How Kievan Rus collapsed. The collapse of Kievan Rus
Any large state in its history goes through stages of formation, expansion, weakening and disintegration. The collapse of the state is almost always painful and is considered by descendants as a tragic page in history. Kievan Rus was no exception. Its collapse was accompanied internecine wars and fight with an external enemy. It began in the 11th century and ended by the end of the 13th century.
Feudal way of Rus' | According to the established tradition, each prince did not bequeath his possessions to one son, but distributed the possessions among all his sons. A similar phenomenon led to the fragmentation of not only Rus', but also dozens of other feudal monarchies of Eurasia. |
The transformation of inheritances into estates. Formation of dynasties | Often, after the death of a specific prince, his son became the next prince, although formally Grand Duke Kievan could appoint any of his relatives as an inheritance. Not feeling dependent on Kyiv, the specific princes pursued an increasingly independent policy. |
Economic independence | Due to the predominance of subsistence farming, the destinies, especially on the outskirts of Rus', had little need for the development of a nationwide transport and trade infrastructure. |
Weakening of the capital | The struggle of the specific princes for the right to possess Kiev harmed the city itself and weakened its power. Over time, the possession of the ancient capital of Rus' ceased to be a priority for the princes. |
Global changes in the world | By the end of the 12th century, against the backdrop of the weakening of Byzantium and the activation of nomads in the Great Steppe and Asia Minor, the “Road from the Varangians to the Greeks” lost its former significance. At one time, he played an important role in the unification of the Kyiv and Novgorod lands. The decline of the Way led to a weakening of ties between the ancient centers of Rus'. |
Mongolian factor | After the Mongol-Tatar invasion, the title of Grand Duke lost its former meaning, since the appointment of each specific prince depended not on the Grand Duke's will, but on the Horde yarlyk. |
The consequences of the collapse of Rus'
Formation of individual East Slavic peoples | Although in the era of the unity of Rus' there were differences in the traditions, social structure and speech of different East Slavic tribes, in the years feudal fragmentation these differences have become much clearer. |
Strengthening regional centers | Against the background of the weakening of Kyiv, some specific principalities strengthened. Some of them (Polotsk, Novgorod) were important centers before, while others (Vladimir-on-Klyazma, Turov, Vladimir-Volynsky) began to play an important role at the turn of the 12th-13th centuries. |
Decline of cities | Unlike rural subsistence farms, cities needed supplies of many goods. The appearance of new borders and the loss of uniform laws led to the decline of urban crafts and trade. |
Political decline | Fragmented Rus' could not resist Mongol invasion. The expansion of Russian lands stopped, and some of them came under the control of neighboring states (Poland, knightly states, the Horde). |
Formation and rise of new states. | In the northeastern and northwestern parts of Rus', new centers arose, which again began to gather around themselves the East Slavic lands. In Novogrudok was born Lithuanian principality, whose capital was later moved to Vilna. In the northeastern part of Rus' formed Muscovy. It was these two entities that began the successful process of uniting the East Slavic lands. The Lithuanian principality eventually turned into a unitary class-representative monarchy, and the Moscow one into an absolute one. |
The collapse of Rus' and world history
Representatives of academic science unanimously agree that the stage of feudal fragmentation is a natural and inevitable part of the history of any feudal state. The collapse of Rus' was accompanied by the complete loss of a single all-Russian center and powerful foreign policy upheavals. Many believe that it was during this period that the three East Slavic peoples clearly stood out from the previously single Old Russian people. Although centralized states began to form on the territory of Rus' already in the 14th century, the last specific principalities were liquidated only at the end of the 15th century.
In the ideas of the ancient Russians about power, two values dominated - the prince and the veche. The range of issues to be resolved by the veche were questions about war and peace, about the continuation or cessation of hostilities. But the main function of Vech in the XI-XII centuries. was the choice of princes. The expulsion of objectionable princes was commonplace. In Novgorod from 1095 to 1304. 40 people have been in this post, and some of them several times. Of the 50 princes who occupied the throne of Kiev before the invasion of the Tatars, only 14 were called by the veche.
The Kiev Veche had neither a permanent place of convocation, nor a permanent composition, nor a fixed method of counting votes. However, the power of the veche remained significant and its composition was strengthened by merchants, artisans, and the clergy. In Novgorod, a veche is a meeting of the owners of urban estates (maximum - 500 people). In other words, the boyars and merchants were the real owners. Moreover, the Novgorod boyars, unlike other lands, were caste, that is, a boyar could only be born here.
Another pole political life was the power of the prince. Main functions old Russian prince were the protection of Rus' from attacks from outside, the collection of taxes, the court. The Boyar Duma, which consisted of senior combatants, played a certain role under the prince. Until the 11th century she met together with the city elders - the thousands, the chiefs of the militia, who were elected by the veche. In the XI and XII centuries. Thousands are already appointed by the prince and merge with the Boyar Duma.
The prince and the veche personified two values that fought among themselves in the political life of Rus': authoritarianism and conciliarity, the individual and collective way of solving critical issues state life. And if the princely power evolved, improved, then the veche turned out to be incapable of this.
From the end of the X - the beginning of the XI century. a special order of princely rule begins to take shape. At that time, the Rurik princes constituted a single clan, the head of which, the father, ruled in Kyiv, and the sons ruled the cities and regions as his governors and paid tribute to him. Upon the death of the prince-father, the patrimonial principle of inheritance entered - from brother to brother, and after the death of the last of the brothers, it passed to the eldest nephew. This order was called sequential. This proclaimed the idea of preserving the unity of kinship, which corresponded to tribal ideals. Eastern Slavs. It was united in the mind of the prince with the idea of the unity of the Kievan state.
That is why the conflict between the sons of Prince Vladimir - Svyatopolk, on the one hand, and Boris and Gleb, on the other, in 1015 gained truly historical meaning. Svyatopolk, contrary to the will of his father, took the throne of Kiev, killing his brothers. Thus, he opposed the unity of the genus, which was the highest value. Therefore, in history, Svyatopolk received the nickname "Cursed", and Boris and Gleb became the first saints - protectors of the Russian land. They were canonized back in 1072. The people approved the overthrow of Svyatopolk from the throne of Kyiv by Prince Yaroslav, who came from Novgorod, seeing in this God's punishment for fratricide. The ancestral principle of inheritance distinguished Rus' from Western Europe where usually only the eldest son succeeded the father. If the kingdom was divided between the brothers, then each then transferred his part to his own children, and not to his brother or the children of his relatives.
At the turn of the XI-XII centuries. the ancient Russian state breaks up into a number of independent regions and principalities due to long bloody clashes after the death of Yaroslav the Wise (1054) between his numerous sons and grandchildren. When the fourth son of Yaroslav Vyacheslav Smolensky died in 1057, Smolensk, by decision of the senior princes, went not to his son, but to his brother, the fifth son of Yaroslav the Wise Igor. In 1073, princes Svyatoslav and Vsevolod, having suspected the Kyiv prince Izyaslav of nasty intrigues, overthrew him from the throne and expelled him from Kyiv. Svyatoslav sat on the throne of Kyiv. Chernigov - his former reign - went to Vsevolod. After the death of Svyatoslav in Kyiv, his brother Vsevolod became prince, and not the sons of Svyatoslav. At the same time, Izyaslav still retained, as the eldest in the family, formal rights to the throne of Kiev. When he came with an army to recapture Kyiv, Vsevolod voluntarily yielded to his older brother, returning to Chernigov.
Theoretically, the Yaroslavichi owned the legacy of their fathers inseparably - in turn. But in fact, the Kiev prince played the main role in the distribution of principalities. In the XI-XIII centuries. between the individual branches of the Yaroslav family, a struggle broke out for the Kievan reign, that is, for the right to distribute land. There was a struggle between the individual interests of the princes, the interests of individual families - branches of the Yaroslavich family.
Over time, tribal values had to recede under the pressure of individual and family interests. An important stage in this process was the congress of Russian princes in the city of Lyubech in 1097, at which the family principle of inheritance was officially recognized on a par with the clan. The princes decided that “everyone should keep his fatherland”, that is, the descendants of the eldest sons of Yaroslav: Izyaslav, Svyatoslav and Vsevolod were to own only those volosts where their fathers ruled. Possessions were inherited, like a fatherland and grandfather, and not by the right of seniority. The inseparability of tribal possessions was destroyed, and with it the united Kievan Rus was destroyed. The tribal ideal of the indivisibility of the whole earth was gradually replaced by the family ideal of "fatherland", inheritance to one's father.
This principle failed to become an immutable law - strife soon resumed. The grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, Vladimir Monomakh, and his son Mstislav succeeded from 1113 to 1132. to revive the unity of the earth, but after their death it fell apart completely. The generic ideal continued to exist. The princes of all branches of the Yaroslav family continued to fight for the throne of Kiev until the 70s of the XIII century, despite the fact that the Kiev principality ceased to be the richest.
The Kievan state began to disintegrate at the end of the 11th century. By the middle of the XII century. formed 15 principalities, by the beginning of the XIII century. there were already about 50 of them. The process of fragmentation of a large early medieval state would have been natural and was not an exclusively Russian phenomenon. Europe also experienced a period of disintegration of the early medieval states, fragmentation.
At the turn of the XII century. what happened was not the disintegration of Ancient Rus', but its transformation into a kind of federation of principalities and zemstvos. Nominally, the Kiev prince remained the lava of the state. For a certain period, fragmentation weakened the forces of the state, made it vulnerable to external danger.
Decay Kievan Rus
In the middle 12th century Kievan Rus broke up into independent principalities, however, formally limited existed until Mongol-Tatar invasion(1237-1240) and Kyiv continued to be considered the main table of Rus'. Epoch XII-XVI centuries called specific period or political fragmentation(in Soviet Marxist historiography - feudal fragmentation). The breakup is considered 1132 - the year of death of the last powerful Kyiv prince Mstislav the Great. The result of the collapse was the emergence on the spot Old Russian state new political formations, a distant consequence - the formation of modern peoples: Russians, Ukrainians And Belarusians.
Reasons for the collapse
Like most of the early medieval powers, the collapse of Kievan Rus was natural. The period of disintegration is usually interpreted not simply as strife of overgrown offspring Rurik, but as an objective and even progressive process associated with an increase in boyar land ownership . In the principalities, their own nobility arose, which was more profitable to have its own prince protecting its rights than to support Grand Duke Kyiv.
Causes of the collapse of the Old Russian state. Mongol-Tatar invasion and its consequences
The collapse of the Old Russian state is a completely natural phenomenon in the context of the development of medieval Europe. It was primarily driven by the development feudal relations and systems of feudal immunities. However, some researchers consider the main reason for the fragmentation of Kievan Rus to be changes in princely inheritance law, when each princely son received a certain part of his father's reign - an inheritance - for independent control. The specific system progressed rapidly in the 12th-13th centuries. Sovereign principalities arose, fighting for political leadership. At the same time, Kyiv gradually lost its role as an all-Russian center, and the economic potential of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, located in the north-east of Rus', increased. The rulers of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, as well as the princes of Kyiv, began to call themselves grand dukes.
The sovereignization of individual lands, on the one hand, had positive consequences. The movements of princes in search of a richer and more honorable throne almost ceased, and, consequently, power became more efficient.
On the other hand, each of the lands, taken separately, did not have sufficient human and material resources to protect its sovereignty. Therefore, the Russian principalities were conquered by the Mongol-Tatars during the campaign against Rus' Batu Khan in 1237-1240.
The forcible inclusion of the Russian principalities into the world of political relations that had developed in the nomadic empire of the Mongols had a negative impact on the internal development of the Russian lands, led to significant differences between local state-political traditions and European ones. In Mongolian society, the power of the supreme ruler was absolute and demanded unquestioning obedience from his subjects. Having become vassals of the khans, the Russian princes borrowed the political traditions of allegiance in their relations with the feudal lords. This remark concerns, first of all, the lands of North-Eastern Rus', which formed the core of the future Muscovy.
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Rus' By the middle of the XII century. The Old Russian state actually breaks up into 15 independent principalities, within which smaller principalities are formed, which are in vassal dependence in relation to the First. Major principalities, which were, in fact, independent states, receive the name of the earth by analogy with other foreign countries(Ugrian land (Hungary), Greek land (Byzantium), etc.). The subject principalities that were part of the lands were called volosts. Thus, the two-level structure of a single early medieval Rus' was copied, as it were, and a new geopolitical reality was formed - specific Rus, where Kyiv only formally retained the status of the "first-throne city". There comes a natural stage for most of the early feudal monarchies of both Europe and Asia, the stage of fragmentation of a large state and the loss of centralized control. During this period, the grand princely family of Rurikovich loses the principle of seniority in the dynasty, and it is replaced by seniority in each of the branches that have established themselves in the sovereign Russian principalities-lands. Created with high quality new form state-political organization of ancient Russian society, a kind of federation of lands under the nominal auspices of the Grand Duke of Kiev, due to a number of factors that became the main prerequisites for feudal fragmentation. The formal and external reason for the fragmentation of Russia was political prerequisites: endless inter-princely feuds and a long fierce internecine struggle among the Rurikovichs (for period from the death of Yaroslav the Wise to the Mongol invasion, at least one and a half hundred military clashes were recorded) for the right to own more significant princely domains with rich lands, allowing to have a large amount rent tax. It is more important, however, to note something else. In the course of a long process of development of feudal relations and the social division of labor in Rus', there is a noticeable progress both in agriculture and in handicraft production, independent economic regions are formed with their own specifics of farming. Cities of independent principalities-lands are growing, which are becoming not only economic, but also political and cultural centers regions. Their number during the century under consideration reaches two hundred. Cities in the period of fragmentation of Rus' are the support bases for regional separatism. In the context of the growing economic specialization of the regions and handicraft production, both domestic and foreign trade is expanding. In the principalities-lands, large patrimonial farms are developing, not only secular, but also spiritual feudal lords. The feudal estates, who are at the same time boyars-vassals of local princely families (the regional elite), are striving to expand their possessions more and more at the expense of the smerds, increase income from their possessions and secure immunity rights. The boyar corporations of the principalities-lands are becoming less and less dependent on the will of the Grand Duke of Kyiv. It is more beneficial for them to focus on their local prince, who, in turn, cannot but take into account the interests of the regional patrimonial aristocracy. In addition, by the middle of the XII century. the social structure of Russian society, which also has its own regional characteristics, is more clearly defined. Along with the boyar clans, layers of urban settlements are formed - merchants, merchants and artisans, and finally, master servants-serfs. Urban population to a certain extent, it influenced the relationship between the princely power and the boyars, in some way balancing their relationship. The townspeople also gravitated towards the isolation of local interests, not linking themselves with the all-Russian ideas of unity. The specifics of the social structure and economic relations in different lands of Rus' determined and various models political organization of the emerging states-Lands. Finally, the decline of Kyiv and Kyiv principality as the center of Rus' was also due to a number of foreign policy circumstances. Thus, the constant raids of the Polovtsy nomads on the southern Russian lands significantly weakened their economic potential. The same factor had an impact on the migration of the population of Rus', its outflow to the calmer regions of the Zalessky region of the northeastern Vladimir-Suzdal land and the southwestern Galicia-Volyn land. At the same time, the Polovtsian danger significantly reduced the attractiveness of the trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks." Centers through which trade was carried out. Europe with the East, thanks to the Crusades, are gradually moving to Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, and the rapidly growing northern Italian cities establish control over this trade. International trade is developing quite rapidly in the north of Europe, where the German coastal "free" cities acquire a leading position. The merchants of the north-west of Rus', first of all Veliky Novgorod and Pskov, begin to orient themselves towards them. However, one should not evaluate the collapse of the Old Russian state as an absolutely negative phenomenon. On the contrary, in the era of fragmentation, there is a genuine flourishing of medieval Russian society, the progressive development of the economic potential of the principalities-lands, the formation of various socio-political structures and the development of an original culture. It cannot be ignored that political fragmentation was a natural historical period in the framework of the emerging centrifugal processes on the way to further consolidation on the future civilizational turn. At the same time, strong centripetal tendencies remained in the Russian lands, which had a powerful unifying potential. Firstly, the state-political unity of Rus' was not even formally lost, and the authority of the great Kyiv princes, even nominal, was still preserved. Secondly, the unity of the entire church organization continued to exist and the absolute predominance of Orthodox faith- the main spiritual and moral bond of Rus'. The supremacy of the Kyiv Metropolitan as the head of the Orthodox Church was undeniable. Thirdly, in the Russian lands a single the legislative framework, the basis of which were the norms of Russian Truth. Finally, an important cementing factor of unity was the common for all lands Old Russian language. In addition to all this, in the era of fragmentation in the Russian lands, the idea of \u200b\u200bthe unity of all forces to combat external danger was constantly preserved. | |
REASONS FOR THE DECLINE OF KIEVAN Rus'.
Many have the wrong idea that the fall of Kievan Rus is connected with the invasion of the Tatars. A hundred years before them, Kyiv tends to decline. The reasons were internal and external. Firstly, ancient Kievan Rus was a rich and European cultured country, European country. This is the front side of life. But he also had a downside. The economic condition was bought at the cost of enslaving the lower classes: serfs, purchases. Not even a Marxist thinks so, but V. O. Klyuchevsky. The discontent of the oppressed classes oppressed the social order and well-being of Kievan Rus. Secondly, princely strife destroyed the Russian land. They were preoccupied with the desire to rob and burn a hostile country, to take the population in full. The captives were turned into slaves. Even Vladimir Monomakh, the kindest and most intelligent of the princes, was no stranger to this predation. In his "Instruction for Children" he tells how, having attacked Minsk (Mensk), "he did not leave a servant or a cattle there." He took everything with him. After the unsuccessful attack of the troops of Andrei Bogolyubsky on Novgorod in 1169, a prisoner was sold in Novgorod at a price lower than the price of a ram. So many have been taken! ("two legs each" is currency unit) Russian princes were not ashamed to bring Polovtsy to Rus' to ruin their neighbors. Princely strife further exacerbated the position of the lower classes. Thirdly, the external reason, the Polovtsian invasions. Rus' lived on the edge of European civilization, further extended the Wild Field, which, according to Klyuchevsky, was a "historical scourge ancient Rus'"From 1061, continuous attacks of the Polovtsy (Kuman) began. In 1096, Khan Bonyak Sheludivy almost entered Kiev, broke into the Caves Monastery when the monks were sleeping after matins. Bonyak robbed and set fire to the monastery. The Pereyaslav principality was gradually empty from the raids of the Polovtsy. In Kievan Rus, there was even a doubt: is it possible to live next door to the Polovtsy. In 1069, Izyaslav Yaroslavich was expelled from Kiev because of indecision in the fight against the Polovtsy. He went to Kiev with the Polish army. The Kievans asked the brothers to protect the city, and in case refusal, they said that they would set fire to their city and leave for the Greek land. So the attacks of the Polovtsy were continuous, like the Germanic tribes on Rome. Only Vladimir Monomakh concluded 19 treaties with them, but everything was in vain. To prevent attacks, the Russian princes married khan's daughters And the father-in-law continued to plunder the Russian land. A very interesting speech by Prince Vladimir Monomakh at the princely congress in 1103. He said: "In the spring, the smerd will go to the field to plow on a horse - a polovchin will come, hit the smerd with an arrow and take his horse. Then he will come to the village, take his wife, children, and all his property, and set it on fire in the threshing floor. "Russia has a historical mission to defend Europe from the steppe, from nomads; protection of the left flank of the European offensive to the East. This is how Klyuchevsky and Solovyov think. This start time crusades that began in 1096. This is the start of a movement. Reconquest on the Iberian Peninsula. This is a movement against Muslims and Arabs in Europe. The defense of Rus' cost her dearly. The ebb of the Russian population to new places began. From the middle of the 12th century, traces of desolation are noticeable in the Middle Dnieper. In 1159, according to the chronicle, psari and Polovtsy (peaceful Polovtsy who came to Rus') live in Chernigov and its younger cities. Lubech, once rich, also became deserted. There is also an economic downturn. This is evidenced by the devaluation of the hryvnia. At the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th century, the hryvnia weighed 1/2 pound, and at the end of the 12th century - 1/4 pound, and in the 13th - even lighter. The reason for the decline is this. One prince in 1167 invited to a campaign against the steppes. "Take pity on the Russian land, on your fatherland. Every summer, the filthy ones take Christians to their tents (tents. Hence the White Towers, the capital of the Khazars). But the paths are taken away from us (trade routes)," and lists the Black Sea routes of Russian trade. At the end of the 12th century, the Russian princes could no longer restrain the pressure of the Polovtsy and the exodus of the Russian population began. But Grushevsky saw the reasons for the decline of Kievan Rus in the intrigues and evil intentions of Vladimir-Suzdal princes. He writes: "The Suzdal princes deliberately wanted to weaken the Kiev land. The Suzdal prince made a campaign in 1169 against Kiev. And the army, having taken Kiev, mercilessly devastated it. For several days they plundered the city, monasteries, churches sparing nothing. They took away icons, books, robes from churches, even the bells were removed and taken to their northern regions; people were beaten and taken prisoner "This is the first invasion in 1169. "Then Andrei's brother, Vsevolod the Big Nest, deliberately quarreled with the Ukrainian princes. Kyiv was again mercilessly plundered and devastated in 1203. Such a struggle ensued around it that it was very difficult for anyone to sit." Then the migration began. Grushevsky finishes: "After this, the complete decline of Kiev begins and the later Tatar pogrom added a little to the previous pogroms. Vernadsky writes:" The importance of Kiev was shaken in 1169 (recognizes the significance of the campaign of Andrei Bogolyubsky). The second reason is that the city suffered from the termination of trade relations with Constantinople after it was sacked by the crusaders in 1204. Shmurlo’s book says: “They robbed together with the Polovtsy in order to increase the disaster. All the youth of the city, men and women, were taken captive, nuns and monks were driven into the steppe for hard, and even shameful work. Only foreign merchants survived. They locked themselves in stone churches and bought life and freedom for themselves by giving half of the goods to the Polovtsy.Since then, dishonored, broken and frail, Kiev sadly eked out its days in anticipation of the third even bitterer defeat of the Tatars in 1240. So the exodus of the people of Kiev begins. All historical schools agree on this. But where do they come from? Grushevsky points out the path of the people of Kiev to the West and only there, through Galicia to Poland, to the south-east of Poland. This is generally recognized. Klyuchevsky, on the other hand, writes that the outflow of the population went in two directions, in two streams. One jet was directed beyond the Western Buk, to the West, to the region of the upper Dniester and upper Vistula, deep into Galicia and Poland. So the Slavs returned to their historical homeland - the northern slopes of the Carpathians, abandoned in the 7th century. Another stream of colonization was directed in the other direction - to the northeast in the interfluve of the Oka and Volga. Thus, we are at the source of the division of a single ancient Russian people into two tribes - Little Russian and Russian.
Let us turn to the first vector - the ebb to the West. In the second half of the 12th century, the Galician principality was greatly strengthened. At the end of the century, Roman Mstislavich annexed Volyn to Galich. Chronicle calls him the autocrat of the whole Russian land. Not in vain. Under his son Daniil Romanovich, the principality grew noticeably, densely populated. The princes manage the affairs of the Kyiv land and Kiev. Klyuchevsky writes: “Historical documents mention temples in the Krakow region and other places in Poland. The Tatars gave a new impetus to the exodus. Kiev was burned by the Tatars in 1240 and about 200 houses remained there. In 1246, the missionary Plano Carpini passed through these lands. went to Tarataria. The Europeans called the Tatars the fiends of hell (the name of the Tatars comes from the Chinese "ta-ta"). Plano writes: "There is very little Russia left here. Most of them were killed or taken prisoner. (In Kiev and Pereyaslav land, he met countless human skulls and bones scattered across the fields) ". The second blow to Kiev was inflicted by the Tatars in 1299, after which its inhabitants fled again. The city was deserted. In the 14th century, Galicia was captured by Poland ( c. 1340), and the rest of the Dnieper region was captured by Lithuania. There are different opinions about the latter. Grushevsky avoids the idea that Kiev was captured by Lithuania in the 60s of the 14th century. He writes: "After that, the Dnieper deserts became southeastern Ukraine the united Polish-Lithuanian state (1386, the year of the marriage of Jogaila and Jadwiga)". In the documents of the 14th century, and according to Fassmer - from 1292, a new name appears for southwestern Russia - Little Russia. These are documents of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Grushevsky and Evfimenko (a woman who married a Ukrainian) hold the view that: "The historical tradition of the ancient Kiev region was not interrupted, but continued to live among the Ukrainian people and in the institutions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Therefore, it was a continuation of Kievan Rus. "In their opinion, Ukrainian princes of the Lithuanian dynasty ruled in this region. All of them are Rurikovich. This is the concept of all Ukrainian nationalists. From the 15th century, the backward movement of the Little Russians into the Dnieper steppes began. Why? Since the danger of Tatar raids disappeared after the overthrow of the yoke of the Golden Horde (after 1480). On the other hand, the Polish magnates acquired huge estates in the Ukraine of the Polish state and populated them with their people, bringing them out of the depths of Poland. The enslaved peasants also fled here. The quitrent was replaced by corvée. Saved from the pan yoke. The re-emigrants retained their language, their nationality and met with the remnants of the former nomads. There was assimilation with Torks, Berendeys, Pechenegs and others. This is how the Little Russian people is formed. That is why many Ukrainians have black eyes and black hair.
The inhabitants of Kyiv leave under the threat of Polovtsian robberies, and then the Mongol-Tatars. One direction of the outflow of the Kyiv population to the east, to Galicia, to Poland. Then the return and mixing of the Kyivans with the remnants of the ancient nomads took place: with Torks, Berendeys, Pechenegs. This is how Klyuchevsky talks about the formation of the Little Russian people by the 14th-15th centuries. Hrushevsky, on the other hand, begins the history of the Ukrainian people from the 4th century of the Christian era. He believes that Ukrainians, Belarusians and Great Russians, leaving their ancestral home, which was located on the northern slopes of the Carpathians, ended up in different physical, cultural and economic conditions, in a different ethnic environment. The Great Russians were formed mainly on Finnish soil. Belarusians are in close contact with Lithuanians, Ukrainians are in eternal neighborhood with the Turks. These peoples have more differences than similarities. This is Grushevsky's opinion. As a result, "people's well-being was formed, which now quite instinctively distinguishes Ukrainians, Belarusians and Great Russians. Or, in common parlance, Ukrainians, Litvins and Katsaps." The origin of the word crest according to Grushevsky (Russian historians agree with him). Khokhol is a derisive name for a crest among the Great Russians. It originates from the hairstyle of the Ukrainians of the 17th century, when they shaved their hair and left their heads in the middle. The name Litvin originated from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, when Belarus was within the boundaries of the Lithuanian Principality. The origin of the word "katsap" is not so clear. Velikorosy produces from the derisive "like a goat" because of the beard. Grushevsky writes: "it is now produced quite plausibly from the Turkic word kasap, which means a butcher, a cutter, an executioner."
According to Grushevsky, the Little Russian differs from the Great Russian and Belarusian in anthropological features, external physical appearance: the shape of the skull, height, and the ratio of body parts. It is distinguished by psychophysical features, manifested in the national character, psychology, in the warehouse of family and social relations. In our opinion, Grushevsky somewhat exaggerates the anthropological features of related tribes. In addition, the Ukrainian people are heterogeneous in their anthropological composition. Without denying the influence of the neighbors: the Turks, Finns, Litvins, we note that the formation of these peoples took place on a common Old Russian basis, that is, Kievan Rus is the cradle of the Great Russians, Little Russians, and Belarusians. Grushevsky considered. That Kievan Rus and its culture belongs only to the history of Ukraine. The period of Proto-Slavic unity lasted until the 6th century.
The second flow of the people from Kievan Rus was to the northeast in the interfluve of the Oka and Volga. This vector, according to Klyuchevsky, is poorly noted in the literature and contemporary observers of that period. Therefore, Klyuchevsky, in order to prove that there was an ebb of the population in this direction, resorts to indirect evidence: the most obvious argument is toponymy, geographical names, the toponymic similarity of the northeast with southern Russia. Klyuchevsky writes: “You need to listen carefully to the names of the new Suzdal cities: Pereyaslavl, Zvenigorod, Starodub, Vyshgorod, Galich. All these are South Russian names that flash almost on every page of the chronicle. There were several Zvenigorods in the land of Kiev and Galicia. Names of Kiev rivers Lybyadi and Pochainy meet in Ryazan, in Nizhny Novgorod, in Vladimir on the Klyazma.The name of Kiev is not forgotten in the Suzdal land, for example, the village of Kievo in the Moscow district, Kievka - a tributary of the Oka in the Kaluga district, the village of Kievtsy in Tula Province. Three Pereyaslavl are known to ancient Rus': southern, Ryazan - this is the current Ryazan (the inhabitants of the old, pre-Mongol, Ryazan burned by the Tatars moved here), Pereyaslavl Zalessky. Each of them stands on the Trubezh River, as well as in Kievan Rus. It is not difficult to guess that this is the work of immigrants.
Until the middle of the 12th century, there was no direct communication between Kyiv and the Rostov-Suzdal Territory. They were separated by dense forests. There is a legend about this. The Bryn robbers are known (a village on the Bryn River). The name of the city of Bryansk comes from debryansk (wilds). And the Suzdal land was called Zalesskaya. This name belongs to Kievan Rus. The jungle began to be cleared and cut through the middle of the 12th century. If Vladimir Monomakh still had difficulty driving here to Rostov even with a small retinue, then his son Yuri Dolgoruky led entire regiments from the middle of the 12th century on a direct road from Rostov to Kyiv. From this we can assume that there was some kind of colonization, some kind of movement of grain growers. Peasants pierced this road. This is a quiet but spontaneous colonization, so the writers did not notice it.
While the desolation of the land is noted in the south, in the northeast there is the construction of cities by Yuri Dolgoruky and his son Andrei Bogolyubsky: Moscow (1147), Yuryev-Polskaya (1180), Pereyaslavl Zalessky (1150-1152), Dmitrov (1154), Bogolyubov (1155), Gorodets on the Volga (1152), Kostroma (1152), Starodub on the Klyazma, Galich, Zvenigorod, Vyshgorod, Kolomna (1177). Andrei Bogolyubsky was proud of his colonial activities. Thinking of founding a metropolis independent of Kyiv, he said: "I have populated the whole of Rus' with great cities and villages and made them populous." The Kievan people in the second half of the 12th century was torn in two, and the main mass of the people went to the northeast, where, according to Klyuchevsky, "gathered their defeated forces, strengthened in the forests of central Russia, saved their people and armed them with the power of a cohesive state, again came to the south West, in order to save the weakest part of the Russian people who remained there from the foreign yoke. Klyuchevsky rapped out: “With centuries of efforts and sacrifices, Russia has formed a state similar to which in composition, size and world position we have not seen since the fall of the Roman Empire.
The historical path from formation to the collapse of the Old Russian stateEastern Slavs have passed for three centuries. The unification of disparate Slavic tribes by Prince Rurik in 862 gave a powerful impetus to the development of the country, which reached its peak by the middle XI century. But already a hundred years later, instead of a powerful state, dozens of independent, medium-sized principalities were formed. Period XII - XVI centuries gave rise to the definition of "Specific Rus'".
The beginning of the collapse of a single state
The heyday of the Russian state fell on the period of power of the Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise. He, like his predecessors of the Rurik family, did a lot to strengthen external ties, increase borders and state power.
Kievan Rus was actively engaged in trade, developed handicraft and agricultural production. Historian N. M. Karamzin wrote: “ Ancient Russia buried her power and prosperity with Yaroslav. Yaroslav the Wise died in 1054, this date is considered the beginningcollapse of the Old Russian state.
Lubech Congress of Princes. Trying to stop decay
From that moment, strife for power broke out between the heirs of the princely throne. Three of his sons entered into a dispute, but the younger Yaroslavichi, the grandsons of the prince, did not lag behind them. This happened at a time when the Polovtsy first raided Rus' from the steppes. The princes, who were at war with each other, sought to achieve power and wealth at any cost. Some of them, hoping to get rich destinies, entered into an agreement with enemies and brought their hordes to Rus'.
The disastrous strife for the country was seen by some princes, one of whom was the grandson of Yaroslav Vladimir Monomakh. In 1097, he convinced the princes-relatives to meet in the city of Lyubech, on the Dnieper, and agree on the rule of the country. They managed to divide the land among themselves. Kissing the cross in fidelity to the agreement, they decided: "Let the Russian land be a common fatherland, and whoever rises up against his brother, we will all rise up against him." But the agreement did not last long: one of the brothers blinded the other, and anger and distrust flared up in the family with renewed vigor. The Congress of Princes in Lyubech actually opened wide road the collapse of the Old Russian stategiving it the legal force of the agreement.
Further fragmentation of the state
Nothing else held back the decayOld Russian state, for centuriesreceding into an era of political disunity. Scientists call it the period of specific, or feudal, fragmentation.
Fragmentation, according to historians, was a natural stage in the development Russian state. In Europe, not a single country could avoid this during the period of early feudalism. The power of the prince at that time was weak, the functions of the state were insignificant, and the desire of the wealthy landowners to strengthen their specific power, to get out of obedience to centralized rule was understandable.
Events accompanying the collapse of the Old Russian state
Russian scattered lands, little connected with each other, led a subsistence economy, sufficient for their own consumption, but not capable of ensuring the unity of the state. The decline in world influence coincided in time Byzantine Empire, which weakened and soon ceased to be a major center. Thus, the trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks”, which allowed Kyiv to carry out international relations for many centuries, also lost its significance.
Kievan Rus united several dozen tribes with complex relationships within the genus. In addition, nomadic raids also made life difficult for them. Fleeing, people left their inhabited places for sparsely populated lands, arranged their dwelling there. This is how the far north-eastern part of Rus' was settled, which led to an increase in the territory of the state and the loss of influence of the Kyiv prince on them.
The emergence of private feudal tenure also contributed to the generation of feudal fragmentation and the disintegration of the Old Russian state intoindependent lands. The warriors, who often received payment from the prince for their service in the form of land allotments or simply took them away from the weaker, began to settle down on the land. Large feudal estates appear - boyar villages, the power and influence of their owners are growing. Availability a large number such possessions becomes incompatible with a state having large area and weak management.
The reasons for the collapse of the Old Russian state briefly
Historians call the fragmentation of Rus' into small specific principalities a process that was natural in those conditions.
The existence of disunity between Slavic tribes and the superiority of a subsistence economy sufficient to sustain the community.
The emergence of new, rich and influential feudal lords, an increase in the princely-boyar land ownership, who did not want to share power and income with Kiev.
The intensifying struggle between numerous heirs for power and land.
Migration of tribal communities to new distant lands due to the robberies of nomads, removal from Kyiv, loss of contact with it.
The loss of world domination by Byzantium, the decrease in trade turnover of the trade route to it, the weakening of Kyiv's international relations.
The emergence of new cities as centers of specific principalities, the growth of their importance against the background of the weakening of the power of Kyiv.
The consequences of the collapse of Rus'
Consequences of the collapse of the Old Russian stateare both positive and negative. Positive consequences include:
the emergence and flourishing of cities in numerous principalities;
the search for trade routes to replace the Byzantine one, which has lost its former importance;
preservation of a single spirituality, religion, as well as cultural traditions by the Russian people.
The negative consequences of this event are:
incessant princely wars among themselves;
division of land into small plots in favor of all heirs;
reduced ability to defend, lack of unity in the country.
Significant negative consequences had a most serious impact on the life of the Old Russian state during the period of collapse
. But scientists do not consider it a retreat back in the development of Rus'.Some specific centers
In that historical period the power of Kyiv and its importance as the first city of the state, gradually decreasing, is fading away. Now it is just one of the major Russian cities. At the same time, the importance of other lands and their centers is growing.
The Novgorod land was the first to come out from under the authority of the Grand Duke. The structure of management of the inheritance that has developed there is called by historians a feudal republic. The locals themselves called their state "Lord Veliky Novgorod". The supreme power here was popular assembly- Veche, which displaced objectionable princes, inviting others to rule.
Mongol invasion
Nomadic Mongolian tribes united at the beginning of XIIcentury Genghis Khan, invaded the territory of Rus'.The collapse of the Old Russian stateweakened him, making him a desirable prey for the invaders.
For many centuries, Mongol-Tatar dominion was established in Rus'.
