The Tale of Bygone Years, our main source on the initial history of Rus', tells the continuation of the famous biblical story about the Tower of Babel, when a single human race was scattered throughout the entire earth. The Tale says, in particular, that the tribe of Joapheth, which included 72 nations, moved west and north. From this tribe came the “so-called Noriks, who are the Slavs.” “After a long time,” the chronicler continues, “the Slavs settled along the Danube, where now the land is Hungarian and Bulgarian. From those Slavs the Slavs spread throughout the land and were called by their names from the places where they sat. So, some, having arrived, sat down on the Morava River and were called Moravians, and others were called Czechs... When... these Slavs came and sat on the Vistula and were called Poles, and from those Poles came the Poles, other Poles - Lutichi, others - Mazovshans, others - Pomeranians." And here is what the chronicle says about the tribes that later made up the Russian people: “... the Slavs came and sat along the Dnieper and called themselves Polyans, and others Drevlyans, because they sat in the forests, and others sat between Pripyat and the Dvina and called themselves Dregovichs, others sat along the Dvina and they called themselves Polochans after a river flowing into the Dvina, called Polota... The same Slavs who settled near Lake Ilmena were called by their own name - the Slavs and built a city, and called it Novgorod. And others sat on the Desna, and along the Seim, and along the Sula and called themselves northerners. And so the Slavic people dispersed, and after his name the letter was called Slavic.”

The legendary history has been studied for centuries, and there is no consensus in science about the origin of the Slavs. Many historians think that the Slavs began moving across the earth not from the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, but from the coast of the Baltic Sea, from where they were forced out by warlike tribes of the Germans. The Slavs moved to Eastern Europe, gradually mastering its spaces to the east and south, until they encountered the Byzantines on the Danube, to whom they became known by their name - “Slavs”. This happened no earlier than the 6th century. Having met resistance on the Danube, some of the Slavic tribes settled on the borders of Byzantium, and some moved to the northwest and northeast. This is how the single mass of Slavs collapsed into southern, western and eastern ones. It is not surprising that the echoes of this decay are also heard in The Tale of Bygone Years.

Archaeologists, having studied the evidence of the life of the Slavs of that era preserved in the ground, came to the conclusion that on the vast plain from modern Prague to the banks of the Dnieper and from the middle reaches of the Oder to the Lower Danube in the VI-VII centuries. n. e. there was a single Slavic culture, which was conventionally called “Prague”. This can be seen from the typical Slavic types of housing, household utensils, women’s jewelry, and types of burials. All these traces that have reached us testify to the unity of material, spiritual culture, as well as the commonality of language and self-awareness of the Slavs over a vast space. Here are the same type of small, unfortified villages, consisting of wooden half-dugouts with a stove in the corner (and not in the center, like the Germans). Remains of rough molded pottery were found here. Judging by the shape of this ceramics, the Slavs clearly belong to the “potter” tribes, in contrast to the Germans – “bowl makers”. The pot has always remained the main “tool” of the Slavic and then Russian housewife. In the Proto-Slavic language, the word “misa” is of Germanic origin, while “pot” is an original Slavic word. The unity is also noticeable in women’s jewelry, the fashion for which was common among Slavic women throughout the entire area of ​​distribution of “Prague culture.” The funeral rite was also the same: the deceased was burned and a mound was always built over his ashes.

The various Slavic tribes that later formed the Russian people had their own path in history. It has been established that the Polyans, Northerners and Drevlyans came to the Middle Dnieper, Pripyat, Desna from the banks of the Danube; The Vyatichi, Radimichi and Dregovichi moved east to their places of settlement from the land of the “Poles”, i.e. from the region of Poland and Belarus (the names of the rivers Vyacha, Vyatka, Vetka are still there). Polotsk and Novgorod Slovenes came from the southwest through Belarus and Lithuania. The Slavs in the northeast develop stable, repeating types of burials, more precisely, two main ones - the so-called “culture of long mounds” and “culture of the Novgorod hills.” “Long burial mounds” are a type of burial of the Pskov, Smolensk and Polotsk Krivichi. When a person died, a mound was built over him, which was adjacent to the already existing old burial mound. Thus, from the merged mounds, an embankment emerged, sometimes reaching hundreds of meters in length. The Novgorod Slovenes buried their dead differently: their mounds grew not in length, but upward. The ashes of the next deceased were buried at the top of the old mound and earth was poured over the new burial. So the mound grew into a high, 10-meter hill. All this happened no earlier than the 6th century. and continued until the 10th century, when the Slavs arose statehood.

Some of the settlers (Krivichi) settled on the East European Upland, from where the Dnieper, Moscow River, Oka, Velikaya, and Lovat flow. This resettlement took place no earlier than the 7th century. The first Slavic settlers in the area of ​​the future Moscow appeared from the west no earlier than the 9th century. Archaeologists find rough molded pottery and traces of low wooden houses sunk into the ground in places where the Slavs settled. Usually the arriving Slavic tribe established a large settlement, from which small villages sprang up in the surrounding area. Near the main tribal settlement there was a burial mound, as well as a refuge settlement on a hill, in a river bend or at the confluence of one river into another. In this settlement there could have been a temple of Slavic gods. As they developed new lands, the Slavs pushed out, subjugated or assimilated the Baltic and Finno-Ugric tribes who lived here, who, like the Slavs, were pagans.

862 – Invitation of the Varangian princes. The beginning of the Rurik dynasty

There are still debates about where and when the ancient Russian state arose. According to legend, in the middle of the 9th century. In the land of the Ilmen Slovenes and Finno-Ugric tribes (Chud, Merya, etc.), civil strife began, “generation after generation rose up.” Tired of strife, local leaders in 862 decided to invite rulers from Scandinavia, Rorik (Rurik) and his brothers: Sineus and Truvor. As stated in the chronicle, the leaders turned to the brothers with the words: “Our land is great and abundant, but there is no order in it. Come reign and rule over us." There was nothing offensive or humiliating in such an invitation for local tribes - many peoples then, and later, invited noble foreigners to their throne who were not connected with the local tribal nobility and did not know the traditions of clan struggle. People hoped that such a prince would rise above the warring local leaders and thereby ensure peace and quiet in the country. An agreement was concluded with the Varangians - a “row”. The transfer of supreme power to them (“possession”) was accompanied by the condition of judging “by right,” that is, according to local customs. The “Ryad” also stipulated the conditions of maintenance and support for the prince and his squad.

Rurik and his brothers

King Rurik and his brothers (or more distant relatives) agreed to the conditions of the Slavic leaders, and soon Rurik arrived in Ladoga - the first known city in Rus', and “sat down” to “own” it. Sineus settled in the north, in Beloozero, and Truvor - in the west, in Izborsk, where the hill “Truvorovo Settlement” is still preserved. After the death of his younger brothers, Rurik began to “own” all the lands alone. It is generally accepted that Rurik (Rorik) was a minor Danish king (prince) from the shores of the North Sea, one of many Viking conquerors who, on their fast ships - drakars, raided European countries. Their goal was production, but if given the opportunity, the Vikings could also seize power - this is what happened in England and Normandy. The Slavs, who traded with the Vikings (Varangians), knew that Rurik was an experienced warrior, but not a very rich ruler, and that his lands were constantly threatened by powerful Scandinavian neighbors. It is not surprising that he willingly responded to the tempting offer of the ambassadors. Having settled in Ladoga (now Staraya Ladoga), Rurik then climbed the Volkhov to Lake Ilmen and founded a new city - Novgorod, taking possession of all the surrounding lands. Together with Rurik and the Varangians, the word “Rus” came to the Slavs, the first meaning of which is a warrior-rower on a Scandinavian boat. Then they began to call the Varangian warriors who served the king-princes that way. Then the name of Varangian “Rus” was first transferred to the Lower Dnieper region (Kyiv, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl), where the Varangians settled. For a long time, residents of Novgorod, Smolensk or Rostov said, going to Kyiv: “I’ll go to Rus'.” And then, after the Varangians “dissolved” in the Slavic environment, the Eastern Slavs, their lands and the state created on them began to be called Russia. Thus, in an agreement with the Greeks in 945, the possessions of Rurik’s descendants were first called “Russian Land”.

The emergence of the Principality of Kyiv

The Slavic tribe of the Polyans lived on the Dnieper in the 9th century. Their capital was the small city of Kyiv, which received (according to one version) the name of the leader of the local tribe Kiya, who ruled there with the brothers Shchek and Khoreb. Kyiv stood in a very convenient place, at the intersection of roads. Here, on the banks of the deep Dnieper, a trade arose, where grain, livestock, weapons, slaves, jewelry, fabrics were bought or exchanged - the usual trophies of leaders and their squads returning from raids. In 864, two Scandinavian Varangians, Askold and Dir, captured Kyiv and began to rule there. Walking along the Dnieper, they, according to the chronicle, noticed a small settlement and asked the local residents: “Whose town is this?” And they were told: “No one! Three brothers built it - Kiy, Shchek and Khoriv, ​​disappeared somewhere, and we pay tribute to the Khazars.” Then the Varangians captured “homeless” Kyiv and settled there. At the same time, they did not obey Rurik, who ruled in the north. What really happened? Apparently, the glades who lived in these places were a rather weak tribe, a splinter from the once united tribe that came from Poland, known from Byzantine sources as the “Lendians”, i.e. “Poles”. This tribe, oppressed by the powerful Krivichi tribe, began to disintegrate. At this moment, the kings Dir and Askold appeared on the Dnieper, subjugating the glades and founding their principality. From this legend about the conquest of the glades by Dir and Askold, it is clear that Kyiv already existed as a settlement. Its origin is shrouded in deep mystery, and no one can say exactly when it arose. Some historians believe that this happened in the 5th century, others are convinced that Kyiv is “younger” than Ladoga, which appeared in the 8th century. After the separation of Ukraine from Russia, this problem immediately acquired a political overtones - the Russian authorities would like to see the capital of Rus' not in Kyiv, but in Ladoga or Novgorod. It is no longer fashionable to use the term “Kievan Rus”, which was previously popular in Soviet times. They think differently in Kyiv itself, repeating the formula known from chronicles: “Kyiv is the mother of Russian cities.” In fact, in the middle of the 9th century. neither Kyiv, nor Ladoga, nor Novgorod were the capitals of the ancient Russian principality, because this principality itself had not yet emerged.

882 – Unification of the north and south of Rus'

After Rurik's death in 879, power in Novgorod passed not to his young son Igor, but to Rurik's relative Oleg, who had previously lived in Ladoga. However, perhaps Igor was not the son of Rurik. The kinship of Rurik and Igor could have been invented by later chroniclers, who tried to trace the dynasty to the most ancient ancestor and link together all the first rulers into one Rurik dynasty. Be that as it may, in 882 Oleg and his retinue approached Kyiv. Disguised as a Varangian merchant who arrived on ships from the upper reaches of the river, he appeared before Askold and Dir on the banks of the Dnieper. Suddenly, Oleg’s soldiers, hidden among the goods, jumped out of the ships moored to the shore and killed the Kyiv rulers. Kyiv, and then its surrounding lands, submitted to Oleg. So in 882, the lands of the Eastern Slavs from Ladoga to Kyiv were united for the first time under the rule of one prince. A kind of Varangian-Slavic state was formed - Ancient Rus'. It was archaic and amorphous, lacking many of the features of a modern state. The first rulers defended the lands recognized as “theirs” from an external enemy; they collected a “lesson” from the subordinate tribes - a tribute, which was more of a payment for the safety of the subordinate tribes to the Varangian princes than a tax.

Prophetic Oleg

Prince Oleg (Scandinavian Helg) largely followed the policies of Rurik and annexed more and more lands to the resulting state. Oleg can be called a prince-city planner, because in the annexed lands he, according to the chronicler, immediately “began to build cities.” These were wooden fortresses that became the centers of individual lands and made it possible to successfully fight off nomads behind their walls. The first “guests” whom Oleg encountered were the Turks from the Khazar Kaganate. These were formidable neighbors. The Kaganate, a Jewish state by faith, was located in the Lower Volga region and the Black Sea region. The Byzantines, concerned about the Khazars' raids on their possessions, bribed Oleg with gifts, and he made a sudden and successful attack on the Khazar fortress of Tamatarcha (Tmutarakan) on the shore of the Kerch Strait. There Oleg remained until he made peace with the Khazars and moved to Byzantium. In this and other cases, he acted as many Varangian kings did, ready to take any side if they were paid well.

Oleg’s famous act was the 907 campaign against Constantinople (Constantinople), the capital of Byzantium. His large detachment, consisting of Varangians (including King Igor), as well as Slavs, unexpectedly appeared on light ships at the walls of Constantinople. The Greeks, unprepared for defense, seeing how the barbarians who came from the north were plundering and burning churches in the vicinity of the city, killing and capturing local residents, went to negotiate with Oleg. Soon, Emperor Leo VI concluded an agreement with the Russians, paid Oleg a ransom, and also promised to support Russian ambassadors and merchants who came to Constantinople from Rus' for free. Before leaving Constantinople, Oleg allegedly hung his shield on the gates of the city as a sign of victory. At home, in Kyiv, people were amazed by the rich booty with which Oleg returned, and they gave the prince the nickname Prophetic, that is, wise, magician.

In fact, magicians and magi were pagan priests, very influential among their fellow tribesmen before the adoption of Christianity. They challenged the power over the people from the alien princes. Perhaps this conflict was reflected in the legend known to everyone since school years about the death of the Prophetic Oleg “from his horse,” which the sorcerer allegedly predicted to him. More trust should be given to the report that the restless warrior-king Oleg died in one of his usual campaigns of conquest, this time to the Caspian Sea, where he went in 943. Oleg managed to conquer the rich Caspian city of Berdaa at the mouth of the Kura. Here he decided to settle permanently, founding the Varangian principality. It is known that the Varangians acted in a similar way in other lands. But the local rulers defeated Oleg’s small Varangian squad, which did not receive help from Scandinavia in time. Oleg also died in this battle. Therefore, during the next Viking campaign against Byzantium in 944, peace was made with the Byzantines by Igor, who had already replaced Oleg.

The reign of Igor Stary

Oleg's successor was Igor (Ingvar), nicknamed the Old One. From an early age he lived in Kyiv, which became his home. We know little about Igor's personality. He was, like Oleg-Helg, a warrior, a stern Varangian. He almost never got off his horse, conquering the Slavic tribes and imposing tribute on them. Like Oleg, Igor raided Byzantium. His first campaign together with Oleg in 941 failed. The Greeks burned the Russian ships with the so-called “Greek fire” - shells with burning oil. The second campaign in 944 turned out to be more successful. This time the Greeks decided to pay off the Scandinavians with expensive fabrics and gold. This is exactly what Igor wanted - he immediately turned home. Under Igor, new opponents came from the steppe to replace the Khazars - the Pechenegs. Their first appearance was noted in 915. Since then, the danger of raids by nomads from the south and east has constantly increased.

Rus' was not yet an established state. It stretched from south to north along the only communications - waterways, and they were precisely controlled by the Varangian princes. In general, the chronicles impose on us the idea of ​​Rurik, Oleg, Igor as sovereign rulers from the princely dynasty of the Rurikovichs. In fact, the Varangian princes were not such rulers. The kings were only the leaders of the Varangian squads and often, when going on campaigns, they acted in alliance with other kings, and then broke away from them: they either left for Scandinavia, or settled down - “sat down” on the lands they conquered, as happened with Oleg in Kyiv. The entire strength of the Varangian kings consisted of their powerful squads, constantly replenished with new fighters from Scandinavia. Only this force united the distant lands of the Russian state from Ladoga to Kyiv.

At the same time, the king-prince in Kyiv divided possessions between relatives and allied kings for their “feeding”. So, Igor-Ingvar gave Novgorod to his son Svyatoslav, Vyshgorod to his wife Olga, and the Drevlyan lands to King Sveneld. Every winter, as soon as the rivers and swamps froze, the kings went to the “polyudye” - they traveled around their lands (made a “circle”), judged, settled disputes, collected a “lesson”. This is what the kings did in Scandinavia during similar detours. As the chronicler reports, back in the 12th century. the sleigh on which Princess Olga rode to Polyudye was kept in Pskov; but, apparently, spring found her in Pskov and the sleigh had to be abandoned there. They also punished the tribes that had “sat aside” over the summer: relations with the local Slavic tribal elite among the Varangians were difficult for a long time, until its elite began to merge with the Scandinavian warriors. It is generally accepted that the process of merging the Slavic and Varangian elites occurred no earlier than the beginning of the 11th century, when five generations of rulers, already born in Rus', changed. Exactly the same process of assimilation took place in other lands conquered by the Vikings - in France (Normandy), Ireland.

Igor died during the usual polyud in those days in 945, when, having collected tribute in the land of the Drevlyans, he was not satisfied with it and returned for more. According to another version, the Drevlyansky land was in the power of King Sveneld. When he and his men appeared in Kyiv in rich outfits taken from the Drevlyans, Igor’s squad was overcome with envy. Igor went to the capital of the Drevlyans - the city of Iskorosten - to take tribute for himself. The inhabitants of Iskorosten were outraged by this lawlessness, grabbed the prince, tied him by the legs to two bent mighty trees and released them. This is how Igor died ingloriously.

Duchess Olga

The unexpected death of Igor led to the fact that his wife Princess Olga (Helga, or Elga) took power in Kyiv into her own hands. She was helped (or shared power with her) by the kings - Igor’s associates Asmud and Sveneld. Olga herself was Scandinavian and lived in Pskov before her marriage to Igor. After Igor’s death, she toured her estates and established clear “lesson” dimensions everywhere. Under her rule, administrative centers of the district arose - “cemeteries”, where tribute was concentrated. In legends, Olga became famous for her wisdom, cunning and energy. She was the first ruler to understand the importance of Christianity for her country. It is known about Olga that she was the first of the Russian rulers to receive foreign ambassadors in Kyiv who arrived from the German Emperor Otto I. The terrible death of her husband in Iskorosten entailed Olga’s no less terrifying revenge on the Drevlyans. When they sent ambassadors to her for negotiations (the Drevlyans wanted, according to tribal customs, to end the feud by marrying their prince to Olga the widow), the princess ordered them to be buried alive.

A year later, Olga burned the Drevlyan capital Iskorosten in a cunning way. She collected a light tribute from the townspeople in the form of live pigeons and sparrows, and then ordered smoldering tinder to be tied to their paws. The birds released into the wild returned to the city and set it on fire from all sides. The princess's soldiers could only take into slavery the townspeople fleeing the great fire. The chronicler tells us how Olga deceived the Drevlyan ambassadors who arrived in Kyiv in peace. She suggested that they take a bath before starting negotiations. While the ambassadors were enjoying the steam room, Olga's warriors blocked the doors of the bathhouse and killed their enemies in the heat of the bathhouse.

This is not the first mention of a bathhouse in Russian chronicles. The Nikon Chronicle tells about the coming of the holy Apostle Andrew to Rus'. Then, returning to Rome, he spoke with surprise about a strange action in the Russian land: “I saw wooden bathhouses, and they would heat them up very much, and they would undress and be naked, and they would douse themselves with leather kvass, and they would lift up young rods and beat themselves, and They will finish themselves off to such an extent that as soon as they crawl out barely alive, they will douse themselves with cold water, and that’s the only way they will come to life. And they do this constantly, not tormented by anyone, but tormenting themselves, and then they perform ablution for themselves, and not torment.” After this, the sensational theme of the extraordinary Russian bathhouse with a birch broom will become an indispensable attribute of many travel accounts of foreigners for many centuries, from medieval times to the present day.

Olga also made long journeys. She visited Constantinople twice. The second time, in 955, she, as a noble pagan, was received by Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Olga sought to find an ally in the emperor of Byzantium and wanted to enlist the support of the Greeks. It was clear that this would not be easy to do without accepting Christianity. The princess had long been acquainted with Christians in Kyiv and shared their faith. But she finally decided when she saw the shrines of Constantinople and appreciated the power of this great Christian city. There Olga was baptized and became Helen, and asked Emperor Constantine himself to be her godfather. However, according to one version, she did this to discourage the emperor from courting a beautiful northern woman - after all, the godfather was considered a relative.

Reign of Svyatoslav Igorevich

In 957, the son of Igor and Olga Svyatoslav (Sfendisleif) reached the age of 16, and his mother, Princess Olga, ceded power to him. He ruled Russia, like his father Igor, from horseback: he fought almost continuously, carrying out raids with his squad on neighbors, often very distant. First, he fought with Khazaria, subjugated (as it is said in the chronicle - “nalez”) the Slavic tribe of the Vyatichi, who paid tribute to the Khazars, then defeated the Volga Bulgars and imposed tribute on them. Then Svyatoslav moved against the Khazar Khaganate, which had already weakened by that time, and in 965 captured its main city, Sarkel. Three years later, having waited for great help from Scandinavia, Svyatoslav again attacked the Khazars and finally defeated the Kaganate. He also subjugated Tmutarakan in the Azov region, which became one of the Russian principalities remote from Kyiv, which gave rise to the well-known saying about “a trip to Tmutarakan” as about a trip to a distant, remote side.

In the second half of the 960s. Svyatoslav moved to the Balkans. Like his father and other Scandinavian kings before him, the Greeks used him as a mercenary to conquer the Slavic power that had weakened by this time - Bulgaria. After the capture of part of the Bulgarian kingdom in 968, Svyatoslav, following the example of his father Igor, who settled first in Tmutarakan and then on Terek, decided to stay in the Balkans, settle in Pereyaslavets on the Danube and conduct raids from there, trading goods from Rus' - furs, honey , wax, slaves. But the sudden threat to Kyiv from the Pechenegs forced him to leave for Rus' for a while. Soon he returned to the Balkans and again took from the Bulgarians Pereyaslavets, which he liked so much. This time, the Byzantine emperor John Tzimiskes spoke out against the presumptuous Svyatoslav. The war went on for a long time with varying success. More and more Scandinavian troops approached Svyatoslav, they won victories and expanded their possessions, reaching Philippol (Plovdiv). It is curious that in that war of conquest far from his homeland, Svyatoslav uttered before the battle what later became the catchphrase of the Russian patriot: “We will not disgrace the Russian land, but we will lie with our bones, for the dead have no shame.” But the troops of Svyatoslav and other kings melted away in the battles, and in the end, surrounded in 971 in Dorostol, Svyatoslav agreed to make peace with the Byzantines and leave Bulgaria.

972 – Death of Prince Svyatoslav

The prince's contemporaries compared Svyatoslav's campaigns to the leaps of a leopard: swift, silent and striking. According to the testimony of the same contemporaries, Svyatoslav was a blue-eyed, bushy-moustached man of average height; he shaved his head bald, leaving a long tuft of hair on the top - oseledets (the kind the Cossacks later wore). From the outside, the only thing that helped distinguish him from warriors like him was the cleaner shirt that the prince was wearing. An earring with precious stones hung in Svyatoslav’s ear, although the warrior prince loved excellent weapons more than jewelry. He showed his warlike spirit already in childhood, when the squad of his father Igor went to take revenge on the Drevlyans for the murder of the prince. Legend has it that little Svyatoslav threw a spear towards the enemy and it fell at the feet of the enemy’s horse. Dense, strong, Svyatoslav was famous for his tirelessness in campaigns, his army did not have a baggage train, and the prince and his soldiers made do with the food of nomads - dried meat. All his life he remained a pagan and a polygamist. Having agreed to peace with the Greeks, Svyatoslav decided to return to Kyiv. By that time, his mother was no longer there - Olga died in 969. At parting, Svyatoslav met his main rival - Emperor John Tzimiskes. He sailed to meet him in a canoe, without guards, and sat on the oars himself. Thanks to this visit, we know from the Greeks from John’s retinue what Svyatoslav looked like.

Having made peace, Svyatoslav in 972 without joy set off on boats up the Dnieper, returning to Kyiv. Even earlier, he told his mother and the Kyiv boyars: “I don’t like Kiev, I want to live in Pereyaslavets on the Danube - there is the middle of my land.” He considered the lands conquered by the sword on the Danube to be his own, now lost possession. He had few warriors - most of the kings with squads on their boats broke away from his army and went to plunder the shores of Spain. The experienced king Sveneld, who was sailing with Svyatoslav, advised him to bypass the dangerous Dnieper rapids by dry land, where a Pecheneg ambush could await him. But Svyatoslav did not listen to the advice and died in a battle with nomads at the Dnieper threshold with the ominous name Nenasytnensky. The chronicle tells that from the skull of a murdered Russian prince, the Pecheneg prince Kurya made a wine cup decorated with gold and drank from it at a banquet. In our time, where Svyatoslav died, two swords from the mid-10th century were found. Perhaps the great warrior who died on the Dnieper rapids had such a sword.

The first strife in Rus'

Before leaving Kyiv for the Danube, Svyatoslav decided on the fate of his three sons. He left the eldest, Yaropolk, in Kyiv; the middle one, Oleg, was sent to reign in the land of the Drevlyans, and the youngest, Vladimir (Voldemar), was planted in Novgorod. So, Yaropolk Svyatoslavich came to power in Kyiv. But soon strife began between the brothers. In 977, Yaropolk, on the advice of Sveneld, attacked Oleg Drevlyansky, and in a battle near the city of Ovruch he died - he was thrown from a bridge into a ditch and there crushed by his mounted warriors falling from above. The younger, young brother Vladimir, having learned about Yaropolk’s speech against Oleg and fearing for his life, fled to Scandinavia.

This was a time of still close ties between the Varangian kings who ruled Russia and the homeland of their ancestors. In the scientific literature of the 20th century. they sought to “slavify” the Vikings as early as possible, to unite them with the local Slavic nobility. This process, of course, went on, but much more slowly than some historians would like. For a long time, the Russian elite was bilingual - hence the double Slavic-Scandinavian names: Oleg - Helg, Igor - Ingvar, Svyatoslav - Sfendisleif, Malusha - Malfred. For a long time, the Varangians who came from Scandinavia found refuge in Kyiv before their raids on Byzantium and other southern countries. More than once or twice, Russian princes, who abandoned the Scandinavian name "Hakan", fled to the homeland of their ancestors - to Scandinavia, where they found help and support among relatives and friends.

980 – Seizure of power by Vladimir Svyatoslavich

The fugitive Vladimir did not stay long in Scandinavia. With the Varangian squad hired there in 980, he moved to Kyiv, sending ahead a messenger who conveyed to Yaropolk: “Vladimir is coming at you, get ready to fight him!” This was the noble custom of declaring war at that time. Previously, Vladimir wanted to get Polotsk, where the Varangian Rogvolod then ruled, as an ally. For this, Vladimir decided to become related to him by marrying Rogvolod’s daughter Rogneda, who, however, was already considered the bride of Prince Yaropolk. Rogneda proudly answered Vladimir's ambassadors that she would never marry the son of a slave (Vladimir was indeed born from the slave Princess Olga, housekeeper Malusha). Taking revenge for this humiliation, Vladimir attacked Polotsk, killed Rogvolod and his two sons and took Rogneda as his wife by force. She became one of the many wives of Vladimir, who had a large harem. The chronicler claims that there were 800 women in Vladimir’s harem, and the prince was distinguished by immeasurable lasciviousness: he grabbed other people’s wives and corrupted girls. But he married Rogneda for political reasons. According to legend, subsequently Rogneda, offended by Vladimir’s many years of inattention to her, wanted to kill the prince, but he managed to grab the knife raised above him.

Soon Vladimir, at the head of a powerful Varangian squad, easily captured Kyiv. Yaropolk turned out to be inexperienced in business, becoming a toy in the hands of his advisers. One of them, named Blud, treacherously advised the prince to flee from fortified Kyiv, and then surrender to the mercy of the winner, which he did. Another adviser to the prince, named Varyazhko, persuaded him not to believe Vladimir and run to the Pechenegs. But the prince did not listen to Varyazhko’s advice, for which he paid: “And Yaropolk came to Vladimir, and when he entered the door, two Varangians lifted him with swords under their bosoms,” as the chronicler notes. And at that time the insidious Blud held the door so that Yaropolk’s retinue would not interfere with the fratricide. With the campaign of Yaropolk against Oleg Drevlyansky and Vladimir against Yaropolk, a long history of fratricides in Rus' begins, when the thirst for power and immense ambition drowned out the call of native blood and the voice of mercy.

The reign of Vladimir in Rus'

So, Vladimir Svyatoslavich began to reign in Kyiv. Many problems befell him. With great difficulty, he managed to persuade the Varangians who came with him not to plunder Kyiv. He tried to escort them out of Kyiv on a raid on Byzantium, having previously rewarded them. During the strife, some Slavic tribes fell away from Rus', and Vladimir had to pacify them “with an armed hand.” To do this, he went on a campaign against the Vyatichi and Radimichi. Then it was necessary to “calm down” the neighbors - Vladimir began a campaign against Volga Bulgaria, and in 981 he turned to the west and conquered Volyn from the Polish king Mieszko I. There he founded his main stronghold - the city of Vladimir Volynsky.

Wars with their southern neighbors - the Pechenegs - became a difficult test for Vladimir. These wild, cruel nomads were feared by everyone. There is a well-known story about the confrontation between the Kyivans and the Pechenegs on the Trubezh River in 992, when for two days Vladimir could not find among his army a daredevil who was ready to fight the Pechenegs - in those days, battles usually began with a duel of heroes. Finally, the honor of the Russian weapon was saved by the mighty skinman Nikita, who, without any wrestling techniques or tricks, grabbed his opponent - the Pechenezh hero - and simply strangled him with his huge hands, accustomed not to swinging a sword, but to crushing thick cowhide. On the site of the victory of the Russian hero, Vladimir founded the city of Pereyaslavl.

The prince saw the construction of cities in strategically important places as the most reliable means of protecting Kyiv from sudden and dangerous attacks by nomads. He allegedly said: “It’s not good that there are few cities near Kyiv,” and quickly began to correct the situation. Under him, fortresses were erected along the Desna, Trubezh, Sula, Stugna and other rivers. There were not enough first settlers (“inhabitants”) for the new cities, and Vladimir invited people from the north of Rus' to move to him. Among them were many brave souls like the legendary Ilya Muromets, who were interested in dangerous, risky service on the border. Vasnetsov’s famous painting “Three Bogatyrs” is not without a historical basis: so, tired of peaceful life or having had enough fun at feasts, the heroes went to the steppe - to breathe free air, “to amuse their right hand,” to fight with the Polovtsians, and if the opportunity arises, then and rob visiting merchants.

Vladimir, like his grandmother, Princess Olga, understood the need for reforms in matters of faith. In general, the ease with which the Varangians took power in the lands of the Slavs is also explained by the similarity of faith - both the Slavs and the Varangians were pagan polytheists. They revered the spirits of water, forests, brownies, and goblins; they had major and minor gods and goddesses. One of the most important Slavic gods, the lord of thunder and lightning Perun, was very similar to the Scandinavian supreme god Thor, whose symbol - a bronze hammer - is often found by archaeologists in Slavic burials. The image of Perun in the form of an idol-sculpture had a silver head and a golden mustache.

The Slavs also worshiped Svarog - the god of fire, the master of the Universe, bringing good luck to the sun god Dazhbog, as well as the god of the earth Svarozhich. They greatly respected the god of cattle Beles and the goddess Mokosh. She was the only female deity in the Slavic pantheon and was looked upon as mother earth. Two gods of the Slavs - Khors and Simargl - bore Iranian names. The name of the first is close to the word “good” and means “sun”, the name of the second echoes the name of the magical bird of the ancient Persians, Simurg. Sculptural images of gods were placed on hills, and sacred temples were surrounded by high fences. The gods of the Slavs, like all other pagans, were very harsh, even ferocious. They demanded veneration and frequent offerings from people. Gifts rose upward to the gods in the form of smoke from burned victims: food, killed animals and even people.

At first, Vladimir tried to unite all pagan cults, to make the Scandinavian Perun the main god, so that only him could be worshiped. The innovation did not take root, paganism was in decline, and a new era was dawning. Having come into contact with the world of Christianity throughout Europe, from Britain to Byzantium and Sicily, the Varangians were baptized.

988 – Baptism by Prince Vladimir of Rus'

The great world religions convinced the pagans that eternal life and even eternal bliss in heaven exist and that they are available, you just need to accept their faith. This is where the problem of choice arose. According to legend, Vladimir listened to various priests sent by his neighbors and thought: everyone has their own faith and their own truth! The Khazars became Jews, the Scandinavians and Poles became Christians, subordinate to Rome, and the Bulgarians adopted the Byzantine (Greek) faith. The sensual Vladimir liked the Muslim paradise with its houris, but he did not want circumcision, and he could not refuse pork and wine: “Rus' has joy to drink, it cannot be without it!” The harsh faith of the Jews, whom God Yahweh scattered throughout the world for their sins, also did not suit him. “How do you teach others,” he asked the rabbi, “but you yourself are rejected by God and scattered? If God loved you and your law, then you would not have been scattered throughout foreign lands. Or do you want the same for us?” He also rejected the Roman faith, although the reasons for Vladimir’s rejection of it are not explained in the chronicle. Perhaps Vladimir found the Latin language required for worship difficult. The Greek faith seemed to be better known to Vladimir. Connections with Byzantium were close; some of the Varangians who lived in Kyiv had long professed Christianity in the Byzantine version - the Church of St. Elijah was even built for them in Kyiv. The eyes of the pagan were also pleased by the special colorfulness (under the influence of the East) of the service according to the Greek rite. “There is no such spectacle and such beauty on earth,” said Vladimir. Finally, the boyars whispered in Vladimir’s ear: “If the Greek law had been bad, then your grandmother Olga would not have accepted it, but she was the wisest of all people.” Vladimir respected his grandmother. In a word, Vladimir chose the Greek (Orthodox) faith, especially since the services were supposed to be conducted not in Greek, but in the Slavic language.

But, having chosen faith, Vladimir was in no hurry to be baptized. “I’ll wait a little longer,” he said. Indeed, was it easy for him to renounce the free life of a pagan and part with his beloved harem in Berestov and two more - in Vyshgorod and Belgorod? It is clear that Vladimir’s baptism was primarily a political matter, determined by considerations of the pragmatic benefit of an inveterate pagan, and not the result of some kind of divine enlightenment. The fact is that on the eve of these events, the Byzantine Emperor Vasily II hired Vladimir with an army to suppress the rebellion that broke out in Asia Minor. Vladimir set a condition - he would help the emperor if the emperor’s sister Anna was given in marriage to him. At first the emperor agreed. The Rus helped the Byzantines suppress the rebellion, but Vasily II broke his word given to Vladimir and did not marry his Christian sister to him. Then Vladimir captured the rich Byzantine city in Crimea - Chersonesos and again wooed Anna, offering the city as a bride price. The emperor agreed to this, but demanded that the prince himself be baptized. During the baptism of the prince in 987, a miracle supposedly happened in the temple of Chersonesos - Vladimir’s blindness, which had begun before, disappeared. In this insight, everyone saw a sign of God, a confirmation of the correctness of the choice. In 989 Anna arrived, Vladimir married her and went to Kyiv with rich booty.

He brought with him not only his Greek wife, but also sacred relics and priests from Korsun (Chersonese). Vladimir first baptized his sons, relatives and servants. Then he took on the people. All the idols were thrown from the temples, burned, chopped up, and Perun, dragged through the city, was thrown into the Dnieper. The people of Kiev, looking at the desecration of holy places, cried. Greek priests walked the streets and convinced people to be baptized. Some Kievans did this with joy, others did not care, and still others did not want to renounce the faith of their fathers. And then Vladimir realized that the new faith would not be accepted here with goodness, and resorted to violence. He ordered a decree to be announced in Kyiv so that all pagans would appear for baptism on the river bank tomorrow, and whoever did not appear would be considered an enemy of the prince. In the morning, undressed Kiev residents were driven into the water and baptized en masse. No one was interested in how true such an appeal was. To justify their weakness, people said that the boyars and the prince themselves would hardly have accepted an unworthy faith - after all, they would never wish anything bad for themselves! Nevertheless, later an uprising of those dissatisfied with the new faith broke out in the city.

They immediately began to build churches on the site of the temples, so that, as they had long said in Rus', the holy place would not remain empty. The Church of St. Basil was erected on the temple of Perun - after all, Vladimir himself accepted the Christian name Vasily at baptism. All the churches were wooden, only the main temple - the Assumption Cathedral - was built by Greek craftsmen from stone. Vladimir donated a tenth of his income to the Assumption Cathedral. That's why the church was called Tithe. She died in 1240 along with the city, taken by the Mongol-Tatars. The first metropolitan was the Greek Fiofilakt. He was succeeded by Metropolitan John I, from whose time a seal with the inscription “John, Metropolitan of Rus'” has been preserved.

The baptism of the population of other cities and lands was also accompanied by violence. In the West this was often not the case. Under the influence of the first Christians, peoples who had previously worshiped pagan gods were baptized en masse of their own free will, and their rulers were often the last to accept the widespread Christian faith among the people. In Rus', first the ruler became a Christian, and then the people who persisted in their paganism. When the boyar Prince Vladimir Dobrynya arrived in Novgorod in 989 with Bishop Joachim Korsunyanin, neither persuasion nor threats helped. The Novgorodians, led by the sorcerer Nightingale, stood firmly for the old gods and, in a rage, even destroyed the only church that had been built a long time ago. Only after an unsuccessful battle with the squad of Putyata - Dobrynya’s henchman - and the threat to set fire to the city, the Novgorodians came to their senses: they climbed to Volkhov to be baptized. The stubborn ones were dragged into the water by force and then checked to see if they were wearing crosses. Subsequently, a proverb was born: “Putyata baptized with a sword, and Dobrynya with fire.” Stone Perun was drowned in Volkhov, but faith in the power of the old gods was not destroyed. They prayed to them in secret, made sacrifices, and many centuries later after the arrival of the Kyiv “baptists,” when getting into a boat, a Novgorodian threw a coin into the water - a sacrifice to Perun, so that he would not drown in an hour.

But gradually Christianity was introduced into Rus'. This was largely facilitated by the Bulgarians, the Slavs who converted to Christianity earlier. Bulgarian priests and scribes came to Rus' and brought Christianity with them in an understandable Slavic language. So Bulgaria became a kind of bridge between Greek, Byzantine and Russian-Slavic culture. Russian writing, improved by Cyril and Methodius, came to Rus' from Bulgaria. Thanks to them, the first books appeared in Rus', and Russian book culture was born.

Vladimir Krasno Solnyshko

The fact that Vladimir was the son of a slave put him from childhood in an unequal position with his brothers - after all, they came from noble, free mothers. The consciousness of his inferiority awakened in the young man the desire to establish himself in the eyes of people with strength, intelligence, and decisive actions that would be remembered by everyone. It is noteworthy that the prince’s most faithful person, who accompanied Vladimir on his campaigns like a shadow, was his uncle, Malusha’s brother, Dobrynya, who became a famous epic hero in Russian folklore. At the same time, while fighting nomads and making campaigns against neighbors, Vladimir himself did not show much prowess and was not known as such a warlike and formidable knight as his father or grandfather. During one of the battles with the Pechenegs, Vladimir fled from the battlefield and, saving his life, climbed under a bridge. It is difficult to imagine his grandfather, the conqueror of Constantinople, Prince Igor, or his father, Svyatoslav the Leopard, in such a humiliating position.

Vladimir ruled Christian Russia for a long time. The chronicles create an image of the prince as an inveterate pagan who, having converted to Christianity, immediately became an exemplary Christian. In paganism he was depraved and dishonest, but having become Orthodox, he changed dramatically and began to do good. In general, he is not remembered in folklore as a formidable, fanatical and cruel crusader. Apparently, the former life-loving pagan himself was not particularly persistent in spreading the faith, and people loved Vladimir and nicknamed him the Red Sun. As a ruler, he was famous for his generosity, was unforgiving, flexible, ruled humanely, skillfully defending the country from enemies. The prince also loved his retinue, with whom it was his custom to consult (duma) at frequent and plentiful feasts. Once, having heard the murmur of the feasting warriors that they were eating not with silver, but with wooden spoons, Vladimir immediately ordered silver spoons to be made for them. At the same time, he did not worry about the loss of his silver reserve: “I won’t find a squad with silver and gold, but with a squad I will get gold and silver.”

Vladimir died in his suburban castle of Berestov on July 15, 1015, and, having learned about this, crowds of people rushed to the church to mourn the good prince, their intercessor. Vladimir's body was transported to Kyiv and buried in a marble coffin. At the same time, the people of Kiev were alarmed - after Vladimir, 12 of 16 sons remained alive, and the struggle between them seemed inevitable to everyone.

1015 – Murder of princes Boris and Gleb

Already during Vladimir’s life, the brothers, planted by his father in the main Russian lands, lived unfriendly, and Yaroslav, the son of Rogneda, who was sitting in Novgorod, even refused to bring the usual tribute to Kyiv. Vladimir wanted to punish the apostate and prepared to go on a campaign against Novgorod. Yaroslav urgently hired a Varangian squad to resist his father. But then Vladimir died - and the campaign against Novgorod did not take place. Immediately after Vladimir’s death, power in Kyiv was taken by his eldest son, Svyatopolk Vladimirovich. For some reason, the people of Kiev did not like him; they gave their hearts to Vladimir’s other son, Boris. His mother was Bulgarian, and at the time of Vladimir’s death, Boris was 25 years old. He was sitting in the principality in Rostov and at the time of his father’s death he was going on his instructions with his squad against the Pechenegs. Having taken over his father's table, Svyatopolk decided to get rid of Boris. In principle, Boris was indeed potentially dangerous for Svyatopolk. After all, at that time Boris was on a campaign with a fighting squad and, using the support of the people of Kiev, could capture Kyiv. But Boris decided differently: “I will not raise my hand against my elder brother.” However, Christian humility almost never brings political success. Svyatopolk sent assassins to his brother, who overtook Boris on the banks of the Alma River. Knowing that the murderers were standing at the tent, Boris prayed fervently and went to bed, that is, he deliberately went to martyrdom. At the last moment, when the murderers began to pierce the prince’s tent with spears, his Hungarian servant George tried to save the master by covering him with his body. The young man was killed, and the wounded Boris was finished off later. At the same time, the dead were robbed. To remove the golden hryvnia, a gift from Boris, from George’s neck, the villains cut off the young man’s head. Summoned from Murom to Kyiv, Boris's younger brother, Gleb, learned from his sister Predslava that Boris had been killed, but still continued on his way. Surrounded by Svyatopolk’s killers near Smolensk, he, like his brother, did not resist them and died: he was stabbed to death by the cook Torchin. Gleb, together with Boris, became the first Russian saints for their Christian humility. After all, not every murdered Russian prince is a martyr! Since then, the brother princes have been revered as protectors of the Russian land. However, there is a version that the true inspirer of the murder of the brothers was not Svyatopolk, but Yaroslav, who, like his brother, also thirsted for power in Kyiv.

Reign of Yaroslav the Wise

The people of Kiev considered Prince Svyatopolk, who received the nickname the Damned, to be the culprit in the death of Boris and Gleb. Yaroslav got involved in the struggle for the Kiev gold table (as the Kiev throne was called in epics).

In 1016, he came to Kyiv with a thousand Varangians he hired, as well as a Novgorod squad. The people of Kiev greeted him well, and Svyatopolk the Accursed had to flee the capital. However, he did not despair. Soon Svyatopolk also brought his mercenaries - the Poles, and they, having defeated Yaroslav's squad in the battle of 1018, drove him out of Kyiv. Yaroslav did not remain in debt - he again hired the Varangian squad, paid them well, and the Varangians defeated Svyatopolk in the Battle of Alma (at the place where Boris was killed) in 1019, finally establishing Kyiv for Yaroslav. Right at the site of the battle, Svyatopolk suffered from paralysis (probably from a terrible nervous shock), and soon he died, and from his grave, the chronicler merciless to Svyatopolk noted with satisfaction, “a terrible stench emanates.”

But as soon as Yaroslav, as it is said in the chronicle, “wiped his sweat with his squad, showing victory and great labor,” his other brother, Mstislav the Udal from Tmutarakan, went to war against him. Unlike the lame and frail Yaroslav, Mstislav was “mighty in body, handsome in face, with big eyes, brave in battle.” His name became famous after his victory in a personal duel over the leader of the Kasogs (Circassians) Rededey, and the opponents did not fight with swords or spears, but fought hand-to-hand. And only after throwing the enemy to the ground, Mstislav took out his knife and finished him off. In 1024, Mstislav's army defeated Yaroslav's squad. The leader of the Varangians, Yakun, took a shameful flight and lost his famous gold-woven cloak, in which he was accustomed to go into battle, showing off in front of everyone. Yaroslav again fled to Novgorod and again, as in previous years, sent to hire a squad in Scandinavia - his only support in the protracted strife.

However, having defeated Yaroslav, Mstislav did not sit down on the Kiev gold table, but suggested that Yaroslav divide his possessions: leave the lands on the left bank of the Dnieper to him, Mstislav, and give the Right Bank to Yaroslav. Yaroslav agreed to his brother's terms. So two rulers appeared in Rus' - Yaroslav and Mstislav Vladimirovich, and peace finally came. A rare entry in the turbulent Russian history appeared in the chronicle: “In the year 6537 (i.e. 1029. - E. A.) It was peaceful." Dual power lasted for 10 years. When Mstislav died in 1036, Yaroslav began to rule all of Russia.

Prince Yaroslav built a lot. Under him, the golden domes of the gate churches shone on the new stone gates of Kyiv. Yaroslav built a city on the Volga, which received his name (Yaroslavl), and also founded the city of Yuryev in the Baltic states (Yaroslav’s baptismal name was Yuri), now Tartu. The main temple of Ancient Rus' - St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv - was also built by Yaroslav in 1037. It was huge - it had 13 domes, galleries, and was decorated with rich frescoes and mosaics. People were surprised by the mosaic floor with patterns and the marble altar. Byzantine artists, in addition to the saints, depicted Yaroslav's family using mosaics on the wall of the cathedral. Among the many magnificent Byzantine mosaics of the St. Sophia Cathedral, the famous image of the “Unbreakable Wall”, or “Oranta” - the Mother of God with raised hands - is still preserved in the altar of the temple. Created by Byzantine masters, this work will amaze everyone who sees it. It seems to believers that since the time of Yaroslav, for almost a thousand years, the Mother of God, like a wall, stands indestructibly at full height in the golden radiance of the sky, raising her hands, praying for us and overshadowing Rus'.

Yaroslav, unlike his father Vladimir, was a pious man (“he loved a lot of priests”), built churches in Kyiv and other cities. Under him, new dioceses were established and the first metropolitan, Russian by birth, was elected. His name was Hilarion. While still a monk, he created the “Sermon on Law and Grace” - one of the first Russian journalistic works. In 1051, Hilarion founded the Pechersk Monastery (the future Kiev Pechersk Lavra) on the site of the first settlement of monks, in small caves on the wooded slope of a mountain above the Dnieper. Under Yaroslav, the first written law appeared, Russian Truth or “The Most Ancient Truth,” a set of the first Russian regulations set out on parchment. It takes into account the judicial customs and traditions of Rus' - the so-called “Russian law”, which guided the prince in the analysis of court cases. One of the judicial customs was the “Divine Judgment” - a trial by fire, when a person’s innocence was tested with a red-hot piece of iron. It was believed that burns on the hand of an innocent person healed faster than those of a guilty person. With this law, the enlightened prince limited blood feud and replaced it with a fine (vira). Russian Truth became the basis of Russian legislation for many centuries and laid the foundation of Russian law.

When Yaroslav died in 1054, he was buried in his beloved St. Sophia Cathedral, in a white marble sarcophagus, which has survived (unfortunately, without the ashes of the deceased) to this day.

Yaroslav the Wise and his unfriendly sons and grandsons

Yaroslav is known in history not only as the creator of St. Sophia Cathedral, the founder of many churches and cities, but also as a scribe. It was not for nothing that he was called the Wise, that is, learned, intelligent, educated. This sickly man, lame from birth, loved and collected books, which the monks translated for him from Greek and copied in a special workshop. The chronicler wrote with respect about him as a ruler who read books “often both night and day.” Yaroslav's Rus' and Europe were connected not only by trade and cultural relations, but also by family ties of rulers. Yaroslav himself married Ingigerda, daughter of the Swedish king Olaf. He married his son Vsevolod to Maria, the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Monomakh, and the son of Izyaslav, to the daughter of the Polish king Gertrude. Son Svyatoslav became the husband of Oda, the daughter of a German count. Three daughters of Yaroslav immediately married European monarchs. Elizabeth was married to the King of Norway and Denmark, Anastasia was married to the Hungarian Duke Andrew, who, with the help of Yaroslav, took the royal throne in Hungary. Anastasia gave birth to two sons - Solomon (Shalamon) and David. After the death of her husband, Yaroslav's daughter ruled Hungary under the young King Shalamon. Finally, Anna Yaroslavna, who became the French queen by marrying Henry I in 1049, is better known than others. After the death of her husband in 1060, she became regent of France under her 7-year-old son Philip I.

After the death of Yaroslav, as before, after the death of his father Vladimir, discord and strife reigned in Rus'. As N.M. Karamzin wrote: “Ancient Russia buried its power and prosperity with Yaroslav.” But this did not happen immediately. Of the five sons of Yaroslav (Yaroslavich), three survived their father: Izyaslav, Svyatoslav and Vsevolod. Dying, Yaroslav approved the order of succession to the throne, according to which power passes from the older brother to the younger. At first, Yaroslav’s children did just that: the gold table went to the eldest of them, Izyaslav Yaroslavich, and Svyatoslav and Vsevolod obeyed him. They lived with him amicably for 15 years, together they even supplemented “Yaroslav’s Truth” with new articles, focusing on increasing fines for attacks on princely property. This is how “Pravda Yaroslavichy” appeared.

But in 1068 the peace was broken. The Russian army of the Yaroslavichs suffered a heavy defeat from the Polovtsians. The Kyivians, dissatisfied with them, expelled Grand Duke Izyaslav and his brother Vsevolod from the city, plundered the princely palace and declared the ruler of the Polotsk prince Vseslav, released from the Kiev prison - he was captured during the campaign against Polotsk and brought as a prisoner to Kyiv by the Yaroslavichs. The chronicler considered Vseslav bloodthirsty and evil. He wrote that Vseslav’s cruelty came from the influence of a certain amulet - a magic bandage that he wore on his head, covering a non-healing ulcer with it. Expelled from Kyiv, Grand Duke Izyaslav fled to Poland, taking the princely wealth with the words: “With this I will find warriors,” meaning mercenaries. And soon he actually appeared at the walls of Kyiv with a hired Polish army and quickly regained power in Kyiv. Vseslav, without offering resistance, fled home to Polotsk.

After Vseslav’s flight, a struggle began within the Yaroslavich clan, who had forgotten the commandments of their father. The younger brothers Svyatoslav and Vsevolod overthrew the elder Izyaslav, who again fled to Poland, and then to Germany, where he could not find help. The middle brother Svyatoslav Yaroslavich became the Grand Duke in Kyiv. But his life was short-lived. Active and aggressive, he fought a lot, had immense ambitions, and died from the knife of an incompetent surgeon, who in 1076 tried to cut out some kind of tumor from the prince.

The younger brother Vsevolod Yaroslavich, who came to power after him, married to the daughter of the Byzantine emperor, was a God-fearing and meek man. He also did not rule for long and innocently gave up the throne to Izyaslav, who had returned from Germany. But he was chronically unlucky: Prince Izyaslav died on Nezhatina Niva near Chernigov in 1078 in a battle with his nephew, Svyatoslav’s son Oleg, who himself wanted to take his father’s throne. The spear pierced his back, therefore, either he fled, or, most likely, someone dealt a treacherous blow to the prince from behind. The chronicler tells us that Izyaslav was a prominent man, with a pleasant face, had a rather quiet disposition, and was kind-hearted. His first act at the Kiev table was the abolition of the death penalty, replaced by a vira - a fine. His kindness became, apparently, the reason for his misadventures: Izyaslav Yaroslavich always craved the throne, but was not cruel enough to establish himself on it.

As a result, the Kiev gold table again went to the youngest son of Yaroslav, Vsevolod, who ruled until 1093. Educated, endowed with intelligence, the Grand Duke spoke five languages, but ruled the country poorly, unable to cope with the Polovtsians, or with the famine, or with the pestilence that devastated Kyiv and surrounding lands. On the magnificent Kiev table, he remained the modest appanage prince of Pereyaslavl, as the great father Yaroslav the Wise made him in his youth. He was unable to restore order in his own family. The grown-up sons of his siblings and cousins ​​desperately quarreled over power, constantly fighting with each other over land. For them, the word of their uncle - Grand Duke Vsevolod Yaroslavich - no longer meant anything.

The strife in Rus', now smoldering, now flaring up into war, continued. Intrigues and murders became common among princes. So, in the fall of 1086, the nephew of the Grand Duke Yaropolk Izyaslavich, during a campaign, was suddenly killed by his servant, who stabbed the master in the side with a knife. The reason for the crime is unknown, but, most likely, it was based on a feud over the lands of Yaropolk with his relatives - the Rostislavichs, who were sitting in Przemysl. Prince Vsevolod's only hope remained his beloved son Vladimir Monomakh.

The reign of Izyaslav and Vsevolod, the feuds of their relatives took place at a time when for the first time a new enemy came from the steppes - the Polovtsians (Turks), who expelled the Pechenegs and began to almost continuously attack Rus'. In 1068, in a night battle, they defeated the princely regiments of Izyaslav and began to boldly plunder the Russian lands. Since then, not even a year has passed without Polovtsian raids. Their hordes reached Kyiv, and once the Polovtsians burned the famous princely palace in Berestov. The Russian princes, warring with each other, entered into agreements with the Polovtsians for the sake of power and rich inheritances and brought their hordes to Rus'.

July 1093 turned out to be especially tragic, when the Polovtsians on the banks of the Stugna River defeated the united squad of Russian princes, who acted unfriendly. The defeat was terrible: the entire Stugna was filled with the corpses of Russian soldiers, and the field was smoking from the blood of the fallen. “The next morning, the 24th,” the chronicler writes, “on the day of the holy martyrs Boris and Gleb, there was great mourning in the city, and not joy, for our great sins and untruths, for the multiplication of our iniquities.” In the same year, Khan Bonyak almost captured Kyiv and destroyed its previously inviolable shrine - the Kiev Pechersky Monastery, and also burned the outskirts of the great city.

1097 – Lyubech Congress

Dying in 1093, Vsevolod Yaroslavich asked to place his coffin near the tomb of his father - such was the will of Yaroslav the Wise, who once told his son: “When God sends you death, lie where I lie, at my tomb, because I love you more than your brothers " By the time of Vsevolod’s death, his son, Prince of Chernigov Vladimir Monomakh, was considered the most likely candidate for the Kiev table. But he did not dare to take his father’s place - he gave up the Kiev table to his cousin Svyatopolk Izyaslavich Turovsky. This decision was approved by everyone - then it was customary to transfer power “horizontally” - from the older brother to the younger, and not “vertically” - from father to son. Therefore, the son of the eldest Yaroslavich Izyaslav Svyatopolk stood “above” Vladimir Monomakh, the son of the youngest Yaroslavich Vsevolod. Monomakh took this into account, although his relationship with Svyatopolk Izyaslavich was difficult.

Having become the prince of Kiev and experiencing a constant threat from the steppes, Svyatopolk tried to pursue a flexible policy: he married the daughter of the Polovtsian prince Tugorkan, fought the Polovtsians not only with weapons, but also sought to come to an agreement with them, especially after the memorable defeat of the Russian troops at Stugna. Other Russian princes later followed this path, especially those who lived in the principalities bordering the Polovtsians and feared their raids or dreamed of seizing more lands with the help of the Polovtsians, and perhaps even sitting on the Kiev gold table. Seeing the constant “dislike” and discord of the princes, Vladimir Monomakh invited all the princes to get together, discuss mutual claims and put an end to the constant strife.

Everyone agreed, and in 1097, on the banks of the Dnieper, not far from the princely castle of Lyubech, on a carpet spread in a field, that is, on neutral territory, the Russian princes met. These were cousins ​​(grandsons of Yaroslav) - Grand Duke Svyatopolk Izyaslavich and appanage princes - Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh, as well as Oleg Svyatoslavich, nicknamed Gorislavich, his brothers Davyd and Yaroslav Svyatoslavich, Davyd Igorevich (son of Igor Yaroslavich). There were also Vasilko and Volodar Rostislavich, the children of the late Rostislav Vladimirovich, who settled in Volyn. At this congress, the princes divided the lands among themselves and solemnly kissed the cross in observance of this agreement: “Let the Russian land be a common ... fatherland, and whoever rises up against his brother, we will all rise up against him.” After they parted peacefully, a crime occurred: Prince Svyatopolk, at the instigation of Davyd Igorevich and his boyars, lured Prince Vasilko to Kyiv and ordered him to be blinded. The chronicler claims that Davyd slandered Vasilko in front of the Grand Duke, accusing him of intending to seize power. But another reason for Svyatopolk’s treachery is more likely - he wanted to seize the rich Volyn lands of the Rostislavichs. Be that as it may, the reprisal against one of the close relatives immediately after a peaceful family meeting at Lyubech outraged all the princes. They forced Grand Duke Svyatopolk to admit his guilt and give his word to punish the slanderer Davyd. But it was too late - mistrust and anger reigned again in the family of princes.

Prince Oleg Gorislavich

The famous Oleg Svyatoslavich, nicknamed Gorislavich, was considered one of the constant contenders for the reign of Kiev. This son of Grand Duke Svyatoslav Yaroslavich played a special and sad role in the history of strife and strife in Rus'. He lived a life full of adventures and adventures (died in 1115). After the death of his father Svyatoslav, he fled from Kyiv to Tmutarakan, which he ruled for a long time as an independent ruler, even minting his own coin there. More than once Oleg made campaigns against Rus' together with the Polovtsians (“he brought the filthy ones to the Russian land”). He had a bad reputation among the far from meek Rurikovichs. Apparently, the prince had a nasty, grumpy, quarrelsome character. It is no coincidence that he, who brings only troubles and grief to everyone, was nicknamed Gorislavich.

In “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” it is said about Oleg: “That Oleg forged sedition with a sword / And sowed arrows on the ground.” The ambitious and restless Oleg did not want peace with his relatives for a long time and in 1096, in the struggle for inheritance, he killed the son of Vladimir Monomakh, Izyaslav, but soon he himself was defeated by Mstislav, another son of Monomakh. Only after this Gorislavich agreed to come to the Lyubech Congress, where Monomakh and other princes called him for a long time.

Vladimir Monomakh at the Kiev gold table

Grand Duke Svyatopolk died in the spring of 1113. Immediately a rebellion began in Kyiv against moneylenders, who took huge interest from debtors and enjoyed the patronage of the late prince. The rebellious townspeople headed to the city center, where the boyars lived and the Church of St. Sophia stood. The crowd destroyed the courtyards of the elected head of the city - the thousand Putyata, as well as the houses of Jewish moneylenders, their synagogue, and then rushed to the princely court and the Pechersky Monastery. The frightened authorities urgently called Monomakh to the city: “Go, prince, to your father’s and grandfather’s table.” Monomakh took power in Kyiv and, in order to calm people down, introduced a special “Charter of Vladimir Monomakh”, which reduced the interest on the debt from 100-200 to 20%.

So, Vladimir Monomakh ascended the grand-ducal throne at the invitation of the Kyiv elders and with the approval of the people - the people of Kiev. This is generally typical for pre-Mongol Rus'. The influence of the elders and the city council in cities was much greater than it seems at first glance. The prince, with all his power, usually consulted with his squad, but also had in mind the opinion of the city council. In essence, the veche order, which was preserved for a long time in Novgorod, also existed in many other ancient Russian cities in the pre-Mongol era, and even in some places remained for a long time after the conquest of Rus' by the Mongols.

Under Prince Vladimir Monomakh, peace reigned in Rus'. Where with authority, where with “armed hand,” he forced the appanage princes to quiet down. He was a man of his time - he brutally dealt with the Polotsk prince Gleb, whom he disliked, just as his ancestor Svyatoslav Monomakh cherished the dream of settling on the Danube, taking advantage of the weakness of Byzantium. Even a century later, he was remembered as a fabulous, powerful ruler. The unknown author of “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land” wrote enthusiastically about Monomakh, who, unlike the princes of the 13th century humiliated by the Tatars. - the author’s contemporaries, everyone feared and respected: “... the Polovtsy their small children (in his name. - E. A.) scared. But the Lithuanians did not show themselves from their swamps, and the Hungarians strengthened the stone walls of their cities with iron gates so that the great Vladimir would not conquer them, and the Germans rejoiced that they were far away - across the blue sea.”

Monomakh became famous as a courageous warrior who more than once looked death in the eye. Even during his appanage reign in the border land of Pereyaslavl, he organized several campaigns of Russian princes against the Polovtsians. Not all of these campaigns ended successfully. In 1093, in the above-mentioned battle on the Stugna River, Monomakh saw his younger brother Rostislav die in the river waves. Ten years later, when Monomakh became the Grand Duke, a battle near the Suten tract (Azov region) brought victory to the Russians. The decisive battle took place in 1111. Then Russian troops came to the steppe under the banners of the crusade and, on the banks of a tributary of the Don - the Solnitsa River - defeated the main forces of the Polovtsians. After this, the danger of Polovtsian raids on Rus' significantly weakened. However, Monomakh remained a skillful, flexible politician: while suppressing the irreconcilable khans by force, he was friends with the peace-loving Polovtsians and even married one of his sons Yuri (Dolgoruky) to the daughter of the allied Polovtsian khan Bonyak.

1113 – The Tale of Bygone Years appears

Chronicles began to be written in Kyiv during the times of Olga and Svyatoslav. Under Yaroslav in 1037-1039. the place where the chronicler-monks worked was the St. Sophia Cathedral. They took old chronicles and compiled them into a new edition, which they supplemented with their own notes. Then the monks of the Pechersk Monastery began to keep the chronicle. In 1072-1073 Another edition of the chronicle appeared. Abbot of the monastery Nikon collected and included new sources, checked the dates, and corrected the style. Finally, in 1113, the chronicler Nestor, a monk of the same monastery, created the famous Tale of Bygone Years. It remains the main source on the history of Ancient Rus'.

The incorrupt body of the great chronicler Nestor rests in the dungeon of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and behind the glass of his coffin you can still see the fingers of his right hand - the same one that wrote for us the ancient history of Rus'.

Vladimir Monomakh

Vladimir Monomakh had a glorious pedigree: he was the grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, and on his mother’s side, the grandson of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Monomakh. In his honor, Vladimir adopted the nickname Monomakh. He became one of the few Russian princes who thought about the unity of Rus', the fight against the Polovtsians and peace among their relatives. Monomakh was an educated man of a philosophical mindset and possessed the gift of a writer. He came to supreme power in his old age, at 60 years old. He was a red-haired, curly man with a thick beard. A strong, brave warrior, he went on dozens of campaigns and more than once looked death in the eye in battle and hunting. He wrote: “Two rounds (of wild bulls. – E. A.) they threw me with their horns along with the horse, one of the deer gored me, and of the two elk, one trampled me with his feet, the other butted me with his horns; the boar tore off the sword on my thigh, the bear bit my sweatshirt at my knee, the fierce beast jumped on my hips and overturned the horse with me. And God kept me safe. And he fell from his horse a lot, broke his head twice, and injured his arms and legs.”

Monomakh thought a lot about the futility of human life. “What are we, sinful and bad people? – he once wrote to Oleg Gorislavich. “Today they are alive, and tomorrow they are dead, today in glory and honor, and tomorrow in a grave and forgotten.” The prince strove to ensure that the experience of his long and difficult life did not go in vain, so that his sons and descendants would remember his good deeds. That is why Vladimir wrote his famous “Teaching,” which contains memories of his years, the intricacies of politics, stories about eternal travels and battles. Here are Monomakh’s advice: “What my youth should do, he did it himself - in war and on hunts, night and day, in heat and cold, without giving himself rest. Without relying on mayors or privet, he did what was necessary himself.” Only an experienced warrior can say these words: “When you go to war, do not be lazy, do not rely on the commander; do not indulge in drinking, eating, or sleeping; Dress up the guards yourself and at night, placing guards on all sides, lie down next to the soldiers, and get up early; and do not take off your weapons in a hurry, without looking around out of laziness.” And then follow the words that everyone will subscribe to: “A person dies suddenly.”

But these words are addressed to many of us: “Learn, believer, to be an achiever of piety, learn, according to the Gospel word, “control of the eyes, temperance of the tongue, humility of the mind, submission of the body, suppression of anger, to have pure thoughts, encouraging yourself to do good.” affairs"".

Monomakh's successors in power. The beginning of the collapse of Ancient Rus'

Monomakh died in 1125, 72 years old, and his epitaph was the words of the chronicler: “Adorned with a good disposition, glorious in victories, he did not exalt himself, did not magnify himself.” He was happy in his family life. His wife Gita, the daughter of the Anglo-Saxon king Harold, who was defeated at Hastings in 1066 by William the Conqueror, bore him several sons, among whom Mstislav, who became Monomakh’s successor, stood out.

The Rurikovichs from Kyiv in those days had extensive family ties with many European dynasties. Monomakh married his daughters to noble foreign suitors from Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Croatia. Vladimir's son Mstislav was married to a Swedish princess, who gave birth to a daughter, who later became the Byzantine empress, wife of Emperor Andronikos Komnenos.

So, the Kiev gold table was occupied by Vladimir’s son Mstislav Vladimirovich, who was then almost 50 years old. Already during his father’s life, he participated in governing the state, was distinguished by his courage, courage, and more than once defeated the enemy in battles. After the death of Vladimir Monomakh, Mstislav successfully repelled the invasion of the Polovtsians, and then dealt with the Polotsk princes, who had long resisted the power of the Yaroslavichs. Mstislav got rid of the unpleasant princely clan from Polotsk that had bothered him in a very original way: all the captured Polotsk princes with their families were put on boats and... sent (now they would say deported) forever to Byzantium. Contemporaries remembered the reign of Mstislav for the famine in the Novgorod land of 1128, unprecedented in its terrible consequences: that summer the streets of the city were covered with the bodies of the dead, and for the first time in many years the chronicler wrote: “Novgorod was empty.”

Mstislav enjoyed authority among the princes, the reflection of the great glory of Monomakh lay on his brow, but he only had the chance to rule Russia for 7 years. After the death of Mstislav in 1132, as the chronicler wrote, “the entire Russian land was torn apart” - a long period of fragmentation began. At first, the Kiev throne passed to the brother of the deceased, Yaropolk Vladimirovich. This is what the people of Kiev wished then, who again intervened in the political struggle at the gold table. And almost immediately a quarrel began in the Monomakhovich family. Yaropolk's brothers Yuri (Dolgoruky) and Andrei Vladimirovich encountered the Mstislavichs - their nephews, the children of the late Mstislav: princes Izyaslav, Vsevolod and Rostislav. Both sides constantly resorted to the help (far from disinterested) of mercenaries: Polovtsians, Hungarians, Poles. They all plundered cities and villages and even allowed themselves previously unprecedented impudence - to drive up to the walls of Kyiv and shoot their arrows towards the city.

From this time on, the collapse of the united Old Russian state began and gradually intensified. Seeing the quarrel in the Monomakhovich family, the Olgovichs - Vsevolod, Igor, Svyatoslav, sons of the restless Chernigov prince Oleg Gorislavich - perked up. They also declared their claims to the Kiev table. For several decades, the struggle of the Monomakhovichs and Olgovichs and their descendants did not subside.

In 1139, Grand Duke Yaropolk Vladimirovich died. The eldest of the Olgovichs, Vsevolod Olgovich, entered into a fight with his brother Vyacheslav Vladimirovich, who inherited Kiev. He won and soon became the prince of Kyiv. So, finally, the Olgovichi achieved supreme power. But after the death of Vsevolod in 1146, the Monomakhovichs again took possession of the Kyiv table, and under very dramatic circumstances. The fact is that, while dying, Grand Duke Vsevolod Olgovich begged the people of Kiev to swear allegiance to his younger brothers Igor and Svyatoslav. However, the townspeople, having sworn allegiance, still did not keep their word to the prince. They expelled the brothers from Kyiv and sent for Monomakhovich - Izyaslav Mstislavich, who was the eldest son of the late Grand Duke Mstislav. Igor Vsevolodovich, expelled by them, hid in the swamps for four days, but nevertheless was captured by Izyaslav and, avoiding dishonor, became a monk. However, he did not live long: the people of Kiev, fearing punishment for perjury, killed him. By this time, Kyiv had lost its supremacy in Rus'. Real power passed to the appanage princes, many of whom could not seize power in Kyiv, and therefore lived in their possessions, not thinking about anything more. Others, stronger, were still drawn to Kyiv, dreamed of the Kiev throne, although not each of these dreamers was destined to even come close to the Kyiv gold table.

A notable feature of the life of the city was the leading role of the people's council, which met at the walls of St. Sophia of Kyiv and decided the fate of the city and the princes. All this was accompanied by the intrigues of the “strongest” boyars, various “parties” and the riot of the mob, which was easy to raise to reprisal against undesirable people. This is what happened in the story of the murder of Prince Igor. At the funeral service for the martyr, the abbot of the Feodorovsky monastery, Anania, exclaimed: “Woe to those who live now! Woe to the vain age and cruel hearts!” His last words, as if to confirm them, were covered by a sudden bolt from the clear sky. However, subsequent centuries were worthy of equally harsh assessment.

Strengthening the Vladimir-Suzdal and Galician-Volyn principalities

Even in the times of Yaroslav the Wise, the Vladimir-Suzdal land was called Zalesie, being a remote pagan outskirts where brave Christian preachers disappeared without a trace. But gradually the Slavs began to move to the Zalessky region, trying to move away from the dangerous southern border with the Polovtsians. Great navigable rivers flowed here - the Volga and Oka, and the road to Novgorod, as well as to Rostov and Vladimir. Peaceful life was a common blessing in Zalesye, and not a respite between wars, as in the south.

The political separation of the northeastern territories from Kyiv occurred already under Monomakh’s son Yuri Vladimirovich (Dolgoruky) in 1132-1135. He had long ago and reliably settled down in the Vladimir principality, having cut down the cities of Yuryev-Polskaya, Dmitrov, Pereslavl-Zalessky, and Zvenigorod. However, Yuri, having become friends with the Olgovichs, got involved in the struggle for Kyiv and left his Zalessk principality. In general, the prince continuously “stretched his hand” to the Kyiv heritage from his distant Zalesye, for which he received his nickname Yuri Long Hands. In 1154, the Kiev prince Izyaslav Mstislavich died, and after a short struggle, Yuri Vladimirovich, who was already over 65 years old, finally seized power in Kyiv. But he ruled there for only 2 years. He was poisoned at a feast hosted by the Kyiv boyar Petrila. Chroniclers, without much warmth, remember Prince Yuri - a tall, fat man with small eyes and a crooked nose, “a great lover of wives, sweet foods and drinks,” under whom his favorites ruled the state. Yuri was married twice - to the Polovtsian princess Aepa (from her a son was born - Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky) and to the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Komnenos (mother of princes Vsevolod, Mikhail and Vasily).

Around the same years, the Galicia-Volyn principality began to stand out among the Russian appanage principalities. The mild climate, fertile lands, proximity to Europe, large cities - Galich, Vladimir-Volynsky, Lvov, Przemysl - all this made the Galicia-Volyn land rich. The Polovtsians rarely came here, but there was no peace on this land, for people suffered from continuous strife between local boyars and princes. The relationship between Prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich Osmomysl (descendant of Yaroslav the Wise) and the boyars especially worsened in 1187, when his wife Olga Yuryevna (Dolgoruky’s daughter) fled from Yaroslav, offended by the fact that her husband preferred her mistress Nastasya. The Galician boyars solved the prince's family problem radically: they captured and burned Nastasya, and then forced the prince to make peace with his runaway wife. And yet, dying, Yaroslav handed over the table not to Olga’s son Vladimir, with whom he had a difficult relationship, but to Oleg, the son of his beloved Nastastya. Therefore, Prince Oleg in history bears the nickname Nastasyich, which is offensive to a man.

The Galician boyars did not obey the will of the unlucky Yaroslav, drove Nastasich away and invited Vladimir Yaroslavich to the table. But apparently, it was not for nothing that his father was angry with him - the prince turned out to be a drinker (“loving a lot of drink”), and soon followed the path of his sinful father: he married a priest while her husband, the priest, was alive. The boyars drove this prince from the table too. Vladimir fled to Hungary, where he was imprisoned. While under arrest in the castle, Vladimir Yaroslavich tied a long rope and climbed down it from the window of his prison. He returned to Galich, again sat down on the table and reigned there for 10 years until his death in 1199. Everyone who listened to A.P. Borodin’s opera “Prince Igor” remembers the brave comrade of the unfortunate Igor, Prince Vladimir Galitsky, whose real dashing image clearly inspired the composer.

After the death of Vladimir, the sovereign Galician boyars were “pacified” by the Volyn prince Roman Mstislavich, who annexed the Galician lands to his Volyn lands. Here the boyars groaned - Roman was no match for Vladimir Galitsky. The son of the great warrior, Prince Mstislav the Udal, he himself was an excellent warrior, a tough ruler. According to the chronicler, Roman “rushed at the filthy ones like a lion, he was angry like a lynx and destroyed their land like a crocodile, and passed through their land like an eagle, but he was brave like an aurochs.” Roman was famous for his exploits throughout Europe and in 1205 he died in a battle with the Poles on the Vistula.

Even more famous in the history of Ancient Rus' is his son Daniil Romanovich (1201-1264). From the age of four, having lost his father, he and his mother suffered hardships in a foreign land, where they had to flee from their native Galich. And then all his life he did not let go of the sword. It was he who fought so bravely with the Mongol-Tatars on the ill-fated Kalka in 1223 that he did not notice the dangerous wound on his body. He later fought with both the Hungarians and the Poles. Without submitting to anyone, he became famous in Europe as a brave knight and thereby glorified the dynasty of Galician-Volyn princes. Unlike his contemporary Alexander Nevsky, Daniil remained a determined, irreconcilable opponent of the Mongol-Tatars, drawing closer to European sovereigns in the fight against them.

1147 – First mention of Moscow

We owe the first mention of Moscow to Yuri Dolgoruky, who wrote a letter to the same Svyatoslav Olgovich, who was driven out by the people of Kiev who killed his brother Igor. “Come to me, brother, in Moskov,” Yuri invited his ally and his son to this unknown village among the forests on the border of Suzdal land. There, on April 5, 1147, “Gyurga ordered a strong dinner” in honor of the Olgovichs. This is the first mention of Moscow in the chronicle. Until then, the village on Borovitsky Hill belonged to the Suzdal boyar Kuchka, whose wife Yuri Dolgoruky fell in love with. Kuchka hid his wife from the prince in Moscow. But Yuri suddenly came there and killed Kuchka. After that, he looked around and, “loving that great place, he founded the city.” It is noteworthy that on the eve of the meeting, Svyatoslav sent Yuri with his son a priceless gift - a tamed cheetah, the best deer hunter. How this wondrous beast came to Rus' is unknown. However, some historians translate the word “pardus” as lynx. Yuri ordered the city of Moscow itself (translated from Finno-Ugric as “dark water”) to be built on a hill among forests, presumably in 1146, although another date for the start of Moscow construction is also known - 1156, when Yuri was already sitting on the Kiev table.

The fate of the Gorislavichs

The fate of another appanage principality - Chernigov-Seversky - developed differently than the fate of the Vladimir-Suzdal land. The scandalous descendants of Gorislavich were in Chernigov. They were not loved in Rus', and they did not add to its glory. Everyone remembered that Oleg Gorislavich, famous for his quarrels, his sons Vsevolod and Svyatoslav, and then his grandsons Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich and Igor Svyatoslavich Seversky constantly brought the Polovtsians to Rus', with whom they themselves were either friends or quarrels. So, Prince Igor, himself a useless warrior, although the hero of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” together with the khans Konchak and Kobyak, obtained the Kiev table for his cousin Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich. However, then, in 1181, having suffered another defeat, he fled in the same boat with his friend Khan Konchak. However, they soon quarreled and began to fight until they made peace again. But in 1185, when Igor learned that the Kiev prince Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich went against the Polovtsians and achieved his first successes, he raised his vassals with the words: “Are we not princes, or what? Let’s go on a hike and get glory for ourselves too!” How this campaign for glory ended on the banks of the Kayala River on May 11-14, 1185, we know well from the “Tale of Igor’s Campaign”: having reached the Don, beyond the borders of Rus', the regiments of the Russian princes acted passively, separately and were defeated. Thus, Prince Igor, against his will, became famous for centuries thanks to the “Tale of Igor’s Campaign.”

The story of the campaign of Igor and other Russian princes against the Polovtsians, the battle during an eclipse of the sun, the cruel defeat, the crying of Igor’s wife Yaroslavna, the deep sadness of the poet who saw the strife of the princes and the weakness of disunited Rus' - this is the formal plot of the Lay. But the true reason for the greatness of the “Word” is its poetry and high artistic merit. The history of its emergence from oblivion at the beginning of the 19th century. shrouded in mystery. The original manuscript, found by the famous collector Count A. I. Musin-Pushkin, allegedly disappeared during the Moscow fire of 1812 - only Musin-Pushkin’s publication and a copy made for Empress Catherine II remained. The work of some researchers with these sources has led them to the conviction that we are dealing with a talented forgery of later times... But still, every time you leave Russia, you involuntarily remember the famous farewell words of Igor, who looked back over his shoulder for the last time: “O Russian land ! You are already behind the sheloman (you have already disappeared behind the hill. – E. A.)!".

After the unsuccessful Battle of Kayala, Rus' was subjected to brutal raids by the Cumans. Igor himself lived with Konchak as an honorary prisoner, but then fled to Rus'. Igor died in 1202 as the Prince of Chernigov. His son Vladimir was the son-in-law of Khan Konchak.

Vladimir-Suzdal Rus' (1155-1238)

1155 – Foundation of the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality

In 1155, after Yuri Dolgoruky captured the Kiev table, his son, 43-year-old Andrei, dared to go against his father’s will and did not stay with him in Kiev, but without permission left for his homeland, Suzdal, along with his squad and household members. He wanted to strengthen himself in Zalesye, and after the death of Yuri’s father in Kyiv, Andrei Yuryevich was elected prince in Vladimir. He was a politician of the new type. Like his fellow princes, he wanted to take possession of Kiev, but at the same time he was not eager for the Kiev table, wanting to rule Russia from his new capital - Vladimir. This became the main goal of his campaigns against Novgorod and Kyiv, which passed from the hands of one to the hands of other princes. In 1169, Prince Andrei, as a fierce conqueror, subjected Kyiv to a merciless defeat.

When Andrei fled from his father from Kyiv to Vladimir, he took with him from the convent a miraculous icon of the Mother of God of the late 11th - early 12th centuries, painted by a Byzantine icon painter. According to legend, it was written by the Evangelist Luke. The theft to Andrey was a success, but already on the way to Suzdal miracles began: the Mother of God appeared to the prince in a dream and ordered him to take the image to Vladimir. He obeyed, and in the place where he saw the wonderful dream, he then built a church and founded the village of Bogolyubovo.

Here, in a specially built stone castle adjacent to the church, he often lived and thanks to this he received his nickname Bogolyubsky. The icon of the Mother of God of Vladimir (also called “Our Lady of Tenderness” - the Virgin Mary tenderly presses her cheek to the infant Christ) has become one of the greatest shrines in Russia.

Prince Andrei Yuryevich immediately began to decorate his new capital, Vladimir, with marvelous temples. They were built from white limestone. The amazing properties of this stone (soft at first, it became very strong over time) made it possible to cover the walls of the building with continuous carved patterns. Andrey passionately wanted to create a city superior to Kyiv in beauty and wealth. To do this, he invited foreign craftsmen and donated a tenth of his income for the construction of temples. Vladimir (like Kiev) had its own Golden Gate, its own Church of the Tithes, and the main temple, the Assumption Cathedral, was even higher than the Church of St. Sophia of Kyiv. Italian craftsmen built it in just 3 years. In memory of his early deceased son, Andrei ordered the construction of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl.

This temple, still standing among the fields under the bottomless sky, evokes admiration and joy in everyone who walks towards it from afar along the path. It was precisely this impression that the master unknown to us sought, who in 1165, by the will of Prince Andrei, erected this slender, elegant white-stone church on an embankment above the quiet Nerl River, which flows into the Klyazma not far from this place. The hill itself was covered with white stone, and wide steps went from the water itself to the gates of the temple. This deserted place for the church was not chosen by chance. During the flood - a time of intense shipping - the church ended up on the island, serving as a noticeable landmark for those who sailed, crossing the border of Suzdal land. Perhaps here guests and ambassadors from distant countries disembarked from ships, climbed up the white stone stairs, prayed in the temple, rested on its gallery and then sailed further - to where the princely palace in Bogolyubovo, built in 1158-1165, shone white. And even further, on the high bank of the Klyazma, like heroic helmets, the golden domes of Vladimir’s cathedrals sparkled in the sun.

Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky

A brave warrior who defeated enemies many times in fights, Prince Andrei was famous for his intelligence and had a powerful and independent character. He was sometimes stern and even cruel, and did not tolerate anyone’s objections or advice. Unlike other princes of his time, Andrei did not take into account his squad, the boyars, and conducted state affairs according to his own will - “autocratic.” He viewed his sons and princely relatives only as an instrument of his will. Andrei intervened in their quarrels not as a brother-mediator, but as an imperious master resolving a dispute between his well-born, but still servants. As he wrote to his protege on the Kiev table, the Smolensk prince Roman Rostislavich: “If you don’t go with your brother according to my will, then leave Kiev!” The prince was clearly ahead of his era - such actions seemed new to “pre-Moscow” politicians. He was the first to rely on his neighbors, unborn, armed servants dependent on him, who were called “nobles.” He eventually fell by their hands.

By the summer of 1174, the autocratic prince managed to turn many against himself: boyars, servants, and even his own wife. A conspiracy was formed against him. On the night of June 28 in Bogolyubovo, drunken conspirators burst into Andrei’s bedroom and stabbed him to death. When they left the princely chambers, the wounded Andrei managed to get up and tried to get down the stairs. The killers, hearing his groans, returned to the bedroom and followed the bloody trail to find the prince behind the stairs. He sat and prayed. First they cut off his hand, with which he was baptized, and then they finished him off. The murderers robbed the palace. The crowd that came running helped them in this - people hated Prince Andrei for his cruelty and openly rejoiced at his death. Then the murderers drank in the palace, and Andrei’s naked, bloody corpse lay in the garden for a long time until he was buried.

Board in Vladimir Vsevolod the Big Nest

After the death of Bogolyubsky, Vladimir was ruled for 3 years by Mikhail Rostislavich (son of the late Rostislav Yuryevich, grandson of Dolgoruky). It was he who tried and executed the murderers of Andrei Bogolyubsky. After the death of Mikhail, the people of Vladimir chose as prince his uncle, 23-year-old Vsevolod Yuryevich, the younger brother of Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky (he was 42 years younger than the murdered man!). He had to assert his right to the Vladimir table in the battle with the rebellious boyars. Vsevolod's life was not easy. For 8 years, Vsevolod lived with his mother, the daughter of the Byzantine emperor, and two brothers in Byzantium.

They were sent there as if into exile by Yuri Dolgoruky, who for some reason did not like his wife and her offspring. And only during the reign of his brother, Andrei Bogolyubsky, Vsevolod Yuryevich returned to Rus', and so, in 1176, he became the Grand Duke of Vladimir. And then there was a blessed silence. The 36-year reign of Vsevolod turned out to be a true blessing for Vladimir-Suzdal Rus'. Continuing Andrei's policy of elevating Vladimir, Vsevolod avoided extremes, respected his squad, ruled humanely, and was loved by the people. At least that's what the chroniclers wrote.

Vsevolod received the nickname Big Nest because he had 10 sons and earned a reputation as a caring father: he managed to “place” them in different destinies, where they subsequently created entire specific princely dynasties. So, from the eldest son, Konstantin, came the dynasty of Suzdal princes, and from Yaroslav - the dynasty of Moscow and Tver princes. And Vladimir Vsevolod built his own “nest” - the city, sparing no effort and money. The white-stone Dmitrovsky Cathedral, which he erected, is decorated inside with frescoes by Byzantine artists, and outside with intricate stone carvings with figures of animals and floral patterns.

Vsevolod was an experienced and successful military leader. He often went on hikes with his squad. Under him, the Vladimir-Suzdal principality expanded to the north and northeast. In 1181 he founded Khlynov (Vyatka) and Tver. Twice Vsevolod led his squad to pacify the rebellious Ryazan residents. He also went to Novgorod, which either accepted one of his sons to the table, or expelled them. Vsevolod’s successful campaign against Volga Bulgaria is known, which (like many similar campaigns in those days) openly pursued the goal of profiting at the expense of the rich Volga neighbors. The power of Vsevolod’s army is clearly stated in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”: “You can splash the Volga with oars, and pour out the Don with helmets.”

1216 – Battle of Lipica and its consequences

At the end of his life, Prince Vsevolod the Big Nest, for some offenses, denied the inheritance to his eldest son Konstantin Rostovsky and transferred the Vladimir table to his youngest son Yuri Vsevolodovich.

This offended Konstantin so much that he did not even show up to his father’s funeral and started a war with Yuri and his other younger brother, Yaroslav. In 1216, Constantine, in alliance with Mstislav the Udal, Novgorodians, Smolyans, Pskovians and Kyivians, went to war against Yuri and Yaroslav. Thus began a real fratricidal war. As the chronicler wrote, “it was a terrible and wonderful miracle, brothers: sons went against father, fathers against children, brother against brother, slaves against master, and master against slaves.”

In the battle on the Lipitsa River (near Yuryev-Polsky) on June 21, 1216, Yuri and Yaroslav were defeated, although the day before the Suzdal residents boasted, looking at the barefoot Novgorod army: “Yes, we will throw saddles at them!” The fact is that the Novgorodians went into battle on foot, and also half naked, having thrown off excess clothes and shoes. Before the battle they exclaimed: “Let us forget, brothers, houses, wives and children!” All this was reminiscent of the attack of the Scandinavian knights - berserkers, who also went into battle naked and barefoot, intoxicated with a special narcotic infusion that dulled fear and pain. It is unknown whether it was due to this or something else, but the victory of the Novgorodians was complete.

From all these long-standing events, it would seem that nothing remained, but suddenly, six centuries later, people remembered the Battle of Lipitsa. The fact is that during this battle such an inexplicable panic gripped Yuri’s brother, Prince Yaroslav, that he lost his gilded helmet, galloped to Pereelavel-Zalessky and immediately ordered the gates to be locked and the city fortified. He ordered the Novgorodians who were in Pereslavl at that time to be imprisoned in a cramped prison, where all of them (150 people in total) died a few days later from stuffiness and thirst... But then, having learned that Konstantin and the Novgorodians were coming to Pereslavl, Yaroslav stopped “ get angry” and went out with a prayer to meet his brother. This killer of Novgorodians became the father of the famous Alexander Nevsky... And in 1808, that is, almost 600 years after the battle, the helmet of Prince Yaroslav was accidentally found in a field by some peasant. And now it is kept in the Armory Chamber.

According to Rostov legend, in the army of Constantine, two heroes went into battle against the Suzdal people - Dobrynya Zolotoy Belt and Alyosha Popovich with his squire Topot. To the two famous heroes, the people in their epics added a third - Ilya Muromets, although he lived during the time of Vladimir Krasno Solnyshko. This is probably why he appears in the epics as an “old woman,” a sedate, middle-aged warrior. This is how the famous dashing Russian trinity, immortalized in epics and in Vasnetsov’s painting, appeared.

Prince Yuri, having lost his weapons, armor and honor at Lipitsa, fled to Vladimir, driving three horses along the road. The townspeople, seeing the horseman rushing towards Vladimir, thought that this was a messenger from the battlefield rushing to please them with the good news of victory, and therefore, without delay, they began the celebration. But it soon became clear that this was not a messenger, but the half-naked prince himself, who immediately ordered the walls to be strengthened and asked the people of Vladimir not to hand him over to his enemies. Soon his victorious allies were already standing at the walls of Vladimir. Yuri had to surrender to the mercy of the victors. They drove him away from the Vladimir table and gave him a small inheritance for food - Gorodets-Radilov. Konstantin Vsevolodovich became the Grand Duke, who received the nickname “Kind”, which is quite rare in history, for his gentle character. When he died in 1218, the disgraced Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich regained his table in Vladimir - such was the will of Constantine, who thought about the prosperous fate of his young children. Yuri's reign, like his life, was tragically cut short during the terrible invasion of the Mongol-Tatars.

The rise and power of Veliky Novgorod

Novgorod was “cut down” in the 9th century. on the border of the taiga, inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes. From here, the Novgorodians penetrated to the northeast in search of furs, founding colonies with centers - graveyards. Novgorod itself lay at the crossroads of important trade routes from West to East. This provided it with rapid growth and economic prosperity. The political weight of Novgorod was also great - let us remember the first Russian princes Oleg, Vladimir, Yaroslav the Wise, who came out from here to conquer the Kyiv table. The close connection between Novgorod and Kiev began to weaken in the 1130s, when strife began in the capital. And earlier, Novgorod did not have its own dynasty, but now the power of the veche has grown, which in 1125 elected (“placed on the table”) Prince Vsevolod Mstislavich. It was with him that an agreement was first concluded - a “row”, by which the prince’s power was limited to several fundamental conditions. When in 1136 the prince broke the line, he, along with his wife, mother-in-law and children, were driven from the table with dishonor - “they showed the clear path” out of Novgorod. From that time on, Novgorod gained independence from Kyiv and actually became an independent republic. From now on, all the princes invited to the Novgorod table commanded only the army, and they were expelled at the slightest attempt to encroach on the power of the Novgorod people. However, sometimes the Novgorodians did not invite an outside prince, but by agreement with the Grand Duke, they took his son, a young princely youth, to Novgorod, and raised him to be a ruler obedient to the republic. This was called “nursing the prince.” Prince Mstislav, who ruled in Novgorod for 30 years, was such a “nurtured” prince, and the townspeople valued him, their “tamed” prince.

Veliky Novgorod had its own shrines except Sophia of Novgorod. The most famous was the Yuriev Monastery. According to legend, this monastery, dedicated to St. George (Yuri), was founded by Yaroslav the Wise in 1030. The center of the monastery is the grandiose St. George Cathedral, which was built by master Peter. The construction of the monastery buildings continued until the 17th century. Yuryev Monastery became the main holy monastery of Novgorod, rich and influential. Novgorod princes and mayors were buried in the tomb of St. George's Cathedral. The abbot of the Yuryev Monastery was revered no less than the Novgorod archimandrite himself.

Another famous Novgorod monastery, Antoniev, is surrounded by special holiness. Associated with him is the legend of Anthony, the son of a wealthy Greek who lived in the 12th century. in Rome. He became a hermit and settled on a rock, right on the seashore. On September 5, 1106, a terrible storm began, and when it subsided, Anthony, looking around, saw that he and the stone found himself in an unknown northern country. It was Novgorod. God gave Anthony an understanding of Slavic speech, and the Novgorod church authorities helped the young man found a monastery on the banks of the Volkhov, the center of which was the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, built in 1119. Princes and kings gave rich contributions to this miraculously established monastery. This shrine has seen a lot in its lifetime. Ivan the Terrible in 1571 staged a monstrous destruction of the monastery, slaughtering all the monks. The post-revolutionary years of the 20th century turned out to be no less terrible. But the monastery survived, and scientists, studying the stone on which Saint Anthony was supposedly transported to the shores of the Volkhov, established that it was the ballast stone of an ancient undecked ship, standing on which the righteous Roman youth could easily reach from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to Novgorod...

On Mount Nereditsa, not far from Gorodishche - the site of the oldest Slavic settlement, stood the Church of the Savior on Nereditsa - the greatest monument of Russian culture. The single-domed, cubic church was built in the summer of 1198 by Prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich and outwardly resembled many Novgorod churches of that era. But as soon as they entered the building, people experienced an extraordinary feeling of delight and admiration, as if they were entering another, beautiful world. The entire interior surface of the church, from the floor to the dome, was covered with magnificent frescoes. Scenes of the Last Judgment, images of saints, portraits of local princes - Novgorod masters completed this work in just one year (1199) ... and for almost a thousand years - frescoes until the 20th century. have not lost their brightness, liveliness and emotionality. However, during the Great Patriotic War, in 1943, the church with all its frescoes perished - it was shot from cannons. In terms of significance, it is among the most bitter, irreparable losses of Russia in the 20th century. The death of the Savior on Nereditsa is on a par with Peterhof and Tsarskoe Selo destroyed during the war, and Moscow churches and monasteries demolished in peacetime.

Novgorodians and their veche

The people's assembly (veche) existed in many cities of Rus', but under the influence of various circumstances the veche gradually disappeared. This was not the case in Novgorod. There, after the separation from Kyiv in 1136, the veche, on the contrary, intensified. All free citizens were considered participants in the veche. They jointly resolved important issues of peace and war, invited and expelled princes. The basis of Novgorod democracy was the street communities - veche gatherings of individual streets. They merged into a veche of one of the five districts - the “ends” of Novgorod, and then into a citywide veche, which met on the Trade Side near the walls of St. Nicholas Cathedral. The city council consisted of several hundred elected representatives - “golden belts” (a precious belt in ancient times was considered a sign of honor and power).

The veche approved the main law of the state - the Novgorod Judgment Charter, and, if necessary, it acted as the highest city court, which could impose a death sentence. Then the criminals were “put in the water” - they were dragged to Volkhov and thrown into it tied up. At the veche, they gave charters to the lands, elected mayors and their assistants - thousanders, as well as the church head - the archbishop. The speakers spoke from the dais - from the veche “step”. The decision at the meeting was made only unanimously. At the same time, the Novgorod ends had their own interests - and at the veche serious disagreements, disputes and even fights arose. The veche was also torn apart by social contradictions between the Novgorod elite - the boyars, rich merchants, and the common people - the “black people”.

The strength of Novgorod was determined not by its militia, but by the wealth that their trade and craft brought to the Novgorodians. The vast Novgorod land was famous for its furs, honey, and wax. All this was transported to Western Europe - Scandinavia, Germany, France. From there, precious metals, wines, cloth, and weapons were delivered to Rus'. Novgorod traded with the Hanseatic League of German trading cities; Novgorod merchants had their own trading court on the island of Gotland. In Novgorod itself, the so-called “German” and “Gothic” courtyards were opened, in which German and Scandinavian merchants stored goods and lived when they came to trade in Novgorod. Trade with the East, with Volga Bulgaria, where goods from Central Asia came, also brought a lot of wealth to Novgorod. Novgorod boats on the way “from the Varangians to the Greeks” reached the Crimea and Byzantium. Usury capital was also strong in Novgorod; Novgorodians lent money at high interest rates and thereby enriched themselves.

In the middle of the 12th century, after the liberation from the power of Kyiv, Novgorod became the desired prey of the Rostov-Suzdal (and then Vladimir-Suzdal) princes who had become stronger in the northeast. Under Andrei Bogolyubsky, the war with Novgorod began. Andrei, in his characteristic decisive manner, declared: “I want to seek Novgorod with both good and bad,” intending to place his protege on the Novgorod table. In 1170, the Suzdal people surrounded the city and launched an assault. The defenders managed to repel four of their attacks. During the fifth, as the legend says, a Suzdal arrow hit the icon of the Mother of God, which the archbishop carried out on the wall. Here the Virgin Mary, unable to bear such outrage, began to cry, and the Suzdal residents allegedly became gloomy, and they attacked each other. That time the city survived, but Prince Andrei still emerged victorious in this war, using economic leverage - after all, the Novgorodians received their bread from the Suzdal land. From now on, for half a century, the struggle with the Suzdal-Vladimir princes became the most important foreign policy problem of the Novgorod Republic. Only in 1216, in the Battle of Lipetsk, the Novgorodians, led by Mstislav the Udal with their allies (Smolensk), managed to defeat the Vladimir people and thereby eliminate the threat from the north-west. As it turned out, only for a while - until the rise of Moscow.

His neighbor Pskov lived his own life, separate from Novgorod. In the 12th century. it was considered a suburb (border point) of Novgorod and followed its policies in everything. But after 1136, when the Novgorodians expelled Prince Vsevolod Mstislavich, the Pskovites went against them and accepted the exile. Novgorod's attempts to pacify the Pskovites failed. And although Vsevolod soon died, the Pskovites declared him a saint, and kept his sword as a relic. The Pskov Veche, which met in Krome (the Kremlin), expressed the general desire of the Pskovites to separate from Novgorod. Tom, reluctantly, had to go for it. Economics and politics made the Novgorodians tractable: Novgorod needed Pskov bread, and from the beginning of the 13th century. together with the Pskovites, they had to fight off the Germans - after all, Pskov was the first to take upon itself any attack from the west, covering Novgorod with itself. But there was never real friendship between the cities - in all internal Russian conflicts, Pskov took the side of the enemies of Novgorod. In the end, Pskov, following Novgorod, paid for this with its freedom.

1951 – Discovery of Novgorod birch bark documents

The most outstanding discovery of Russian archeology in the 20th century. Novgorod birch bark letters became. The first of them was found by the expedition of A. Artsikhovsky on July 26, 1951 during excavations in Novgorod. More than 600 birch bark scrolls with texts scratched on them have now been discovered. The oldest of the charters date back to the second half of the 11th century, the latest - to the middle of the 15th century. Here are notes from ordinary Novgorodians to each other, schoolchildren's notebooks, and drafts of parchment letters and business agreements. Birch bark letters allow not only to study the life of ordinary Novgorodians, but also to clarify data from chronicle sources and learn more about people famous in the political history of Novgorod. And most importantly, there is always a glimmer of hope that the most important discoveries are yet to come. Historians working with archival written sources no longer have such hopes.

Mongol-Tatar invasion of Rus'

Genghis Khan (Temuchjin) - the son of a failed tribal leader, thanks to his talent and luck, became the founder of the great Mongol empire and where, through pressure and courage, and where through cunning and deceit, he managed to exterminate or subjugate many khans of the nomadic Tatar and Mongol tribes. He carried out a military reform that dramatically increased the power of the army. In 1205, at the kurultai, Temujin was proclaimed Genghis Khan (“Great Khan”). He managed to defeat the Chinese troops, and in 1213 the Mongols took Beijing. At the same time, Genghis Khan adopted many of the military achievements of the Chinese. His army had unrivaled cavalry, advanced siege engines, and excellent reconnaissance. Having never been defeated by anyone, Genghis Khan died in 1227. After this, the Mongol-Tatars began a grandiose offensive to the West. In the early 1220s. new conquerors burst into the Black Sea steppes and drove the Polovtsians out of them. Polovtsian Khan Kotyan called the Russian princes for help. He came to his son-in-law, the Galician prince Mstislav, and said: “Our land was taken away today, and yours will be taken tomorrow, defend us. If you don’t help us, we will be cut off today, and you will be cut off tomorrow!” The Russian princes, having gathered in Kyiv, according to the chronicle, argued for a long time until they came to the conclusion: “This is what they, the godless and evil Polovtsians, need, but if we, brothers, do not help them, then the Polovtsians will be handed over to the Tatars and their strength will be greater.” " In the spring of 1223, the Russian army set out on a campaign. The arrival of conquerors from unknown steppes, their life in yurts, strange customs, extraordinary cruelty - all this seemed to Christians the beginning of the end of the world. “That year,” the chronicler wrote in 1223, “peoples came about whom no one knows for sure - who they are and where they came from and what their language is, and what tribe, and what their faith is. And they are called Tatars..."

In the battle on the Kalka River on May 31, 1223, the Russian and Polovtsian regiments faced a terrible, unprecedented defeat. Rus' has never known such an “evil slaughter,” shameful flight and cruel massacre of the vanquished. The victors executed all the prisoners, and the captured princes, with particular cruelty: they were tied up, thrown to the ground, and a flooring of boards was laid on top and on this platform they held a merry feast for the victors, thereby putting the unfortunate ones to a painful death from suffocation.

The Horde then moved towards Kyiv, mercilessly killing everyone in sight. But soon the Mongol-Tatars unexpectedly turned back to the steppe. “We don’t know where they came from, and we don’t know where they went,” the chronicler wrote.

The terrible lesson did not benefit Rus' - the princes were still at enmity with each other. As N.M. Karamzin wrote, “the villages devastated by the Tatars on the eastern banks of the Dnieper were still smoking in ruins; fathers, mothers, friends mourned the murdered, but the frivolous people completely calmed down, for the past evil seemed to them the last.”

There was a lull. But 12 years later, the Mongol-Tatars again came from their steppes. In 1236, under the leadership of Genghis Khan's beloved grandson, Batu Khan, they defeated Volga Bulgaria. Its capital, other cities and villages disappeared from the face of the earth forever. At the same time, the last “hunt” of the Mongol-Tatars for the Polovtsians began. A raid began across the entire vast expanse of the steppes, from the Volga to the Caucasus and the Black Sea: thousands of horsemen in a chain encircled vast territories in a ring and began to narrow it continuously, day and night. All the steppe inhabitants who found themselves inside the ring, like animals, were brutally killed. In this unprecedented raid, the Polovtsians, Kipchaks and other steppe peoples and tribes died - all without exception: men, children, old people, women. As the French traveler Rubruk, who was traveling through the Polovtsian steppe several years later, wrote: “In Comania (the land of the Polovtsians), we found numerous heads and bones of dead people lying on the ground like dung.”

And then it was the turn of Rus'. The decision to conquer Rus' was made back at the kurultai of 1227, when the great Khan Ogedei set the goal for his people: “To take possession of the countries of the Bulgars, Asov (Ossetian - E. A.) and Rus', which were located in the neighborhood of the Batu camp, and had not yet been conquered, and were proud of their numbers.” The campaign against Rus' in 1237 was led by Batu Khan along with 14 descendants of Genghis. The army numbered 150 thousand people. People did not remember a more terrible spectacle than this invasion of the steppes. As the chronicler writes, the noise was such that “from the multitude of troops the earth groaned and hummed, and from the large number and noise of the hordes, wild animals and predatory animals became paralyzed.”

1237 – Death of North-Eastern Rus'

On the borders of the Russian land, more precisely in the Ryazan principality, the enemies were met by the army of the local prince Yuri Igorevich. At first, Yuri sent his son Fyodor to Batu with an embassy and gifts, asking him to leave the Ryazan land alone. Having accepted the gifts, Batu ordered to kill the envoys of the Ryazan prince. Then in the “evil and terrible battle” the prince, his brothers, appanage princes, boyars and all the “daring warriors and frolics of Ryazan... all fell as equals, all drank the same cup of death. Not one of them came back: they all lie dead together,” the chronicler concludes. After this, Batu’s troops approached Ryazan and, true to their tactics, began a continuous - day and night - assault on the strong fortifications of Ryazan. Having exhausted the defenders, on December 21, 1237, the enemies broke into the city. A massacre began in the streets, and women who sought salvation in the church were burned alive there. Archaeologists still find terrible traces of this massacre (broken skulls, bones cut by sabers, arrowheads sticking out in the vertebrae) on the ruins of a city that has never been revived - modern Ryazan arose in a new place.

The princes failed to organize the joint defense of Rus' from invasion. Each of them, powerless against an experienced and numerous enemy, courageously died alone. History has preserved many of the exploits of Russian warriors like Evpatiy Kolovrat, the Ryazan hero, who gathered the surviving remnants of the Ryazan squads (about 1,600 people) and bravely struck in the rear of the enemy who was leaving the burned Ryazan. With great difficulty, throwing stones at the Russians from throwing weapons, the Mongol-Tatars dealt with the “strong-armed and daring-hearted lion-furious Evpatiy.”

An example of true heroism was shown by the small city of Kozelsk, whose defenders resisted the conquerors behind wooden walls for two whole months, and then all died in hand-to-hand combat on the walls and streets of the city, called “evil” by the Mongol-Tatars. The bloodshed turned out to be so terrible that, according to the chronicle, 12-year-old Prince Vasily Kozelsky drowned in a stream of blood. The united Russian troops that gathered near Kolomna in January 1238 also fought bravely with the enemy. Even the Novgorodians came to the battle, which had never happened before - apparently, the awareness of the terrible threat also reached proud Novgorod. But the Mongol-Tatars gained the upper hand in this battle, despite the fact that Russian soldiers managed to kill for the first time one of the Genghisids, Khan Kulkan. After Kolomna Moscow fell, the conquerors rushed across the ice of frozen rivers, like a terrible mudflow, towards golden-domed Vladimir. To intimidate the defenders of the capital, the Mongol-Tatars brought thousands of naked prisoners under the city walls, who began to be brutally beaten with whips. On February 7, 1238, Vladimir fell, the family of Prince Yuri and many townspeople were burned alive in the Assumption Cathedral. Then almost all the cities of the Northeast were destroyed: Rostov, Uglich, Yaroslavl, Yuryev-Polskoy, Pereslavl, Tver, Kashin, Dmitrov, etc. “And Christian blood flowed like a strong river,” exclaimed the chronicler.

There are many examples of heroism and courage shown in that terrible year 1237, but there are many bitter stories about mediocre death without benefit to the country and damage to the enemy. In March 1238, in the battle against Khan Burundai on the Sit River, Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich of Vladimir also died with his squad. He tried to resist, but fell victim to his inexperience and carelessness. The guard service in his army was not organized; the regiments were stationed in villages remote from each other. The Tatars approached the main Russian camp suddenly. The guard detachment, which was supposed to meet the enemy at the distant approaches, set out on the campaign too late and unexpectedly encountered the Horde regiments right at the gates of their camp. A battle began, which was hopelessly lost by the Russians. The enemies took the severed head of Grand Duke Yuri with them - usually the nomads made a victory cup from such trophies. Those Russian prisoners whom the Mongol-Tatars did not kill immediately were killed by the cold - the frost in those days was terrible.

On March 5, Torzhok, who had begged the Novgorodians for help in vain, fell, and Batu moved, “cutting people like grass,” towards Novgorod. But not reaching the city a hundred miles, the Tatars turned south. Everyone regarded this as a miracle that saved Novgorod - after all, there were no frosts at that time, and the flood had not begun. Contemporaries believed that the “filthy” Batu was stopped by the vision of a cross in the sky. But nothing stopped him before the gates of the “mother of Russian cities” - Kyiv.

What feelings people experienced then, seeing how their homeland was perishing under the hooves of Mongol horses, was well conveyed by the author of the work that has reached us only partially, “The Lay of the Destruction of the Russian Land,” written immediately after the Mongol-Tatar invasion of Rus'. It seems that the author wrote it with his own tears and blood - he suffered so much from the thought of the misfortune of his homeland, he felt so sorry for the Russian people, Rus', which had fallen into a terrible “roundup” of unknown enemies. The past, pre-Mongol time, seems sweet and kind to him, and the country is remembered only as prosperous and happy. The reader’s heart should clench with sadness and love at the words: “Oh, bright and beautifully decorated, Russian land! And you are surprised by many beauties: you are surprised by many lakes, rivers and treasure troves (sources. - E. A.) local (revered. – E. A.), mountains, steep hills, high oak groves, clean fields, wondrous animals, various birds, vast cities, wonderful villages, grapes (orchards. - E. A.) monasteries, church houses and formidable princes, honest boyars, many nobles. The Russian land is filled with everything, O true Christian faith!”

The collapse of the Kyiv gold table

In the spring of 1239, Batu moved to Southern Rus'. First Pereyaslavl South fell, and then Chernigov perished in fire. There are no words to convey the scale of the catastrophe of these glorious Russian cities: prosperous, populated Pereyaslavl was called “a city without people” for a long time, and Chernigov, burned by the enemy, reached its pre-Mongol borders only in the 18th century, 500 years later! The same fate awaited Kyiv. By the time the Mongol-Tatars arrived, he had already lost his proud power. At the end of the XII - beginning of the XIII century. There was a continuous struggle between the princes for its possession. In 1194, Monomakh's grandson, Prince Rurik Rostislavich, took possession of the Kyiv table, from where in 1202 he was expelled by his son-in-law, the above-mentioned Volyn prince, the dashing Roman Mstislavich. Rurik managed to recapture Kyiv and rob it. In 1204, Roman decided to calm his violent father-in-law in an original way: he forcibly tonsured him as a monk. A year later, he threw off his cassock, fled from the monastery and again returned Kyiv by force. At the same time, he had to fight off not only his son-in-law, but also other candidates for the Kiev table. And this pandemonium continued until the Mongol-Tatars put their terrible end to this struggle.

The first troops of Khan Mengu approached Kyiv at the beginning of 1240. The beauty of the great city amazed the enemies, and Mengu sent ambassadors who invited Prince Mikhail Vsevolodovich, who was then sitting in Kyiv since 1235, to surrender without a fight. He interrupted the ambassadors. The Mongol-Tatars retreated to the steppe, postponing the assault on the city for another time. The Kiev prince did not take advantage of the respite provided, did not strengthen the city, and soon fled from Kyiv, expelled by the famous Daniil Romanovich of Galitsky.

When Khan Batu approached the Dnieper in the fall of 1240, neither the great warrior Daniel nor the other Russian princes with their squads were in the city - they left Kiev for their principalities. The capital of Ancient Rus' was doomed to destruction. And yet the townspeople desperately resisted the enemy for 9 days. The last of them died during the assault under the rubble of the Tithe Church, which collapsed from the blows of Mongol battering machines. Many centuries later, archaeologists found traces of the resistance and heroism of the people of Kiev: the remains of a city dweller, literally studded with Tatar arrows, as well as the skeleton of another person who, covering a child (or woman), died with him.

The terrible fate of Kyiv befell other cities. “And there was no one in Vladimir (Volynsky) who would have remained alive,” the chronicler wrote. We know nothing at all about how many cities perished.

The finds of archaeologists in the Volyn and Galician lands are sad: the ashes and coal of terrible fires compacted by time, human skeletons with chopped bones and skulls pierced with large iron nails...

Those who fled from Rus' from the Tatars brought terrible news to Europe about the horrors of the invasion. They said that during the siege of cities, the Tatars threw the fat of the people they killed on the roofs of houses, and then started “Greek fire”, which burned well from this.

The German Emperor Frederick II called on Europe: “We considered the danger remote when so many brave peoples and princes were between the enemy and us. But now that some of these princes have perished and others have been enslaved, now it is our turn to become a bulwark of Christianity against a fierce enemy.”

In 1241, the Mongol-Tatars rushed to Poland and Hungary. At the Battle of Liegnitz on April 9, the combined forces of the Czechs, Poles and Germans suffered a terrible defeat, and on April 12, the Hungarian army was defeated on the Sajó River. Cities and villages in Hungary, Poland, Silesia and other countries burned. Tatar horsemen reached the shores of the Adriatic in the area of ​​Dubrovnik (now Croatia). The united forces of the Czech Republic and Austria were waiting for the enemy on the road to Vienna, but the Mongol-Tatars did not move this way. They left Europe through Bulgaria after learning that Khan Ogedei had died in Mongolia. After this, Batu decided to found his own state in the lower reaches of the Volga.

1243 – Beginning of the Mongol-Tatar yoke

Consequences of the defeat of Rus' by the Mongol-Tatars in 1237-1240. turned out to be terrible, many losses were irreparable. In those years, the historical path of Rus' changed abruptly and dramatically, the country entered a different, terrible time. In the fight against the Mongol-Tatars, many Russian princes and noble boyars died, which fatally influenced the development of the Russian ruling class in a later era. After the colossal losses of the old princely nobility, the elite began to be formed not from the ancient ancient Russian aristocracy, proud of its origin and nobility, but from the lower warriors and servants of the princely court, including those who were not free. And this happened under the conditions of typical eastern oppression of the Mongol-Tatar conquerors. All this left its slavish imprint on the policy of the Russian princes, on the mentality of the elite, and the morals of the people.

After the death of Yuri, his middle-aged, 53-year-old brother, Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, who was at that time in devastated Kyiv, returned to his homeland in Zalesye in 1243 and sat down on the empty Vladimir table. A difficult fate awaited him - after all, from these times on, the complete dominance (yoke) of the Golden Horde over Russia was established. That year, Batu, who founded the city of Sarai-Batu in the lower reaches of the Volga, summoned Prince Yaroslav and recognized him as the Grand Duke of Vladimir - his tributary. According to the Horde hierarchy, Russian great princes were equated with beks (emirs). From now on, the Russian Grand Duke was deprived of sovereignty, became a slave, a tributary of the khan, and had to kneel before the tsar (as the khan was called in Rus') and receive a label for reign.

The label is a gold-plated plate with a hole that allows it to be hung around the neck. Perhaps the label was also attached to the letter certifying it, for later the letters granted by the khans to tributaries, as well as their messages, were called labels. Unfortunately, none of the labels issued to the Russian princes in the Horde have survived to our times. From the labels-messages, the label of Edigei to Grand Duke Vasily II Dmitrievich (December 1408), as well as the label of Akhmat Ivan III, is known.

The khans freely disposed of the label; they could at any time take it away from one prince and transfer it to another. At times, the Mongol-Tatars deliberately pitted the Russian princes against each other in the struggle for the golden label, trying to prevent either the excessive strengthening of the Grand Duke or his excessive weakening due to the power of the appanage princes. The Russian princes lived in the Horde for years, currying favor with the Murzas and pleasing the khan's wives in order to beg from the “great king” for at least some land - a “fatherland”.

So, at the end of the 15th century. Suzdal prince Semyon Dmitrievich lived in the Horde for 8 years, but never achieved a label for the coveted Nizhny Novgorod reign, which was in the hands of the Moscow prince. When in 1401 Moscow troops captured his family, Semyon had to go to Moscow with a bow, and then be content with distant Vyatka, where he died. In a word, the Moscow chronicler wrote maliciously, Prince Semyon “took a lot of hard work, finding no rest for his feet, and achieved nothing, trying everything in vain.” The khan's collectors (and then the grand dukes) collected a tenth of all income from all Russian subjects - the so-called “Horde exit”.

This tax was a heavy burden for Rus'. Disobedience to the Khan's will led to the Horde's punitive raids on Russian cities, which were completely destroyed, and their inhabitants were carried away by the Mongol-Tatars.

Alexander Nevsky and his brothers

After the death of Prince Yaroslav, who was summoned to Mongolia, to Karakorum, and poisoned there in 1246, his eldest son Svyatoslav Yaroslavich became the Grand Duke. However, he did not rule for long; after 2 years he was expelled from the Vladimir table by Prince Mikhail Yaroslavich Khorobrit, who came from the south, who soon died in a battle with the Lithuanians on the Protva River. And then Batu recognized Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky as the Grand Duke of Vladimir, but ordered him, along with his brother Andrei, to go to bow to Mongolia, to the Supreme Khansha of all Mongols, Ogul Gamish. Khansha changed Batu’s decision: she recognized Andrei Yaroslavich as the Great Prince of Vladimir, and transferred Kyiv to Alexander Yaroslavich. At that moment, the Mongol-Tatars relied in their policy on the formation of two great principalities in the large “Russian ulus” - Vladimir and Kyiv. But, returning to Rus', Alexander Yaroslavich did not obey the Khansha and left for Novgorod. Perhaps Alexander did not want to live in Kyiv - devastated, having lost all its greatness and finding itself in the sphere of influence of the Galician-Volyn princes. Alexander was a realist politician, and yet the Novgorodians called him to their place - Novgorod really needed such a prince-warrior and diplomat.

Alexander was born in 1220 and matured early - at the age of 15 he became the Prince of Novgorod. From an early age, Alexander did not let go of the sword, and already as a 19-year-old youth he defeated the Swedes on the banks of the Neva in 1240 in the glorious Battle of the Neva in Rus'. The prince was courageous (he was called “Brave” even earlier than “Nevsky”), handsome, tall, his voice, according to the chronicler, “roared before the people like a trumpet.”

Alexander had a chance to live and rule Russia in difficult times: a depopulated country, general decline and despondency, the heavy power of a foreign conqueror. But smart Alexander, having dealt with the Tatars for years, living in the Horde, mastered the art of servile worship: he knew how to crawl on his knees in the khan’s yurt, knew how to give gifts to influential khans and murzas, mastered the skills of court intrigue, was stern and cruel with his enemies . And all this in order to survive and save their table, the people, Rus', so that, using the power given by the “tsar”, to subjugate other princes, to suppress the love of freedom of the people’s veche.

July 15, 1240 – Battle of the Neva

Evil tongues claim that there was no trace of the Battle of the Neva on May 15, 1240, that it was invented by the author of the “Life of Alexander Nevsky” many decades later. Indeed, in Scandinavian sources there is not the slightest mention of the massacre, much less the crushing defeat on the banks of the Neva of the Swedes, Norwegians and Finns led by the king, whom Alexander, according to Russian sources, allegedly “put a seal on his face with his sharp spear.” According to Scandinavian historians, the Swedish king Erik Erikssen was not on the Neva bank at that time, and strife was brewing among the Norwegians - King Hakon Hakonssen was suppressing the rebellion of Duke Skule Bardsson, and he clearly had no time for campaigns against Rus'. What really happened?

It is safe to say that the campaign of a small detachment of Scandinavians as part of the Crusades to Finland in 1240 really took place. There was also a battle between them and the Novgorodians on the banks of the Neva. But the significance of the battle turned out to be greatly inflated 50 years later, at the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th centuries, when a massive and fairly successful Swedish offensive against Rus' began. With great difficulty, Novgorod managed to stop the invaders. The Novgorodians were helped in this by the powerful Oreshek fortress built in 1322 at the mouth of the Neva. There they made peace with the Swedes in 1323. At that difficult time, Alexander's victorious battle with the Swedes in 1240 was used to inspire society. Then it became, along with the Battle of the Ice of 1242, a symbol of the successful struggle against the West.

April 5, 1242 – Battle of the Ice

Alexander Yaroslavich's whole life was connected with Novgorod, where he reigned from childhood. Before that, his father reigned here, to whom the Novgorodians, by the way, more than once “showed the clear path.” In Novgorod, Alexander survived the hard times of Batu's invasion of Rus'. Here in 1238 he married the Polotsk princess Alexandra Bryachislavna. Alexander honorably defended the lands of Novgorod from the Swedes and Germans, but, fulfilling the will of Khan Batu, who became his sworn brother, he punished the Novgorodians dissatisfied with Tatar oppression. Alexander, a prince who partly adopted the Tatar style of ruling, had uneven and sometimes difficult relations with them. He stubbornly pursued the policy of the Golden Horde, demanded regular payment of tribute to the conquerors, quarreled with the Novgorodians and, offended, left for Zalesye.

In the early 1240s. Relations between Pskov and Novgorod with their neighbors - the German knights who came from Germany to the Eastern Baltic in the 12th century - worsened. and those who formed orders here. They almost continuously waged crusades in the direction of “wild” Lithuania, as well as lands inhabited by Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes. Rus' was one of the goals of the crusaders. They directed their offensive towards Pskov, which they even managed to capture in 1240. A real threat of conquest loomed over Novgorod. Prince Alexander and his retinue liberated Pskov and on April 5, 1242, on the ice of Lake Pskov in the so-called Battle of the Ice, they completely defeated the knights, some of whom drowned in the lake ice holes.

The sensitive defeat of 1242 contributed to a change in the tactics of the crusaders. They more often began to use not the sword, but the word, to turn the Orthodox away from their “delusions.” In 1251, Pope Innocent IV with two cardinals - Galda and Gemont - sent Alexander a bull, in which he stated that Alexander's father Yaroslav promised the papal legate Plano Carpini to subordinate Rus' to the Catholic faith. Alexander refused - no matter how soft and compliant he was in relations with the Tatars (who cared little about the faith of conquered peoples who regularly paid taxes), he was so harsh and uncompromising about the West and its influence.

It is known that in the script of the famous film by Sergei Eisenstein “Alexander Nevsky” there was a last scene, which later did not appear in the film. It continues the scene of the victors' feast, when the prince makes a toast and mentions the famous biblical quote: “He who lifts up the sword will perish by the sword.” At this time, a mud-splattered messenger appears between the feasters, makes his way to the prince and whispers something in his ear. Alexander leaves the feast, mounts his horse and rides out of the gates of the Novgorod Kremlin. In the snowy field, as far as the eye can see, he sees lights and wagons - the Horde has approached the city. Having arrived at the khan's yurt, the proud conqueror of the German knights dismounts from his horse, kneels down and begins, according to custom, to crawl between two fires to the entrance to the khan's yurt...

This episode was allegedly crossed out with Stalin’s blue pencil, and the highest resolution read: “Such a good man could not have done this! I. Stalin." But this is exactly the case when a true artist sees history better than a politician or historian. Such an act of Alexander at that moment was thought out and rational: the bloodless victors of the Germans could not resist the Tatars, and this contradicted the entire concept of Alexander, who relied on the fight against the West and submission to the Mongols. Daniil Galitsky acted diametrically opposite - whenever possible, he was friends with the West and fought with the Horde. To each his own!

Death of Alexander Nevsky

Alexander Yaroslavich received a gold label and became the Grand Duke of Vladimir only in 1252, when Grand Duke Andrei Yaroslavich, fearing a new invasion by Khan Nevryuy, fled to Sweden. And then Alexander went to the Horde and received from Batu a golden label for the Great Reign of Vladimir. After the death of Batu in 1255, he had to go to the new khan, Ulagchi, for approval of the label. By his order, Prince Alexander helped the Tatars collect tribute in Novgorod, the inhabitants of which he, not without difficulty, kept from revolting against the khan's collectors. In 1262, he went to Mongolia for the fourth and last time to visit the Great Khan Berke.

This last trip to Mongolia was especially difficult for Prince Alexander. Berke demanded that Prince Alexander send Russian squads to participate in the campaign against Iran. The Grand Duke managed to save Rus' from this campaign. As the Hungarian monk Julian wrote, the Mongol-Tatars did not consider the warriors of the conquered peoples as allies, but were driven into battle as slaves, and “even if they fight well and win, there is little gratitude. If they die in battle, there is no concern for them, but if they retreat in battle, they are mercilessly killed by the Tatars. Therefore, when fighting, they prefer to die in battle than under the swords of the Tatars, and they fight more bravely so as not to live longer and die sooner.”

After Alexander, Russian regiments marched with the Mongol-Tatars to Poland, and in 1280 they stormed Beijing.

Returning home, Alexander Nevsky fell ill and died on November 14, 1263 in Gorodets on the Volga, in the Fedorovsky Monastery. Perhaps he was poisoned by the Mongol-Tatars. Before his death, the prince took monastic vows and put on the black schema - the clothes of a hermit monk. This was the custom among pious Christians. He was buried in Vladimir, in the Nativity Monastery. Subsequently, Prince Alexander Yaroslavich was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.

According to the Joachim Chronicle, published in the 18th century by the Russian historian, geographer and statesman V.N. Tatishchev, “The Tale of Sloven and Rus” and the city of Slovensk» ( see on the website) and according to modern archeology, before the appearance of Rurik in Rus' there already existed a centralized state. Its founders, according to the Legend, were the sons of the prince Skifa– brothers Slovenian And Rus.
In 3099 from the “creation of the world” (2409 BC), the princes of Sloven and Rus with their families and subjects began to leave in search of new lands from the Black Sea coast and spent 14 years looking for land to settle. Finally, 2395 BC. The settlers came to the great lake, it was initially called Moisko, and then Ilmer - after the sister of the princes - Ilmer. The elder brother Sloven with his family and subjects settled near the river, which they called Mutnaya (Volkhov) and built the city of Slovensk (the future Novgorod the Great). From that moment on, the Scythians-Skolots began to be called Slovenians. The river flowing into Ilmer (Ilmen) was named after Sloven's wife - Shelon. Prince Rus founded the city of Rus - Staraya Russa. On behalf of their princes, the people inhabiting these lands began to be called Slovenes and Rus. Sloven, Rus and the princes who succeeded them ruled a vast territory that reached the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Urals and the Ob River in the east. Mention is made of the Russian campaigns against Egypt, Greece and other countries.
One of Sloven's descendants was a prince Vandal(other pronunciation options for his name are Vend, Vened). It was under Prince Vandal that the Russian state was actually created, which was then taken over by the Rurikovichs. It included “Slovenian”, Russian tribes and Finno-Ugric peoples (Ves, Merya, Chud, Muroma, Mordovians). Vandal conquered significant areas in the west. Vandal had three sons: Izbor, Vladimir And The pillar is dedicated, each had its own city. The dynasty of the descendants of Sloven and Vandal ruled the North all the way to Rurik. Descendant Vladimir the Ancient(the middle son of Vandal - Vladimir, who lost the war in the 5th century to Attila) in the ninth generation Burivoy was the father of the prince Gostomysl.
Gostomysl was able to restore order in the North, defeated the Varangians and expelled them (his father was defeated on the banks of the Kumen River and was forced to retreat to the city of Byarma, perhaps Perm). The prince became famous not only as a great commander and brave warrior, but also as a wise and fair ruler who enjoyed the love of the people. However, none of his three (four?) sons and grandson Izbor (Sloven's son) lived to the end of Gostomysl's reign to inherit his power. A period of new Troubles was brewing. It was then that the wise Gostomysl told people about a dream where from his daughter’s belly Umily(she was married to the prince of Obodrit Godoluba, other pronunciations of the name are Godlav, Godolb) a huge tree grew, under whose branches an entire city could hide. The magician priests unraveled the meaning of the prophetic dream: the princess’s son would take power and create a great power. Later, the grandson of Gostomysl, the son of Umila and Godlav, was called to the throne of the northern power. Rurik.

History of Ancient Rus'- history of the Old Russian state from 862 (or 882) to the Tatar-Mongol invasion.

By the middle of the 9th century (according to the chronicle chronology in 862), in the north of European Russia in the Ilmen region, a large union had formed from a number of East Slavic, Finno-Ugric and Baltic tribes, under the rule of the princes of the Rurik dynasty, who founded a centralized state. In 882, the Novgorod prince Oleg captured Kyiv, thereby uniting the northern and southern lands of the Eastern Slavs under one rule. As a result of successful military campaigns and diplomatic efforts of the Kyiv rulers, the new state included the lands of all East Slavic, as well as some Finno-Ugric, Baltic, and Turkic tribes. In parallel, there was a process of Slavic colonization of the northeast of the Russian land.

Ancient Rus' was the largest state formation in Europe and fought for a dominant position in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region with the Byzantine Empire. Under Prince Vladimir in 988, Rus' adopted Christianity. Prince Yaroslav the Wise approved the first Russian code of laws - Russian Truth. In 1132, after the death of the Kyiv prince Mstislav Vladimirovich, the collapse of the Old Russian state began into a number of independent principalities: the Novgorod land, the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, the Galician-Volyn principality, the Chernigov principality, the Ryazan principality, the Polotsk principality and others. At the same time, Kyiv remained the object of struggle between the most powerful princely branches, and the Kiev land was considered the collective possession of the Rurikovichs.

In North-Eastern Rus', since the middle of the 12th century, the Vladimir-Suzdal principality has risen; its rulers (Andrei Bogolyubsky, Vsevolod the Big Nest), while fighting for Kyiv, left Vladimir as their main residence, which led to its rise as a new all-Russian center. Also, the most powerful principalities were Chernigov, Galicia-Volyn and Smolensk. In 1237-1240, most of the Russian lands were subjected to the destructive invasion of Batu. Kyiv, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl, Vladimir, Galich, Ryazan and other centers of Russian principalities were destroyed, the southern and southeastern outskirts lost a significant part of the settled population.

Background

The Old Russian state arose on the trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks” on the lands of the East Slavic tribes - the Ilmen Slovenes, Krivichi, Polyans, then covering the Drevlyans, Dregovichs, Polotsk, Radimichi, Severians.

Before the calling of the Varangians

The first information about the state of the Rus dates back to the first third of the 9th century: in 839, the ambassadors of the Kagan of the people of Rus were mentioned, who arrived first in Constantinople, and from there to the court of the Frankish emperor Louis the Pious. From this time on, the ethnonym “Rus” also became known. The term " Kievan Rus"appears for the first time only in historical studies of the 18th-19th centuries.

In 860 (The Tale of Bygone Years mistakenly dates it to 866), Rus' made its first campaign against Constantinople. Greek sources associate with him the so-called first baptism of Rus', after which a diocese may have arisen in Rus' and the ruling elite (possibly led by Askold) adopted Christianity.

Rurik's reign

In 862, according to the Tale of Bygone Years, the Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes called the Varangians to reign.

Per year 6370 (862). They drove the Varangians overseas, and did not give them tribute, and began to control themselves, and there was no truth among them, and generation after generation arose, and they had strife, and began to fight with each other. And they said to themselves: “Let’s look for a prince who would rule over us and judge us by right.” And they went overseas to the Varangians, to Rus'. Those Varangians were called Rus, just as others are called Swedes, and some Normans and Angles, and still others Gotlanders, so are these. The Chud, the Slovenians, the Krivichi and all said to the Russians: “Our land is great and abundant, but there is no order in it. Come reign and rule over us." And three brothers were chosen with their clans, and they took all of Rus' with them, and they came and the eldest, Rurik, sat in Novgorod, and the other, Sineus, in Beloozero, and the third, Truvor, in Izborsk. And from those Varangians the Russian land was nicknamed. Novgorodians are those people from the Varangian family, and before they were Slovenians.

In 862 (the date is approximate, like the entire early chronology of the Chronicle), the Varangians and Rurik’s warriors Askold and Dir, heading to Constantinople, subjugated Kiev, thereby establishing complete control over the most important trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks.” At the same time, the Novgorod and Nikon chronicles do not connect Askold and Dir with Rurik, and the chronicle of Jan Dlugosh and the Gustyn chronicle call them descendants of Kiy.

In 879, Rurik died in Novgorod. The reign was transferred to Oleg, regent for Rurik’s young son Igor.

The first Russian princes

Reign of Oleg the Prophet

In 882, according to chronicle chronology, Prince Oleg ( Oleg the Prophet), a relative of Rurik, went on a campaign from Novgorod to the south, capturing Smolensk and Lyubech along the way, establishing his power there and putting his people under reign. In Oleg's army there were Varangians and warriors of the tribes under his control - Chud, Slovene, Meri and Krivichi. Then Oleg, with the Novgorod army and a hired Varangian squad, captured Kyiv, killed Askold and Dir, who ruled there, and declared Kyiv the capital of his state. Already in Kyiv, he established the amount of tribute that the subject tribes of the Novgorod land - the Slovenes, Krivichi and Merya - had to pay annually. The construction of fortresses in the vicinity of the new capital also began.

Oleg extended his power by military means to the lands of the Drevlyans and Northerners, and the Radimichi accepted Oleg’s conditions without a fight (the last two tribal unions had previously paid tribute to the Khazars). The chronicles do not indicate the reaction of the Khazars, however, the historian Petrukhin puts forward the assumption that they began an economic blockade, ceasing to allow Russian merchants through their lands.

As a result of the victorious campaign against Byzantium, the first written agreements were concluded in 907 and 911, which provided for preferential terms of trade for Russian merchants (trade duties were abolished, ship repairs and overnight accommodation were provided), and resolution of legal and military issues. According to historian V. Mavrodin, the success of Oleg’s campaign is explained by the fact that he was able to rally the forces of the Old Russian state and strengthen its emerging statehood.

According to the chronicle version, Oleg, who bore the title of Grand Duke, reigned for more than 30 years. Rurik's own son Igor took the throne after Oleg's death around 912 and ruled until 945.

Igor Rurikovich

The beginning of Igor's reign was marked by the uprising of the Drevlyans, who were again conquered and imposed an even greater tribute, and the appearance of the Pechenegs in the Black Sea steppes (in 915), who ravaged the possessions of the Khazars and ousted the Hungarians from the Black Sea region. By the beginning of the 10th century. The Pecheneg nomads extended from the Volga to the Prut.

Igor made two military campaigns against Byzantium. The first, in 941, ended unsuccessfully. It was also preceded by an unsuccessful military campaign against Khazaria, during which Rus', acting at the request of Byzantium, attacked the Khazar city of Samkerts on the Taman Peninsula, but was defeated by the Khazar commander Pesach and turned its arms against Byzantium. The Bulgarians warned the Byzantines that Igor had begun the campaign with 10,000 soldiers. Igor's fleet plundered Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Heraclea Pontus and Nicomedia, but then it was defeated and he, abandoning the surviving army in Thrace, fled to Kyiv with several boats. The captured soldiers were executed in Constantinople. From the capital, he sent an invitation to the Varangians to take part in a new invasion of Byzantium. The second campaign against Byzantium took place in 944.

Igor's army, consisting of Polans, Krivichi, Slovenes, Tiverts, Varangians and Pechenegs, reached the Danube, from where ambassadors were sent to Constantinople. They concluded a treaty that confirmed many of the provisions of the previous treaties of 907 and 911, but abolished duty-free trade. Rus' pledged to defend Byzantine possessions in Crimea. In 943 or 944 a campaign was made against Berdaa.

In 945, Igor was killed while collecting tribute from the Drevlyans. According to the chronicle version, the cause of death was the prince’s desire to receive tribute again, which was demanded of him by the warriors, who were jealous of the wealth of the squad of governor Sveneld. Igor’s small squad was killed by the Drevlyans near Iskorosten, and he himself was executed. Historian A. A. Shakhmatov put forward a version according to which Igor and Sveneld began to conflict over the Drevlyan tribute and, as a result, Igor was killed.

Olga

After Igor's death, due to the minority of his son Svyatoslav, real power was in the hands of Igor's widow, Princess Olga. The Drevlyans sent an embassy to her, inviting her to become the wife of their prince Mal. However, Olga executed the ambassadors, gathered an army and in 946 began the siege of Iskorosten, which ended with its burning and the subjugation of the Drevlyans to the Kyiv princes. The Tale of Bygone Years described not only their conquest, but also the preceding revenge on the part of the Kyiv ruler. Olga imposed a large tribute on the Drevlyans.

In 947, she undertook a trip to the Novgorod land, where, instead of the previous polyudye, she introduced a system of quitrents and tributes, which local residents themselves had to take to the camps and churchyards, handing them over to specially appointed people - tiuns. Thus, a new method of collecting tribute from the subjects of the Kyiv princes was introduced.

She became the first ruler of the Old Russian state to officially accept Christianity of the Byzantine rite (according to the most reasoned version, in 957, although other dates are also proposed). In 957, Olga made an official visit to Constantinople with a large embassy, ​​known from the description of court ceremonies by Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in his “Ceremonies,” and she was accompanied by the priest Gregory.

The Emperor calls Olga the ruler (archontissa) of Rus', the name of her son Svyatoslav (the list of retinues indicates “ Svyatoslav's people") is mentioned without a title. Olga sought baptism and recognition of Rus' by Byzantium as an equal Christian empire. At baptism she received the name Elena. However, according to a number of historians, it was not possible to agree on an alliance immediately. In 959, Olga accepted the Greek embassy, ​​but refused to send an army to help Byzantium. In the same year, she sent ambassadors to the German Emperor Otto I with a request to send bishops and priests and establish a church in Rus'. This attempt to play on the contradictions between Byzantium and Germany was successful, Constantinople made concessions by concluding a mutually beneficial agreement, and the German embassy led by Bishop Adalbert returned back with nothing. In 960, a Russian army went to help the Greeks, fighting in Crete against the Arabs under the leadership of the future emperor Nikephoros Phocas.

The monk Jacob, in the 11th century work “Memory and Praise to the Russian Prince Volodymer,” reports the exact date of Olga’s death: July 11, 969.

Svyatoslav Igorevich

Around 960, the matured Svyatoslav took power into his own hands. He grew up among his father's warriors and was the first of the Russian princes to bear a Slavic name. From the beginning of his reign, he began to prepare for military campaigns and gathered an army. According to the historian Grekov, Svyatoslav was deeply involved in the international relations of Europe and Asia. Often he acted in agreement with other states, thus participating in solving the problems of European and, partly, Asian politics.

His first action was the subjugation of the Vyatichi (964), who were the last of all the East Slavic tribes to continue to pay tribute to the Khazars. Then, according to eastern sources, Svyatoslav attacked and defeated Volga Bulgaria. In 965 (according to other sources also in 968/969) Svyatoslav made a campaign against the Khazar Kaganate. The Khazar army, led by the Kagan, came out to meet Svyatoslav’s squad, but was defeated. The Russian army stormed the main cities of the Khazars: the fortress city of Sarkel, Semender and the capital Itil. After this, the ancient Russian settlement of Belaya Vezha arose on the site of Sarkel. After the defeat, the remnants of the Khazar state were known as the Saksins and no longer played their previous role. The establishment of Rus' in the Black Sea region and the North Caucasus is also connected with this campaign, where Svyatoslav defeated the Yases (Alans) and Kasogs (Circassians) and where Tmutarakan became the center of Russian possessions.

In 968, a Byzantine embassy arrived in Rus', proposing an alliance against Bulgaria, which had then left the obedience of Byzantium. The Byzantine ambassador Kalokir, on behalf of Emperor Nikephoros Phocas, brought a gift of 1,500 pounds of gold. Having included the allied Pechenegs in his army, Svyatoslav moved to the Danube. In a short time, the Bulgarian troops were defeated, Russian squads occupied up to 80 Bulgarian cities. Svyatoslav chose Pereyaslavets, a city in the lower reaches of the Danube, as his headquarters. However, such a sharp strengthening of Rus' aroused fears in Constantinople and the Byzantines managed to convince the Pechenegs to make another raid on Kyiv. In 968, their army besieged the Russian capital, where Princess Olga and her grandchildren - Yaropolk, Oleg and Vladimir - were located. The city was saved by the approach of a small squad of governor Pretich. Soon Svyatoslav himself arrived with a mounted army, driving the Pechenegs into the steppe. However, the prince did not seek to remain in Rus'. Chronicles quote him as saying:

Svyatoslav remained in Kyiv until the death of his mother Olga. After that, he divided the possessions between his sons: he left Kyiv to Yaropolk, Oleg - the lands of the Drevlyans, and Vladimir - Novgorod).

Then he returned to Pereyaslavets. In a new campaign with a significant army (according to various sources, from 10 to 60 thousand soldiers) in 970, Svyatoslav captured almost all of Bulgaria, occupied its capital Preslav and invaded Byzantium. The new emperor John Tzimiskes sent a large army against him. The Russian army, which included Bulgarians and Hungarians, was forced to retreat to Dorostol (Silistria) - a fortress on the Danube.

In 971 it was besieged by the Byzantines. In the battle near the walls of the fortress, Svyatoslav’s army suffered heavy losses, and he was forced to negotiate with Tzimiskes. According to the peace treaty, Rus' pledged not to attack Byzantine possessions in Bulgaria, and Constantinople promised not to incite the Pechenegs to campaign against Rus'.

Voivode Sveneld advised the prince to return to Rus' by land. However, Svyatoslav preferred to sail through the Dnieper rapids. At the same time, the prince planned to gather a new army in Rus' and resume the war with Byzantium. In winter they were blocked by the Pechenegs and Svyatoslav’s small squad spent a hungry winter in the lower reaches of the Dnieper. In the spring of 972, Svyatoslav attempted to break into Rus', but his army was defeated and he himself was killed. According to another version, the death of the Kyiv prince occurred in 973. The Pecheneg leader Kurya made a bowl for feasts from the prince’s skull.

Vladimir and Yaroslav the Wise. Baptism of Rus'

The reign of Prince Vladimir. Baptism of Rus'

After the death of Svyatoslav, civil strife broke out between his sons for the right to the throne (972-978 or 980). The eldest son Yaropolk became the great prince of Kyiv, Oleg received the Drevlyan lands, and Vladimir received Novgorod. In 977, Yaropolk defeated Oleg’s squad, and Oleg himself died. Vladimir fled “overseas”, but returned two years later with a Varangian squad. During the campaign against Kyiv, he conquered Polotsk, an important trading point on the western Dvina, and married the daughter of Prince Rogvolod Rogneda, whom he killed.

During the civil strife, Vladimir Svyatoslavich defended his rights to the throne (reigned 980-1015). Under him, the formation of the state territory of Ancient Rus' was completed, the Cherven cities and Carpathian Rus', which were disputed by Poland, were annexed. After Vladimir’s victory, his son Svyatopolk married the daughter of the Polish king Boleslav the Brave and peaceful relations were established between the two states. Vladimir finally annexed the Vyatichi and Radimichi to Rus'. In 983 he made a campaign against the Yatvingians, and in 985 - against the Volga Bulgarians.

Having achieved autocracy in the Russian land, Vladimir began religious reform. In 980, the prince established a pagan pantheon of six different-tribal gods in Kyiv. Tribal cults could not create a unified state religious system. In 986, ambassadors from various countries began to arrive in Kyiv, inviting Vladimir to accept their faith.

Islam was proposed by the Volga Bulgaria, Western-style Christianity by the German Emperor Otto I, Judaism by the Khazar Jews. However, Vladimir chose Christianity, which the Greek philosopher told him about. The embassy returning from Byzantium supported the prince. In 988, the Russian army besieged the Byzantine Korsun (Chersonese). Byzantium agreed to peace, Princess Anna became Vladimir's wife. The pagan idols that stood in Kyiv were overthrown, and the people of Kiev were baptized in the Dnieper. A stone church was built in the capital, which became known as the Tithe Church, since the prince gave a tenth of his income for its maintenance. After the baptism of Rus', treaties with Byzantium became unnecessary, since closer relations were established between both states. These ties were strengthened to a large extent thanks to the church apparatus that the Byzantines organized in Rus'. The first bishops and priests arrived from Korsun and other Byzantine cities. The church organization within the Old Russian state was in the hands of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who became a great political force in Rus'.

Having become the prince of Kyiv, Vladimir faced an increased Pecheneg threat. To protect against nomads, he builds lines of fortresses on the border, the garrisons of which were recruited from the “best men” of the northern tribes - the Ilmen Slovenes, Krivichi, Chud and Vyatichi. Tribal boundaries began to blur, and the state border became important. It was during the time of Vladimir that many Russian epics took place, telling about the exploits of heroes.

Vladimir established a new order of government: he planted his sons in Russian cities. Svyatopolk received Turov, Izyaslav - Polotsk, Yaroslav - Novgorod, Boris - Rostov, Gleb - Murom, Svyatoslav - Drevlyansky land, Vsevolod - Vladimir-on-Volyn, Sudislav - Pskov, Stanislav - Smolensk, Mstislav - Tmutarakan. Tribute was no longer collected during Polyudye and only in churchyards. From that moment on, the princely family and their warriors “fed” in the cities themselves and sent part of the tribute to the capital - Kyiv.

Reign of Yaroslav the Wise

After the death of Vladimir, a new civil strife occurred in Rus'. Svyatopolk the Accursed in 1015 killed his brothers Boris (according to another version, Boris was killed by Scandinavian mercenaries of Yaroslav), Gleb and Svyatoslav. Having learned about the murder of the brothers, Yaroslav, who ruled in Novgorod, began to prepare for a campaign against Kyiv. Svyatopolk received help from the Polish king Boleslav and the Pechenegs, but in the end he was defeated and fled to Poland, where he died. Boris and Gleb were canonized as saints in 1071.

After the victory over Svyatopolk, Yaroslav had a new opponent - his brother Mstislav, who by that time had gained a foothold in Tmutarakan and Eastern Crimea. In 1022, Mstislav conquered the Kasogs (Circassians), defeating their leader Rededya in battle. Having strengthened the army with the Khazars and Kasogs, he set out to the north, where he subjugated the northerners who joined his troops. Then he occupied Chernigov. At this time, Yaroslav turned for help to the Varangians, who sent him a strong army. The decisive battle took place in 1024 near Listven; victory went to Mstislav. After her, the brothers divided Rus' into two parts - along the riverbed of the Dnieper. Kyiv and Novgorod remained with Yaroslav, and it was Novgorod that remained his permanent residence. Mstislav moved his capital to Chernigov. The brothers maintained a close alliance; after the death of the Polish king Boleslav, they returned to Rus' the Cherven cities captured by the Poles after the death of Vladimir the Red Sun.

At this time, Kyiv temporarily lost its status as the political center of Rus'. The leading centers then were Novgorod and Chernigov. Expanding his possessions, Yaroslav undertook a campaign against the Estonian Chud tribe. On the conquered territory in 1030 the city of Yuryev (modern Tartu) was founded.

In 1036 Mstislav fell ill while hunting and died. His only son had died three years earlier. Thus, Yaroslav became the ruler of all Rus', except for the Principality of Polotsk. In the same year, Kyiv was attacked by the Pechenegs. By the time Yaroslav arrived with the army of Varangians and Slavs, they had already captured the outskirts of the city.

In the battle near the walls of Kyiv, Yaroslav defeated the Pechenegs, after which he made Kyiv his capital. In memory of the victory over the Pechenegs, the prince founded the famous Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv; artists from Constantinople were called to paint the temple. Then he imprisoned the last surviving brother, Sudislav, who ruled in Pskov. After this, Yaroslav became the sole ruler of almost all of Rus'.

The reign of Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054) was the time of the highest prosperity of the state. Social relations were regulated by the collection of laws “Russian Truth” and princely statutes. Yaroslav the Wise pursued an active foreign policy. He became related to many ruling dynasties of Europe, which testified to the wide international recognition of Rus' in the European Christian world. Intensive stone construction began. Yaroslav actively turned Kyiv into a cultural and intellectual center, taking Constantinople as a model. At this time, relations between the Russian Church and the Patriarchate of Constantinople normalized.

From that moment on, the Russian Church was headed by the Metropolitan of Kiev, who was ordained by the Patriarch of Constantinople. No later than 1039, the first Metropolitan of Kiev, Theophan, arrived in Kyiv. In 1051, having gathered bishops, Yaroslav himself appointed Hilarion as metropolitan, for the first time without the participation of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Hilarion became the first Russian metropolitan. In 1054 Yaroslav the Wise died.

Crafts and trade. Monuments of writing (The Tale of Bygone Years, the Novgorod Codex, the Ostromirovo Gospel, Lives) and architecture (Tithe Church, St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv and the cathedrals of the same name in Novgorod and Polotsk) were created. The high level of literacy of the inhabitants of Rus' is evidenced by numerous birch bark letters that have survived to this day. Rus' traded with the southern and western Slavs, Scandinavia, Byzantium, Western Europe, the peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The reign of the sons and grandsons of Yaroslav the Wise

Yaroslav the Wise divided Rus' between his sons. The three eldest sons received the main Russian lands. Izyaslav - Kyiv and Novgorod, Svyatoslav - Chernigov and the Murom and Ryazan lands, Vsevolod - Pereyaslavl and Rostov. The younger sons Vyacheslav and Igor received Smolensk and Vladimir Volynsky. These possessions were not inherited; a system developed in which the younger brother succeeded the eldest in the princely family - the so-called “ladder” system. The eldest in the clan (not by age, but by line of kinship) received Kiev and became the Grand Duke, all other lands were divided between members of the clan and distributed according to seniority. Power passed from brother to brother, from uncle to nephew. Chernigov occupied second place in the hierarchy of tables. When one of the members of the clan died, all the Rurikovichs younger in relation to him moved to lands corresponding to their seniority. When new members of the clan appeared, their destiny was determined - a city with land (volost). A certain prince had the right to reign only in the city where his father reigned; otherwise, he was considered an outcast. The ladder system regularly caused strife between the princes.

In the 60s In the 11th century, the Polovtsians appeared in the Northern Black Sea region. The sons of Yaroslav the Wise were unable to stop their invasion, but were afraid to arm the Kyiv militia. In response to this, in 1068 the people of Kiev overthrew Izyaslav Yaroslavich and placed on the throne the Polotsk prince Vseslav, who had been captured by the Yaroslavichs during a strife the year before. In 1069, with the help of the Poles, Izyaslav occupied Kyiv, but after this, uprisings of the townspeople became constant during crises of princely power. Presumably in 1072 the Yaroslavichs edited the Russian Truth, significantly expanding it.

Izyaslav tried to regain control of Polotsk, but was unsuccessful, and in 1071 he made peace with Vseslav. In 1073, Vsevolod and Svyatoslav expelled Izyaslav from Kyiv, accusing him of an alliance with Vseslav, and Izyaslav fled to Poland. Kiev began to be ruled by Svyatoslav, who himself was in allied relations with the Poles. In 1076, Svyatoslav died and Vsevolod became the prince of Kyiv.

When Izyaslav returned with the Polish army, Vsevolod returned the capital to him, retaining Pereyaslavl and Chernigov. At the same time, Svyatoslav’s eldest son Oleg was left without possessions, who began the fight with the support of the Polovtsians. Izyaslav Yaroslavich died in the battle with them, and Vsevolod again became the ruler of Rus'. He made his son Vladimir, born of a Byzantine princess from the Monomakh dynasty, the prince of Chernigov. Oleg Svyatoslavich fortified himself in Tmutarakan. Vsevolod continued the foreign policy of Yaroslav the Wise. He sought to strengthen ties with European countries by marrying his son Vladimir to the Anglo-Saxon Gita, daughter of King Harald, who died at the Battle of Hastings. He married his daughter Eupraxia to the German Emperor Henry IV. The reign of Vsevolod was characterized by the distribution of lands to prince-nephews and the formation of an administrative hierarchy.

After the death of Vsevolod, Kyiv was occupied by Svyatopolk Izyaslavich. The Polovtsians sent an embassy to Kyiv with a peace proposal, but Svyatopolk Izyaslavich refused negotiations and seized the ambassadors. These events became the reason for the large Polovtsian campaign against Rus', as a result of which the combined troops of Svyatopolk and Vladimir were defeated, and significant territories around Kyiv and Pereyaslavl were devastated. The Polovtsy took away many prisoners. Taking advantage of this, the sons of Svyatoslav, enlisting the support of the Polovtsians, laid claim to Chernigov. In 1094, Oleg Svyatoslavich with Polovtsian troops moved to Chernigov from Tmutarakan. When his army approached the city, Vladimir Monomakh made peace with him, ceding Chernigov and going to Pereyaslavl. In 1095, the Polovtsians repeated the raid, during which they reached Kyiv itself, ravaging its surroundings. Svyatopolk and Vladimir called for help from Oleg, who reigned in Chernigov, but he ignored their requests. After the departure of the Polovtsians, the Kyiv and Pereyaslav squads captured Chernigov, and Oleg fled to his brother Davyd in Smolensk. There he replenished his troops and attacked Murom, where the son of Vladimir Monomakh Izyaslav ruled. Murom was taken, and Izyaslav fell in battle. Despite the peace proposal that Vladimir sent him, Oleg continued the campaign and captured Rostov. Another son of Monomakh, Mstislav, who was the governor in Novgorod, prevented him from continuing his conquests. He defeated Oleg, who fled to Ryazan. Vladimir Monomakh once again offered him peace, to which Oleg agreed.

Monomakh's peaceful initiative was continued in the form of the Lyubech Congress of Princes, who gathered in 1097 to resolve existing differences. The congress was attended by the Kiev prince Svyatopolk, Vladimir Monomakh, Davyd (son of Igor Volynsky), Vasilko Rostislavovich, Davyd and Oleg Svyatoslavovich. The princes agreed to stop strife and not lay claim to other people's possessions. However, the peace did not last long. Davyd Volynsky and Svyatopolk captured Vasilko Rostislavovich and blinded him. Vasilko became the first Russian prince to be blinded during civil strife in Rus'. Outraged by the actions of Davyd and Svyatopolk, Vladimir Monomakh and Davyd and Oleg Svyatoslavich set off on a campaign against Kyiv. The people of Kiev sent a delegation headed by the Metropolitan to meet them, which managed to convince the princes to maintain peace. However, Svyatopolk was entrusted with the task of punishing Davyd Volynsky. He freed Vasilko. However, another civil strife began in Rus', which escalated into a large-scale war in the western principalities. It ended in 1100 with a congress in Uvetichi. Davyd Volynsky was deprived of his principality. However, for “feeding” he was given the city of Buzhsk. In 1101, the Russian princes managed to make peace with the Cumans.

Changes in public administration at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 12th centuries

During the baptism of Rus', the authority of Orthodox bishops, subordinate to the Kyiv metropolitan, was established in all its lands. At the same time, the sons of Vladimir were installed as governors in all lands. Now all the princes who acted as appendages of the Kyiv Grand Duke were only from the Rurik family. Scandinavian sagas mention the fiefs of the Vikings, but they were located on the outskirts of Rus' and on newly annexed lands, so at the time of writing “The Tale of Bygone Years” they already seemed like a relic. The Rurik princes waged a fierce struggle with the remaining tribal princes (Vladimir Monomakh mentions the Vyatichi prince Khodota and his son). This contributed to the centralization of power.

The power of the Grand Duke reached its highest strengthening under Vladimir and Yaroslav the Wise (then, after a break, under Vladimir Monomakh). The position of the dynasty was strengthened by numerous international dynastic marriages: Anna Yaroslavna and the French king, Vsevolod Yaroslavich and the Byzantine princess, etc.

Since the time of Vladimir or, according to some information, Yaropolk Svyatoslavich, the prince began to give lands to the warriors instead of monetary salaries. If initially these were cities for feeding, then in the 11th century villages began to receive warriors. Along with the villages, which became fiefdoms, the boyar title was also granted. The boyars began to form the senior squad. The service of the boyars was determined by personal loyalty to the prince, and not by the size of the land allotment (conditional land ownership did not become noticeably widespread). The younger squad (“youths”, “children”, “gridi”), who were with the prince, lived off feeding from the princely villages and the war. The main fighting force in the 11th century was the militia, which received horses and weapons from the prince during the war. The services of the mercenary Varangian squad were largely abandoned during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise.

Over time, the church began to own a significant part of the land (“monastery estates”). Since 996, the population has paid tithes to the church. The number of dioceses, starting from 4, grew. The department of the metropolitan, appointed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, began to be located in Kiev, and under Yaroslav the Wise, the metropolitan was first elected from among the Russian priests; in 1051, Hilarion, who was close to Vladimir and his son, became the metropolitan. Monasteries and their elected heads, abbots, began to have great influence. The Kiev-Pechersk Monastery becomes the center of Orthodoxy.

The boyars and squad formed special councils under the prince. The prince also consulted with the metropolitan and the bishops and abbots who made up the church council. With the complication of the princely hierarchy, by the end of the 11th century, princely congresses (“snems”) began to gather. There were veches in the cities, which the boyars often relied on to support their own political demands (uprisings in Kyiv in 1068 and 1113).

In the 11th - early 12th centuries, the first written set of laws was formed - “Russian Truth”, which was successively replenished with articles from “The Truth of Yaroslav” (c. 1015-1016), “The Truth of the Yaroslavichs” (c. 1072) and the “Charter of Vladimir” Vsevolodovich" (c. 1113). The “Russian Truth” reflected the increasing differentiation of the population (now the size of the vira depended on the social status of the killed), and regulated the position of such categories of the population as servants, serfs, smerdas, purchases and ordinary people.

“Yaroslav’s Truth” equalized the rights of “Rusyns” and “Slovenians” (it should be clarified that under the name “Slovenes” the chronicle mentions only Novgorodians - “Ilmen Slovenes”). This, along with Christianization and other factors, contributed to the formation of a new ethnic community that was aware of its unity and historical origin.

Since the end of the 10th century, Rus' has known its own coin production - silver and gold coins of Vladimir I, Svyatopolk, Yaroslav the Wise and other princes.

Decay

The Principality of Polotsk was the first to separate from Kyiv - this happened already at the beginning of the 11th century. Having concentrated all the other Russian lands under his rule only 21 years after the death of his father, Yaroslav the Wise, dying in 1054, divided them between the five sons who survived him. After the death of the two youngest of them, all lands came under the rule of the three elders: Izyaslav of Kyiv, Svyatoslav of Chernigov and Vsevolod of Pereyaslavl (“the Yaroslavich triumvirate”).

In 1061 (immediately after the defeat of the Torci by the Russian princes in the steppes), raids by the Polovtsians began, replacing the Pechenegs who migrated to the Balkans. During the long Russian-Polovtsian wars, the southern princes for a long time could not cope with their opponents, undertaking a number of unsuccessful campaigns and suffering sensitive defeats (the battle on the Alta River (1068), the battle on the Stugna River (1093).

After the death of Svyatoslav in 1076, the Kyiv princes attempted to deprive his sons of the Chernigov inheritance, and they resorted to the help of the Cumans, although the Cumans were first used in strife by Vladimir Monomakh (against Vseslav of Polotsk). In this struggle, Izyaslav of Kiev (1078) and the son of Vladimir Monomakh Izyaslav (1096) died. At the Lyubech Congress (1097), called upon to stop civil strife and unite the princes for protection from the Polovtsians, the principle was proclaimed: “ Let everyone keep his fatherland" Thus, while preserving the right of ladder, in the event of the death of one of the princes, the movement of the heirs was limited to their patrimony. This opened the way to political fragmentation (feudal fragmentation), since a separate dynasty was established in each land, and the Grand Duke of Kiev became first among equals, losing the role of overlord. However, this also made it possible to stop the strife and unite forces to fight the Cumans, which was moved deep into the steppes. In addition, treaties were concluded with the allied nomads - the “black hoods” (Torks, Berendeys and Pechenegs, expelled by the Polovtsians from the steppes and settled on the southern Russian borders).

In the second quarter of the 12th century, the Old Russian state broke up into independent principalities. The modern historiographic tradition considers the chronological beginning of fragmentation to be 1132, when, after the death of Mstislav the Great, the son of Vladimir Monomakh, the power of the Kyiv prince was no longer recognized by Polotsk (1132) and Novgorod (1136), and the title itself became the object of struggle between various dynastic and territorial associations of the Rurikovichs. In 1134, the chronicler, in connection with a schism among the Monomakhovichs, wrote: the whole Russian land was torn apart" The civil strife that began did not concern the great reign itself, but after the death of Yaropolk Vladimirovich (1139), the next Monomakhovich, Vyacheslav, was expelled from Kyiv by Vsevolod Olgovich of Chernigov.

During the XII-XIII centuries, part of the population of the southern Russian principalities, due to the constant threat emanating from the steppe, as well as due to the ongoing princely strife for the Kiev land, moved north to the calmer Rostov-Suzdal land, also called Zalesye or Opolye. Having joined the ranks of the Slavs of the first, Krivitsa-Novgorod migration wave of the 10th century, settlers from the populous south quickly became the majority on this land and assimilated the rare Finno-Ugric population. The massive Russian migration throughout the 12th century is evidenced by chronicles and archaeological excavations. It was during this period that the founding and rapid growth of numerous cities of the Rostov-Suzdal land (Vladimir, Moscow, Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, Yuryev-Opolsky, Dmitrov, Zvenigorod, Starodub-on-Klyazma, Yaropolch-Zalessky, Galich, etc.) occurred. often repeated the names of the cities of origin of the settlers. The weakening of Southern Rus' is also associated with the success of the first crusades and changes in the main trade routes.

During two major internecine wars in the mid-12th century, the Principality of Kiev lost Volyn (1154), Pereyaslavl (1157) and Turov (1162). In 1169, the grandson of Vladimir Monomakh, the Vladimir-Suzdal prince Andrei Bogolyubsky sent an army led by his son Mstislav to the south, which captured Kyiv. For the first time, the city was brutally plundered, Kyiv churches were burned, and the inhabitants were taken captive. Andrei's younger brother was placed in the reign of Kiev. And although soon, after unsuccessful campaigns against Novgorod (1170) and Vyshgorod (1173), the influence of the Vladimir prince in other lands temporarily fell, Kyiv began to gradually lose, and Vladimir began to acquire, the political attributes of an all-Russian center. In the 12th century, in addition to the Kyiv prince, the title of great also began to be borne by the Vladimir princes, and in the 13th century, occasionally also by the princes of Galicia, Chernigov and Ryazan.

Kyiv, unlike most other principalities, did not become the property of any one dynasty, but served as a constant bone of contention for all powerful princes. In 1203, it was plundered for the second time by the Smolensk prince Rurik Rostislavich, who fought against the Galician-Volyn prince Roman Mstislavich. The first clash between Rus' and the Mongols took place in the Battle of the Kalka River (1223), in which almost all the southern Russian princes took part. The weakening of the southern Russian principalities increased the pressure from the Hungarian and Lithuanian feudal lords, but at the same time contributed to the strengthening of the influence of the Vladimir princes in Chernigov (1226), Novgorod (1231), Kiev (in 1236 Yaroslav Vsevolodovich occupied Kyiv for two years, while his elder brother Yuri remained reign in Vladimir) and Smolensk (1236-1239). During the Mongol invasion of Rus', which began in 1237, Kyiv was reduced to ruins in December 1240. It was received by the Vladimir princes Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, recognized by the Mongols as the oldest in the Russian lands, and later by his son Alexander Nevsky. They, however, did not move to Kyiv, remaining in their ancestral Vladimir. In 1299, the Kiev Metropolitan moved his residence there. In some church and literary sources - for example, in the statements of the Patriarch of Constantinople and Vytautas at the end of the 14th century - Kyiv continued to be considered as a capital city at a later time, but by this time it was already a provincial city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Since 1254, the Galician princes bore the title “King of Rus'”. From the beginning of the 14th century, the Vladimir princes began to bear the title of “Grand Dukes of All Rus'”.

In Soviet historiography, the concept of “Kievan Rus” was extended both until the middle of the 12th century, and for the wider period of the mid-12th - mid-13th centuries, when Kiev remained the center of the country and the governance of Russia was carried out by a single princely family on the principles of “collective suzerainty”. Both approaches remain relevant today.

Pre-revolutionary historians, starting with N.M. Karamzin, adhered to the idea of ​​​​transferring the political center of Rus' in 1169 from Kyiv to Vladimir, dating back to the works of Moscow scribes, or to Vladimir (Volyn) and Galich. In modern historiography there is no consensus of opinion on this matter. Some historians believe that these ideas are not confirmed in the sources. In particular, some of them point to such a sign of the political weakness of the Suzdal land as a small number of fortified settlements compared to other lands of Rus'. Other historians, on the contrary, find confirmation in the sources that the political center of Russian civilization moved from Kyiv, first to Rostov and Suzdal, and later to Vladimir-on-Klyazma.

Settlement of the Slavs. Pre-state period of Russian history

The settlement of the Slavs is the process of spreading Slavic ethnic groups and tribes across the territory of central and eastern Europe, as well as the Balkan Peninsula and the Baltic states. Historians consider the beginning of this process to be the period of the beginning of the 6th century AD, and it ended in the middle of the 11th century, a couple of decades before the creation of the Novgorod principality and the formation of the ancient Russian state under the rule of Rurik.

It is believed that the process of settlement of the Slavs began in the area between the Danube and Oder, approximately shown on the map (Fig. 1). Historians believe that the reason for the settlement of the Slavs in three directions (western, southern and eastern) was the invasion of detachments of Germanic tribes (Goths, Gepids), sufficient for the once united Slavic nation to split into three branches. This version is confirmed by the lines from the Tale of Bygone Years “When the Volokhs attacked the Danube Slavs, and settled among them, and oppressed them...”

In the period from the beginning of the 6th century AD. until the end of the 8th century. The Slavs (escaping from the Germans who were pressing on their heels) settled throughout the Balkan Peninsula, occupied the forest zone of Eastern Europe to the Gulf of Finland in the north, the mouth of the Neman, the upper reaches of the Volga, Oka, Don, and the southern coast of the Baltic Sea from the Jutland Peninsula to the Vistula.

The Eastern Slavs (which include Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians) began to populate the East European Plain in the mid-7th century AD. Due to the great distance between individual groups of Slavic settlers on the territory of future Rus', Slavic tribal unions begin to form: the Polyans (who settled along the middle Dnieper), the Drevlyans (who settled in Polesie), the Krivichi (who occupied Smolensk and Polotsk) and others. Details can be found in Figure 2 (right). Of course, the colonization of new lands was not without conflicts both between the Slavs and the indigenous inhabitants (chud, all, mer), and between the colonizers themselves for the best lands.

The Slavs were so tired of endless civil strife, conflicts and wars for two centuries that the question arose of creating a centralized administration of Slavic tribal unions. The first attempts to create a state were made according to the Tale of Bygone Years at the beginning of the 9th century by Prince Kiy, the founder of Kiev City. Together with his brothers Shchek and Khoriv, ​​he ruled numerous Polyanian tribes. However, during an attempt to plunder Constantinople, Kiy was killed, and the brothers were unable to maintain power over the entire territory of the glades and controlled only the environs closest to Kyiv. This continued until 862, when, according to the chronicles, Novgorod called the Varangian knight Rurik to reign in the Novgorod lands. It is 862 that is considered the year of the creation of statehood in Rus'.

The emergence and development of ancient Russian statehood

862 The reign of Prince Rurik in Novgorod. Civil strife and strife have subsided, Rurik and his retinue regularly collect tribute and live for themselves without grieving. But in 879, Rurik died - and in his place, until Rurik’s son Igor came of age, the first prince’s comrade-in-arms, Oleg, known from chronicles and epics as the Prophetic One, came to power.

Prince Oleg (879-912) was a legendary figure, more legendary than Rurik. In 882, he conquered Kyiv, the capital of the Polyans, and before that Krivichi Smolensk and Lyubech. On the basis of 4 cities and the lands of the Drevlyans, Northerners, and Radimichs that were later annexed, Prophetic Oleg formed his own state, named after his capital - Kiev. A little later it became known as Kievan Rus. The final formation of the territory of the future Kievan Rus occurred in 907, when Oleg’s troops subjugated and were obliged to pay tribute the lands of the Vyatichi, Croats, Dulebs and Tiverts. And Oleg brutally stopped the attempts of the Khazars and Byzantines to destroy the new Russian state in the bud, practically destroying the former and thoroughly plundering the latter. According to legend, Prophetic Oleg died from a snake bite in 912, which suggests that he was poisoned by foreign policy enemies.

Prince Igor (son of Prince Rurik), who replaced the founder of Kievan Rus, was not a very good ruler. Having taken the reins of government in 912, he did not show himself in any way until 945. Having made two unsuccessful campaigns against Byzantium in 941 and 945 for the purpose of robbery, he worsened the already not very good economic situation of the country, annulling the treaties with Byzantium with his attack. While trying to correct his mistake by re-collecting tribute from the Drevlyan tribes, he was killed by his subjects. At this time, his wife Olga and his young son Svyatoslav remained in Kyiv.

Princess Olga (Elena in Christianity) was a strong woman, and another woman would not have been able to stay close to the prince. After the news of her husband's death, she mourned the loss for several days. The Drevlyans considered her just a weak woman and decided to take advantage of the temporary weakness of the Kyiv princes. A couple of weeks later, noble Drevlyan ambassadors came to Olga’s court with an ultimatum: Olga will marry the Drevlyan prince Mal, otherwise they will destroy her city. The Grand Duchess was initially amazed at the impudence of the Drevlyan tribes. However, soon a wonderful idea of ​​revenge for her husband was born in her head. Olga received the ambassadors and said that she agreed. When the Drevlyans wanted the Kievans to carry their boat in their arms, the local residents threw the ambassadors’ boat into a hole dug by Olga’s order and buried them alive. She burned the second wave of ambassadors who came to take Olga alive in a bathhouse. Having deprived the Drevlyans of their power, the princess herself went to the Drevlyans, where, by cunning, at a feast with the help of her neighbors, she destroyed more than 5 thousand Drevlyans. She defeated the enemy army that then came out with ease (the top is no longer there). Within a year, she conquered the rebellious tribes, but as a wise woman, she did not impose an exorbitant tribute on them, but rather made small concessions. At the same time, she established a strict measure of tribute paid (lesson) and the place for their collection (pogost). This is what made it possible to systematize state taxation and stabilize the economic situation in the country.

The rise to power of Olga's grandson Vladimir, nicknamed the Saint (in 980), was also overshadowed by war and civil strife in the country. Having defeated his brothers (and especially his brother Yaropolk, the eldest in the family), he once again subjugated all the tribes and nationalities of Kievan Rus, strengthened the country's defenses in the east, placing several fortresses on the border with the Pechenegs and installing a signal smoke system. Prince Vladimir received the nickname Saint due to the establishment of a state religion in the country in 988 - Orthodox (Byzantine) Christianity. Died in 1015.

The heir of Vladimir the Saint, Prince Yaroslav the Wise, was remembered in Russian history for the fact that under him the Russian state was finally formed. Having taken the reins of government in 1019, Yaroslav pursued a wise foreign and domestic policy, for which he received his nickname. Under his leadership, a set of laws of ancient Russian law, called “Russian Truth,” was created and formed. It recorded almost all the customs and rights of ancient Russian tribes. Yaroslav also showed himself to be a very good commander, having carried out several successful campaigns against his neighbors in the west, east and south. With the help of his daughters, he became related to almost all the rulers of medieval Europe. Chroniclers call the reign of Prince Yaroslav the Wise the “Golden Age of Kievan Rus.”

However, after the death of Yaroslav in 1054, the political situation in the country began to deteriorate. His sons were unable to rule the country together and in the end began to quarrel and go to war against each other. His grandchildren did the same. The process of fragmenting the country into specific states began. Separatist-minded Slavic tribes raised their heads, nominating their princes for independent rule. The Lyubech Congress of Princes in 1097 formally consolidated the independence and autonomy of the princely lands. Prince Vladimir Monomakh and his sons tried to reunite the lands of Kievan Rus (and quite successfully), however, after the death of Mstislav the Great, the power of Kyiv weakened so much that the country fell apart into appanage principalities. A period of fragmentation began.

The adoption of Christianity and the development of ancient Russian culture

Old Russian culture, which flourished from the 9th to the 12th centuries AD, had distinctive features from any European and Asian culture. The reason for this is the unique ability of the Russian mentality and soul to accept and transform any foreign culture to suit its aspirations. The culture of Rus' is essentially a “hodgepodge” of various cultures of Western and Eastern peoples. But unlike the “culture of the United States of America,” the customs and beliefs of the peoples inhabiting Russia merged into a single whole. And over the past thousand years of various invasions, interventions and attacks on our country and our cultural heritage, no one has managed to destroy this unique formation of the West and the East.

What was the culture of our country during the period of Kievan Rus? First of all, it is a mixture of different beliefs: pagan customs and Christianity. Vladimir the Holy Baptist and the metropolitans of Kyiv carried out a colossal work over the course of two centuries to unite such different things into a single whole. The Orthodox culture of Russia differed quite strongly from the Greek Orthodox Church precisely because of the presence of pagan and Slavic inclusions in the former.

Of course, customs are customs, but they were not the only ones that made the Russian spirit strong. Oral creativity has long been developed in Rus'. Various songs, epics and fairy tales have survived to this day, having undergone only minor changes. The well-known poem “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” is the pinnacle of Russian song art.

Russian Slavic architecture was no less strong. Unfortunately, a small number of Russian architectural monuments of ancient Russian culture have survived to our time. Most of them are religious buildings. One of the oldest churches in our country is the Kiev St. Sophia Cathedral, built in 1017 (right). A feature of ancient Russian buildings is a variety of decorative decorations and patterns on doors, walls, windows and even roofs. Most of them have pagan roots, which does not prevent them from being located in purely Orthodox buildings. But there are also decorations that came to us from the West and the East.

When it comes to painting, there is very little variety. The vast majority of paintings were focused on a religious theme: pagan or Christian. The change in orientation to more mundane things began only with the development of the Moscow state, which is not the subject of this essay and will be omitted.

Socio-economic system of ancient Rus'

During the times of Kievan Rus, the population of our country, like any modern society, was divided into various classes, divided mainly on the basis of origin. However, the division of society was somewhat different from the division into the feudal classes of Western Europe. One of the main reasons is the large extent of the country and the difficulty of controlling and managing the population over such a vast territory.

The structure of division of the population of ancient Rus' had a hierarchical system, but unlike the law known in the West “my vassal’s vassal is not my vassal,” all (or most) power was in the hands of one person - the Grand Duke. He was in charge of the country's foreign and domestic policy, collected tribute from his subjects, and was involved in the development and defense of the state. Just below were the special governors of the prince - the thousand, who ruled the estates, collected tribute from the local population and supplied the Grand Duke of Kyiv with gold and troops. Over the years, the relatives of the Grand Duke from the Rurikovich branch took the place of the thousand (who, however, fulfilled their obligations much worse than the prince’s townspeople).

As for the prince’s inner circle, his power rested mainly on the strength of his squad. Therefore, in order to stay in power, the ruler had to give gifts to his neighbors in every possible way. Naturally, he also had to take into account the opinion of his squad. Thus, a new class began to form - the boyars (from the ardent boyar - furious author's note). In addition to military service itself (over the years, refusing this responsibility), the boyars were also involved in the management of their estates and advised the Grand Duke on matters of foreign and domestic policy. By the middle of the 10th century AD, the so-called “druzhina” boyars (consisting mainly of members of the prince’s squad) disappeared, leaving behind the “zemstvo” boyars.

After the boyars, two more classes can be distinguished - urban people (living in cities and engaged mainly in crafts) and peasants. Moreover, the peasants could be either free or dependent on the prince or boyar (purchases, serfs). City people were often completely free in personal terms. They were obliged to pay tribute to the prince and the city, participate in the city militia, and go to war if the city elder demanded it. Otherwise, it was a fairly prosperous and freedom-loving class. If we consider all the known major uprisings in the country, they occurred mainly in cities, and the initiators were city boyars or elders. As for the peasantry, it has always been inert, both in those days and in our days. The main thing for the peasant was the opportunity to cultivate the land and the absence of threats. They were not interested in domestic or foreign policy.

Ancient Rus' in the system of international relations of medieval Eurasia

The peculiarity of our state is that we are located between Western (European) and Eastern (Asian) civilizations and serve as a kind of barrier between these cultures. During the times of Ancient Rus', the country was located on the main trade routes “From the Varangians to the Greeks” and “From the Varangians to the Persians.” A large flow of goods, money, information, and culture passed through our state. Naturally, this aroused envy among nearby neighbors, who dreamed of snatching a piece of the rich trade routes.

In an effort to secure countries from the west, Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054) pursued a competent foreign policy on the western borders of the country (not forgetting, however, about the east). He populated the western outskirts with his people, giving them land and power. At the same time, he established relations with various European states through dynastic and political marriages. By his actions, he pushed back the threat from the west by several decades.

However, Byzantium and various nomadic tribes in the south and southeast of Kyiv posed no less of a threat. Moreover, it is not known which of them posed a greater threat to the nascent state. The Khazars, Pechenegs and Cumans often attacked the borders of the country, stealing livestock, people, ruining villages and cities. However, Byzantium had a large army that could easily wipe out Rus' from the face of the earth, as well as an entire division of spies and instigators. If not for the internal problems of the empire itself, then Kievan Rus would have become only history, and we would have become part of the empire.

For this reason (and for others too), the Slavic and first Kyiv princes sought to rob and impose their conditions on the once mighty empire in order to protect themselves from this threat, and, of course, improve their financial situation.

As for various nomadic tribes and pseudo-states such as the Khazar Kaganate, the first Kiev prince Oleg the Prophet began the fight against them, Vladimir the Holy and Yaroslav continued to strengthen their defenses, and Vladimir Monomakh practically eliminated the problem of raids, organizing several punitive campaigns and forcing them to migrate away from " wild Russians." However, with the death of Monomakh's heir, Mstislav the Great, and the virtual liquidation of Kievan Rus as a state, all measures to strengthen the country's defense capability sank into oblivion - and again the threat of enslavement by the West or East loomed over our country, our people. Which, ultimately, happened in 1237-1238 during the Batu invasion and the subsequent Tatar-Mongol Yoke.

Fragmentation of Rus'. Reasons for the collapse of Kievan Rus as a single state

After the death of Mstislav the Great in 1132, our country enters the most difficult, in my opinion, period - the period of feudal fragmentation, the period of fratricidal wars and the defenselessness of our country in the face of the West and the East.

What are the reasons that the once powerful state throughout medieval Europe disintegrated into separate fiefs and was ultimately practically destroyed during the Tatar-Mongol invasion in 1238? The answer to this question lies deeply in our mentality, in the prevailing geopolitical and economic situation in the country and abroad, and also because of the “laddered” system of succession to the throne, which is quite strange in the opinion of a contemporary.

At the head of any Slavic family (in this case, the family of the Rurik princes) was a father who had his own children and grandchildren. When the father died, the eldest son took his place. After his death, it was not his son who inherited the throne (as in Western Europe), but his brother. Accordingly, grandchildren could sit on the princely table only after the death of all older relatives. What made me want to achieve this as quickly as possible. And therefore – civil strife.

After the death of Yaroslav the Wise, his children and other relatives began to practice “movement” around the princely volosts. As soon as another prince died, the next relative immediately moved to his place, another relative followed him, a third followed him, etc. As a result, the entire reign of the princes consisted only of countless moves and constant robberies of the indigenous population.

However, this situation changed in 1097 at the Lyubech Congress of Princes, according to which each prince was assigned to a specific land. He was obliged to monitor her, protect and judge her - in general, to be a full-fledged ruler. He could also pass on his land as an inheritance to his children, without worrying (or almost without worrying) that they would be driven away from the princely throne. All this contributed to the strengthening of local power, which naturally meant a weakening of central power.

An equally important reason for the general civil strife and the division of Kievan Rus into separate principalities and volosts were purely economic reasons. At the beginning of the 12th century, European traders stopped using the ancient Russian trade river routes because of their high cost and the danger of robbery by the Black Sea Polovtsians, who ruled at the mouth of the Dnieper at that time. Trade moved closer to central and western Europe, with new trade routes opening through Africa and Asia Minor. The loss of such an excellent source of income as mediation between East and West led to the depletion of the treasury.

On the other hand, in the territory of Kievan Rus, subsistence farming had an advantage, when all necessary goods were produced locally, which means that there was no need for developed trade. Each prince was provided with everything necessary independently and was independent of his neighbors. Why then establish good relations with them if they are not needed? It is much easier and faster to call mercenaries and rob a weaker neighbor. The fact that this neighbor was a relative, although distant, did not bother the prince. The absence of trade meant the absence of roads and exchange of information. Each prince was left to his own devices and dealt with his problems independently. Which, ultimately, killed many during Batu’s invasion.



Since 753 there has been Old Ladoga, where in 862, according to the chronicle, the legendary Varangian Rurik came at the invitation of the Slavic and Finnish tribes. He moved his residence to Novgorod (first mentioned in the chronicle in 859). Rurik died in 879. After him, Oleg ruled (879-912), who in 882 made Kyiv the capital of Ancient Rus' and in 907 concluded the first treaty with Byzantium.

After Oleg, Rurik’s son Igor (912-945) ruled, who concluded two treaties with Byzantium (941,944). Igor was succeeded by his wife Olga (945-969). She ruled instead of Svyatoslav, who was small at first and then fought almost continuously (945-972). During the struggle for power between the three sons of Svyatoslav (972-980), Vladimir I (980-1015) won, who baptized Rus' (988).

Next to the struggle between the sons of Vladimir I the Holy (1015-1019), Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054) ruled. His rule became sole after the death of his brother Mstislav in 1036. Yaroslav the Wise in 1036 defeated the Pechenegs on the Alta River, established the Russian Truth, built the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, and installed his own metropolitan (1051). St. Sophia cathedrals were also erected in Novgorod and Polotsk.

After a struggle within the House of Rurik in 1097, at a congress in Lyubech, the princes agreed that each would own the land inherited from his father. The beginning of feudal fragmentation was temporarily overcome by Vladimir II Monomakh (1113-1125) and his son Mstislav (1125-1132). Yuri Dolgoruky (1125-1157), Andrei Bogolyubsky (1157-1174) and Vsevolod III the Big Nest (1176-1212) tried to control most of the Russian lands, but there was no real unity. Andrei Bogolyubsky was killed as a result of a conspiracy. Prince Igor's campaign in 1185 against the Polovtsians ended in complete defeat. In 1187, “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” was born.

The Rurikovichs underestimated the danger from the east. Russian troops in 1223 were defeated by advanced Mongol-Tatar detachments on the Kalka River, and in 1237/38 and 1240/42 the Mongol-Tatars ravaged most of the Russian lands, subjugated them and included them in the Golden Horde (1243). The Mongols defeated Russian troops on the Sit River (1238). Salvation for Rus' was the victory of Alexander Yaroslavich (Nevsky) over the Swedish (1240) and German (1242) crusaders.

Biographical code of Ancient Rus'

	First quarter	Second quarter	Third quarter	Fourth quarter
	Cue, Cheek, Horeb
			Rurik (862-879)	Oleg (879-912), Askold and Dir
	Igor (912-945)	Olga (945-969), Svyatoslav (945-972)	Svyatoslav (957-972), Yaropolk, Oleg, Vladimir, Malusha, Dobry and	Vladimir I (980-1015), Anna
	Boris and Gleb, Svyatopolk	Mstislav, Hilarion		Izyaslav, Svyatopolk
	Vladimir II Monomakh (1113-1125), Nestor	Mstislav Dolgoruky (1125-1157)	Bogolyubsky	Vsevolod the Big Nest (1176-1212)
	Vsevolodovich (1218-1238)	Alexander	Daniil Galitsky

“And the Greeks set one hundred thousand against Svyatoslav, and did not give tribute. And Svyatoslav went against the Greeks, and they came out against the Russians. When the Russians saw them, they were greatly frightened by such a great number of soldiers, but Svyatoslav said: “We have nowhere to go, whether we want it or not, we must fight. So we will not disgrace the Russian land, but we will lie here as bones, for the dead know no shame. If we run, it will be a shame for us. So let’s not run, but we’ll stand strong, and I’ll go ahead of you: if my head falls, then take care of your own.” And the soldiers answered: “Where your head lies, there we will lay our heads.” And the Russians became angry, and there was a cruel slaughter, and Svyatoslav prevailed, and the Greeks fled" (from The Tale of Bygone Years).