Historians consider the date of the beginning of the collapse of the Old Russian state to be the year of the death of Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise, who owned the throne of Kyiv from 1016 to 1054.

Of course, centrifugal forces in the Russian state began to act even under Vladimir the Baptist: Yaroslav the Wise himself opposed his father, refusing to pay tribute to Kyiv in 2,000 hryvnias.

strife

Discord between the sons of Vladimir arose immediately after his death. At first, it almost resulted in the capture of Kyiv by the Pechenegs, who were called by the son of Vladimir Yaropolk, and then the Polish king Boleslav the Brave almost ascended the throne of Kiev. And only the indignant population of Kyiv managed to save the situation: the people of Kiev began to cut the Poles, and the king with the army was forced to leave the city.

The strife between the 12 sons of Vladimir led to the fact that everyone died, except for Yaroslav and Mstislav. And after the death of the Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise, who did a lot to strengthen the Old Russian state, Russia, according to the historian Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, "buried its power and prosperity."

Two forces

The Soviet historian Boris Dmitrievich Grekov noted in his writings that Ancient Russian state disintegrated under the influence of two forces: the forces of the Grand Duke of Kiev, seeking to assert his dominance on the lands of Rus' and the forces of specific princes, each of which denied the right of Kiev to dispose of all the land and sought to assert its sovereignty.

Many conflicts arose because of the order of applicants for princely tables. Power was transferred by seniority - from a smaller table to a larger one, which caused controversy.

New principle of succession

After the death of Yaroslav, the struggle for Kyiv and its sovereignty was continued by his sons, and then by his grandchildren. Although one of them - Vladimir Monomakh - in 1097 tried to stop the strife by gathering all the princes in the city of Lyubech, where a new principle of succession of princely power was proclaimed. From now on, each prince with his offspring kept his fiefdom, not claiming other people's cities. And although civil strife subsided, in fact, this only increased the disunity of the lands.

At the princely council, Kyiv remained the patrimony of the grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, after whom Vladimir Monomakh himself ascended the throne. The time of his reign and the reign of his son, Mstislav, became a period of relative stability in Rus'. But later, Mstislav handed over the reign to his brother Yaropolk, who decided to fulfill the will of his father - Vladmir Monomakh - and plant the eldest son of his brother Mstislav, his nephew Vsevolod-Gabriel, Prince of Novgorod, to reign in Kiev. This angered the other sons of Monomakh, among whom was Yuri Dolgoruky, who owned Rostov, and led to a general war, about which the Novgorod chronicle says the following: "... And the whole Russian land was torn to pieces ..."

13 lands

Closer to the middle of the 12th century, Ancient Rus' actually broke up into 13 lands that were heterogeneous in area and composition of the population.

Nine princely "fatherlands" remained the backbone of the state.

The Principality of Gorodno (the city of Gorodno), which later broke up into volosts and came under the rule of Lithuania.

The Turov-Pinsk principality, located in Polesie and in the region of the lower reaches of the Pripyat River, with the cities of Turov and Pinsk. Two centuries later, it fell under the rule of the Lithuanian princes.

Volyn-Vladimir principality, headed by the city of Vladimir, which included the smaller cities of Lutsk, Izyaslavl, Dorogobuzh, Shumsk and others.

Smolensk Principality with its center in Smolensk, which was located in the upper reaches of the Volga and Northern Dvina rivers and included at least 18 cities and settlements, including Mozhaisk, Orsha, Rzhev, Toropets and Rostislavl.

The Principality of Suzdal (Rostov-Suzdal, and in the XII century - Vladimir-Suzdal), which was located in the north-east of Rus' and extended far to the north.

The Principality of Murom, headed by the city of Murom, was part of the Kyiv estate for a long time, but separated at the beginning of the 13th century and existed until the invasion of the Horde.

Around 1160, the Ryazan principality separated from the Principality of Murom, with its center in Ryazan. True, historians often consider these lands as one whole.

In the south of Rus' continued to exist Chernihiv Principality and the Galician principality.

The Kiev principality was still considered the center of the Old Russian land, although the power of Kyiv was nominal and rested on the authority of ancestors and tradition.

Four more "lands" did not have princely power over themselves. This was Novgorod with the surrounding territories, in which a strong local elite was formed and power belonged to the veche. Later, Pskov broke away from the Novgorod lands, which was also controlled by the people's assembly. The Pereyaslav lands did not have their own princes, but invited outside rulers to reign. For a long time, the city of Galich remained a draw (later it entered the Galicia-Volyn principality).

Internal and foreign policy states were ahead of the four most powerful principalities - Suzdal, Volyn, Smolensk and Chernigov.

Known until the XII century, the principality of Tmutarkan and the city of Belaya Vezha at the very beginning of the century fell under the onslaught of the Kipchaks (Polovtsy) and ceased to exist.

Rus' is united

However, the idea of ​​the unity of the Russian land did not disappear, as before, Kiev remained a “capital city”, and the Kiev prince was called the “prince of all Rus'”, although the Vladimir princes already had the right to bear the title “Grand Duke”.

Before the conquest of the southern territories by Lithuania, all Russian lands were, in fact, in the possession of one princely family - the Rurik family, which united at the moment of the highest danger to the homeland. So, for example, almost all the princes took part in the campaign against the Mongol army in 1233.

The Orthodox faith played a huge role in the unification of the lands. The Church was alone and was first headed by the Metropolitan of Kyiv. At the end of the 13th century, the residence of the metropolitan was transferred to Vladimir, and then to Moscow.

In addition to these factors, there was a historically established cultural and linguistic community, which did not allow the Old Russian state to completely disintegrate and sink into oblivion.

History of Russia from ancient times to the end of the 17th century Milov Leonid Vasilyevich

§ 4. The collapse of the Old Russian state

The Old Russian state, as it developed under Vladimir, did not last long. By the middle of the XI century. began its gradual disintegration into a number of independent principalities.

In the ancient Russian society of the early Middle Ages there was no general concept"state". In the public mind, of course, there was an idea of ​​the "Russian Land" as a special political entity, but such a "state" merged inseparably with the physical personality of the bearer of supreme power - the prince, who was essentially a monarch. The monarch was for the people of that time the real embodiment of the state. Such an idea, generally characteristic of the societies of the early Middle Ages, was especially strong in Ancient Rus', where the prince-ruler acted as the organizer and distributor of material goods produced by society. The monarch disposed of the state, as the father of the family manages his household. And just as a father divides his household between his sons, so the prince of Kiev divided the territory of the Old Russian state between his sons. So did, for example, the father of Vladimir, Svyatoslav, who divided his lands among his three sons. However, not only in Ancient Rus', but also in a number of other states of the early Middle Ages, such orders did not initially enter into force, and the most powerful of the heirs usually seized the full power (in the specific case of the heirs of Svyatoslav, Vladimir). It is possible that at that stage of the formation of the state, economic self-sufficiency could only be provided that Kiev had unified control of all the main routes of transcontinental trade: the Baltic - the Near and Middle East, the Baltic - the Black Sea. Therefore, the princely squad, on which the fate of the Old Russian state ultimately depended, advocated a strong and sole power. Kyiv prince. From the middle of the XI century. developments took a different direction.

Thanks to the reports of the ancient Russian chroniclers of the 11th-12th centuries, who paid great attention to the political fate of the Old Russian state, we have a good idea of ​​the external side of the events that took place.

Co-rulers-Yaroslavichi. After the death of Yaroslav the Wise in 1054, a rather complex political structure developed. The main heirs of the prince were his three eldest sons - Izyaslav, Svyatoslav and Vsevolod. Between them were divided the main centers of the historical core of the state - "Russian land" in the narrow sense of the word: Izyaslav received Kyiv, Svyatoslav - Chernigov, Vsevolod - Pereyaslavl. A number of other lands also passed under their rule: Izyaslav received Novgorod, Vsevolod - the Rostov volost. Although the chronicles say that Yaroslav made his eldest son Izyaslav the head of the princely family - "in his father's place", in the 50-60s. the three elder Yaroslavichs act as equal rulers, jointly managing the "Russian Land". Together, at congresses, they adopted laws that were to be in force throughout the entire territory of the Old Russian state, and together they undertook campaigns against their neighbors. Other members of the princely family - the younger sons of Yaroslav and his grandchildren, sat in the lands as governors of older brothers, who moved them at their discretion. So, in 1057, when Vyacheslav Yaroslavich, who was sitting in Smolensk, died, the elder brothers imprisoned his brother Igor in Smolensk, "bringing" him out of Vladimir Volynsky. The Yaroslavichs jointly achieved some successes: they defeated the bonds - "torks", who replaced the Pechenegs in the Eastern European steppes, managed to conquer the Polotsk land, which had been deposited from the Old Russian state under Yaroslav under the rule of the descendants of another son of Vladimir - Izyaslav.

Fight between members of the princely family. However, the current situation caused dissatisfaction among the younger members of the clan, deprived of power. The fortress of Tmutarakan on the Taman Peninsula increasingly became a refuge for the dissatisfied. To this were added conflicts between older brothers: in 1073 Svyatoslav and Vsevolod drove Izyaslav from the Kyiv table and divided the territory of the Old Russian state in a new way. The number of dissatisfied and offended grew, but what mattered was that they began to receive serious support from the population. Korda in 1078, a number of younger members of the princely family rebelled, they managed to occupy one of the main centers of the Old Russian state - Chernigov. The population of the “city”, even in the absence of their new princes, refused to open the gates to the troops of the Kyiv ruler. In the battle with the rebels on Nezhatina Field on October 3, 1078, Izyaslav Yaroslavich died, who by that time had managed to return to the Kiev table.

After the death of Izyaslav and Svyatoslav, who died in 1076, Vsevolod Yaroslavich took the throne of Kiev, concentrating under his direct authority most of the lands that were part of the Old Russian state. The political unity of the state was thereby preserved, but a series of rebellions by his nephews stretched through the entire reign of Vsevolod, seeking princely tables for themselves or seeking to weaken their dependence on Kiev, sometimes turning to the neighbors of Rus' for help. The old prince repeatedly sent troops against them, led by his son Vladimir Monomakh, but in the end he was forced to make concessions to his nephews. “This same one,” the chronicler wrote about him, “pacifying them, distributing power to them.” The Kiev prince was forced to make concessions, as the performances of the younger members of the family met with the support of the local population. However, the nephews, even having received princely tables, remained the deputies of their uncle, who could select these tables at his own discretion.

A new, even more serious crisis of traditional political structures erupted in the early 1990s. XI century, when, after the death in 1093 of Vsevolod Yaroslavich, Oleg, the son of Svyatoslav Yaroslavich, demanded the return of the legacy of his father, Chernigov, and turned for help to the nomadic Polovtsy, who forced the Torks out of the Eastern European steppes. In 1094, Oleg came with the "Polovtsian land" to Chernigov, where, after the death of Vsevolod Yaroslavich, Vladimir Monomakh was sitting. After an 8-day siege, Vladimir and his retinue were forced to leave the city. As he later recalled, when he and his family and retinue rode through the Polovtsian regiments, the Polovtsy "licked themselves at us like Voltsi standing." Having established himself in Chernigov with the help of the Polovtsians, Oleg refused to participate, along with other princes, in repelling the Polovtsian raids. Thus, favorable conditions were created for the Polovtsian invasions, which aggravated the disasters of the internecine war. In the Chernihiv land itself, the Polovtsy freely took full, and, as the chronicler notes, Oleg did not interfere with them, "because he himself ordered them to fight." The main centers of the "Russian Land" were under the threat of attack. The troops of Khan Tugorkan besieged Pereyaslavl, the troops of Khan Bonyak ravaged the outskirts of Kyiv.

Princely congresses. The unity of Rus' under Vladimir Monomakh. In 1097, a congress of princes, members of the princely family, gathered in Lyubech on the Dnieper, at which decisions were made that meant major step on the way to the division of the Old Russian state between members of the princely dynasty. The adopted decision - "each to keep his fatherland" meant the transformation of the lands that were in the possession of individual princes into their hereditary property, which they could now freely and without hindrance transfer to their heirs.

It is characteristic that in the report of the annals of the congress it was emphasized that not only the lands received by the sons from their fathers, but also the “cities” that Vsevolod “distributed” and where the younger members of the family were previously only princely governors become “patrimony”.

True, even after the decisions taken in Lyubech, a certain political unity of the lands that were part of the Old Russian state was preserved. It is no coincidence that at the Lyubech Congress it was not only the recognition of the rights of the princes to their "patrimonial estates", but also the general obligation to "guard" the Russian land from the "nasty".

The traditions of political unity that still survived found expression in those who gathered in the first years of the 12th century. inter-princely congresses - at the congress of 1100 in Vitichev for crimes committed on common decision of the participants of the congress, Prince Davyd Igorevich was deprived of a table in Vladimir Volynsky, at the congress of 1103 in Dolobsk it was decided that the Russian princes would march against the Polovtsy. In pursuance of the decisions made, a whole series of campaigns followed with the participation of all the main Russian princes (1103, 1107, 1111). If during the inter-princely troubles of the 90s. 11th century The Polovtsians ravaged the outskirts of Kiev, but now, thanks to the joint actions of the princes, the Polovtsy suffered serious defeats, and the Russian princes themselves began to undertake campaigns in the steppe, reaching the Polovtsian cities on the Seversky Donets. The victories over the Polovtsy contributed to the growth of the authority of one of the main organizers of the campaigns - the Pereyaslav prince Vladimir Monomakh. Thus, at the beginning of the XII century. Ancient Rus' in relation to its neighbors still acted as a single entity, but already at that time, individual princes independently waged wars with their neighbors.

When in 1113 Vladimir Monomakh occupied the Kiev throne, under whose authority a significant part of the territory of the Old Russian state turned out to be, a serious attempt was made to restore the former significance of the power of the Kyiv prince. Monomakh considered the “younger” members of the princely family as his vassals - “handmen”, who had to go on campaigns on his orders and, in case of disobedience, could lose the princely table. Thus, Prince Gleb Vseslavich Minsky, who “would not swear” to Monomakh even after the Kyiv prince’s troops marched on Minsk, lost his throne in 1119 and was “brought” to Kiev. The Vladimir-Volyn prince Yaroslav Svyatopolchich also lost his table for disobedience to Monomakh. In Kyiv, during the reign of Monomakh, a new collection of laws, The Long Truth, was prepared, which was in force for centuries throughout the entire territory of the Old Russian state. And yet the restoration of the old order did not happen. In the principalities into which the Old Russian state was divided, the rule is already the second generation of rulers, whom the population has already become accustomed to looking at as hereditary sovereigns.

Monomakh's policy on the Kievan table was continued by his son Mstislav (1125–1132). He even more severely punished members of the princely family who refused to obey his orders. When the princes of Polotsk did not want to take part in the campaign against the Polovtsians, Mstislav gathered an army from all over the territory of the Old Russian state and in 1127 occupied the Polotsk land, the local princes were arrested and exiled to Constantinople. However, the successes achieved were fragile, as they were based on the personal authority of both rulers, father and son.

Completion of the political collapse of the Old Russian state. After the death of Mstislav, his brother Yaropolk entered the Kiev table, whose orders ran into opposition from the Chernigov princes. He failed to bring them into submission. The peace concluded after a war that lasted several years reflected the decline in the importance of the power of the Kyiv prince as the political head of Ancient Rus'. In the late 40s - early 50s. 12th century the Kiev table became the object of the struggle of two hostile unions of princes, headed by Izyaslav Mstislavich Volynsky and the ruler of the Rostov land, Yuri Dolgoruky. The coalition led by Izyaslav relied on the support of Poland and Hungary, while the other, led by Yuri Dolgoruky, sought help from Byzantine Empire and Polovtsy. The well-known stability of inter-princely relations under the supreme leadership of the Kyiv prince, a relatively unified policy towards neighbors, is a thing of the past. Interprincely wars of the 1940s and 1950s 12th century became the completion of the political disintegration of the Old Russian state into independent principalities.

Causes of feudal fragmentation. The ancient Russian chroniclers, painting a picture of the political collapse of the Old Russian state, explained what was happening by the machinations of the devil, which led to a fall in moral standards between members of the princely family, when the elders began to oppress the younger ones, and the younger ones stopped honoring the elders. Historians, trying to find an answer to the question of the reasons for the collapse of the Old Russian state, turned to historical analogies.

A special period of feudal fragmentation took place not only in the history of Ancient Rus'. Through this stage historical development passed through many European countries. The political disintegration of the Carolingian Empire, the largest state in Europe in the early Middle Ages, attracted particular attention of scientists. West Side this power during the second half of the 9th-10th centuries. turned into a motley mosaic of many loosely interconnected large and small holdings. The process of political disintegration was accompanied by major social shifts, the transformation of previously free community members into dependent people of large and small lords. All these small and large rulers sought and successfully obtained from the state authorities the transfer of administrative and judicial power over dependent people and the exemption of their possessions from taxes. After that, the state power turned out to be virtually powerless, and the lords-landowners ceased to obey it.

For a long time in Russian historiography, it was believed that the collapse of the Old Russian state occurred as a result of similar social changes, when the warriors of the Kyiv princes became landowners, who turned free community members into dependent people.

Indeed, the sources of the end of the XI-XII centuries. testify to the appearance of their land holdings among the combatants, in which their dependent people lived. In the annals of the XII century. more than once it is said about "boyar villages". The "Large Truth" mentions "tiuns" - persons who managed the economy of the boyars, and dependent people working in this economy - "ryadovichi" (who became dependent on a number of contracts) and "purchases".

By the first half of the XII century. also include data on the appearance of land holdings and dependent people in the church. So, Grand Duke Mstislav, the son of Monomakh, handed over to the Yuryev Monastery in Novgorod the parish of Buitse with "Denmark and vira and sales." Thus, the monastery received from the prince not only land, but also the right to collect tribute from the peasants living on it in his favor, to judge them and collect judicial fines in his favor. Thus, the abbot of the monastery became a real sovereign for the community members living in the Buice volost.

All these data testify to the fact that the process of turning the senior combatants of the ancient Russian princes into feudal landowners and the formation of the main classes of feudal society - feudal landowners and community members dependent on them, began.

However, the process of formation of new social relations was in Russian society of the XII century. only at the very beginning. The new relations were far from becoming the main system-forming element of the social order. Not only at this time, but also much later, in the XIV-XV centuries. (as data from sources related to North-Eastern Rus', the historical core of the Russian state, show), most of the land fund was in the hands of the state, and most of the funds brought the boyar not income from his own economy, but income from "feeding" in the management of state lands.

Thus, the formation of new feudal relations in their most typical seigneurial form proceeded in ancient Russian society at a much slower pace than in the west of Europe. The reason for this should be seen in the particularly strong cohesion and strength of rural communities. The solidarity and constant mutual assistance of neighbors could not prevent the beginning of the ruin of the community members in the conditions of increased state exploitation, but they contributed to the fact that this phenomenon did not acquire any wide proportions and only a relatively small part of the rural population - "purchases" - was on the lands of the combatants. It should be added to this that the very withdrawal of a relatively limited surplus product from rural community members was not an easy task, and, probably, it was no coincidence that both the princes and the social one; the top of the ancient Russian society as a whole for a long chronological period preferred to receive their income through participation in centralized system operation. In ancient Russian society of the XII century. there were simply no such seniors, as in the west of Europe, who would want to refuse obedience to state power.

The answer to the question about the reasons for the political collapse of the Old Russian state should be sought in the nature of relations between different parts of the ruling class of ancient Russian society - the "big squad", between that part of it that was in Kiev, and those in whose hands the management of individual "lands" was. The governor sitting in the center of the earth (as the example of Yaroslav the Wise, the governor of his father Vladimir in Novgorod shows) had to transfer 2/3 of the collected tribute to Kiev, only 1/3 was used to maintain the local squad. In return, he was guaranteed the help of Kyiv in suppressing the unrest of the local population and in protecting against an external enemy. While the formation of the state territory on the lands of the former tribal unions was going on, and the squads in the cities felt like they were constantly in a hostile environment of the local population, on which new orders were imposed by force, this nature of relations suited both sides. But as the position of both the princely governors and the retinue organization in the localities strengthened and it became capable of solving many problems independently, it was less and less inclined to give the bulk of the collected funds to Kiev, to share with it a kind of centralized rent.

With the constant stay of the squads in certain cities, they should have had connections with the population of the cities, especially the cities - the centers of "volosts", in which the centers of the local squad organization were also located. It should be borne in mind that these "grads" were often the successors of the old tribal centers, the population of which had the skills to participate in political life. The placement of squads in the cities was followed by the appearance in them of "sotsky" and "ten" persons, who, on behalf of the prince, were supposed to manage the urban population. At the head of such an organization was the "thousand". Information about the Kyiv thousands of the second half of the XI - beginning of the IX century. show that the thousand were boyars who belonged to the close circle of the prince. One of the main duties of the thousand was to lead the city militia - "regiment" during hostilities.

The very existence of the hundredth organization led to the establishment of ties between the squad and the population of the center of the "land", both were equally interested in eliminating dependence on Kyiv. A member of a princely family who wished to become an independent ruler, that is, to appropriate part of the centralized fund of state revenues, could in this respect count on the support of both the local squad and the city militia. Under the rule in ancient Rus' XI-XII centuries. subsistence economy, in the absence of strong economic ties between the individual "lands" there were no factors that could counteract these centrifugal forces.

Special features of political fragmentation in Ancient Rus'. The collapse of the Old Russian state took other forms than the collapse of the Carolingian Empire. If the West-Frankish kingdom crumbled into many large and small possessions, then the Old Russian state was divided into a number of relatively large lands that stably remained within their traditional borders until the Mongol-Tatar invasion itself in the middle of the 13th century. These are Kiev, Chernigov, Pereyaslav, Murom, Ryazan, Rostov-Suzdal, Smolensk, Galicia, Vladimir-Volynsk, Polotsk, Turov-Pinsk, Tmutarakan principalities, as well as Novgorod and Pskov lands. Although the territory on which the Eastern Slavs lived turned out to be divided by political borders, they continued to live in a single socio-cultural space: in the ancient Russian "lands" there were largely similar political institutions and social systems, and a common spiritual life was preserved.

XII - first half of the XIII century. - the time of successful development of ancient Russian lands in the conditions of feudal fragmentation. The most convincing evidence of this is the results of archaeological research of ancient Russian cities of that time. So, firstly, archaeologists state a significant increase in the number of urban-type settlements - fortified fortresses with trade and craft settlements. During the XII - the first half of the XIII century. the number of settlements of this type increased by more than one and a half times, while a number of urban centers were created anew in uninhabited areas. At the same time, the territory of the main urban centers also expanded significantly. In Kyiv, the territory protected by ramparts has almost tripled, in Galich - 2.5 times, in Polotsk - twice, in Suzdal - three times. It was during the period of feudal fragmentation that the fortified "city"-fortress, the residence of the ruler or his warriors in the early Middle Ages, finally turned into a "city" - not only the seat of power and the social elite, but also the center of crafts and trade. By that time, there was already a large trade and craft population in the city settlements, not connected with the “service organization”, independently producing products and independently trading at the city market. Archaeologists have established the existence in Rus' at that time of many dozens of craft specialties, the number of which was constantly increasing. ABOUT high level The skill of ancient Russian artisans is evidenced by their mastery of such complex types of Byzantine craft as the manufacture of smalt for mosaics and cloisonné enamels. Intensive development cities would hardly have been possible without the simultaneous revitalization and upsurge of the economic life of the countryside. In the conditions of the progressive development of society within the framework of traditional socio-economic and socio-political structures, there was a slow, gradual growth of new relations characteristic of feudal society.

The negative consequences that feudal fragmentation brought with it are also well known. This is the damage that was caused to the ancient Russian lands by fairly frequent wars between princes and the weakening of their ability to resist the offensive from their neighbors. These negative consequences especially affected the life of those lands of Southern Rus' that bordered on the nomadic world. Separate "lands" were no longer able to update, maintain and re-create the system defensive lines created under Vladimir. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the princes themselves, in conflicts with each other, turned for help to their eastern neighbors - the Polovtsy, bringing them with them to the lands of their rivals. Under these conditions, there has been a gradual decline in the role and importance of the South Russian lands in the Middle Dnieper - the historical core of the Old Russian state. It is characteristic that in the first decades of the XIII century. The Pereyaslav principality was the possession of the younger relatives of the Vladimir-Suzdal prince Yuri Vsevolodovich. The political role and importance of such regions remote from the nomadic world as the Galicia-Volyn and Rostov lands gradually grew.