The formation of the Old Russian state - reasons and dates. When did the Old Russian state arise?
1. Formation of the Old Russian state - Kievan Rus
The state of Kievan Rus was created at the end of the 9th century.
The emergence of the state among the Eastern Slavs is reported by the chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years" (XIIin.). It tells that the Slavs paid tribute to the Varangians. Then the Varangians were expelled across the sea and the question arose: who would rule in Novgorod? None of the tribes wanted to establish the power of a representative of a neighboring tribe. Then they decided to invite a stranger and turned to the Varangians. Three brothers responded to the invitation: Rurik, Truvor and Sineus. Rurik began to reign in Novgorod, Sineus on Beloozero, and Truvor - in the city of Izborsk. Two years later, Sineus and Truvor died, and all power passed to Rurik. Two of Rurik's squad, Askold and Dir, went south and began to reign in Kyiv. They killed Kiy, Shchek, Khoriv and their sister Lybid who ruled there. Rurik died in 879. His relative Oleg began to rule, since the son of Rurik, Igor, was still a minor. After 3 years (in 882), Oleg and his retinue seize power in Kyiv. Thus, under the rule of one prince, Kyiv and Novgorod were united. This is what the chronicle says. Were there really two brothers - Sineus and Truvor? Today, historians believe that they were not. "Rurik blue hus truvor" means, translated from the ancient Swedish language, "Rurik with a house and a squad." The chronicler took incomprehensibly sounding words for personal names, and wrote that Rurik arrived with two brothers.
Exist two theories of the origin of the ancient Russian state: Norman and anti-Norman. Both of these theories appeared in the XYIII century, 900 years after the formation of Kievan Rus. The fact is that Peter I - from the Romanov dynasty, was very interested in where the previous dynasty appeared - the Rurikovich, who created the state of Kievan Rus and where this name came from. Peter I signed a decree establishing the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. German scientists were invited to work at the Academy of Sciences.
Norman theory . Its founders are the German scientists Bayer, Miller, Schlozer, invited under Peter I to work at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. They confirmed the calling of the Varangians and made the assumption that the name of the Russian Empire was of Scandinavian origin, and that the state of Kievan Rus itself was created by the Varangians. “Rus” is translated from Old Swedish as the verb “to row”, the Rus are rowers. Perhaps "Rus" is the name of the Varangian tribe from which Rurik came. At first, the Varangians-druzhinniks were called Rus, and then this word gradually passed to the Slavs.
The calling of the Varangians was confirmed at a later time by data archaeological sites mounds near Yaroslavl, near Smolensk. Scandinavian burials in the boat were found there. Many Scandinavian items were obviously made by local Slavic craftsmen. This means that the Varangians lived among the locals.
But German scientists exaggerated the role of the Varangians in the formation of the ancient Russian state. As a result, these scientists agreed to such an extent that, allegedly, the Varangians are immigrants from the West, which means that it is they - the Germans - who created the state of Kievan Rus.
Anti-Norman theory. She also appeared in the XYIII century, under the daughter of Peter I - Elizabeth Petrovna. She did not like the statement of German scientists that the Russian state was created by immigrants from the West. In addition, she had a 7-year war with Prussia. She asked Lomonosov to look into this matter. Lomonosov M.V. did not deny the existence of Rurik, but began to deny his Scandinavian origin.
Anti-Norman theory intensified in the 30s of the twentieth century. When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, they tried to prove the inferiority of the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks), that they were not able to create states, that the Varangians were Germans. Stalin gave the task of refuting the Norman theory. This is how the theory appeared, according to which, to the south of Kyiv, on the Ros River, the Ros (Rossy) tribe lived. The Ros River flows into the Dnieper and it is from here that the name of Rus comes from, since the Russians allegedly occupied a leading place among the Slavic tribes. The possibility of the Scandinavian origin of the name of Russia was completely rejected. The anti-Norman theory tries to prove that the state of Kievan Rus was created by the Slavs themselves. This theory penetrated into textbooks on the history of the USSR, and was prevailing there until the end of "perestroika".
The state appears there and then, when opposing, mutually hostile interests, classes appear in society. The state regulates relations between people, relying on armed force. The Varangians were invited to reign, therefore, this form of power (reigning) was already known to the Slavs. It was not the Varangians who brought property inequality to Russia, the division of society into classes. The Old Russian state - Kievan Rus - arose as a result of a long, independent development of Slavic society, not thanks to the Varangians, but with their active participation. The Varangians themselves quickly became Slavic, they did not impose their own language. The son of Igor, the grandson of Rurik, already bore the Slavic name - Svyatoslav. Today, some historians believe that the name of the Russian Empire of Scandinavian origin and the princely dynasty begins with Rurik, and was called the Rurikovichi.
The ancient Russian state was called Kievan Rus.
2 . Socio-economic and political system of Kievan Rus
Kievan Rus was an early feudal state. It existed from the end of the 9th to the beginning of the 12th century (about 250 years).
The head of state was Grand Duke. He was the supreme commander, judge, legislator, recipient of tribute. Vel foreign policy declared war, made peace. Appointed officials. The power of the Grand Duke was limited to:
Council under the prince, which included the military nobility, the elders of the cities, the clergy (since 988)
Veche - a popular assembly in which all free people could take part. Veche could discuss and resolve any issue that interested him.
Specific princes - local tribal nobility.
The first rulers of Kievan Rus were: Oleg (882-912), Igor (913-945), Olga - Igor's wife (945-964).
The unification of all East Slavic and part of the Finnish tribes under the rule of the great Kyiv prince.
The acquisition of overseas markets for Russian trade and the protection of trade routes that led to these markets.
Protection of the borders of the Russian land from the attacks of the steppe nomads (Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsy).
The most important source of income for the prince and the squad was the tribute paid by the conquered tribes. Olga streamlined the collection of tribute and set its size.
The son of Igor and Olga - Prince Svyatoslav (964-972) made trips to the Danube Bulgaria and Byzantium, and also defeated the Khazar Khaganate.
Under the son of Svyatoslav - Vladimir the Holy (980-1015) in 988, Christianity was adopted in Russia.
Socio-economic structure:
The main branch of the economy is arable farming and cattle breeding. Additional industries: fishing, hunting. Russia was a country of cities (more than 300) - in the XII century.
Kievan Rus reached its peak under Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054). He intermarried and made friends with the most prominent states of Europe. In 1036, he defeated the Pechenegs near Kyiv and for a long time ensured the security of the eastern and southern borders states. In the Baltic states, he founded the city of Yuryev (Tartu) and established the position of Russia there. Under him, writing and literacy spread in Russia, schools were opened for the children of the boyars. The higher school was located in the Kiev-Pechersk monastery. The largest library was in St. Sophia Cathedral, also built under Yaroslav the Wise.
Under Yaroslav the Wise appeared the first set of laws in Russia - "Russian Truth", which operated during the XI-XIII centuries. 3 editions of Russkaya Pravda are known:
1. Brief truth of Yaroslav the Wise
2. Spacious (grandchildren of Yar. the Wise - Vl. Monomakh)
3. abbreviated
Russkaya Pravda consolidated the feudal property that was taking shape in Russia, established harsh penalties for attempts to encroach on it, and defended the lives and privileges of members of the ruling class. According to Russkaya Pravda, one can trace the contradictions in society and the class struggle. Russkaya Pravda by Yaroslav the Wise allowed blood feuds, but the article on blood feuds was limited to defining the exact circle of close relatives who have the right to take revenge: father, son, brother, cousin, nephew. Thus, the end of the endless chain of murders that exterminate entire families was set.
In Pravda Yaroslavichi (with the children of Yar. the Wise), blood feud is already prohibited, and instead a fine for murder has been introduced, depending on the social status of the murdered, from 5 to 80 hryvnias.
The denial of the greatness of Russia is a terrible robbery of mankind.
Berdyaev Nikolai Alexandrovich
The origin of the ancient Russian state Kievan Rus is one of the most big secrets in history. Of course there is official version, giving many answers, but it has one drawback - it completely sweeps aside everything that happened to the Slavs before 862. Is everything really as bad as it is written in Western books, when the Slavs are compared with semi-wild people who are not able to govern themselves and for this were forced to turn to an outsider, a Varangian, to teach them the mind? Of course, this is an exaggeration, since such a people cannot take Byzantium by storm twice before this time, and our ancestors did it!
In this material, we will adhere to the main policy of our site - a statement of facts that are known for certain. Also on these pages we will point out the main points that historians manage under various pretexts, but in our opinion they can shed light on what happened on our lands at that distant time.
Formation of the state of Kievan Rus
Modern history puts forward two main versions, according to which the formation of the state of Kievan Rus took place:
- Norman. This theory is based on a rather dubious historical document - The Tale of Bygone Years. Also, supporters of the Norman version talk about various records from European scientists. This version is basic and accepted by history. According to her, the ancient tribes of the eastern communities could not govern themselves and called on three Varangians - the brothers Rurik, Sineus and Truvor.
- anti-Norman (Russian). The Norman theory, despite being generally accepted, looks rather controversial. After all, it does not answer even a simple question, who are the Vikings? For the first time, anti-Norman statements were formulated by the great scientist Mikhail Lomonosov. This man was distinguished by the fact that he actively defended the interests of his homeland and publicly declared that the history of the ancient Russian state was written by the Germans and had no logic behind it. The Germans in this case are not a nation, as such, but a collective image that was used to call all foreigners who did not speak Russian. They were called dumb, hence the Germans.
In fact, until the end of the 9th century, not a single mention of the Slavs remained in the annals. This is rather strange, since quite civilized people lived here. This issue is analyzed in great detail in the material about the Huns, who, according to numerous versions, were none other than Russians. Now I would like to note that when Rurik came to the ancient Russian state, there were cities, ships, their own culture, their own language, their own traditions and customs. And the cities were quite well fortified from a military point of view. Somehow this is weakly connected with the generally accepted version that our ancestors at that time ran with a digging stick.
The ancient Russian state of Kievan Rus was formed in 862, when the Varangian Rurik came to rule in Novgorod. An interesting point is that this prince carried out his rule of the country from Ladoga. In 864, the companions of the Novgorod prince Askold and Dir went down the Dnieper and discovered the city of Kyiv, in which they began to rule. After the death of Rurik, Oleg took custody of his young son, who went on a campaign to Kyiv, killed Askold and Dir and took possession of the future capital of the country. It happened in 882. Therefore, the formation of Kievan Rus can be attributed to this date. During the reign of Oleg, the country's possessions expanded due to the conquest of new cities, and there was also a strengthening of international power, as a result of wars with external enemies, such as Byzantium. There were respectable relations between the princes of Novgorod and Kyiv, and their minor junctions did not lead to major wars. Reliable information on this subject has not been preserved, but many historians say that these people were brothers and only blood ties held back the bloodshed.
Formation of statehood
Kievan Russia was a truly powerful state, respected in other countries. Its political center was Kyiv. It was the capital, which, in its beauty and wealth, had no equal. The impregnable city-fortress Kyiv on the banks of the Dnieper was a stronghold of Russia for a long time. This order was violated as a result of the first fragmentation, which damaged the power of the state. It all ended with the invasion of the Tatar-Mongolian troops, who literally razed the "mother of Russian cities" to the ground. According to the surviving records of contemporaries of that terrible event, Kyiv was destroyed to the ground and lost forever its beauty, significance and wealth. Since then, the status of the first city did not belong to him.
An interesting expression is “the mother of Russian cities”, which is still actively used by people from different countries. Here we are faced with another attempt to falsify history, since at the moment when Oleg captured Kyiv, Russia already existed, and Novgorod was its capital. Yes, and the princes got to the capital city of Kyiv itself, having descended along the Dnieper from Novgorod.
Internecine wars and the causes of the collapse of the ancient Russian state
The internecine war is that terrible nightmare that tormented the Russian lands for many decades. The reason for these events was the lack of a coherent system of succession to the throne. In the ancient Russian state, a situation developed when, after one ruler, a huge number of contenders for the throne remained - sons, brothers, nephews, etc. And each of them sought to exercise their right to control Russia. This inevitably led to wars, when the supreme power was asserted by arms.
In the struggle for power, individual applicants did not shy away from anything, even fratricide. The story of Svyatopolk the Accursed, who killed his brothers, is widely known, for which he received this nickname. Despite the contradictions that reigned within the Rurikids, Kievan Rus was ruled by the Grand Duke.
In many ways, it was internecine wars that led the ancient Russian state to a state close to collapse. It happened in 1237, when the ancient Russian lands first heard about the Tatar-Mongols. They brought terrible misfortunes to our ancestors, but internal problems, disunity and unwillingness of the princes to defend the interests of other lands led to a great tragedy, and for a long 2 centuries Russia became completely dependent on the Golden Horde.
All these events led to a completely predictable outcome - the ancient Russian lands began to disintegrate. The date of the beginning of this process is considered to be 1132, which was marked by the death of Prince Mstislav, nicknamed the Great by the people. This led to the fact that the two cities of Polotsk and Novgorod refused to recognize the authority of his successor.
All these events led to the disintegration of the state into small destinies, which were ruled by individual rulers. Of course, the leading role of the Grand Duke remained, but this title looked more like a crown, which was used only by the strongest as a result of regular civil strife.
Key events
Kievan Rus is the first form of Russian statehood, which had many great pages in its history. The following can be distinguished as the main events of the era of the Kievan rise:
- 862 - the arrival of the Varangian-Rurik to Novgorod to reign
- 882 - Prophetic Oleg captured Kyiv
- 907 - campaign against Constantinople
- 988 - Baptism of Russia
- 1097 - Lubech Congress of Princes
- 1125-1132 - reign of Mstislav the Great
The ideals that illuminated my path and gave me courage and courage were kindness, beauty and truth. Without a sense of solidarity with those who share my convictions, without the pursuit of the eternally elusive objective in art and science, life would seem to me absolutely empty.
The chronicle tradition clearly fixes the date of birth of the Old Russian state - 862. That is why in Novgorod the Great in 1862 a monument was erected to the 1000th anniversary of Russia. Initial period Russian history - the Old Russian state - covers the time from the 9th to the 12th centuries.
Formation of the state Eastern Slavs was a natural result of a long process of decomposition of the tribal system and the transition to a class society. The process of property and social stratification among the community members led to the separation of the most prosperous part from their midst. The tribal nobility and the prosperous part of the community, subjugating the mass of ordinary community members, needs to maintain their dominance in state structures. The embryonic form of statehood was represented by the East Slavic unions of tribes, which united in superunions, however, fragile ones. One of these associations was, apparently, the union of tribes headed by Prince Kiy. There is information about a certain Russian prince Bravlin who fought in the Khazar-Byzantine Crimea in the VIIIIX centuries, passing from Surozh to Korchev (from Sudak to Kerch). Eastern historians talk about the existence on the eve of the formation of the Old Russian state of three large associations Slavic tribes: Kuyaby, Slavia and Artania. The Old Russian state was formed c. Kuyaba, or Kuyava, then called the area around Kyiv. Slavia occupied the territory in the area of Lake Ilmen. Its center was Novgorod. The location of Artania - the third major association of Slavs - has not been precisely established.
According to The Tale of Bygone Years, the Russian princely dynasty originates in Novgorod. In 859, the Northern Slavic tribes, who then paid tribute to the Varangians, or Normans (according to most historians, immigrants from Scandinavia), drove them across the sea. However, soon after these events, internecine struggle began in Novgorod. To stop the clashes, the Novgorodians decided to invite the Varangian princes as a force standing above the opposing factions. In 862, Prince Rurik and his two brothers were called to Russia by the Novgorodians, laying the foundation for the Russian princely dynasty. The legend about the calling of the Varangian princes served as the basis for the creation of the so-called Norman theory of the emergence of the Old Russian state. Its authors were invited in the XVIII century. to Russia, German scientists G.Bayer, G.Miller and A.Schletser. The authors of this theory emphasized the complete absence of prerequisites for the formation of a state among the Eastern Slavs. The scientific inconsistency of the Norman theory is obvious, since the determining factor in the process of state formation is the presence of internal prerequisites, and not the actions of individual, even outstanding, personalities. If the Varangian legend is not fiction (as most historians believe), the story of the calling of the Varangians only testifies to the Norman origin of the princely dynasty. The version about the foreign origin of power was quite typical for the Middle Ages. The date of formation of the Old Russian state is conditionally considered to be 882, when Prince Oleg, who seized power in Novgorod after the death of Rurik (some chroniclers call him the governor of Rurik), undertook a campaign against Kyiv. Having killed Askold and Dir, who reigned there, for the first time he united the northern and southern lands as part of a single state. Since the capital was moved from Novgorod to Kyiv, this state is often called Kievan Rus.
Factors that determined the formation of the state
From a number of existing in the Soviet Old Russian concepts of the state that determined the historical science, the formation of the origin of the Slavs is the most state: the so-called Dnieper-Oder concept of the origin of the Slavs of academician B.A. . in the northern part of Eastern Europe between the Dnieper and the Oder lived the most ancient Proto-Slavs, who by that time had separated from the Indo-Europeans. According to Sedov and some other scientists, the history of the Proto-Slavs should be conducted approximately from the middle of the 1st millennium BC.
Social factors
In written sources dating back to the beginning of our era, the Slavs are referred to under the name "Venedi". It is known that the Wends led a settled way of life, they knew arable farming. They had an internal trade associated with the development of crafts, and external trade, in particular, with Rome. Trade accelerated the process of differentiation of society, contributed to the emergence of a wealthy social elite. A small family, consisting of a husband, wife, children, became integral part the most important social cell of society - the rural community. In the rural territorial community, separate, prosperous families with certain property were distinguished. In VIv. increased military and political power. All this accelerated the property and social differentiation of Slavic society, and the formation of class relations in it. With the deepening of social differentiation in the unions of tribes, the state principle was strengthened more and more, which inevitably led in the final analysis to the formation of the state. But this process took a long time.
Foreign policy and economic factors
The foreign policy factor is also unfavorable. The economic development of the Slavs was heavily affected by the invasion of the Huns. As a result, their own development was also delayed. According to M.N.Tikhomirov, the reasons for the emergence of the state were "the development of agriculture and crafts in the field of economics, the development of feudalism - in the field of social relations." So in the VII-VIII centuries. in connection with the growth of labor productivity, individualization of production became quite possible. Conditions were being prepared for the transition from early class relations to feudalism. The economic progress of the Eastern Slavs was the driving force behind their community development. The Old Russian state was formed c. Given the existence of individual farms, the additional product obtained in them and reaching a significant size became the property of the producer and could be a source of enrichment. This is how first property, and then social inequality arose. Also at this time, private property was formed and grew among the wealthy members of the community. The social elite was formed.
Public Factors
Unions of tribes were of great importance for the formation of the state. At the beginning of the existence of such unions of tribes, military democracy was the form of organization of government. However, at the same time, primitive democratic institutions remained for a long time - the people's assemblies and the council of elders: But the people's assembly turned into an assembly of warriors to which the military leader, surrounded and supported by the retinue, imposed his will, gaining more and more influence and power at the expense of other elders. Thus, the process of transformation of public self-government bodies into state bodies proceeded. Military democracy gradually ceased into military hierarchical rule-reigning. Organs of public self-government turned into organs of domination and oppression directed against the people. Thus, the formation of the state system was completed, the most important feature of which was the emergence of a special, not coinciding directly with the population, separated from it public authority, which has a special apparatus of administration and extends to certain territory. The military leader of a large union of tribes turned into a ruler - a prince. The supremacy of the princes acquired the character of the exercise of power class functions. Approximate prince became his advisers and governors. The squad turned into a military force that suppressed the resistance of the exploited masses and waged aggressive and defensive wars. The specified process of transformation of public self-government bodies into state bodies was not a one-time act for all unions of East Slavic tribes. In the 8th century in the conditions of the struggle against nomads in the Middle Dnieper region, several unions of tribes or principalities united into a "union of unions" called "Rus", the capital of which was Kyiv.
"Unions of Unions"
"Unions of unions", which united several unions of tribes-principalities, were new formations and reflected a higher stage in the process of East Slavic consolidation. Approximately at the turn of the VIII-IX centuries. the Dnieper union of unions of tribes "Rus" outgrows an even more powerful association with the name "Russian Land", which included a significant number of unions of Slavic tribes. The chronicle lists them: Russia, Polyana, Drevlyans, Polochans, Dregovichi, North. This is already almost half of the Eastern Slavs. The rules in this state association, in its probability, are the Kiya dynasty, whose representatives in the middle of the IX century. were, according to the chronicle, the princes Dir and Askold.
Prerequisites for the emergence
"The Tale of Bygone Years", the first written source of ancient Russian history, where there is evidence state association Slavic tribes. Pay attention to the fact that Kievan Rus is one of the largest states of the Middle Ages of the 9th-12th centuries. Unlike other countries, both Eastern and Western, the process of formation of statehood had its own specific features - spatial and geopolitical. In the course of its formation, Russia acquired the features of both Eastern and Western state formations, since it occupied a median position between Europe and Asia and did not have pronounced natural geographical boundaries within the vast plain space (the double-headed eagle approved as the state emblem by Ivan III and symbolizing the Eurasian unity of Russia, was introduced more than four centuries earlier by Yaroslav the Wise). The need for constant protection from external enemies of a large territory forced peoples with different types of development, religion, culture, language to unite, to create a strong state power.
It is important to understand that the state arises in a heterogeneous society and is a way of regulating relations between different social strata, classes, etc. Statehood among the Slavs begins to take shape from the 6th century, when there is a transition from a tribal and tribal community to a neighboring one, property inequality is formed (a neighboring community is a settlement of people who are not related by family ties, but occupy a certain limited territory, collectively cultivating the land: each family has the right to their share of communal property.) The period of military democracy was a transitional stage for the formation of a state among the Eastern Slavs. Military democracy involves the allocation of military nobility (prince and retinue), which concentrates significant material values and political power in their hands, but the veche still continues to play a certain role in the life of the tribe. The prince is a military leader, initially of a tribe, and then - common to an alliance of tribes. The squad is a professional army, the constant occupation of which is war. Veche - a tribal meeting, in which almost all men initially participated, and then only combat-ready ones; supreme body of tribal self-government and court. The general tribal militia is the combat-ready part of the male population of the tribe, participating in hostilities in case of emergency. The initial instability of the unification process manifested itself in the invitation to rule Rurik, a prince of Varangian origin. Pay attention to the year 882, when King Oleg managed to unite the Novgorod and Kyiv lands into the ancient Russian state - Kievan Rus with the capital in Kyiv, by definition of the prince - "The Mother of Russian cities." After the collapse of Kievan Rus, the process of the birth of the new Russian state was slowed down, since feudal fragmentation In the context of the political and economic decline of Kyiv, other principalities that could lay claim to the role of the new center of the Russian land were forced to play this role in unfavorable domestic and foreign political conditions. began to focus in economic terms mainly on the Baltic region. Naturally, this did not contribute to the strengthening of his interest in internal Russian affairs. Vladimir-Suzdal land, which inherited the Grand Duchy from Kyiv, did not have time (on the eve of the “Batu invasion”) to gain sufficient economic and human, and consequently, military potential for "gathering" around itself the fragments of the former "Rurik empire". It was at this time that a powerful blow from the East followed and the Tatars appeared on the horizon of the subsequent history of our Fatherland.
Stages of state formation
Nationality, as such, takes shape at a certain stage of social development in the era of class society. Old Russian nationality is no exception to this rule. As we already know, its origins date back to very remote times, the folding of the Eastern Slavs into a special branch of Slavdom is subsidized by the 7th - 9th centuries, that is, it refers to the time when the language of the Eastern Slavs is formed, and the 9th - 10th centuries should be considered the beginning of the formation of the Old Russian people . - the time of the emergence of feudal relations in Russia and the formation of the ancient Russian state. 8th - 9th centuries in the history of the Slavs were a time of decomposition of primitive communal relations. At the same time, the transition from one social system (primitive communal) to another, more progressive, namely feudal society, was ultimately the result of the development of productive forces, the evolution of production, which in turn was mainly the result of a change and development of tools of labor, tools production. Along with the development of productive forces in the field of agricultural production and the improvement of agricultural technology, the social division of labor, the separation of handicraft activities from agriculture, played a huge role in the decomposition of primitive communal relations. The Old Russian state was formed c. When the division of labor penetrated into the commune and its members each single-handedly began to produce some one product and sell it on the market, then the institution of private property became an expression of this material isolation of commodity producers. Settlements become centers of handicraft production and exchange, turn into cities. Cities grow on the basis of old settlements of the times of the primitive system, appear as handicraft and trading settlements. Finally, the princely prison is often overgrown with an urban-type settlement. This is how cities in Russia arose: Kyiv, Peryaslavl, Ladoga, Pskov, Novgorod, Polotsk, Chernigov, Lyubech, Smolensk, Gurov, Cherven, etc. The city is a phenomenon characteristic not of the primitive communal system, but of the feudal system. The city traded with the city, the region with the region, the city with the village. Merchant caravans stretched along rivers and land roads. Along the Neva, Lake Ladzhskoe, Volokhov Lake, Lovat and the Dnieper, a waterway passed from the “Varangians to the Greeks”. Trade routes led through the Carpathians to Ryza and the Igerman cities. The growth of trade caused the development of money circulation. In Russia, they used mainly eastern silver coins, but there were also Byzantine and Western European coins. Once in Russia, fur money was used as money, which was pieces of fur (kuns, cut, pogat, etc.). Over time, they were replaced by iron money, which retained the old names (muzzles, vekshas, etc.). From the end of the 10th century, Russia began to mint its own gold and silver coins. Then the minted coin gives way to silver bars - hryvnia. Trade decomposed the community, further strengthening economically powerful families. The ruling elite in ancient Russian sources appears before us under the name of princes, warriors, boyars, old children, etc. It grows out of the old tribal nobility and from the local rich elite. Accumulating valuables and land, creating a powerful squad organization, making campaigns ending with the capture of military booty and captives turned into slaves, accumulating tribute, collecting requisitions, trading and engaging in usury, the ancient Russian nobility breaks away from tribal and communal associations and turns into a force standing above society and subjugating formerly free community members. The basis of feudal society arises and develops - feudal ownership of land. We know the cities belonging to the princes: Izyaslavl, Vyshgorod, Belgorod; princely villages: Olzhichi, Berestovo, Rakoma. Around the villages lay fields (arable land), meadows, hunting - fishing and fishing grounds, side cares. On stones, trees, pillars marking princely lands, princely tomgas were applied - signs of property. The princes either developed free lands or seized them from previously free community members, turning the latter, on the basis of non-economic coercion, into their labor force and estates. Various groups of dependent people are formed. Among them are slaves - serfs, robes - slaves. Some of them halops lost their freedom as a result of the sale of debt obligations, family or official status, other servants became slaves as a result of captivity. Over time, the term servants begins to denote the entire set of people dependent on the master. At the initial stage of the history of Kievan Rus, slavery played a very significant role. A huge mass of the rural population was made up of free community members, taxed only with tribute. In the sources they appear under the name - people, but most often they are called smerds. Smerds were considered princely people, but as their lands and lands were seized by princes and boyars, they retained their old name - smerds, turned into feudal dependents and their duties in favor of the master began to be feudal in nature. The tribute turned into a quitrent. Among the dependent population, there were many hardened people who lost their independence as a result of debt obligations. These bonded people appear in the sources called ryadovichi and zapupov. people knocked out of the usual life rut, breaking with their social environment. This is how the well-known groupings of direct producers in Kievan Rus were formed. In Russia, a class early feudal society began to form. Where there was a division into classes, the state inevitably had to arise and it did. The state is created there and then where and when there are conditions for its appearance in the form of the division of society into classes. The formation of feudal relations among the Eastern Slavs could not but lead to the formation of an early feudal state. Such in Eastern Europe was the Old Russian state with the capital city of Kyiv. The fight against the Scandinavian Vikings, the Varangians in the northwest, with the Khazars, and later with the Pechenegs, Turks and other nomadic tribes in the southeast and south, accelerated the process of folding powerful territorial associations that replaced tribal unions. We do not know how large the territory of Russia was at that time, to what extent it included eastern Slavic lands, but it is obvious that in addition to the Middle Dnieper, Kyiv center, it consisted of a number of weakly bound friend with other lands and tribal principalities. The Old Russian state has not yet taken shape, its formation ends with the confluence of the Dnieper region with the Ilmen region, Kyiv and Novgorod, two of the most important centers of Russia. The merger of Kyiv and Novgorod completes the formation of the Old Russian state. The chronicle associated this event with the name of Oleg. In 882 As a result of the campaign of squads led by Oleg from Novgorod to Kyiv, on the way from the Varangians to the Greeks, both of the most important centers of Russia were united. The Kyiv prince began to create strongholds in the lands of the eastern Slavs, collect tribute from them and demand their participation in campaigns. But many lands of the Eastern Slavs were not yet connected with Kyiv, and the Old Russian state itself stretched in a relatively narrow strip from north to south along the Great Waterway along the Dnieper, Lovat, Volokhov. Kyiv became the capital of the Old Russian state. This happened because it was the oldest center of East Slavic culture, with deep historical traditions and connections. Located on the borderland of forests and steppes with a mild even climate, black earth soil, dense forests, excellent pastures and deposits of iron ore, high-water rivers were the main means of transportation of those times. Kyiv was the core of the East Slavic world. Kyiv was equally close to Byzantium, to the east and west, which contributed to the development of trade, political and cultural ties of Russia. The end of the 10th century was marked by the completion of the unification of all the Eastern Slavs within the state borders of Kievan Rus. This unification takes place during the reign of Vladimir Svyatoslavovich (980 - 1015). In 981, the region of the Cherven cities of Przemysl was annexed. East Slavic lands to San. In 992, the lands of the Croats, which lay on both slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, became part of the Old Russian state. In 989, Russian warriors went to the Yatvyags and the Russian population populated the region up to the borders of the Prussian possessions laid the foundation for Black Russia. In 981, the Vyatichi land joined the Old Russian state, although traces of its former independence remained here for a long time. Three years later, in 984, after the battle on the Pischan River, the power of Kyiv extended to the Radimichs. Thus, the unification of all Eastern Slavs in a single state was completed. The Russian lands were united under the rule of Kyiv "Mother city of Russia".
Normanists and Anti-Normanists
As before, and now there are disputes about the history of the emergence of the Old Russian state. This is a problem of constant political speculation. An analysis of historical research shows that M.N. Pokrovsky was probably right when he defined history as "a policy overturned into the past." In historical science, passions have been boiling on the issue of state formation among the Eastern Slavs since the 18th century. In 30-60 years. In the 18th century, German scientists Beyer and Miller, who worked at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, in their scientific works for the first time tried to prove that the Old Russian state was created by the Varangians (Normans). They laid the foundation for the Norman theory of the origin of the Russian state. The extreme manifestation of the concept is the assertion that the Slavs, due to their inferiority, could not create a state, and then, without foreign leadership, they were not able to manage it. M.V. Lomonosov, who was commissioned by Empress Elizabeth I to write the history of Russia, resolutely opposed this theory at that time. Since then, the struggle between Normanists and anti-Normanists has not subsided. Normanists are unanimous in two fundamental issues. Firstly, they believe that the Normans achieved dominance over the Eastern Slavs by external military seizure or by peaceful subjugation (an invitation to reign); secondly, they believe that the word "Rus" is of Norman origin. Anti-Normanists believe that the term "Rus" is of pre-Varangian origin and dates back to very ancient times. There are places in The Tale of Bygone Years that contradict the legend about the calling of three brothers to reign. For the year 852 there is an indication that during the reign of Michael in Byzantium there was already Russian land. In the Larentiev and Ipatiev chronicles, it is said that the Varangians were invited to reign by all the northern tribes, including Russia. Soviet researchers M.N. Tikhomirov, D.S. Likhachev believe that the record of the calling of the Varangian princes appeared in the annals later in order to oppose two states - Kievan Rus and Byzantium. For this, the author of the chronicle needed to indicate the foreign origin of the dynasty. According to the study of A.A. Shakhmatov, the Varangian squads began to be called Rus after they moved south. And in Scandinavia, it is impossible to find out about any Rus tribe from any sources. For more than two centuries there have been disputes between representatives of the Norman and anti-Norman (Slavic) schools in history. At present, the positions of Normanists and Slavophiles have converged. However, this rapprochement is not at all evidence of the assertion of truth. Both concepts proved to be dead ends. In addition, there are also other opinions. VA Mokshin proves the Greek origin of the name "Rus". A.N. Nasonov, M.V. Levchenko, A.L. Mongait write about the existence of Russia as the Tmutarakan principality in the 9th century. Archpriest Lev Lebedev writes: "... in the 4th-7th centuries, the formation of the first Russian statehood known to us took place - the cultural and political unification of the tribal unions of the Polyans and Northerners under the common leadership of the Rus tribe with the princely dynasty of the Krivichi." This conclusion is interesting in that the root "krivi" corresponds to the current name "Russian" among the neighbors of the Krivichi - Latvians. The scientific results of two hundred years of discussions are that none of the schools can clearly explain what "Rus" is; if it is an ethnos, then where it was localized, for what reasons it intensified at a certain stage and where it subsequently disappeared.
Conclusion
The question of the origin of the Slavs is considered one of the main questions in the history of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. It is paradoxical that this multi-million people "settled in the vast expanses of Europe and Asia from the azure Adriatic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean and from the sultry steppes and deserts of Kazakhstan and Central Asia to the gloomy waters of the Baltic and the Arctic Ocean" cannot determine the place where it came from . One of the reasons for this, according to V.P. Kobychev, - the absence of any full-fledged written sources about the Slavs until the middle of the 6th century AD. At present, the Slavic peoples include Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Gascons, Slovenes. But at the initial stage, there were still a lot of groups and tribes of the Slavs, who were known in Greece, Asia Minor, North Africa, some even settled in Spain. But later they were destroyed or assimilated, for example, as the Pomeranian Slavs, who fell under the rule of the Teutonic Order in the 12-14 centuries. Despite the seemingly fragmented and scattered Slavic tribes, all the same, the Slavic tribes were a single whole, the Old Russian state. The chronicler of "The Tale of Bygone Years" at the beginning of his work wrote: "... There was one Slavic people" ("There was one language Slovene").
Happiness has no tomorrow; he does not have yesterday either; it does not remember the past, does not think about the future; he has a present - and that is not a day - but a moment.
Chronology of events
- 9th century Formation of the Old Russian state
- 862 Mention in the annals of the calling of Rurik to reign in Novgorod
- 882 Unification of Novgorod and Kyiv under the rule of Prince Oleg
- 980 - 1015 Reign of Vladimir Svyatoslavovich
The emergence of statehood among the Slavs
The formation of the Old Russian state is a long process. Most historians attribute the beginning of the formation of the state to the 9th century. In the VI - VII centuries. Eastern Slavs settled most Russian (East - European) plain. The borders of their habitat in the west were the Carpathian Mountains, in the east - the upper reaches of the Don, in the north - the Neva and Lake Ladoga, in the south - the Middle Dnieper.
In the literary and documentary chronicle - "The Tale of Bygone Years", the writing of which historians attribute to the middle of the 12th century, the settlement of the East Slavic tribes is described in detail. According to it, on the western bank of the Middle Dnieper (Kyiv) are located clearing, to the north-west of them, along the southern tributaries of the Pripyat, - Drevlyans, to the west of them, along the Western Bug, - Volynians, or duleba; lived on the eastern bank of the Dnieper northerners; along the tributary of the Dnieper Sozh - radimichi, and to the east of them, along the Upper Oka, - Vyatichi; on the upper reaches of three rivers - the Dnieper, the Western Dvina and the Volga - lived krivichi, to the southwest of them - Dregovichi; to the north of them, along the Western Dvina, a branch of the Krivichi settled Polotsk, and to the north of the Krivichi, near Lake Ilmen and further along the Volkhva River lived Ilmen Slavs.
Having settled on the East European Plain, the Slavs lived tribal communities. “Live each with his family and in his places, owning the skin of his family,” writes the chronicle. In the VI century. tribal relations are gradually disintegrating. With the advent of metal tools and the transition to arable farming, the tribal community is replaced by a neighboring (territorial) one, which was called “mir” (in the south) and “verv” (in the north). In the neighboring community, communal ownership of forest and hay lands, pastures, water bodies, and arable land is preserved, but allotments are already allocated to the family for use.
In the VII - VIII centuries. the Slavs actively there is a process of decomposition of the primitive system.
The number of cities increases, power is gradually concentrated in the hands of the tribal and military retinue nobility, private property appears, and the division of society along social and property principles begins. By IX - X centuries. the main ethnic territory of the Old Russian people was formed, determined maturation of feudal relations.
In Russian historiography for a long time there was a struggle between Normans and their opponents on the origin of the Russian state. The founder of the Norman theory in the XVIII century. was a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences A.L. Schlozer. He and his supporters G.Z. Bayer, G.F. Miller adhered to the point of view that before the advent of the Varangians, "the vast expanse of our plain was wild, people lived without government."
With a refutation of the Varangian theory,, who considered one of the main tasks of historical science to be the fight against this theory. M.V. Lomonosov in "Ancient Russian history” wrote that “the Slavic people were within the current Russian borders even before the birth of Christ, then it can be undeniably proved”.
Russian historian of the 19th century. I.E. Zabelin wrote that the Eastern Slavs lived on the Russian plain even before our era. and went through a complex process from tribal unions to tribal political unions and created their own statehood.
The Soviet historical school actively supported and developed this point of view. The largest domestic specialist of the XX century. in Slavic-Russian archeology B.A. Rybakov associated the formation of the state of Russia with the founding of the city of Kyiv in the land of glades and the unification of 15 large regions inhabited by Eastern Slavs.
Modern Russian historians there is no doubt that the unification of the East Slavic lands into the Old Russian state was prepared by internal socio-economic reasons, but this happened in 882 with the active participation of the Varangian squad led by Prince Oleg. According to the famous Russian historian of the XIX century. V. O. Klyuchevsky, a “not badly combined legal construction of the beginning of the Russian state” turned out, when the principalities with Varangian control (Novgorod, Kyiv) and the principalities with Slavic control (Chernigov, Polotsk, Pereslavl) united.
It is conditionally possible to divide the history of the state of Russia into 3 large periods:- the first is the ninth century. - middle of the 10th century - the formation of an early feudal state, the approval of the Rurik dynasty on the throne and the reign of the first Kyiv princes in Kyiv: Oleg, Igor (912 - 945), Olga (945 - 964), Svyatoslav (964 - 972);
- the second - the second half of the X - the first half of the XI centuries. - the heyday of Kievan Rus (the time of Vladimir I (980 - 1015) and Yaroslav the Wise (1036 - 1054);
- the third - the second half of the XI - beginning of the XII centuries. - gradual transition to feudal fragmentation.
Socio-political and economic system of Kievan Rus
Old Russian state (Kievan Rus) was early feudal monarchy. The supreme power belonged Grand Prince of Kyiv who was the formal owner of all the land and the military leader of the state.
upper class society was a princely squad, which was divided into higher and lower. The first consisted of princely husbands or boyars, the second - of children or youths. The oldest collective name of the junior squad is Grid (Scandinavian yard servant), which was later replaced by the word “yard”.
State administration It was built on the principle of military organization in the lands and cities subject to the Grand Duke. It was carried out by the princely governors - posadniks and their closest assistants - the thousand, who led the people's militia during the hostilities in the 11th - 12th centuries. - through the princely court and the numerous administration, which was in charge of collecting tribute and taxes, court cases, and collecting fines.
taxes — the main objective princely administration. Both Oleg and Olga traveled around the subject lands. Tribute was collected in kind - "ambulance" (furs). It could be a cart, when the subject tribes brought tribute to Kyiv or polyudye, when the princes themselves traveled around the tribes. It is well known from The Tale of Bygone Years how Princess Olga took revenge on the Drevlyans not only for the death of her husband Prince Igor, who was killed in 945, but also for disobedience, for refusing to pay tax. Princess Olga went down in Russian history as the “organizer of the Russian land”, who established graveyards (strongholds) and tributes everywhere.
All the free population of Kievan Rus was called "people". Hence the term meaning collection of tribute, - "polyudye". The bulk of the rural population, dependent on the prince, was called stinks. They could live both in peasant communities that carried duties in favor of the feudal lord, and in estates.
Closed social system, designed to organize all types of human activity - labor, cultural ritual. Free community members had a subsistence economy, paid tribute to the princes and boyars, and at the same time were for the feudal lords a source of replenishment of the category of dependent people.
In the early feudal society of Kievan Rus, there were two main classes - peasants (smerds) and feudal lords. Both classes were not homogeneous in their composition. Smerds were divided into free community members and dependent. free stinks had subsistence farming, paid tribute to princes and boyars, and at the same time were for the feudal lords a source of replenishment of the category of dependent people. dependent the population consisted of purchasers, ryadoviches, outcasts, graduates and serfs. Purchases were those who fell into dependence by taking a kupa (debt). Ryadovichi became those who fell into dependence after the conclusion of a series (agreement). Outcasts are impoverished people from the communities, and freedmen are freed slaves. Kholops were completely disenfranchised and were actually in the position of slaves.
The class of feudal lords consisted of representatives of the grand ducal house headed by the grand duke, princes of tribes and lands, boyars, as well as senior combatants.
An important element of feudal society was the city, which was a fortified center of handicraft production and trade. At the same time, cities were important administrative centers where wealth and large volumes of large food supplies were concentrated, which were imported by feudal lords. According to ancient chronicles, in the XIII century. in Russia there were about 225 cities of various sizes. The largest were Kyiv, Novgorod, Smolensk, Chernigov and others. Kievan Rus was famous for its carpentry, pottery, blacksmithing, and jewelry. At that time in Russia there were up to 60 types of crafts.
Kievan Rus or Old Russian state- a medieval state in Eastern Europe, which arose in the 9th century as a result of the unification of the East Slavic tribes under the rule of the princes of the Rurik dynasty.
During the period of its highest prosperity, it occupied the territory from the Taman Peninsula in the south, the Dniester and the upper reaches of the Vistula in the west to the upper reaches Northern Dvina in the north.
By the middle of the XII century, it entered a state of fragmentation and actually broke up into a dozen separate principalities, ruled by different branches of the Rurikovich. Political ties were maintained between the principalities, Kyiv continued to formally remain the main table of Russia, and the Kiev principality was considered as the collective possession of all the Rurikids. The end of Kievan Rus is considered the Mongol invasion (1237-1240), after which the Russian lands ceased to form a single political entity, and Kyiv fell into decay for a long time and finally lost its nominal capital functions.
In chronicle sources, the state is called "Rus" or "Russian land", in Byzantine sources - "Rosia".
Term
The definition of “Old Russian” is not connected with the division of antiquity and the Middle Ages generally accepted in historiography in Europe in the middle of the 1st millennium AD. e. In relation to Russia, it is usually used to refer to the so-called. "pre-Mongolian" period of the IX - the middle of the XIII centuries, in order to distinguish this era from the following periods of Russian history.
The term "Kievan Rus" originated in late XVIII century. In modern historiography, it is used both to refer to a single state that existed until the middle of the 12th century, and for a wider period of the middle of the 12th - the middle of the 13th centuries, when Kyiv remained the center of the country and Russia was ruled by a single princely family on the principles of "collective suzerainty".
Pre-revolutionary historians, starting with N. M. Karamzin, adhered to the idea of transferring the political center of Russia in 1169 from Kyiv to Vladimir, dating back to the works of Moscow scribes, or to Vladimir and Galich. However, in modern historiography, these points of view are not popular, as they are not confirmed in the sources.
The problem of the emergence of statehood
There are two main hypotheses for the formation of the Old Russian state. According to the Norman theory, based on the Tale of Bygone Years of the XII century and numerous Western European and Byzantine sources, statehood was introduced to Russia from outside by the Varangians - the brothers Rurik, Sineus and Truvor in 862. The founders of the Norman theory are German historians Bayer, Miller, Schlozer, who worked at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The point of view about the external origin of the Russian monarchy was generally held by Nikolai Karamzin, who followed the versions of The Tale of Bygone Years.
The anti-Norman theory is based on the concept of the impossibility of introducing statehood from outside, on the idea of the emergence of the state as a stage in the internal development of society. Mikhail Lomonosov was considered the founder of this theory in Russian historiography. In addition, there are different points of view on the origin of the Varangians themselves. Scientists classified as Normanists considered them Scandinavians (usually Swedes), some anti-Normanists, starting with Lomonosov, suggest their origin from the West Slavic lands. There are also intermediate versions of localization - in Finland, Prussia, another part of the Baltic States. The problem of the ethnicity of the Varangians is independent of the question of the emergence of statehood.
In modern science, the point of view prevails, according to which the rigid opposition of "Normanism" and "anti-Normanism" is largely politicized. The prerequisites for the original statehood among the Eastern Slavs were not seriously denied either by Miller, or Schlözer, or Karamzin, and the external (Scandinavian or other) origin of the ruling dynasty is a fairly common phenomenon in the Middle Ages, which in no way proves the inability of the people to create a state or, more specifically, the institution of a monarchy. Questions about whether Rurik was real historical figure, what is the origin of the chronicle Varangians, is the ethnonym associated with them (and then the name of the state) Russia, continue to be debatable in modern Russian historical science. Western historians generally follow the concept of Normanism.
Story
Education of Kievan Rus
Kievan Rus arose on the trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" on the lands of the East Slavic tribes - the Ilmen Slovenes, Krivichi, Polyans, then embracing the Drevlyans, Dregovichi, Polochans, Radimichi, Severyans, Vyatichi.
According to the chronicle legend, the founders of Kyiv are the rulers of the Polyan tribe - the brothers Kyi, Shchek and Khoriv. According to archaeological excavations conducted in Kyiv in the 19th-20th centuries, already in the middle of the 1st millennium AD. e. there was a settlement on the site of Kyiv. Arab writers of the 10th century (al-Istarkhi, Ibn Khordadbeh, Ibn Haukal) later speak of Kuyab as major city. Ibn Haukal wrote: “The king lives in a city called Kuyaba, which is larger than Bolgar ... Russ constantly trade with Khazar and Rum (Byzantium)”
The first information about the state of the Rus dates back to the first third of the 9th century: in 839, the ambassadors of the kagan of the Ros people are mentioned, who first arrived in Constantinople, and from there to the court of the Frankish emperor Louis the Pious. Since that time, the ethnonym "Rus" has also become famous. The term "Kievan Rus" appears for the first time in historical studies of the 18th-19th centuries.
In 860 (The Tale of Bygone Years erroneously refers it to 866) Russia makes the first campaign against Constantinople. Greek sources associate it with the so-called first baptism of Russia, after which a diocese may have arisen in Russia, and the ruling elite (possibly led by Askold) adopted Christianity.
In 862, according to the Tale of Bygone Years, the Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes called for the reign of the Varangians.
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“In the year 6370 (862). They expelled the Varangians across the sea, and did not give them tribute, and began to rule themselves, and there was no truth among them, and clan stood against clan, and they had strife, and began to fight with each other. And they said to themselves: "Let's look for a prince who would rule over us and judge by right." And they went across the sea to the Varangians, to Russia. Those Varangians were called Rus, as others are called Swedes, and others are Normans and Angles, and still others are Gotlanders, and so are these. The Russians said Chud, Slovenes, Krivichi and all: “Our land is great and plentiful, but there is no order in it. Come reign and rule over us." And three brothers were elected with their clans, and they took all of Russia with them, and they came, and the eldest, Rurik, sat in Novgorod, and the other, Sineus, on Beloozero, and the third, Truvor, in Izborsk. And from those Varangians the Russian land was nicknamed. Novgorodians are those people from the Varangian family, and before they were Slovenes. |
In 862 (the date is approximate, like the entire early chronology of the Chronicle), the Varangians, Rurik’s combatants Askold and Dir, sailing to Constantinople, seeking to establish full control over the most important trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks”, establish their power over Kyiv.
Rurik died in 879 in Novgorod. The reign was transferred to Oleg, the regent under the young son of Rurik Igor.
The reign of Oleg the Prophet
In 882, according to chronicle chronology, Prince Oleg, a relative of Rurik, set off on a campaign from Novgorod to the south. On the way, they captured Smolensk and Lyubech, established their power there and put their people on the reign. Further, Oleg, with the Novgorod army and a mercenary Varangian squad, under the guise of merchants, captured Kyiv, killed Askold and Dir, who ruled there, and declared Kyiv the capital of his state (“And Oleg, the prince, sat down in Kyiv, and Oleg said: “May this be the mother of Russian cities “.”); the dominant religion was paganism, although Kyiv also had a Christian minority.
Oleg conquered the Drevlyans, Northerners and Radimichis, the last two unions before that paid tribute to the Khazars.
As a result of the victorious campaign against Byzantium, the first written agreements were concluded in 907 and 911, which provided for preferential terms of trade for Russian merchants (trade duties were canceled, repairs of ships were provided, accommodation for the night), the solution of legal and military issues. The tribes of Radimichi, Severyans, Drevlyans, Krivichi were taxed. According to the chronicle version, Oleg, who bore the title of Grand Duke, ruled for more than 30 years. Rurik's own son Igor took the throne after the death of Oleg around 912 and ruled until 945.
Igor Rurikovich
Igor made two military campaigns against Byzantium. The first, in 941, ended unsuccessfully. It was also preceded by an unsuccessful military campaign against Khazaria, during which Russia, acting at the request of Byzantium, attacked the Khazar city of Samkerts on Taman Peninsula, but was defeated by the Khazar commander Pesach, and then turned her weapon against Byzantium. The second campaign against Byzantium took place in 944. It ended with an agreement that confirmed many of the provisions of the previous agreements of 907 and 911, but abolished duty-free trade. In 943 or 944, a campaign was made against Berdaa. In 945, Igor was killed while collecting tribute from the Drevlyans. After Igor's death, due to the infancy of his son Svyatoslav, real power was in the hands of Igor's widow, Princess Olga. She became the first ruler of the Old Russian state who officially adopted Christianity of the Byzantine rite (according to the most reasoned version, in 957, although other dates are also proposed). However, around 959 Olga invited the German bishop Adalbert and priests of the Latin rite to Russia (after the failure of their mission, they were forced to leave Kyiv).
Svyatoslav Igorevich
Around 962, the matured Svyatoslav took power into his own hands. His first action was the subjugation of the Vyatichi (964), who were the last of all East Slavic tribes to pay tribute to the Khazars. In 965, Svyatoslav made a campaign against the Khazar Khaganate, taking by storm its main cities: Sarkel, Semender and the capital Itil. On the site of the city of Sarkel, he built the Belaya Vezha fortress. Svyatoslav also carried out two trips to Bulgaria, where he intended to create his own state with its capital in the Danube region. He was killed in battle with the Pechenegs while returning to Kyiv from an unsuccessful campaign in 972.
After the death of Svyatoslav, civil strife broke out for the right to the throne (972-978 or 980). The eldest son Yaropolk became the great prince of Kyiv, Oleg received the Drevlyansk lands, Vladimir - Novgorod. In 977, Yaropolk defeated Oleg's squad, Oleg died. Vladimir fled "over the sea", but returned after 2 years with the Varangian squad. During the civil strife, Svyatoslav's son Vladimir Svyatoslavich (r. 980-1015) defended his rights to the throne. Under him, the formation of the state territory of Ancient Russia was completed, the Cherven cities and Carpathian Rus were annexed.
Characteristics of the state in the IX-X centuries.
Kievan Rus united vast territories inhabited by East Slavic, Finno-Ugric and Baltic tribes under its rule. In the annals, the state was called Rus; the word "Russian" in combination with other words was found in various spellings: both with one "s" and with a double one; both with "b" and without it. In a narrow sense, "Rus" meant the territory of Kyiv (with the exception of the Drevlyansk and Dregovichi lands), Chernigov-Seversk (with the exception of the Radimich and Vyatichi lands) and Pereyaslav lands; it is in this sense that the term "Rus" was used, for example, in Novgorod sources until the 13th century.
The head of state bore the title of Grand Duke, Prince of Russia. Unofficially, other prestigious titles could sometimes be attached to it, including the Turkic kagan and the Byzantine king. Princely power was hereditary. In addition to the princes, the grand ducal boyars and "husbands" participated in the administration of the territories. These were combatants appointed by the prince. The boyars commanded special squads, territorial garrisons (for example, Pretich commanded the Chernihiv squad), which, if necessary, united into a single army. Under the prince, one of the boyar governors also stood out, who often performed the functions of real government, such governors under the juvenile princes were Oleg under Igor, Sveneld under Olga, Svyatoslav and Yaropolk, Dobrynya under Vladimir. At the local level, princely power dealt with tribal self-government in the form of a veche and "city elders".
Druzhina
Druzhina in the period of IX-X centuries. was hired. A significant part of it was the newcomers Varangians. It was also replenished by people from the Baltic lands and local tribes. The size of the annual payment of a mercenary is estimated by historians in different ways. Wages were paid in silver, gold and furs. Usually a warrior received about 8-9 Kyiv hryvnias (more than 200 silver dirhams) per year, but by the beginning of the 11th century, the pay for an ordinary soldier was 1 northern hryvnia, which is much less. Helmsmen on ships, elders and townspeople received more (10 hryvnias). In addition, the squad was fed at the expense of the prince. Initially, this was expressed in the form of dining, and then turned into one of the forms of taxes in kind, "feeding", the maintenance of the squad by the tax-paying population during polyudya. Among the squads subordinate to the Grand Duke, his personal “small”, or junior, squad, which included 400 soldiers, stands out. The Old Russian army also included a tribal militia, which could reach several thousand in each tribe. The total number of the Old Russian army reached from 30 to 80 thousand people.
Taxes (tribute)
The form of taxes in Ancient Russia was tribute, which was paid by subject tribes. Most often, the unit of taxation was "smoke", that is, a house, or a family hearth. The size of the tax has traditionally been one skin from the smoke. In some cases, from the Vyatichi tribe, a coin was taken from a ral (plow). The form of tribute collection was polyudye, when the prince with his retinue traveled around his subjects from November to April. Russia was divided into several taxable districts, polyudye in the Kiev district passed through the lands of the Drevlyans, Dregovichi, Krivichi, Radimichi and Northerners. A special district was Novgorod, paying about 3,000 hryvnias. According to a late Hungarian legend, the maximum amount of tribute in the 10th century was 10,000 marks (30,000 or more hryvnias). The collection of tribute was carried out by squads of several hundred soldiers. The dominant ethno-class group of the population, which was called "Rus" paid the prince a tenth of their annual income.
In 946, after the suppression of the uprising of the Drevlyans, Princess Olga carried out a tax reform, streamlining the collection of tribute. She established "lessons", that is, the amount of tribute, and created "graveyards", fortresses on the path of polyudia, in which princely administrators lived and where tribute was brought. This form of tribute collection and the tribute itself was called "cart". When paying the tax, subjects received clay seals with a princely sign, which insured them from re-collection. The reform contributed to the centralization of grand ducal power and the weakening of the power of tribal princes.
Right
In the 10th century, customary law operated in Russia, which is called the “Russian Law” in the sources. Its norms are reflected in the treaties of Russia and Byzantium, in the Scandinavian sagas and in Yaroslav's Pravda. They concerned the relationship between equal people, Russia, one of the institutions was "vira" - a fine for murder. Laws guaranteed property relations, including ownership of slaves (“servants”).
The principle of inheritance of power in the IX-X centuries is unknown. The heirs were often underage (Igor Rurikovich, Svyatoslav Igorevich). In the XI century, princely power in Russia was transferred along the "ladder", that is, not necessarily the son, but the eldest in the family (the uncle had an advantage over the nephews). At the turn of the XI-XII centuries, two principles clashed, and a struggle broke out between the direct heirs and the side lines.
monetary system
In the X century, a more or less unified monetary system developed, focused on the Byzantine liter and the Arab dirham. The main monetary units were the hryvnia (monetary and weight unit of ancient Russia), kuna, nogata and rezana. They had a silver and fur expression.
State type
Historians assess the nature of the state of this period in different ways: “barbarian state”, “military democracy”, “druzhina period”, “Norman period”, “military-commercial state”, “folding of the early feudal monarchy”.
Baptism of Russia and its heyday
Under Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich in 988, Christianity became the official religion of Russia. Having become the prince of Kyiv, Vladimir faced the increased Pecheneg threat. To protect against nomads, he builds a line of fortresses on the border. It was during the time of Vladimir that the action of many Russian epics telling about the exploits of heroes takes place.
Crafts and trade. Monuments of writing (“The Tale of Bygone Years”, the Novgorod Codex, the Ostromir Gospel, Lives) and architecture (the Church of the Tithes, St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv and the cathedrals of the same name in Novgorod and Polotsk) were created. The high level of literacy of the inhabitants of Russia is evidenced by numerous birch bark letters that have come down to our time). Russia traded with the southern and western Slavs, Scandinavia, Byzantium, Western Europe, the peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia.
After the death of Vladimir in Russia, a new civil strife takes place. Svyatopolk the Accursed in 1015 kills his brothers Boris (according to another version, Boris was killed by Yaroslav's Scandinavian mercenaries), Gleb and Svyatoslav. Boris and Gleb in 1071 were canonized as saints. Svyatopolk himself is defeated by Yaroslav and dies in exile.
The reign of Yaroslav the Wise (1019 - 1054) was at times the highest flowering of the state. Public relations regulated by the collection of laws "Russian Truth" and princely charters. Yaroslav the Wise pursued an active foreign policy. He intermarried with many ruling dynasties of Europe, which testified to the wide international recognition of Russia in the European Christian world. Intensive stone construction is unfolding. In 1036, Yaroslav defeats the Pechenegs near Kyiv and their raids on Russia stop.
Changes in public administration at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 12th centuries.
During the baptism of Russia in all its lands, the power of the sons of Vladimir I and the power of Orthodox bishops, who were subordinate to the Kyiv Metropolitan, were established. Now all the princes who acted as vassals of the Kyiv Grand Duke were only from the Rurik family. The Scandinavian sagas mention fief possessions of the Vikings, but they were located on the outskirts of Russia and on the newly annexed lands, so at the time of writing The Tale of Bygone Years, they already seemed like a relic. The Rurik princes waged a fierce struggle with the remaining tribal princes (Vladimir Monomakh mentions the Vyatichi prince Khodota and his son). This contributed to the centralization of power.
The power of the Grand Duke reached its highest level under Vladimir, Yaroslav the Wise, and later under Vladimir Monomakh. Attempts to strengthen it, but less successfully, were also made by Izyaslav Yaroslavich. The position of the dynasty was strengthened by numerous international dynastic marriages: Anna Yaroslavna and the French king, Vsevolod Yaroslavich and the Byzantine princess, etc.
From the time of Vladimir or, according to some reports, Yaropolk Svyatoslavich, instead of a monetary salary, the prince began to distribute land to combatants. If initially these were cities for feeding, then in the 11th century the combatants received villages. Together with the villages, which became estates, the boyar title was also granted. The boyars began to make up the senior squad, which by type was a feudal militia. The younger squad (“youths”, “children”, “gridi”), who was with the prince, lived off feeding from the princely villages and the war. To protect the southern borders, a policy of resettlement of the "best men" of the northern tribes to the south was carried out, and agreements were also concluded with allied nomads, "black hoods" (torks, berendeys and pechenegs). The services of the hired Varangian squad were basically abandoned during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise.
After Yaroslav the Wise, the "ladder" principle of land inheritance in the Rurik dynasty was finally established. The eldest in the family (not by age, but by line of kinship), received Kyiv and became the Grand Duke, all other lands were divided among members of the family and distributed according to seniority. Power passed from brother to brother, from uncle to nephew. The second place in the hierarchy of tables was occupied by Chernihiv. At the death of one of the members of the family, all the younger Ruriks moved to the lands corresponding to their seniority. When new members of the clan appeared, they were assigned a lot - a city with land (volost). In 1097, the principle of mandatory allocation of inheritance to the princes was enshrined.
Over time, the church (“monastic estates”) began to possess a significant part of the land. Since 996, the population has paid tithes to the church. The number of dioceses, starting from 4, grew. The chair of the metropolitan, appointed by the patriarch of Constantinople, began to be located in Kyiv, and under Yaroslav the Wise, the metropolitan was first elected from among Russian priests, in 1051 he became close to Vladimir and his son Hilarion. The monasteries and their elected heads, abbots, began to have great influence. The Kiev-Pechersk Monastery becomes the center of Orthodoxy.
The boyars and the retinue formed special councils under the prince. The prince also consulted with the metropolitan, bishops and abbots, who made up the church council. With the complication of the princely hierarchy, by the end of the 11th century, princely congresses (“snems”) began to gather. There were vechas in the cities, on which the boyars often relied to support their own political demands (the uprisings in Kyiv in 1068 and 1113).
In the 11th - early 12th centuries, the first written code of laws was formed - "Russian Pravda", which was consistently replenished with articles "Pravda Yaroslav" (c. 1015-1016), "Pravda Yaroslavichi" (c. 1072) and "Charter of Vladimir Vsevolodovich" (c. 1113). Russkaya Pravda reflected the growing differentiation of the population (now the size of the vira depended on the social status of the murdered), regulated the position of such categories of the population as servants, serfs, smerds, purchases and ryadovichi.
"Pravda Yaroslava" equalized the rights of "Rusyns" and "Slovenes". This, along with Christianization and other factors, contributed to the formation of a new ethnic community, which was aware of its unity and historical origin.
Since the end of the 10th century, Russia has known its own coin production - silver and gold coins of Vladimir I, Svyatopolk, Yaroslav the Wise and other princes.
Decay
Polotsk principality for the first time separated from Kyiv already at the beginning of the XI century. Having concentrated all the other Russian lands under his rule only 21 years after the death of his father, Yaroslav the Wise, dying in 1054, divided them among his five surviving sons. After the death of the two younger of them, all the lands were concentrated in the hands of the three elders: Izyaslav of Kyiv, Svyatoslav of Chernigov and Vsevolod Pereyaslavsky (“the triumvirate of Yaroslavichi”). After the death of Svyatoslav in 1076, the Kyiv princes attempted to deprive his sons of the Chernigov inheritance, and they resorted to the help of the Polovtsy, whose raids began as early as 1061 (immediately after the defeat of the Torques by the Russian princes in the steppes), although for the first time the Polovtsy were used in strife by Vladimir Monomakh (against Vseslav Polotsky). In this struggle, Izyaslav of Kyiv (1078) and the son of Vladimir Monomakh Izyaslav (1096) died. At the Lubech Congress (1097), called to stop civil strife and unite the princes to protect themselves from the Polovtsy, the principle was proclaimed: "Let everyone keep his fatherland." Thus, while maintaining the right of the ladder, in the event of the death of one of the princes, the movement of heirs was limited to their patrimony. This made it possible to stop the strife and join forces to fight the Polovtsy, which was moved deep into the steppes. However, this also opened the way to political fragmentation, as a separate dynasty was established in each land, and the Grand Duke of Kyiv became the first among equals, losing the role of overlord.
In the second quarter of the 12th century, Kievan Rus actually broke up into independent principalities. The modern historiographic tradition considers the chronological beginning of the period of fragmentation to be 1132, when, after the death of Mstislav the Great, the son of Vladimir Monomakh, the power Kyiv prince Polotsk (1132) and Novgorod (1136) ceased to be recognized, and the title itself became an object of struggle between various dynastic and territorial associations of the Rurikovichs. The chronicler under 1134, in connection with the split among the Monomakhoviches, wrote down "the whole Russian land was torn apart."
In 1169, the grandson of Vladimir Monomakh, Andrei Bogolyubsky, having captured Kyiv, for the first time in the practice of inter-princely strife, did not reign in it, but gave it to inheritance. From that moment on, Kyiv began to gradually lose the political, and then the cultural attributes of the all-Russian center. The political center under Andrei Bogolyubsky and Vsevolod the Big Nest moved to Vladimir, whose prince also began to bear the title of great.
Kyiv, unlike other principalities, did not become the property of any one dynasty, but served as a constant bone of contention for all strong princes. In 1203, it was again plundered by the Smolensk prince Rurik Rostislavich, who fought against the Galician-Volyn prince Roman Mstislavich. In the battle on the Kalka River (1223), in which almost all South Russian princes took part, the first clash of Russia with the Mongols took place. The weakening of the southern Russian principalities increased the onslaught from the Hungarian and Lithuanian feudal lords, but at the same time contributed to the strengthening of the influence of the Vladimir princes in Chernigov (1226), Novgorod (1231), Kyiv (in 1236 Yaroslav Vsevolodovich occupied Kyiv for two years, while his older brother Yuri remained reign in Vladimir) and Smolensk (1236-1239). During the Mongol invasion of Russia, which began in 1237, in December 1240, Kyiv was turned into ruins. It was received by Vladimir princes Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, recognized by the Mongols as the oldest in Russia, and later by his son Alexander Nevsky. However, they did not move to Kyiv, remaining in their ancestral Vladimir. In 1299, the Metropolitan of Kyiv moved his residence there. In some church and literary sources, for example, in the statements of the Patriarch of Constantinople and Vytautas at the end of the 14th century, Kyiv continued to be considered the capital at a later time, but by that time it was already a provincial city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The title of "great princes of all Russia" from the beginning of the 14th century began to be worn by the princes of Vladimir.
The nature of the statehood of Russian lands
At the beginning of the XIII century, on the eve of the Mongol invasion in Russia, there were about 15 relatively territorially stable principalities (in turn divided into destinies), three of which: Kiev, Novgorod and Galicia were objects of the all-Russian struggle, and the rest were controlled by their own branches of the Rurikovich. The most powerful princely dynasties were Chernigov Olgovichi, Smolensk Rostislavichi, Volyn Izyaslavichi and Suzdal Yurievichi. After the invasion, almost all Russian lands entered a new round of fragmentation, and in the XIV century the number of great and specific principalities reached approximately 250.
The only all-Russian political body remained the congress of princes, which mainly decided the issues of the struggle against the Polovtsy. The Church also maintained its relative unity (excluding the emergence of local cults of saints and the veneration of the cult of local relics) headed by the metropolitan and fought against all sorts of regional "heresies" by convening councils. However, the position of the church was weakened by the strengthening of tribal pagan beliefs in the XII-XIII centuries. Religious authority and "zabozhny" (repression) were weakened. The candidacy of the archbishop of Veliky Novgorod was proposed by the Novgorod veche, there are also known cases of the expulsion of the lord (archbishop) ..
During the period of fragmentation of Kievan Rus, political power passed from the hands of the prince and the younger squad to the intensified boyars. If previously the boyars had business, political and economic relations with a whole family of Rurikovich headed by the Grand Duke, now - with individual families appanage princes.
In the Principality of Kiev, the boyars, in order to reduce the intensity of the struggle between the princely dynasties, in a number of cases supported the duumvirate (coordination) of the princes and even resorted to the physical elimination of the alien princes (Yuri Dolgoruky was poisoned). The Kiev boyars sympathized with the authorities of the senior branch of the descendants of Mstislav the Great, but external pressure was too strong for the position of the local nobility to become decisive in the choice of princes. In the Novgorod land, which, like Kyiv, did not become the patrimony of the specific princely branch of the Rurik family, retaining its all-Russian significance, and during the anti-princely uprising, a republican system was established - from now on, the prince was invited and expelled by the veche. In the Vladimir-Suzdal land, the princely power was traditionally strong and sometimes even prone to despotism. There is a known case when the boyars (Kuchkovichi) and the younger squad physically eliminated the prince of the “autocratic” Andrei Bogolyubsky. In the southern Russian lands, city vechas played a huge role in the political struggle, there were also vechas in the Vladimir-Suzdal land (there are references to them up to the 14th century). In the Galician land, there was a unique case of the election of a prince from among the boyars.
The main type of troops was the feudal militia, the senior squad received personal inheritable land rights. For the defense of the city, urban district and settlements, the city militia was used. In Veliky Novgorod, the princely squad was actually hired in relation to the republican authorities, the lord had a special regiment, the townspeople made up a “thousand” (a militia led by a thousand), there was also a boyar militia formed from the inhabitants of the “pyatins” (five dependent on the Novgorod boyar families of regions of the Novgorod land). The army of a separate principality did not exceed the size of 8,000 people. The total number of squads and city militia by 1237, according to historians, was about 100 thousand people.
During the period of fragmentation, several monetary systems developed: there are Novgorod, Kyiv and "Chernihiv" hryvnias. These were silver bars of various sizes and weights. The northern (Novgorod) hryvnia was oriented towards the northern mark, and the southern - towards the Byzantine liter. Kuna had a silver and fur expression, the former related to the latter as one to four. Old skins, fastened with a princely seal (the so-called "leather money"), were also used as a monetary unit.
The name Rus remained during this period behind the lands in the Middle Dnieper. Residents of different lands usually called themselves after the capital cities of specific principalities: Novgorodians, Suzdalians, Kuryans, etc. Up to the 13th century, according to archeology, tribal differences in material culture persisted, and the spoken Old Russian language was also not unified, preserving the regional- tribal dialects.
Trade
The most important trade routes of Ancient Russia were:
- the path “from the Varangians to the Greeks”, starting from the Varangian Sea, along Lake Nevo, along the Volkhov and Dnieper rivers, leading to the Black Sea, Balkan Bulgaria and Byzantium (the same way, entering from the Black Sea to the Danube, one could get to Great Moravia) ;
- the Volga trade route (“the path from the Varangians to the Persians”), which went from the city of Ladoga to the Caspian Sea and further to Khorezm and Central Asia, Persia and Transcaucasia;
- a land route that began in Prague and through Kyiv went to the Volga and further to Asia.