home Healthy eating Kyiv princes of the 12th and 13th centuries. Birth of an Empire

Kyiv princes of the 12th and 13th centuries. Birth of an Empire

The geographical location of which we will consider further lasted from 1132 to 1471. Its territory included the lands of the glades and Drevlyans along the Dnieper River and its tributaries - Pripyat, Teterev, Irpen and Ros, as well as part of the left bank.

Principality of Kiev: geographical location

This territory bordered the Polotsk land in the northwestern part, and Chernigov was located in the northeast. Western and southwestern neighbors were Poland and the Principality of Galicia. The city, built on the hills, was ideally located militarily. Speaking about the peculiarities of the geographical location of the Principality of Kyiv, it should be mentioned that it was well protected. Not far from it were the cities of Vruchiy (or Ovruch), Belgorod, and also Vyshgorod - all of them had good fortifications and controlled the territory adjacent to the capital, which provided additional protection from the western and southwestern sides. From the southern part it was covered by a system of forts built along the banks of the Dnieper, and nearby well-defended cities on the Ros River.

Principality of Kiev: characteristics

This principality should be understood as a state formation in Ancient Rus' that existed from the 12th to the 15th centuries. Kyiv was the political and cultural capital. It was formed from the separated territories of the Old Russian state. Already in the middle of the 12th century. the power of the princes from Kyiv had significant significance only within the borders of the principality itself. The city lost its all-Russian significance, and the rivalry for control and power lasted until the Mongol invasion. The throne passed in an unclear order, and many could lay claim to it. And also, to a large extent, the possibility of gaining power depended on the influence of the strong boyars of Kyiv and the so-called “black hoods”.

Social and economic life

The location near the Dnieper played a big role in economic life. In addition to communication with the Black Sea, he brought Kyiv to the Baltic, in which Berezina also helped. The Desna and Seim provided connections with the Don and Oka, and Pripyat - with the Neman and Dniester basins. Here was the so-called route “from the Varangians to the Greeks,” which was a trade route. Thanks to fertile soils and a mild climate, agriculture developed intensively; Cattle breeding and hunting were common, and residents were engaged in fishing and beekeeping. Crafts were divided early in these parts. “Woodworking” played a fairly significant role, as well as pottery and leatherworking. Thanks to the presence of iron deposits, the development of blacksmithing was possible. Many types of metals (silver, tin, copper, lead, gold) were delivered from neighboring countries. Thus, all this influenced the early formation of trade and craft relations in Kyiv and the cities located next to it.

Political history

As the capital loses its all-Russian significance, the rulers of the strongest principalities begin to send their proteges - “henchmen” - to Kyiv. The precedent in which Vladimir Monomakh was invited to the throne, bypassing the accepted order of succession, was subsequently used by the boyars to justify their right to choose a strong and pleasing ruler. The Principality of Kiev, whose history is characterized by civil strife, turned into a battlefield on which cities and villages suffered significant damage, were ruined, and the inhabitants themselves were captured. Kyiv saw a time of stability during the periods of Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich Chernigov, as well as Roman Mstislavovich Volynsky. Other princes who quickly succeeded each other remained more colorless in history. The Principality of Kiev, whose geographical position had previously allowed it to defend itself well for a long time, suffered greatly during the Mongol-Tatar invasion in 1240.

Fragmentation

The Old Russian state initially included tribal principalities. However, the situation has changed. Over time, when the local nobility began to be supplanted by the Rurik family, principalities began to form, ruled by representatives from the younger line. The established order of succession to the throne has always caused discord. In 1054, Yaroslav the Wise and his sons began to divide the Principality of Kiev. Fragmentation was the inevitable consequence of these events. The situation worsened after the Lyubechen Council of Princes in 1091. However, the situation improved thanks to the policies of Vladimir Monomakh and his son Mstislav the Great, who managed to maintain integrity. They were able to once again bring the principality of Kiev under control of the capital, the geographical position of which was quite favorable for protection from enemies, and for the most part only internal strife spoiled the position of the state.

With the death of Mstislav in 1132, political fragmentation set in. However, despite this, Kyiv for several decades retained the status of not only a formal center, but also the most powerful principality. His influence did not disappear completely, but was significantly weakened compared to the situation at the beginning of the 12th century.

Development of feudal relations in Rus'.

Time from the end of the X to the beginning of the XII century. is an important stage in the development of feudal relations in Rus'. This time is characterized by the gradual victory of the feudal mode of production over a large territory of the country.

Sustainable field farming dominated Russian agriculture. Cattle breeding developed more slowly than agriculture. Despite the relative increase in agricultural production, harvests were low. Frequent phenomena were shortages and hunger, which undermined the Kresgyap economy and contributed to the enslavement of the peasants. Hunting, fishing, and beekeeping remained of great importance in the economy. The furs of squirrels, martens, otters, beavers, sables, foxes, as well as honey and wax went to the foreign market. The best hunting and fishing areas, forests and lands were seized by the feudal lords.

In the XI and early XII centuries. part of the land was exploited by the state by collecting tribute from the population, part of the land area was in the hands of individual feudal lords as estates that could be inherited (they later became known as estates), and estates received from princes for temporary conditional holding.

The ruling class of feudal lords was formed from local princes and boyars, who became dependent on Kiev, and from the husbands (combatants) of the Kyiv princes, who received control, holding or patrimony of the lands “tortured” by them and the princes. The Kyiv Grand Dukes themselves had large land holdings. The distribution of land by princes to warriors, strengthening feudal production relations, was at the same time one of the means used by the state to subjugate the local population to its power.

Land ownership was protected by law. The growth of boyar and church land ownership was closely related to the development of immunity. The land, which was previously peasant property, became the property of the feudal lord “with tribute, virami and sales,” that is, with the right to collect taxes and court fines from the population for murder and other crimes, and, consequently, with the right of trial.

With the transfer of lands into the ownership of individual feudal lords, peasants in different ways became dependent on them. Some peasants, deprived of the means of production, were enslaved by landowners, taking advantage of their need for tools, equipment, seeds, etc. Other peasants, sitting on land subject to tribute, who owned their own tools of production, were forced by the state to transfer the land under the patrimonial power of the feudal lords. As the estates expanded and the smerds became enslaved, the term servants, which previously meant slaves, began to apply to the entire mass of the peasantry dependent on the landowner.

The peasants who fell into bondage to the feudal lord, legally formalized by a special agreement - nearby, were called zakupov. They received from the landowner a plot of land and a loan, which they worked on on the feudal lord's farm with the master's equipment. For escaping from the master, the zakuns turned into serfs - slaves deprived of all rights. Labor rent - corvée, field and castle (construction of fortifications, bridges, roads, etc.), was combined with nagural quitrent.

With the death of Vladimir Monomakh in 1125. The decline of Kievan Rus began, which was accompanied by its disintegration into separate states-principalities. Even earlier, the Lyubech Congress of Princes in 1097 established: “...let each one maintain his fatherland” - this meant that each prince became the full owner of his hereditary principality.

The collapse of the Kyiv state into small fiefdoms, according to V.O. Klyuchevsky, was caused by the existing order of succession to the throne. The princely throne was passed not from father to son, but from the older brother to the middle and younger. This gave rise to strife within the family and a struggle over the division of estates. External factors played a certain role: raids by nomads devastated the southern Russian lands and interrupted the trade route along the Dnieper.

As a result of the decline of Kiev, the Galician-Volyn principality rose in southern and southwestern Rus', in the northeastern part of Rus' - the Rostov-Suzdal (later Vladimir-Suzdal) principality, and in northwestern Rus' - the Novgorod Boyar Republic, from which in the 13th century century the Pskov land was allocated.

All these principalities, with the exception of Novgorod and Pskov, inherited the political system of Kievan Rus. They were led by princes, supported by their squads. The Orthodox clergy had great political influence in the principalities.

The political system in Novgorod and Pskov developed in a special way. The highest power there belonged not to the prince, but to the veche, which consisted of the city aristocracy, large landowners, wealthy merchants and the clergy. The veche, at its discretion, invited the prince, whose functions were limited only to leading the city militia - and then under the control of the council of gentlemen and the mayor (the highest official, the de facto head of the boyar republic). The permanent opponents of the Novgorodians were the Swedes and Livonian Germans, who repeatedly tried to subjugate Novgorod. But in 1240 and 1242. They suffered a crushing defeat from Prince Alexander Yaroslavich, who received the nickname Nevsky for his victory over the Swedes on the Neva River.

A special situation has developed in Kyiv. On the one hand, he became first among equals. Soon, some Russian lands caught up and even ahead of him in their development. On the other hand, Kyiv remained an “apple of discord” (they joked that there was not a single prince in Rus' who did not want to “sit” in Kyiv). Kyiv was “conquered,” for example, by Yuri Dolgoruky, the Vladimir-Suzdal prince; in 1154 he achieved the Kyiv throne and sat on it until 1157. His son Andrei Bogolyubsky also sent regiments to Kyiv, etc. Under such conditions, the Kiev boyars introduced a curious system of “duumvirate” (co-government), which lasted throughout the second half of the 12th century. The meaning of this original measure was as follows: at the same time, representatives of two warring branches were invited to the Kyiv land (an agreement was concluded with them - a “row”); Thus, relative balance was established and strife was partially eliminated. One of the princes lived in Kyiv, the other in Belgorod (or Vyshgorod). They went on military campaigns together and conducted diplomatic correspondence in concert. So, the duumvirs-co-rulers were Izyaslav Mstislavich and his uncle, Vyacheslav Vladimirovich; Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich and Rurik Mstislavich.

For the author of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” the Principality of Kiev was the first among all Russian principalities. He looks at the modern world soberly and no longer considers Kyiv the capital of Rus'. The Grand Duke of Kiev does not order other princes, but asks them to join “in the golden stirrup... for the Russian land,” and sometimes he seems to ask: “Are you thinking of flying here from afar to guard your father’s golden throne?”, as he addressed Vsevolod Big Nest.

The author of the Lay has great respect for sovereign sovereigns, princes of other lands, and does not at all propose to redraw the political map of Rus'. When he talks about unity, he means only what was quite realistic then: a military alliance against the “filthy”, a unified defense system, a unified plan for a distant raid into the steppe. But the author of the Lay does not lay claim to the hegemony of Kiev, since long ago Kiev turned from the capital of Rus' into the capital of one of the principalities and was on almost equal terms with such cities as Galich, Chernigov, Vladimir on the Klyazma, Novgorod, Smolensk. What distinguished Kyiv from these cities was only its historical glory and position as the ecclesiastical center of all Russian lands.

Until the middle of the 12th century, the Principality of Kiev occupied significant areas on the Right Bank of the Dnieper: almost the entire Pripyat basin and the Teterev, Irpen and Ros basins. Only later did Pinsk and Turov separate from Kyiv, and the lands west of Goryn and Sluch went to the Volyn land.

A feature of the Kyiv principality was a large number of old boyar estates with fortified castles, concentrated in the old land of glades to the south of Kyiv. To protect these estates from the Polovtsians, back in the 11th century, significant masses of nomads expelled by the Polovtsians from the steppes were settled along the Ros River (in “Porosye”): Torks, Pechenegs and Berendeys, united in the 12th century under a common name - Black Klobuki. They seemed to anticipate the future border noble cavalry and carried out border service in the vast steppe space between the Dnieper, Stugna and Ros. Along the banks of the Ros, cities populated by the Chernoklobutsk nobility arose (Yuryev, Torchesk, Korsun, Dveren, etc.). Defending Rus' from the Polovtsians, the Torques and Berendeys gradually adopted the Russian language, Russian culture and even the Russian epic.

The capital of the semi-autonomous Porosie was either Kanev or Torchesk, a huge city with two fortresses on the northern bank of the Ros.

Black Klobuki played an important role in the political life of Rus' in the 12th century and often influenced the choice of one prince or another. There were cases when the Black Hoods proudly declared to one of the contenders for the Kiev throne: “We, prince, have both good and evil,” that is, that the achievement of the grand-ducal throne depended on them, border horsemen, constantly ready for battle, located two days away ways from the capital.

In the half century that separates “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” from the time of Monomakh, the Principality of Kiev lived a difficult life.

In 1132, after the death of Mstislav the Great, the Russian principalities began to fall away from Kiev one after another: either Yuri Dolgoruky would gallop from Suzdal to capture the Principality of Pereyaslavl, or the neighboring Chernigov Vsevolod Olgovich, together with his friends the Polovtsians, “would go to war against villages and cities... and people Secondly, I even came to Kyiv...”

Facial image of Grand Duke Mstislav Vladimirovich. Title book. 1672

Novgorod was finally freed from the power of Kyiv. The Rostov-Suzdal land was already acting independently. Smolensk accepted princes of its own free will. Galich, Polotsk, and Turov had their own special princes. The horizons of the Kyiv chronicler narrowed to the Kiev-Chernigov conflicts, in which, however, the Byzantine prince, and the Hungarian troops, and the Berendei, and the Polovtsians took part.

After the death of the unlucky Yaropolk in 1139, the even more unlucky Vyacheslav sat on the Kiev table, but lasted only eight days - he was kicked out by Vsevolod Olgovich, the son of Oleg “Gorislavich”.

The Kiev Chronicle depicts Vsevolod and his brothers as cunning, greedy and crooked people. The Grand Duke continuously intrigued, quarreled his relatives, and granted dangerous rivals distant appanages in bearish corners in order to remove them from Kyiv.

The attempt to return Novgorod was unsuccessful, since the Novgorodians expelled Svyatoslav Olgovich “about his malice”, “about his violence”.

Igor and Svyatoslav Olgovich, Vsevolod’s brothers, were dissatisfied with him, and the entire six years of his reign were spent in mutual struggle, violations of the oath, conspiracies and reconciliations. Of the major events, one can note the stubborn struggle between Kyiv and Galich in 1144-1146.

Vsevolod did not enjoy the sympathy of the Kyiv boyars; this was reflected both in the chronicle and in the description that V.N. Tatishchev took from sources unknown to us: “This great prince was a man of great stature and great fatness, had few Vlasov at his head, a wide brada, considerable eyes, a long nose. Wise (cunning - B.R.) was in councils and courts, for whomever he wanted, he could acquit or accuse him. He had many concubines and practiced more in fun than in reprisals. Through this, the people of Kiev suffered a great burden from him. And when he died, hardly anyone, except his beloved women, cried for him, but they were more happy. But at the same time, they were even more afraid... of burdens from Igor (his brother - B.R.), knowing his fierce and proud disposition, they were afraid."

The main character of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" - Svyatoslav of Kiev - was the son of this Vsevolod. Vsevolod died in 1146. Subsequent events clearly showed that the main force in the Principality of Kiev, as in Novgorod and other lands at that time, was the boyars.

Vsevolod's successor, his brother Igor, the same prince of a fierce disposition whom the Kievans feared so much, was forced to swear allegiance to them at the veche "with all their will." But before the new prince had time to leave the veche meeting for dinner, the “kiyans” rushed to destroy the courts of the hated tiuns and swordsmen, which was reminiscent of the events of 1113.

The leaders of the Kyiv boyars, Uleb thousand and Ivan Voitishich, secretly sent an embassy to Prince Izyaslav Mstislavich, the grandson of Monomakh, in Pereyaslavl with an invitation to reign in Kiev, and when he and his troops approached the walls of the city, the boyars threw down their banner and, as was agreed, they surrendered to him. Igor was tonsured a monk and exiled to Pereyaslavl. A new stage in the struggle between the Monomashichs and the Olgovichs began.

The intelligent Kiev historian of the late 12th century, Abbot Moses, who had a whole library of chronicles of various principalities, compiled a description of these turbulent years (1146-1154) from excerpts from the personal chronicles of the warring princes. The result was a very interesting picture: the same event was described from different points of view, the same act was described by one chronicler as a good deed inspired by God, and by another as the machinations of the “all-evil devil.”

The chronicler of Svyatoslav Olgovich carefully conducted all the economic affairs of his prince and, with each victory of his enemies, pedantically listed how many horses and mares the enemies stole, how many haystacks were burned, what utensils were taken from the church and how many pots of wine and honey were in the princely cellar.

Particularly interesting is the chronicler of the Grand Duke Izyaslav Mstislavich (1146-1154). This is a man who knew military affairs well, participated in campaigns and military councils, and carried out diplomatic assignments of his prince. In all likelihood, this is the boyar, the Kiev thousand-man Peter Borislavich, mentioned many times in the chronicles. He keeps, as it were, a political account of his prince and tries to present him in the most favorable light, to show him as a good commander, a managerial ruler, a caring overlord. Exalting his prince, he skillfully denigrates all his enemies, showing extraordinary literary talent.

To document his chronicle-report, obviously intended for influential princely-boyar circles, Peter Borislavich widely used the authentic correspondence of his prince with other princes, the people of Kiev, the Hungarian king and his vassals. He also used the protocols of princely congresses and diaries of campaigns. Only in one case does he disagree with the prince and begin to condemn him - when Izyaslav acts against the will of the Kyiv boyars.

The reign of Izyaslav was filled with the struggle with the Olgovichs, with Yuri Dolgoruky, who twice managed to briefly take possession of Kiev.

During this struggle, Prince Igor Olgovich, a prisoner of Izyaslav, was killed in Kyiv by the verdict of the veche (1147).

In 1157, Yuri Dolgoruky died in Kyiv. It is believed that the Suzdal prince, unloved in Kyiv, was poisoned.

During these strife of the mid-12th century, the future heroes of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” are repeatedly mentioned - Svyatoslav Vsevolodich and his cousin Igor Svyatoslavich. These are still third-rate young princes who went into battle in the vanguard detachments, received small cities as an inheritance and “kissed the cross on all the will” of the senior princes. Somewhat later, they established themselves in large cities: from 1164, Svyatoslav in Chernigov, and Igor in Novgoro-de-Seversky. In 1180, shortly before the events described in the Lay, Svyatoslav became the Grand Duke of Kyiv.

Treasure with money bars - hryvnia

Due to the fact that Kyiv was often a bone of contention between the princes, the Kiev boyars formed a “row” with the princes and introduced a curious system of duumvirate, which lasted throughout the second half of the 12th century.

The duumvirs-co-rulers were Izyaslav Mstislavich and his uncle Vyacheslav Vladimirovich, Svyatoslav Vsevolodich and Rurik Rostislavich. The meaning of this original measure was that representatives of two warring princely branches were simultaneously invited and thereby partly eliminated strife and established relative balance. One of the princes, considered the eldest, lived in Kyiv, and the other in Vyshgorod or Belgorod (he controlled the land). They went on campaigns together and conducted diplomatic correspondence in concert.

The foreign policy of the Kyiv principality was sometimes determined by the interests of one or another prince, but, in addition, there were two constant directions of struggle that required daily readiness. The first and most important is, of course, the Polovtsian steppe, where in the second half of the 12th century feudal khanates were created that united individual tribes. Usually Kyiv coordinated its defensive actions with Pereyaslavl (which was in the possession of the Rostov-Suzdal princes), and thus a more or less unified line Ros - Sula was created. In this regard, the importance of the headquarters of such a common defense passed from Belgorod to Kanev. The southern border outposts of the Kyiv land, located in the 10th century on Stugna and Sula, have now advanced down the Dnieper to Orel and Sneporod-Samara.

The second direction of the struggle was the Vladimir-Suzdal principality. Since the time of Yuri Dolgoruky, the northeastern princes, freed by their geographical position from the need to wage a constant war with the Polovtsians, directed military forces to subjugate Kyiv, using the border principality of Pereyaslavl for this purpose. The arrogant tone of the Vladimir chroniclers sometimes misled historians, and they sometimes believed that Kyiv had completely died out at that time. Particular importance was attached to the campaign of Andrei Bogolyubsky, son of Dolgoruky, against Kyiv in 1169.

The Kiev chronicler, who witnessed the three-day plunder of the city by the victors, described this event so colorfully that he created the idea of some kind of catastrophe. In fact, Kyiv continued to live the full life of the capital of a wealthy principality even after 1169. Churches were built here, the all-Russian chronicle was written, and the “Tale of Igor’s Campaign” was created, which is incompatible with the concept of decline.

The Slovo characterizes the Kyiv prince Svyatoslav Vsevolodich (1180-1194) as a talented commander.

His cousins, Igor and Vsevolod Svyatoslavich, with their haste awakened the evil that Svyatoslav, their feudal overlord, had managed to cope with shortly before:

Svyatoslav, the great and formidable Kiev, shook Byashet with his strong regiments and haraluzhny swords with a thunderstorm;

Step on the Polovtsian land;
The trampling of hills and ravines;
Swirl the rivers and lakes;
Dry up the streams and swamps.
And the filthy Kobyak from the bow of the sea
From the great iron regiments of the Polovtsians,
Like a whirlwind, stand out:
And here Kobyak is in the city of Kyiv,
In the gridnice of Svyatoslavl.
Tu Nemtsi and Veneditsi, Tu Gretsi and Morava
They sing the glory of Svyatoslavl,
Prince Igor's cabin...

The poet here had in mind the victorious campaign of the united Russian forces against Khan Kobyak in 1183.

Svyatoslav’s co-ruler was, as stated, Rurik Rostislavich, who reigned in the “Russian Land” from 1180 to 1202, and then became the Grand Duke of Kyiv for some time.

“The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” is entirely on the side of Svyatoslav Vsevolodich and says very little about Rurik. The chronicle, on the contrary, was in the sphere of influence of Rurik. Therefore, the activities of the duumvirs are covered by sources biasedly. We know about the conflicts and disagreements between them, but we also know that Kyiv at the end of the 12th century was experiencing an era of prosperity and even tried to play the role of an all-Russian cultural center.

This is evidenced by the Kiev chronicle of 1198 of Abbot Moses, which, together with the Galician Chronicle of the 13th century, was included in the so-called Ipatiev Chronicle.

The Kiev Code gives a broad picture of the various Russian lands in the 12th century, using a number of chronicles of individual principalities. It opens with the “Tale of Bygone Years,” which tells about the early history of all of Rus', and ends with a recording of Moses’ solemn speech regarding the construction, at the expense of Prince Rurik, of a wall strengthening the bank of the Dnieper. The speaker, who has prepared his work for collective performance “with one mouth” (cantata?), calls the Grand Duke a tsar, and his principality is called “an autocratic power... known not only within Russian borders, but also in distant overseas countries, to the end of the universe.”

Mosaic image of the prophet. XI century St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv

After the death of Svyatoslav, when Rurik began to reign in Kyiv, his son-in-law Roman Mstislavich Volynsky (great-great-grandson of Monomakh) briefly became his co-ruler in the “Russian land,” that is, the southern Kiev region. He received the best lands with the cities of Trepol, Torchesky, Kanev and others, which made up half of the principality.

However, Vsevolod the Big Nest, the prince of the Suzdach land, envied this “blind volost”, who wanted to be in some form an accomplice in the governance of the Kiev region. A long-term feud began between Rurik, who supported Vsevolod, and the offended Roman Volynsky. As always, Olgovichi, Poland, and Galich were quickly drawn into the strife. The matter ended with Roman being supported by many cities, Chernye Klobuki, and finally in 1202 “the Kiyans opened the gates to him.”

In the first year of the great reign, Roman organized a campaign into the depths of the Polovtsian steppe, “and took the people of the Polovtsian steppe and brought a lot of souls and souls of the peasants from them (from the Polovtsians - B.R.), and there was great joy in the lands of Russia" .

Rurik did not remain in debt and on January 2, 1203, in an alliance with the Olgovichi and “the entire Polovtsian land,” he took Kyiv. “And great evil happened in the Russian land, such as there was no evil from the baptism over Kiev...

Podillya was taken and burned; otherwise he took the Mountain and the Metropolitan plundered St. Sophia and the Tithes (church) ... plundered all the monasteries and destroyed the icons ... then he put everything to himself." It is further said that Rurik's allies - the Polovtsy - chopped up all the old monks, priests and nuns, and young nuns, wives and daughters of Kievites were taken to their camps.

Obviously, Rurik did not hope to gain a foothold in Kyiv if he robbed him like that, and went to his own castle in Ovruch.

In the same year, after a joint campaign against the Polovtsians in Trepol, Roman captured Rurik and tonsured his entire family (including his own wife, Rurik’s daughter) as monks. But Roman did not rule in Kyiv for long; in 1205 he was killed by the Poles when, while hunting in his western possessions, he drove too far from his squads.

Poetic lines from the chronicle are associated with Roman Mstislavich, which, unfortunately, has reached us only partially. The author calls him the autocrat of all Rus', praises his intelligence and courage, especially noting his struggle with the Polovtsians: “He rushed to the filthy, like a lion, but he was angry, like a lynx, and destroying, like a corcodile, and he walked through their land like an eagle; the khrobor was like an eagle." Regarding Roman's Polovtsian campaigns, the chronicler recalls Vladimir Monomakh and his victorious fight against the Polovtsians. The epics with the name of Roman have also been preserved.

One of the chronicles that has not reached us, used by V.N. Tatishchev, provides extremely interesting information about Roman Mstislavich. As if after the forced tonsure of Rurik and his family, Roman announced to all Russian princes that he would overthrow his father-in-law from the throne for violating the treaty.

What follows is a statement of Roman’s views on the political structure of Rus' in the 13th century: the prince of Kiev must “defend the Russian land from everywhere, and maintain good order among the brethren, the Russian princes, so that one cannot offend another and raid and ruin other people’s regions.” The novel accuses the younger princes who are trying to capture Kyiv without having the strength to defend themselves, and those princes who “bring in the filthy Polovtsians.”

Then the draft for the election of the Kyiv prince in the event of the death of his predecessor is outlined. Six princes must be chosen: Suzdal, Chernigov, Galician, Smolensk, Polotsk, Ryazan; “Younger princes are not needed for that election.” These six principalities should be inherited by the eldest son, but not split into parts, “so that the Russian land does not diminish in strength.” Roman proposed convening a princely congress to approve this order.

It is difficult to say how reliable this information is, but in the conditions of 1203, such an order, if it could be implemented, would represent a positive phenomenon. However, it is worth remembering the good wishes on the eve of the Lyubech Congress of 1097, its good decisions and the tragic events that followed it.

V.N. Tatishchev retained the characteristics of Roman and his rival Rurik:

“This Roman Mstislavich, the grandson of the Izyaslavs, was, although not very tall in stature, but broad and extremely strong; his face was red, his eyes were black, his nose was large with a hump, his hair was black and short; Velmi Yar was in anger; his tongue was slanted, when he became angry, he did not could utter words for a long time; had a lot of fun with nobles, but was never drunk. He loved many wives, but not a single one owned him. The warrior was brave and cunning in organizing regiments... He spent his whole life in wars, received many victories, but only one ( once. - B.R.) was defeated."

Rurik Rostislavich is characterized differently. It is said that he was in the great reign for 37 years, but during this time he was expelled six times and “suffered a lot, having no peace from anywhere. He himself had plenty to drink and had wives, and cared little about the government of the state and his own safety. His judges and The rulers of the cities inflicted a lot of burdens on the people, for this reason he had very little love among the people and had little respect from the princes.”

Obviously, these characteristics, full of medieval richness, were compiled by some Galician-Volyn or Kiev chronicler who sympathized with Roman.

It is interesting to note that Roman is the last of the Russian princes glorified by epics; book and popular assessments coincided, which happened very rarely: the people very carefully selected heroes for their epic fund.

Roman Mstislavich and the “wise-loving” Rurik Rostislavich are the last bright figures in the list of Kyiv princes of the 12th-13th centuries. Next come the weak rulers, who left no memory of themselves either in chronicles or in folk songs.

The strife around Kyiv continued in those years when a new unprecedented danger loomed over Russia - the Tatar-Mongol invasion. During the time from the Battle of Kalka in 1223 to the arrival of Batu near Kyiv in 1240, many princes changed, and there were many battles over Kyiv. In 1238, the Kiev prince Mikhail fled, fearing the Tatars, to Hungary, and in the terrible year of Batu’s arrival, he collected feudal dues donated to him in the principality of Daniil of Galicia: wheat, honey, “beef” and sheep.

“The Mother of Russian Cities” - Kyiv lived a bright life for a number of centuries, but in the last three decades of its pre-Mongol history, the negative features of feudal fragmentation were too affected, which actually led to the dismemberment of the Kyiv principality into a number of appanages.

The singer of “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” could not stop the historical process with his inspired stanzas.

Chernigov and Seversk principalities

The Chernigov and Seversk principalities, like the Kiev and Pereyaslav principalities, were parts of the ancient “Russian land”, that original core of Rus', which took shape back in the 6th-7th centuries, but retained its name for a long time.

The Seversk land with Novgorod on the Desna, Pu-tivl, Rylsky, Kursk on the Seym and the Donets (near modern Kharkov) did not immediately separate from the Chernigov land; this happened only in the 1140-1150s, but their connection was felt in the future. Both principalities were in the hands of the Olgovichi. Perhaps Svyatoslav Vsevolodich of Kiev was considered in the “Tale of Igor’s Host” as the overlord of both the Chernigov and Seversk princes because he was the grandson of Oleg Svyatoslavich, that is, direct Olgovich and the eldest of them. Before coming to Kyiv, he was the Grand Duke of Chernigov and, having become the Prince of Kyiv, often traveled to Chernigov, then to Lyubech, then to distant Karachev.

The Chernigov principality owned the lands of the Radimichi and Vyatichi; the northeastern border of the principality reached almost to Moscow. In dynastic and ecclesiastical terms, even distant Ryazan was drawn to Chernigov.

Particularly important were the southern connections of Chernigov with the Polovtsian steppe and coastal Tmutarakan. The Chernigovo-Seversky lands were open to the steppes over a large area; Border defensive lines were built here, defeated nomads settled here, driven out of good pastures by their new masters - the Polovtsians.

The border principality of Kursk, which withstood many Polovtsian raids, became something like the later Cossack regions, where constant danger raised brave and experienced “kmeti” warriors. Buy Tur Vsevolod says to Igor:

And my ti Kuryani - inform the mark:
Twist under the pipes, cherish under the helmets,
The end is a copy of the feeding;
Show them the ways, the directions they know,
Their lights are tense, their crowns are open,
Keep your sabers sharp;
Jump around like a gray wolf in a field,
Seek honor (honor) for yourself, and glory for the prince.

The Chernigov princes, starting from the “brave Mstislav, who slaughtered Rededya before the Kasozh regiments” and until the beginning of the 12th century, owned Tmutarakan (modern Taman) - an ancient city near the Kerch Strait, a large international port in which Greeks, Russians, Khazars, Armenians lived, Jews, Adyghe people.

Medieval geographers, when calculating the lengths of the Black Sea routes, often took Tmutarakan as one of the main reference points.

By the middle of the 12th century, Tmutarakan's ties with Chernigov were severed, and this seaport passed into the hands of the Polovtsians, which explains Igor's desire

Search for the city of Tmutorokan,

And it would be a good idea to exhaust the helmet of the Don, that is, to renew the old routes to the Black Sea, to the Caucasus, to the Crimea and Byzantium. If Kyiv owned the Dnieper route “from Greek to Varangians,” then Chernigov owned its own roads to the blue sea; only these roads were too firmly closed by the nomads of several Polovtsian tribes.

If the Kyiv princes widely used the Black Klobuks as a barrier against the Polovtsians, then the Chernigov Olgovichi had “their own filthy ones.”

In the “golden word” Svyatoslav reproaches his brother Yaroslav of Chernigov for avoiding the general campaign against the Polovtsians and focusing only on the defense of his land:

And I no longer see the power of the strong and rich
And the many warriors of my brother Yaroslav
With Chernigov tales,
From Moguy and from Tatrany,
From shelbira, and from trestle,
And from Revuta, and from Olbera;
Tii bo demon shield, with shoemakers
The regiments win with a click,
Ringing to the great-grandfather's glory.

It is possible that this refers to some Turkic-speaking squads that found themselves in the Chernigov region a very long time ago, since the time of their “great-grandfathers”; Perhaps these are Turkic-Bulgarians or some tribes brought by Mstislav from the Caucasus at the beginning of the 11th century.

The Principality of Chernigov, in essence, separated from Kievan Rus in the second half of the 11th century and was only temporarily under Monomakh under vassal subordination to the Kyiv prince. Unexpected proof that the Chernigov princes considered themselves equal to the Kiev princes in the 12th century was provided by excavations in the capital of the Golden Horde, in Sarai, where a huge silver health charm was found with the inscription: “And behold the chara of the Grand Duke Volodimer Davydovich...” Vladimir was a Chernigov prince in 1140-1151 in co-government with his younger brother Izyaslav (died in 1161).

The geographical location, family ties of the princes and the long tradition of friendship with nomads made the Chernigov principality a kind of wedge that cut into the rest of the Russian lands; Inside the wedge, the Polovtsians invited by the Olgovichs often ruled. For this they did not like Oleg Svyatoslavich himself, his sons Vsevolod and Svyatoslav; For this, their third son, Igor Olgovich, was killed in Kyiv. Oleg's grandson, the hero of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" - Igor Svyatoslavich - at one time was connected by friendship with none other than Konchak.

Igor was born in 1150 (during the famous campaign he was only 35 years old) and in 1178 became Prince of Novgorod-Seversk. In 1180, he, along with other Olgovichs, together with the Polovtsians, went far into the depths of the Smolensk principality and gave battle to Davyd Rostislavich near Drutsk. Then Igor, together with Konchak and Kobyak, moved towards Kyiv, and they won the great reign for Svyatoslav Vsevolodich. Igor, who led the Polovtsian troops, guarded the Dnieper, but Rurik Rostislavich, expelled from Kyiv by them, defeated the Polovtsians. “Igor, seeing Polovets, was defeated, and so Konchak and he jumped into the boat, running to Gorodets to Chernigov.”

And three years later, Igor is already fighting against the Polovtsians, against the same Konchak, who attacked Rus'. During this campaign, Igor quarreled with Vladimir Pereyaslavsky over which of them should ride “in front.” It was not about military glory, but about the fact that the vanguard units captured great booty. The angry Vladimir turned his regiments and plundered Igor's Seversk principality.

In 1183, Igor came up with the idea of separate campaigns against the Polovtsians. Kyiv, Pereyaslav, Volyn and Galician troops defeated Kobyak and many other khans on the Orel River, near the Dnieper rapids. The Olgovichi refused to participate in this campaign, but Igor, having learned that the main forces of the Polovtsian land were defeated far from his principality, together with his brother Vsevolod, undertook a campaign against the Polovtsian encampments along the Merlu River, not far from the city of Donets. The trip was successful.

The year 1185 was full of major events. In early spring, the “cursed and damned” Konchak moved to Rus'. The Chernigov princes maintained friendly neutrality, sending their boyar to Konchak.

Igor Svyatoslavich Seversky did not participate in this campaign, but the chronicler tried to shield him, reporting that the messenger from Kyiv arrived late and that the squad in the boyar Duma dissuaded the prince.

In April, Svyatoslav won another victory over the Polovtsians: their towers, many prisoners and horses were taken.

Igor, having learned about this, allegedly said to his vassals: “Are we not princes, or what? Let’s go on a campaign and gain glory for ourselves too!” The campaign began on April 23. On May 1, 1185, when the troops approached the Russian borders, there was a solar eclipse, widely used in the “Tale of Igor’s Campaign” as a poetic image:

The sun blocked his path with darkness;
At night, wake up the bird moaning to him with a thunderstorm;
The animals whistled up.

White stone carved capitals (Boris and Gleb Cathedral of the 12th century)

Igor ignored the warning "signs" of nature and moved into the steppe south from the Seversky Donets towards the Sea of Azov. On Friday, May 10, the troops met with the first Polovtsian nomadic camp, the male population of which, “everyone from small to large,” obscured the wagons, but was defeated.

From early to the heels (Friday. - B.R.)
Trample the filthy Polovtsian regiments,
And dried out by arrows across the field,
Better than the edged Polovtsian girls,
And with them gold, and pavoloks, and precious oxamites.

The next day, Konchak arrived here with the united Polovtsian forces and surrounded the “Olgovo Good Nest”. The terrible three-day battle on the banks of Kayala ended in the complete destruction of Russian forces: Igor and part of the princes and boyars were taken prisoner (they wanted to receive a huge ransom for them), 15 people slipped out of the encirclement, and all the rest died in an “unknown field, among the Polovtsian lands” .

There is not enough bloody wine;
That feast is finished by the brave Russians
They searched for matchmakers, but they themselves fought for the Russian land.

After the victory, the Polovtsian regiments moved to Rus' in three directions: to the depopulated principalities of Igor and Bui Tur Vsevolod, to Pereyaslavl and to Kyiv itself, where Konchak was attracted by memories of Khan Bonyak, knocking with a saber on the Golden Gate of Kyiv.

At the time of Igor’s campaign, the Kiev prince Svyatoslav was peacefully touring his old Chernigov domain, and only when the Grand Duke sailed in boats to Chernigov did a member of the unfortunate “Igor’s regiment”, who had escaped from the encirclement, reach here - Belovolod Prosovich. He spoke about the tragedy on the banks of Kayaly and that Igor’s defeat “opened the gates to the Russian land.”

One must think that after the news received in Chernigov, the Grand Duke did not continue sailing along the winding Desna, but, remembering the swift ride of Monomakh, rushed to Kyiv on horseback at a speed “from matins to vespers.”

The defense strategy was as follows: the son of Svyatoslav Oleg with the governor Tudor was immediately sent to repel the Polovtsians from the banks of the Seim (in the principality of the captive Igor), in Pereyaslavl Dolgoruky’s grandson Vladimir Glebovich was already fighting with them, and the main forces began to “guard the Russian land” on the Dnieper near Kanev , guarding Ros and the strategically important Zarubinsky Ford, which connected with the Pereyaslavl left bank.

The entire summer of 1185 was spent on such confrontation with the Polovtsians; the chronicle reports the arrival of troops from Smolensk, and the exchange of messengers with Pereyaslavl and Trepol, and the internal maneuvers of the Polovtsians, who were groping for weak points in the six-hundred-kilometer Russian defense, organized hastily, in the most difficult conditions.

The need for new forces, for the participation of distant principalities, was great all summer. But, perhaps, the need for the unity of all Russian forces, even those that had already come under the banner of the Kyiv prince, was felt even more.

Pyatnitskaya Church in Chernigov. Restored by P.R. Baranovsky. An example of a new skyward building. Turn of the XII – XIII centuries.

The princes were reluctant to oppose the Polovtsians. Yaroslav of Chernigov gathered troops, but did not move to unite with Svyatoslav, for which he earned condemnation in the “golden word”. Davyd Rostislavich Smolensky led his regiments to the Kiev region, but stood in the rear of the Kyiv regiments, near Trepol, at the mouth of the Stugna, and refused to move further.

And at this time Konchak besieged Pereyaslavl; Prince Vladimir barely escaped the battle, wounded by three spears. “Here are the half of me, and help me!” - he sent to tell Svyatoslav.

Svyatoslav and his co-ruler Rurik Rostislavich could not immediately move their forces, since Davyd of Smolensk was preparing to return home. The Smolensk regiments held a meeting and declared that they had agreed to go only to Kyiv, that there was no battle now, and they could not participate in a further campaign: “we are already exhausted.”

While this unworthy bargaining with Davyd was going on, Konchak attacked Rimov on Sula and the Polovtsians cut down or captured all its inhabitants.

Svyatoslav and Rurik, who were going to the aid of Perey-slavl and Rimov, were delayed because of Davyd’s “koromol”. The chronicle directly connects the death of Rimov with the fact that the Russian forces were “late, waiting for Davyd in Smolnya.”

When the united regiments of Svyatoslav and Rurik crossed the Dnieper to drive away Konchak, Davyd left Trepol and turned back his Smolensk troops.

The author of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” writes about this with great bitterness. He remembered the ancient princes, regretted that old Vladimir (Svyatoslavich) could not be left forever here, on the Kyiv mountains, spoke about how Rus' groans, because “now the banners of Rurik stand, and next to him his brother Davyd, but “Their horsetails flutter differently, but their spears sing differently.”

It is no coincidence that the poet remembered old Vladimir - after all, it was here, on the banks of the Stugna, where the betrayal of the Smolensk prince took place, that two centuries ago Vladimir Svyatoslavich set up a chain of his heroic outposts. The author’s thought once again persistently returns to this river: when describing Igor’s escape, remembering the death of Monomakh’s brother in 1093 in the waters of the Stugna, he contrasts it with the Donets, “cherishing the prince on the waves”:

Prince Igor. Hawthorns and children. Costume sketch. N.K. Roerich

Not so, speaking, the Stugna River;
Having a hoodoo stream, devour other people's streams and plows,
Rostrena to the mouth,
I’m taking Prince Rostislav away...

One might think that the author of the Lay, being with his prince Svyatoslav, spent this terrible summer of 1185 in the camp of the Russian troops between Kanev and Trepol, between Ros and Stugna, and witnessed the arrival of messengers from the besieged cities, and the dispatch of messengers for new ones." piss", and the cowardly treachery of Davyd near Trepol on Stugna.

Was it not during these months of “confrontation”, when it was necessary to find special inspired words to unite the Russian forces, to attract the princes of distant lands to the defense, that the wonderful “golden word” was formed? Indeed, in this section of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” which ends with words about Davyd’s betrayal, there is not a single fact that would go beyond the chronological framework of those few months when Svyatoslav and Rurik held the defense on the Dnieper from Vitichevsky Ford to Zarubinsky, from Trepol to Kanev. Was it not from the inaccessible heights of Kanev, full of pagan antiquity, that the author of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” looked at Rus' and the steppe at that time?

He deeply regretted the death of the Russians and could not resist bitter reproaches against Igor. Igor is not the hero of the Lay, but only an excuse for writing a patriotic appeal, the significance of which is not limited to the events of 1185.

In the spring of 1186, Igor had already escaped from captivity: he wandered through secluded river thickets for 11 days and finally returned to his homeland.

In 1199, after the death of Yaroslav, Igor Svyatoslavich became the Grand Duke of Chernigov and in recent years managed to write his own chronicle, which ended up in the Kiev vault. Here Igor is presented as a very noble prince, constantly thinking about the good of the Russian land. Igor died in 1202. His sons, who found themselves in the Galician land, pursued a harsh anti-boyar policy, killed about 500 noble boyars and were eventually hanged in Galich in 1208.

The further history of the Chernigov-Seversk land is not of particular interest. The multiplied Olgovichi continued to willingly take part in strife and gradually divided the land into several small plots. In 1234, Chernigov withstood a heavy siege by the troops of Daniil Galitsky: “The battle at Chernigov was fierce; they laid a fire and a ram on it, threw one and a half shots with a stone. And the stone was like a man’s strength to lift.”

In 1239, Chernigov, along with the entire Left Bank, was taken by the Tatar army.

Galicia-Volyn lands

In the most solemn form, the author of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” appeals to the Galician prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich, defining with his characteristic genius in a few lines the important role of the rich and flourishing Galician principality:

Galichki Osmomysle Yaroslav!
Sitting high on your gold-plated table,
Supported the Ugorsky mountains (Carpathians. - B.R.)
With your iron shelves,
Having stepped in the queen's way,
Having closed the gates of the Danube,
Sword of burden through the clouds,
Courts line up to the Danube.
Your thunderstorms flow across the lands:
Having opened the gates of Kyiv;
Shoot from the gold of the Saltani table for the lands.
Shoot, sir, Konchak, that filthy bastard,
For the Russian land, for the wounds of Igor, dear Svyatoslavlich!

The reader or listener of the poem vividly imagined a powerful Western Russian power, resting on the Carpathians and the Danube on one side and extending its imperious hand in the other direction, to Kyiv and the Polovtsian “sultans.” The lines correctly reflected the rapid rise of the Galician principality, which grew up on the site of the appanages of the minor princes exiled and fled here in the 11th – early 12th centuries.

Less magnificently, but also respectfully, the author of the Lay greets the Volyn princes and especially the famous Roman Mstislavich, who “soars high above the earth like a falcon.” He and his vassals have “iron paporzi (breastplates. - B.R.) under Latin helmets,” and his armored regiments defeat both the Polovtsians and the Lithuanians. The minor princes of the small Lutsk principality - Ingvar and Vsevolod Yaroslavich - are also mentioned here. The poet calls on all Volyn princes, great-great-grandsons of Monomakh: “Block the gates of the field (steppe inhabitants - B.R.) with your sharp arrows for the Russian land, for Igor’s wounds.”

In the history of the Galician-Volyn lands, we see the movement of the historical center: in ancient times, the Duleb union of tribes, located at the junction of the East and West Slavic tribes of the Carpathian region and Volyn, was in first place. In the 6th century, this union of tribes was defeated by the Avars, the old tribal center - Volyn - died out, and the center of these lands became Vladimir Volynsky, named after Vladimir Svyatoslavich, who paid great attention to Western Russian lands.

Fertile soil, mild climate, and relative safety from nomads made the fertile land of Volyn one of the richest in Rus'. Feudal relations are developing very intensively here and a strong boyar layer is emerging. Cities such as Przemysl, Lutsk, Terebovl, Cherven, Kholm, Berestye, Drogichin appeared here. For a long time we find nothing in the chronicles about Galich. But in the 12th century, Galich from a small appanage town of minor princes quickly turned into the capital of a significant principality that arose on the lands of such Slavic tribes as the White Croats, Tivertsy and Ulichi. At the turn of the 12th-13th centuries, Roman Mstislavich Volynsky united the Galician land and Volyn into one large state, which survived the Tatar-Mongol invasion and existed until the 14th century. This is the scheme of the history of Western Rus'.

Western Russian princes tried to pursue an independent policy towards Kiev back in the 11th century, for example Vasilko Rostislavich Terebovlsky, who was blinded after the Lyubech Congress, his brother Volodar, Prince of Peremyshl, and their enemy Davyd Igorevich Volynsky, and then Dorogobuzhsky.

The last representative of the petty rogue princes was Ivan Rostislavich Berladnik, the grandson of Volodar, whose biography is full of various adventures. In 1144, he reigned in small Zvenigorod (north of Galich), and the Galicians, taking advantage of the fact that their prince Vladimir Volodarevich was away hunting, invited Ivan and “brought him to Galich.” When Vladimir besieged Galich, the entire city defended Ivan, but in the end he had to flee to the Danube, and Vladimir, entering the city, “massacred many people.” On the Danube, Ivan Rostislavich was from the Berlad region and received the nickname Berladnik.

In 1156, we see Berladnik in the Vyatic forests, where he serves Yuri Dolgoruky’s unlucky ally, Svyatoslav Olgovich, for 12 hryvnias of gold and 200 hryvnias of silver. Then he moved to another camp, and Yuri Dolgoruky immediately became interested in his fate, who managed to capture him and imprison him in Suzdal, and at the other end of Rus', in Galich, Yaroslav Osmomysl, who remembered Berladnik’s enmity with his father. He sends an entire army to Yuri to deliver Berladnik to Galich and execute him. But on the way, unexpectedly, the squads of the Chernigov prince Izyaslav Davydovich recaptured Berladnik from the Suzdal troops, and he escaped cruel reprisals.

In 1158, he left the hospitable Izyaslav, who had already become the Grand Duke of Kyiv, since the diplomatic conflict because of him had assumed a European scale: the ambassadors of Galich, Chernigov, Hungary and Poland arrived to Izyaslav in Kiev, demanding the extradition of Ivan Berladnik. He returned to the Danube again, and from there, at the head of an army of six thousand, he went to the Principality of Galicia. The Smerds openly went over to his side, but the allied Polovtsians abandoned him because he did not allow them to plunder Russian cities. Izyaslav and the Olgovichi supported Berladnik and launched a campaign against Galich, but Yaroslav’s Galician troops were ahead of them, ended up near Kiev and soon captured the capital. Yaroslav “opened the gates to Kyiv,” and Izyaslav and Berladnik fled to Vyryu and Vshchizh.

Three years later, in 1161, Ivan Berladnik ended up in Byzantium and died in Thessaloniki; the hatred of the princes overtook him here: “There is such a rumor - as if poison would kill him.” The prince for whom the townspeople of Galich fought to the death for a whole month, the prince who did not allow Polovtsian robberies, the prince to whom “smerds jump over the fence”, of course, an interesting figure for the 12th century, but too one-sidedly depicted by hostile chronicles.

The Volyn principality from 1118 onwards remained with the descendants of Monomakh and his son Mstislav. From here Izyaslav Mstislavich, with lightning-fast marches, making 100 kilometers a day, suddenly burst into the feasting Belgorod and Kiev, here he went to his Vladimir Volynsky, losing battles when the “kiyans” and Black Klobuki told him: “You are our prince, if You will be strong, but now is not your time, go away!” The grandchildren of Izyaslav Mstislavich divided the land into five appanages, and by the time of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” their unification had not yet taken place.

From the middle of the 12th century, next to the Volyn principality, the Principality of Galicia grew up, which immediately entered into competition with its neighbor and even with Kiev. The first Galician prince, Vladimir Volodarevich (1141-1153), as we have just seen, had to overcome the resistance of not only appanage princes, like Ivan Berladnik, but also the townspeople and the local boyars, who had greatly strengthened here during the existence of small appanages.

The entire subsequent history of the Galician-Volyn lands is a struggle between the centripetal principle and the centrifugal one. The first was personified by the princes of Vladimir Volynsky and Galich, and the second by the appanage princes and the rich boyars, accustomed to independence.

The heyday of the Galician principality is associated with Yaroslav Osmomysl (1153-1187), son of Vladimir Volodarevich, cousin of Ivan Berladnik, sung in the Lay.

We meet him in the chronicle under the following circumstances: the Kiev prince Izyaslav Mstislavich, who fought a lot with Vladimir Volodarevich and, with the help of the Hungarian king, defeated him in 1152, sent his boyar Peter Borislavich to Galich at the beginning of 1153 (who was, apparently, the author princely chronicle). The ambassador reminded Prince Vladimir of some of his promises, sealed by the ritual of kissing the cross. Mocking the ambassador, the Galician prince asked: “What, did I kiss this little cross?” - and in the end he kicked out the Kyiv boyar and his retinue: “They said enough of course, but now - get out!”

Decorative tiles of the 12th-13th centuries. Galich

The ambassador left letters of the cross with the prince and rode out of the city on unfed horses. A new war was declared. Again the royal regiments had to ride to Galich from the west, the Kyiv regiments from the east, and the Volyn regiments from the north, again the Galician prince had to send messengers to the other end of Rus' for help to Yuri Dolgoruky, his matchmaker and longtime ally. But the messenger galloped along the Kyiv road and brought Pyotr Borislavich back from the path. In Galich, servants in black robes came down from the palace to meet the ambassador; on the “gold-plated table” sat a young prince in a black robe and a black hood, and a knightly guard stood at the coffin of the old prince Vladimir Volodarevich.

Yaroslav hastened to make amends for his father’s careless arrogance and expressed complete submission to the Grand Duke: “Accept me as your son Mstislav. Let Mstislav ride next to your stirrup on one side, and I will ride on the other side next to your stirrup with all my regiments.” With such a figurative recognition of feudal dependence, Yaroslav released the ambassador, “but he had other thoughts in his heart,” the chronicle adds. And already in the same year the war took place.

Prince Yaroslav did not participate in the battle; the boyars told him: “You are young... but go, prince, to the city.” Probably, the boyars simply did not really trust the prince, who shortly before this had sworn allegiance to Kyiv. Yaroslav Osmomysl was not so young at that time - three years before the battle he married the daughter of Yuri Dolgoruky, Olga.

The boyars continued to vigorously interfere in princely affairs. In 1159, when the conflict over Ivan Berladnik had not yet been completed, the Galicians stubbornly continued to show sympathy for the Danube daredevil and turned to his patron, the Kiev prince Izyaslav Davydovich, with a proposal to march on their hometown: “As soon as you show the banners, we will Let's retreat from Yaroslav!"

A new conflict between Yaroslav and the boyars arose in 1173. Princess Olga and her son Vladimir fled from her husband along with prominent Galician boyars to Poland. Vladimir Yaroslavich begged from his father’s rival the city of Cherven, which was strategically convenient both for connections with Poland and for attacking his father. This is that Vladimir Galitsky, a drunkard and a hawk-moth, whose image is so colorfully reproduced in Borodin’s opera “Prince Igor”. Igor Svyatoslavich was married to his sister Euphrosyne, daughter of Yaroslav Osmomysl (Yaroslavna). The break with his father was caused by the fact that Yaroslav had a mistress Nastasya and Yaroslav gave preference to her son Oleg over his legitimate son Vladimir.

Olga Yuryevna and Vladimir were away for eight months, but finally received a letter from the Galician boyars with a request to return to Galich and a promise to take her husband into custody. The promise was more than fulfilled - Yaroslav Osmomysl was arrested, his friends, the allied Polovtsians, were hacked to death, and his mistress Nastasya was burned at the stake. “The Galicians set fire, burned her, and took her son into captivity, leading him to the cross as a prince, so that he could truly have a princess. And so things were settled.” The conflict, which seemed to be a family one, was temporarily resolved in this peculiar medieval way.

The next year, Vladimir fled to Volyn, but Yaroslav Osmomysl, having hired Poles for 3 thousand hryvnia, burned two Volyn cities and demanded the extradition of his rebellious son; the same one fled to Porosye and was going to hide in Suzdal. Having traveled to many cities in search of refuge, Vladimir Galitsky finally ended up with his sister in Putivl, where he lived for several years until Igor reconciled him with his father.

In the fall of 1187, Yaroslav Osmomysl died, leaving as heir not Vladimir, but Oleg “Nastasiich”. Immediately “there was a great rebellion in the land of Galicia.” The boyars kicked out Oleg and gave the throne to Vladimir, but this prince did not satisfy them either. “To Prince Volodimer in the Galich land. And he was kind to drink a lot and not love thoughts with his husbands.” This decided everything - if the prince neglects the boyar Duma, if he goes beyond the will of the “meaningful”, then he is already bad and all sorts of discrediting details are entered into the chronicle about him: that he drinks a lot, and that he “sings at the priest’s house.” wife and get (himself) a wife,” and that he is in the city, “having fallen in love with a wife or whose daughter, he will wave violence.”

Roman Mstislavich Volynsky, knowing about the dissatisfaction of the Galician boyars with Vladimir, suggested that they expel Vladimir and accept him, Roman. The boyars repeated what they did under the father of their prince - they threatened Vladimir’s mistress with death: “We don’t want to bow to the priest, but we want to kill her!” Vladimir Galitsky, taking the gold, silver, “priest” and her two sons, fled to Hungary.

Roman Mstislavich reigned briefly in Galich; he was expelled by the Hungarian king, who, taking advantage of the superiority of forces, imprisoned in Galich not Vladimir, who sought his help, but his son Andrei. Vladimir was imprisoned in the tower of a Hungarian castle.

The Galicians secretly continued to look for a prince of their own free will: either Roman reported that “the Galicians should take me to reign with them,” or the boyar embassy invited Berladnik’s son Rostislav Ivanovich.

Relying on the Galician boyars, Rostislav in 1188 with a small army appeared under the walls of Galich. “The Galician men don’t all talk in one thought,” and Berladnichich’s detachment was surrounded by Hungarians and part of the Galicians; the prince himself was knocked off his horse.

When the Hungarians carried the seriously wounded prince to Galich, the townspeople “were agitated, wanting to take it away from the Ugors (Hungarians - B.R.) and accepted it as their reign. Ufa, having seen it, applied a mortal potion to the wounds.”

In 1189, Vladimir Galitsky escaped from captivity. He cut the tent that was at the top of his tower, twisted ropes and climbed down along them; two supporters helped him reach Germany. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa agreed (subject to an annual payment of 2 thousand hryvnia) to help the exile obtain Galich. With the support of Germany and Poland, Vladimir again returned to his “fatherland and grandfather.”

In 1199, after the death of Vladimir, Roman Mstislavich became the Galician prince, Volyn and Galich united in one hand and formed a large and powerful principality, equal to large European kingdoms. When Roman captured Kiev, he found himself in his hands with a huge compact piece of Russian lands, equal to the “Holy Roman Empire” of Frederick Barbarossa. Forced to take an oath to the Galician boyars upon ascending the throne, Roman subsequently acted abruptly, thereby causing discontent among the boyars.

From the chronicle hints we can conclude that Roman was very concerned about enriching his princely domain and settled prisoners on his land. Roman sought refuge with the Byzantine Emperor Alexei III Angel, expelled from Constantinople in 1204 by the crusading knights, who had found richer prey in Christian Byzantium than the distant “Holy Sepulcher” somewhere in Palestine.

The short reign of the victorious Roman in Galich, Kyiv and Vladimir-Volynsky, when he was called “the autocrat of all Rus',” strengthened the position of the Western Russian lands and prepared their further prosperity.

In addition to the colorful and dramatic external history of the principalities and princes outlined above, this era is extremely interesting for us because of the aggravated relations between the princes and the boyars, which were so clearly identified already in the time of Yaroslav Osmomysl. If we discard the element of personal gain and self-interest, which undoubtedly determined many of the actions of the princes, then we must admit that their policy of concentrating lands, weakening appanages and strengthening the central princely power was objectively unconditionally progressive, since it coincided with the interests of the people. In carrying out this policy, the princes relied on broad sections of the townspeople and on the reserves of small feudal lords that they themselves had raised ("youths", "children", "almsmen"), who were completely dependent on the prince.

The anti-princely actions of the boyars led to the struggle of the boyar parties among themselves, to increased strife, and to the defenselessness of the state in the face of external danger. Given the intertwining of princely interests and the relative balance of power in the large principalities, the question of succession to the throne acquired a special character.

Many princely marriages were then concluded for political reasons between children aged five to eight. When the young prince grew up and the marriage took place, he received not the relatives that he could choose for himself, based on his interests, but those that met the interests of his parents decades ago. The boyars had to take advantage of these contradictions, and for the princes there was only one way out - to transfer the throne to a rootless side son. This is probably the reason for the tenacity with which Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, Yaroslav Osmomysl, and his son Vladimir held on to their mistresses and illegitimate sons. Yaroslav's father-in-law was the powerful and daring Yuri Dolgoruky, who sought to interfere in other people's affairs. Vladimir’s father-in-law is the “great and formidable” Svyatoslav Vsevolodich of Kiev. While Vladimir was sitting in a tower in Hungary with his mistress and children, his father-in-law decided to get Galich, his son-in-law’s fatherland, for himself personally (1189). Such actions could easily be framed in the form of protecting the legal rights of his daughter and grandchildren, for whom the Galician boyars had already stood up. When the boyars of Galich burned Nastasya, expelled Oleg “Nastasich” or rebelled against the ruler of the world, the matter was not so much about the morality of the princes, but rather about not allowing the prince to be “autocracy” in those conditions, so that the boyars would not lose allies within the princely family and powerful support from the crowned relatives of the princess.

A similar struggle of princely and royal power with feudal lords, who sought to isolate themselves in their estates, was waged at that time in Western Europe, and in the Georgian kingdom, and in the east, and in a number of Russian principalities.

One should not think that the entire boyars opposed the prince. Significant and influential boyar circles actively promoted strong and effective princely power.

In Galicia-Volyn Rus', this struggle between different feudal elements reached its apogee during the reign of Roman’s son, no less famous than his father, Daniil Galitsky (born around 1201 - died around 1264). Daniel was orphaned at four years old, and his entire childhood and adolescence were spent in conditions of strife and fierce feudal struggle. After the death of Roman, the boyars of Vladimir Volynsky wanted to leave his widow princess and children to reign, and the Galician boyars invited the sons of Igor Svyatoslavich of Chernigov. The princess had to flee; Uncle Miroslav carried Daniel in his arms through an underground passage out of the city. The fugitives found shelter in Poland.

The Galician-Volyn principality broke up into a number of fiefs, which allowed Hungary to conquer it. The princes Igorevich, who did not have any support in these lands, tried to hold on through repression - they killed about 500 noble boyars, but thereby only strengthened the supporters of the expelled dowager princess. In 1211, the boyars solemnly installed the boy Daniel in the cathedral church of Galich. The boyars hanged the Igorevichs, “for revenge.”

Very quickly, the Galician boyars wanted to get rid of the princess, who had strong intercessors in Poland.

The court chronicler of Daniil Galitsky, who wrote much later, recalls the following episode: the Galicians drove the princess out of the city; Daniel accompanied her crying, not wanting to leave. Some tiun grabbed the reins of Daniil’s horse, and Daniil pulled out a sword and began to chop with it until his mother took the weapon away from him. It is possible that the chronicler deliberately told this episode as an epigraph to the description of Daniel’s further actions directed against the boyars. Boyar Vladislav reigned in Galich, which caused indignation among the feudal elite: “It is not fair for a boyar to reign in Galich.” After this, the Galician land was again subjected to foreign intervention.

Trade routes of pan-European importance passing through the Galicia-Volyn principality.

Only in 1221 did Daniel, with the support of his father-in-law Mstislav the Udaly, become a prince in Vladimir, and only in 1234 did he finally establish himself in Galich.

The Galician land magnates behaved like princes: “The boyars of Galicia, Danila, called themselves a prince, and they themselves held the whole land...” Such was the boyar Dobroslav, who even controlled the princely domain, such was Sudislav, whose castle was a fortress filled with supplies and weapons and ready for fight with the prince.

The boyars either invited Daniel or conspired against him. So, in 1230, “there was sedition among the godless Galich boyars.” The boyars decided to set fire to the palace during a meeting of the boyar duma and kill the prince. Daniil's brother Vasilko managed to thwart the plot. Then one of the boyars invited the princes to dinner at Vyshensky Castle; Tysyatsky, a friend of Daniel, managed to warn, “as if there is a feast of evil... as if I will kill you.” 28 boyars were captured, but Daniel was afraid to execute them. Some time later, when Daniel was “rejoicing at a feast, one of those godless boyars poured a cup over his face. And then he endured it.”

It was necessary to find a new, more reliable support. And Daniel convened a “veche” of youths, service soldiers, junior members of the squad, who were the prototype of the later nobility. The youths supported their prince: “We are faithful to God and to you, our lord!” - and the sotsky Mikula gave Daniel advice that determined the prince’s future policy: “Sir! If you don’t kill the bees, don’t eat the honey!”

Following the battle on Kalka (before which Daniil went to see the “unprecedented army”, and after which, wounded, “turn your horse to the ground]), feudal strife and fragmentation continued to corrode the rich Russian lands, and the centripetal forces personified here by Daniil were not enough strengthened, could not yet resist both internal and external enemies. The boyar opposition, constantly relying either on Poland or on Hungary, did not turn the Galician-Volyn land into a boyar republic, but significantly weakened the principality. It is not for nothing that the chronicler, turning to this pre-Tatar period of life one of the most developed and cultural Russian principalities, sadly wrote: “Let us begin to say countless armies and great labors and frequent wars and many seditions and frequent uprisings and many rebellions...”

The cities of the Galicia-Volyn land - Galich, Vladimir, Przemysl, Lutsk, Lvov, Danilov, Berestye (Brest) and others - were rich, populous and beautiful. Through the work of local craftsmen and architects, they were surrounded by strong walls and built with elegant buildings. Here, as in Vladimir-Suzdal Rus', they loved stone sculpture; Avdey, the “cunning man”, was famous for carving stone skillfully. We know about the wise scribe Timothy, who denounced the cruelty of the conquerors with his allegorical parables, we know about the proud singer Mitus. In our hands is the Galician Chronicle of the 13th century, exceptional in its completeness and colorfulness, which is a historical biography of Prince Daniel.

The most important trade routes of pan-European importance passed through the Galicia-Volyn lands, leading to Krakow, Prague, Regensburg and Gdansk. Drogichin on the Bug was a kind of all-Russian customs house - tens of thousands of commodity seals of the 11th-13th centuries with the signs of many Russian princes were preserved there. The famous medieval map of the world by the Arab geographer Idrisi, compiled in Palermo around 1154, shows cities such as Galich, Belgorod Dnieper, Lutsk and Przemysl. Access to the Danube and the Black Sea connected with the Byzantine world. It is not without reason that at various times emperors who suffered failures in the empire sought refuge in Galich and received cities here “as a consolation” (Andronicus, Alexei III).

Archaeological excavations in Galician-Volynian cities give us a good idea of the life of ordinary townspeople, and of the high level of the entire culture of this southwestern corner of Russian lands. The affairs of Galicia-Volyn Rus' were of keen interest not only in neighboring lands, but also in Germany, Rome, France, and Byzantium.

Principality of Kiev

The capital of the semi-autonomous Porosie was either Kanev or Torchesk, a huge city with two fortresses on the northern bank of the Ros.

In the half century that separates “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” from the time of Monomakh, the Principality of Kiev lived a difficult life.

Facial image of Grand Duke Mstislav Vladimirovich. Title book. 1672

The attempt to return Novgorod was unsuccessful, since the Novgorodians expelled Svyatoslav Olgovich “about his malice”, “about his violence”.

The reign of Izyaslav was filled with the struggle with the Olgovichs, with Yuri Dolgoruky, who twice managed to briefly take possession of Kiev.

During this struggle, Prince Igor Olgovich, a prisoner of Izyaslav, was killed in Kyiv by the verdict of the veche (1147).

In 1157, Yuri Dolgoruky died in Kyiv. It is believed that the Suzdal prince, unloved in Kyiv, was poisoned.

Treasure with money bars - hryvnia

The Slovo characterizes the Kyiv prince Svyatoslav Vsevolodich (1180-1194) as a talented commander.

His cousins, Igor and Vsevolod Svyatoslavich, with their haste awakened the evil that Svyatoslav, their feudal overlord, had managed to cope with shortly before:

Svyatoslav, the great and formidable Kiev, shook Byashet with his strong regiments and haraluzhny swords with a thunderstorm;

Step on the Polovtsian land;

The trampling of hills and ravines;

Swirl the rivers and lakes;

Dry up the streams and swamps.

And the filthy Kobyak from the bow of the sea

From the great iron regiments of the Polovtsians,

Like a whirlwind, stand out:

And here Kobyak is in the city of Kyiv,

In the gridnice of Svyatoslavl.

Tu Nemtsi and Veneditsi, Tu Gretsi and Morava

They sing the glory of Svyatoslavl,

Prince Igor's cabin...