misled historians, and they sometimes thought that Kiev had completely died out at that time. Particular importance was attached to the campaign of Andrey Bogolyubsky, son of Dolgoruky, to Kiev in 1169.
The Kiev chronicler, who witnessed the three-day plunder of the city by the victors, described this event so colorfully that he created an idea of some kind of catastrophe. In fact, Kiev continued to live a full-blooded life as the capital of a rich principality after 1169. Here churches were built, an all-Russian chronicle was written, the "Lay of Igor's Campaign" was created, which was incompatible with the concept of decline.
The Kiev prince Svyatoslav Vsevolodich (1180-1194) is characterized by Slovo as a talented commander.
His cousins, Igor and Vsevolod Svyatoslavich, with their haste awakened the evil that Svyatoslav, their feudal overlord, had recently managed to cope with:
Svyatoslav the formidable great Kievskiy thunderstorm Byashet frayed with his strong regiments and haraluzhny swords;
Step on the Polovtsian land;
Pritopta hills and yaruga;
Rip up rivers and lakes;
Dry streams and swamps.
And the filthy Kobyak from the onion of the sea
From the great iron regiments of the Polovtsian,
Like a whirlwind, vomited:
And everywhere Kobyak in the city of Kiev,
Svyatoslavli in the gridnitsa.
Tu Nemtsi and Venedizi, Tu Greece and Morava
They sing the glory of Svyatoslavl,
Prince Igor's cabin ...
The poet here was referring to the victorious campaign of the united Russian forces against Khan Kobyak in 1183.
Svyatoslav's co-ruler was, as said, Rurik Rostislavich, who reigned in the "Russian land" from 1180 to 1202, and then became for some time the Grand Duke of Kiev.
"The word about Igor's regiment" is entirely on the side of Svyatoslav Vsevolodich and says very little about Rurik. The chronicle, on the contrary, was in the sphere of influence of Rurik. Therefore, the activities of the duumvirs are biasedly illuminated by sources. We know about the conflicts and disagreements between them, but we also know that Kiev at the end of the XII century experienced a flourishing era and even tried to play the role of an all-Russian cultural center.
This is evidenced by the Kiev annalistic collection of 1198, Abbot Moses, which, together with the Galician chronicle of the 13th century, entered the so-called Ipatiev Chronicle.
The Kiev vault gives a broad idea of the different Russian lands in the XII century, using a number of chronicles of individual principalities. It opens with the "Tale of Bygone Years", which tells about the early history of all Russia, and ends with the recording of Moses' solemn speech about the construction of a wall at the expense of Prince Rurik to strengthen the bank of the Dnieper. The orator, who prepared his work for collective performance "with a single mouth" (cantata?), Calls the Grand Duke a tsar, and his principality calls him "an autocratic state ... known not only in the Russian borders, but also in distant overseas countries, to the end of the universe."
Mosaic image of the prophet. XI century Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev
After the death of Svyatoslav, when Rurik began to reign in Kiev, his son-in-law Roman Mstislavich Volynsky (great-great-grandson of Monomakh) became his co-ruler in the "Russian land", that is, the southern Kiev region. He received the best lands with the cities of Trepol, Torcheskiy, Kanev and others, which made up half of the principality.
However, Vsevolod Bolshoye Gnezdo, the prince of the Suzdach land, envied this "lefty volost", who wanted to be in some form an accomplice in the management of the Kiev region. A long-term enmity began between Rurik, who supported Vsevolod, and the offended Roman Volynsky. As always, the Olgovichi, Poland, and Galich were quickly drawn into strife. The matter ended with the fact that Roman was supported by many cities, Black Klobuki, and finally in 1202 "opened the gates for him".
In the very first year of the great reign, Roman organized a campaign into the depths of the Polovtsian steppe "and taking even more human and bringing a lot of people and souls of the Peasants are full of them (from the Polovtsy. - BR), and joy was great in the lands of Russia" ...
Rurik did not remain in debt and on January 2, 1203, in an alliance with the Olgovichi and "all the Polovtsian land" took Kiev. "And a great evil was done in the Russty of the earth, as there was no evil from the baptism over Kyev ...
Podillya took and burned; ino took the Mountain and the Metropolitan Saint Sophia plundered and the Tithe (Church) ... once the grabisha and monasteries are all and odrash icons ... then polo-zhisha all sobe is full. "Further it is said that Rurik's allies - Polovtsy hacked all the old monks, priests and nuns, and young matresses, wives and daughters of the Kievites were taken to their encampments.
Obviously, Rurik did not hope to gain a foothold in Kiev, if he so robbed him, and went to his own castle in Ovruch.
In the same year, after a joint campaign against the Polovtsy in Trepol, Roman captured Rurik and tonsured his entire family (including his own wife, Rurik's daughter) as monks. But Roman did not rule in Kiev for long, in 1205 he was killed by the Poles when, while hunting in his western possessions, he drove too far from his squads.
Poetic lines of the chronicle, which have come down to us, unfortunately, only partially, are associated with Roman Mstislavich. The author calls him the autocrat of all Russia, praises his intelligence and courage, noting especially his struggle with the Polovtsians: past their land, like the eagle; chrobor bo be, like and tour. " Regarding Roman's Polovtsian campaigns, the chronicler recalls Vladimir Monomakh and his victorious struggle with the Polovtsians. The epics with the name of Roman have also survived.
One of the chronicles that have not come down to us, used by V. N. Tatishchev, provides extremely interesting information about Roman Mstislavich. As if after the forcible tonsure of Rurik and his family, Roman announced to all Russian princes that his father-in-law would be overthrown by him from the throne for violating the treaty.
What follows is a summary of Roman's views on political structure Rus in the XIII century: the Kiev prince must "defend the Russian land from everywhere, and maintain good order in the brethren, the Russian princes, so that one cannot offend the other and run into other people's regions and ruin them." The novel accuses the younger princes who are trying to seize Kiev without having the strength to defend themselves, and those princes who "bring in the filthy Polovtsy."
Then a draft of the election of a Kiev prince in the event of the death of his predecessor is presented. Six princes should be elected: Suzdal, Chernigov, Galician, Smolensk, Polotsk, Ryazan; "The younger princes are not required for that election." These six principalities should be inherited by the eldest son, but not split into parts, "so that the Russian land is not diminished in strength." Roman proposed to convene a princely congress to approve this order.
It is difficult to say how reliable this information is, but under the conditions of 1203, such an order, if it could be implemented, would represent a positive phenomenon. However, it is worth remembering the good wishes on the eve of the Lyubech Congress of 1097, its good decisions and the tragic events that followed.
V.N.Tatishchev retains the characteristics of Roman and his rival Rurik:
"This Roman Mstislavich, the grandson of Izyaslavov, was not very tall, but broad and overly strong; his face was red, his eyes were black, his nose was great with a hump, his hair was black and short; the Velmi Yar was in anger; he could utter words for a long time; he had a lot of fun with the nobles, but he was never drunk. He loved many wives, but not one owned them. The warrior was brave and cunning in organizing regiments ... He spent his whole life in wars, he received many victories, once. - BR) was defeated. "
Rurik Rostislavich is characterized in a different way. It is said that he was in the great reign for 37 years, but during this time he was expelled six times and “suffered a lot, having no rest from nowhere. over the cities, the rulers repaired a lot of burdens for the people, for this reason he had very little love among the people and had respect from the princes. "
Obviously, these characteristics, full of medieval juiciness, were made by some Galician-Volyn or Kiev chronicler who sympathized with Roman.
It is interesting to note that Roman is the last of the Russian princes sung by epics; the book and popular assessments coincided, which happened very rarely: the people very carefully selected heroes for their epic fund.
Roman Mstislavich and "wise-loving" Rurik Rostislavich are the last bright figures in the list of Kiev princes of the XII-XIII centuries. Next come the weak rulers, who have not left a memory either in the annals or in folk songs.
The strife around Kiev continued even in those years when a new unprecedented danger hung over Russia - the Tatar-Mongol invasion. During the time from the Battle of Kalka in 1223 to the arrival of Batu near Kiev in 1240, many princes were replaced, there were many battles over Kiev. In 1238, the Kiev prince Mikhail fled, fearing the Tatars, to Hungary, and in the terrible year of Batu's parish, he collected feudal dues donated to him in the principality of Daniel Galitsky: wheat, honey, "beef" and sheep.
"Mother of Russian cities" - Kiev has lived a bright life for a number of centuries, but in the last three decades of its pre-Mongol history, the negative features of feudal fragmentation, which actually led to the dismemberment of the Kiev principality into a number of appanages, were too evident.
The singer of "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" could not stop the historical process with his inspired stanzas.
Chernigov and Seversky principality
The Chernigov and Seversk princedoms, like the Kiev and Pereyaslavs, were parts of the ancient "Russian land", the original core of Russia, which was formed in the 6th-7th centuries, but retained its name for a long time.
The Seversk land with Novgorod on the Desna, Pu-tivl, Rylsk, Kursk on the Seim and the Donets (near modern Kharkov) did not immediately separate from the Chernigov land; this happened only in the 1140-1150s, but their connection was felt in the future. Both principalities were in the hands of the Olgovichi. Perhaps Svyatoslav Vsevolodich of Kiev was therefore considered in the "Lay of Igor's Regiment" as a suzerain of both the Chernigov and Seversky princes, that he was the grandson of Oleg Svyatoslavich, that is, direct Ol'govich and the oldest of them. Before coming to Kiev, he was the Grand Duke of Chernigov and, having become a Kiev prince, often traveled to Chernigov, then to Lyubech, then to distant Karachev.
The Chernigov principality owned the lands of the Radimichs and Vyatichs; the north-eastern border of the principality reached almost to Moscow. Even distant Ryazan stretched towards Chernigov in dynastic and ecclesiastical terms.
The southern connections of Chernigov with the Polovtsian steppe and the seaside Tmutarakan were especially important. The Cher-Nigovo-Seversk lands in a large area were open to the steppes; here border defensive lines were built, defeated nomads settled here, driven from good pastures by new masters - the Polovtsians.
The border principality of Kursk, which withstood many Polovtsian raids, became something like the later Cossack regions, where constant danger brought up brave and experienced warriors "kmetey". Bui Tour Vsevolod says to Igor:
And my ti Kuryani - take note of:
Poviti under the chimneys, nourish under the helmets,
End copy of feeding;
Lead their paths, you know them,
Luci they have tension, tulle openings,
Sharp sabers;
Skip themselves, like a gray wolf in the field,
Seek honor for yourself, and glory for the prince.
The Chernigov princes, starting with "the brave Mstislav, who is like Rededyu before the Kasozh regiments" and until the beginning of the 12th century, owned Tmutarakan (modern Taman) - an ancient city near the Kerch Strait, a large international port in which Greeks, Russians, Khazars, Armenians lived, Jews, Adyghe.
Medieval geographers, calculating the lengths of the Black Sea routes, often took Tmutarakan as one of the main points of reference.
By the middle of the XII century, the ties between Tmutarakan and Chernigov were cut off, and this seaport passed into the hands of the Polovtsi, which explains Igor's desire
Seek the city of Darkness,
And the Don was drunk with love, that is, to renew the old paths to the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Crimea and Byzantium. If Kiev owned the Dnieper route "from the Greeks to the Varangians", then Chernigov possessed its own roads to the blue sea; only these roads were too firmly closed by the nomads of several Polovtsian tribes.
If the Kiev princes widely used the Black Klobuki as a barrier from the Polovtsy, then the Chernigov Olgovichi had "their own nasty".
In the "golden word" Svyatoslav reproaches his brother Yaroslav of Chernigov that he avoided a general campaign against the Polovtsy and only took up the defense of his land:
And I no longer see the power of the strong and rich
And many of my brother Yaroslav
With Chernigov byli,
From may and from tatrans,
From the shelbir, and from the treadmill,
And from the roar, and from the olber;
Tii bo devil shield, with spade shoots
With a click, the regiments win
Call your great-grandfather.
It is possible that here they mean some kind of Turkic-speaking squads, a very long time ago, since the time of the "great-grandfathers", who ended up in the Chernigov region; maybe these are the Turkic-Bulgarians or some tribes brought by Mstislav from the Caucasus at the beginning of the 11th century.
The Chernigov principality, in essence, separated from Kievan Rus in the second half of the 11th century and only temporarily under Monomakh was in vassal subordination to the Kiev prince. Unexpected proof that the Chernigov princes considered themselves equal to those of Kiev in the 12th century were excavated in the capital of the Golden Horde, in Sarai, where a huge silver health charm was found with the inscription: "And the charm of Grand Duke Volodymer Davydovich ..." Vladimir was a Chernigov prince in 1140-1151 in co-government with his younger brother Izyaslav (died in 1161).
The geographical position, family ties of the princes and the long tradition of friendship with nomads made the Chernigov principality a kind of wedge that cut into the rest of the Russian lands; inside the wedge, the Polovtsy invited by the Olgovichs often ruled. For this they did not like Oleg Svyatoslavich himself, his sons Vsevolod and Svyatoslav; for this, the third son, Igor Olgovich, was killed in Kiev. Oleg's grandson, the hero of "The Lay of Igor's Regiment" - Igor Svyatoslavich - at one time was connected by friendship with none other than Konchak.
Igor was born in 1150 (during the famous campaign he was only 35 years old) and in 1178 became the prince of Novgorod-Seversky. In 1180, along with the Polovtsy, he, along with the other Olgovichi, went far into the depths of the Smolensk principality and gave battle to David Rostislavichu near Drutsk. Then Igor, together with Konchak and Ko-byak, moved to Kiev, and they won the great reign for Svyatoslav Vsevolodich. Igor, who led the Polovtsian troops, guarded the Dnieper, but Rurik Rostislavich, driven out of Kiev by them, defeated the Polovtsians. "Igor, seeing the Polovtsian, fled, and tacos with Konchak jumped into the boat, running to Gorodets to Chernigov."
And three years later, Igor is already fighting against the Polovtsy, against the same Konchak, who attacked Russia. In this campaign, Igor fell out with Vladimir Pereyaslavsky over which of them should travel "in advance." It was not about military glory, but about the fact that the vanguard units were seizing large booty. Angry Vladimir turned the shelves and plundered Igor's Seversk principality.
In 1183, Igor had the idea of separate campaigns against the Polovtsians. Kiev, Pereyaslavl, Volyn and Galician troops defeated Kobyak and many other khans on the Orel River, near the Dnieper rapids. The Olgovichi refused to participate in this campaign, but Igor, having learned that the main forces of the Polovtsian land were defeated far from his principality, undertook, together with his brother Vsevolod, a campaign to the Polovtsian encampments along the Merlu River, not far from the city of Donets. The trip was successful.
The year 1185, full of major events, came. In early spring the "accursed and damned" Konchak moved to Russia. The Chernigov princes maintained friendly neutrality, sending their boyar to Konchak.
Igor Svyatoslavich Seversky did not participate in this campaign, but the chronicler tried to shield him, reporting that a messenger from Kiev came late and that the squad in the boyar duma dissuaded the prince.
In April Svyatoslav won another victory over the Polovtsians: their vezhes were taken, many prisoners and horses.
Igor, having learned about this, supposedly said to his vassals: "But are we not princes, are we? Let's go on a campaign and gain glory for ourselves, too!" The hike began on April 23rd. On May 1, 1185, when the troops approached the Russian borders, there was a solar eclipse, widely used in the "Lay of Igor's Campaign" as a poetic image:
The sun stepped in his way with darkness;
Nosh, moaning to him with a thunderstorm, lose the bird;
The whistle of the beast stands.
White stone carved capitals (Borisoglebsk Cathedral, 12th century)
Igor ignored the warning "signs" of nature and moved to the steppe south of the Seversky Donets towards the Sea of Azov. On Friday, May 10, the troops met with the first Polovtsian nomad, the male population of which "everything from young to old" overshadowed the wagon, but was defeated.
Sunrise on Friday (Friday. - B.R.)
Trample the filthy Polovtsian regiments,
And dying with arrows across the field,
Come to the chase of the Polovtsian girls,
And with them gold, and pavoloks, and dragyya oxamites.
The next day, Konchak arrived here with the combined Polovtsian forces and surrounded the "Olga's good nest". A terrible three-day slaughter on the banks of the Kayala ended with the complete destruction of the Russian forces: Igor and some of the princes and boyars were taken prisoner (they wanted to get a huge ransom for them), 15 people slipped out of the encirclement, and all the rest died in the "unknown field, among the Polovtsian land" ...
That bloody wine is not enough;
Tu feast of the end of the courage of the rusichi
Matchmakers popoisha, and themselves polegosha for Ruska land.
After the victory, the Polovtsian regiments moved to Russia in three directions: to the depopulated principalities of Igor and Bui Tura Vsevolod, to Pereyaslavl and to Kiev itself, where Konchak was attracted by memories of Khan Bo-nyak, knocking with a saber at the Golden Gate of Kiev.
At the time of Igor's campaign, the Kiev prince Svyatoslav peacefully circled his old Chernigov domain, and only when the grand duke sailed in boats to Chernigov, a member of the unfortunate "Igor's regiment" who escaped from the encirclement, Belovolod Prosovich, got here. He told about the tragedy on the banks of the Kayala and that Igor's defeat "opened the gates to the Rus land."
Presumably, after the news received in Chernigov, the Grand Duke did not continue sailing along the winding Desna, but, remembering the swift ride of Monomakh, rushed to Kiev on horseback at a speed "from Matins to Vespers."
The defense strategy was as follows: Svyatoslav's son Oleg with the voivode Tudor was immediately sent to repel the Polovtsians from the banks of the Seim (in the principality of the captive Igor), Dolgoruky's grandson Vladimir Glebovich was already fighting with them in Pereyaslavl, and the main forces began to "guard Ruskoe land" on the Dnieper near Kanev , guarding Ros and the strategically important Zarubinsky ford, which connected it with the Pereyaslavl left bank.
The whole summer of 1185 was spent on such a confrontation with the Polovtsy; The chronicle informs about the arrival of troops from Smolensk, and about the exchange of messengers with Pereyaslavl and Trepole, and about the internal maneuvers of the Polovtsians, who groped for weaknesses in the six hundred-kilometer Russian defense, organized hastily, in the most difficult conditions.
The need for new forces, for the participation of distant principalities, was great all summer. But, perhaps, the need was felt even more for the unity of all Russian forces, even those that had already come under the banner of the Kiev prince.
Pyatnitskaya church in Chernigov. Restored by P.R.Baranovsky. A sample of a new building directed upwards. The turn of the XII - XIII centuries.
The princes reluctantly opposed the Polovtsians. Yaroslav of Chernigov gathered troops, but did not move to unite with Svyatoslav, for which he deserved condemnation in the "golden word". Davyd Rostislavich Smolensky led his regiments to the Kiev region, but stood in the rear of the Kiev regiments, at Trepol, at the mouth of the Stugna, and refused to go further.
And at this time Konchak laid siege to Pereyaslavl; Prince Vladimir barely escaped from the battle, wounded by three spears. "Behold me, but help me!" - he sent to tell Svyatoslav.
Svyatoslav and his co-ruler Rurik Rostislavich could not immediately move their forces, since Davyd Smolensky was preparing to return home. The Smolensk regiments organized a veche and declared that they had agreed to go only as far as Kiev, that there was no battle now, and they could not participate in the further campaign: "they were already exhausted."
While this unworthy bargaining was going on with Davyd, Konchak attacked Rimov on Sula and the Polovtsy hacked or killed all its inhabitants.
Svyatoslav and Rurik, who went to the aid of Perey-glorify and Rimov, were delayed because of David's "king-size". The death of Rimov's chronicle directly connects with the fact that the Russian forces "are late, expecting Davyd are filled up."
When the combined regiments of Svyatoslav and Rurik crossed the Dnieper in order to drive off Konchak, Davyd left Trepol and turned back his Smolensk troops.
The author of "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" writes about this with great bitterness. He remembered the ancient princes, regretted that old Vladimir (Svyatoslavich) could not be left forever here, on the Kiev mountains, said about how Russia groans, because "now there are Rurik's banners, and next to him is his brother Davyd, but - their bunchuk flutter differently, but their spears sing differently. "
It is no coincidence that the poet remembered old Vladimir - after all, it was here, on the banks of the Stugna, where the betrayal of the Smolensk prince took place, two centuries ago Vladimir Svyatoslavich set up a chain of his heroic outposts. The author's thought persistently returns to this river: when describing Igor's escape, recalling the death of Monomakh's brother in 1093 in the waters of the Stugna, he opposes it to the Donets, "cherishing the prince on the waves":
Prince Igor. Hawthorns and children. Sketch of costumes. N.K. Roerich
Not like that, speeches, the Stugna river;
Having a thin stream, devour foreign streams and plows,
Rostrene to the mouth,
I take away Prince Rostislav shut ...
One might think that the author of the Lay, while under his prince Svyatoslav, spent this formidable summer of 1185 in the camp of Russian troops between Kanev and Trepol, between Ros and Stugna, witnessed the arrival of messengers from besieged cities, and the dispatch of messengers for new ones. " help ", and Davyd's cowardly treachery at Trepol on Stugna.
Was it not during these months of "confrontation", when it was necessary to find special inspired words to unite the Russian forces, to attract the princes of distant lands to the defense, and a wonderful "golden word" took shape? Indeed, in this section of "Words about Igor's Regiment", ending with the words about the treason of Yes-vyd, there is not a single fact that would go beyond the chronological framework of those few months when Svyatoslav and Rurik held their defenses on the Dnieper from Vitichevsky ford to Zarubinsky, from Trepol to Kanev. Was it not from Kanev's inaccessible heights, full of pagan antiquity, that the author of The Lay of Igor's Host was looking at Russia and the steppe at that time?
He deeply regretted the death of the Russians and could not resist bitter reproaches against Igor. Igor is not a hero of the Lay, but only a pretext for writing a patriotic appeal, the meaning of which is not limited to the events of 1185.
In the spring of 1186, Igor had already escaped from captivity: for 11 days he wandered along secluded river thickets and finally returned to his homeland.
In 1199, after the death of Yaroslav, Igor Svyatoslavich became the Grand Duke of Chernigov and in recent years managed to start his own chronicle, which fell into the Kiev vault. Here Igor is represented as a very noble prince, constantly thinking about the welfare of the Russian land. Igor died in 1202. His sons, who ended up in the Galician land, pursued a steep anti-boyar policy, killed about 500 noble boyars and were eventually hanged in Galich in 1208.
The further history of the Chernigov-Seversk land is not of particular interest. The multiplying Ol'govichi still willingly took part in strife and gradually divided the land into several small lands. In 1234, Chernigov withstood a heavy siege by the troops of Daniil Galitsky: "Fiercely fight at Chernigov; auger and battering ram on n 'stabsha, metash with a stone and one and a half shots.
In 1239, Chernigov, along with the entire Left Bank, was taken by the army of the Tatars.
Galicia-Volyn lands
In the most solemn form, the author of "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" makes an appeal to the Galician prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich, defining with his inherent genius in several lines the important role of the rich and flourishing Galician principality:
Galichki Osmomysl Yaroslav!
Sit high on your gold-forged table
Supported by the Ugorsk mountains (Carpathians - B.R.)
With their iron regiments,
Having entered the path of the queen,
Having closed the gates of the Danube,
Sword burdens through the clouds,
Courts line up to the Danube.
Your thunderstorms flow through the lands:
Having opened the gates to Kiev;
Shoot from taking away the gold of the Saltani table for the lands.
Shoot, lord, Konchak, the filthy koshchei,
For the Ruska land, for the wounds of Igor, the buoy Svyatoslavlich!
The reader or listener of the poem vividly imagined a powerful Western Russian state leaning on the Carpathians and the Danube on one side and stretching out its imperious hand in the other direction, to Kiev and to the Polovtsian "sultans". The lines accurately reflected the rapid rise of the Galician principality, which grew up on the site of the inheritance of the secondary princes exiled and fled here from the 11th - early 12th centuries.
Less pompously, but also respectfully greeted by the author of the "Lay" of the Volyn princes and especially the famous Roman Mstislavich, who "hovers like a falcon high above the earth." He and his vassals have "iron paporsi (breastplates. - BR) under Latin helmets", and his armored regiments defeat both the Polovtsians and the Lithuanians. Mentioned here are the minor princes of the small principality of Lutsk - Ingvar and Vsevolod Yaroslavichi. All Volyn princes, great-great-grandsons of Monomakh, the poet calls on: "Barrier the field (to the steppe people - BR) the gates with your sharp arrows for the Russian land, for the wounds of Igor."
In the history of the Galicia-Volyn lands, we see the movement of the historical center: in ancient times, the Duleb tribal union, located at the junction of the East and West Slavic tribes of the Carpathian and Volyn regions, was in the first place. In the 6th century, this union of tribes was defeated by the Avars, the old tribal center - Volhynia - stalled, and Vladimir Volynsky became the center of these lands, bearing the name of Vladimir Svyatoslavich, who paid great attention to the Western Russian lands.
Fertile soil, mild climate, relative safety from nomads made the fertile land of Volyn one of the richest in Russia. Feudal relations are developing very intensively here and a strong boyar stratum is formed. Here such cities as Przemysl, Lutsk, Terebovl, Cherven, Holm, Berestye, Drogichin appeared. For a long time we do not find anything in the annals of Galich. But in the XII century Galich from a small appanage town of secondary princes quickly turns into the capital of a significant principality that arose on the lands of such Slavic tribes as the White Croats, Tivertsy and Ulichi. At the turn of the XII-XIII centuries, Roman Mstislavich Volynsky united the Galician land and Volhynia into one large state that survived the Tatar-Mongol invasion and existed until the XIV century. This is the outline of the history of Western Russia.
Western Russian princes tried to conduct an independent policy towards Kiev as early as the 11th century, for example, Vasilko Rostislavich Terebovlskiy, blinded after the Lyubech Congress, his brother Volodar, Prince Przemyslskiy, and their enemy Davyd Igorevich Volynskiy, and then Dorogobuzhskiy.
The last representative of the small outcast princes was Ivan Rostislavich Berladnik, the grandson of Volodar, whose biography is full of various adventures. In 1144 he reigned in small Zvenigorod (north of Galich), and the Galicians, taking advantage of the fact that their prince Vladimir Volodarevich was far away on the hunt, invited Ivan and "brought him to Galich." When Vladimir laid siege to Galich, the whole city defended Ivan, but in the end he had to flee to the Danube, and Vladimir, entering the city, "many people are gone." On the Danube, Ivan Rostislavich was in the Berladi region and received the nickname Berladnik.
In 1156, we see Berladnik in the Vyatichi forests, where for 12 hryvnias of gold and 200 hryvnias of silver he serves the unfortunate ally of Yuri Dolgoruky - Svyatoslav Olgovich. Then he moved to another camp, and immediately Yuri Dolgoruky became interested in his fate, who managed to seize him and imprison him in Suzdal, and at the other end of Russia, in Galich, Yaroslav Osmomysl, who remembered Berladnik's enmity with his father. He sends a whole army to Yuri to deliver Berladnik to Galich and execute him. But on the way, unexpectedly, the squads of the Chernigov prince Izyaslav Da-vydovich recaptured Berladnik from the Suzdal troops, and he avoided cruel reprisals.
In 1158, he left the hospitable Izyaslav, who had already become the Grand Duke of Kiev, since the diplomatic conflict because of him took on a European scale: the ambassadors of Galich, Chernigov, Hungary and Poland arrived in Kiev to Izyaslav, demanding the extradition of Ivan Berladnik. He returned to the Danube again, and from there, at the head of an army of six thousand, went to the Galician principality. Smerds openly went over to his side, but the allied Polovtsians left him, since he did not allow them to plunder Russian cities. Izyaslav and Olgovichi supported Berladnik and launched a campaign against Galich, but Yaroslav's Galician troops outstripped them, found themselves near Kiev and soon captured the capital. Yaroslav "opened the gates to Kiev," and Izyaslav and Berladnik fled to Vyryu and Vshchuzh.
Three years later, in 1161, Ivan Berladnik ended up in Byzantium and died in Thessaloniki; the hatred of the princes overtook him here: "Inii say so - as if from poison he would die." The prince, for whom the townspeople of Galich fought to the death for a whole month, the prince who did not allow Polovtsian robberies, the prince, to whom "smerds are jumping over the fence", of course, an interesting figure for the XII century, but too one-sidedly outlined by hostile chronicles.
Volyn principality from 1118 onwards was retained by the offspring of Monomakh and his son Mstislav. From here Izyaslav Mstislavich with lightning-fast marches, making 100 kilometers a day, suddenly burst into the feasting Belgorod and Kiev, here he went to his Vladimir Volynsky, losing battles, when the "kiyans" and the Black Klobuki told him: "You are a prince for us, if you will be strong, but now it is not your time, one by one away! " The grandchildren of Izyaslav Mstislavich divided the land into five estates, and by the time of "The Lay of Igor's Host" their unification had not yet taken place.
From the middle of the XII century, next to the Volyn principality, the Galician principality grew up, which immediately entered into rivalry with its neighbor and even with Kiev. The first ga-litskiy prince, Vladimir Volodarevich (1141-1153), as we just saw, had to overcome the resistance not only of appanage princes, like Ivan Berladnik, but also of the townspeople and local boyars, who had strongly strengthened here during the existence of small estates.
The entire further history of the Galicia-Volyn lands is a struggle of the centripetal principle with the centrifugal one. The first was personified by the princes Vladimir Volynsky and Galich, and the second - by the appanage princes and the rich boyars accustomed to independence.
The flourishing of the Galician principality is associated with Yaroslav Osmomysl (1153-1187), the son of Vladimir Volodarevich, cousin of Ivan Berladnik, sung in the Lay.
We meet him in the chronicle under the following circumstances: the Kiev prince Izyaslav Mstislavich, who fought a lot with Vladimir Volodarevich and with the help of the Hungarian king who defeated him in 1152, sent his boyar Pyotr Borislavich to Galich at the beginning of 1153 (who was apparently the author princely chronicle). The ambassador reminded Prince Vladimir of some of his promises, sealed by the ceremony of kissing the cross. Mocking the ambassador, the Galician prince asked: "What, did I kiss this little cross?" - and in the end he drove out the Kiev boyar and his retinue: "They said they had come naturally, but now - get out!"
Decorative tiles XII-XIII centuries Galich
The ambassador left the prince with letters of the cross and rode out of the city on poorly fed horses. A new war was declared. Again, the royal regiments had to gallop to Galich from the west, the Kiev regiments from the east, and the Volyn regiments from the north, again the Galician prince had to send messengers to the other end of Russia for help to Yuri Dolgoruky, his matchmaker and longtime ally. But the messenger galloped along the Kiev road and returned Pyotr Borislavich from the path. In Galich, servants in black robes descended from the palace to meet the ambassador; on the "golden table" sat a young prince in a black robe and a black hood, and a knight's guard stood at the coffin of old prince Vladimir Volodarevich.
Yaroslav hastened to smooth over his father’s careless arrogance and expressed complete obedience to the Grand Duke: “Take me, like your son Mstislav. With such a figurative recognition of feudal dependence, Yaroslav dismissed the ambassador, "but there is another thought in his heart," the chronicle adds. And already in the same year the war took place.
Prince Yaroslav did not participate in the battle, the boyars told him: "You are young ... but go, prince, to the city." Probably, the boyars simply did not really trust the prince, who, shortly before that, had sworn allegiance to Kiev. Yaroslav Osmomysl was not so young at that time - three years before the battle he married the daughter of Yuri Dolgoruky Olga.
The boyars continued to energetically interfere in the affairs of the prince. In 1159, when the conflict over Ivan Berladnik was not yet completed, the Galicians stubbornly continued to show sympathy for the Danube daredevil and turned to his patron, the Kiev prince Izyaslav Davydovich, with a proposal to go to their hometown on a campaign: "Just show the banners - and we let's retreat from Yaroslav! "
A new conflict between Yaroslav and the boyars arose in 1173. Princess Olga and her son Vladimir fled from her husband together with prominent Galician boyars to Poland. Vladimir Yaroslavich begged from his father's rival the city of Cherven, strategically convenient both for ties with Poland and for attacking his father. This is that Vladimir Galitsky, a bum and a hawk, whose image is so colorfully reproduced in Borodin's opera "Prince Igor". Igor Svyatoslavich was married to his sister Euphrosyne, daughter of Yaroslav Osmomysl (Yaroslavna). The break with his father was caused by the fact that Yaroslav had a mistress Nastasya and her son Oleg Yaroslav preferred his legitimate son Vladimir.
For eight months Olga Yurievna and Vladimir were away, but at last they received a letter from the police boyars with a request to return to Galich and a promise to take her husband into custody. The promise was more than fulfilled - Yaroslav Osmomysl was arrested, his friends, the allied Polovtsy, were chopped up, and his mistress Nastasya was burned at the stake. "The Galicians, however, laid fire, burned her, and her son into captivity by-slash, in the prince led to the cross, as if he had a princess really. And so it was settled." The seemingly family conflict was temporarily settled in such a peculiar medieval way.
The next year, Vladimir fled to Volyn, but Yaroslav Osmomysl, having hired Poles for 3 thousand hryvnias, burned down two Volyn cities and demanded the extradition of the rebellious son; the same one fled to Porosye and was going to hide in Suzdal. Having traveled many cities in search of refuge, Vladimir Galitsky finally ended up with his sister in Putivl, where he lived for several years, until Igor reconciled him with his father.
In the fall of 1187, Yaroslav Osmomysl died, leaving not Vladimir as his heir, but Oleg "Nastasich". Immediately "there was a great mutiny in the Galician land." The boyars drove out Oleg and gave the throne to Vladimir, but this prince did not satisfy them either. "To prince Volodimera in Galich land. And I have liked many things to drink and thought not to love with my husbands." Everything was decided by this - if the prince neglects the boyar thought, if he leaves the will of the "meaningful", then he is already bad and all sorts of discrediting details are introduced into the chronicle about him: he drinks a lot, and that he "sings at the priest a wife and make (yourself) a wife, "and that he is in the city," having fallen in love with his wife or whose daughter, he will be violent. "
Roman.Mstislavich Volynsky, knowing about the dissatisfaction of the Galician boyars with Vladimir, suggested that they expel Vladimir and accept him, Roman. The boyars repeated what they had done under the father of their prince - they threatened Vladimir's mistress with death: "We don't want to bow to the priest, but we want to kill!" Vladimir Galitsky, taking gold, silver, and two of her sons, fled to Hungary.
Roman Mstislavich briefly reigned in Galich, he was expelled by the Hungarian king, who, taking advantage of the superiority of forces, imprisoned in Galich not Vladimir, who sought his help, but his son Andrei. Vladimir was imprisoned in the tower of a Hungarian castle.
The Galicians secretly continued to look for a prince of their own free will: either Roman reported that "the Galicians would lead me to their reign", then the boyar embassy invited Rostislav Ivanovich's son Berladnik.
Relying on the Galician boyars, Rostislav in 1188 with a small army appeared under the walls of Galich. "The Galich men cannot be all in a single thought," and Berladnichich's detachment was surrounded by Hungarians and part of the Galicians; the prince himself was knocked off his horse.
When the gravely wounded prince was carried to Galich by the Hungarians, the townspeople "rebelled and took them away from the eels (Hungarians - BR) and accepted them for reign. Ufa, having seen this, applied a mortal potion to the wounds."
In 1189, Vladimir Galitsky escaped from captivity. He cut the tent, which was at the top of his tower, twisted the ropes and went down along them; two supporters helped him get to Germany. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa agreed (subject to an annual payment of 2 thousand hryvnias) to help the exile in obtaining Galich. With the support of Germany and Poland, Vladimir again reigned in his "fatherland and grandfather."
In 1199, after the death of Vladimir, Roman Mstislavich became the prince of Galicia, Volyn and Galich united in the same hands and formed a large and powerful principality, equal to the large European kingdoms. When Roman took possession of Kiev, then in his hands was a huge compact piece of Russian lands, equal to the "Holy Roman Empire" by Friedrich Barbarossa. Forced upon accession to the throne to take the oath to the Galician boyars, Roman subsequently acted abruptly, causing discontent with the boyars.
From the chronicle hints, we can conclude that Roman was very concerned about the enrichment of his princely domain and settled prisoners on his land. Roman was sought shelter by the Byzantine emperor Alexei III Angel, expelled from Constantinople in 1204 by the knights-crusaders, who found themselves richer prey in Christian Byzantium than the distant "tomb of the Lord" somewhere in Palestine.
The short reign of the victorious Roman in Galich, Kiev and Vladimir-Volynsky, when he was called "the autocrat of all Russia," strengthened the position of the West Russian lands and prepared for their further prosperity.
In addition to the colorful and dramatic external history of the principalities and princes set out above, this era is extremely interesting for us with those exacerbated relations between princes and boyars, which were so clearly identified already in the time of Yaroslav Osmomysl. If we discard the element of personal gain and self-interest, which undoubtedly determined many of the actions of the princes, then it should be recognized that the policy of concentration of lands, weakening of the inheritance and strengthening of the central princely power, pursued by them, was objectively unconditionally progressive, since it coincided with the interests of the people. In carrying out this policy, the princes relied on broad strata of the townspeople and on the reserves of small feudal lords ("youths", "children", "charities"), which they themselves raised, who were completely dependent on the prince.
The boyars' anti-princely actions led to the struggle of the boyar parties among themselves, to the intensification of strife, to the defenselessness of the state in the face of external danger. With the intertwining of princely interests and the relative balance of power in the large principalities, the question of succession to the throne acquired a special character.
Many princely marriages were concluded then with a political calculation between children of five to eight years of age. When the young prince grew up and the marriage was carried out, he did not receive the kind of relatives that he could choose for himself, based on his interests, but the one that met the interests of his parents decades ago. The boyars were supposed to use these contradictions, and for the princes there was only one way out - to transfer the throne to a rootless bastard son. This is probably the reason for the persistence with which Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, Yaroslav Osmomysl, and his son Vladimir clung to their mistresses and illegitimate sons. Yaroslav's father-in-law was the powerful and daring Yuri Dolgoruky, who sought to intervene in other people's affairs. Vladimir's father-in-law is the "great and formidable" Svyatoslav Vsevolodich of Kiev. While Vladimir was sitting in a tower in Hungary with his mistress and children, his father-in-law decided to get Galich, the father-in-law of his son-in-law, for himself personally (1189). Such actions could easily be clothed in the form of protecting the legal rights of his daughter and grandchildren, for whom the Galician boyars had already stood up. When the boyars of Galich burned Nastasya, expelled Oleg "Nastasich" or rebelled against the power-world priest, it was not so much about the morality of the princes as about not allowing the prince to be "autocratic" in those conditions so that the boyars would not lose allies inside the princely family and powerful support from the princess's crowned relatives.
A similar struggle between the princely and royal authorities against the feudal lords, who sought to isolate themselves in their estates, was waged at that time in Western Europe, and in the Georgian kingdom, and in the east, and in a number of Russian principalities.
One should not think that without exception all the boyars opposed the prince. Significant and influential boyar circles actively promoted a strong and effective princely power.
In Galicia-Volyn Rus, this struggle of various feudal elements reached its climax during the reign of Roman's son, no less famous than his father, Daniel Galitsky (born about 1201 - died about 1264). Daniel was orphaned four years old, and all his childhood and adolescence passed in the conditions of strife and fierce feudal struggle. The boyars of Vladimir Volynsky wanted after Roman's death to leave his princess-widow with children in the reign, and the Galician boyars invited the sons of Igor Svyatoslavich of Chernigov. The princess had to flee; Uncle Miroslav carried Daniel out of the city through an underground passage in his arms. The fugitives found shelter in Poland.
The Galicia-Volyn principality fell apart into a number of appanages, which allowed Hungary to conquer it. The Igorevich princes, who had no support in these lands, tried to hold out through repression - they killed about 500 noble boyars, but this only strengthened the supporters of the exiled dowager princess. In 1211, the boyars solemnly imprisoned the boy Daniel in the cathedral church of Galich. The Igorevichs were hanged by the boyars, "for the sake of revenge."
Very quickly, the Galician boyars wanted to get rid of the princess, who had strong intercessors in Poland.
The court chronicler Daniil Galitsky, who wrote much later, recalls the following episode: the Galicians drove the princess out of the city; Daniel accompanied her with weeping, not wanting to part. Some tiun grabbed the reins of Daniel's horse, and Daniel drew his sword and began to chop it until his mother took the weapon away from him. It is possible that the chronicler deliberately recounted this episode as an epigraph to the description of Daniel's further actions against the boyars. In Galich, the boyar Vladislav reigned, which provoked indignation in the feudal elites: "There is no lepo for the boyar princes in Galich." After that, the Galician land was again subjected to foreign intervention.
Trade routes of European importance passing through the Galicia-Volyn principality.
Only in 1221, Daniel, with the support of his father-in-law Mstislav the Bold, had a chance to become a prince in Vladimir, and only in 1234 he finally established himself in Galich.
Galician land magnates behaved like princes: "I call the boyars of Galicia Danil a prince, and I call the whole land ..." Such was the boyar Dobroslav, who even controlled the princely domain, such was Sudislav, whose castle was a fortress filled with supplies and weapons and fight with the prince.
The boyars sometimes invited Daniel, now they conspired against him. So, in 1230 "sedition was in the godless boyars of Galich". The boyars decided to set fire to the palace during a meeting of the boyar duma and kill the prince. Daniel's brother Vasilko managed to thwart the conspiracy. Then one of the boyars invited the princes to dinner at the Vyshensky castle; tysyatsky, a friend of Daniel, managed to warn, "as if there is a feast of evil ... as if I am going to kill you." 28 boyars were captured, but Daniel was afraid to execute them. Some time later, when Daniel "was having fun at the feast, one of those godless boyars poured a cup over his face. And I endured that for him."
It was necessary to find a new, more reliable support. And Daniel called the "veche" of youths, service soldiers, junior members of the squad, who were the prototype of the later nobility. The youths supported their prince: "We are faithful to God and to you, our lord!" - and the sotsky Mikula gave Daniil advice, which determined the further policy of the prince: "Lord, do not beat down the bees - do not eat honey!"
Following the battle on Kalka (before which Daniel went to watch "unprecedented rati", and after which, the wounded man, "turn his horse to bep]) feudal strife and fragmentation continued to eat away at the rich Russian lands, and the centripetal forces, personified here by Daniel, were not enough fortified, could not yet resist both internal and external enemies.The boyar opposition, which constantly relied on either Poland or Hungary, did not turn the Galicia-Volyn land into a boyar republic, but significantly weakened the principality. one of the most developed and cultured Russian principalities, wrote sadly: "Let us begin to tell countless armies and great works and frequent wars and many sedition and frequent revolts and many rebellions ..."
The cities of the Galicia-Volyn land - Galich, Vladimir, Przemysl, Lutsk, Lvov, Danilov, Berestye (Brest) and others - were rich, populous and beautiful. By the labor of local craftsmen and architects, they were surrounded by strong walls and built up with graceful buildings. Here, as in Vladimir-Suz-Dal Rus, they loved stone sculpture; the famous "khytrets" Avdey, who skillfully cut the stone. We know about the wise scribe Timothy, who denounced the cruelty of the conquerors with his allegorical parables, we know about the proud singer Mitus. We hold in our hands the Galician Chronicle of the 13th century, exceptional in its completeness and brilliance, which is the historical biography of Prince Daniel.
The most important trade routes of European importance, leading to Krakow, Prague, Regensburg and Gdansk, passed through the Galicia-Volyn lands. Drogichin on the Bug was a kind of all-Russian customs office - tens of thousands of trademark seals of the 11th-13th centuries with signs of many Russian princes have been preserved there. On the famous medieval map the world of the Arab geographer Idrisi, compiled in Palermo around 1154, shows cities such as Galich, Belgorod Dneprovsky, Lutsk and Przemysl. The access to the Danube and the Black Sea was associated with the Byzantine world. It is not for nothing that at different times the emperors, who had failed in the empire, sought refuge in Galich and received cities here "as a consolation" (Andronicus, Alexei III).
Archaeological excavations in the Galicia-Volyn cities give us a good idea of the life of ordinary townspeople, and of the high level of the entire culture of this southwestern corner of the Russian lands. The affairs of Ga-litsko-Volyn Rus were vividly interested not only in neighboring lands, but also in Germany, Rome, France, Byzantium.
For a long time, the Kiev principality occupied a central place in medieval Russia. Kiev was the main and richest city. It was the Kiev table that was occupied by the Grand Duke, who, in fact, was the head of state. Therefore, for the Kiev principality, fierce internecine wars were fought for several centuries.
Development of the Kiev principality in the 12-13 centuries
To understand what influenced the development of the Kiev principality in the 12-13 centuries, it is necessary to understand its position in Russia at that time:
- Kiev emerged as a large shopping center due to its favorable location. The city was located on a busy trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks." The ruler of the principality controlled this path, extracting large incomes. However, with the weakening of Byzantium in the 12-13th centuries, the importance of the trade route declined. This made the Kiev table less important for the rest of the Russian princes;
- Kiev is located in the steppe zone. Therefore, the city is convenient for nomad raids. Immediately beyond the Dnieper, the lands began, along which the Pechenegs, Torks, Polovtsians and other steppe peoples roamed. Kiev was constantly being ruined. In the 13th century, this vulnerability greatly reduced the prestige of the Kiev principality;
- In the 12-13th centuries, the strengthening of North-Eastern Russia was outlined. This union included several principalities with the cities of Moscow, Suzdal, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Rostov the Great. They were located in the forest zone and were protected from the raids of nomads. The principalities grew rich from trade, they supplied Novgorod and Pskov with bread. And Kiev gradually weakened and lost its greatness.
Thus, the main features of the development of the Kiev principality in the 12-13 centuries were the weakening of the principality itself and the simultaneous strengthening of North-Eastern Russia. It was there that the center of power of Russia shifted. The northern princes had strong squads, large land holdings. But many of them still tried to seize the Kiev table.
The result of the weakening of the principality
The weakening of the Kiev principality led to its capture by the Tatar-Mongols. However, Kiev quickly left their sphere of influence and fell into submission to the strong Polish-Lithuanian state. Until modern times, Kiev was part of the Commonwealth.
