The Crisis of Medieval Russia 1200-1304

John Fennell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317873136
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

John Fennell's history of thirteenth-century Russia is the only detailed study in English of the period, and is based on close investigation of the primary sources. His account concentrates on the turbulent politics of northern Russia, which was ultimately to become the tsardom of Muscovy, but he also gives detailed attention to the vast southern empire of Kiev before its eclipse under the Tatars. The resulting study is a major addition to medieval historiography: an essential acquisition for students of Russia itself, and a book which decisively fills a vast blank on the map of the European Middle Ages for medievalists generally.

Chapter One

Russia in 1200

At the beginning of the thirteenth century few of the territories that had once made up the state of Kiev showed signs of such healthy political stability as did the north-eastern district of Suzdalia – that is, the territory of Suzdal Rostov and Vladimir, bounded roughly by the upper Volga in the north and the Oka in the south. The authority of its ruler, Vsevolod III, one of the shrewdest and most farsighted of all the descendants of Vladimir I, was widely acknowledged among his fellow-rulers. ‘All lands trembled at his name and his feme spread throughout the whole country’, wrote his chronicler, who, though using’the conventional fulsome clichés of the adulatory obituary, probably represented the views of most of his contemporaries. All Suzdalia owed him allegiance of some kind or other; the great city-state of Novgorod with its vast subject lands to the west, north and north-east had, for the first eight years of the thirteenth century, only his sons as its rulers; Kiev’s eastern neighbour, Southern Pereyaslavl’, was firmly under his control; and the princes of Murom and Ryazan’ to the south were little more than his vassals.

If at the turn of the century the northern half of the country of Russia enjoyed a certain degree of stability, the southern half did not. By the year 1200 a three-cornered struggle for power had begun between the princely family of Smolensk (the descendants of Rostislav Mstislavich: the Rosttsiavielii), the descendants of Oleg Svyatoslavich of Chernigov (the Ol’govichi) and the formidable Roman Mstislavich of Volynia. It was a fight for supremacy over the whole of the south of Rijista, from Volynia and Galicia in the west to Chernigov and Pereyaslavl’ in the east, and for control over the ‘mother of the Russian cities’, Kiev, and it was to continue off and on until Kiev fell to the Tatars in 1240.

This did not mean, of course, that at the turn of the century Kiev was in a state of complete political and economic decline or that the hegemony of the new centre of Viadimir-on-the-Kiyaz’ma was finally established and recognized by all: indeed, the bitter feuding was soon to give way to relative stability in the south (from 1212 to 1235), while in the north Vsevolod III’s death in 1212 was followed by a period of violent internecine war, and it is doubtful if at that time the prince of Kiev considered himself in any way the inferior of his cousin in Vladimir. But by 1200 Suzdalia was showing distinct signs of political strength, and the southern princes tended to look up to the grand prince of Vladimir as primus inter pares, if not as the senior of all the descendants of Ryurik.

Why was this so? In order to find an answer we must consider briefly the political organization of the various territories which made up the whole of Russia at the turn of the century and glance at their previous history.

* * * *

The agriculturally rich ‘land beyond the forests’ (Zalesskaya zemlya) or Suzdalia, as it is convenient to call the federation of principalities in north-east Russia ruled by Vsevolod III and his numerous sons, was situated in the basins of four major rivers, two running west–east, two running north–south. Through the centre of the district flowed the Volga from Zubtsov In the west – the extreme upper reaches of the river from Rzheva to Lake Seliger ran through Smolensk territory – to its confluence with the Oka in the east. In the south of Suzdalia was the river Klyaz’ma, running from its source north–west of Moscow to where it flows into the Oka and on the central reaches of which stands the capital Vladimir. In the north-west and the north-east of the district were the two northernmost tributaries of the Volga, the Sheksna, which links the Volga with the White Lake, and the Unzha, which formed the easternmost boundary of Suzdalia. Apart from Beloozero near the influx of the Sheksna into the White Lake and Ustyug at the confluence of the Sukhona and Yug rivers in the far north-east, most of the major cities were situated either on the Volga (Tver’, Uglich, Yaroslavl’, Kostroma) and the Klyaz’ma (Vladimir, Starodub), or between the two (Suzdal’, Pereyaslavl’ Zalesskiy or Northern Pereyaslavl’, Rostov, Dmitrov, Yur’evPol’skiy).

A glance at the map will show just how favourably Suzdalia was situated with regard to these river routes. Most of the main rivers flowed form west to east, and three of them, the Klyaz’ma, Moskva and Oka, were linked with the Volga near the beginning of its great sweep southwards to the Caspian Sea, thus providing trade routes with the markets of the East. At the same time the Moskva and Ugra rivers, both tributaries of the Oka, provided waterways to Smolensk in the south-west and thence to the Baltic and the Black Sea, while the great western commercial centre of Novgorod was linked to Tver’ by the Msta and Tvertsa rivers. Furthermore, a number of tributaries bisecting at regular intervals the area between the Upper Volga and the Kiyaz’ ma provided routes between most of the major towns in the mesopotamian area and also gave them outlets along the main rivers.

The first mention of the ‘Trans-forest Land’ as a political entity occurs in the Novgorod First Chronicle where Suzdalia is described as an appendage to the otchina, or patrimony, of Southern Pereyaslavl’ left by Yaroslav I to his third eldest surviving son Vsevolod in 1054: ‘Vsevolod [received Southern] Pereyaslavl’, Rostov, Suzdal’, Beloozero and Povolzh’e [the Volga district]’.¹ Virtually uncontested, it remained the possession of Vsevolod and his son Vladimir Monomakh and the latter’s descendants. Curiously enough, in the eleventh century little attention seems to have been paid to this vast and rich area, which was later to become the centre of the great Muscovite state from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries – indeed, before 1093 or 1094 neither Vsevolod nor his son Vladimir even appointed princes to rule there. But from the beginning of the twelfth century Vladimir Monomakh began to show a keener interest in this the jewel of his family possessions. Perhaps it was because of the need to defend the southern borders of Suzdalia against the princes of Chernigov or perhaps it was because he had to counteract the growing menace of the Volga Bulgars on Ms eastern borders, who in the early twelfth century were penetrating further and further west along the Volga?² Whatever the cause, we find Vladimir Monomakh founding the city of Vladimir-on-the-Klyaz’ma (1108), the future capital, and appointing his son Yury Dolgorukiy prince of Suzdal’. By the time of his death in 1125 Suzdalia was virtually independent of Kiev under its sovereign ruler Yury.

For the rest of the century the district grew and strengthened under its three tough and remarkable rulers, Yury Dolgorukiy (1120–57) and his two sons Andrey Bogolyubskiy (1157–74) (so called from the palace built at the village of Bogolyubovo near Vladimir) and Vsevolod III (1176–1212). Yury, that veritable ‘Christopher Columbus of the PovolzhV, as one historian has called him,³ can truly be called the founder of the Rostov-Suzdalian state. During his 37-year rule Suzdalia took shape. Its frontiers with Chernigov in the south and Novgorod in the west became fixed; towns sprang up: Ksnyatin at the mouth of the Western Nerl’, Yur’ev-Pol’skiy, Pereyaslavl’ Zalesskiy (Northern Pereyaslavl’), Dmitrov, Moscow; throughout the country churches and monasteries were built and decorated; colonization was vigorously fostered; links between Suzdalia and the south were strengthened; and Yury’s sons were established in the major cities, often while at the same time holding districts in the south. When he died in 1157 he was succeeded by an even more single-minded and autocratic ruler, his son Andrey Bogolyubskiy, whom the local boyars of Rostov, Suzdal’ and Vladimir proclaimed as their prince.

Suzdalia was immensely strengthened by Andrey. Not only did he have far less southern aspirations than his father, who had twice been prince in Kiev, or his sons and brothers – it was a son of his (Mstislav) who seized Kiev in 1169, not Audrey, and it was the same son who put Andrey’s brother Gleb on the throne of Kiev in the same year – but also he was aware of the danger of having too many relations to share power with and too many of his father’s boyars to advise him on how to use that power. In his desire to be ‘autocrat (samoderzhets) of all the land of Suzdal′’, he chased out four of his brothers, two of his nephews and the ‘senior boyars of his father’ (1161).⁴ He even attempted to assert ecclesiastical independence from the see of Kiev by proposing (in vain) to set up a metropolitanate of the north. Again, the frontiers of Suzdalia were widened. Audrey’s reach extended eastwards, mainly along the Klyaz’ma, in an effort still further to stem Bulgar aggression: he founded the easternmost outpost of Gorokhovets on the Klyaz’ma as a jumping-off place for the great campaign against the Volga Bulgars in 1164.⁵ In the north his influence was beginning to be felt in the vast territories under the nominal control of Novgorod – in the district of Zavoloch’e, the lands ‘beyond the portage’ between the White Lake and Lake Kubenskoe, watered by the Northern Dvina river.⁶

He was murdered in 1174, and for two years there was confusion and unrest in Suzdalia while two of his nephews and his brother Mikhalko briefly ruled Rostov and Vladimir. But on Mikhalko’s death in 1176 the youngest son of Yury Dolgorukiy, the great Vsevolod III, took over, the first prince ever officially to adopt the title of gaud prince.⁷ His long reign (1176–1212) was marked not only by a great increase of his authority as ruler of Vladimir, both internationally and amongst his southern relatives, but also by a significant increase of territory, lit the west Vsevolod reached an agreement with Novgorod whereby the Novgorodtan territories of Torzhok and Voiok Lamskiy were held in joint control by both Novgorod and Suzdalia,⁸ while at the same time he moved further westward along the Volga, building the town of Zubtsov on the southernmost bend of the upper Volga and thus creating a wedge of Suzdalian land between Novgorod territory proper and the shared district of Volok Lamskiy. In the east his defences against the Volga Bulgars were strengthened: Kostromts Merckhta and Sol’ Velikaya, all on or near the middle Volga, were founded to provide further bulwarks against attacks from the-east or to serve as collecting points for campaigns against the Bulgars, as was Unzha, built on the middle reaches of the Unzha river. In the far north further incursions into Novgorod territory were made in the Pechora and Northern Dvina fiver districts, and the town of Ustyug, at the juncture of the Sukhona and Yug rivers, was founded in 1178.⁹

By the end of the century Vsevolod Ilfs power was firmly established. Furthermore it was recognized by the third and fourth generations of descendants of Monomakh, who saw in him the senior ‘amongst all cousins in the tribe of Vladimir [Monomakh]’ (see p. 22). Whoever wrote the Tale of Igor’s Campaign – whether at the beginning of the thirteenth century or later – singled him out amongst all the princes of Russia; ‘Grand Prince Vsevolod! Should you not fly here [i.e. to Kiev] in thought to watch over your father’s golden throne? For you can splash dry the Volga with your oars and empty the Don with your helmets! Had you been. here, a slave-girl would be worth a fart Wag and a male captive a mite’ – an exaggeration, perhaps, of Vsevolod’s military capacities, but at any rate an indication of his formidable reputation and of the power of Suzdalia at the turn of the century.

* * * *

The principality of Kiev in the south presented an altogether different picture. At the end of the twelfth century it consisted merely of the lands watered by the middle reaches of the Dnepr, by the western tributaries of the Dnepr from the Uzh in the north to the Ros’ in the south and by the southern tributary of the Pripyat’, the Sluch’. In total area it was smaller than Suzdaiia, Chernigov, Smolensk, Polotsk or Volynia. In the south there were virtually no boundaries at all and. it is hard to tell where Kiev ended and the territory of the steppe nomads, the Polovtsians, began, but an approximate, though fluid, line between the two could be drawn south of the Ros’ river and the upper reaches of the Southern Bug. The eastern frontier between Kiev on the one hand and Chernigov and Pereyaskvl′ on the other ran along the Dnepr, although a 15-kilometre-wide slice of land east of the Dnepr from the Desna to the Trubezh belonged to Kiev. In the north the frontier with the principality of Tufov-Pinsk ran south of the Pripyat’ river, while in the west that with Volynia ran in a line east of the upper reaches of the Gofyn′ river.

The town of Kiev itself was ideally situated. Militarily it enjoyed excellent defences thanks to its hilly position; economically the Dnepr provided not only a direct route to the Black Sea, but also links with the Baltic via the Berezina and the Western Dvina, with the Oka and Don via the Desna and Seym and with the basins of the Dnestr and Neman via the Pripyat’ and Western Bug. Close by were the strongly fortified cities of Vruchiy (or Ovruch, as it was sometimes called), Vyshgorod and Belgorod commanding the approaches to the capital from the north-west, the north and the south-west respectively. From the south Kiev was shielded by a system of forts along the Dnepr and a series of strongly defended towns on the Ros’ river.¹⁰

At the beginning of the twelfth century the frontier situation was much more fluid. Indeed it is hard to say whether under the great rulers of the early twelfth century, Vladimir Monomakh (1113–25) and his son Mstislav the Great (1125–32) boundaries even existed between what later became known as the ‘principality of Kiev’ and Volynk, Turov-Pinsk, Smolensk and Southern Pereyaslavl’, all of which were held by close relatives (and subjects) of the prince of Kiev. Kiev was ‘Rus′’ and ‘Rus′’ consisted of all the southern lands excepting Galicia and Chernigov-Ryazan’. Even parts of Polotsk in the north-west were subject to Monommlcti and Mstislav. But the unity of the Kievan land, resuscitated by Vladimir Monomakh after the civil wars of the eleventh century, was shortlived. Already the reign of Yaropolk (1132–39), who succeeded his brother Mstislav, was clouded by fragmentation and soured by the struggle within the clan of the Monomashichi themselves: the younger sons of Vladimir Monomakh, who could expect to follow Yaropolk on the throne of Kiev according to the rules of lateral seniority (brother succeeding brother), were incensed by the fact that Yaropolk placed his nephews (Mstislav’s sons) in Pereyaskvl’ by now the accepted seat of the prince next in line tor Kiev (see p. 10). The intestine strife was intensified by the intervention of Vsevolod, the son of Monomakh’s old rival, Oleg of Chernigov. It became a three-cornered struggle for power between the princes of Chernigov, the powerful sons of Mstislav the Great and the latters’ uncles, Yaropolk and his brothers. Civil war was now the order of the day in southern Russia, just as it had been in the last three decades of the eleventh century. Power swung from family to family: from one clan of the Monomashichi to another, from one branch of the princes of Chernigov to another, until eventually a sort of compromise was reached in the curious duumvirate of Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich of Chernigov and Ryurik Rostislavich of Smolensk, who virtually ruled the principality of Kiev jointly until the former’s death in 1194. Families themselves became more and more fragmented the greater their expansion. Separate branches began to concentrate on areas which each gradually came to recognize as its inalienable heritage: thus the grandchildren of Izyaslav Mstislavich (prince of Kiev 1146–54) built up their patrimonies in the west – Vladimir in Volynia, Lutsk, Dorogobuzh, Sfiumsk, Peresopnitsa; the descendants of Rostislav Mstislavich (prince of Kiev 1159–67) kept to Smolensk, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of genealogical tables
• List of maps
• Glossary
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• Chapter one Russia in 1200
• Chapter two South Russia 1200–1223
• Chapter three North Russia 1200–1223
• Chapter four The Tatar Invasions
• Chapter five The Aftermath 1238–1263
• Chapter six Aleksandr Nevskiy’s Successors
• Chapter seven Conclusion
• Appendix A Chronicles
• Appendix B Genealogical tables
• Maps
• Bibliography
• Index