In the era of feudal fragmentation, three centers arose, which began the process of collecting lands. In the southwest, Vladimir-Volynsky became such a center, in the northwest - Veliky Novgorod, and in the northeast - Vladimir-on-Klyazma. The rise of Veliky Novgorod was associated with its special position in the days of united Russia: many great princes before the accession to Kiev were governors of their fathers in Novgorod.
The rise of Vladimir-Volynsky and Vladimir-on-Klyazma was associated with the activities of the specific princes who ruled in these cities: Mstislav of Galitsky and Andrey Bogolyubsky. These powerful rulers subjugated neighboring fiefdoms and participated in the struggle for the right to reign in Kiev. However, their power no longer depended on who was titled the Grand Duke.
Three new centers of Russia began to collect lands around them at the beginning of the 12th century, but this process was stopped in the middle of the century by the Mongol-Tatar invasion. Over time, the old centers fell into disrepair. The centralization of Russian lands was completed by the middle of the 16th century.
Vladimir-Suzdal Principality | Kievan principality. | Novgorod principality | Galicia-Volyn principality |
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All-Russian "table" | All-Russian "table". Novgorod reign is a stepping stone to Kiev. | ||
The consequence of the process of colonization of North-Eastern Russia a) increased dependence of the population on princely power b) active construction of cities c) intensive development of agriculture and handicrafts Indicate from where the main colonization was not sent Western Russia. Indicate from where the main colonization was sent Western Russia. 1) Southwestern (Galicia-Volyn) Russia 2) Northwestern (Novgorod) Russia 3) South-Eastern (Pereyaslav-Chernigov) Russia | A consequence of the process of colonization Northwestern Russia The "northern" path of East Slavic colonization led to the area: Ladoga and Ilmenskoye lakes | The unification of the Galician and Volyn principalities into a single Galicia-Volyn took place during the reign of: Roman Mstislavich Volynsky (1199-1205). The "southern" path of East Slavic colonization led to the region: a) Carpathian region b) Middle Transnistria |
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The Novgorod variant of civilizational development assumed the strengthening of the role Boyar Duma | The southwestern version of civilizational development assumed the strengthening of the role boyar thought. |
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1) Yuri Dolgoruky (1125-1157) - son of V. Monomakh reigned in... Ryazan principality. He turned the Rostov-Suzdal land into a vast principality. | Reasons for the rise of Novgorod: strengthening trade ties with Europe | Yaroslav Osmomysl |
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2) Andrei Bogolyubsky (1157-1174 3))-grandson of V Monomakh. Was a typical prince of the era of feudal fragmentation Andrei Bogolyubsky moved the capital to Vladimir Name the monument of architecture in Vladimir-Suzdal 1. Bogolyubovsky castle(1158-1160) 2 Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir-on-Klyazma 3.Church of the Intercession-on-Nerl Andrei Bogolyubsky reigned in the Ryazan principality. | Control system The head of the Novgorod self-government in the period of fragmented The main function of the thousand in Novgorod during the period of fragmentation of Russia was (-o): command of the Novgorod "thousand" (militia) the prince was not a full-fledged master, he ruled the city, but served him. Archbishop: spiritual head, court, citywide treasury, "sovereign regiment" veche: 1. collection of taxes and implementation of the commercial court 2) conclusion of international treaties | 1) Igor Seversky Prince Novgorod - Seversky and Chernigov: in 1185 organized an unsuccessful campaign against the Polovtsians. "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" |
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Vsevolod III Big Nest(1177-1212) The highest power became known as the "Grand Duke" Demetrius Cathedral in Vladimir-on-Klyazma | |||
Name the prince who moved the capital of the North-Eastern | V Novgorod Republic period of fragmentation leading | Igor Svyatoslavich (1150-1202) |
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Yuri Vsevolodovich | Daniel Galitsky “Do not crush the bees and do not eat honey.” Support for the squad in the fight against the nobility. |
Causes of feudal fragmentation. Many Russian pre-revolutionary historians explained the causes of feudal fragmentation by the large number of children of Russian princes, who divided their lands into separate principalities among their sons. Modern historical science believes that feudal fragmentation in Russia was a natural result of the economic and political development early feudal society.
Economic factors of feudal fragmentation:
Subsistence economy and economic independence of estates, isolation of estates and communities, growth and strengthening of cities;
Political factors:
Tribal and territorial conflicts, strengthening of the political power of local princes and boyars;
External economic factors:
Temporary elimination of the Polovtsian danger (in 1111, Vladimir Monomakh defeated the Polovtsian khans. Some Polovtsian tribes migrated to the Caucasus).
The largest lands of Russia in the era of feudal fragmentation were: Vladimir-Suzdal principality, Galicia-Volyn principality, Novgorod feudal republic.
Vladimir-Suzdal land. In the north-east of Russia there were fertile lands, "opolye". The most important occupation of the population is agriculture. Crafts and trade play a significant role (the Volga trade route). The most ancient cities of the principality: Rostov (former capital), Suzdal, Murom. The principality gained independence during the reign of Vladimir Monomakh's son Yuri Dolgoruky (1154-1157). He managed to subjugate Kiev. On the eve of 1147 in the annals for the first time there is a mention of Moscow (on the site of the estate of the boyar Kuchka, confiscated by Yuri Dolgoruky).
Galicia-Volyn principality. It occupied the territory from the Carpathians to Polissya, located on fertile black earth fields interspersed with forests and mountains. On the territory of the principality, mining was carried out rock salt. The principality actively traded with other countries. The main cities are Galich, Vladimir-Volynsky, Przemysl. The rise of the principality took place in the second half of the 12th century under Prince Yaroslav Osmomysl (reigned 1152-1187). Volyn lands were annexed to Galicia in 1199 under Prince Roman Mstislavich (reigned 1170-1205).
This prince captured Kiev in 1203 and assumed the title of Grand Duke. Under his leadership, successful wars were waged with the Poles, Polovtsy, an active struggle for supremacy over Russian lands. The eldest son of Roman Mstislavich, Daniil Romanovich (reigned 1221-1264), who inherited the principality, went down in history as a militant claimant to the Russian throne with Russian, Polish, and Hungarian princes. He strengthened his position in 1238, and in 1240 he occupied Kiev and subsequently united South-Western Russia and Kiev land. After the conquest of Russia by the Mongol-Tatars, Daniil Romanovich found himself in vassal dependence on the Golden Horde, but together with Andrei Yaroslavich persistently opposed it.
Novgorod feudal republic. The possessions of Veliky Novgorod stretched from the White Sea to the Northern Urals. The city was at the crossroads of trade routes. The commercial occupations of the population are hunting, fishing, salt making, iron production, beekeeping. Novgorod, before other lands, began the struggle for independence from Kiev, revolting in 1136. The boyars, which possessed significant economic power, managed to defeat the prince in the struggle for power, as a result of which a special political system developed in Novgorod - feudal democracy (boyar republic), in which the Veche was the supreme governing body.
The highest official (head of government) in the Novgorod administration was the posadnik (from the word "plant"). The court obeyed him. The head of the militia was appointed - the thousand; he was in charge of the commercial court. Veche elected the head of the Novgorod church - the bishop (archbishop), who disposed of the treasury and controlled the external relations of Novgorod.
Rice. 2. Scheme of the political structure of the Novogorodsk Boyar Republic
To control the militia during military campaigns, the Veche invited the prince; the prince with his retinue maintained order in the city. The prince was instructed: “Without a posadnik, you, prince, do not judge courts, do not keep volosts, do not give letters.” It is symbolic that the residence of the prince was located outside the Kremlin (on Yaroslav's courtyard - the Trade side, and later - on Gorodische). The cities of the Novgorod land - Pskov, Torzhok, Lagoda, Izborsk and others had political self-government and were vassals of Novgorod.
After a period of active “gathering” of lands and “bailing” of tribes by the Kiev princes in the 10th - first half of the 11th century. the general border of Russia in the west, south and southeast stabilized. In these zones, not only no new territorial additions take place, but, on the contrary, some possessions are lost. This was connected both with internal civil strife, which weakened the Russian lands, and with the appearance of powerful military-political formations on these borders: in the south, such a force was the Polovtsy, in the west - the kingdoms of Hungary and Poland, in the north-west at the beginning of the 13th century. a state was formed, as well as two German orders - the Teutonic and the Order of the Sword. The main directions where the expansion of the common territory of Russia continued were the north and northeast. The economic benefits of developing this region, a rich source of furs, attracted Russian merchants and fishermen, along whose routes a stream of settlers rushed to new lands. The local Finno-Ugric population (Karelians, Chud Zavolochskaya) did not seriously resist the Slavic colonization, although there are separate reports of skirmishes in the sources. The relatively peaceful nature of the penetration of the Slavs into these territories is explained, firstly, by the low density of the indigenous population, and secondly, by the various natural “niches” that were occupied by local tribes and settlers. If the Finno-Ugric tribes gravitated more towards dense forests, which provided ample opportunities for hunting, then the Slavs preferred to settle in open areas suitable for agriculture.
Specific system in the XII - early XIII century
By the middle of the XII century. The Old Russian state broke up into principalities-lands. In the history of fragmentation, two stages are distinguished, separated by the Mongol-Tatar invasion of the 1230s–1240s. to the lands of Eastern Europe. The beginning of this process is defined by researchers in different ways. The most reasoned opinion seems to be that the tendency towards fragmentation has been clearly manifested since the middle of the 11th century, when after the death of Yaroslav the Wise (1054), Kievan Rus was divided among his sons into separate possessions - appanages. The eldest of the Yaroslavichs - Izyaslav - received the Kiev and Novgorod lands, Svyatoslav - the Chernigov, Seversk, Muromo-Ryazan lands and Tmutarakan. Vsevolod, in addition to Pereyaslav land, received Rostov-Suzdal, which included the north-east of Russia to Beloozero and Sukhona. Smolensk land went to Vyacheslav, and Galicia-Volyn - to Igor. Somewhat isolated was the Polotsk land, which was owned by the grandson of Vladimir Vseslav Bryachislavich, who actively fought with the Yaroslavichs for independence. This division was subjected to repeated revision, and even smaller destinies began to form within the existing territories. Feudal fragmentation is fixed by the decisions of several congresses of princes, the main of which was the Lyubech congress of 1097, which established "each and keep his fatherland", thereby recognizing the independence of the possessions. Only under Vladimir Monomakh (1113–1125) and Mstislav Vladimirovich (1125–1132) was it possible to temporarily restore the primacy of the Kiev prince over all Russian lands, but then fragmentation finally prevailed.
Population of principalities and lands
Kievan principality. After the death of the Kiev prince Mstislav Vladimirovich and independence of Novgorod in 1136, the direct possessions of the Kiev princes narrowed to the limits of the ancient lands of the glades and drevlyans on the right bank of the Dnieper and along its tributaries - the Pripyat, Teterev, Ros. On the left bank of the Dnieper, the principality included lands up to Trubezh (the bridge across the Dnieper from Kiev, built by Vladimir Monomakh in 1115, was of great importance for communication with these lands). In the annals, this territory, like the entire Middle Dnieper region, was sometimes referred to in the narrow sense of the word "Russian land". Of the cities, in addition to Kiev, Belgorod (on Irpen), Vyshgorod, Zarub, Kotelnitsa, Chernobyl, etc. are known. The southern part of the Kiev land - Porosye - was an area of a kind of "military settlements". There were a number of towns on this territory, which began to be built back in the time of Yaroslav the Wise, who settled captive Poles here (). The powerful Kanev forest was located in the Ros basin, and the fortified towns (Torchesk, Korsun, Boguslavl, Volodarev, Kanev) were erected here thanks to the support that the forest provided against nomads, at the same time, strengthening this natural defense. In the XI century. the princes began to settle in Porosie Pechenegs, Torks, Berendeys, Polovtsy, who were captured by them or voluntarily entered their service. This population was called black hoods. Black hoods led a nomadic lifestyle, and in the cities that the princes built for them, they took refuge only during Polovtsian attacks or for wintering. For the most part, they remained pagans, and apparently got their name from the characteristic headdresses.
hood(from Turkic - "kalpak") - the headdress of Orthodox monks in the form of a high round cap with a black veil falling over the shoulders.
Perhaps the steppe people wore similar hats. In the XIII century. black hoods became part of the population of the Golden Horde. In addition to the cities, Porosye was also fortified by ramparts, the remains of which survived at least until the beginning of the 20th century.
Kiev principality in the second half of the XII century. became the subject of a struggle between numerous contenders for the Kiev Grand Duke's table. It was owned at various times by the Chernigov, Smolensk, Volyn, Rostov-Suzdal, and later Vladimir-Suzdal and Galician-Volyn princes. Some of them, sitting on the throne, lived in Kiev, others considered the Kiev principality only as a controlled land.
Pereyaslav principality. Pereyaslavskaya, adjacent to Kievskaya, covered the territory along the left tributaries of the Dnieper: Sula, Pselu, Vorskla. In the east, it reached the upper reaches of the Seversky Donets, which was here the border of the Russian settlement. The forests that covered this area served as protection for both Pereyaslavsky and Novgorod-Seversky principalities. The main fortified line went east from the Dnieper along the border of the forest. It was made up of cities along the river. Sule, the banks of which were also covered with forest. This line was strengthened by Vladimir Svyatoslavich, and his successors did the same. The forests stretching along the banks of the Psel and Vorskla provided the Russian population with an opportunity already in the 12th century. advance south of this fortified line. But progress in this direction was not great and was limited to the construction of several cities, which were, as it were, outposts of the Russian settled way of life. On the southern borders of the principality also in the XI-XII centuries. settlements of black hoods arose. The capital of the principality was the city of Pereyaslavl South (or Russian) on Trubezh. Voin (on the Sula), Ksnyatin, Romen, Donets, Lukoml, Ltava, Gorodets stood out from other cities.
Chernihiv land located from the middle Dnieper in the west to the upper reaches of the Don in the east, and in the north to the Ugra and the middle reaches of the Oka. In the principality, a special place was occupied by the Seversk land located along the middle Desna and the Seim, the name of which goes back to the tribe of the northerners. In these lands, the population was concentrated in two groups. The main mass held on the Desna and the Seimas under the protection of the forest, here were the largest cities: Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversky, Lyubech, Starodub, Trubchevsk, Bryansk (Debryansk), Putivl, Rylsk and Kursk. Another group - Vyatichi - lived in the forests of the upper Oka and its tributaries. At the time under review, there were few significant settlements here, except for Kozelsk, but after the invasion of the Tatars, a number of cities appeared on this territory, which became the residences of several specific principalities.
Vladimir-Suzdal land. From the middle of the XI century. the northeast of Kievan Rus is assigned to the branch of the Rurikids, originating from Vsevolod Yaroslavich. By the end of the century, the territory of this inheritance, which was ruled by Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh and his sons, included the vicinity of Beloozero (in the north), the Sheksna basin, the Volga region from the mouth of the Medveditsa (the left tributary of the Volga) to Yaroslavl, and in the south it reached the middle Klyazma. The main cities of this territory in the X-XI centuries. there were Rostov and Suzdal, located between the Volga and Klyazma rivers, so during this period it was called the Rostov, Suzdal or Rostov-Suzdal land. By the end of the XII century. as a result of successful military and political actions of the Rostov-Suzdal princes, the territory of the principality occupied much more extensive areas. In the south, it included the entire Klyazma basin with the middle course of the Moskva River. The extreme southwest went beyond Volokolamsk, from where the borders went to the north and northeast, including the left bank and the lower reaches of the Tvertsa, Medveditsa and Mologa. The principality included the lands around the White Lake (to the source of the Onega in the north) and along the Sheksna; retreating somewhat south of the Sukhona, the boundaries of the principality went to the east, including the lands along the lower Sukhona. The eastern borders were located along the left bank of the Unzha and the Volga to the lower reaches of the Oka.
The development of the economy here was greatly influenced by relatively favorable natural and climatic conditions. In the Volga-Klyazma interfluve (Zalessky Territory), mainly covered with forest, there were open areas - the so-called opolya, convenient for the development of agriculture. Sufficiently warm summers, good moisture and fertility of the soil, forest cover contributed to relatively high and, most importantly, stable yields, which was very important for the population of medieval Russia. The amount of bread grown here in the 12th - first half of the 13th century made it possible to export part of it to the Novgorod land. Opolya not only united the agricultural district, but, as a rule, it was here that cities appeared. Examples of this are the Rostov, Suzdal, Yuryev and Pereyaslav opoles.
To the ancient cities of Beloozero, Rostov, Suzdal and Yaroslavl in the XII century. a number of new ones are added. Vladimir is rapidly rising, founded on the banks of the Klyazma by Vladimir Monomakh, and under Andrei Bogolyubsky, it became the capital of the whole earth. Yury Dolgoruky (1125–1157), who founded Ksnyatin at the mouth of the Nerl, Yuryev Polskaya on the river, was especially active in urban planning. Koloksha - the left tributary of the Klyazma, Dmitrov on Yakhroma, Uglich on the Volga, built the first wooden one in Moscow in 1156, transferred Pereyaslavl Zalessky from Lake Kleshchina to the Trubezh, which flows into it. He is also credited (with varying degrees of validity) with the foundation of Zvenigorod, Kideksha, Gorodets Radilov and other cities. The sons of Dolgoruky Andrey Bogolyubsky (1157–1174) and Vsevolod the Big Nest (1176–1212) pay more attention to the expansion of their possessions to the north and east, where the rivals of the Vladimir princes are Novgorodians and Volga Bulgaria, respectively. At this time, the cities of Kostroma, Velikaya Salt, Nerekhta arose in the Volga region, somewhat to the north - Galich Mersky (all associated with salt mining and salt trading), further to the northeast - Unzha and Ustyug, on Klyazma - Bogolyubov, Gorokhovets and Starodub. On the eastern borders, Gorodets Radilov on the Volga and Meshchersk became strongholds in the wars with Bulgaria and the Russian colonization of the middle.
After the death of Vsevolod the Big Nest (1212), political fragmentation led to the emergence of a number of independent principalities in the Vladimir-Suzdal land: Vladimir, Rostov, Pereyaslav, Yuryevsky. In turn, smaller destinies appear in them. Thus, Uglich and Yaroslavl separated from the principality of Rostov around 1218. In Vladimirsky, the Suzdal and Starodub principalities were temporarily distinguished as destinies.
Main part Novgorod land covered the basin of the lake and the rivers Volkhov, Msta, Lovat, Shelon and Mologa. The extreme northern Novgorod suburb was Ladoga, located on the Volkhov, not far from its confluence with Lake Nevo (Ladoga). Ladoga became a stronghold of the northwestern Finno-Ugric tribes subordinate to Novgorod - Vodi, Izhora Korela () and Emi. In the west, the most important cities were Pskov and Izborsk. Izborsk - one of the oldest Slavic cities - practically did not develop. Pskov, on the contrary, located at the confluence of the Pskov with the Velikaya River, gradually became the largest of the Novgorod suburbs, a significant trade and craft center. This allowed him to subsequently gain independence (finally, the Pskov land, which stretched from Narva through Lake Peipus and Pskov to the south to the upper reaches of the Great, separated from Novgorod in the middle of the 14th century). Prior to the capture by the order of the sword-bearers of Yuryev with the district (1224), the Novgorodians also owned the lands to the west of Lake Peipsi.
To the south of Lake Ilmen was another of the most ancient Slavic cities of Staraya Russa. Novgorod possessions to the southwest covered Velikie Luki, on the upper reaches of the Lovat, and in the southeast the upper reaches of the Volga and Lake Seliger (here, on a small Volga tributary of the Tvertsa, Torzhok arose - an important center of Novgorod-Suzdal trade). The southeastern Novgorod borders adjoined the Vladimir-Suzdal lands.
If in the west, south and southeast Novgorod land had fairly clear boundaries, then in the north and northeast during the period under review there is an active development of new territories and the subordination of the indigenous Finno-Ugric population. In the north, the Novgorod possessions include the southern and East Coast(Tersky coast), the lands of Obonezhye and Zaonezhye up to. The north-east of Eastern Europe from Zavolochye to the Subpolar Urals become an object of penetration by Novgorod fishers. The local tribes of Perm, Pechora, Yugra were connected with Novgorod by tributary relations.
In the Novgorod lands and in their immediate vicinity, several regions arose where iron ore was mined and iron was smelted. In the first half of the XIII century. on Mologa, the city of Zhelezny Ustyug (Ustyuzhna Zheleznopolskaya) arose. Another area was located between Ladoga and Lake Peipsi in the lands of the Vodi. Iron production also took place on the southern coast of the White Sea.
Polotsk land, which was isolated before everyone else, included the space along the Western Dvina, Berezina, Neman and their tributaries. Already from the beginning of the XII century. an intensive process of political fragmentation was going on in the principality: independent Polotsk, Minsk, Vitebsk principalities, appanages in Drutsk, Borisov and other centers appeared. Some of them in the east come under the authority of the Smolensk princes. Western and northwestern lands (Black Russia) from the middle of the XIII century. depart for Lithuania.
Smolensk principality occupied the territories of the upper reaches of the Dnieper and the Western Dvina. Of the significant cities, in addition to Smolensk, Toropets, Dorogobuzh, Vyazma are known, which later became centers of independent destinies. The principality was an area of developed agriculture and a supplier of bread for Novgorod, and since its territory was the most important transport hub, where the upper reaches of the largest rivers of Eastern Europe converged, the cities carried on a lively intermediary trade.
Turov-Pinsk land was located along the middle reaches of the Pripyat and its tributaries, the Ubort, Goryn, Styr, and, like the Smolensk, had Russian lands on all its borders. The largest cities were Turov (the capital) and Pinsk (Pinesk), and in the XII - early XIII centuries. Grodno, Kletsk, Slutsk and Nesvizh arose here. At the end of the XII century. the principality broke up into Pinsk, Turov, Kletsk and Slutsk destinies, which were dependent on the Galician-Volyn princes.
In the extreme west and southwest, independent Volyn and Galician lands, at the end of the XII century. united into one Galicia-Volyn principality. Galician land occupied the northeastern slopes of the Carpathian (Ugric) mountains, which were a natural border with. The northwestern part of the principality occupied the upper reaches of the San River (a tributary of the Vistula), and the center and southeast - the basin of the middle and upper Dniester. Volyn land covered the territory along the Western Bug and the upper reaches of the Pripyat. In addition, the Galicia-Volyn principality owned lands along the Seret, Prut and Dniester rivers up to, but their dependence was nominal, since the population was very small here. In the west, the principality bordered on. During the period of fragmentation in the Volyn land, there were Lutsk, Volyn, Beresteisky and other destinies.
Muromo-Ryazan land until the 12th century was part of the Chernigov land. Its main territory was located in the basin of the Middle and Lower Oka from the mouth of the Moskva River to the outskirts of Murom. By the middle of the XII century. the principality broke up into Murom and Ryazan, from which Pronskoe later stood out. Largest cities- Ryazan, Pereyaslavl Ryazansky, Murom, Kolomna, Pronsk - were the centers of handicraft production. The main occupation of the population of the principality was arable farming, grain was exported from here to other Russian lands.
A separate position stood out Tmutarakan Principality located at the mouth of the Kuban, on the Taman Peninsula. In the east, his possessions reached the confluence of the Bolshoi Yegorlyk with the Manych, and in the west they included. With the onset of feudal fragmentation, Tmutarakan's ties with other Russian principalities gradually faded.
It should be noted that the territorial fragmentation of Russia had no ethnic grounds. Although in the XI-XII centuries. the population of the Russian lands did not represent a single ethnic group, but was a conglomerate of 22 different tribes, the boundaries of individual principalities, as a rule, did not coincide with the boundaries of their settlement. So, the area of settlement of the Krivichi turned out to be on the territory of several lands at once: Novgorod, Polotsk, Smolensk, Vladimir-Suzdal. The population of each feudal estate most often formed from several tribes, and in the north and northeast of Russia, the Slavs gradually assimilated some of the indigenous Finno-Ugric and Baltic tribes. In the south and southwest, elements of nomadic Turkic-speaking ethnic groups poured into the Slavic population. The division into lands was largely artificial, determined by the princes, who allotted certain destinies to their heirs.
It is difficult to determine the level of population of each of the lands, since there are no direct indications of this in the sources. To some extent, in this matter, one can focus on the number of urban settlements in them. According to M.P. Pogodin’s rough estimates, in the Kiev, Volyn and Galician principalities, according to the annals, more than 40 cities are mentioned in each, in Turov - more than 10, in Chernigov with Seversky, Kursk and the land of the Vyatichi - about 70, in Ryazan - 15, in Pereyaslavsky - about 40, in Suzdal - about 20, in Smolensk - 8, in Polotsk - 16, in Novgorod land - 15, total in all Russian lands - more than 300. If the number of cities was directly proportional to the population of the territory, it is obvious that Russia to south of the line of the upper reaches of the Neman - the upper reaches of the Don was an order of magnitude higher in population density than the northern principalities and lands.
In parallel with the political fragmentation of Russia, church dioceses were being formed on its territory. The boundaries of the metropolis, whose center was in Kiev, in the XI - the first half of the XIII century. completely coincided with the general borders of the Russian lands, and the borders of the emerging dioceses basically coincided with the borders of specific principalities. In the XI-XII centuries. the centers of the dioceses were Turov, Belgorod on the Irpen, Yuryev and Kanev in Porosie, Vladimir Volynsky, Polotsk, Rostov, Vladimir on the Klyazma, Ryazan, Smolensk, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl South, Galich and Przemysl. In the XIII century. Volyn cities were added to them - Holm, Ugrovsk, Lutsk. Novgorod, which was originally the center of the diocese, in the XII century. became the capital of the first archdiocese in Russia.
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Answer
Let us turn to article 92 of the Russian Pravda of the lengthy edition, which says: “If there are timid children of your husband, then don’t have their asses, but their freedom by death ( a)”, which means that shy children were released with a slave mother after the death of their father, a slave owner. In other lists - death. The sons of a slave bore the nickname of the slaves. The same article says that such children “don’t have their butts”, that is, they do not receive an inheritance. Thus, the youngest son has the right to challenge this will.
Task 2
2. Vasily gave a neighbor a loan for a year on record with an obligation to pay interest. After the expiration of the term, the neighbor did not return either the money or the interest due. Vasily filed a lawsuit to recover from a neighbor the money given on a loan and the interest due. Solve the dispute on the Pskov Judicial Charter.
Answer
According to Art. 73 of the Pskov Judicial Charter “If someone has to collect a debt by record, and certain interest will be due to the record, then when the due date for payment comes, he must declare the interest to the court and then has the right to accrue them even after the expiration of the term. If the plaintiff does not make such a statement to the court on time, then he is deprived of interest (for the time elapsed from the due date of payment to the moment of actual payment).
Thus, Vasily has the right to demand the recovery of money with interest from a neighbor.
1. The most important principalities of Russia in the period of feudal fragmentation. State system of Vladimir and Novgorod states
Answer
In the XIII century. The principality of Kiev, seriously affected by the Mongol invasion, is losing its significance as a Slavic state center. But already in the XII century. a number of principalities are separated from it. A conglomerate of feudal states was formed: Rostov-Suzdal, Smolensk, Ryazan, Murom, Galicia-Volyn, Pereyaslav, Chernigov, Polotsk-Minsk, Turovo-Pinsk, Tmutarakan, Kiev, Novgorod land. Within these principalities, smaller feudal formations were formed, the process of fragmentation deepened.
Fragmentation, like any historical phenomenon There are both positive and negative aspects. Let's compare Kievan Rus with the ancient Russian principalities in the XII-XIII centuries. Kievan Rus is a developed Dnieper region and Novgorod, surrounded by sparsely populated outskirts. In the XII-XIII centuries. the gap between the centers and the outskirts disappears. The outskirts are turning into independent principalities, which surpass Kievan Rus in terms of economic, socio-political and cultural development. However, the period of fragmentation also has a number of negative phenomena:
1) there was a process of land fragmentation;
2) there were endless internecine wars;
3) weakened the military potential of the country as a whole. Despite attempts to convene princely congresses, which maintained a certain order in fragmented Russia and softened civil strife, the country's military power was weakening.
In the XII-XIII centuries. the system of immunities, which freed the boyar estates from princely administration and court, received great development. A complex system of vassal relations and the corresponding system of landed feudal property were established. The boyars received the right of free "departure", that is, the right to change overlords.
Rostov (Vladimir)-Suzdal Principality, located in the north-east of Russia, later became the center of the unification of Russian lands. During the period of feudal fragmentation (after the 30s of the 12th century) it acted as a competitor to Kiev. The first princes (Yuri Dolgoruky, Andrey Bogolyubsky, Vsevolod the Big Nest) managed to form a large domain from which they provided land for serving boyars and nobles, creating for themselves a strong social support in their person.
A significant part of the lands of the principality was developed in the process of colonization, new lands became the property of the prince. He did not experience strong economic competition from the boyar families (the old boyar aristocracy and large land estates were absent in the principality). The main form of feudal landownership became landownership.
The prince's social support was the newly formed cities (Vladimir, Pereyaslavl, Yaroslavl, Moscow, Dmitrov, etc.).
Power in the principality belonged to the prince, who had the title of great. The existing organs of power and administration were similar to the systems of organs of the early feudal monarchies: the princely council, veche, feudal congresses, governors and volostels. There was a palace-patrimonial system of government.
These state formations have developed in the north-west of Russia. They were characterized by certain features of the social system and feudal relations: the considerable social and economic weight of the Novgorod (Pskov) boyars, which had long traditions and its active participation in trade and fishing activities.
The Novgorod (Pskov) boyars organized commercial and industrial enterprises, trade with their western neighbors (the cities of the Hanseatic trade union) and with the Russian principalities.
By analogy with some regions of medieval Western Europe (Genoa, Venice), a kind of republican (feudal) system developed in Novgorod and Pskov. The development of crafts and trade, more intensive than in other Russian lands (which was explained by access to the seas), required the creation of a more democratic state system. The basis for such a political system was a rather broad middle class of the Novgorod-Pskov society: people were engaged in trade and usury, natives (a kind of farmers or farmers) leased or cultivated land, merchants united in several hundred (communities) and traded with the Russian principalities and with "abroad" ("guests"). The urban population was divided into patricians ("oldest") and "black people".
The Novgorod (Pskov) peasantry consisted, as in other Russian lands, of communal smerds and dependent peasants (ladles), working "from the floor" for a part of the product on the master's land; pawnbrokers, "mortgaged", entered into bondage, and serfs.
State administration of Novgorod and Pskov was carried out through a system of veche bodies: in the capitals there was a city-wide veche, separate parts of the city (sides, ends, streets) convened their own veche meetings. Formally, the veche was the highest authority (each at its own level), which resolved the most important issues from the economic, political, military, judicial, and administrative spheres. Veche elected the prince.
All the free people of the city took part in the veche meetings. An agenda was prepared for the meetings, as well as candidates for officials elected at the veche. Decisions at the meetings were to be taken unanimously. There was an office and an archive of the veche meeting, office work was carried out by veche clerks. The organizational and preparatory body (preparation of bills, veche decisions, control activities, convening a veche) was the boyar council (“Ospoda”), which included the most influential persons (representatives of the city administration, noble boyars) and worked under the chairmanship of the archbishop.
The highest officials of the "Lord of Veliky Novgorod" were: the posadnik, the thousand, the archbishop, the prince.
The posadnik is the executive body of the veche, elected by him for a term of one to two years. He supervised the activities of all officials, together with the prince was in charge of management and court issues, commanded the army, led the veche meeting and the boyar council, and represented in external relations. Tysyatsky dealt with issues of trade and the merchant court, led the people's militia.
The archbishop was the keeper of the state treasury, the controller of trade measures and weights. (His main role is spiritual leadership in the church hierarchy).
The prince was invited by citizens to reign, served as commander in chief and organizer of the defense of the city. military; and shared judicial activities with the posadnik. The prince, under agreements with the city (about 80 agreements of the 13th-15th centuries are known), was forbidden to acquire land in Novgorod, distribute the land of Novgorod volosts to his entourage, it was forbidden to manage Novgorod volosts, administer justice outside the city, issue laws, declare war and make peace. He was forbidden to conclude agreements with foreigners without the mediation of Novgorodians, to judge serfs, to accept pawns from merchants and smerds, to hunt and fish outside the lands allotted to him. In case of violation of the contract, the prince could be expelled.
The territory of the Novgorod land was divided into volosts and pyatins, governed on the basis of local autonomy. Each pyatina was assigned to one of the five ends of Novgorod. The suburb was the center of self-government.
Once upon a time, Pskov was such a suburb, which, in the course of a stubborn struggle, grew into an independent political center, around which the Pskov state developed. The political and state organizations of Pskov repeated the Novgorod one: the veche system, the elected prince, but instead of the thousandth - two sedate posadniks. There were six ends, twelve suburbs. Administrative division was made into districts (lips), cavities, villages.
The sources of law in this region were: Russkaya Pravda, veche legislation, city treaties with princes, judicial practice, foreign legislation. As a result of the codification of the XV century. appeared Novgorod and Pskov judicial charters.
A fragment has been preserved from the Novgorod Judicial Charter, which gives an idea of the judicial system and legal proceedings. All authorities and administrations had judicial rights (veche, posadnik, thousand, prince, boyar council, archbishop, sotsk, headman). Judicial powers were vested in merchant and guild corporations (brothers). The judicial ranks were: clerks, bailiffs, "posters", scribes, mezhniks, clerks, etc.
The Pskov Judicial Charter (PSG) of 1467 consisted of 120 articles. Compared to Russkaya Pravda, it more thoroughly regulates civil law relations and institutions, the law of obligations, judicial law, and considers certain types of political and state crimes.
The Vladimir-Suzdal principality is a typical example of the Russian principality of the period of feudal fragmentation. Occupying a large territory - from the Northern Dvina to the Oka and from the sources of the Volga to its confluence with the Oka, Vladimir-Suzdal Rus eventually became the center around which the Russian lands were united, the Russian centralized state was formed. Moscow was founded on its territory. The growing influence of this major principality to a large extent contributed to the fact that it was there that the grand ducal title passed from Kiev. All Vladimir-Suzdal princes, descendants of Vladimir Monomakh, from Yuri Dolgoruky (1125-1157) to Daniil of Moscow (1276-1303) bore this title.
The metropolitan see was also moved there. After the ruin of Kiev by Batu in 1240, to replace the Greek Joseph, the Patriarch of Constantinople appointed Metropolitan Kirill, a Russian by birth, as the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who, during his trips to the dioceses, clearly preferred North-Eastern Russia. The next Metropolitan Maxim in 1299, "not enduring the violence of the Tatars," finally left Kiev and "sitting in Volodymyr with all his clergy." He was the first of the metropolitans to be called the metropolitan of "All Russia".
Rostov Veliky and Suzdal, two ancient Russian cities, were given from ancient times by the great Kievan princes as inheritances to their sons. Vladimir founded in 1108 Vladimir Monomakh and gave it as an inheritance to his son Andrei. The city became part of the Rostov-Suzdal Principality, where Andrei's elder brother Yuri Dolgoruky occupied the princely throne, after whose death his son Andrei Bogolyubsky (1157-1174) transferred the capital of the principality from Rostov to Vladimir. Since then, the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality has its origins.
The Vladimir-Suzdal principality did not retain its unity and integrity for long. Shortly after its rise under Grand Duke Vsevolod the Big Nest (1176-1212), it broke up into small principalities. In the 70s. 13th century became independent and Moscow principality.
Social system. The structure of the class of feudal lords in the Vladimir-Suzdal principality differed little from that in Kiev. However, here a new category of petty feudal lords arises - the so-called boyar children. In the XII century. there is also a new term - "nobles". The ruling class also included the clergy, which in all Russian lands of the period of feudal fragmentation, including the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, retained its organization, which was built according to the church charters of the first Russian Christian princes - St. Vladimir and Yaroslav the Wise. Having conquered Russia, the Tatar-Mongols left the organization unchanged Orthodox Church. They confirmed the privileges of the church with khan's labels. The oldest of them, issued by Khan Mengu-Temir (1266-1267), guaranteed the inviolability of faith, worship and church canons, retained the jurisdiction of the clergy and other church persons to church courts (with the exception of cases of robbery, murder, exemption from taxes, duties and duties). The metropolitan and bishops of the Vladimir land had their own vassals - the boyars, the children of the boyars and the nobles, who carried out their military service.
The bulk of the population of the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality were rural residents, who were called here orphans, Christians, and later - peasants. They paid dues to the feudal lords and were gradually deprived of the right to freely move from one owner to another.
Political system. The Vladimir-Suzdal principality was an early feudal monarchy with strong grand ducal power. Already the first Rostov-Suzdal prince - Yuri Dolgoruky - was a strong ruler who managed to conquer Kiev in 1154. In 1169, Andrei Bogolyubsky again conquered the "mother of Russian cities", but did not transfer his capital there - he returned to Vladimir, its metropolitan status. He also managed to subjugate the Rostov boyars to his power, for which he was nicknamed the "autocracy" of the Vladimir-Suzdal land. Even at the time of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, the Vladimir table continued to be considered the first grand princely throne in Russia. The Tatar-Mongols preferred to leave intact the inner state structure Vladimir-Suzdal Principality and the patrimonial order of succession of the grand princely power.
The Grand Duke of Vladimir relied on the retinue, from which, as in the times of Kievan Rus, the Council under the prince was formed. In addition to the combatants, the council included representatives of the higher clergy, and after the transfer of the metropolitan see to Vladimir, the metropolitan himself.
The Grand Duke's court was ruled by a court (butler) - the second most important person in the state apparatus. The Ipatiev Chronicle (1175) also mentions tiuns, swordsmen, and children among the princely assistants, which indicates that the Vladimir-Suzdal principality inherited the palace-patrimonial system of government from Kievan Rus.
Local power belonged to governors (in cities) and volostels (in rural areas). They ruled the court in the lands under their jurisdiction, showing not so much concern for the administration of justice, but the desire for personal enrichment at the expense of the local population and replenishment of the grand ducal treasury, because, as the same Ipatiev Chronicle says, “they created a lot of burden for people with sales and virami".
2. Legal registration of serfdom in Russia (late 15th - first half of the 18th centuries)
At all times, the wealth of the country was created by the labor of the people, whose life was not easy. In the XVI century. the main burden was borne by the peasantry. The word "peasantry" comes from the modified "Christians", the antipode of heterodoxy.
With the revival of economic activity, new categories of peasants arose, their legal status acquired new features. In the XVI century. all estates were in a certain dependence on the state, the court and taxes of the state extended to the peasants, which were paid by both the population of the estates and the “free” peasants. State lands were called "black", and the peasants on them - "chernososhnye" (or black). The position of the black-mossed was somewhat easier, they were not subject to duties in favor of the feudal lords.
The duties of the Russian peasants were very heavy, they provided not only the internal needs of statehood, but also the payment of tribute to the Horde. And all this - in the absence of sources of income from the commercial and industrial sphere. According to some reports, in the XVI century. the tax burden of the Russian peasants was several times higher than in England. Economic problems stimulated the peasants to seek patronage from the feudal lords. Silver coins and ladles fell into economic dependence for borrowed money. Peasant migration developed, categories of new arrivals and new contractors appeared - alien peasants who had tax benefits. In contrast to them, there was a category of old-timers who settled in one place and paid the tax in full.
The transitions of the peasants become the central problem of the economy, the question arises of the development of serfdom.
The issue of serfdom is quite complex and multifaceted. In the XV-XVI centuries. v Western Europe(France, Holland, England) bourgeois relations are developing, while in the East (Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Russia), where the possibilities of feudalism have not yet been exhausted, serfdom is spreading. In pre-revolutionary literature, it was indicated that a significant role in this process was played by the great geographical discoveries XV-XVI centuries As a result, a flood of jewelry poured into the west of Europe, and a “price revolution” began - inflating the cost of food in the first place. Cheaper bread from the east of Europe, getting to the western market, due to customs duties, rose in price, its cost in Poland and Russia increased, stimulating a forced reduction in cost by the introduction of serf labor. But decisive in the development of serfdom in Russia were internal conditions.
Peasant transitions and their restrictions probably arose in Russia during the period of fragmentation and Horde domination. They were caused by political and economic needs, the need for the state to have a stable contingent of taxpayers. Prohibitions and permissions to exit were initially included in princely treaties, in the 15th century. formed one term "exit" in the autumn. The Sudebnik of 1497 unified the procedure for the transition by establishing St. George's Day (November 26).
It is important to note several points here. The introduction of St. George's Day is not the beginning of serfdom. St. George's Day is a form of economic relations between the state and the population in the conditions of the country's increased needs for tax revenues from the peasantry. Only after harvesting in the autumn, when the time of cold weather came, the peasant could move to a new place. Allowing this to be done at any time of the year would cause economic and financial chaos. St. George's Day extended to both privately owned and state peasants, since everyone paid state taxes, and privately owned peasants ensured the well-being of the landowner in the service of the state with their labor, that is, they also performed the functions of state support. The peasants were not against St. George's Day, but for it. It was the traditional right of the peasants in the economic conditions of Russia, met their interests, provided the specific right of freedom of movement. Further exit bans were a consequence of the extremely unfavorable economic situation.
The Sudebnik of 1497 (Article 57) establishes a rather simple form of peasant transitions. Peasants had the right to move from volost to volost, from village to village a week before and a week after St. George's Day. At the exit, a fee was set from each yard (elderly) on cultivated lands in the amount of 1 ruble, and on less fertile wooded lands - half a ruble. The legislator quite reasonably approached the question of the financial possibilities of the peasant. The full cost of the elderly was paid only after four years of residence in one place, when the peasant was economically strengthened and became an old-timer with full payment of taxes. Those who lived less than four years paid a quarter of the ruble for each year of residence.
Half a century before the next Sudebnik of 1550, the position of the peasants had not changed much, but the emerging class of nobles had a great influence on the situation. Receiving land with the peasants as a provision for their public service, the noble landlords were interested in attracting peasants to cultivate "their" land (often they were given unusable land for service), and consequently, in the development of corvée and limiting output. The landowner received a special ("obedient") charter, where the state authorities listed the rights of the parties and their obligations for cultivating the land. The landowner was considered by the state as an official, obliged to lead the peasants, support the economy, judge for certain crimes and exercise administrative power. The peasantry itself provided him with the financial needs of the service to the sovereign.
Contrary to the statements available in the literature, the landowner not only could not kill the peasant, he did not have the right to allow any violations of the law against him. The Sudebnik of 1497 (Article 63) states that peasants can apply to the court against the landowner with complaints about land matters.
Probably in the practice of the first half of the XVI century. there were trials of conflicts between landowners and peasants, which determined the content of the relevant sections of the Sudebnik of 1550. In Art. 88, the formula of the Sudebnik of 1497 about the exit of peasants is repeated, with the clarification that the elderly increase by 2 altyns (altyn - 3 kopecks). This is due to monetary inflation. The Sudebnik of 1550 establishes a fee for a “cart” (carriage duty) at 2 altyns per yard, and “besides, there are no duties on it.” The taxes from bread, which were paid to the royal treasury (from bread "standing and milked"), are concretized. An essential guarantee of protecting the interests of the peasantry is the indication that "the elderly imati from the gate." Since the landlords sought to take more of the elderly from each generation of undivided large peasant families, although they lived together, the indication “from the gate” limited them, the peasant household living together was recognized as the payer.
From the middle of the XVI century. a period of extremely unfavorable circumstances begins, which led to the formation of serfdom by the end of the century. The Livonian War forced the state to increase the taxes of the peasants. In addition to ordinary taxes, emergency and additional taxes were practiced. The oprichnina inflicted enormous material harm on the peasants, the “campaigns” and excesses of the guardsmen ruined the population. The economic decline of peasant farms began, supplemented by natural disasters, crop failures and mass epidemics that hit the country. At the end of the 60s, a three-year famine devastated the country, prices rose many times over, it came to cannibalism. At the same time, a plague epidemic broke out, engulfing 28 cities of Russia. The cities were empty, the peasant economy was degraded. In the 70-80s of the XVI century. natural disasters and epidemics continued. So, by the mid-80s of the XVI century. only 14% of cultivated arable land remained in the Moscow district, and taxes kept growing and growing. The country suffered a "great ruin". The population was removed from their homes and fled to the outskirts, hiding from the authorities.
Under these conditions, the Moscow government had only one way out. In 1580, the census of lands began, and in 1581, “reserved summers” were announced on the lands covered by the census - a ban on the exit of peasants. The peasantry turned out to be enslaved, although initially this measure was considered as temporary. However, the situation remained difficult, the flight of the population continued. In 1597, a five-year term for the investigation of fugitives (“lesson summers”) was introduced. The landowners and estate owners had the opportunity to enrich themselves through the reception and concealment of the fugitive, tax evasion.
In the 17th century unification is planned in the division of the peasants mainly into black and privately owned, their final enslavement takes place. From a taxable class group of landowners, they are gradually becoming an unequal estate. Time of Troubles early 17th century destroyed the implementation of the legislation on the peasants, but after 1613 the legal order was gradually restored.
First half of the 17th century characterized by numerous decrees on the timing of the search for illegally departed peasants (nine years, fifteen, ten, etc.). It was more profitable for peasants to live in relatively stable large farms, since the lands of smaller nobles and boyar children were badly devastated. In this regard, the increase in the terms of the investigation turned out to be beneficial to the nobles, the decrease - to the aristocracy. Nobles and petty feudal lords stood for the complete abolition of the prescription of the investigation.
The Cathedral Code of 1649 fixed the indefinite search of the peasants, which was the last point in their enslavement. By tradition, the "owners" of the peasants were considered state "agents" in relation to them and were obliged to maintain proper order on the peasant lands. But in real legislative practice, the state got confused in relation to peasant property and personality. In the 17th century more than once decrees were issued on the punishment of persons who received the fugitives, large fines and punishments with a whip were established for them. However, the perpetrators could pay these fines not from their own, but from the peasant's pocket, and the right to dispose and alienate peasant lands gradually passed to their owners. In the event of the death of a fugitive peasant, it was prescribed that instead of the deceased, he should be given to the owner of others, and again the peasants suffered. The Cathedral Code of 1649 legislated such an order, and at the same time prescribed to “rule the debts” of the nobles on their peasants.
If the black peasants turned out to be attached only to the land, then the privately owned peasants were attached both to the land and to the personality of the owner. The right of peasant ownership of land in the Code was very confusing. The code protected the identity of the peasant, encroachments on his life and honor were criminally punishable. But for the upper classes, punishments were still less severe, and the need for service people forced state bodies to look “through their fingers” at excesses with a fatal outcome.
The Code of 1649 prohibited any illegal actions not only against peasants, but also against the entire population of the country. The law protected any person, although taking into account the class status. The rights of the peasants were stipulated by law, the Code proclaimed the principle of an equal trial for all, and the state apparatus, to the best of its ability, monitored the implementation of laws.
The first decree on the peasants, the text of which has survived in full, is the decree of November 24, 1597, on a five-year term for the search for fugitive peasants. Regarding its significance and the place that it occupied in the general course of enslavement, there are disputes in the historical literature.
The Decree of November 24, 1597 is devoted to an important, but still private issue of a procedural nature - the organization of a state investigation of fugitive peasants. Attempts to interpret it more broadly, as a law that abolished the peasant exit, are in conflict with the introductory part of the Cathedral Code of March 9, 1607, where it says that “Tsar Fedor ... ordered the peasants to leave and how many peasants where they made books”, while the decree of 1597 does not say anything about prohibiting the exit and the very term scribe books is absent.
By the beginning of the 17th century, 20 years had passed since the first "commandments" on the peasant exit of Ivan the Terrible, and 8 years had passed since the decree of Tsar Fyodor was issued, which generalized the practice of reserved years throughout the country. By this time, the prohibition of the peasant exit had become a general rule, the serf order, established by decrees of 1592/93 and 1597, judging by the materials of the order office work, operated without fail. The peasants were assigned to their masters by scribe books and other government documents and could not legally leave their masters. Ownership rights to peasants were determined by their entry in scribes, individual and other government books. In the absence of official documents, the law on the five-year period for filing petitions was applied. All serf relations had to be documented with the participation of government agencies.
In the materials of the clerical records of the late 16th - early 17th centuries, letters of commendation and other acts of this time, it is not possible to find any references to the reserved years, or any hints of the restoration of St. George's Day in the future. Boris Godunov did not even think about canceling the decree of 1592/93, issued with his active participation. On the contrary, in letters of commendation issued on his behalf at that time, we meet with demands to resolutely suppress all attempts by the peasants to change their owners, which the authorities invariably qualify as flight.
The fluctuations of the government in the process of enslavement, which manifested itself already at the end of the 16th century. in the form of the introduction of fixed years, reached their climax in 1601 - 1602, when, in the midst of a terrible famine and a popular movement, Boris Godunov agreed to a partial resolution of the peasant exit. Decrees 1601 - 1602 represented a concession to the restless peasantry, and did not protect the interests of the nobility. The restoration, albeit on a limited scale, of the peasant exit meant a violation of the decree of 1592/93 on its universal prohibition and on scribe books of the 80s - early 90s of the 16th century. as a legal basis for a peasant fortress. For peasants who, according to decrees of 1601 - 1602. again received the right to exit, these books lost their enslaving value, and for the peasants who did not receive this right, they continued to be the main document that attached them to the land. Such a situation, in the presence of a fierce struggle within the ruling class for workers' hands, was soon to lead to an incredible entanglement of serf relations, to numerous litigations and circumventions of the law. There was a massive outflow of peasants from ordinary service people to large landowners, secular and spiritual, who, using the beneficial aspects of these laws on the absence of their peasants, managed in various ways to lure the landlord peasants to themselves and strengthen their economic position at the expense of the service masses.
Application of the decrees of 1601-1602 In practice, it gave rise to "distemper", discord and bloodshed among service people. The richest and most enterprising landowners increased the population of their estates, exporting and luring peasants from the small service. Violent conflicts arose, accompanied by murders and protracted lawsuits. Decrees of 1601 - 1602. some sections of the ruling class were opposed to others primarily on a social, and partly on a territorial basis, which made it possible for contemporaries to see in Godunov's actions an attempt to follow the example of Ivan the Terrible, who established the oprichnina. Wishing to prevent the damage caused to the economy by the exit and removal of the peasants, the landowners did not let them go. In turn, the peasants stepped up their resistance to the arbitrariness of the landlords. They interpreted government legislation in their own way, stopped paying state taxes and carried out spontaneous, illegal exits. Implementation of the decrees of 1601 - 1602 far from lessening the class and intra-class contradictions in the countryside, on the contrary, it has considerably sharpened them.
The uprising of I. Bolotnikov, representing the culmination of the Peasants' War of the early 17th century, dealt a strong blow to the serfdom that was being formed in Russia. But at the same time, in the camp of the rebels, estates continued to be distributed to supporters of the movement - evidence that, even having won, the peasants and serfs were not able to radically change social relations. Opposing the serf order, in practice they achieved only the most acceptable modification of feudal relations for themselves.
Already during the suppression of the uprising of I. Bolotnikov, the government of V. Shuisky took measures to restore the broken serf relations in the countryside. The main document that determined the policy of the government of V. Shuisky as a policy of feudal restoration was the Cathedral Code of March 9, 1607. This Code was the reaction of landowners to anti-serfdom slogans and the actions of the rebels. Condemning the indecisiveness and half-heartedness of the laws of 1601-1602, the compilers of the Sobor Code on March 9, 1607, simultaneously proclaimed their loyalty to the Godunov decree of 1592/93 on the universal prohibition of the peasant exit.
The process of enslavement appears to be more complex than it seemed before. The class struggle of peasants and serfs, as well as the contradictions within the ruling class, did not allow the government to move along the path of enslavement as quickly as it would like. The deprivation of the peasants of the right to exit was stretched out for almost 30 years and was accompanied by such a "provider" as the introduction of contingent years for the investigation of exported and fugitive peasants. It took another 40 years to abolish the lesson years. Here it also affected powerful impact Peasant War and Troubles on the process of enslavement. Only with the adoption of such an all-Russian feudal code as the Council Code of 1649, the fixed summers were canceled, an indefinite investigation was proclaimed, and the peasants and members of their families became “eternally strong” to their masters according to scribe and census books.
In pre-revolutionary historiography, there was a tendency to consider the legal status of peasants according to the Code of 1649 mainly within the framework of its Chapter XI, and its main meaning is to reduce the fixed years of the investigation of fugitive peasants and the establishment of a number of other norms of investigation. The opinion of those pre-revolutionary authors (V.O. Klyuchevsky, M.A. Dyakonov), who, based on the general concept of the unruly enslavement of the peasants, did not attach much importance to the Code in this process and, above all, its Chapter XI, is equally invalid.
In Soviet historiography, the question of the role of the Code of 1649 in the fate of the Russian peasantry was considered with the involvement of data not only from Chapter XI. However, the central and most important place is occupied by Chapter XI. Its title "The Court of the Peasants" shows that the purpose of the chapter was the legal regulation of the relationship of landowners in matters of peasant ownership. The monopoly right to own peasants was assigned to all categories of service ranks.
The law on hereditary (for feudal lords) and hereditary (for serfs) attachment of peasants, with the ensuing right of indefinite investigation of the fugitives, was the largest and most radical norm of the Code of 1649. The law was extended to all categories of peasants and bobyls, including black-haired. Putting the documents of the state cadastre - scribe books of 1626 and census books of 1646-1649 as the basis for attaching peasants and beavers - Chapter XI introduced mandatory registration in orders of all transactions for peasants.
Thus, the peasant acted primarily as an object of law. But along with this, he was endowed with certain features of the subject of law. The legislation of the 17th century considered the peasant and his property as an inseparable unity. The basis of this was the recognition by law of the economic connection between feudal possessions and peasant economy.
The Code of 1649, having completed the legal registration of serfdom for all categories of peasants, at the same time created, to a certain extent, the legal protection of the estate-class integrity of the peasantry, trying to close it within the boundaries of estates.
In connection with the general concept of serfdom as a legal expression of the production relations of feudal society, Soviet historians associated with the Code of 1649 a new step on the path to the final enslavement of the peasants.
Serfdom included two forms of attaching a direct producer: attachment to land, feudal possession or allotment on black-moss lands, and attachment to the personality of a feudal lord. During the XVII-XIX centuries. the ratio of these forms of attachment changed. At first (including the 17th century), the first prevailed, and later the second. The leading role of attaching peasants to the land was largely associated with the high proportion of the estate system in the 17th century. The peasant acted in the legislation as an organic belonging of the estate and patrimony, regardless of the personality of the owner. The owner had certain rights to dispose of the peasants only when and to the extent that he was the owner of the estate or patrimony.
One of the important aspects of the development of serfdom in the second half of the XVII century. there was an increased importance of the serf act as a legal basis for the enslavement of the peasants. For the most accurate accounting of the serf population, as a result of laying the official basis for the search for fugitive peasants, census books of 1646-1648 were created, which the Cathedral Code of 1649 legalized as the most important basis for attaching peasants. Only on the basis of census books, due to the peculiarities of their composition, could hereditary (with family and tribe) enslavement of peasants be achieved.
Another significant aspect of the development of serfdom was the emergence, as a result of extensive legislative activity, of a kind of code of investigation of fugitive peasants and serfs, which was formalized in the form of a “Mandate for detectives” on March 2, 1683, with subsequent additions to it in a decree on March 23, 1698. detectives” was reflected in the state-organized mass and impersonal investigation of fugitive peasants as a permanent function of state authorities.
The Council Code did not raise the question of new system detectives. The presence of fixed years suggested the procedure for a scattered and individual investigation based on the petition of the owners of fugitive peasants, taking into account the period of investigation from the moment of escape or from the moment of filing a petition for escape in each individual case. The liquidation of fixed years according to the Code of 1649 created the conditions for an impersonal, mass and state-organized investigation. The question of such an investigation of the fugitives was raised in their petitions by wide sections of the nobility, which did not fail to be reflected in the legislation. Legislative activity of the government in the field of fugitive peasants began as early as 1658 with the distribution of reserved letters prohibiting the reception of fugitives in villages and cities. For the reception and keeping of the fugitives, the collection of “possession” was established according to the Code of 1649 in the amount of 10 rubles, and the peasants themselves had to be “beaten with a whip mercilessly” for escaping. The latter was new. The Code did not impose punishment for escaping.
According to the "Instruction to detectives" in 1683, the search for hiding peasants was carried out most radically, and the rule of responsibility extended to the past. The order laid the responsibility for receiving fugitives on the landowners and votchinniks. Thus, large estate owners, boyars and duma officials were deprived of the opportunity to hide behind the backs of their clerks when a lawsuit was filed against fugitive peasants.
Art. 28 Nakaz, where only those fortresses for peasants and serfs that were already registered in orders received legal force. However, this provision, already reflected in the Decree of 1665, was supplemented by a new regulation, according to which the old fortresses that were not recorded in the order were recognized as valid, if they were not challenged by the recorded fortresses. In the absence of ancient fortresses, the belonging of the peasants was determined by scribes and census books.
The punishment of peasants for escaping remained (Article 34), but without determining its type, which was left to the discretion of the detectives themselves. Torture during the investigation remained under the law only in relation to peasants who, when escaping, committed the murder of landowners or arson of estates, and in relation to those who changed their names on the run. In the Nakaz of 1683, an important rule was preserved on the non-recognition of the immunity rights of non-conviction letters in cases of fugitive peasants.
In general, the Order for detectives acts as a means of settling the mutual claims of feudal lords regarding their rights to fugitives, developed as a result of legislative practice starting from the Code of 1649 and in the course of many years of activity of detectives. Regardless of Ch. 11 of the Code, he acquired an independent meaning.
In historical and legal terms, the "Instruction to detectives" of 1683 reflects the general for a number of major legislative monuments of the second half of the 17th century. the trend of transformation from local and private norms and forms of their legislative expression into the all-Russian code.
The process of enslavement of prisoners taken in the course of hostilities with Poland in the West, and with Tatars, Kalmyks, and others in the East, also entered the sphere of legislative regulation. Service people sent prisoners to their estates and estates. The government, by decrees and letters, authorized the transformation of heterodox captives into serfs and took upon itself the search for fugitives from among them. The first of these decrees of the period of the war with Poland was the Decree of July 30, 1654. Registration of serf acts on prisoners was entrusted to the Order of the servile court and the order huts of cities. This is stated in the Decree of February 27, 1656. Complete books were kept in the Order of the servants' court and the clerk's huts of the cities. Decrees of the 80-90s repeatedly demanded from the landowners and estate owners to write down "fat people" in the Order of the servile court (for example, the Decree of April 20, 1681). A peculiar result of the policy of enslavement of captured people was proclaimed in connection with the conclusion Eternal peace with Poland in 1686, securing the rights of patrimonials and landowners to peasants and serfs from among the prisoners.
In the legal registration of serfdom of "free people" played a certain role and hand records, which, however, have a number of significant features.
Poruka is an ancient institution of feudal law. Manual records were a form of consolidation and a guarantee of property and other transactions between individual representatives of the ruling class. Mutual responsibility reached its greatest extent in the black-mowed lands. The community-corporate organization of the black-sown peasantry favored the development of guarantees. In addition to the political significance associated with attaching an employee, the bail had a certain economic meaning: in the event of default by the person who became the object of the bail, the damage was compensated by the guarantors. According to the Council Code of 1649, bail received a wide and varied application, mainly in civil and criminal proceedings. In the second half of the XVII century. it began to be used in the course of the investigation of fugitive peasants. The government raised bail into a legislative norm as a means of combating the escapes of peasants and serfs, and at the same time against vagrancy and robbery of walking people. The legislative prescription for issuing bail for newcomers is included in the New Decree Articles of 1669 on tateb, robbery and murderous cases. The presence of the powers of the feudal lords in relation to the peasants did not exclude the fact that the peasant, as a subject of law, had certain rights to own his allotment and household. Both in the Code of 1649 and in the second half of the century, both of these interrelated aspects of the legal status of the peasant as an object of feudal law and as a subject of law with a certain, albeit limited, set of civil law powers, closely interacted.
In fact, within the limits of estates and estates, the jurisdiction of the feudal lords was not regulated by law. However, the property and life of the peasant were protected by law from the extreme manifestation of the willfulness of the feudal lords. Thus, the Decree of June 13, 1682 on the compensation to the Murzas and Tatar feudal lords of estates and estates, previously unsubscribed from them, was instructed "not to oppress or oppress the peasants."
For the legal status of peasants, census books played a significant role. Their main feature is the most detailed data on males for each court, regardless of age, indicating the relationship to the owner's court. In accordance with the task of description, the census books contained information about fugitive peasants. In the books of 1646 there is information about males who fled during the previous ten years (before the Code of 1649, there was a ten-year term for detecting fugitives). The census books of 1649 retained the same features, but information about fugitive peasants is given regardless of the time of the escape, since the search for fugitives became indefinite. The introduction of house-to-house taxation on these books led to the spread of the state tax to all categories of backyard and business people (enslaved and voluntary serfs).
Acts of serfdom on peasants and serfs, according to their purpose, can be divided into two groups. The first should include those that concerned the cash mass of the serf population. To the second group - related to newcomers, temporarily free people, dressing up as peasants. In the first group, the most important were grants, refusals, import letters, decrees on the allocation of estates and estates, on the sale of estates to estates, etc. With the transfer of feudal property rights to estates and estates, certain rights were transferred to the peasant population attached to land, for which the new owner was given obedient letters to the peasants. The actual population of the feudal estates was also related to acts that served legal form the implementation of non-economic coercion in relation to peasants: separate records, marriages, dowries, residential records of giving into service and apprenticeship, peace, income and given mortgages and bills of sale.
In relation to persons who came from outside and disguised as peasants, residential, orderly, loan and commission records were made.
The difference in the legal status of estates and estates had a significant impact on the practice of applying income records to peasants. The Code of 1649 introduced common grounds and principles for attachment to land and landowners for patrimonial and local peasants. Differences manifested themselves in minor points. It was forbidden to transfer peasants recorded in scribes, censuses, refusals and individual books for estates to patrimonial lands. However, the age of the landed peasants transferred to the patrimony was provided for by the Code itself only if the patrimony passed into other hands. In the second half of the XVII century. the legal grounds for serfdom of peasants, established by the Code of 1649, were in effect. These primarily include scribe books of 1626-1628. and census books of 1646-1648. Later, census books of 1678 and other descriptions of the 80s were added. Legally, the right to own peasants was assigned to all categories of service ranks in the fatherland, although in fact the service "small" did not always have peasants. The law on hereditary (for feudal lords) and hereditary (for serfs) attachment of peasants is the largest norm of the Code, and the abolition of the fixed years of detecting fugitives has become a necessary consequence and condition for the implementation of this norm. The attachment law applied to all categories of peasants and bobyls - privately owned and state. In relation to the estates and landed peasants for the period after the scribe books in 1626, additional foundations for the fortress were established - separate or abandoned books, as well as "amicable" deals about peasants, including fugitives, mainly in the form of certificates.
3. Criminal law and legal proceedings according to the Council Code of 1649.
The most important legislative source of the XVII century. is the Cathedral Code of 1649. The Cathedral Code differs from previous legislative acts not only in its large volume (25 chapters divided into 967 articles), but also in its more complex structure. A brief introduction outlines the motives and history of the compilation of the Code. The chapters are built according to the object of the offense under consideration, thematically distinguished by peculiar headings “On blasphemers and church rebels” (ch. 1), “On the sovereign’s honor and how to protect his sovereign’s health” (chap. 2), “On money masters who will learn to do thieves dengi "(ch. 5), "On travel letters to other states" (ch. 6), "On the service of all military people of the Moscow State" (ch. 7), . 9), "On the Court" (ch. 10); “On townspeople” (ch. 19), “Court on the serf” (ch. 20), “On robbery and tatin affairs” (ch. 21), “On archers” (ch. 23), “Decree on taverns » (Ch. 25).
The Code contained a set of norms that regulated the most important branches of public administration. These norms can be conditionally referred to as administrative ones. Attaching peasants to the land (ch. 11 "The Court of the Peasants"); township reform, which changed the position of the "white settlements" (ch. 14); change in the status of the patrimony and estate (Ch. 16 and 17); regulation of the work of local governments (ch. 21); the regime of entry and exit (Article 6) - all these measures formed the basis of administrative and police reforms. With the adoption of the Council Code, changes occurred in the field of judicial law. A number of rules have been developed regarding the organization and work of the court.
There is an even greater division into two forms compared to the Sudebniks: “trial” and “search”. The court procedure is described in Chapter 10 of the Code. The court was based on two processes - the actual "judgment" and "execution", i.e. sentencing, decision. The trial began with the "introduction", the filing of a petition. The defendant was summoned to court by the bailiff, he could introduce guarantors, and also not appear in court twice, if there were good reasons for that.
Chapter 21 of the Council Code of 1649 for the first time establishes such a procedural procedure as torture. The basis for its application could be the results of the “search”, when the testimony was divided: part in favor of the suspect, part against him.
The law divided the subjects of the crime into main and secondary ones, understanding the latter as accomplices. In turn, complicity could be physical (assistance, practical assistance, committing the same actions as the main subject of the crime) and intellectual (for example, incitement to murder in Chapter 22).
The Code also divided crimes into intentional, reckless and accidental. The law singled out three stages of a criminal act: intent (which in itself may be punishable), attempted crime and commission of a crime, as well as the concept of recidivism, which in the Council Code coincides with the concept of “a dashing person”, and the concept of extreme necessity, which is not punishable. only if the proportionality of its real danger on the part of the criminal is observed.
Violation of proportionality meant exceeding the limits of necessary defense and was punished.
According to the Council Code of 1649, the objects of the crime were determined: church, state, family, person, property and morality.
Major changes in the Council Code of 1649 concerned the area of property, obligation and inheritance law. The scope of civil law relations was defined quite clearly. This was prompted by the development of commodity-money relations, the formation of new types and forms of ownership, and the quantitative growth of civil law transactions.
The subjects of civil law relations were both private
(individual) and collective persons, and the legal rights of a private person gradually expanded due to concessions from the collective person. For legal relations that arose on the basis of norms regulating the sphere of property relations, the instability of the status of the subject of rights and obligations became characteristic.
Things according to the Council Code were the subject of a number of powers, relationships and obligations. The main ways of acquiring property were considered to be capture, prescription, discovery, award and direct acquisition in exchange or purchase. The Code of 1649 specifically deals with the procedure for granting land. The contract in the 17th century remained the main way of acquiring ownership of property, and, in particular, land. Ritual ceremonies lose their significance in the contract, formalized actions (participation of witnesses at the conclusion of the contract) are replaced by written acts (“assaults” of witnesses without their personal participation).
For the first time in the Council Code of 1649, the institution of easements was regulated - a legal restriction of the right of ownership of one person in the interests of the right to use another or other persons. The system of crimes covered various aspects of the life of society, concerned both the common people and the wealthy sections of the population, civil servants, and according to the Council Code of 1649, it looked as follows: - crimes against the church: blasphemy, seduction of the Orthodox into a different faith, interruption of the liturgy in the temple; - state crimes: any actions and even intent directed against the person of the sovereign or his family, rebellion, conspiracy, treason.
In the system of punishments under the Council Code of 1649, the main emphasis was placed on physical intimidation (starting from whipping to cutting off hands and quartering at the death penalty). Imprisoning a criminal was a secondary task and was an additional punishment. For the same crime, several punishments could be established at once (multiplicity of punishments) - beating with a whip, curtailment of the tongue, exile, confiscation of property. For theft, punishments were set in increasing order: for the first - beating with a whip, cutting off an ear, two years in prison and exile; for the second - beating with a whip, cutting off an ear and four years in prison; for the third - the death penalty.
In the Council Code of 1649, the use of the death penalty was provided for in almost sixty cases (even smoking tobacco was punishable by death). The death penalty divided into simple (cutting off the head, hanging) and qualified (wheeling, quartering, burning, filling the throat with metal, burying alive in the ground). Self-mutilating punishments included the following: cutting off an arm, leg, cutting an ear, nose, lips, tearing out an eye, nostrils.
These punishments could be applied both as basic and as additional ones. With the adoption of the Code of 1649, property sanctions began to be widely applied (Chapter 10 of the Code in seventy-four cases established a gradation of fines “for dishonor” depending on the social status of the victim). The highest sanction of this kind was the complete confiscation of the criminal's property. Finally, the system of sanctions included ecclesiastical punishments (repentance, excommunication, exile to a monastery, imprisonment in a solitary cell, etc.).
Causes of feudal fragmentation.
Feudal fragmentation is a natural stage in the progressive development of feudalism. This process inside Kievan Rus has been brewing for a long time. The period of feudal fragmentation itself began in the 30s. XII century and continued until the end of the 15th century. Feudal fragmentation became during this period new form feudal statehood.
Feudal fragmentation is characterized by:
1) ubiquitous distribution of arable farming;
2) improvement of labor tools;
3) large boyar land ownership;
4) an increase in the number of cities (by the middle of the 13th century there were up to 300 cities in Russia);
5) the dominance of natural economy (satisfaction of one's needs at the expense of internal resources with the weakness of market relations);
6) strengthening the political power of local princes and boyars
The main force behind the fragmentation of Kievan Rus was the boyars, who supported the local princes in the interests of intensifying the offensive against the rights of free smerds and dependent population.
Instead of the once united ancient Russian state, a dozen and a half independent states appeared within the boundaries of the former tribal unions. The title of Grand Duke now began to have all the princes, and not just Kiev. The fragmentation continued by dividing the newly formed states into even smaller destinies.
During the period of feudal fragmentation, the subsequent history of the Russian lands was greatly influenced by the Vladimir-Suzdal, Galicia-Volyn principalities and the Novgorod Republic.
Consequences of fragmentation.
Being a natural phenomenon, fragmentation contributed to the dynamic economic development of Russian lands: the growth of cities, the flourishing of culture. On the other hand, fragmentation led to a decrease in the defense potential, which coincided in time with the unfavorable foreign policy situation.
By the beginning of the 13th century, in addition to the Polovtsian danger (which was decreasing, since after 1185 the Polovtsians did not undertake invasions of Russia outside the framework of Russian civil strife), Russia was faced with aggression from two other directions. Enemies appeared in the northwest: Catholic German Orders and Lithuanian tribes, which entered the stage of decomposition of the tribal system, threatened Polotsk, Pskov, Novgorod and Smolensk.
Ljubeche Congress
Novgorod land in the XII-XV centuries.
By the XIII century. Novgorod land turned out to be the most prosperous and cultural region of all that were previously part of Kievan Rus. After the defeat of Byzantium by the crusaders in 1204, the remnants of Russian foreign trade moved to the Baltic Sea, and Novgorod, with Pskov dependent on it, took the place of Kiev as the business center of the country.
Novgorod land is located in the north-west of Russia. It is characterized by poor and swampy soils, and therefore the conditions for agriculture are unfavorable here. Vast forest spaces provided the opportunity to hunt fur-bearing animals, and along the shores of the White Sea and on the sea. Novgorod is located on the Volkhov River, directly on the way "from the Varangians to the Greeks" (Gulf of Finland - Neva - Lake Ladoga - Volkhov). Its geographical position created favorable conditions for trade with Russia and abroad.
Due to its northern position, Novgorod was not always able to provide itself with food and was forced to buy grain in Germany and in the interfluve of the Oka and Volga. The prosperity of Novgorod was based on close cooperation with the Hanseatic League of Free Trade Cities, of which he became an active member. German merchants founded permanent colonies in Novgorod, Pskov, Salt Vychegodskaya and other cities. They were obliged by the Novgorod authorities to contact the producers of goods only through Russian intermediaries, in return for which they received full control over the entire overseas part of the business, including transportation and marketing. It was precisely the interests of foreign trade, according to most historians, that forced the Novgorodians to push the boundaries of their state up to the Urals, having explored and colonized most of the north of the country.
The order of government that prevailed in Novgorod in all its main features resembled the form known from history. medieval city-states Western Europe.
Novgorod consisted of two sides (Sofia and Torgovaya), divided into ends. Initially, there were three ends (Slavensky, Nerevsky, Lyudin), later - five (Prussian and Plotnitsky stood out). Initially, the ends were independent settlements of different tribes, which later merged into a single city. They were inhabited by Ilmenian Slovenes, Krivichi, Merya and, possibly, Chud. Directly "Novgorod" was originally called not the whole city, but the Kremlin, where the secular administration and the priesthood common to all the villages were located.
Most of the wealth was not in the hands of princes, but of strong trading and landowning families. Novgorodians invited princes to conduct military campaigns. In the XIII century. these were often the sons of the Grand Dukes of Vladimir. The veche elected the prince, and it also established the rules, which he was obliged to adhere to. After 1200, the veche became the center of Novgorodian sovereignty. The oldest surviving treaty between Novgorod and the prince dates back to 1265. The rules were strict, especially in financial matters. The prince owned some property, but he and his warriors were explicitly forbidden to acquire estates and servants (slaves) on the territory of Novgorod and to exploit crafts without the permission of the council. The prince could not increase or decrease taxes, declare war and conclude peace, and in any way interfere in the activities of state institutions and in the politics of the city. Sometimes the prince was also forbidden to enter into direct relations with German merchants. These restrictions were by no means an empty formality, as evidenced by the expulsion from Novgorod of princes accused of exceeding their powers. In one particularly turbulent period, 38 princes, one after the other, stayed in Novgorod for 102 years.
The Veche disposed of both the civil administration of the city and the adjacent volosts, electing the posadnik, the thousandth and appointing the church bishop - the archbishop (in the early period of the existence of the republic - the bishop). The presence of all free Novgorodians at the veche was allowed, including those from remote cities and villages of the earth. Novgorod was divided into 10 taxable "hundreds", which were ruled by the sots, who were subordinate to the thousand. Some historians are of the opinion that Tysyatsky led the Novgorod militia - "thousand". The posadnik, after Novgorod separated from Kiev, was no longer the eldest of the sons of the Grand Duke of Kiev, but always one of the boyars. Tysyatsky originally elected a representative of the merchants, but in the XIII-XIV centuries. and this position passed into the hands of the boyars. The Archbishop of Novgorod, elected at the Veche, was then confirmed by the Metropolitan of Kiev. The archbishop, together with the mayor, sealed the international treaties of Novgorod with his seal, represented Novgorodians in negotiations with the Russian princes. He even had his own regiment. The ordinary population of Novgorod took part only in the "Konchansky" and "Ulichansky" veche, electing the elders of ends and streets. However, the boyars also often used the Konchan and Ulich veche for their own purposes, setting the inhabitants of their “own” end against rivals from other ends.
The decisive word at the veche was for the Novgorod boyars, who originated from the old squad, which was dominated by immigrants from the Slavs and Varangians. The boyars consisted of several dozen of the most prominent families, each of which was organized into a corporation around the personality of a saint - the patron of a temple. Often the temple was built at the expense of the boyar family. The independence of the boyars did not know its likeness in any Russian city either then or after. Boyar families filled all high positions in the city. The Novgorod boyars were focused more on maintaining close ties with the Lithuanian state than with Vladimir (later Moscow) Russia. This was especially evident in the 15th century.
The Mongol-Tatars did not sack Novgorod in 1238. They did not reach it for about 100 kilometers. But Novgorod, at the request of its prince Alexander Yaroslavich (after 1240 - Nevsky), paid tribute to them. The Mongol-Tatars did not interfere in the political system of the Novgorod land, they visited these places infrequently and did not actually influence the ethno-cultural processes.
Novgorod's relations with its northwestern neighbors were much more tense. At the beginning of the XIII century. German crusaders seized the lands of the western Lithuanians (Semaitis), Curonians, Semigallians, Latgalians and South Estonians. Northern Estonia at the same time was captured by the Danes. The Order of the Swordsmen, having taken possession of the Eastern Baltic, deprived the weakened Principality of Polotsk of political influence in the lower reaches of the Western Dvina. In 1237, the Order of the Swords merged with the Teutonic Order, which settled in East Prussia. The Livonian Order was formed. The forces that for decades resisted the Order's aggression were Lithuania and the Novgorod land. There were frequent military conflicts between Novgorod and Lithuania.
In 1239 Grand Duke Vladimirsky Yaroslav Vsevolodovich restored his supreme power over Smolensk, having conquered it from Lithuania. In 1239-1240. his son Alexander defeated the Swedes on the Neva. In 1241-1242, having enlisted the support of the Horde Tatars, he expelled the Germans from Koporye and their supporters from Pskov, and on April 5, 1242, he inflicted a crushing defeat on the Germans in the Battle of Lake Peipsi (Battle on the Ice). After him, the Livonian Order for 10 years did not dare to take offensive actions against Russia.
However, the order's feudal colonization in the Baltic states with the planting of the Catholic religion there did not stop. Novgorod, seeking to settle relations with the new neighbor, entered into negotiations with the Livonian Order.
In 1243, a peace treaty was concluded, according to which the German knights lost all the lands they seized from the Russians: Pskov, the lands of the Finno-Ugric tribe of Vod, Luga, and also part of the order territory called Latypolets. New attempts of order aggression, however, were not long in coming.
The next defeat to the German knights was inflicted by Prince Svyatopolk, defeating them at the Reizen Lake. These Russian victories made a strong impression on the Livonian and Teutonic Orders. And only the lack of complete unity between the princes, as well as the intervention of the German kings and the papal curia, saved the German knights from final defeat. These victories stopped the colonization of Russian lands by foreigners. The Russian princes managed to convince their neighbors, and primarily the German knights and Swedes, of the effectiveness and expediency of conducting a dialogue with them not by sword, but through negotiations.
In 1262 treaty letters were signed between Novgorod and the German representatives of Riga and the Order, as well as with the main city of the German Union of the Baltic cities of Luebeck.
Novgorodians already in 1245, however, were forced to resist the Lithuanians again invading their borders. The resistance was led by Alexander Nevsky. In the second half of the XIII century. Novgorod and Pskov were constantly at war with Lithuania and the Livonian Order, the Swedes, and the Danes. It is estimated that in the next two centuries, Moscow and other princes, Novgorod and Pskov fought with Lithuania 17 times, with the largest number of wars occurring at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries, when Lithuania took active offensive actions.
Starting from the 14th century, on the other hand, there was a strengthening and development of trade, cultural, and political ties between the Russian principalities and the German states.
In 1357, under the auspices of the German city of Lübeck, a trade and political union of North German cities called Hansa was created, which carried out an intermediary mission in the field of trade between Western, Northern and Eastern Europe. Hansa opened its representative offices in Novgorod and Pskov, and in the second half of the 15th century. - in Moscow.
Galicia-Volyn principality.
The Galicia-Volyn principality was formed at the end of the 12th century. as a result of the merger of two principalities - Galicia and Volyn. The Galician land bordered on Poland, along the Carpathians - on Hungary, in the southeast the border went from the Southern Bug to the mouth of the Danube. Volyn occupied the lands along the course of the Western Bug and the upper reaches of the Pripyat. Volyn and Galician land in the east bordered on the Kiev and Pinsk principalities. Galicia-Volyn land - the southwestern outskirts of Russia. These lands were far from the main trade route of Kievan Rus - "from the Varangians to the Greeks", but they were connected by river routes with the Black Sea (Southern Bug, Dniester, Prut) and with the Baltic Sea (San and Western Bug, flowing into the Vistula). Overland trade routes to Poland and Hungary also passed through Galicia and Volhynia.
In Volhynia and in the Galician land, arable farming has long developed, and, in addition, cattle breeding, hunting and fishing. With the establishment of feudal relations, large boyar and princely land ownership quickly grew here. The boyars were also enriched by their extensive trade. The region was located at the intersection of important river and land routes. A very strong economically, the boyars of the region, especially the Galician, turned into an influential political force.
Craft in the XII-XIII centuries. achieved significant development. In the Galician land, large-scale development of salt was carried out, which was also taken to other lands of Russia. Crafts have reached the greatest development in the region: iron-making, jewelry, leather, pottery and construction. The craft here acquired a rather narrow specialization, especially in the cities of Vladimir, Galich, etc. In the 12th century. there were already about 80 cities in the region; along with the new and old cities (Vladimir-Volynsky, Lutsk, Berestye, etc.) grew significantly due to the influx of the trade and craft population from the Dnieper region. Navigation was developed on the routes to Byzantium, Korsun and Kiev.
The economic development of the Galician land with the center in the city of Przemysl and the strengthening of the feudal lords here contributed to the fact that in the region already in the first half of the 11th century. began to show a trend towards political isolation. For the first time under Yaroslav the Wise, Przemysl principality was singled out. Attempts to isolate Volhynia from Kiev began in the middle of the 11th century. The strengthening of the Galician princes, the brothers Volodar and Vasilko Rostislavich (1084-1124), became the reason for the union of the Kiev and Volyn princes and Poland, and then Hungary. However, Rostislavichi, with the support of local feudal lords and cities, successfully withstood the offensive. The Galician land was finally isolated, while Volyn until the middle of the XII century. remained dependent on Kiev.
The Galician principality was especially strengthened during the reign of Yaroslav Vladimirovich (1159–1187). This prince persistently sought to strengthen his power. He skillfully attracted allies from the Russian princes to his side, pursued a foreign policy in the interests of not only his principality, but the whole earth. The outstanding abilities of Yaroslav were also recognized by his contemporaries, calling him, literate, well-read, fluent in eight languages, a free-thinking person, Osmomysl.
Soon the Principality of Galicia was annexed to Volhynia by Prince Roman Mstislavich (1199–1205). Relying on the growing layer of service feudal lords and with the support of the cities, Roman stubbornly fought to strengthen his power and limit the rights of large secular and spiritual feudal lords. Some of the boyars were exterminated, others were forced to flee. The prince distributed the lands of his opponents to serving feudal lords. Roman achieved the transfer of the Kiev principality to his protege. The Polovtsy were driven back, and the security of the southern lands of the principality was temporarily ensured.
Roman Mstislavich died in one of the battles, and boyars seized power in Galich under his young sons Daniel and Vasilka.
For decades, boyar rebellions and feudal strife continued in the Galicia-Volyn land, accompanied by invasions of foreign feudal lords.
Only in 1227 Daniil Romanovich, relying on wealthy townspeople and service feudal lords, restored the unity and independence of Volhynia. In 1238, he also became a Galician prince, thus uniting the Galicia-Volyn principality under his rule. Following that, Daniel Romanovich took possession of Kiev. The forces that gravitated toward the centralization of power, toward political unification, and toward overcoming feudal fragmentation were strengthened.
Daniel was a major statesman, a talented diplomat and commander. He devoted much attention and effort to the construction of cities. With extensive political experience, Daniel skillfully and flexibly fought his opponents, often exploiting their differences. However, soon the circumstances deteriorated sharply: from the east, the Mongol-Tatar invaders began to invade Russia. In 1240 Kiev fell.
In 1263, Lithuania captured the Principality of Polotsk, which had previously been part of Kievan Rus.
During the reign of Gediminas (1316–1341), new Russian lands became part of the expanding Lithuanian state. Under Olgerd (1345–1377), Lithuania included almost all the southern Russian and southwestern lands, including Galich and Volhynia.
Northeast Russia.
The Vladimir-Suzdal land played a special role in the history of our country, forming the basis of the future Russian statehood. It was here, already in the pre-Mongolian period, that significant socio-political changes took place, which were then inherited by the Muscovite state. Rostov-Suzdal (later - Vladimir-Suzdal) land was located in the north-east of Russia and was separated from the Dnieper region by a powerful forest belt. The population of the north-east of the Russian lands was Merya, Meshchera, Muroma, Krivichi and Vyatichi. This territory was far from the traditionally important trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks." Most of the northeastern lands were dominated by podzolic soils. Most of the territory was covered with forest. The abundance of forests allowed for a long time to keep hunting and slash-and-burn agriculture among the main occupations of the population.
Until the 12th century this area was a tertiary frontier region. The population there still remained predominantly Finno-Ugric; to this day, almost all rivers, lakes, many settlements have non-Slavic names. The rise of the region began in the 12th century, when its main city Rostov (later Rostov the Great), which arose as the capital in the lands of the Finno-Ugric union of the Merya tribes, became the hereditary property of the younger branch of the family of the Grand Duke of Kiev Vladimir Monomakh. The first independent ruler of Rostov, the youngest son of Monomakh, Yuri Dolgoruky (c. 1090-1157), turned out to be a very enterprising colonialist. He built many cities, villages, churches and monasteries, and with generous land grants and tax exemptions lured settlers from other principalities into his possessions. This policy was continued by his son Andrei Bogolyubsky (c. 1110–1174). Already by the end of the XII century. The Rostov Principality was the most densely populated region of Russia. It was the cradle of Muscovite Rus. In an effort to undermine the primacy of Kiev, Andrei tried to establish a separate metropolis in Vladimir, but did not get the consent of the Patriarch of Constantinople. In 1174, Andrei was killed by those close to him, dissatisfied with his despotic disposition. After his death, strife broke out. The throne of Vladimir was claimed by the sons of the eldest son of Yuri Dolgoruky Rostislav (who died long ago) and the younger sons of Yuri Dolgoruky - Mikhail and Vsevolod. The Rostislavichs were supported by the old veche cities of Rostov and Suzdal, Mikhail and Vsevolod - the city of Vladimir. In 1176 Mikhail and Vsevolod won. The victory of the princes, who relied on the city of Vladimir, which did not have its own veche, contributed to an even greater weakening of the veche principle in the north-east of Russia. Vsevolod, who after the imminent death of Mikhail became the sole ruler of Vladimir-Suzdal Russia, ruled until 1212. He proclaimed himself the Grand Duke of Vladimir. Thus, in Russia there were two great principalities: Kiev and Vladimir. Vsevolod voluntarily tried to install princes on the throne of Kiev and interfered in the affairs of other principalities. One of his sons was invited to reign in Novgorod. Russian princes often turned to him with requests to resolve disputes and provide patronage.
After the death of Vsevolod the Big Nest, strife began between his sons. In 1217, the eldest of the Vsevolodoviches, Konstantin, with the support of the Smolensk prince Mstislav Udaly, defeated his younger brothers Yuri and Yaroslav in the Battle of Lipitsa and became the Grand Duke of Vladimir. But Yuri succeeded him, and the sons of Constantine occupied minor princely thrones in the northeastern lands. By the time of the Mongol invasion, North-Eastern Russia was perhaps the most powerful political association in the Russian land.
Here a system has developed that is very different from the system of Kievan Rus. In it, and in all the lands and principalities that emerged from it, except for the northeastern ones, the population appeared before the princes: first settlements were formed, and then political power.
The northeast, by contrast, was for the most part colonized at the initiative and under the leadership of the princes. Here the authorities anticipated the population, primarily, of course, the East Slavic population. Therefore, local princes had prestige and power that their counterparts in Novgorod and Lithuania could not count on. The land, in their opinion, belonged to them, and the people living on it were their servants or tenants on various terms. In any case, they could not claim land and have no inalienable personal rights.
Possession in medieval Russia was designated by the term "patrimony". Its root "from" is the same as in the word "father". "Left to me by my father" meant "undeniably mine." Such a language was easily understood in a society where communal, patriarchal orders were alive. Between different types no distinction was made between property: land, and slaves, and values, and rights to fishing and mining, and even ancestors or genealogy, were patrimony. More importantly, it was also political power. There is nothing strange in this, given that in ancient Russia political power, in fact, meant the right to impose tribute, that is, it was an economic privilege.
Being private property, the principalities in the northeast (and only there) were inherited in accordance with the possessory traditions of Russian customary law, that is, at first some property was refused to women and church institutions, and then the rest was divided into approximately equal shares for distribution among male heirs. Such a practice may seem strange to modern man, accustomed to considering the state indivisible, and the monarchy hereditary by birthright. In the northeastern lands, such an order was established no earlier than the 15th century.
The inheritance inherited by the prince from his father became his fiefdom, which, when it came time to write a spiritual letter, he, in turn, crushed (together with the newly acquired lands) among his descendants. The epoch during which this fragmentation took place (from the middle of the 12th to the middle of the 15th century) is known in the historical literature under the name of the specific period.
A typical principality was nine-tenths virgin. Specific Russia did not know large farms - latifundia. Even the largest possessions consisted of many tiny cells - villages with one or two yards, fishing grounds, boards, gardens, mills, mines, scattered along the river banks and clearings.
The prince was the largest landowner of the specific state. The lion's share of his income came from the exploitation of his personal lands. Outside his estate, the prince had negligible power. From the population he was not entitled to anything but taxes, and it could, as it pleases, move from one principality to another. Only in the middle of the XVII century. the Moscow rulers, by that time the "kings of all Russia", managed to force the military service layer of society and the common people to sit still.
In addition to the princes, the landowners of North-Eastern Russia were the clergy and boyars - spiritual and secular feudal lords. The ancestors of the boyars served in the squads of the Kiev and Rostov-Suzdal princes. The boyar lands were inherited according to patrimonial law, as well as the princely ones. The estate could be sold. The boyars could enter the service of any prince of their choice, as well as leave the service. One could also serve a foreign ruler, say, such as the Grand Duke of Lithuania. It was possible to leave the prince without warning, using the right of "refusal". All free, “free” people had this right.
Cultivated land, not exploited by either the prince or the secular and church estates, was "black", that is, subject to taxation (in contrast to the "whitewashed" service, church land). It consisted mostly of arable land cleared in the forest by the peasants. It also included individual cities and trading posts. The peasants lived in self-governing communities, whose members jointly engaged in most of the field work and laid out tax obligations among themselves. The legal status of the "black" land was not quite certain. The peasants behaved as if it were their property, they sold it and passed it on by inheritance. However, legally, it was not full property, and this is confirmed by the fact that the land of peasants who died without male offspring, by decision of the prince, could join his possessions, or could be divided among members of the community. The peasants were free people and could move where and when they wanted. Before them stretched, as they said then, through the whole of North-Eastern Russia, "the path is clear, without a border."
It can be seen that the state took shape here relatively slowly, public power was weak, the prince did not actually have a punitive apparatus, and even the economic processes on the princely lands went exactly like those of the boyars-patrimonials.
Among the ancient princes of the pre-Tatar period after Yaroslav, no one left such a loud and kind memory as Vladimir Monomakh, an active prince, strong-willed, distinguished by a sound mind among his brethren of Russian princes. Almost all the important events of Russian history in the second half of the 11th and in the first quarter of the 12th century revolve around his name. This man can rightly be called a representative of his time. The Slavic-Russian peoples, who had lived separately from time immemorial, gradually submitted to the power of the Kievan princes, and thus the task of their combined history became the gradual and slow formation of a state integrity. In what forms and to what extent this wholeness could manifest itself and reach its full realization - this already depended on subsequent conditions and circumstances. The social structure of these peoples had those features common to all that they made up lands that were drawn to cities, points of their focus, and, in turn, were divided into parts, although they retained to a certain extent the connection both between parts of crushing and between larger ones. units, and hence it happened that the cities were of two kinds: the oldest and the smallest; the latter depended on the former, but with signs of internal originality. The members of the land gathered in the cities to confer about their affairs, and the prince had to carry out reprisals, protect the land and manage it. At first, the political power of the Kiev princes was expressed only by the fact that they collected tribute from their subordinates, and then a step towards stronger unity and communication between the lands was the placement of the sons of the Kiev prince in different lands, and the consequence of this was the branching of the princely family into lines that more or less corresponded location and distribution of land.
This distribution of princely sons began in paganism, but the rude barbarian customs did not allow any new order to develop; the strongest brothers exterminated the weakest. So, of the sons of Svyatoslav, only one Vladimir remained; Vladimir had many sons, and he placed all of them in the lands; but Svyatopolk, following the pattern of pagan ancestors, began to exterminate the brothers, and the matter ended with the fact that, with the exception of the specially allocated Polotsk land, which went to the eldest son of Vladimir Izyaslav as the inheritance of his mother, the rest of Russia was under the rule of one Kiev prince Yaroslav. This was not autocracy in our sense of the word and did not at all lead to a strong adhesion of the lands to each other, but on the contrary, the more lands could accumulate under the rule of a single prince, the less was the possibility of this single power to observe them and have an influence on the course of events in these subject lands. On the contrary, when, after the adoption of Christianity, along with one faith, a single written language and the same moral, political and legal concepts entered into Russia, if their princes resided in different lands, then these princes - coming from a single princely family, retaining more or less the same concepts, habits, traditions, views, while guided by a single church - by their management contributed to the spread of such properties and signs that were the same in all lands and, therefore, led them to unity with each other.
After Yaroslav the Wise, the period that is usually called specific begins already continuously. Special princes appeared in the land of the Severians or Chernigovians, in the land of the Smolensk Krivichi, in the land of Volyn, in the land of Croatian or Galician. In the land of Novgorod, at first, it was as if the rule was observed that the eldest son of the Kiev prince should be the prince there, but this rule very soon gave way to the power of the people's choice. The land of Polotsk already had special princes before. In the land of Russia or Kiev, the principality of Pereyaslav stood out, and the remote Rostov region was attached to this principality under the division of Yaroslav. Actually, there were no rules for the placement of princes, no order of their succession, or even the rights of each person from the princely family to reign anywhere, and therefore, naturally, a number of misunderstandings should have arisen that inevitably led to civil strife. It goes without saying that this delayed the development of those principles of education that Russia received along with the Christian faith. But the neighborhood with nomadic peoples and incessant clashes with them hindered this development even more. Russia, as if by a verdict of fate, was condemned to see guests coming from the east, succeeding each other: in the 10th century and in the first half of the 11th century. she suffered from the Pechenegs, and from the middle of the 11th they were replaced by the Polovtsians. With internal disorder and princely strife, Russia could not protect itself and get rid of such a neighborhood, especially when the princes themselves invited foreigners in their civil strife against each other.
In this state of affairs, the most important task of the then political activity was, on the one hand, the establishment of order and harmony between the princes, and on the other, the unanimous appeal of all the forces of the Russian land to their defense against the Polovtsy. In the history of the pre-Tatar period, we do not see a single person who would have managed to accomplish such a great feat firmly and fruitfully; but of all the princes, no one aspired to this goal with such clarity of vision and with such, albeit temporary, success as Monomakh, and therefore his name was respected for a long time. In addition, a concept was formed about his life as an exemplary prince.
Vladimir was born in 1053, a year before the death of his grandfather Yaroslav. He was the son of Vsevolod, the most beloved of the sons of Yaroslav; while other sons Yaroslav placed on the lands, assigning them destinies, Vsevolod's father constantly kept near him, although he gave him Pereyaslavl close to Kiev and distant Rostov as an inheritance. Old man Yaroslav died in the arms of Vsevolod. Vladimir's mother, the last wife of Vsevolod, was the daughter of the Greek emperor Konstantin Monomakh; Vladimir, by his grandfather on his mother's side, received the name Monomakh. Thus, he had three names: one princely - Vladimir, another godfather - Vasily, the third maternal grandfather - Monomakh.
Being thirteen years old, he took up occupations that, according to the then concepts, were decent for a princely title - war and hunting. Vladimir in this case was no exception, since in those days the princes generally did very early what, according to our concepts, is decent only for mature people; they were even married in adolescence. Father sent Vladimir to Rostov, and his path lay through the land of the Vyatichi, who even then did not want to calmly submit to the princely power of Rurik's house. Vladimir was not long in Rostov and soon appeared in Smolensk. In Russia, meanwhile, two troubles began one after another, tormenting the country for centuries. First rose the princely civil strife. They were initiated by the fact that the son of the deceased Yaroslav's son, Vladimir, Rostislav fled to Tmutarakan, a city located on the Taman Peninsula and then owned by the Chernigov prince, who placed his son Gleb there. Rostislav drove this Gleb out, but he himself could not resist after him. This event, in itself one of many similar events in subsequent times, seems remarkable precisely because it was then the first of its kind. Then enmity broke out between the princes of Polotsk and the Yaroslavichs. In 1067 Prince Vseslav of Polotsk attacked Novgorod and robbed it; for this, the Yaroslavichi went to war with him, defeated him and took him prisoner.
The following year, 1068, another kind of trouble arose. The Polovtsians flooded in from the east, nomadic people Turkic tribe; they began to attack the Russian lands. The first encounter with them was unsuccessful for the Russians. The Kiev prince Izyaslav was defeated and after that driven out by the people of Kiev, with whom he had not gotten along before. Izyaslav returned to Kiev with the help of foreign Poles, and his son barbarously executed and tortured the people of Kiev, who had expelled his father; that is why the people of Kiev, at the first opportunity, again got rid of their prince. Izyaslav fled again, and his brother Svyatoslav, who had previously reigned in Chernigov, sat on the Kiev table instead; then Vsevolod began to rule the Chernigov land, and his son Vladimir Monomakh was put to reign in Smolensk.
Throughout the reign of Svyatoslav, Vladimir served him as the oldest prince, since Vladimir's father, Vsevolod, was in agreement with Svyatoslav. Thus, Vladimir, on behalf of Svyatoslav, went to the aid of the Poles against the Czechs, and also fought against the Polotsk princes in the interests of the entire Yaroslav tribe. In 1073, Svyatoslav died, and Izyaslav again sat on the Kiev table, this time, as it seems, getting along with the people of Kiev and with his brother Vsevolod. This prince brought away the son of Svyatoslav Oleg from Vladimir-Volynsk in order to plant his own son there. Oleg, left without inheritance, arrived in Chernigov to Vsevolod: Vladimir was then on friendly terms with this prince and, having arrived from Smolensk to Chernigov, treated him with his father. But Oleg was annoyed that the land where his father reigned and where his childhood had passed was not in his power. In 1073, he fled from Chernigov to Tmutarakan, where, after Rostislav, a prince similar to him lived, the fugitive Boris, the son of the deceased Vyacheslav Yaroslavich. It must not be thought that such princes really had any right to what they sought. At that time it was not yet established and did not enter into the custom that all persons of the princely family would certainly have an inheritance, just as the rule was not established that in every land persons who belonged to one princely branch by virtue of their origin were princes. In Yaroslav's own order, it is not clear that, by placing his sons on the lands, he had in advance in mind to extend the right of the planted sons to their offspring. The sons of Yaroslav also did not establish such a right, as can be seen in Smolensk and Volyn 1. Only the Polotsk branch held stubbornly and consistently in its Kriva land, although the Yaroslavichi wanted to oust it from there. With the complete uncertainty of relations, in the absence of the generally accepted and time-honored rights of princes to reign, it is clear that every prince, as soon as circumstances gave him strength, tried to arrange his neighbors - most importantly, sons, if he had any - and in this case not he was embarrassed to push another prince who was less close to him from his place: the thought of violating someone else's right could not stop the princes from such actions, because such a right did not yet exist. For his part, it was very natural for the prince to seek reigning in the same way as his parent and relatives reigned, and mainly where his father was a prince, where, perhaps, he himself was born and where from childhood he got used to the idea of taking his father's place. Such a prince could most easily find help from warlike foreigners. And so, Oleg and Boris, who fled to Tmutarakan, turned to the Polovtsy. They were not the first to interfere with these enemies of Russia in her internal civil strife. As far as we know, the first to show them the way to such an intervention was Vladimir Monomakh, since, according to his own news, placed in his teaching, he, even before them, during the life of his uncle Svyatoslav Yaroslavich, led the Polovtsy to the Polotsk land.
Oleg and Boris with the Polovtsy rushed to the Seversky land. Vsevolod came out against them from Chernigov and was defeated. Oleg easily mastered Chernigov; the people of Chernigov accepted him themselves, as they had known him for a long time: he was probably born in Chernigov. When, after that, Vsevolod, together with the Kiev prince Izyaslav, wanted to take Chernigov from Oleg, the Chernigovites showed themselves devoted to Oleg, and after Vsevolod and Izyaslav managed to take possession of the walls of the roundabout city and burned the buildings that were within the line formed by this roundabout city, the inhabitants did not give up , went to the inner city, the so-called "big", and defended it to the last strength. Oleg was not in the city with them: the stubbornness with which the people of Chernigov stood for him at that time was not supported by his presence or efforts, and probably came from the sincere affection of the people of Chernigov for him. Vladimir was then with his father. Hearing that Oleg and Boris were going against them to the rescue of Chernigov and leading the Polovtsy with him, the princes left the siege and went to meet the enemies. The battle took place on Nezhatina Niva near the village of this name. Boris was killed, Oleg fled. But their winners paid dearly for their victory. Kiev prince Izyaslav was killed in this section.
The death of Izyaslav delivered Kiev to Vsevolod. Chernigov, having lost hope in Oleg, surrendered, and Vladimir Monomakh was imprisoned in this city. Oleg and his brother Roman Svyatoslavich in 1079 tried to expel Vladimir from Chernigov, but to no avail. Vladimir warned them, went out with an army to Pereyaslavl and got rid of his rivals without a fight; he made peace with the Polovtsy, who helped the Svyatoslavichs. The Polovtsy and the Khazars who were with them acted treacherously with their allies: Oleg was sent to Constantinople, and Roman was killed. The ability to embroil his opponents shows Vladimir's great sharpness.
Having remained on the reign in Chernigov, Vladimir had to deal with opponents from all sides. Tmutarakan again slipped out of his power: two other impudent princes, the sons of Rostislav Vladimirovich, established themselves there. The Polovtsians constantly disturbed the Chernihiv land. The alliance with them, arranged by Vladimir near Pereyaslavl, could not be lasting: firstly, the Polovtsy are a predatory people, they did not keep any agreements too sacredly; secondly, the Polovtsy were divided into hordes, which were led by various princes or khans and are called "chad" in our annals; while some put up with the Russian prince, others attacked his region. Vladimir dealt with them as much as possible. Thus, when two Polovtsian princes devastated the environs of the Seversk suburb of Starodub, Vladimir, inviting another horde to help, defeated them, and then under the New City (Novgorod-Seversky), scattered the horde of another Polovtsian prince and freed the captives, whom the Polovtsians took to their camps , called in the annals "vezhami". In the north, Vladimir had constant enemies - the Polotsk princes. Prince Vseslav attacked Smolensk, which remained in the power of Vladimir even after his father imprisoned him in Chernigov. In revenge for this, Vladimir hired the Polovtsy and led them to devastate the land of Polotsk: then Minsk got it; there, according to Vladimir's own testimony, neither a servant (servant) nor cattle was left. On the other hand, Vladimir fought with the Vyatichi: this Slavic people still stubbornly did not succumb to the power of Rurik's house, and Vladimir twice went to war against Khodota and his son - the leaders of this people. By order of his father, Vladimir was also engaged in business in Volhynia: the sons of Rostislav took possession of this country; Vladimir drove them out and imprisoned Yaropolk, Izyaslav's son, and when this prince did not get along with the Kiev prince, Vladimir, at the behest of his father, drove him away and imprisoned Prince David Igorevich in Volhynia, and in next year after that (1086) again put Yaropolk. Then the power of the Kiev prince in this region was still strong, and the princes were appointed and replaced according to his supreme will.
Vsevolod died in 1093. Vladimir did not want to take advantage of his position and take possession of the Kiev table, as he foresaw that civil strife would result from this; he himself sent to call for the reign of Kiev, the son of Izyaslav Svyatopolk (who reigned in Turov), who was older than Vladimir in years and for whom, apparently, there was a significant party in Kiev land. Throughout the reign of Svyatopolk, Vladimir remained his faithful ally, acted in concert with him and did not show the slightest attempt to deprive him of power, although the people of Kiev no longer loved Svyatopolk, but loved Vladimir.
Vladimir became, so to speak, the soul of the whole Russian land; all her political events revolved around him.
As soon as Svyatopolk settled in Kiev, as the Polovtsians sent ambassadors to him with a proposal to make peace, Svyatopolk brought with him a squad from Turov, people close to him. He consulted with them in everything, and they advised him to put the Polovtsian ambassadors in the cellar; when, after that, the Polovtsy began to fight and besieged one of the suburbs of the Kiev land, Torsky, Svyatopolk released the detained ambassadors and himself offered peace, but the Polovtsy no longer wanted peace. Then Svyatopolk began to confer with the people of Kiev; his advisers were divided in opinion: some, more courageous, were eager to fight, although Svyatopolk had only eight hundred people ready with weapons; others advised to be more careful, finally decided to ask Vladimir to help in the defense of the Kiev land from the Polovtsy.
Vladimir went with his retinue, also invited his brother Rostislav, who was reigning in Pereyaslavl. The militia of the three princes met on the banks of the Stugna River, and a council met there.
Vladimir was of the opinion that it was better, no matter how it was, to arrange peace, because the Polovtsy were then united by forces; the same was proved by a boyar named Yang and some others from the retinue, but the people of Kiev got excited and wanted to fight without fail. They gave in.
The militia crossed the Stugna River, went in three detachments, according to the three leading princes, passed Tripoli and stood between the ramparts. It was May 20, 1093.
Here the Polovtsy stepped on the Russians, proudly displaying their banners in their eyes. First they went to Svyatopolk, crushed him, then hit on Vladimir and Rostislav. The Russian princes had little strength in comparison with the enemy; they could not stand it and fled. Rostislav drowned while crossing the Stugna; Vladimir himself almost went to the bottom, rushing to save his drowning brother. The body of the drowned man was brought to Kiev and buried near St. Sophia. The death of Rostislav was attributed to God's punishment for a cruel act with the monk of the Caves, the elder Gregory. Having met this elder, who was then said to have the gift of foresight, Rostislav asked him: what would cause his death. Elder Gregory answered: from the water. Rostislav did not like this, and he ordered Grigory to be thrown into the Dnieper; and for this atrocity, as they said, Rostislav suffered death from water.
The matter did not end there. The Polovtsy reached Kiev and between Kiev and Vyshgorod at the Zhelani tract, another time they brutally defeated the Russians of the same year on July 23.
After this victory, the Polovtsy scattered throughout the Russian villages and captured many people. A contemporary in sharp terms described the condition of the poor Russians, who were driven in droves by enemies to their lodges: “Sad, exhausted, exhausted by hunger and thirst, naked and barefoot, black from dust, with bloodied feet, with sad faces, they went into captivity and spoke to each other : I am from such and such a city, I am from such and such a village, they talked about their relatives and with tears raised their eyes to heaven to the Almighty, who leads all secrets.
In the next year 1094, Svyatopolk thought to stop the disasters of the Russian people, made peace with the Polovtsy and married the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan Tugorkan. But this year was no less difficult for the Russian land: the locust destroyed the bread and grass in the fields, and the relationship of the Kiev prince with the Polovtsian did not save Russia from the Polovtsy either. When some Polovtsy put up and became related to the Russians, others led his inexorable rival Oleg to Vladimir. Oleg, sent by the Byzantines to Rhodes, did not stay there for long. In 1093, he was already in Tmutarakan, expelled two princes from there, as unemployed as he was (David Igorevich and Volodar Rostislavich), and sat quietly in this city for some time, but in 1094, having invited the Polovtsy, he set off to mine that land where his father ruled. Vladimir did not fight him, he voluntarily ceded Chernigov to him, probably because in Chernigov, as before, there were supporters of Oleg. Vladimir himself went to Pereyaslavl.
At that time, as can be seen, the character of Vladimir had already fully developed and the idea had matured in him to act not for his own personal benefits, but for the benefit of the entire Russian land, as far as he could understand its benefit; the main thing is to save the Russian land from the Polovtsy by energetically united forces. Until now, we have seen that Vladimir, as far as possible, tried to arrange peace between the Russians and the Polovtsy, but from now on he becomes a constant and implacable enemy of the Polovtsy, fights against them, moves all the Russian princes against them and with them all the forces of the Russian lands . He opened this enmity by an act with two Polovtsian princes: Kitan and Itlar. These princes arrived at Pereyaslavl to negotiate peace, of course, with the intention of breaking this peace, as was done before. Kitan stood between the ramparts outside the city, and Itlar with the most distinguished persons arrived in the city: from the Russian side, Vladimir's son Svyatoslav went hostage to the Polovtsy.
At the same time, Slavyata, a resident of Kiev, arrived from Svyatopolk and began to advise killing Itlar, who had come to the Russians. At first, Vladimir did not dare to commit such treachery, but Vladimir’s warriors approached Slavyata and said: “It is not a sin that we break the oath, because they themselves take an oath, and then they destroy the Russian land and shed Christian blood.”
Slavyata with Russian fellows undertook to penetrate into the Polovtsian camp outside the city and bring out Monomakhov's son Svyatoslav, who had been sent to the Polovtsians as a hostage. Together with him, Torks took up this business (the people of the same tribe to which the Polovtsians belonged, but, being settled on Kievan soil, they faithfully served Russia). On the night of February 24, they not only happily freed Svyatoslav, but killed Kitan and killed his people.
Itlar was then in the courtyard of the boyar Ratibor; on the morning of February 24, Itlar and his retinue were invited to breakfast at Vladimir's; but as soon as the Polovtsians entered the hut, where they were called, the doors were closed behind them, and the son of the Ratibors, Olbeg, shot them from above through a hole made in the ceiling of the hut. After such a treacherous act, which the Russians justified by the fact that their enemies were just as treacherous, Vladimir began to convene the princes against the Polovtsy, including Oleg, from whom he demanded the extradition of the son of the murdered Itlar. Oleg did not betray him and did not go to the princes.
The Kiev prince Svyatopolk and Vladimir called Oleg to Kiev for advice on the defense of the Russian land. “Go to Kiev,” the princes told him, “here we will put order about the Russian land before the bishops, abbots, before the husbands of our fathers and before the city people, how we can defend the Russian land.” But Oleg arrogantly replied: "It is not proper for bishops, abbots and smerds to judge me" (that is, a peasant, translating into our way of expression).
Then the princes, who invited Oleg, sent him the following word from themselves: “If you don’t go to the infidels and don’t come to us for advice, then you think badly of us and want to help the filthy. Let God judge us.”
It was a declaration of war. So, instead of going to the Polovtsy with united forces, Vladimir had to go to war on his own. Vladimir and Svyatopolk expelled Oleg from Chernigov, besieged him in Starodub and kept him under siege until Oleg asked for peace. He was granted peace, but with the condition that he would certainly come to Kiev for advice. "Kiev," said the princes, "is the oldest city on Russian soil; there we must meet and put things in order." Both sides kissed the cross. This was in May 1096.
Meanwhile, the irritated Polovtsy made raids on Russia. The Polovtsian Khan Bonyak with his horde burned the environs of Kiev, and Svyatopolk's father-in-law Tugorkan, despite his kinship with the Kiev prince, laid siege to Pereyaslavl. Vladimir and Svyatopolk defeated him on May 19; Tugorkan himself fell in battle, and his son-in-law Svyatopolk brought the body of his father-in-law to Kiev: he was buried between two roads: one leading to Berestovo, and the other to the Pechersky Monastery. In July, Bonyak repeated his attack and on the 20th in the morning broke into the Caves Monastery. The monks, having stood for matins, rested in their cells; The Polovtsians broke down the gates, walked around the cells, took whatever they could get their hands on, burned the southern and northern church doors, entered the church, dragged icons from it and uttered insulting words over the Christian God and the law. Then the Polovtsians burned down the suburban princely courtyard, called the red one, built by Vsevolod on the Vydubych hill, where the Vydubitsky monastery was later built.
Oleg did not think to fulfill the contract and come to Kiev for the princely congress. Instead, he appeared in Smolensk (where then it is not known how his brother David sat down), gathered troops there and, having left from there, went down the Oka, struck at Murom, which went to the control of Monomakh's son Izyaslav, who was planted to reign in the neighboring Rostov land . (Oleg's father Svyatoslav, sitting in Chernigov, was at the same time reigning in Murom, and therefore Oleg considered Murom his fatherland). On September 6, 1096, Izyaslav was killed in a slaughter. Oleg took Murom and chained all the Rostov, Elozers and Suzdals found there: it is clear that Prince Izyaslav ruled the Murom with the help of the people of his land. In Murom and its volost, paganism still dominated at that time; the region was inhabited by the people of the Finnish tribe, the Muromoi, and held on to the princes only through the squad, which was probably the only Slavic population here at that time. In Rostov, Suzdal and Belozersk, on the contrary, the Slavic-Russian element had already taken root before, and these regions had their own local Russian population.
Oleg, having conquered Murom, took Suzdal and dealt harshly with its inhabitants: he took some captive, sent others to his cities and took away their property. Rostov surrendered to Oleg himself. Proud of his successes, Oleg began to subdue Novgorod, where another son of Monomakh, Mstislav, a young prince, very beloved by the Novgorodians, was in charge. The Novgorodians prevented Oleg's attempt and, before he could stand with the army on Novgorod land, they themselves went to him on Rostov-Suzdal land. Oleg fled from Suzdal, ordering in annoyance to burn the city behind him, and stopped in Murom. Mstislav was satisfied that he drove Oleg out of the Rostov-Suzdal land, which had never been the lot of either Oleg or his father; offered peace to Oleg and allowed him to communicate with his father. Mstislav was disposed to compliance with the fact that Oleg was his godfather. Oleg pretended to agree, while he himself thought of suddenly attacking his godson; but the Novgorodians found out about his intention in advance and, together with the Rostov and Belozersk, prepared for battle. The enemies met each other on the Kolaksha River in 1096. Oleg saw the unraveled banner of Vladimir Monomakh among the opponents, thought that Vladimir Monomakh himself had come with great strength to help his son, and fled. Mstislav followed in his footsteps with the Novgorodians and Rostovites, took Murom and Ryazan, dealt peacefully with the Muromians and Ryazanians, freed the people of the Rostov-Suzdal region, whom Oleg held captives in the cities of Murom and Ryazan; after that, Mstislav sent the following word to his rival: "Do not run any more, send a prayer to your brothers; they will not deprive you of the Russian land." Oleg promised to do as the winner suggested.
Monomakh dealt with his rival in a friendly manner, and his modern letter to Oleg remained a monument of his then relations with Oleg, very curious not only because it largely explains the personality of Prince Vladimir Monomakh, but also because in general it is one of the few examples of the then way of expression: “I was forced to write to you by my son, whom you baptized and who is now not far from you: he sent me his husband and a letter and says this: we will be reconciled and reconciled, and judgment has come to my brother; let us not be his avengers; let us entrust everything to God; let them stand before God, but we will not destroy the Russian land. I obeyed and wrote: whether you accept my writing with good or with reproach, your answer will show. Why, when they killed mine and your child before you, seeing his blood and his body, withered like a barely blossoming flower, why, standing over him, did not you delve into the thoughts of your soul and say: why did I do this? of the body of light caused sin to himself, and tears to his father and mother? Then you would have to repent to God, and write a letter of consolation to me and send my daughter-in-law to me ... she did you neither good nor evil; I would have mourned with her her husband and their wedding instead of wedding songs. I had not seen before their joy, nor their wedding; let her go as soon as possible, I will cry at the same time with her and plant her in her place, like a sad turtledove on a dry tree, and I myself will be comforted in God. So it was with our fathers. Judgment came to him from God, not from you! If you, having taken Moore, did not touch Rostov, but sent it to me, we would have settled; Judge for yourself, should you have sent to me or me to you? If you send me an ambassador or a priest and write your letter with the truth, then you will take your volost, and our heart will turn to you, and we will live better than before; I am not your enemy, not your avenger."
Then, finally, something that had been planned for a long time and could not come to fruition took place. Princes Svyatoslavichs - Oleg, David and Yaroslav, Kiev Svyatopolk, Vladimir Monomakh, Volyn prince David Igorevich and Chervonorussky princes Rostislavichs: Volodar and Vasilko gathered in the city of Lyubech. With them were their warriors and the people of their lands. The purpose of their meeting was to arrange and take measures to protect the Russian lands from the Polovtsians. Monomakh was in charge of everything.
“Why are we destroying the Russian land,” the princes said then, “why are we at enmity with each other? The Polovtsy are ruining the land; they rejoice that we are at war with each other.
At this congress, the princes decided that all of them owned their volosts: Svyatopolk, Kiev, Vladimir, the inheritance of his father Vsevolod: Pereyaslavl, Suzdal and Rostov; Oleg, David and Yaroslav - the inheritance of Svyatoslav, their father: the Seversk land and Ryazan; David Igorevich - Volyn, and Vasilko and Volodar - cities: Terebovl and Przemysl with their lands, which made up the region that would later be called Galicia. Everyone kissed the cross on the fact that if one of the princes attacked the other, then everyone would have to take up arms against the instigator of civil strife. "Let there be an honest cross on that and all the Russian land." That was their verdict at the time.
Until now, Vladimir was in the most friendly relations with Svyatopolk of Kiev. The latter was a man of limited mind and weak character, and obeyed Vladimir, as in general people of his qualities obey persons who are stronger in their will and more intelligent. But it is known that such people tend to suspect those whom they involuntarily obey. They are submissive to them, but in their hearts they hate them. David Igorevich was a sworn enemy of the Terebovl prince Vasilko and wanted to appropriate his land. Returning to Volyn from Lyubech through Kiev, he assured Svyatopolk that Vasilko and Vladimir had an evil intention to deprive Svyatopolk of Kiev land. Vasilko himself was a man of an enterprising nature; he had already led the Polovtsians to Poland; then, as he himself later admitted, he thought of going to the Polovtsy, but, according to him, he did not think of doing anything bad to the Russian princes.
Incited by David, Svyatopolk called Vasilko to his name day at a time when the latter, returning home from Lyubech, drove past Kiev and, without stopping in the city, stopped at the Vydubytsky monastery, having sent his wagon train ahead. One of Vasilko's servants, either suspecting treachery, or perhaps even warned by someone, did not advise his prince to go to Kiev: "They want to seize you," he said. But Vasilko hoped for a kiss on the cross, thought a little, crossed himself and drove off.
It was the morning of November 5th. Vasilko entered Svyatopolk's house and found David at his place. After the first greetings, they sat down. David was silent. "Stay with me for the holiday," said Svyatopolk. “I can’t, brother,” answered Vasilko, “I have already sent my convoy ahead.” - "Well, have breakfast with us," said Svyatopolk. Vasilko agreed. Then Svyatopolk said: "Sit here, and I'll go and order something to cook." Vasilko stayed with David and began to talk to him, but David was silent and seemed not to hear anything. Finally David asked the servants, "Where is the brother?" - "Stands on the passage," - they answered him. "I'll follow him, and you, brother, sit down," he said to Vasilko and went out. Immediately the servants put fetters on Vasilko and put guards on him. So the night passed.
The next day, Svyatopolk convened a veche of the boyars and people of Kiev land and said: "David says that Vasilko killed my brother Yaropolk and is now conferring with Vladimir; they want to kill me and take away my cities." The boyars and people of Kiev said: "You, prince, must protect your head. If David speaks the truth, let Vasilko be executed, and if not, then let David take revenge from God and answer to God."
The answer was ambiguous and evasive. The abbots were bolder and began to ask for Vasilko. Svyatopolk referred to David. Svyatopolk himself was ready to let Vasilko go free, but David advised to blind him and said: "If you let him go, then neither I nor you will reign." Svyatopolk hesitated, but then completely succumbed to David and agreed to the heinous crime.
The next night, Vasilko was taken in chains to Belgorod, led into a small hut. Vasilko saw that Torchin, who was traveling with him, began to sharpen a knife, guessed what was the matter, began to shout and cry to God with weeping. Two grooms entered: one Svyatopolkov, named Snovid Izechevich, the other Davidov - Dmitry; they spread the carpet and took up Cornflower to put him on the carpet. Vasilko began to fight them; he was strong; two could not handle it; others came to the rescue, tied him up, threw him down and, removing a board from the stove, laid him on his chest; the grooms sat on this board, but Vasilko threw them off him. Then two more people came up, removed another board from the stove, piled it on the prince, sat down on the board themselves and pressed it down so that Vasilko's bones cracked on his chest. Following this, Torchin Berenda, Svyatopolk's shepherd, proceeded to the operation: intending to stab him in the eye, he first missed and cut Vasilka's face, but then he successfully took out both of his eyes one by one. Vasilko lost his senses. They took him along with the carpet on which he lay, put him on a wagon and took him further along the road to Vladimir.
Passing through the city of Zvizhden, they brought him to some priest and gave her the bloody shirt of the prince to wash. Popadya washed, put on Vasilko and wept bitterly, touched by this sight. At this time, Vasilko woke up and shouted: "Where am I?" They answered him: "In Zvizhden city." - "Give me water!" Vasilko said. He was given water, he drank - and little by little he completely came to his senses, remembered what had happened to him and, feeling the shirt on himself, asked: "Why did they take it off? I would accept death in this bloody shirt and stand before God."
After dinner, the villains took him to Vladimir, where they arrived on the sixth day. David placed Vasilko in the courtyard of some Vladimir inhabitant of Vakey and assigned thirty watchmen to him under the command of his two princely youths, Ulan and Kolchka.
Vladimir Monomakh heard about this before other princes and was horrified. "This did not happen either with grandfathers or with our great-grandfathers," he said. He immediately called the Chernigov princes Oleg and David to a meeting in Gorodets. "It is necessary to correct the evil," he said, "otherwise there will be even greater evil, brother will begin to kill brother, and the Russian land will perish, and the Polovtsy will take the Russian land." David and Oleg Svyatoslavich were also horrified and said: "This has never happened before in our kind." Indeed, it did not happen: in the princely family, barbaric fratricides had happened before, but blindness had not yet happened. This kind of atrocity was brought to barbarian Russia by Greek education.
All three princes sent their husbands to Svyatopolk with the following word: “Why did you do evil in the Russian land, why did you throw a knife at your brother? Why did you blind your brother? him: he would be punished, and now tell me: what is his fault? Svyatopolk answered: “David Igorevich told me that Vasilko killed my brother Yaropolk and wants to kill me in order to seize my volost: Turov, Pinsk, Berestye and Pogorynye, he said that he had an oath with Vladimir: so that Vladimir would sit in Kiev, and Vasilka in the city of Vladimir. I involuntarily guarded my head. It was not I who blinded him, but David; he took him away to him."
"Do not excuse yourself with this," the princes answered, "David blinded him, but not in David's city, but in yours."
Vladimir with princes and squads wanted to cross the Dnieper against Svyatopolk; Svyatopolk was about to flee in fear, but the people of Kiev did not let him in and sent his stepmother and Metropolitan Nikolai to Vladimir with the following word:
"We beg you, Prince Vladimir, and together with you your brethren of princes, do not destroy the Russian land; if you start to fight among yourself, the filthy ones will rejoice and take our land, which your fathers and grandfathers acquired with labor and courage; they fought for the Russian land and acquired foreign lands, and you want to destroy the Russian land.
Vladimir greatly respected his stepmother and bowed to her prayers. "True," he said, "our fathers and grandfathers kept the Russian land, and we want to destroy it."
The princess, returning to Kiev, brought joyful news to the people of Kiev that Vladimir was leaning towards peace.
The princes stood on the left side of the Dnieper, in the forest, and were sent with Svyatopolk. Finally, their last word was this: "If this is David's crime, then let Svyatopolk go to David, let him either take him or drive him out of the reign."
Svyatopolk kissed the cross to act at the request of Vladimir and his comrades.
The princes were going to go to David, and David, having learned about this, began to try to get along with Vasilko and force him
At night, David called for some Basil, whose story is included in the chronicle in its entirety. David said to him:
“Vasilko that night told Ulan and Kolchka that he wanted to send his husband from himself to Prince Vladimir. I send you, Vasily, to go to your namesake and tell him from me: if you send your husband to Vladimir and Vladimir returns, I will give whatever city you want: either Vsevolozh, or Shepel, or Peremil. Vasily went to Vasilko and gave him David's speech. “I didn’t say anything like that,” Vasilko said, “but I’m ready to send a husband so that they don’t shed blood because of me; it’s only marvelous that David gives me his cities, and my Terebovl is with him. Go to David and tell him to send Kulmeya to me. I will send him to Prince Vladimir." Vasily went to David and, returning, said that Kulmei was not there.
Vasilko said: "Sit with me for a while." He ordered the servant to go out and said to Vasily:
“I hear that David wants to give me to the Poles, he has not yet had enough of my blood; he wants to drink it even more. I did a lot of evil to the Poles and wanted to do more and take revenge on them for the Russian land. only you in truth. God punished me for my arrogance; news came to me that Berendichi, Pechenegs, Torks were coming to me, and I said to myself in my mind: how will I have Berendichi, Pechenegs, Torks, I will tell my brother Volodar and David: give me your smaller squad, and drink to yourselves and be merry; in the winter I will go to the Lyakh land, and in the summer I will conquer the Lyakh land and avenge the Russian land. Then I wanted to take possession of the Danube Bulgarians and settle them with me, and then I wanted to ask Svyatopolk and Vladimir to go against the Polovtsy: either I will find glory for myself, or I will lay down my head for the Russian land; there was no other thought in my heart either for Svyatopolk or for David. I swear by God and his coming, I did not think of any evil, brothers; but for my exaltation God brought me down and with reconciled!" It is not known how these relations between David and Vasilko ended, but, probably, Vasilko stopped Vladimir, because this year there was no attack from him on David. Easter came. David did not release Vasilko and, on the contrary, wanted to capture the parish of the blinded; he went there with an army, but Volodar met him at Bozhsk. David was as much a coward as he was a villain. He did not dare to fight and locked himself in Bozhsk. Volodar laid siege to him and sent such a word to him: "Why did you do evil and still do not repent. Come to your senses!" - “Did I do it,” answered David, “did it happen in my city? Blame Svyatopolk: I was afraid that they would not take me and do the same to me; involuntarily I had to stick to him in council, was at in his hands."
Volodar did not contradict him, trying only to help his brother out of captivity. "God is a witness to all this," he sent to David to say, "and you let my brother out, and I will be reconciled with you."
David was delighted, ordered to bring the blind man and gave him to Volodar. They made peace and dispersed.
But the next spring (1098) Volodar and Vasilko marched against David with an army. They approached the city of Vsevolozh, took it by storm and set it on fire; the inhabitants fled, Vasilko ordered them all to be exterminated and avenged himself innocent people, the chronicler notes, Vasilko showed that although he was unhappy, he did not at all love the Russian land to the extent that he spoke. The brothers approached Vladimir. Cowardly David locked himself in it. The prince brothers sent the following word to the people of Vladimir:
"We did not come to your city and not to you, but we came to our enemies: to Turyak, Lazar and Vasily, - they persuaded David; he listened to them and did evil. If you want to fight for them, - and we are ready; and If you don't want to, then betray our enemies."
Vladimir citizens gathered at the veche and said to David:
“Extend these men, we don’t fight for them; we can fight for you; if you don’t extradite, we will open the city, and you look after yourself as you know.”
David answered: "They are not here, I sent them to Lutsk; Turyak fled to Kiev, Vasily and Lazar in Turiysk."
"Extend whoever they want," shouted the townspeople, "otherwise, we'll surrender!"
David had nothing to do. He sent for his favorites: Vasily and Lazarus, and betrayed them.
The Rostislavichi brothers hanged Vasily and Lazar in front of the city at dawn, and the sons of Vasilko shot them with arrows. Having executed the execution, they retreated from the city.
After this massacre, Svyatopolk went to David, who still hesitated to execute the princely sentence to punish David for his atrocity. David sought help from Polish prince Vladislav German, but the latter took money from him for help and did not help. After a seven-week siege in Vladimir, David surrendered and left for Poland.
On Great Saturday 1098 Svyatopolk entered Vladimir. Having mastered Volhynia, the prince of Kiev thought that it would not be a bad thing to take possession of the volosts of Rostislavich in the same way, for which he started a war with David. Volodar, warning the attack, went out against the prince of Kiev and took his blind brother with him. Enemies met at the tract called Rozhnovo field. When the ratis were ready to strike against each other, blind Vasilko suddenly appeared with a cross in his hand and shouted, turning his speech to Svyatopolk:
"Here is the cross that you kissed before you took my sight! Now you want to take my soul from me. This honest cross will judge us!"
A fierce battle ensued. The Rostislavs won. Svyatopolk fled to Vladimir. The winners did not chase after him. "It's enough for us to stand on our own boundary," they said.
Then the Rostislavichs and their enemy David had a common task: to defend themselves from Svyatopolk, especially since the Kiev prince did not think of leaving them alone and, having planted one of his sons, Mstislav, in Vladimir-Volynsky, he sent another, Yaroslav, to Ugrian (Hungarians) to move them against Volodar, and he himself went to Kiev, probably planning to plant this same Yaroslav in the inheritance of the Rostislavichs, driving out the latter, just as he had already kicked out David. Svyatopolk wanted to take advantage of the enmity that broke out between David and the Rostislavichs in order to deliver possessions to their sons at their expense. David arrived from Poland and met with Volodar. The sworn enemies reconciled, and David left his wife with Volodar, and he went to hire the Polovtsian horde, which was ruled by the warlike and ferocious Khan Bonyak. Probably, David managed to convince Volodar that, in fact, the fault of the atrocity committed against Vasilko was not him, but Svyatopolk.
Volodar was in Przemysl. The Hungarians came with their king Koloman, invited by Yaroslav Svyatopolkovich, and laid siege to Przemysl. Fortunately for Volodar, David did not have to travel far for the Polovtsy: he met Bonyak somewhere nearby and brought him to Przemysl.
On the eve of the expected battle with the Hungarians, Bonyak rode away from the troops in the field at midnight and began to howl like a wolf. He was echoed by the voices of many wolves. Such was the Polovtsian divination. "Tomorrow," Bonyak said, "we will defeat the Ugric." The wild prediction of the Polovtsian Khan came true. "Bonyak," says a contemporary chronicler, "knocked the Ugrians into a ball the way a falcon knocks down jackdaws." The Hungarians fled. Many of them drowned in Vagra and Sana. David moved to Vladimir and took possession of the Vladimir parish. In the city itself, Mstislav Svyatopolkovich was sitting with an ambush (garrison) consisting of residents of the Vladimir suburbs: Berestyans, Pinyans and Vygoshevites. David began to make attacks: arrows rained down from both sides: the besiegers were closed by movable veils (towers); the besieged stood on the walls behind boards; that was the way of war then. In one of these skirmishes, on June 12, 1099, an arrow through the well of the board hit Prince Mstislav to death. The besieged after his death endured a painful siege until August, finally Svyatopolk sent an army to their rescue. August 5 David could not resist the battle with the sent army and fled to the Polovtsy. The winners briefly took possession of Vladimir and Lutsk. David, having come with Bonyak, took both of them from them.
Monomakh's intention to unite the princes in a single cause against the Polovtsy not only did not lead to the desired goal, but, on the contrary, led to a long-term war between the princes; for the Russian land, grief multiplied from this. However, the next year, 1100, Monomakh still managed to again arrange a meeting between the princes and convince David Igorevich to surrender to the princely court. David himself sent ambassadors to the princes on this matter. Unfortunately, we do not know the details of the preparations for this case. On August 10, the princes: Vladimir Monomakh, Svyatopolk, Oleg and his brother David met in Vitichevo, and twenty days later, on August 30, they met again at the same place, and even then David Igorevich was with them.
"Who has a complaint against me?" - asked David Igorevich. “You sent us,” said Vladimir, “announcing that you want to complain to us for your offense. Now you are sitting with your brother on the same carpet. Who do you have a complaint about?” David didn't answer.
Then the princes mounted their horses and stood apart, each with his squad. David Igorevich sat apart. The princes discussed David: first, each prince with his retinue, and then they consulted among themselves and sent men to David from each prince. These men spoke to David like this:
“This is what the brothers tell you: we don’t want to give you the Vladimir table for throwing a knife between us, for doing something that has never happened in Russian land: but we don’t take you into captivity, we don’t do anything bad to you, sit yourself in Buzhsk and Ostrog; Svyatopolk gives you Duben and Czartorisk, and Vladimir gives you 200 hryvnias, and Oleg and David give you 200 hryvnias." Then the princes sent the following word to Volodar: "Take your brother Vasilko to you; Przemysl will be both of you. If you want, live together, but if you don’t want, let Vasilko go to us; we will feed him!"
Volodar angrily accepted such an offer; Svyatopolk and the Svyatoslavichi wanted to expel the Rostislavichi from their volost and sent Vladimir to invite Vladimir to participate in this enterprise, who, after the congress in Vitichev, went to his northern regions and was on the Volga when a call came to him from Svyatopolk to go to the Rostislavichi: "If you do not go with us, then we will be on our own, and you will be on your own. It can be seen that even at the Vitichev Congress, Vladimir did not get along with the princes and did not quite approve of their decisions: “I can’t go to the Rostislavichs,” he answered them, “and violate the kiss of the cross. If you don’t like the latter, accept the former” (vol. e. Decreed in Lyubech). Vladimir was then grieved, as the words in his spiritual book, concerning the described event, also show. On this occasion, he considered it appropriate to quote an expression from the psalter: "Do not be jealous of the evil ones, do not envy those who do iniquity!" In fact, what the princes ended their civil strife represented little justice. Vladimir did not contradict them in many ways, because he wanted to end the civil strife in any way in order to gather the forces of the Russian lands against the common enemies of the Polovtsians.
Svyatopolk, as a prince of Kiev, wanted, like his predecessors, power over Novgorod, and for this he wanted to plant his son in Novgorod, meanwhile, Monomakh's son Mstislav was already prince there. Vladimir yielded to Svyatopolk, and instead of the reign of Novgorod, Svyatopolk promised Vladimirskoe to Mstislav.
Monomakh summoned Mstislav from Novgorod to Kiev, but after Mstislav the Novgorod ambassadors arrived and delivered the following speech to Svyatopolk:
“They who sent us told us to say: we don’t want Svyatopolk and his son; if he has two heads, then send him. Vsevolod gave us Mstislav, we fed him, and you, Svyatopolk, left us.”
Svyatopolk could not argue with them and was not able to force the Novgorodians to fulfill his will. Mstislav returned to Novgorod again. Novgorod, due to its location behind impregnable swamps and dense forests, felt safe. Neither Polovtsy nor Polovtsy could be brought there; it was impossible to capture Novgorod with foreign help.
Since then, Vladimir has continuously turned his activities to protecting the Russian land from the Polovtsy. In 1101, Vladimir raised the princes against them, but the Polovtsians, having heard about the gathering of the Russian princes, simultaneously sent a request for peace from different hordes. The Russians agreed to peace, ready to punish the Polovtsy for their first treachery. In 1103, this peace was violated by the Polovtsy, and Monomakh prompted the Russian princes to undertake the first offensive campaign against the Polovtsian land with united forces. In the annals, this campaign is described with great sympathy, and it is clear that he made an impression on his contemporaries. The Kiev prince with his retinue and Vladimir with his converged on Dolobsk (on the left side of the Dnieper near Kiev). The princes conferred in a tent. Svyatopolkov's squad was against the campaign. Then such voices were heard: "Now it's spring, how can you tear the stink from the arable land; he needs to plow."
But Vladimir objected to this: “It’s amazing that you don’t feel sorry for the smerd, but feel sorry for the horse on which he plows. He will take his children in full."
Svyatopolk's team could not object to this, and Svyatopolk said: "I'm ready."
"You will do a lot of good," Monomakh told him. After the Dolobsky meeting, the princes began to invite the Chernigov princes to take part in the campaign, and other princes after them. David obeyed, and Oleg excused himself with ill health. He reluctantly quarreled with the Polovtsy, who helped him take Chernigov, and perhaps he hoped that friendship with them would be useful to him and his children. The Polotsk prince David Vseslavich arrived with his retinue, and some other princes also arrived. The Russians marched on horseback and on foot: the latter on boats along the Dnieper to Khortitsa. After a four-day journey through the steppe from Khortitsa at the tract called Suten, the Russians met the Polovtsy on April 4 and defeated them utterly. The Polovtsy lost up to twenty princes. One of their princes Beldyuz was taken prisoner and offered a large ransom for himself in gold, silver, horses and cattle, but Vladimir told him: “Many times you delivered an agreement with us, and then went to fight the Russian land; why didn’t you teach your sons and not break the treaty and shed Christian blood?" He then ordered to kill Beldyuz and dissect his body into members. The Russians then recruited many sheep, cattle, camels and slaves.
In 1107, the warlike Bonyak and the old Polovtsian prince Sharukan decided to take revenge on the Russians for their previous defeat, but were utterly defeated near Lubny. In 1109, Vladimir sent the governor Dimitry Ivorovich to the Don: the Russians inflicted great ruin on the Polovtsian towers. For this, the next year, the Polovtsy devastated the environs of Pereyaslavl, and the next year Vladimir again undertook a campaign with the princes, which, more than all others, was clothed with glory in the eyes of his contemporaries. Tradition associated miraculous omens with him. They say that on February 11, at night, a pillar of fire appeared over the Pechersk Monastery: first, it stood over the stone refectory, moved from there to the church, then stood over the tomb of Theodosius, finally rose towards the east and disappeared. This phenomenon was accompanied by lightning and thunder. The scholars explained that it was an angel announcing victory over the infidels to the Russians. In the spring, Vladimir and his sons, Prince Svyatopolk of Kiev with his son, Yaroslav and David and their son went to Sula in the second week of Lent, crossed Psel, Vorskla, and on March 23 came to the Don, and on Good Monday they defeated the Polovtsians on the Salnitsa River and returned back with a lot of booty and captives. Then, says the chronicle, the fame of the exploits of the Russians passed to all peoples: Greeks, Poles, Czechs, and even reached Rome. Since then, the Polovtsy have ceased to disturb the Russian land for a long time.
In 1113, Svyatopolk died, and the people of Kiev, having gathered at a veche, elected Vladimir Monomakh as their prince; but Vladimir hesitated; meanwhile, the people of Kiev, dissatisfied with the requisitions of their late prince, attacked the house of his favorite Putyata and plundered the Jews, whom Svyatopolk indulged during his reign and trusted the collection of income. On another occasion, the people of Kiev sent ambassadors to Vladimir with the following speech: “Go, prince, to Kiev, but if you don’t go, they will plunder the princess Svyatopolkova, and the boyars, and the monasteries; and you will answer if the monasteries are robbed.” Vladimir arrived in Kiev and sat down on the table for the election of the Kiev land.
The time of his reign until his death, which followed in 1125, was the most flourishing period in the ancient history of Kievan Rus. Neither the Polovtsy nor any other foreigners disturbed the Russian people. On the contrary, Vladimir himself sent his son Yaropolk to the Don, where he conquered three cities from the Polovtsy and brought himself a wife, the daughter of a Yassky prince, an extraordinary beauty. Another son of Vladimir, Mstislav, with the Novgorodians, defeated Chud on the Baltic coast, the third son, Yuri, defeated the Bulgarians on the Volga. The specific princes did not dare to start civil strife, obeyed Monomakh and, in case of obstinacy, felt his strong hand. Vladimir forgave the first attempts to disturb the order and severely punished the secondary ones. So, for example, when Gleb Mstislavich, one of the Kriv princes, attacked Slutsk and burned it, Vladimir went to war against Gleb, but Gleb bowed to Vladimir, asked for peace, and Vladimir left him to reign in Minsk; but a few years later, probably for the same offense, Vladimir took Gleb out of Minsk, where he died. Similarly, in 1118, Vladimir, having gathered the princes, went to the Volyn prince Yaroslav Svyatopolkovich, and when Yaroslav submitted to him and struck him with his forehead, he left him in Vladimir, telling him: "Always go when I call you." But then Yaroslav attacked the Rostislavichs and brought Poles on them; besides, he mistreated his wife; Vladimir was angry with him for that too. Vladimir expelled Yaroslav, giving Vladimir-Volynsky to his son Andrei. Yaroslav attempted to return Vladimir to himself with the help of the Poles, Hungarians and Czechs, but did not succeed, and was treacherously killed by the Poles.
Monomakh's affairs with Greece were not so successful. He gave his daughter to Leon, the son of the Byzantine emperor Diogenes, but after that a coup took place in Byzantium. Diogenes was overthrown by Alexios Komnenos. With the help of his father-in-law, Leon wanted to acquire an independent region in the Greek possessions on the Danube, but was killed by assassins sent by Komnenos. Leon left his son, for whom Monomakh wanted to acquire the same property in Greece, which Leon sought, and at first the voivode Vladimirov Voytishich, planted Vladimir's posadniks in the Greek Danube cities, but the Greeks drove them away, and in 1122 Vladimir reconciled with Alexei's successor, John Komnenos and gave his granddaughter, the daughter of Mstislav, for him.
Vladimir Monomakh is a legislator in Russian history. Even earlier, during the reign of Yaroslav's children, Russkaya Pravda included important changes and additions. The most important of the changes was that vengeance for murder was eliminated, and instead the penalty of payment of the vir was introduced. This led to the complication of legislation and the establishment of many articles relating to various cases of offenses and crimes that entailed the payment of vir in various amounts. In this way, various sizes Viral payments were appointed for various kinds of insults and beatings inflicted by some persons on others, as well as for the theft of various objects. Regardless of the vira payment for some crimes, such as robbery and incendiary, the guilty person was subjected to flood and plunder, an ancient folk way of punishing the criminal. The murder of a thief was not considered murder if it was committed during the theft itself, when the thief had not yet been caught. Under Monomakh, at a council called by him and composed of thousands of people: Kiev, Belogorod, Pereyaslav and people of his squad, several important articles were decided that tended to protect the well-being of the inhabitants. Arbitrary collection of cuts (interest) was limited, which under Svyatopolk reached great abuses and caused, after the death of this prince, the persecution of the Jews, who were usurers. Under Vladimir, it was established that a usurer can only take interest three times, and if he takes three times, he already loses his capital. In addition, the permitted percentage was set: 10 kunas per hryvnia, which was about a third or more, if the mentioned hryvnia is taken as hryvnia kuna 2.
Frequent wars and invasions of the Polovtsians ruined capitals, insolvent debtors appeared, and under the guise of them there were also rogues. Trade enterprises exposed the merchant to dangers; from this those who gave him money were also in danger of losing their capital. Hence and high interest . Some merchants took goods from other merchants without paying money for them in advance, but paid according to the proceeds with interest; there have been scams about this. Under Vladimir, a distinction was made between that unpaid merchant who inadvertently suffers from fire, from water, or from the enemy, and one who spoils someone else's goods, or drinks it, or "breaks through", that is, starts a fight, and then will have to pay a vira or "sale" (the lowest kind of vira). In case of insolvency of a merchant, one should take into account: from what reason he became insolvent. In the first cases, that is, in case of an accidental ruin, the merchant was not subjected to violence, although he was not released from paying the debt. Some took capital from various persons, as well as from princes. In the event of the insolvency of such a merchant, he was led to an auction and his property was sold. At the same time, the guest, that is, a person from another city or a foreigner, had primacy over other lenders, and after him the prince, then other lenders received the rest. The raids of the Polovtsians, procensing, the greed of the princes and their officials - all contributed to the fact that the mass of the people multiplied the poor, who, not being able to feed themselves, went as mercenaries to the rich. These people were then called "purchases". On the one hand, these purchases, having taken money from the owner, ran away from him, and on the other hand, the owners charged them with various household expenses and, on this basis, oppressed and even enslaved. Monomakh's law allowed the purchaser to complain about the owner to the prince or judges, imposed a certain penalty for insults and harassment done to him, protected him from the master's claims in case of loss or damage to any thing, when in fact the purchaser was not to blame; but on the other hand, he threatened the purchase with complete slavery if he ran away without fulfilling the conditions. In addition to purchases serving in the yards of the owners, there were purchases "role" (settled on the lands and obliged to work by the owner). They received plows and harrows from the owner, which shows the impoverishment of the people; the owners often found fault with such purchases under the pretext that they spoiled the agricultural implements given to them, and enslaved free people. Hence the need arose to determine who exactly should be considered a serf. The legislation of Vladimir Monomakh defined only three cases of turning into serfs: the first case, when a person voluntarily sold himself into serfs, or when the master sold him on the basis of previous rights over him. But such a purchase must necessarily be made in the presence of witnesses. The second case of conversion into slavery is the marriage of a woman of slave origin (it probably happened that women sought liberation from slavery through marriage). The third case is when a free person, without any contract, becomes an official of a private person (tyunism without a row, or binds a key to himself without a row). Probably, this was decided because some people, having taken office, allowed themselves various disorders and deceptions, and, for lack of conditions, the owners could not seek justice against them. Only people numbered here could be turned into slaves. For debts it was impossible to turn into serfs, and anyone who could not pay could work off his debt and leave. Apparently, prisoners of war were also not made serfs, because this is not mentioned in Russkaya Pravda when listing cases of slavery. The serf was closely connected with the master: the lord paid his debts, and also paid the price of what was stolen by his serf. Previously, under Yaroslav, for beatings inflicted by a serf on a free person, the serf should have been killed, but now it was decided that in this case the master paid a penalty for the slave. A serf could not be a witness at all, but when there was no free person, then the serf's testimony was also accepted if he was an official with his master. Vira was not supposed for a serf and a slave, but the murder of a serf or a slave without guilt was punishable by payment to the prince of the "sale". According to some sources, the decrees on inheritance should be attributed to the times of Monomakh.
In general, according to the then Russian customary law, all sons inherited equally, and daughters were obliged to give a dowry upon marriage; the younger son got his father's court. Each, however, was allowed to dispose of his property by will. In the inheritance rights of boyars and combatants and in the rights of smerds, there was such a difference that the inheritance of boyars and combatants in no case passed to the prince, and the inheritance of a smerd (a simple farmer) went to the prince if the smerd died childless. Zhenya's estate remained inviolable for her husband. If the widow did not marry, then she remained a full mistress in the house of her late husband, and the children could not remove her. A married woman enjoyed the same legal rights as a man. For the murder or insult inflicted on her, the same vira was paid as for the murder or insult inflicted on a man.
The place of court in ancient times was: the princely court and the market, and this means that there was a princely court, but there was also a people's court - veche, and, probably, the decrees of Russian Truth, which had mainly in mind the observance of princely interests, did not embrace all veche court, which adhered to the old customs and considerations inspired by these cases. The evidence at the trial was: the testimony of witnesses, the oath, and, finally, the test with water and iron; but when the latter was introduced, we do not know.
The era of Vladimir Monomakh was the heyday of the state of artistic and literary activity in Russia. In Kiev and in other cities, new stone churches were erected, decorated with paintings: for example, under Svyatopolk, the Mikhailovsky Golden-Domed Monastery was built in Kiev, the walls of which still exist, and near Kiev - the Vydubitsky Monastery on the site where Vsevolod's country yard was; in addition, before his death, Vladimir built a beautiful church on Alta, on the spot where Boris was killed. The compilation of our original chronicle dates back to this time. Abbot Sylvester (circa 1115) combined the previously existing passages into one code and, probably, he himself added to them legends about the events that he witnessed. Among the works included in his collection were the writings of the chronicler of the Caves Monastery Nestor, which is why the entire Sylvestrov annalistic collection later in the scientific world bore the name of the Nestor Chronicle, although incorrectly, because far from everything in it was written by Nestor, and moreover, not everything could be written just one person. The idea of describing events and arranging them sequentially over the years came about as a result of my acquaintance with the Byzantine chroniclers, some of whom, for example, Amartol and Malala, were then known in Slavic translation. Sylvester laid the foundation for Russian chronicle writing and showed the way to others after him. His collection was continued by other chroniclers over the years and branched into many branches, according to the various lands of the Russian world, which had their own separate history. The immediate and closest continuation of the Sylvester chronicle was the chronicle, dealing mainly with the Kiev events and written in Kiev by different people who replaced one another. This chronicle is called "Kievskaya"; it captures the time of Monomakh, goes through the entire XII century and is interrupted by the events of the initial years of the XIII century. During the time of Monomakh, much of Byzantine literature was probably translated, as the accidentally surviving manuscripts show, which are attributed precisely to the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th century. From our original chronicle it is clear that Russian literate people could read in their own language Old Testament and the lives of various saints. At the same time, according to the model of Byzantine biographers, they began to compose the lives of Russian people, who were respected for the sanctity of life and death. So, at that time, the life of the first founders of the Caves monastery was already written: Anthony and Theodosius, and it was laid by the Monk Nestor, the Pechora chronicler, the beginning of the Paterik, or collection of the lives of the Caves saints, a work that, expanding in volume from new additions, subsequently constituted one of favorite reading subjects of godly people. In the same period, the lives of St. Olga and St. Vladimir were written by the monk Jacob, as well as two different narratives about the death of princes Boris and Gleb, one of which is attributed to the same monk Jacob. From a contemporary of Monomakhov, Metropolitan Nikifor of Kiev, a Greek by birth, only one Word and three Epistles remain: two of them are addressed to Vladimir Monomakh, of which one is accusatory against the Latins. Then the division of the churches was finally formed; enmity prevailed between the writers of one and the other church, and the Greeks tried to instill in the Russians their hatred and malice towards the Western Church. Another contemporary of Monomakh, hegumen Daniel, traveled to Jerusalem and left a description of this journey for himself. Undoubtedly, in addition to original and translated works of strictly religious literature, at that time in Russia there was also poetic original literature, which more or less bore the imprint of ancient paganism. In a poetic monument of the end of the 12th century that accidentally survived: "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" mentions the singer Boyan, who glorified the events of antiquity and, by the way, the events of the 11th century; according to some signs, it can be assumed that Boyan also sang the exploits of Monomakh against the Polovtsy. This Boyan was so respected that posterity called him the Nightingale of the old time. Monomakh himself wrote "Instruction to his children", or the so-called Spiritual. In it, Monomakh sets out in detail the events of his life, his campaigns, his hunting for wild horses (bison?), boars, aurochs, elks, bears, his way of life, activities in which his tireless activity is visible. Monomakh gives his children advice on how to behave. These tips, in addition to general Christian moralizing, supported by many extracts from the Holy Scriptures, testifying to the author's erudition, contain several curious features, both for the personality of Monomakh's character and for his age. He does not at all order the princes to execute anyone by death. "Even if the criminal were worthy of death," says Monomakh, "then one should not destroy souls." It can be seen that the princes at that time were not surrounded by royal grandeur and were available to everyone who needed them before: "Let those who come to you not laugh at your house or your dinner." Monomakh teaches children to do everything themselves, to delve into everything, not to rely on tiuns and youths. He bequeaths them to judge and protect widows, orphans and the poor, to prevent the strong from destroying the weak, orders to feed and water all who come to them. He considers hospitality to be the first virtue: “Most of all, honor the guest, no matter where he comes to you: whether he is an ambassador, whether a noble person or a simple one, treat everyone with a meal and drink, and if possible, with gifts. This will make a person famous in all lands, " bequeaths them to visit the sick, pay the last debt to the dead, remembering that everyone is mortal, caress everyone they meet with a kind word, love their wives, but not give them power over themselves, honor their elders as fathers, and the younger ones as brothers, turn to spiritual ones for blessing , by no means be proud of their rank, remembering that everything is entrusted to them by God for a short time, and not to bury wealth in the earth, considering this a great sin. Regarding the war, Monomakh advises children not to rely on the governor, to dress up the guards themselves, not to indulge in feasts and sleep on a campaign, and during sleep on a campaign not to take off their weapons, but when passing with an army through Russian lands, in no case should they be allowed to harm the inhabitants in the villages or spoil the bread in the fields. Finally, he tells them to study and read, and gives the example of his father, Vsevolod, who, sitting at home, learned five languages.
Monomakh died near Pereyaslavl near his beloved church, built on Alta, on May 19, 1125, at the age of seventy-two. His body was brought to Kiev. His sons and boyars carried him to St. Sophia, where he was buried. Monomakh left behind the memory of the best of the princes. “All the evil intentions of the enemies,” says the chronicler, “God gave under his hands; adorned with a good disposition, glorious with victories, he did not exalt himself, did not magnify himself, according to the commandment of God, he did good to his enemies and, more than measure, was merciful to the poor and wretched, not sparing of his possessions, but distributing everything to those in need." The monks glorified him for his piety and generosity to the monasteries. It was this complacency, combined in him with energetic activity and intelligence, that lifted him so high both in the eyes of his contemporaries and in the memory of posterity.
Probably, folk epic songs about the times of the Kiev prince Vladimir the Red Sun, the so-called epics of the Vladimir cycle, refer not only to Vladimir the Holy, but also to Vladimir Monomakh, so that in the poetic memory of the people these two faces merged into one. Our assumption can be confirmed by the following: in the Novgorod Chronicle under 1118, Vladimir and his son Mstislav, who reigned in Novgorod, called from Novgorod for unrest and robberies and imprisoned Sotsky Stavr with several of his accomplices, the Novgorod boyars. Between the epics of the Vladimir cycle there is one epic about Stavr the boyar, whom the Kiev prince Vladimir planted in the cellar (cellars served as prisons at that time), but Stavr was freed by his wife, dressed in a man's dress. The name of Vladimir Monomakh was so respected by his descendants that a fairy tale was subsequently compiled that the Byzantine emperor sent him signs of royal dignity, a crown and barmas, and several centuries after him, the Moscow sovereigns were crowned with a crown, which they called Monomakh's "hat".
Arguing impartially, it is impossible not to notice that Monomakh in his instructions and in the passages of the chroniclers about him is more impeccable and complacent than in his actions, in which the vices of the time, upbringing and environment in which he lived are visible. Such, for example, is the act of two Polovtsian princes, who were killed in violation of the given word and the rights of hospitality; bequeathing to his sons moderation in war and philanthropy, Monomakh himself, however, casually admits that during the capture of Minsk, in which he participated, neither servants nor cattle were left alive. Finally, although he cared about the Russian land, he did not forget himself and, punishing the really guilty princes, took away their inheritances and gave them to his sons. But behind him in history there will remain that great significance that, living in a society that was barely emerging from the most barbaric state, moving in an environment where everyone was chasing narrow selfish goals, still almost not understanding the sanctity of law and contract, Monomakh alone held the banner of the common for all the truth and gathered the forces of the Russian land for him.
The culture of Russia in the era of political fragmentation.
From the second third of the XIII century. due to fragmentation, the cultural development of individual Russian lands and principalities began to acquire its own specifics. New centers of Russian chronicle writing emerged. Thus, the annals of the centers of Southern Russia are most reflected in the Ipatiev Chronicle (end of the 13th century), the North-Eastern - the Laurentian Chronicle (beginning of the 14th century), the Radziwill Chronicle and the chronicler of Pereyaslavl of Suzdal (XIII century).
At the end of the XII century. one of the remarkable works of world medieval literature "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" was created. It is dedicated to the above-mentioned unsuccessful campaign against the Polovtsians in 1185 by Prince Igor Svyatoslavich of Novgorod-Seversky. The fact that it was this campaign that served as the reason for the creation of such a work is not accidental. A number of circumstances - the eclipse of the sun that accompanied the campaign, despite which Igor continued the campaign, the death of soldiers and the capture of the few survivors, the escape of the prince from captivity - made a strong impression on his contemporaries. In addition to the "Word ...", two lengthy stories are dedicated to them, which have come down to us in the annals.
“The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” in the form that has come down to us was probably written in the autumn of 1188. It is assumed that the basis of the text was created as early as 1185, shortly after Igor’s escape from captivity, and in 1188 additions were made to the manuscript in connection with the return from captivity of the brother and son Igor. Attempts by historians and philologists to establish the authorship of the "Words ..." have been going on for almost two centuries, but so far have not been successful. The main idea of the “Word…” is the necessity of the unity of actions of the Russian princes in the face of external danger. An obstacle to this is princely strife and internecine wars. At the same time, the author of the Lay is not a supporter of a single state: he takes the division of Russia into principalities under the rule of sovereign rulers for granted: his call is directed not to state unification, but to inner peace. Being a work about the events of its time, The Word ... is at the same time a monument of historical thought. The "current" time is compared in it with past events of the second half of the 11th century, when the era of princely strife began, which led to a weakening of the country's defenses, which made it vulnerable to Polovtsian aggression. In his appeal to history, the author of The Lay makes extensive use of epic motifs.
During the period of fragmentation in North-Eastern Russia, another outstanding work of ancient Russian literature appeared - “The Word of Daniil the Sharpener”. It is a message to the prince, whose name is not named, and is aphoristic in form. In the 20s or in the first half of the 30s. 13th century the second edition of this work was created, called "The Prayer of Daniel the Sharpener". It is addressed to Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, at that time the prince of Pereyaslavl-Zalessky. A characteristic feature of "Prayer ..." is a negative attitude towards the boyars.
Another remarkable work of ancient Russian literature, The Word on the Destruction of the Russian Land, was written in the most difficult days for Russia, during the Mongol-Tatar invasion. Most likely, it was created at the beginning of 1238 in Kiev, at the court of Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich. The author began to write, as is supposed, after receiving in Kiev news from North-Eastern Russia about the invasion of Batu's hordes into it and about the death of Yaroslav's brother Yuri in the battle on the City River. This unfinished work glorifies Russia, which did not forget about its former power (under the princes Vladimir Monomakh, his son Yuri Dolgoruky and grandson Vsevolod the Big Nest). The text also contains a discourse on the “disease” – the strife that undermined the strength of Russia from the time after the death of Yaroslav the Wise. Like the author of The Tale of Igor's Campaign, the author of The Tale of Perdition refers to the past of his Fatherland, trying to find and understand the causes of its current troubles.
In the middle of the XII - the beginning of the XIII century. continued to develop the epic genre. New epic stories appeared: about "Saura Levanidovich", about "Sukhian". The cycles of Novgorod epics about Sadko and songs about Prince Roman became famous. The prototype of this hero was Roman Mstislavich, Prince of Volyn and Galitsky.
In the first decades of fragmentation, until the beginning of the Mongol-Tatar conquest, stone construction continued to develop (mainly temple construction, but stone princely palaces also appeared) and church painting. In the architecture of the second half of the XII - beginning of the XIII century. local traditions, forms borrowed from Byzantium and some elements of the Western European Romanesque style were combined. Of the surviving architectural monuments of that era, St. George's Cathedral of the St. George's Monastery (first half of the 12th century) and the Church of the Savior on Nereditsa (end of the 12th century), Assumption and Dmitrovsky Cathedrals in Vladimir, the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl (second half of the 12th century) are of particular artistic value. ), St. George's Cathedral in Yuriev-Polsky (1234).
Dmitrovsky Cathedral in Vladimir