Its history can be conditionally divided into three periods:

the first - the period of the formation of Ancient Russia under the first princes-Rurikovich (the second half of the 9th - the last third of the 10th centuries);

the second - the heyday of Kievan Rus under Vladimir I and Yaroslav the Wise (late 10th - first half of the 11th centuries);

the third - the period of the beginning of the territorial and political fragmentation of the Old Russian state and its disintegration (the second half of the 11th - the first third of the 12th centuries).

- First period history of ancient Russia begins since 862when he began to reign in Novgorod or, perhaps, first in Staraya Ladoga Rurik (862 - 879)... As already noted, this year is traditionally considered the legendary beginning of Russian statehood.

Unfortunately, information about the details of Rurik's reign has not reached us. Since the son of Rurik Igor was a minor, then he became a guardian and a prince of Novgorod Oleg (879 - 912)... According to some sources, he was a relative of Rurik, according to others - the leader of one of the Varangian detachments.

In 882, Oleg undertook a campaign against Kiev and killed Askold and Dir, who reigned there, who were the last representatives of the legendary Kiy family. True, some scholars consider them to be Rurik's vigilantes who took the Kiev throne. Oleg made Kiev the capital of the united state, calling it “the mother of Russian cities”. That is why the Old Russian state went down in history also under the name of Kievan Rus.

In 911, Oleg made a victorious campaign against Constantinople (as the Russians called Constantinople - the capital of Byzantium). He concluded a treaty that was very beneficial for Russia with the Byzantine emperor and returned to Kiev with a rich booty. Under the agreement, Russian merchants, or guests, as they were then called, could buy goods in Constantinople without paying duties for them, live in the capital for a month at the expense of the Greeks, and so on. Oleg included the Krivichi, Northerners, Radimichs and Drevlyans in his power, who began to pay tribute to the Kiev prince.

For his luck, wisdom and cunning, Oleg was nicknamed the Prophetic people, that is, who knew in advance what to do in a given situation.

After the death of Oleg, the son of Rurik became the prince of Kiev Igor (912 - 945)... Under him, Russian squads made a campaign against Byzantium twice and concluded a new treaty with the Byzantine emperor, which stipulated the procedure for trade between the two states. It also included articles on military alliance.

Igor fought with the Pechenegs who attacked the Russian lands. Under him, the territory of the state expanded due to the inclusion in its composition of the lands of the street and Tivertsy. Subordinate lands paid tribute to the Kiev prince, which he collected annually, bypassing them with his retinue. In 945, trying to re-take tribute from the Drevlyans, Igor was killed by them.

Igor's successor was his wife, the princess Olga (945 - 964)... She cruelly avenged the Drevlyans for the death of her husband, killing many of the rebellious, and burned their capital - the city of Iskorosten (now Korosten). The Drevlyans were finally included in the Old Russian state.

Under Olga, the collection of tribute was streamlined. Established special places for collecting tribute - churchyards, the size of the tribute - lessons, determined the timing of its collection.

During this period, the international relations of Ancient Rus expanded significantly. There was an exchange of embassies with the German emperor Otto I, relations with Byzantium were strengthened. While making a visit to Constantinople, Olga promised support to the Byzantine emperor in his policy towards neighbors, and also converted to Christianity there. Later, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Olga.

The next Kiev prince was the son of Igor and Olga - Svyatoslav (964 - 972)... He was a talented commander who glorified the Russian land with his military campaigns. It is Svyatoslav who owns the famous words that he uttered in front of his squad in one of the difficult battles: "Let's lie here with our bones: the dead have no shame!"

He began the subordination of Ancient Rus to the Vyatichi, who until the last fought for their independence and remained the only Slavic tribe in the east that was not subject to the Kiev prince. Svyatoslav defeated the Khazars, repelled the onslaught of the Pechenegs, defeated the Volga Bulgaria, successfully fought on the Azov coast, capturing Tmutarakan (modern Taman) on the Taman Peninsula.

Svyatoslav began a war with Byzantium for the Balkan Peninsula, which at first developed successfully, and he even thought to move the capital of his state from Kiev to the Danube bank, to the city of Pereyaslavets. But these plans were not implemented. After stubborn battles with a large Byzantine army, Svyatoslav was forced to conclude a non-aggression pact with Byzantium and return the captured lands.

Returning to Kiev with the remnants of his squads, Svyatoslav at the Dnieper rapids was ambushed by the Pechenegs and was killed. The Pechenezh prince cut off his head and made a cup out of the skull, believing that all the power of the great warrior would pass to the drinker from it. These events took place in 972. Thus ended the first period of the history of Ancient Rus.

After the death of Svyatoslav, confusion began, the struggle for power between his sons... It ended after his third son, Prince Vladimir, took the Kiev throne. He went down in history as Vladimir I, outstanding statesman and military leader (980 - 1015)... And in Russian epics it is Vladimir Krasnoe Solnyshko.

Under him, all the lands of the Eastern Slavs were finally united as part of Ancient Russia, some of which, primarily the Vyatichi, during the time of turmoil tried again to become beyond the control of the Kiev prince.

Vladimir managed to solve the main task of the foreign policy of the Russian state at that time - to organize an effective defense against the raids of the Pechenegs. For this, on the border with the steppe, several defensive lines were built with a well-thought-out system of fortresses, ramparts, signal towers. This made a sudden attack of the Pechenegs impossible and saved Russian villages and cities from their raids. It was in those fortresses that the epic heroes Ilya Muromets, Alyosha Popovich and Dobrynya Nikitich served. In battles with the Russian squads, the Pechenegs suffered heavy defeats.

Vladimir made several successful military campaigns to the Polish lands, Volga Bulgaria and others.

The Kiev prince reformed the system of government and replaced the local princes, who continued to rule the tribes that became part of Ancient Rus, with their sons and "husbands", that is, the chiefs of the squads.

Under him, the first Russian coins appeared: gold coins and silver coins. The coins depicted Vladimir himself, as well as Jesus Christ.

The appearance on the coins of Jesus Christ was not accidental. In 988, Vladimir I adopted Christianity and made it the state religion.

Christianity has penetrated into Russia for a long time. Even under Prince Igor, some of the warriors were Christians, in Kiev there was the Cathedral of St. Elijah, the grandmother of Vladimir, Princess Olga, was baptized.

The baptism of Vladimir took place in the Crimea after the victory over the Byzantine troops during the siege of the city of Korsun (Chersonesos). Vladimir demanded to marry the Byzantine princess Anna and announced his intention to be baptized. This was happily accepted by the Byzantine side. A Byzantine princess was sent to the Kiev prince, as well as priests who christened Vladimir, his sons and squad.

Returning to Kiev, Vladimir, under pain of punishment, forced the people of Kiev and the rest of the people to be baptized. The baptism of Rus, as a rule, took place peacefully, although it met with some resistance. Only in Novgorod did the inhabitants revolt and were pacified by force of arms. Then they were christened, having driven them into the Volkhov River.

The adoption of Christianity was of great importance for the further development of Russia.

First, it strengthened the territorial unity and state power of Ancient Rus.

Secondly, having rejected paganism, Russia was now on a par with other Christian countries. There has been a significant expansion of its international ties and contacts.

Thirdly, it had a huge impact on the further development of Russian culture.

For merits in the baptism of Rus, Prince Vladimir was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church and named Equal to the Apostles.

The Russian Orthodox Church was headed by the Metropolitan, who was appointed by the Patriarch of Constantinople until the middle of the 15th century.

After the death of Vladimir I, troubles began again, in which twelve of his sons fought for the Kiev throne. The turmoil lasted four years.

During this princely feud, by order of one of the brothers, Svyatopolk, three other brothers were killed: Boris Rostovsky, Gleb Muromsky and Svyatoslav Drevlyansky. For these crimes Svyatopolk received the nickname "The Damned" among the people. And Boris and Gleb began to be venerated as holy martyrs.

Civil strife ended after the beginning of the reign in Kiev prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich, who received the nickname Wise from his contemporaries (1019 - 1054)... The years of his reign in history are considered the period of the highest flowering of Ancient Russia.

Under Yaroslav, the raids of the Pechenegs stopped, which were fiercely rebuffed. In the north, in the Baltic lands, Yuryev was founded (now the city of Tartu in Estonia), on the Volga - the city of Yaroslavl. The Kiev prince managed to unite under his command the whole of Ancient Russia, that is, he finally became the sovereign prince of the Old Russian state.

Russia received wide international recognition. With many of the European ruling dynasties, Yaroslav was in kinship. His daughters were married to Hungarian, Norwegian, French kings. Yaroslav's sister married the Polish king, and the granddaughter married the German emperor. Yaroslav himself married a Swedish princess, and his son Vsevolod married a Byzantine princess, daughter of Emperor Constantine Monomakh. Born from this marriage, Yaroslav's grandson Vladimir received the nickname Monomakh. It was he who later continued the glorious deeds of his grandfather.

Yaroslav went down in history as a Russian legislator. It was under him that the first code of laws "Russian Truth" appeared, which regulated life in Ancient Russia. The law, in particular, allowed blood feud. For murder, they could take revenge on legal grounds: a son for a father and a father for a son, a brother for a brother and a nephew for an uncle.

Under Yaroslav, the rapid development of Russian culture took place: churches were built, work was carried out to teach literacy, translation from Greek and correspondence of books into Russian, a book depository was created. In 1051, shortly before the death of Yaroslav, for the first time not a Byzantine, but a Russian clergyman, Hilarion, became the Metropolitan of Kiev. He wrote that the Russian state at this time was "known and heard in all parts of the earth." With the death of Yaroslav in 1054, the second period of the history of Ancient Rus ended.

- Social and state structure of Kievan Rus

Geographically, Russia in the XI century was located from the Baltic (Varangian) and White Seas, Lake Ladoga in the north to the Black (Russian) Sea in the south, from the eastern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains in the west to the upper reaches of the Volga and Oka in the east. About 5 million people lived on vast territories. The family made up the yard, "smoke", "ten". Families made up territorial neighbors (no longer consanguineous) communities ("verv", "hundred"). Communities gravitated towards graveyards - commercial and administrative centers, in the place of which cities grew ("regiment", "thousand"). In the place of the former tribal unions, principalities ("lands") were formed.

The political system of the Old Russian state combined the institutions of the new feudal formation and the old, primitive communal one. At the head of the state was the hereditary prince, who was called the Grand Duke. He ruled with the help of the council of other princes and warriors. The rulers of other principalities were subordinate to the Kiev prince. The prince had a significant military force, which included the fleet.

The supreme power belonged to the Grand Duke, the eldest among the Rurik. The prince was a legislator, military leader, supreme judge, addressee of tribute. The prince was surrounded by a squad. The guards lived in the prince's court, participated in campaigns, shared tribute and booty, feasted with the prince. The prince consulted with the retinue on all matters. The Boyar Duma, which was originally composed of senior warriors, participated in the management. In all lands, the popular veche played an important role. Management was exercised by princes, mayor from boyars, voivods, elective thousand in cities, etc.

The armed forces included a professional princely squad and militia. Initially, the permanent detachments ("princes' courts") included courtyard servants, both free and dependent ("slaves"). Later, the service to the prince began to be based on his agreement with his servant (boyar) and became permanent. The word "boyar" itself takes its origin from the word "bolar" or "fighter". If necessary, in the event of a military threat, the people's volunteer corps, led by the tysyatsky, gathered, by decision of the veche meeting. The militia was made up of free people - peasants and townspeople. The militia was built according to the "decimal principle". The warriors united in tens, tens in hundreds, hundreds in thousands. Most of the commanders - tenth, sotsky, thousand - were chosen by the soldiers themselves. The warriors knew each other well. A hundred usually consisted of men from one volost, usually related to some degree of kinship. Over time, a territorial (district) principle appears to replace the decimal system. "Thousand" is replaced by a territorial unit - the army. The detachments began to be called "regiments". "Dozens" were transformed into a new territorial unit - "spear".

In 988 under Vladimir I, Christianity in the Byzantine version was adopted as the state religion instead of paganism. The Russian Orthodox Church initially supported the state and depended on it, since according to the Charter of Vladimir, proclaimed a saint, it received 10% of all income in the state for its functioning. The grand dukes actually appointed the higher clergy and encouraged the development of monasteries. The principle of the predominance of secular power over spiritual is usually called caesaropapism.

The bulk of the boyar landowners, who had extensive farms in the countryside, lived in Russian cities. They were interested in collecting and dividing the tribute collected in the adjacent territories. So the state apparatus was born in the cities, the upper strata of society were consolidated, inter-territorial ties were strengthened, that is, the process of state formation developed.

The basis of the social organization of Ancient Rus was the community. In modern domestic historical science, the prevailing opinion is that in the Old Russian state the absolute majority of the population were free communal peasants, united in a rope (from the rope with which land plots were measured; the rope was also called "a hundred", later - "lip"). They were respectfully called "people", "men". They plowed, sowed, chopped and burned the forest for new arable land ("slash-and-burn system"). Could fill up a bear, elk, wild boar, catch fish, collect honey from forest edges. The “husband” of Ancient Rus took part in the community gathering, elected the headman, participated in the trial as part of a kind of “jury” - “twelve best husbands” (called “extortion”). The ancient Rusich, together with his neighbors, pursued a horse thief, an arsonist, a murderer, participated in the armed militia in the event of major military campaigns and, together with others, fought off the raids of nomads. A free person had to control his feelings, be responsible for himself, relatives and dependent people. For premeditated murder in accordance with Russian Pravda, a set of laws of the first half of the 11th century. property was confiscated, and the family completely turned into slavery (this procedure was called "flow and plunder"). For a tuft of hair torn from a beard or mustache, an offended free person "for moral damage" was entitled to compensation of 12 hryvnias (hryvnia is a silver bar weighing about 200 grams; now the hryvnia is the main currency in Ukraine). So the personal dignity of a free person was valued. The murder was punishable by a fine of 40 hryvnia.

The "husband" of Ancient Russia was an indisputable person liable for military service, a participant in military campaigns. By decision of the people's veche, all combat-ready men took part in the campaign. Weapons (swords, shields, spears) were obtained, as a rule, from the prince's arsenal. Every man knew how to handle an ax, knife, bow. So, the army of Svyatoslav (965-972), including along with the squad and the militia, numbered up to 50-60 thousand people.

The communal population was the absolute majority in Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, Chernigov, Vladimir, Polotsk, Galician, Kiev and other lands. The population of the cities also made up a kind of community, among which Novgorod with its veche system is of the greatest interest.

At the same time, various life circumstances created categories of people of a different legal status. Ryadovichs were those who fell into temporary dependence on the owner on the basis of an agreement ("row") concluded with him. Purchases were made by those who lost their property and received from the owner a small piece of land and tools. Zakup worked for a loan (kupu), grazed the owner's cattle, could not leave him, could be subjected to corporal punishment, but could not be sold into slavery, retaining the chance to be ransomed for freedom. As a result of captivity, self-sale, sale for debts or for crimes, through marriage or marriage to a slave or servant, Russian people could become slaves. The right of the master in relation to the slave was not limited by anything. His murder "cost" only 5 hryvnia. Serfs were, on the one hand, the servants of the feudal lord, who were part of his personal servants and squads, even the princely or boyar administration. On the other hand, slaves (slaves of the Russian society), in contrast to antique slaves, could be planted on the ground (“suffering people”, “suffering people”), worked as artisans. Lumpen-proletarians of Ancient Russia, by analogy with Ancient Rome, can be called outcasts. These were people who had lost their former social status: peasants expelled from the community; freed slaves who were ransomed to freedom (as a rule, after the death of the owner); ruined merchants and even princes "without a place", that is, they did not receive the territory in which they performed administrative functions. When considering court cases, the social status of a person played an important role, the principle was “according to the husband depending on the law”. Landowners, princes and boyars acted as owners of dependent people.

3. Feudalism of Western Europe and the socio-economic system of Ancient Rus: similarities and differences.

The emergence and development of feudal land tenure and the associated enslavement of the peasantry took place in different ways. In Western Europe, for example, in France, for military service to the king, land was first granted for life, and then as hereditary property. Over time, the peasants were attached both to the personality of the landowner-feudal lord and to the land. The peasant had to work on his own farm and on the farm of the senior (senior, master). The serf gave the owner a significant part of the products of his labor (bread, meat, poultry, fabrics, leather, shoes), and also performed many other duties. All of them were called feudal rent and were considered the payment of a peasant for the use of land, thanks to which his family was fed. Thus arose the main economic unit of the feudal mode of production, which in England was called the manor, in France and many other countries - the seigneur, and in Russia - the fiefdom.

In Byzantium, such a rigid system of feudal relations did not develop. In Byzantium, feudal lords were forbidden to maintain squads, build prisons on estates, and they, as a rule, lived in cities, and not in fortified castles. On charges of conspiracy, treason, any feudal owner could lose property and life itself. In all feudal societies, land was the main value. To cultivate the land, the feudal landowners used various systems of exploitation of peasant labor, without the application of which the land remained dead.

In the Russian lands, the formation of socio-economic relations inherent in feudal society had its own characteristics. The pressure from the prince and his administration had certain limits. There were many vacant lands in the country. For centuries, it was possible to leave the former place and settle 50-100 versts to the north or east. In a new place, in a few days it was possible to build a house, in a few months to clear a plot for arable land. This opportunity has warmed the soul of the Russian people for many decades. The colonization of free territories, their economic development took place almost continuously. They fled from the raids of the nomads in the nearest forest. The process of feudalization, restricting the freedom of rural and urban workers was slow.

In the IX - X centuries. at the initial stage of the development of feudal relations, the direct producers were subordinated to state power. The main form of dependence of the peasants was state taxes: land tax - tribute (polyudye), court taxes ( vira, sales).

At the second stage, individual, large land ownership is formed, which in Western Europe is called senior. Feudal land ownership arose, legalized in different ways in different Russian lands, at different rates as a result of increasing property inequality and in connection with the transition of a significant part of the arable land of the communes to the private property of large owners - feudal lords, princes and boyars. Agricultural communities gradually passed under the patronage of the prince and his squad. A system of exploitation of the personally free population by the military-service nobility (squad) of the Kiev princes was formed by levying tribute. Another way of subordinating the neighboring community to the feudal lords was their capture by warriors and princes. But most often the tribal nobility turned into large owners, subjugating the community members. Communities that did not fall under the rule of the feudal lords were obliged to pay taxes to the state, which in relation to these communities acted both as the supreme power and as a feudal lord.

In the X century. arises, and in the next century, the domain of land ownership of the Kiev princes was strengthened. The main form of organizing economic life is becoming feudal fiefdom, that is, the paternal estate transferred from father to son. In the XI century. land ownership appears among representatives of the top of the service nobility - boyars. The princes and their noble warriors begin to take over various, mostly communal land. The process of feudalization of Russian society is underway, since the possession of land gives significant economic advantages and becomes an important political factor.

The princes of individual lands and other large, medium, small feudal lords were in vassal dependence on the grand duke. They were obliged to supply soldiers to the Grand Duke, to appear at his request with a retinue. At the same time, these vassals themselves exercised government in their estates and the grand-ducal governors had no right to interfere in their internal affairs.

Each fiefdom was something like a small independent state with its own independent economy. The feudal patrimony was stable because it led a subsistence economy. If necessary, the peasants were attracted to "corvee", that is, to general work in favor of the owner.

In the XII - the first half of the XIII century. patrimonial land tenure continues to grow. In economic life, boyar and princely estates, as well as church, feudal in essence, land holdings come out on top. If in written sources of the XI century. There is little information about the boyar and monastic estates, but in the 12th century, references to large landholdings acquire a regular character. The state-feudal form of ownership continued to play a leading role. Most of the direct producers continued to be personally free people. They depended only on state power, paying tribute and other state taxes.

4. Neighbors of Ancient Russia in the 9th-12th centuries: Byzantium, Slavic countries, Western Europe, Khazaria, Volga Bulgaria.

At the stage of the folding of the Old Russian state (862-980), the Rurikovichs solved the following tasks:

1. Expanded the sphere of their influence, subjugated all new East Slavic and non-Slavic tribes. Rurik annexed the Finnish tribes to the Slavs - the whole, meryu, meschera. In 882 Oleg moved the center of Ancient Rus to Kiev, "the mother of Russian cities." He included the lands of the Krivichi, Drevlyans, Northerners, Radimichs, Dulebs, Tivertsy and Croats into Ancient Russia and essentially completed the unification of all East Slavic tribes within a single state. Ancient Russia included most of the East European Plain.

2. The first Rurikovichs entered into relations with neighboring established and emerging states, waged wars, sought international recognition through the signing of international agreements.

Oleg, at the head of a significant army, besieged Constantinople (Constantinople), the capital of Byzantium, and concluded with it in 911 the first international treaty of equal rights for Russia. Igor, the son of Rurik and pupil of Oleg, began to fight against pechenegs,which were completely defeated by his great-grandson Yaroslav the Wise. Igor made unsuccessful campaigns against Byzantium in 941 and 944, signed a treaty in 944. He kept in subjection the tribes conquered by Rurik and Oleg. Was killed in the Drevlyansky land for arbitrariness during the collection tribute (polyudye).

The outstanding commander Svyatoslav freed the Vyatichi from the Khazars, subjugated them to Rus, and defeated the Khazar Kaganate in 965. Svyatoslav founded Tmutarakan near the Kerch Strait and Preslavets near the mouth of the Danube. He waged a difficult war against Byzantium (the battle of Dorostol), sought to advance as much as possible in the south-west direction to areas with a more favorable climate. He signed a truce with Byzantium and was killed by the Pechenegs while returning home.

3. The first Russian rulers established trade, economic, cultural, family and dynastic relations with neighboring states and rulers. Russia did not have its own deposits of gold and silver. Therefore, at first, Byzantine denarii and Arab dirhams were used, and then their goldsmiths and silversmiths began to be minted.

During the heyday (980-1132), the content and priorities of foreign policy began to change in accordance with the growth of the economic and military power of the Russian state.

The Rurikovichs established trade, economic, cultural, family and dynastic relations with neighboring states and rulers. During its heyday (980-1132), the ancient Russian state occupied a prominent place on the political map of Europe. Political influence grew with the strengthening of economic and military power, due to the entry into the circle of Christian states. The boundaries of the Russian state, the nature of relations, the order of trade and other contacts were determined by a system of international treaties. The first such document was signed with Byzantium by Prince Oleg in 911 after a very successful military campaign. For the first time Russia acted as an equal subject of international relations. The baptism of Rus in 988 also took place under the circumstances in which Vladimir I took an active position. In exchange for help to the Byzantine emperor Basil II in the fight against internal opposition, he actually forced the emperor's sister, Anna, to be his wife. Vladimir's son Yaroslav the Wise was married to the Swedish princess Ingigerd (baptized - Irina). Through his sons and daughters Yaroslav the Wise became related to almost all European ruling houses. The Novgorod land, Galicia-Volyn, Polotsk, Ryazan and other principalities had extensive international connections.

Foreign trade played an exceptional role in the economic life of Novgorod. This was facilitated by the geographical position of the northwestern corner of Russia, adjacent to the Baltic Sea. Many artisans lived in Novgorod, who worked mainly to order. But the main role in the life of the city and the entire Novgorod land was played by merchants. Their association at the Church of Paraskeva Friday was known from the 12th century. Its participants conducted distant, that is, overseas, foreign trade. Wax merchants united in the Ivanskoe merchant class. Pomor merchants, lower merchants and other entrepreneurial artels traded with other Russian lands. Since ancient times, Novgorod has been most closely associated with Scandinavia. In the IX-XI centuries. relations with the Danes, the Germans (especially the "Hanseatic"), and the Dutch were improved. Chronicles, acts and treaties of Novgorod for the XI-XIV centuries. record regular trips of Novgorod merchants to Narva, Revel, Dorpat, Riga, Vyborg, Abo, Stockholm, Visby (Gotland Island), Danzig, Lubeck. A Russian trading post was established in Visby. Foreign trade of Novgorodians was oriented exclusively towards the western direction. An important role was played by the re-export of Western goods deep into Russia, further to the countries of the East, and Russian and Eastern goods to the West. The region of the Neva and Ladoga areas for many centuries played the role of a kind of gateway to Eurasia, which predetermined the economic significance of this region and a fierce struggle for influence in it. Various contractual relations, kindred unions connected the Rurikovichs with their neighbors in the east, especially with the Polovtsians. Russian princes were members of many international coalitions, often relied on the support of foreign military forces, and provided their services. Most of the princes spoke, in addition to the Russian language, Greek, German, Polish, Polovtsian and others.

1. Vladimir I, Yaroslav the Wise, Vladimir II successfully defended the territory of their state, strengthened the recognition of its borders by a system of treaties.

Vladimir I finally conquered vyatichi, Radimichi, Yatvagov, annexed lands in Galicia (Cherven, Przemysl, etc.). Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054) in 1036 utterly defeated the Pechenegs, who began to serve the Russian princes or migrated to Hungary. In 1068, the struggle of the Russian people against the Polovtsy began, which went on with varying success due to the infighting of civil strife inside the House of Rurikovich. During the reign of Vladimir II Monomakh (1113-1125), the Polovtsy suffered serious defeats, with whom predominantly peaceful relations began to develop.

2. In the east, the struggle against nomads became protracted. The Pechenegs were defeated, powerful blows were inflicted on the Polovtsians, some of the nomads went into the service of the Russian princes.

3. With the adoption of Christianity, Russia stood on a par with most European states. But in 1054 year there was a split in Christianity. Over time took shape catholicism and orthodoxy... The split has persisted for almost a thousand years. Byzantium and Russia became close on the basis of adherence to Orthodoxy.

During the period of feudal fragmentation, each principality pursued its own foreign policy.

1. Strengthened ties with the ruling houses of European states. Vladimir II was married to the daughter of the Byzantine emperor, from whom, according to legend, he received the symbol of supreme power - the “Monomakh's cap”, the prototype of the future royal crown.

Wars were fought against neighboring neighbors, seizures were carried out, peace treaties were concluded and violated, and mutual claims accumulated. Under Vsevolod III Yuryevich (nicknamed the Big Nest) (1176-1212), the center of the Russian state actually moved to the richest city of Vladimir. Vsevolod subjugated the Ryazan principality, made campaigns against the Kama Bulgarians.

2. The rulers of the principalities in the struggle against their relatives in the "House of Rurikovich" increasingly turned to foreign states for help (Poland, Hungary, Sweden, etc.). This was often accompanied by concessions of territories, privileges for foreign merchants, etc. Foreign policy activities were carried out directly by the princes from the House of Rurikovich, who usually spoke European and Eastern languages, conducted diplomatic correspondence, and sent their trusted representatives from among the boyars and wealthy merchants as ambassadors.

3. Russian rulers underestimated the danger from the east. The Russian regiments, even having united with the Polovtsy, suffered a catastrophic defeat on the Kalka River (a tributary of the Don) in 1223 from the large forward forces of the Mongol-Tatars, led by the commander of Genghis Khan. No conclusions were drawn from this defeat, and the Mongol invasion of 1237/38. caught the Russian lands by surprise. The policy of "walking apart, hitting together" was inconsistent and proved ineffective.

5. Old Russian culture of the 9th-12th centuries.

1. Culture and beliefs of the Eastern Slavs

The ancient Slavs were people of Vedic culture, therefore it would be more correct to call the ancient Slavic religion not paganism, but Vedism. This is a peaceful religion of a highly cultured agricultural people, akin to other religions of the Vedic root - Ancient India, Ancient Greece.

According to the Veles book (presumably written by the Novgorod priests no later than the 9th century, dedicated to the god of wealth and wisdom Veles and resolving the dispute over the origin of the Slavs), there was an archaic Trinity-Triglav: Svarog (Svarozhich) is a heavenly god, Perun is a thunderer, Veles (Volos) is a destroyer god The universe. There were also maternal cults. The fine arts and folklore of the ancient Slavs were inextricably linked with paganism. The main deities of the Slavs were: Svarog (god of the sky) and his son Svarozhich (god of fire), Rod (god of fertility), Stribog (god of cattle), Perun (god of thunder).

The decomposition of clan relations was accompanied by the complication of cult rites. Thus, the funeral of princes and nobles turned into a solemn ritual, during which huge hills were poured over the dead, burnt along with the deceased one of his wives or a slave, they celebrated a feast, i.e. commemoration, accompanied by military competitions. Archaic folk holidays: New Year's fortune-telling, Shrovetide were accompanied by incantatory magical rites, which were a kind of prayers to the gods for general well-being, harvest, deliverance from thunderstorms and hail.

Not a single culture of a spiritually developed people can exist without writing. Until now, it was believed that the Slavs did not know writing before the missionary activities of Cyril and Methodius, but a number of scientists (S.P. Obnorsky, D.S. Likhachev, etc.) pointed out that that there is undeniable evidence of the presence of writing among the Eastern Slavs long before the baptism of Rus. It was suggested that the Slavs had their own original writing system: a nodular writing, its signs were not written down, but transmitted by means of knots tied with threads, which were wrapped in books-balls. The memory of this letter remained in the language and folklore: for example, we still talk about the "thread of the narrative", "the intricacies of the plot," and we also tie knots for memory. Knot-pagan writing was very complex and accessible only to a select few - priests and the highest nobility. Obviously, the nodular writing system could not compete with the simpler, logically perfect writing system based on the Cyrillic alphabet.

2. The adoption of Christianity by Russia and its significance in the development of Russian culture

The adoption of Christianity by Russia is the most important event in the cultural life of that period. The nature of the historical choice made in 988 by Prince Vladimir was not accidental. The chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years" contains a long story about the doubts of Vladimir and his boyars when choosing a faith. However, the prince made his choice in favor of Greek Orthodox Christianity. The decisive factor in turning to the religious and ideological experience of Byzantium was the traditional political, economic, cultural ties of Kievan Rus with Byzantium. Around 988, Vladimir was baptized himself, baptized his squad and boyars, and under pain of punishment forced the people of Kiev and all Russians in general to be baptized. The baptism of the rest of Russia took a long time. In the Northeast, the conversion of the population to Christianity was completed only by the end of the 11th century. Baptism has met with resistance more than once. The most famous uprising took place in Novgorod. The Novgorodians agreed to be baptized only after the princely warriors set fire to the rebellious city. Many ancient Slavic beliefs entered the Christian canon in Russia. The Thunderer Perun became Elijah the prophet, Veles became St. Blasius, the holiday of Kupala turned into the day of St. John the Baptist, Pancakes are a reminder of pagan Sun worship. Preserved belief in lower deities - goblin, brownies, mermaids and the like. However, all these are just remnants of paganism, which do not make an Orthodox Christian a pagan.

The adoption of Christianity by Russia had a progressive meaning, it contributed to the development of feudal relations in ancient Russian society, sanctifying the relationship of domination and subordination ("let the slave of his master fear", "there is no power not from God"); the church itself became a major landowner. Christianity introduced humanistic values \u200b\u200binto the morals and customs of ancient Russian society (“do not kill”, “do not steal”, “love your neighbor as yourself”). The adoption of Christianity strengthened the unity of the country and the central government. The international position of Russia has qualitatively changed - from a pagan barbarian state it has turned into a European Christian state. The development of culture received a powerful impetus: liturgical books in the Slavic language, icon painting, fresco painting, mosaic, flourished, stone architecture flourished, the first schools were opened at monasteries, and literacy spreads.

3. Old Russian literature

Russian literature was born in the first half of the 11th century. among the ruling class and was elitist. The leading role in the literary process was played by the church, therefore, along with the secular, church literature received great development. The writing material was parchment, specially made calfskin, birch bark. Paper finally replaces parchment only in the 15th-16th centuries. They wrote in ink and cinnabar using goose pens. An ancient Russian book is a voluminous manuscript composed of notebooks sewn into a wooden binding, covered with embossed leather. In the 11th century. In Russia, luxurious books with cinnabar letters and artistic miniatures appear. Their binding was bound in gold or silver, decorated with pearls and precious stones. This is the "Ostromir Gospel" written by deacon Gregory for the Novgorod mayor Ostromir in 1057.

At the heart of the literary language is the lively spoken language of Ancient Russia, at the same time, in the process of its formation, a closely related to it, albeit foreign in origin, language Old Slavonic or Church Slavonic played an important role. On its basis, church writing developed in Russia, and divine services were conducted.

One of the genres of Old Russian literature was the chronicle - a weather presentation of events. The chronicler not only described historical events, but also had to give them an assessment that would meet the interests of the prince-customer. The oldest surviving chronicle dates back to 1113. It went down in history under the name "The Tale of Bygone Years", as is commonly believed, was created by the monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery Nestor. The story is notable for its complexity of composition and the variety of materials included in it.

One of the oldest monuments of Old Russian literature is the famous "Word about Law and Grace" (1037-1050) of the prince's priest in Berestovo and the future first Kiev Metropolitan Hilarion. The content of the "Lay" was the substantiation of the state ideological concept of Ancient Rus, the definition of its place among other peoples and states, its contribution to the spread of Christianity.

At the beginning of the 12th century. In ancient Russian culture, newer literary genres are formed: teachings and walking (travel notes). The most striking examples are the "Instructions for Children", compiled in his declining years by the Grand Duke of Kiev Vladimir Monomakh, and also created by one of his associates, Abbot Daniel, the famous "Walking", describing his journey through the holy places through Constantinople and Crete to Jerusalem.

At the end of the 12th century. the most famous of the poetic works of ancient Russian literature was created - "The Word about Igor's Regiment" (came down to us in the only list that died during a fire in 1812 in Moscow), the plot of which was a description of an unsuccessful campaign against the Polovtsy Prince Igor Svyatoslavich of Novgorod-Seversk (1185). The unknown author of the Lay apparently belonged to the nobility of the retinue. The main idea of \u200b\u200bthe work was the need for the unity of Russian princes in the face of external danger, his appeal is aimed at ending civil strife and princely strife.

The legal code of Rus was "Russkaya Pravda", which contains, first of all, the norms of criminal, inheritance, commercial and procedural legislation and is the main source of legal, social and economic relations of the Eastern Slavs. Most modern researchers associate the Ancient Truth with the name of the Kiev prince Yaroslav the Wise. The approximate period of its creation is 1019-1054. The norms of Russkaya Pravda were gradually codified by the Kiev princes.

4. Construction and architecture.

With the advent of Christianity to Russia, the construction of religious buildings and monasteries began widely. Unfortunately, the monuments of ancient Russian wooden architecture have not survived to this day. One of the first central monasteries was Kiev-Pechersk, founded in the middle. 11th century Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves. Pechery, or caves, are the places where Christian ascetics originally settled, and around which a settlement arose, which turned into a communal monastery. Monasteries became centers for the dissemination of spiritual knowledge.

At the end of the 10th century. stone construction began in Russia. One of the first stone buildings in Kiev was the Tithe Church of the Assumption of the Virgin, erected by Greek craftsmen and destroyed during the invasion of Batu in 1240. Excavations revealed that it was a powerful structure of thin bricks, decorated with carved marble, mosaics, and frescoes. The Byzantine cross-domed temple became the main architectural form in Ancient Russia. Archaeological excavations of this ancient temple of Russia made it possible to establish that this building with an area of \u200b\u200babout 90 sq.m. crowned, according to the chronicle, with 25 tops, i.e. heads, was grandiose in design and execution. In the 30s of the XI century. the stone Golden Gate was built with a gateway church of the Annunciation.

The St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod became an outstanding piece of architecture in Kievan Rus. It is much stricter than Kiev, has 5 domes, much more powerful and more severe walls built from local limestone. There are no bright mosaics in the interior, but only frescoes, but not as dynamic as in Kiev, and an excess of ornamental decorations of pagan antiquity with a clearly visible pattern of nodular writing.

5. Crafts.

In Kievan Rus, handicrafts were highly developed: pottery, metalworking, jewelry, beekeeping, etc. In the 10th century. a potter's wheel appears. By the middle of the XI century. the first known sword with a Russian inscription: "Lyudota forged" belongs to. Since that time, Russian swords have been found in archaeological excavations in the Baltic States, Finland, Scandinavia.

The jewelry technique of Russian craftsmen was very complex, and the products of Rus were in great demand on the world market at that time. Many ornaments are made using the grain technique: a pattern consisting of many balls was soldered onto the product. Decorative and applied art was enriched with techniques brought from Byzantium: filigree - soldering thin wire and balls, niello - pouring a silver surface with a black background, enamel - creating a colored pattern on a metal surface.

6. The Middle Ages as a stage in the historical process in Western Europe, in the East and in Russia.

Technologies, industrial relations and methods of exploitation, political systems, ideology and social psychology.

The emergence and development of feudal land tenure and the associated enslavement of the peasantry took place in different ways. In Western Europe, for example, in France, for military service to the king, land was first granted for life, and then as hereditary property. Farmers who worked on the land were dependent on the owner. Over time, the peasants were attached both to the personality of the landowner-feudal lord and to the land. The peasant had to work on his own farm and on the farm of the lord (senior, lord). The serf gave the owner a significant part of the products of his labor (bread, meat, poultry; textiles, leather, shoes), and also performed many other duties. All of them were called feudal rent and were considered the payment of a peasant for the use of land, thanks to which his family was fed. This is how the main economic unit of the feudal mode of production arose, which in England was called the manor, in France and many other countries - the seigneur, and in Russia - the fiefdom.

In Byzantium, such a rigid system of feudal relations did not develop (see above). In Byzantium, feudal lords were forbidden to maintain squads, build prisons in estates, and they lived, as a rule, in cities, and not in fortified castles. On charges of conspiracy, high treason, any feudal owner could lose property and life itself.

The “queen” of all sciences was theology (translated from Greek “doctrine of God”; theology). Theologians interpreted Holy Scripture, explained the world around them from Christian positions. For a long time, philosophy was in the position of a "servant of theology". Priests, especially monks, were the most educated people of their time. They knew the works of ancient authors, ancient languages, and especially respected the teachings of Aristotle. The language of the Catholic Church was Latin. Therefore, access to knowledge for "simple people" was actually closed.

Theological controversies were often artificial. Dogmatism and scholasticism became widespread. Dogma translated from Greek means "opinion, teaching, decree." By "dogmatism" is meant one-sided, ossified thinking, operating with dogmas, that is, positions taken on faith as an immutable truth, unchanging under any circumstances. The penchant for dogmatism has survived safely to this day. The term "scholasticism" and the well-known word "school" have a common origin from the Greek word meaning "school, scholar." During the Middle Ages, scholasticism was most widespread. It was a type of religious philosophy that combined theological and dogmatic approaches with rationalistic methods and interests in formal logical problems.

At the same time, in the depths of theology, over time, rationalism appeared (translated from Latin "reason, reasonable"). The gradual recognition that truth can be obtained not only through faith, divine revelation, but also through knowledge, rational explanation, contributed to the gradual liberation of the natural sciences (medicine, alchemy, geography, etc.) from the strict control of the church.

The Church took care that the peasant, artisan, merchant, any ordinary person of the Middle Ages felt himself sinful, dependent, insignificant. The daily life of the "little man" was under the comprehensive control of the priest, feudal lord and community. The sacrament of confession, obligatory for everyone, forced a person to evaluate his actions and thoughts, taught him to self-discipline and self-restraint. It was not accepted and dangerous to stand out from the general gray mass. The clothes of men and especially women were of simple cut, should not have accentuated the texture of the body.

The people of the Middle Ages were characterized by fear of the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment, which was expected more than once in a state of mass history and panic.

Of course, not everywhere, not always, and not everything was so gloomy. In the spiritual culture of the Middle Ages, in the lives of people, the dominant religious culture was opposed by heresies, the remnants of paganism, and folk culture. The people were entertained by wandering actors - jugglers (buffoons). During the holidays, mummers walked through the streets of villages and towns (at Christmas), dances, competitions and games were held in the squares. During the "feasts of fools," which parodied the church service, the lower clergy put on monstrous masks right in the church, sang daring songs, feasted and played dice. Clever clergymen understood that explosions of unbridled, "worldly" fun allow "letting off steam", brighten up a rather difficult, dull everyday life. In many European countries, modern festivals, carnivals, traditional events originated in the Middle Ages.

For a long time, monasteries were the centers of spiritual culture. At the beginning of the second millennium, universities competed with them.

7. Reasons, nature and features of the period of feudal fragmentation. Russian lands in the XII-XIV centuries.

Modern researchers understand by feudal fragmentation the period of the XII-XV centuries. in the history of our country, when on the territory of Kievan Rus, from several dozen to several hundred large states were formed and functioned. Feudal fragmentation was a natural result of the previous political and economic development of society, the so-called period of the early feudal monarchy.

There are four most significant reasons for the feudal fragmentation of the Old Russian state.

The main reason was political. The vast expanses of the East European Plain, numerous tribes of both Slavic and non-Slavic origin, at different stages of development - all this contributed to the decentralization of the state. Over time, the appanage princes, as well as the local feudal nobility in the person of the boyars, began to undermine the foundation under the state building with their independent separatist actions. Only strong power, concentrated in the hands of one person, the prince, could keep the state organism from decay. And the great Kiev prince could no longer completely control the policy of local princes from the center, more and more princes left from under his power, and in the 30s. XII century. he only controlled the area around Kiev. Appanage princes, sensing the weakness of the center, now did not want to share their income with the center, and the local boyars actively supported them in this.

The next reason for feudal fragmentation was social. By the beginning of the XII century. the social structure of ancient Russian society became more complicated: large boyars, clergy, merchants, artisans, and urban lower classes appeared. These were new, actively developing strata of the population. In addition, a nobility was born, serving the prince in exchange for land grants. His social activity was very high. In each center, the appanage princes had an impressive force in the person of the boyars with their vassals, the wealthy elite of the cities, and church hierarchs. The increasingly complex social structure of society also contributed to the isolation of lands.

The economic reason also played a significant role in the collapse of the state. Within the framework of a single state, independent economic regions were formed over three centuries, new cities arose, large patrimonial possessions of the boyars, monasteries and churches arose. The natural character of the economy provided the rulers of each region with the opportunity to separate from the center and exist as an independent land or principality.

In the XII century. contributed to the feudal fragmentation and foreign policy situation. Russia during this period did not have serious opponents, since the grand dukes of Kiev did a lot to ensure the security of their borders. A little less than a century will pass, and Russia will face a formidable enemy in the person of the Mongol-Tatars, but the process of the disintegration of Russia by this time will go too far, there will be no one to organize the resistance of the Russian lands.

All major Western European states experienced a period of feudal fragmentation, but in Western Europe, the engine of fragmentation was the economy. In Russia, in the process of feudal fragmentation, the political component was dominant. In order to receive material benefits, the local nobility - princes and boyars - needed to gain political independence and strengthen their destiny, to achieve sovereignty. The boyars became the main force of the separating process in Russia.

At first, feudal fragmentation contributed to the rise of agriculture in all Russian lands, the flourishing of handicrafts, the growth of cities, and the rapid development of trade. But over time, constant strife between the princes began to exhaust the strength of the Russian lands, weaken their defenses in the face of external danger. Disunity and constant enmity with each other led to the disappearance of many principalities, but most importantly, they caused extraordinary hardships for the people during the period of the Mongol-Tatar invasion.

In conditions of feudal fragmentation, the exploitation of the peasantry increased, the number of free communes gradually decreased, the community fell under the rule of farmers. Previously free community members became feudally dependent. The deterioration of the position of the peasants and the urban lower classes was expressed in various forms, uprisings against the feudal lords became more frequent.

In the XII-XIII centuries. so-called immunities have become widespread. Immunity is the granting of a special letter to the landowner (letter immunity), in accordance with which he exercised independent management and legal proceedings in his fiefdom. At the same time he was responsible for the fulfillment of state duties by the peasants. Over time, the owner of the immunity letter became the sovereign and obeyed the prince only formally.

In the social development of Russia, the hierarchical structure of feudal land tenure and, accordingly, senior-vassal relations within the class of feudal lords are quite clearly manifested.

The main suzerain was the Grand Duke, who exercised supreme power and was the owner of all the land of this principality.

Boyars, being vassals of the prince, had their vassals - medium and small feudal lords. The Grand Duke handed out estates, immunity letters and was obliged to resolve controversial issues between feudal lords, to protect them from oppression by neighbors.

A typical feature of the period of feudal fragmentation was the palace-patrimonial system of government. The center of this system was the princely court, and the administration of the princely lands and the state was not delimited. The palace officials (butler, equestrian, falconer, chasnichny, etc.) performed national duties, managing certain territories, collecting taxes and taxes.

Legal issues during the period of feudal fragmentation were resolved on the basis of "Russian Truth", customary law, various treaties, letters, charters and other documents.

Interstate relations were regulated by treaties and charters ("finished", "row", "kissing of the cross"). In Novgorod and Pskov in the 15th century. there appeared their own legal collections, developed in the development of "Russian Truth" and Church Statutes. In addition, they implemented the norms of customary law of Novgorod and Pskov, letters of princes and local legislation.

8. Mongol-Tatar invasion of Russia and its impact on the economic, political, social and cultural development of the country. The struggle of the Russian people against foreign invaders (XIII-XV centuries).

The Russian state, formed on the border of Europe with Asia, which reached its heyday in the 10th - early 11th century, at the beginning of the 12th century split into many principalities. This disintegration took place under the influence of the feudal mode of production. The external defense of the Russian land was especially weakened. The princes of the individual princedoms pursued their own separate policy, reckoning primarily with the interests of the local feudal nobility and entered into endless internecine wars. This led to the loss of centralized government and to a strong weakening of the state as a whole. At the beginning of the 13th century, the Mongol state was formed in Central Asia. By the name of one of the tribes, these peoples were also called Tatars. Subsequently, all the nomadic peoples, with whom Russia was fighting, began to be called Mongolo-Tatars. In 1206, a congress of the Mongol nobility, the kurultai, took place, at which Temuchin was elected the leader of the Mongol tribes, who received the name Genghis Khan (Great Khan). As in other countries, at the early stage of the development of feudalism, the state of the Mongol-Tatars was distinguished by its strength and solidity. The nobility was interested in expanding pastures and organizing predatory campaigns against neighboring agricultural peoples, which were at a higher level of development. Most of them, like Russia, experienced a period of feudal fragmentation, which greatly facilitated the implementation of the conquest plans of the Mongol-Tatars. Then they invaded China, conquered Korea and Central Asia, defeated the allied forces of the Polovtsian and Russian princes on the Kalka River (1223). Reconnaissance in force showed that it is possible to conduct aggressive campaigns against Russia and its neighbors only by organizing an all-Mongolian campaign against the countries of Europe. At the head of this campaign was the grandson of Genghis Khan - Batu, who inherited from his grandfather all the territories in the west, "where the Mongol horse will set foot." In 1236 the Mongol-Tatars captured the Volga Bulgaria, and in 1237 they subdued the nomadic peoples of the steppe. In the fall of 1237, the main forces of the Mongol-Tatars, having crossed the Volga, concentrated on the Voronezh River, aiming at the Russian lands.

In 1237 Ryazan came under the first blow. The Vladimir and Chernigov princes refused to help Ryazan. The battle was very hard. The Russian squad left the encirclement 12 times, Ryazan held out for 5 days. "One resident of Ryazan fought with a thousand, and two with ten thousand" - this is how the chronicle writes about this battle. But Batu's superiority in strength was great, and Ryazan fell. The entire city was destroyed.

The battle of the Vladimir-Suzdal army with the Mongol-Tatars took place near the city of Kolomna. In this battle, the Vladimir army perished, predetermining the fate of North-Eastern Russia. In mid-January, Batu takes Moscow, then, after a 5-day siege, Vladimir. After the capture of Vladimir, Batu dismembers his army into several parts. All cities in the north, except Torzhok, surrendered almost without a fight.

After Torzhok, Baty does not go to Novgorod, but turns south. The turn from Novgorod is usually explained by spring floods. But there are other explanations: firstly, the campaign did not fit into the deadlines, and secondly, Batu could not defeat the combined forces of North-Eastern Russia in one or two battles, using numerical and tactical superiority.

Batu is combing the entire territory of Russia using the tactics of a hunting raid. The city of Kozelsk was declared the gathering point for the khan's troops. Kozelsk held out for 7 weeks, and withstood the general assault. Batu, however, took the city by cunning and did not spare anyone, he killed everyone up to the infants. Batu ordered to destroy the city to the ground, plow the land and fill this place with salt so that this city would never be revived. On his way, Batu destroyed everything, including villages, as the main productive force in Russia.

In 1240, after a 10-day siege of Kiev, which ended with the capture and complete plunder of the latter, Batu's troops invaded the states of Europe, where they terrify and fear the inhabitants. In Europe, it was announced that the Mongols escaped from hell, and everyone was waiting for the end of the world.

But Russia still resisted. In 1241 Batu returned to Russia. In 1242, Batu was in the lower reaches of the Volga, where he set up his new capital - Saray-Batu. The Horde yoke was established in Russia by the end of the 13th century, after the creation of the state of Batu - the Golden Horde, which stretched from the Danube to the Irtysh.

Already the first consequences of the Mongol invasions were catastrophic for the Slavic lands: the fall and destruction of the role of cities, the decline of crafts and trade, demographic losses - physical destruction, slavery and flight became factors that significantly reduced the population in southern Russia, the destruction of a significant part of the feudal elite.

The essence of the Golden Horde invasion as a historical phenomenon lies in the formation and strengthening of a stable system of dependence of the Russian lands on the conquerors. The Golden Horde invasion manifested itself primarily in 3 spheres: economic (the system of taxes and duties - tribute, plow, underwater, duties, feed, agile, etc.), political (the Horde's approval of princes on the tables and its issuance of labels for land management) , military (the duty of the Slavic principalities to delegate their soldiers to the Mongol army and take part in its military campaigns). to monitor the preservation and strengthening of the system of dependence were called upon the khan's governors in the Russian lands - the Baskaks. In addition, in order to weaken Russia, the Golden Horde practiced periodic devastating campaigns for almost the entire period of its own domination.

The Mongol-Tatar invasion caused great damage to the Russian state. Enormous damage was done to the economic, political and cultural development of Rus. The old agricultural centers and the once developed territories were deserted and fell into decay. Russian cities were subjected to massive devastation. Many crafts have become simpler, and sometimes disappeared. Tens of thousands of people were killed or taken into slavery. The unceasing struggle that the Russian people waged against the invaders forced the Mongolo-Tatars to abandon the creation of their own administrative bodies of power in Russia. Russia has retained its statehood. This was also facilitated by the lower level of cultural and historical development of the Tatars. In addition, the Russian lands were unsuitable for breeding nomadic cattle breeding. The main meaning of enslavement was to receive tribute from the conquered people. The tribute was very high. The tribute to the khan alone was 1300 kg of silver per year. In addition, deductions from trade duties and various taxes went to the khan's treasury. There were 14 types of tribute in total in favor of the Tatars.

The Russian principalities made attempts to disobey the horde. However, the forces to overthrow the Tatar-Mongol yoke were still not enough. Realizing this, the most far-sighted Russian princes - Alexander Nevsky and Daniil Galitsky - took a more flexible policy towards the Horde and the Khan. Realizing that an economically weak state will never be able to withstand the Horde, Alexander Nevsky embarked on a course to restore and raise the economy of the Russian lands.

In the summer of 1250 the Khan of the Mighty sent his ambassadors to Daniel Galitsky with the words: "Give Galich!" Realizing that the forces are unequal, and fighting the khan's army, he dooms his lands to complete plunder, Daniel goes to the Horde to bow to Batu and recognize his strength. As a result, the Galician lands are included in the Horde as autonomous entities. They kept their land, but were dependent on the khan. Thanks to such a soft policy, the Russian land was saved from complete plunder and destruction. As a result of this, a slow recovery and recovery of the economy of the Russian lands began, which ultimately led to the Battle of Kulikovo and the overthrow of the Tatar-Mongol yoke.

In the difficult years of the Mongol invasion, the Russian people had to repel the onslaught of German and Swedish feudal lords. The purpose of this campaign was the capture of Ladoga, and in case of success, and Novgorod itself. The plundering goals of the campaign, as usual, were covered with phrases that its participants were trying to spread among the Russian people the "true faith" - Catholicism.

At the dawn of a July day in 1240, the Swedish flotilla unexpectedly appeared in the Gulf of Finland and, passing along the Neva, stood at the mouth of the Izhora. A temporary Swedish camp was set up here. Prince of Novgorod Alexander Yaroslavich (son of Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich), having received a message from the chief of the Izhorian sea guard Pelgusius about the arrival of enemies, gathered his small squad and part of the Novgorod militia in Novgorod. Considering that the Swedish army was much more numerous than the Russian one, Alexander decided to deliver an unexpected blow to the Swedes. On the morning of July 15, the Russian army suddenly attacked the Swedish camp. The cavalry squad fought its way to the center of the location of the Swedish troops. At the same time, the Novgorodian militia on foot, following along the Neva, attacked enemy ships. Three ships were captured and destroyed. By blows along the Izhora and Neva, the Swedish army was overturned and pushed into a corner formed by two rivers. The ratio of the forces of change

East Slavs - the descendants of ancient agricultural and pastoralist tribes who lived in the south of Eastern Europe BC. At the beginning of our era, the Eastern Slavs occupied a vast territory from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, from the Carpathian Mountains to the upper reaches of the Oka and Volga rivers. By the middle of the IX century. the Eastern Slavs had the prerequisites for the creation of a state - Kievan Rus. Many Western historians still claim that it was created by the Normans who came from Scandinavia. Russian scientists have long refuted this so-called "Norman theory". They proved that the Old Russian state arose as a result of a long independent development of the East Slavic tribes, long before the arrival of the Normans. The earliest written information about the Slavs belongs to the ancient Greek scientists Hesiod, who reported on the "Antas" and "Wends" living from the Carpathians to the Baltic Sea. Since the VI century. n. e. the term “Slavs” appears in the sources. The most complete data on the Eastern Slavs were left to us by historians of the 6th century. Jordan and Procopius of Caesarea. It is believed that the ancestral home of the Slavs was Central and Eastern Europe. In the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. among the Slavs, iron begins to spread, and a gradual decomposition of the tribal system occurs. At the same time, a single Slavic community is divided into two branches - the eastern (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians) and the western (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Luzhitsa). Later, in 1 thousand. n. e., the third - the southern branch of the Slavs (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Bosnians) is also isolated. The total number of Slavic peoples at the beginning of the XX century. amounted to about 150 million people, including Russians - over 65 million, Ukrainians - about 31 million, Belarusians - about 7 million, Poles - over 19 million, Czechs - more

7 million, Slovaks - more than 2.5 million, Serbs and Croats - over 9 million, Bulgarians - 5.5 million, Slovenes - 1.5 million. The bulk of the Slavic population lived in Russia - 107.5 million people, in Austria-Hungary - about 25 million, in Germany - over 4 million, in the countries of America - over 3 million.In 1970, the total number of the Slavic people was about 260 million, of them: Russians - over 130 million, Ukrainians - 41.5 million, Belarusians - 9.2 million, Poles - about 37 million, Czechs - about 10 million. the Slavs kept the communal system. Each tribe consisted of several tribal communities. The Slavs were engaged in slash farming. With the improvement of tools, slash farming was replaced by plowed farming with a two-field system. The need to live in collectives has disappeared. Individual families began to emerge from the tribal communities. Each family had its own house, plot of land, its own tools. But places of hunting, fishing, pastures were in common use. With the advent of family property, property inequality appears among the Eastern Slavs. Some families get richer, others get poorer. A class of large landowners, the boyars, emerged.

In the VI - VIII centuries. the Slavs are undergoing an intensive process of disintegration of the tribal system and the formation of large tribal unions. Feudal relations are emerging, economic and socio-political prerequisites for the formation of statehood are created.

The names of the Slavic tribal unions are mostly associated not with the unity of origin, but with the area of \u200b\u200bsettlement. This indicates that at this time, among the Slavs, territorial ties already prevailed over clan ones. So, the meadows lived on the Dnieper near Kiev; Dregovichi - between Pripyat and Western Dvina; krivichi - around the city of Smolensk; vyatichi - in the Oka river basin, etc.

Each tribe was headed by a prince who had his own "reign". It was not yet a principality in the later, feudal sense of the word. Tribal princes created armed detachments - squads. They usually lived in separate villages, around which artisans settled: blacksmiths, gunsmiths, shoemakers, carpenters, etc. They produced weapons, clothing, and footwear for the squad. The princely settlement was surrounded by a deep moat with water, a high earthen rampart with a log wall. So the Slavs had cities.

A legend has survived about how the prince of the Slavic tribe of the Polyans Kiy and his brothers Shchek and Khoriv built a city on the high bank of the Dnieper. In honor of their elder brother, they named it Kiev. The descendants of Kiy were the first princes of the Kiev state.

For many centuries, the Eastern Slavs fought against nomads who came from Asia. In the IV century. the Huns attacked the Slavs, then the Avars and Khazars, then the Pechenegs and Polovtsians. “Asia never ceases to send out predatory hordes who want to live off a sedentary population; it is clear that in the history of the latter one of the main phenomena will be the constant struggle against the steppe barbarians, ”wrote the famous Russian historian S.M. Soloviev. The Slavs themselves often undertook military campaigns on the banks of the Danube and on Byzantium. To wage defensive and offensive wars, they united in alliances.

So, the large tribal unions were the immediate predecessors of the state.

The initial stage of the existence of the state among many peoples is associated with the rise (due to certain circumstances) of one of the noble families. Subsequently, having asserted its power in certain lands, this clan turned into a ruling dynasty. Roughly the same thing happened in Russia, where the Rurik and Romanov dynasties are distinguished.

It should be noted that Kiev had its own traditions of East Slavic statehood. It is believed that around the 6th - 7th centuries. here the founder of the city, the Slavic prince Kiy, and then his relatives ruled. However, in 882 the rulers were the Parisian knights Askold and Dir, whom the Novgorod prince Oleg dealt with cruelly and cunningly.

Kiev attracted Prince Oleg primarily because it was located on the famous route "from the Varangians to the Greeks." Large cities arose along the great trade route - Kiev, Smolensk, Novgorod, etc. It became, as it were, the core of the Old Russian state, its main street. At that time, rivers were the most convenient roads. It is no coincidence that all ancient cities stand along the banks of rivers, usually on a high promontory at the confluence of a small river into a large one.

What are the prerequisites for the formation of the Old Russian state - Kievan Rus?

At first, these are economic prerequisites:

a) a higher level of development of productive forces among the Eastern Slavs relative to other peoples. The main branch of the economy of the Slavs was agriculture with the use of iron instruments of labor: plowshares, plows, tips, plows, etc. This allowed the Slavs to develop new lands and move from slashing to more productive arable farming. The Slavs sowed rye, wheat, barley, oats, flax and other crops.

They were actively engaged in cattle breeding. Cattle were originally raised for meat and work. As a person began to use milk for food and acquired the skills of making various products from it (butter, cheese, etc.), the importance of dairy cattle increased. In addition, cattle breeding made it possible to develop leather production;

b) the development of crafts. The separation of handicrafts from agriculture among the Eastern Slavs occurs in the 6th-8th centuries. Archaeological data testify to the existence of blacksmiths, casters, gunsmiths, gold and silver craftsmen, potters, etc. during this period. From iron and steel alone, Slavic craftsmen produced more than 150 types of various products;

c) highly productive agriculture and a variety of crafts led to the active development of trade. This is confirmed by finds during excavations of Roman and other coins, Byzantine jewelry, products made in various regions, mainly within the boundaries of the three main trade routes. The first one is “the great way from the Varangians to the Greeks”. It led from the Gulf of Finland to the Neva River, to Lake Ladoga, to the Volkhov River, to Lake Ilmen, to the Lovat River, from Lovat, using small rivers and portages, passed to the Western Dvina, and from there to the upper reaches of the Dnieper and the Dnieper into the Black Sea to To the "Greeks", that is, to Byzantium. This important way was used by both the Slavs themselves and the Varangians. The second equally important route went along the Volga, to the land of the Volga Bulgarians and to the Khazar kingdom, to the Caspian Sea. To get to the Volga, the Slavs used its tributaries (Mologoya, Sheksnaya) and the Metoya River, which flows into Lake Ilmen. The third path also led to the Khazar kingdom from the middle Dnieper with small rivers to the Donets River and from the Donets to the Don, from there it was possible to get to the Azov and Caspian seas. The Slavs traveled along these routes to trade to the Greeks, Bulgarians, and Khazars.

Secondly, these are socio-political prerequisites:

a) in the VI century. Slavic tribal unions began to take shape, which became the prototype of the future statehood. Tribal unions were initially created only for military purposes. Among them, the largest ones should be highlighted: glade - in the Kiev region; duleby - in the Carpathians; Volyans, northerners, etc. V.O. Klyuchevsky directly pointed out that these unions were the beginning of the statehood of the Slavs. This is how he writes about the Dulebs: “This military alliance is a fact that can be put at the very beginning of our history: it began in the 6th century. on the very edge, in the southwestern corner of our plains, on the northeastern slopes and foothills of the Carpathians ";

b) in the VI - VIII centuries. the eastern Slavs had a good, for their time, military organization, which also testified to the presence of elements of statehood in their system. An interesting confirmation of the military-state organization was given by the Kiev mathematician A. Bugai, who studied more than 700 km of the so-called. "Serpent Shafts" located south of Kiev. On the basis of radiocarbon analysis, he concluded that in order to protect the Slavic tribes from the invasion of nomads from the south in the VI-VIII centuries. a four-row system of protective structures was created. One of the shafts stretches for 120 km from Fastov to Zhitomir. Its cubic capacity suggests that more than 100 thousand people participated in the construction. Such a scale of work was only possible in an organized society;

c) the absence of slavery among the Slavs. More precisely, it existed in a patriarchal form and did not develop into a slave-owning mode of production.

Thirdly, these are external prerequisites:

a) the need to expand land holdings, which only the state could carry out on a large scale;

b) the constant threat of an attack by the Normans from the northwest, Byzantium - from the southwest, the Khazars - from the southeast, the Pechenegs - from the south. All this dictated the need for a powerful military organization and centralized control over it. Thus, based on the above signs, we can conclude that the creation in the middle of IX and. the early feudal Old Russian state centered in the land of the tribal union of the Polyans - the city of Kiev - was a natural result of the internal development of the Slavic ethnos.

Kievan Rus was characterized by a multi-structured economy. What was the economic basis of the Old Russian state?

At first , feudal land ownership. This was a fundamental difference from Western European to a number of other countries in which the process of state formation was associated with the domination of slave labor. Feudal land ownership existed in two forms:

and) fiefdoms - the land of a large feudal lord, a boyar, who passed on by inheritance. It consisted of a feudal estate and peasant villages;

b) estates - land, which the prince granted to his warriors in conditional possession for service. The right to own land took place only during the period of service. This land was not inherited.

Secondly , the improvement of agricultural tools led to the emergence of two-field and three-field farming systems in Ancient Russia. This, in turn, made it possible to increase the area of \u200b\u200bland and their productivity.

Thirdly , the rapid development of crafts. About 150 different craft specialties were known in Kievan Rus. The development of crafts, along with other reasons, led to the growth of cities. On the basis of the chronicles, historians have calculated that in the 9th - 10th centuries. in Russia, there were 24 cities, in the XI century. - 64, in the XII century. - 135, and by the XIII century. - already 224. The largest were Kiev, Novgorod, Smolensk, Chernigov. In Scandinavia, Russia was then called Gradarika - the country of cities. Descriptions of Kiev made by a German chronicler in the 10th century testify to the size of the cities. He noted the presence in the city of 400 churches and 8 large shopping areas, as well as 100 thousand inhabitants.

Fourth , the deepening of the social division of labor, the increase in agricultural productivity, the development of crafts led to the growth of trade exchange between town and country, trade between various regions of Kievan Rus and herself with many countries: Persia, Arabia, France, Scandinavia. The largest trading partner of Russia was Byzantium.

The establishment of a private form of land ownership led to the creation of a clear social structure of society and initiated the formation of serfdom among the peasants.

At the top of the social pyramid was the great Kiev prince. He was the largest owner of the land, collecting tribute from the subordinate tribal princes and other land owners. He also complained for the service of the estate in conditional possession. CM. Soloviev wrote that annually in November, Russian princes left Kiev with their retinue and went to the lands of the Slavic tribes under their control, where they collected tribute, tried court cases and decided other issues.

The next step was occupied by large landowners - boyars and local princes. They paid tribute to the great Kiev prince and had the right to collect tribute from their subordinates and their lands. The same place was occupied by the higher clergy. Free peasants lived on free lands, paid tribute to various feudal lords and fulfilled duties.

Dependent peasants paid the feudal lords a quitrent or worked out the corvee. During the formation of Kievan Rus, the majority of the population consisted of free peasants - communes. However, as private ownership of land was established, dependence on the feudal lords, peasants ruined as a result of crop failures, wars, natural disasters, for other reasons, and forced them to voluntarily go into bondage to the feudal lord, increased. Thus, the economic coercion of the peasants was carried out.

The dependent population was taxed with feudal rent, which existed in Russia in two forms of corvee and natural rent.

a) Barshchina - This is the free forced labor of a peasant who works with his own implements on the feudal lord's farm. Widely spread in

European Russia in the second half of the XVI - the second half of the XIX century. After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, it remained for temporarily obligated peasants as sharecropping. It was legally abolished in 1882 and actually existed until the October Revolution of 1917 in the form of labor labor.

b) Natural rent - an annual collection of money and food from serfs. The grocery quitrent was abolished on February 19, 1861, the monetary quitrent remained for temporarily obligated peasants until 1883.

The following groups of dependent peasants developed by Kievan Rus:

a) purchase - a peasant who took a kupa from a feudal lord (monetary or natural debt);

b) ryadovich - a peasant who, for various reasons, could not manage the farm independently and entered into a number of agreements with the feudal lord. He voluntarily admitted his dependence and received in return a large plot of land, tools, grain for crops, etc .;

c) outcast - a peasant who has lost contact with the community and is hiring a feudal lord;

d) a forced laborer - a slave set free, without means of livelihood and going into bondage to the feudal lord;

e) slave - a person who was mainly in the composition of the courtyard people of the feudal lords and was actually in the position of a slave.

Kievan Rus was an early feudal monarchy headed by the Grand Duke. The grand-ducal power was unlimited and hereditary.

The prince also exercised the judiciary. An important element of the political system of the Old Russian state was the council under the Grand Duke of local princes and the upper layer of warriors - boyars. Local power was exercised by tribal princes, as well as mayor appointed by the Grand Duke, tysyatsky and sotsky.

The completion of the folding of the state structure and the development of feudal relations made it necessary to modify Russian law. The code of laws of Kievan Rus was called "Russian Truth". In the XI century. the so-called "Short Edition" of "Russian Pravda" is being folded. It consisted of two main parts - "Ancient Pravda" (or "Yaroslav's Pravda") and "Yaroslavich's Pravda". In addition to the princely civil legislation, during this period, church legal documents were in effect in Russia, which were aimed at strengthening the political positions of the Russian Church.

Course "Patriotic History"

Topic 1. Ancient Russia (IX-XIII centuries).

Kievan Rus.

"Specific period".

3. Fight against foreign invaders.

1 ... Kievan Rus emerged at the end of the first millennium AD. e. within the East European Plain.

The origin of the Slavs. Slavic tribes separated from the Indo-European community of peoples in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. in the area south of the Baltic coast.

Slavic colonization of the East European Plain... The Slavs took part in the "Great Migration of Peoples" (III-YI centuries AD). Some of the tribes moved east - in the direction of the lake. Ilmen and the middle reaches of the Dnieper. An East Slavic ethnic community was formed. The 7th century became the "Slavic century": the Eastern Slavs began to dominate the area from the Carpathians to the upper Volga and from the Gulf of Finland to the middle reaches of the Dnieper. The autochthons (indigenous inhabitants) of the forest zone (Baltic and Finno-Ugric tribes) carried on "appropriating economy" (hunting, fishing), the inhabitants of the southern steppes (Iranian-speaking nomads) - primitive cattle breeding. The Slavs - arable farmers - brought the culture of a productive economy to the East of Europe.

Social system of the Eastern Slavs. The Eastern Slavs were at the stage of decomposition of the primitive communal system. Communities based on kinship ties and collective property are being replaced by “neighboring” communities based on territorial and economic unity. Tribal associations grow into territorial - political tribal unions: glades, Drevlyans, Ilmen Slovenes, etc. Economic and general cultural progress has led to the isolation of the ruling stratum - princes (from military leaders), military servicemen (squad) and clan nobility ("best men") ... The formation of social differentiation served as the basis for the formation of the ancient Russian statehood.

The emergence of Kievan Rus. Scientific development of Old Russian history (from the middle of the XYIII century) is associated with the formation of the "Norman" and "anti-Norman" theories. The first was based on the assumption of the Norman (Normans, Varangians - natives of Scandinavia) origin of the Kiev statehood. The second denied the foreign origin of the state, considering the Varangian leader Rurik to be a mythical or Slavic leader. The weakness of both theories is the identification of the question of the emergence of the state with the problem of the origin of the dynasty. The emergence of the Old Russian state could not be the result of a single act. The Slavic fundamental principle of the ancient Russian statehood seems obvious. The Varangian element played an active role in the formation of state institutions of ancient Russia (the Varangian origin of the ruling dynasty, based on the old Russian nobility - the boyars, formed as a result of the merger of the Varangians with the Slavic tribal elite).

The origin of the term "Rus". The version of Scandinavian origin dominates ("rus": warrior - rower, squad). Arguments in favor of Slavic, Baltic, or Iranian-lingual etymology persist. "Kievan Rus" is a term adopted in scientific literature.

Periodization of the history of Kievan Rus... The first princes (from Rurik, 862 - 979, until the reign of Vladimir I Saint in 980) - the formation of the Old Russian state, the reign of Vladimir (980 - 1015) and Yaroslav the Wise (1019 - 1054) - flourishing, period up to death of Mstislav the Great (1132) - the collapse of Kievan Rus.

Socio-economic system... Old Russian society was of an agrarian nature: the rural way (way - a system of social relations of a certain type), subordinate to the natural cycle and based on a collective (communal) community, was the basis of society, mentality (attitude).

Social and political system. The prevailing opinion about Kievan Rus as an early feudal society. Feudalism is a type of social structure characterized by agrarianism, class division of society (class is a community with inherited rights and obligations), the presence of large ("feudal) land property (feud is land granted to hereditary possession for service), peasant property dependent on it. , the dominance of religion in the spiritual realm, usually a monarchical form of government.

Social structure of Kievan Rus (fragmentarily recorded in the oldest code of laws "Russian Truth") is characterized by division according to the class principle into layers of personally free (privileged nobility and unprivileged people) and personally dependent (completely - slaves, partially - smerds, purchases, ryadovichi). The main productive force of ancient Russian society was "people" - free peasants, who ran a family farm on communal land, and city people associated with crafts and trade.

In Ancient Rus, the key institutions of developed feudalism did not take shape: senior (private) ownership of land (princely domains began to form from the 10th century, boyar estates from the 11th century); serfdom (the legally formalized attachment of peasants to the land and personally to the owner of the land, forming "patrimonial jurisdiction" - the right of the feudal lord to extra-economic coercion of the serf); rent relations (redistribution of the surplus product from the producer to the owner of the land).

Within the privileged stratum, suzerainty - vassalage relations developed (a vassal - a servant with inalienable rights - immunities, serving the suzerain for awards): the Kiev prince - "the first among equals" - acted as suzerain in relation to the younger Rurikovichs and to the vigilantes. With the development of private property relations in late Kievan Rus, the formation of the service stratum began on the "classical" basis of land grants.

Under the rule of collective feudal landed property, the privileged class had three main sources of subsistence: trade, war booty, and "polyudye". The elite “walked around the people” who supplied the products of production and crafts. In the middle of the X century. Princess Olga fixed the collection procedure by place ("graveyard"), timing, size. "Polyudye" was transformed from a tribute into a tax that went to the upkeep of the courtyard and the provision of state needs. "Polyudye" became an early form of feudal rent, which was collected from personally free peasants by the feudal nobility as a whole, by the power.

A feature of Old Russian (Eastern European), “synthesized” feudalism (in contrast to the “synthetic” Western European, which adopted the Roman tradition) was the slowness of the formation of private property, the preservation of an array of state lands, which created the prospect of a long growth of feudalism “in breadth” Early Russian feudalism - "state feudalism", which demonstrates etatism (increased role of the state) already at an early stage of the formation of statehood.

Formation of territorial unity. In 882. Rurik's successor Oleg captures Kiev, which became the capital, putting an end to the confrontation between the northern and southern centers of the formation of ancient Russian statehood. During the IX - X centuries. the princes of Kiev subjugate the tribal principalities. During the reign of Saint Vladimir, the replacement of "native" princes by service princes - governors from the house of Rurikovich was completed. By the end of the X century. Kievan Rus was divided into volosts headed by princes - vassals of the Grand Duke. Local government (representatives of the prince, garrisons headed by tysyatskiy, centurion, desyatskiy - in accordance with the "tithe" management system) was supported by feeding - fees from the population.

A system of palace and patrimonial administration begins to take shape, in which power belongs to the patrimonial land. Officials of the princely palace economy (tiuns, elders) become the rulers of the corresponding branches of the state.

Cities. With the exception of Novgorod, the ancient Russian cities, which were formed mainly as transshipment points for foreign trade, did not have self-government, being the seat of local authorities - the mainstay of the princely power, and playing in this capacity an outstanding role in the formation of the state.

Political system. The Kiev prince, who received the throne by right of dynastic inheritance, was the personification of the state, the supreme ruler, judge, head of diplomacy, the armed forces, and treasury manager.

Limiters of princely power: Russia was considered the possession of the entire clan of Rurikovich, the Kiev prince was connected by relations of suzerainty - vassalage with the serving princes; boyar council; "Ordinary" ("row" - a contract) agreements concluded with a number of territories; veche system; the traditional order of inheritance of the princely table, which was supposed to pass to the eldest in the family of Rurikovich; institute of feudal "sleep" - congresses, deciding questions of dynastic and vassal relations.

Kievan Rus is an early limited monarchy (the source of power is the institution of monarchical government).

Foreign policy. Kievan Rus, the eastern outpost of Christian Europe, was an active participant in international relations.

Khazar direction: in 964 - 965 Prince Svyatoslav crushes the Khazar Kaganate, the most dangerous rival during the 9th-10th centuries.

Byzantine direction: peaceful trade and cultural ties were interspersed with armed conflicts (the campaigns of the Russians at the turn of the 9th-10th centuries, relations of alliance and confrontation during the time of Svyatoslav, the development of relations based on religious community by the end of the 10th century).

Southern direction: relations of alliance and armed struggle with the Pechenegs who threatened southern Russia, especially from the end of the 10th century; from the XI century. in a similar way - with the nomadic Turks - Polovtsy.

Western direction: dynastic ties (starting with Yaroslav the Wise, married to the daughter of the Swedish king) were a reflection of various relationships.

Christianization of Rus. During the formation of statehood, the Eastern Slavs (like the Varangians) professed paganism.

From the middle of the X century. Christianity penetrates Russia. In 988, Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich carried out a mass baptism of the Kievites. Gradually, Christianity becomes the religion of the majority of the population of Russia. The adoption of the monotheistic faith played an exceptional role in the formation of a single ancient Russian statehood, language and culture. The differences between the Western (Roman Catholic) and Eastern (Byzantine Orthodox) branches of Christianity left an imprint of identity on the subsequent course of Russian history.

The collapse of Kievan Rus. After the death of Yaroslav the Wise, civil strife began, which led to the fragmentation of Russia. The process became irreversible after the Lyubecheskiy (near Kiev, 1097) congress of the Rurikovichs, which decided that Russia was a set of independent "fatherlands".

Reasons for fragmentation:

External factors - the decline in the role of the trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks", which first "pulls together" the Russian lands; no serious external threat;

Internal factors - the process of development of a feudal society, entering the stage of maturity (the disintegration of early feudal states in Western Europe takes place in the X-XII centuries).

The fragile unity of Russia was based on the underdevelopment of social relations, which impeded the independent existence of volosts and allowed the central government to manage with a limited set of administrative functions. Economic growth under the conditions of domination of a natural (self-supporting) economy contributed to the formation of self-sufficiency in volosts; the growth of private land ownership weakened the dependence of the vassals on the overlords; the complication of power functions revealed the impossibility of managing a gigantic territory from a single center.

The collapse of Kievan Rus showed a rational form of statehood for the prevailing conditions.

2. The fragmentation of Rus meant the formation of independent states, which were formed, as a rule, within the boundaries of appanages - volosts (“specific period of Russian history”).

Dominant centers. For southwestern Russia, there was a confrontation between the princely power and the dominant boyars (the so-called "princely-boyar model"). North-eastern Russia was characterized by a strong monarchical rule ("unipolar princely model"). The experience of state structure, unique for medieval Russia, developed in the north-west, in the Novgorod land (“unipolar vechevoy model”).

Novgorod "boyar" republic (the source of power is the will of the people) gradually developed by the end of the XII century and lasted until the second half of the XY century.

Reasons for the formation of the republican system:

The lack of root of the princely power (in Kievan Rus' the Novgorodian table could become a stepping stone to the Kiev one);

Consolidation of the Novgorod boyars on a basis independent of the princely power.

State power in Novgorod was built on the basis of self-governing principles: “ulicha”, “konchansk” - district veche meetings elected the local administration. The supreme power was the city-wide veche. The veche meeting elected the highest officials of the republic (posadnik, tysyatsky, archbishop, prince, who was called up mainly as a military leader). The Konchansk authorities ruled over the provinces - "pyatins" of the Novgorod land. Elements of electivity and separation of powers can be seen in the structure of Novgorod. However, the full power in the "oligarchic republic belonged to the boyars (" golden belts "). In the Moscow tradition, the Novgorod "freemen" is represented as a period of endless turmoil. Reality - Novgorod was the most economically and culturally developed Russian land - refutes the "slanderous" scheme.

Culture of the pre-Mongol period. Old Russian culture is a synthesis of paganism with Christian culture based on Slavic writing, created in the second half of the 9th century. Byzantine monks Cyril and Methodius.

Literacy is spreading. In the XI century. Russian literature and chronicles are born. The Lay of Igor's Host is recognized as an outstanding monument of pre-Mongol culture. High level of architecture (Kiev and Novgorod Sophia Cathedrals) icon painting.

3. In the specific period, centers of aggression against Russia were formed in the northwest and southeast.

The emergence of the Mongol-Tatar empire. In 1206, one of the noyons - princes Temuchin was elected under the name of Genghis Khan (1206 - 1227) as the great khan of all Mongols (Tatars are one of the Mongol tribes) who lived south of Lake Baikal - to the Gobi and the Great Wall of China. Nomadic tribes were at the stage of social differentiation (nobles, nukers - vigilantes, community members - cattle breeders, slaves) and the formation of statehood. Population growth, depletion of pastures due to increased aridity, the desire for enrichment pushed the Mongols on the path of aggression. Starting from 1211, an empire was created, which included the territory of the south and west of Siberia, the north of China, Korea, Central Asia, Iran, Transcaucasia, and the North Caucasus.

Reasons: the internal disorder of the neighbors, experiencing a period of fragmentation, the superiority of the Mongolian army (the primitiveness of social relations made it possible to include in the troops all the male population accustomed to military affairs), the effective use of the resources and experience of the captured countries.

World significance of the empire. The integrity of the empire was fleeting. After the death of the founder, the state disintegrated into uluses, nominally maintaining unity and being drawn into civil strife. A long-term consequence of the Mongol expansion was the acceleration of the formation of world history as a real interaction of mankind.

Hike to Russia. During the campaign to the West, the Mongols, led by Genghis Khan's grandson Batu (Batu) in 1237 - 1238. and in 1239 - 1241. struck a blow to the Russian lands. Despite fierce resistance, Russia was conquered.

Formation of the Golden Horde. After an unsuccessful march to the west, Batu founded the state of the Golden Horde with the capital Sarai on the Volga, which covered the territory from the Irtysh to the Danube.

Reasons for the defeat of Russia. Fragmented Russia was not able to repel the blow for the same reasons for which the Mongols succeeded in their previous victories.

Aggression from the West. The situation was aggravated by the onslaught of the Swedes and German orders of knighthood. In the 1240s. at the mouth of the river. Neva the Swedish army was defeated by the Novgorod prince Alexander Yaroslavich, nicknamed Nevsky. In 1242 Alexander Nevsky defeated the Livonian Order in the battle on the lake. Chudskoe ("Battle on the Ice"). These victories averted the threat from the West and allowed Alexander, who became the Grand Duke of Vladimir, to lay down the order of dependence on the Horde, which held for a greater length of the "yoke" as a "lesser evil".

Horde yoke. The invasion threw Russia back: numerous human losses, economic and cultural decline. However, the Horde did not occupy Russian territory and was not interested in exterminating the Russian population, which would deprive it of income. Punitive actions were carried out with the aim of keeping the Russian lands in subjection.

The status of Russia in relation to the Horde. Russia, which preserved its social system, forms of statehood, religion, became a "non-contractual" vassal of the Horde. The Great Khan (Tsar) was the suzerain of the princes, through whom the Horde "exit" - tributes, was carried out.

Influence of the Horde on Russia. The deep influence of the Horde on Russia affected the sphere of power relations. The khan's omnipotence, superimposed on the monarchical institutions of northeastern Russia, gave rise to the "Moscow-Horde" tradition: the despotic power builds relations with the subordinate population, as conquered, obliged to unquestioning obedience.

In the pre-Mongol period, Russia evolved in some semblance of a common European scheme: from state-feudal forms, the basis of political unity, to senior (private), the basis of fragmentation. The Horde invasion pushed the processes of the formation of a special type of feudalism, which took shape in the XYI-XYII centuries.

Place of the Golden Horde in Russian history. Long-term ties, the subsequent annexation of the Horde lands to Russia give reason to consider the history of the Golden Horde as a part of Russian history.

Major events in the history of Russia IX -per. thirds XIII centuries

Kievan Rus

862 - the vocation of Rurik by the Novgorodians.

879 - 912 (or 921) - reign of Oleg, 882 - seizure of Kiev by Oleg, unification of Novgorod and Kiev lands, 911 - campaign against Byzantium, treaty with the Greeks.

912-945 - Igor's reign, campaigns to the western coast of the Caspian Sea, to Byzantium, an agreement with the Greeks, Igor's death in the Drevlyansky land during the collection of tribute.

945-972 - the reign of Olga Svyatoslav Igorevich, Olga's trip to Constantinople, 964-972 - Svyatoslav's campaigns against the Vyatichi, the Volga Bulgars, the defeat of Khazaria, defeat by Byzantium in the struggle for Danube Bulgaria.

972-978 - the struggle for power between the sons of Svyatoslav (Yaropolk, Oleg, Vladimir).

980- 1015 - the reign of Vladimir Svyatoslavich, campaigns in Western Russia in Poland, an alliance agreement with Byzantium, 988 - the baptism of Russia.

1015-1019 - the struggle for power between the sons of Vladimir (Svyatopolk, Boris, Gleb, Yaroslav, Mstislav).

oK. 1016 - c. 1113 - gradual creation by Yaroslav, Yaroslavich and Vladimir Monomakh of articles of "Russian Pravda".

1019-1054 - the reign of Yaroslav the Wise - the flourishing of Kievan Rus, campaigns against Poland, Yatvingians, Radimichs, Vyatichs, Croats, Kama Bulgarians, Byzantium, the struggle with the Pechenegs, Polovtsy, the formation of the Kiev Metropolitanate, an attempt to install a metropolitan, independent from Constantinople.

1054-1068 - joint reign of the sons of Yaroslav (Izyaslav, Svyatoslav, Vsevolod).

1068-1076 - the strife of the Yaroslavichs, accompanied by the invasion of the Polovtsy, popular riots, the involvement of the Pole in the Russian political struggle

1078-1093 - the reign of Vsevolod in Kiev.

1093 - 1113 - reign of Svyatopolk Izyaslavich.

1095-1111 - the successful campaigns of the princes against the Polovtsians.

1097, 1100, 1103 - congresses and treaties of princes in Lyubech, Vitichev, on Lake Dolobskoye - attempts to streamline the system of reigns, end strife, preserve military unity in the fight against the Polovtsy.

1113-1125 - reign of Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh.

1125-1132 - reign of Mstislav Vladimirovich.

after 1132 - the collapse of Kievan Rus.

History of Ancient Russia - the history of the Old Russian state from 862 (or 882) to the Tatar-Mongol invasion.

By the middle of the 9th century (according to the chronicle chronology in 862), in the north of European Russia in the Priilmenye region, a large alliance of Eastern Slavic, Finno-Ugric and Baltic tribes had formed, under the rule of the princes of the Rurik dynasty, who founded a centralized state. In 882, the Novgorod prince Oleg captured Kiev, thereby uniting the northern and southern lands of the Eastern Slavs under one rule. As a result of successful military campaigns and diplomatic efforts of the Kiev rulers, the lands of all East Slavs, as well as some Finno-Ugric, Baltic, and Turkic tribes, entered the new state. In parallel, there was a process of Slavic colonization of the northeast of the Russian land.

Ancient Russia was the largest state formation in Europe, fought for a dominant position in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region with the Byzantine Empire. Under Prince Vladimir in 988, Russia adopted Christianity. Prince Yaroslav the Wise approved the first Russian code of laws - Russian Truth. In 1132, after the death of the Kiev prince Mstislav Vladimirovich, the Old Russian state began to disintegrate into a number of independent principalities: the Novgorod land, the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, the Galicia-Volyn principality, the Chernigov principality, the Ryazan principality, the Polotsk principality and others. At the same time, Kiev remained an object of struggle between the most powerful princely branches, and the Kiev land was considered the collective possession of the Rurikovichs.

In North-Eastern Russia, from the middle of the XII century, the Vladimir-Suzdal principality rises, its rulers (Andrey Bogolyubsky, Vsevolod the Big Nest), fighting for Kiev, left Vladimir as their main residence, which led to its rise as a new all-Russian center. Also, the most powerful principalities were Chernigov, Galicia-Volyn and Smolensk. In 1237-1240 most of the Russian lands were subjected to the destructive invasion of Batu. Kiev, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl, Vladimir, Galich, Ryazan and other centers of the Russian principalities were destroyed, the southern and southeastern outskirts lost a significant part of the sedentary population.

Background

The Old Russian state arose on the trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" on the lands of the East Slavic tribes - Ilmen Slovenes, Krivichi, Polyany, then encompassing the Drevlyans, Dregovichi, Polotsk, Radimichi, and Northerners.

Before the calling of the Vikings

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 Khagan 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 known. The term " Kievan Rus”Appears for the first time only in historical research of the 18th-19th centuries.

In the year 860 ("The Tale of Bygone Years" mistakenly refers it to the year 866) Russia makes the first campaign against Constantinople. Greek sources associate with him 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.

Rurik's board

In 862, according to the "Tale of Bygone Years", the Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes called the Varangians to reign.

In the year 6370 (862). They drove the Varangians across the sea, and did not give them tribute, and began to dominate themselves, and there was no truth among them, and clan after clan rose up, and they had strife, and began to fight with each other. And they said to themselves: "Let us 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 the Swedes, and some Normans and Angles, and still other Gotlandians - that's how these are. Chud, Slovenia, Krivichi and all said to Russia: “Our land is great and abundant, but there is no order in it. Come to reign and rule over us. " And three brothers with their families were elected, and took all Russia with them, and 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. The 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 and Rurik's warriors Askold and Dir, heading for Constantinople, subjugated Kiev, thereby establishing full control over the most important trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks." At the same time, the Novgorod and Nikon chronicles do not connect Askold and Dir with Rurik, and the chronicle of Jan Dlugosh and the Gustynskaya chronicle call them the descendants of Kiy.

In 879 Rurik died in Novgorod. The reign was transferred to Oleg, regent with Rurik's young son Igor.

The first Russian princes

The reign of Oleg the Prophetic

In 882, according to the chronicle chronology, Prince Oleg ( Oleg the Prophet), a relative of Rurik, set out on a campaign from Novgorod to the south, capturing Smolensk and Lyubech on the way, establishing his power there and placing his people on the reign. Oleg's army included the Varangians and warriors of the tribes under his control - the Chuds, Slovenes, Meri and Krivichi. Further, Oleg with the Novgorod army and a hired Varangian squad captured Kiev, killed Askold and Dir who ruled there and declared Kiev the capital of his state. Already in Kiev, he established the amount of tribute that the subordinate tribes of the Novgorod land - Slovenia, Krivichi and Meria - had to pay annually. The construction of fortresses in the vicinity of the new capital was also started.

Oleg, by military means, extended his power to the lands of the Drevlyans and northerners, and the Radimichi accepted Oleg's conditions without a fight (the last two tribal alliances had previously paid tribute to the Khazars). The annals do not indicate the reaction of the Khazars, however, the historian Petrukhin puts forward the assumption that they began an economic blockade, ceasing to let Russian merchants through their lands.

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 (the trade duty was canceled, ships were repaired, overnight stay), legal and military issues were resolved. According to the historian V. Mavrodin, the success of Oleg's campaign is due to the fact that he was able to rally the forces of the Old Russian state and strengthen its emerging statehood.

According to the chronicle version, Oleg, who bore the title of Grand Duke, ruled for over 30 years. Rurik's own son Igor took the throne after Oleg's death around 912 and ruled until 945.

Igor Rurikovich

The beginning of Igor's reign was marked by the uprising of the Drevlyans, who were again subjugated and imposed with an even greater tribute, and the appearance of the Pechenegs in the Black Sea steppes (in 915), who ruined the possessions of the Khazars and drove the Hungarians out of the Black Sea region. By the beginning of the X century. Pechenegs' nomad camps stretched from the Volga to the Prut.

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 the Taman Peninsula, but was defeated by the Khazar commander Pesach and turned its weapons against Byzantium. The Bulgarians warned the Byzantines that Igor began his campaign with 10,000 soldiers. Igor's fleet plundered Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Heraclea of \u200b\u200bPontic and Nicomedia, but then he was defeated and he, leaving the surviving army in Thrace, fled to Kiev with several boats. The captured soldiers were executed in Constantinople. From the capital, he sent an invitation to the Varangians to take part in a new invasion of Byzantium. The second campaign against Byzantium took place in 944.

Igor's army, consisting of glades, Krivichi, Slovens, Tivertsy, Varangians and Pechenegs, reached the Danube, from where ambassadors were sent to Constantinople. They entered into a treaty that confirmed many of the provisions of the previous 907 and 911 treaties, but abolished duty-free trade. Russia undertook to defend the Byzantine possessions in the Crimea. In 943 or 944, a campaign was made against Berdaa.

In 945, Igor was killed while collecting tribute from the Drevlyans. According to the chronicle version, the reason for the death was the prince's desire to receive tribute again, which was demanded of him by the warriors who envied the wealth of the squad of the governor Sveneld. Igor's small squad was killed by the Drevlyans near Iskorosten, and he himself was executed. Historian A. A. Shakhmatov put forward a version according to which Igor and Sveneld began to conflict over the Drevlyane tribute and, as a result, Igor was killed.

Olga

After Igor's death, due to the minority of his son Svyatoslav, real power was in the hands of Igor's widow Princess Olga. The Drevlyans sent an embassy to her, offering her to become the wife of their prince Mal. However, Olga executed the ambassadors, gathered an army and in 946 began the siege of Iskorosten, which ended with his burning and the subjugation of the Drevlyans to the Kiev princes. The Tale of Bygone Years described not only their conquest, but also the preceding revenge on the part of the Kiev ruler. Olga imposed a great tribute on the Drevlyans.

In 947, she undertook a trip to the Novgorod land, where, instead of the former polyudye, she introduced a system of taxes and tributes, which local residents had to take to camps and graveyards themselves, transferring them to specially appointed people - tiuns. Thus, a new method of collecting tribute from the subjects of the Kiev princes was introduced.

She became the first ruler of the Old Russian state to officially adopt Christianity of the Byzantine rite (according to the most reasoned version, in 957, although other dates are proposed). In 957, Olga paid an official visit to Constantinople with a large embassy, \u200b\u200bknown from the description of court ceremonies by Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the composition "Ceremonies", and she was accompanied by the priest Gregory.

The emperor calls Olga the ruler (archontissa) of Russia, the name of her son Svyatoslav (in the listing of the retinue it is indicated “ people of Svyatoslav») Is mentioned without a title. Olga strove for baptism and recognition by Byzantium of Rus as an equal Christian empire. At baptism, she received the name Elena. However, according to a number of historians, it was not possible to agree on an alliance immediately. In 959, Olga received the Greek embassy, \u200b\u200bbut refused to send an army to help Byzantium. In the same year, she sent ambassadors to the German emperor Otto I with a request to send bishops and priests and establish a church in Russia. This attempt to play on the contradictions between Byzantium and Germany was successful, Constantinople made concessions, concluding a mutually beneficial agreement, and the German embassy headed by Bishop Adalbert came back with nothing. In 960, a Russian army went to help the Greeks, who fought in Crete against the Arabs under the leadership of the future emperor Nicephorus Phocas.

Monk Jacob in the 11th century essay "Memory and Praise to Prince Volodimer of Rus" reports the exact date of Olga's death: July 11, 969.

Svyatoslav Igorevich

Around 960, the matured Svyatoslav took power into his own hands. He grew up among the warriors of his father and the first of the Russian princes bore a Slavic name. From the beginning of his reign, he began to prepare for military campaigns and gathered an army. According to the historian Grekov, Svyatoslav became deeply involved in international relations between Europe and Asia. Often he acted in agreement with other states, thus participating in solving the problems of European and, in part, Asian politics.

His first event was the subordination of the Vyatichi (964), who were the last of all the East Slavic tribes to continue to pay tribute to the Khazars. Then, according to eastern sources, Svyatoslav attacked and defeated the Volga Bulgaria. In 965 (according to other data, also in 968/969), Svyatoslav made a campaign against the Khazar Kaganate. The Khazar army, led by the kagan, went out to meet the squad of Svyatoslav, but was defeated. The Russian army took by storm the main cities of the Khazars: the fortress city of Sarkel, Semender and the capital of Itil. After that, the ancient Russian settlement Belaya Vezha arose in the place of Sarkel. After the defeat, the remnants of the Khazar state were known under the name of the Saxins and no longer played the same role. The establishment of Russia in the Black Sea region and the North Caucasus is also associated with this campaign, where Svyatoslav defeated the Yases (Alans) and Kasogs (Circassians) and where Tmutarakan became the center of Russian possessions.

In 968, a Byzantine embassy arrived in Russia, proposing an alliance against Bulgaria, then out of control of Byzantium. The Byzantine ambassador Kalokir, on behalf of the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, brought a gift - 1,500 pounds of gold. Having included the allied Pechenegs in his army, Svyatoslav moved to the Danube. In a short time, the Bulgarian troops were defeated, the Russian squads occupied up to 80 Bulgarian cities. Svyatoslav chose Pereyaslavets, a city on the lower reaches of the Danube, as his stake. However, such a sharp strengthening of Russia caused fears in Constantinople and the Byzantines managed to convince the Pechenegs to make another raid on Kiev. In 968, their army laid siege to the Russian capital, where Princess Olga and her grandchildren - Yaropolk, Oleg and Vladimir - were located. The city was saved by the approach of a small squad of Voivode Pretich. Soon Svyatoslav himself arrived with a cavalry army and drove the Pechenegs into the steppe. However, the prince did not strive to remain in Russia. The chronicles quote his words as follows:

Svyatoslav remained in Kiev until the death of his mother Olga. After that, he divided the possession between his sons: he left Kiev to Yaropolk, the lands of the Drevlyans to Oleg, and Novgorod to Vladimir).

Then he returned to Pereyaslavets. In a new campaign with a significant army (according to various sources, from 10 to 60 thousand soldiers) in 970 Svyatoslav captured almost all of Bulgaria, occupied its capital Preslav and invaded Byzantium. The new emperor John Tzimiskes sent a large army against him. The Russian army, which included Bulgarians and Hungarians, was forced to retreat to Dorostol (Silistria), a fortress on the Danube.

In 971 it was besieged by the Byzantines. In the battle at the walls of the fortress, Svyatoslav's army suffered heavy losses, he was forced to negotiate with Tzimiskes. According to the peace treaty, Russia pledged not to attack the Byzantine possessions in Bulgaria, and Constantinople promised not to incite the Pechenegs to campaigns against Russia.

Voivode Sveneld advised the prince to return to Russia by land. However, Svyatoslav preferred to sail through the Dnieper rapids. At the same time, the prince planned to gather a new army in Russia and renew the war with Byzantium. In winter they were blocked by the Pechenegs and a small squad of Svyatoslav spent a hungry winter in the lower reaches of the Dnieper. In the spring of 972, Svyatoslav made an attempt to break through to Russia, but his army was defeated, and he himself was killed. According to another version, the death of the Kiev prince occurred in 973. From the skull of the prince, the Pechenezh leader Kurya made a bowl for feasts.

Vladimir and Yaroslav the Wise. Baptism of Russia

The reign of Prince Vladimir. Baptism of Russia

After the death of Svyatoslav, civil strife broke out between his sons for the right to the throne (972-978 or 980). The eldest son Yaropolk became the great Kiev prince, Oleg received the Drevlyane lands, and Vladimir - Novgorod. In 977, Yaropolk defeated Oleg's squad, and Oleg himself died. Vladimir fled "overseas", but returned two years later with the Varangian squad. During the campaign to Kiev, he conquered Polotsk, an important trading point on the western Dvina, and married Rogneda, the daughter of Prince Rogvolod, who was killed by him.

During the civil strife, Vladimir Svyatoslavich defended his rights to the throne (reigned 980-1015). Under him, the formation of the state territory of Ancient Rus was completed, the cities of Cherven and Carpathian Rus, which were contested by Poland, were annexed. After the victory of Vladimir, his son Svyatopolk married the daughter of the Polish king Boleslav the Brave, and peaceful relations were established between the two states. Vladimir finally annexed the Vyatichi and Radimichi to Russia. In 983 he made a campaign against the Yatvingians, and in 985 - against the Volga Bulgarians.

Having achieved autocracy in the Russian land, Vladimir began a religious reform. In 980, the prince established a pagan pantheon of six different tribal gods in Kiev. Tribal cults could not create a single state religious system. In 986, ambassadors from various countries began to arrive in Kiev, offering Vladimir to accept their faith.

Islam was offered by the Volga Bulgaria, Western-style Christianity - by the German emperor Otto I, Judaism - by the Khazar Jews. However, Vladimir opted for Christianity, which the Greek philosopher told him about. The embassy returning from Byzantium supported the prince. In 988, the Russian army laid siege to Byzantine Korsun (Chersonesos). Byzantium agreed to peace, Princess Anna became the wife of Vladimir. The pagan idols that stood in Kiev were overthrown, and the Kievites were baptized in the Dnieper. In the capital, a stone church was built, which became known as the Tithe, since the prince gave a tenth of his income for its maintenance. After the baptism of Rus, treaties with Byzantium became unnecessary, since closer relations were established between the two states. These ties were largely strengthened thanks to the church apparatus that the Byzantines organized in Russia. The first bishops and priests came from Korsun and other Byzantine cities. The church organization within the Old Russian state was in the hands of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who became a great political force in Russia.

Having become the prince of Kiev, Vladimir faced an increased Pechenezh threat. To protect himself from nomads, he builds a line of fortresses on the border, the garrisons of which he recruited from the "best men" of the northern tribes - the Ilmen Slovens, Krivichi, Chudi and Vyatichi. Tribal boundaries began to blur, and the state border became important. It was during the time of Vladimir that the action of many Russian epics takes place, telling about the exploits of the heroes.

Vladimir established a new order of government: he put his sons in Russian cities. Svyatopolk received Turov, Izyaslav - Polotsk, Yaroslav - Novgorod, Boris - Rostov, Gleb - Murom, Svyatoslav - Drevlyanskaya land, Vsevolod - Vladimir-on-Volyn, Sudislav - Pskov, Stanislav - Smolensk, Mstislav - Tmutarakan. Tribute was no longer collected during polyudya and only at churchyards. From that moment the princely family with their warriors "fed" in the cities themselves and sent part of the tribute to the capital - Kiev.

Board of Yaroslav the Wise

After the death of Vladimir, a new civil strife took place in Russia. Svyatopolk the Damned in 1015 killed his brothers Boris (according to another version, Boris was killed by the Scandinavian mercenaries of Yaroslav), Gleb and Svyatoslav. Having learned about the murder of the brothers, Yaroslav, who ruled in Novgorod, began to prepare for the campaign against Kiev. Svyatopolk received help from the Polish king Boleslav and the Pechenegs, but in the end he was defeated and fled to Poland, where he died. Boris and Gleb were canonized in 1071.

After the victory over Svyatopolk, Yaroslav had a new adversary - his brother Mstislav, by that time entrenched in Tmutarakan and the Eastern Crimea. In 1022, Mstislav conquered the Kasogs (Circassians), defeating their leader Rededu in a battle. Having strengthened the army with the Khazars and Kasogs, he set out to the north, where he subjugated the northerners to his power, who replenished his troops. Then he occupied Chernigov. At this time, Yaroslav turned to the Varangians for help, who sent him a strong army. The decisive battle took place in 1024 near Listven, the victory went to Mstislav. After her, the brothers divided Russia into two parts - along the riverbed of the Dnieper. Kiev and Novgorod remained with Yaroslav, and it was Novgorod that remained his permanent residence. Mstislav moved his capital to Chernigov. The brothers supported a close alliance, after the death of the Polish king Boleslav, they returned the Cherven cities to Russia, which were captured by the Poles after the death of Vladimir Krasnoe Solnyshko.

At this time, Kiev temporarily lost the status of the political center of Rus. The leading centers then were Novgorod and Chernigov. Expanding his possession, Yaroslav undertook a campaign against the Estonian tribe of Chud. In 1030, the city of Yuryev (modern Tartu) was founded on the conquered territory.

In 1036, Mstislav fell ill while hunting and died. His only son had died three years earlier. Thus, Yaroslav became the ruler of all Russia, except for the Polotsk principality. In the same year, Kiev was attacked by the Pechenegs. By the time Yaroslav arrived with an army of Varangians and Slavs, they had already captured the outskirts of the city.

In the battle at the walls of Kiev, Yaroslav defeated the Pechenegs, after which he made Kiev his capital. In memory of the victory over the Pechenegs, the prince founded the famous St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, artists from Constantinople were summoned to paint the temple. Then he imprisoned the last surviving brother, Sudislav, who ruled in Pskov. After that, Yaroslav became the sole ruler of almost all of Russia.

The rule of Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054) was at times the highest prosperity of the state. Public relations were regulated by the collection of laws "Russkaya Pravda" and princely charters. Yaroslav the Wise pursued an active foreign policy. He became related with many of the ruling dynasties of Europe, which testified to the wide international recognition of Russia in the European Christian world. Intensive stone construction began. Yaroslav actively turned Kiev into a cultural and intellectual center, taking Constantinople as a model. At this time, relations between the Russian Church and the Patriarchate of Constantinople were normalized.

From that moment on, the Russian Church was headed by the Metropolitan of Kiev, ordained by the Patriarch of Constantinople. No later than 1039, the first Metropolitan of Kiev Theophanes arrived in Kiev. In 1051, having gathered the bishops, Yaroslav himself appointed Metropolitan Hilarion, for the first time without the participation of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Hilarion became the first Russian metropolitan. In 1054, Yaroslav the Wise died.

In the cities, the oldest of which were Kiev, Novgorod, Ladoga, Smolensk, Polotsk, Izborsk, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl, Turov, Rostov, Beloozero, Pleskov (Pskov), Tmutarakan, Murom, Ovruch, Vladimir-Volynsky, and others, crafts and trade. Monuments of writing ("The Tale of Bygone Years", Novgorod Codex, Ostromir Gospel, Lives) and architecture (Tithes Church, St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and cathedrals of the same name in Novgorod and Polotsk) were created. Numerous birch bark letters that have survived to this day testify to the high level of literacy of the inhabitants of Rus. Russia traded with the southern and western Slavs, Scandinavia, Byzantium, Western Europe, the peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Board of the sons and grandsons of Yaroslav the Wise

Yaroslav the Wise divided Russia between his sons. The three eldest sons received the main Russian lands. Izyaslav - Kiev and Novgorod, Svyatoslav - Chernigov and the Murom and Ryazan lands, Vsevolod - Pereyaslavl and Rostov. The younger sons Vyacheslav and Igor received Smolensk and Vladimir Volynsky. These possessions were not inherited, a system was formed in which the younger brother inherited the older in the princely family - the so-called "ladder" system. The eldest in the family (not by age, but by the line of kinship), received Kievi, became the Grand Duke, all other lands were divided between 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 Chernigov. At the death of one of the members of the clan, all the Rurikovichs younger than him moved to the lands corresponding to their seniority. When new members of the clan appeared, their destiny was determined - a city with land (volost). A certain prince had the right to reign only in the city where his father reigned, otherwise he was considered an outcast. The ladder system regularly caused strife between the princes.

In the 60s. In the 11th century, the Polovtsians appeared in the Northern Black Sea region. The sons of Yaroslav the Wise could not stop their invasion, but were afraid to arm the Kiev militia. In response, in 1068 the people of Kiev overthrew Izyaslav Yaroslavich and put on the throne the Polotsk prince Vseslav, who had been captured by the Yaroslavichs a year before during the strife. In 1069, with the help of the Poles, Izyaslav occupied Kiev, but after this uprisings of the townspeople became permanent during the crises of the princely power. Presumably in 1072 the Yaroslavichs edited the Russkaya Pravda, significantly expanding it.

Izyaslav tried to regain control of Polotsk, but to no avail, and in 1071 he made peace with Vseslav. In 1073, Vsevolod and Svyatoslav expelled Izyaslav from Kiev, accusing him of an alliance with Vseslav, and Izyaslav fled to Poland. Kiev was ruled by Svyatoslav, who himself was in allied relations with the Poles. In 1076 Svyatoslav died and Vsevolod became the prince of Kiev.

When Izyaslav returned with the Polish army, Vsevolod returned the capital to him, keeping Pereyaslavl and Chernigov behind him. At the same time, the eldest son of Svyatoslav Oleg was left without possessions, who began the struggle with the support of the Polovtsi. In the battle with them, Izyaslav Yaroslavich died, and Vsevolod again became the ruler of Russia. Prince of Chernigov, he made his son Vladimir, born of a Byzantine princess from the Monomakh dynasty. Oleg Svyatoslavich fortified himself in Tmutarakan. Vsevolod continued the foreign policy of Yaroslav the Wise. He sought to strengthen ties with European countries by marrying his son Vladimir to the Anglo-Saxon Gita, the daughter of King Harald, who died in the Battle of Hastings. He married his daughter Eupraxia to the German emperor Henry IV. The reign of Vsevolod was characterized by the distribution of lands to princes-nephews and the formation of an administrative hierarchy.

After the death of Vsevolod Kiev was occupied by Svyatopolk Izyaslavich. The Polovtsi sent an embassy to Kiev with a proposal for peace, but Svyatopolk Izyaslavich refused to negotiate and seized the ambassadors. These events became the reason for a large Polovtsian campaign against Russia, as a result of which the combined troops of Svyatopolk and Vladimir were defeated, and significant territories around Kiev and Pereyaslavl were devastated. The Polovtsi took away many prisoners. Taking advantage of this, the sons of Svyatoslav, enlisting the support of the Polovtsy, presented their rights to Chernigov. In 1094, Oleg Svyatoslavich with Polovtsian detachments moved to Chernigov from Tmutarakan. When his army approached the city, Vladimir Monomakh made peace with him, having ceded Chernigov and went to Pereyaslavl. In 1095, the Polovtsians repeated the raid, during which they reached Kiev itself, devastating its surroundings. Svyatopolk and Vladimir called for help from Oleg, who reigned in Chernigov, but he ignored their requests. After the departure of the Polovtsy, the Kiev and Pereyaslavl squads captured Chernigov, and Oleg fled to his brother Davyd in Smolensk. There he replenished his troops and attacked Murom, where the son of Vladimir Monomakh Izyaslav ruled. Murom was taken, and Izyaslav fell in battle. Despite the offer of peace, which Vladimir sent him, Oleg continued his campaign and took possession of Rostov. Another son of Monomakh, Mstislav, who was the governor in Novgorod, prevented him from continuing the conquests. He defeated Oleg, who had fled to Ryazan. Vladimir Monomakh once again offered him peace, to which Oleg agreed.

Monomakh's peace initiative was continued in the form of the Lyubech Congress of Princes, which gathered in 1097 to resolve existing differences. The congress was attended by the Kiev prince Svyatopolk, Vladimir Monomakh, Davyd (son of Igor Volynsky), Vasilko Rostislavovich, Davyd and Oleg Svyatoslavovich. The princes agreed to end the strife and not to claim other people's possessions. However, the world did not last long. Davyd Volynsky and Svyatopolk captured Vasilko Rostislavovich and blinded him. Vasilko became the first Russian prince to be blinded during civil strife in Russia. Outraged by the actions of Davyd and Svyatopolk, Vladimir Monomakh and Davyd and Oleg Svyatoslavich set out on a campaign against Kiev. The Kievans sent a delegation headed by the Metropolitan to meet them, which managed to convince the princes to keep the peace. However, Svyatopolk was entrusted with the task of punishing Davyd Volynsky. He freed Vasilko. However, another civil strife began in Russia, which grew into a large-scale war in the western principalities. It ended in 1100 with a congress in Uvetichi. Davyd Volynsky was deprived of his principality. However, for "feeding" he was given the city of Buzhsk. In 1101, the Russian princes managed to conclude peace with the Polovtsians.

Changes in public administration in the late X - early XII centuries

In the course of the baptism of Rus in all its lands, the authority of Orthodox bishops was established, subordinate to the Kiev metropolitan. At the same time, in all lands, the sons of Vladimir were planted as governors. Now all the princes who acted as appanages of the Kiev Grand Duke were only from the Rurik family. The Scandinavian sagas mention the fiefdoms of the Vikings, but they were located on the outskirts of Russia and on the newly annexed lands, therefore, at the time of writing the Tale of Bygone Years, they already seemed a relic. The Rurik princes waged a fierce struggle with the remaining tribal princes (Vladimir Monomakh mentions Prince Vyatichi Khodota and his son). This contributed to the centralization of power.

The power of the Grand Duke reached its highest strengthening under Vladimir and Yaroslav the Wise (then after a break under Vladimir Monomakh). 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.

Since the time of Vladimir or, according to some sources, Yaropolk Svyatoslavich, the prince began to give land to the warriors instead of a monetary salary. If initially these were cities for feeding, then in the XI century the vigilantes began to receive villages. Together with the villages, which became fiefdoms, the boyar title was also granted. The boyars began to form the senior squad. The service of the boyars was conditioned by personal loyalty to the prince, and not by the size of the land allotment (conditional land tenure did not become noticeably widespread). The younger squad ("youths", "childrens", "greedy"), who was with the prince, lived at the expense of feeding from the princely villages and the war. The main fighting force in the XI century was the militia, which received horses and weapons from the prince during the war. The services of a hired Varangian squad were basically abandoned during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise.

Over time, a significant part of the land began to be owned by the church ("monastic estates"). 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 Kiev, and under Yaroslav the Wise, the metropolitan was first elected from among the Russian priests, in 1051 he was close to Vladimir and his son Hilarion. Monasteries and their elected heads, abbots began to have great influence. The Kiev-Pechersky Monastery becomes the center of Orthodoxy.

The boyars and the squad made up special advice under the prince. The prince also consulted with the metropolitan, bishops and hegumens who constituted the church council. With the increasing complexity of the princely hierarchy, by the end of the 11th century, princely congresses ("snemy") began to gather. In the cities, vecheas operated, on which the boyars often relied to support their own political demands (the uprisings in Kiev in 1068 and 1113).

In the XI - the beginning of the XII century, the first written code of laws was formed - "Russkaya 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 increasing differentiation of the population (now the size of the vera depended on the social status of the victim), the position of such categories of the population as servants, slaves, smerds, purchases and ryadovichs was regulated.

"Pravda Yaroslav" equalized the rights of "Rusyns" and "Slovenians" (it should be explained that under the name "Slovene" the chronicle mentions only Novgorodians - "Ilmen Slovenes"). This, along with Christianization and other factors, contributed to the formation of a new ethnic community, realizing 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

The Polotsk principality was the first to separate from Kiev - this happened already at the beginning of the 11th 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 between the five sons who survived him. After the death of the two youngest of them, all the lands were under the rule of the three elders: Izyaslav of Kiev, Svyatoslav of Chernigov and Vsevolod Pereyaslavsky ("the triumvirate of the Yaroslavichs").

Since 1061 (immediately after the defeat of the Torks by the Russian princes in the steppes), raids by the Polovtsy began, replacing the Pechenegs who had migrated to the Balkans. During the long Russian-Polovtsian wars, the southern princes for a long time could not cope with their opponents, undertaking a number of unsuccessful campaigns and suffering sensitive defeats (the battle on the Alta River (1068), the battle on the Stugna River (1093).

After the death of Svyatoslav in 1076, the Kiev princes attempted to deprive his sons of the Chernigov inheritance, and they resorted to the help of the Polovtsy, although the Polovtsians were first used in strife by Vladimir Monomakh (against Vseslav of Polotsk). Izyaslav of Kiev (1078) and the son of Vladimir Monomakh Izyaslav (1096) died in this struggle. At the Lyubech Congress (1097), designed to end civil strife and unite the princes for protection from the Polovtsy, the principle was proclaimed: “ Yes, everyone keeps his fatherland". Thus, while retaining the law of law, in the event of the death of one of the princes, the movement of the heirs was limited to their fiefdom. This opened the way to political fragmentation (feudal fragmentation), since a separate dynasty was established in each land, and the Grand Duke of Kiev became the first among equals, losing the role of suzerain. However, this also made it possible to end the strife and join forces to fight the Polovtsy, which was moved deeper into the steppes. In addition, treaties were concluded with the allied nomads - "black hoods" (Torks, Berendeys and Pechenegs, expelled by the Polovtsy from the steppes and settled on the southern Russian borders).

In the second quarter of the 12th century, the Old Russian state split into independent principalities. The chronological beginning of fragmentation is considered by modern historiographic tradition in 1132, when, after the death of Mstislav the Great, the son of Vladimir Monomakh, Polotsk (1132) and Novgorod (1136) ceased to recognize the power of the Kiev prince, and the title itself became an object of struggle between various dynastic and territorial associations of the Ryurikovichs. The chronicler under 1134, in connection with the schism among the Monomakhs, wrote “ the whole Russian land was torn". The civil strife that began did not concern the great reign itself, but after the death of Yaropolk Vladimirovich (1139), the next Monomakhovich Vyacheslav was expelled from Kiev by Vsevolod Olgovich of Chernigov.

During the XII-XIII centuries, part of the population of the southern Russian principalities, due to the constant threat emanating from the steppe, as well as because of the incessant princely strife for the Kiev land, moved to the north, to the calmer Rostov-Suzdal land, also called Zalesye or Opolye. Having joined the ranks of the Slavs of the first, Krivitsa-Novgorod migration wave of the 10th century, immigrants from the populous south quickly made up the majority on this land and assimilated the rare Finno-Ugric population. Chronicles and archaeological excavations attest to massive Russian migration throughout the 12th century. It was during this period that the founding and rapid growth of numerous cities of the Rostov-Suzdal land (Vladimir, Moscow, Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, Yuryev-Opolsky, Dmitrov, Zvenigorod, Starodub-on-Klyazma, Yaropolch-Zalessky, Galich, etc.), the names of which the names of the cities of origin of the settlers were often repeated. The weakening of South Russia is also associated with the success of the first crusades and the change in the main trade routes.

During two major internecine wars of the middle of the XII century, the Kiev principality lost Volyn (1154), Pereyaslavl (1157) and Turov (1162). In 1169, the grandson of Vladimir Monomakh, the Vladimir-Suzdal prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, sent an army to the south led by his son Mstislav, which captured Kiev. For the first time, the city was brutally plundered, Kiev churches were burned, the inhabitants were taken prisoner. Andrey's younger brother was imprisoned in the Kiev reign. And although soon, after unsuccessful campaigns against Novgorod (1170) and Vyshgorod (1173), the influence of the Vladimir prince in other lands temporarily dropped, Kiev began to gradually lose, and Vladimir - to acquire the political attributes of an all-Russian center. In the 12th century, in addition to the Kiev prince, the princes of Vladimir began to bear the title of great, and in the 13th century, occasionally also the princes of Galician, Chernigov and Ryazan.

Kiev, unlike most other principalities, did not become the property of any one dynasty, but served as a constant bone of contention for all powerful princes. In 1203, he was plundered a second time 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 the southern Russian princes took part, the first clash between Russia and the Mongols took place. The weakening of the southern Russian principalities intensified 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), Kiev (in 1236 Yaroslav Vsevolodovich occupied Kiev 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 Kiev was turned into ruins. It was received by the Vladimir princes Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, recognized by the Mongols as the oldest in the Russian lands, and later by his son Alexander Nevsky. They, however, did not move to Kiev, remaining in their ancestral Vladimir. In 1299, the Kiev metropolitan moved his residence there. In some church and literary sources - for example, in the statements of the Patriarch of Constantinople and Vitovt at the end of the 14th century - Kiev continued to be considered as a capital city at a later time, but by that time it was already a provincial city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Since 1254, the Galician princes bore the title "King of Russia". From the beginning of the 14th century, the Vladimir princes began to wear the title of "Great Dukes of All Russia".

In Soviet historiography, the concept of "Kievan Rus" was spread both until the middle of the 12th century and for a wider period of the mid-12th - mid-13th centuries, when Kiev remained the center of the country and Rus was governed by a single princely family on the principles of "collective suzerainty." Both approaches remain relevant today.

Pre-revolutionary historians, starting with N.M. Karamzin, adhered to the idea of \u200b\u200btransferring the political center of Russia in 1169 from Kiev to Vladimir, dating back to the works of Moscow scribes, or to Vladimir (Volyn) and Galich. In modern historiography, there is no consensus on this matter. Some historians believe that these ideas do not find confirmation in the sources. In particular, some of them point to such a sign of the political weakness of the Suzdal land as a small number of fortified settlements in comparison with other lands of Russia. Other historians, on the contrary, find in the sources confirmation that the political center of Russian civilization moved from Kiev, first to Rostov and Suzdal, and later to Vladimir-on-Klyazma.

Denial of the greatness of Russia is a terrible robbery of humanity.

Berdyaev Nikolay Alexandrovich

The origin of the ancient Russian state of Kievan Rus is one of the greatest mysteries in history. Of course, there is an official version that gives many answers, but it has one drawback - it completely rejects everything that was with the Slavs before 862. Is everything really so bad, as it is written in Western books, when the Slavs are compared with semi-savage people who are not able to manage themselves and for this they were forced to turn to a stranger, a Varangian, so that he would teach them wits about reason? Of course, this is an exaggeration, since such a people cannot take Byzantium by storm twice before that time, but 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 get around 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:

1. norman. This theory is based on a rather dubious historical document - "The Tale of Bygone Years". Also, supporters of the Norman version talk about different 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 in three Varangians - the brothers Rurik, Sineus and Truvor.
2. anti-Norman (Russian). The Norman theory, despite its generally accepted, looks rather controversial. After all, there is no answer to even a simple question in it, who are the Varangians? 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. In this case, the Germans are not a nation as such, but a collective image, which they called 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 question 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 it 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 exercised his rule over the country from Ladoga. In 864, the associates of the Novgorod prince Askold and Dir went down the Dnieper and discovered the city of Kiev, in which they began to rule. After the death of Rurik, Oleg took custody of his young son, who went on a campaign to Kiev, killed Askold and Dir and took possession of the future capital of the country. It happened in 882. Therefore, the formation of Kievan Rus may well be attributed to this date. During the reign of Oleg, the possession of the country expanded due to the conquest of new cities, and also there was a strengthening of international power, as a result of wars with external enemies, such as Byzantium. There were good relations between the Novgorod and Kiev princes, and their minor junctions did not lead to major wars. No reliable information has been preserved on this score, 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 Kiev. It was a capital city that was unmatched in its beauty and wealth. The impregnable fortress city of Kiev on the banks of the Dnieper was for a long time a stronghold of Russia. 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-Mongol troops, who literally razed the "mother of Russian cities" to the ground. According to the surviving records of contemporaries of that terrible event, Kiev 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.

Interesting is the expression "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 Kiev, Russia already existed, and Novgorod was its capital. And the princes got into the capital Kiev-city itself, having gone down the Dnieper from Novgorod.

Internecine wars and the reasons for the collapse of the ancient Russian state

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 strove to exercise their right to rule Russia. This inevitably led to wars, when the supreme power was asserted by weapons.

In the struggle for power, individual contenders did not shy away from anything, even fratricide. The story of Svyatopolk the Accursed is widely known, who killed his brothers, for which he received this nickname. Despite the contradictions that reigned within the Rurikovichs, Kievan Rus was ruled by the Grand Duke.

In many ways, it was internecine wars that brought 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 troubles 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 long 2 centuries Russia fell into complete dependence on the Golden Horde.

All these events led to a completely predictable result - 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 estates, which were ruled by individual rulers. Of course, the dominant role of the Grand Duke remained, but this title was 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. As the main events of the era of the Kiev elevation, the following can be distinguished:

• 862 - the arrival of the Varangian-Rurik to Novgorod to reign
• 882 - Prophetic Oleg captured Kiev
• 907 AD - campaign to Constantinople
• 988 - Baptism of Rus
• 1097 - Lyubech Congress of Princes
• 1125-1132 - reign of Mstislav the Great