The Kiev state began to disintegrate at the end of the 11th century. Many sovereign lands - principalities - arose, and their number increased. By the middle of the 12th century. 15 principalities were formed by the beginning of the 13th century. there were already about 50 of them. The Old Russian state disappeared. The process of fragmentation of the large early medieval state was natural. Europe also experienced a period of collapse of early medieval states, fragmentation, local wars, and then the process of formation of secular-type national states that still exist today developed. We can conclude: Ancient Rus', having gone through a period of collapse, could have come to a similar point. Here, in the future, a national state could arise, a single people could be formed. However, this did not happen. Development on the territory of Rus' went differently.
The 13th century became a turning point in the history of Ancient Rus', as well as in Europe. But if Europe from that time on actively moved along the path of introducing a progressive type of development, then Russia faced another problem. In 1237, the Mongol-Tatars appeared within Russian borders. They brought massive loss of life, destruction of cities, destruction of what had been created over centuries. However, the danger came not only from the East, but also from the West. The strengthening Lithuania was advancing on Russian lands, as well as the Swedes, Germans and Livonian knights. The fragmented Ancient Rus' was faced with a difficult problem: how to preserve itself, how to survive? She found herself, as it were, between the millstones of East and West. Moreover, it is typical: ruin came from the East, from the Tatars, and the West demanded a change of faith, the adoption of Catholicism. Earl Birger, from the famous Swedish family of Folkung, undertook two crusades against northwestern Rus'. In this regard, the Russian princes, in order to save the population, could bow to the Tatars, agree to heavy tribute and humiliation, but resist the invasion from the West.
The Mongol-Tatars swept through the Russian lands like a tornado, appeared in Hungary, Poland, then went to the lower reaches of the Volga, making crushing raids on Russian lands from there and collecting heavy tribute. Among Russian historians, there was a widespread view that with the collapse of the Kiev state, and then the loss of independence by many principalities, history in the southwestern and western lands seemed to freeze and life moved to the Northeast, where new centers of historical development arose. This is a pro-Moscow tradition that has become established in historiography. In fact, history in the southwestern lands was uninterrupted. She went her own way. The Principality of Galicia-Volyn became part of first the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and then Poland, Minsk, Gomel, and then Kyiv, other cities were drawn under the rule of pagan Lithuania to save them from the Mongol-Tatar devastation and preserve their type of development.
What was Lithuania like at that time? In the 40s XIII century The Principality of Lithuania appeared and quickly increased in size. Little is known about him. But already in the XIV century. it combined three elements in its name: Lithuania, Zhmud, Russian lands - Rus'. Then the word “Russian” moved to second place after Lithuanian - the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Russian and Zhomoit.
In its heyday, this principality extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea, from the borders of Poland and Hungary to the Moscow region (Mozhaisk). 9/10 of the territory were ancient Russian lands. It is no coincidence that opponents of the growing central government in Moscow fled to Lithuania. The Old Russian population of Lithuania called their state Rus. People considered her an heir Kievan Rus. Within Lithuania, Rus' developed in accordance with its traditions (the veche ideal can be traced back to the second half of the 15th century). The principalities had autonomy.
The political and financial situation of Rus' within Lithuania was favorable. Cities continued to develop. Large cities received Magdeburg law. It is interesting that residents of the border territories who lived in the “risk” zone, under the threat of invasion by the Mongol-Tatars or Muscovites, received additional privileges. For example, residents of Bila Tserkva, who were subjected to a Tatar raid, were exempt from taxes for nine years. Russian aristocrats enjoyed significant influence at the court of the Lithuanian Grand Duke. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania emerged as a federation of individual lands and principalities. The degree of dependence on the central government was different; the forms of this dependence were determined by the circumstances of entry and, to a greater or lesser extent, provided the local boyars and cities with significant autonomy and the inviolability of socio-economic and political structures. The Western institution of vassalage, which presupposed the concept of freedom, was established there.
Thus, in the West, under the auspices of first pagan and then, from the end of the 14th century, Catholic Lithuania, the development of ancient Russian lands along the European path continued. But this territory was shrinking, although Moscow’s unification policy met resistance in the West, since the transition to despotism was too obvious. In these lands, the formation of the Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnic groups unfolded. IN modern conditions historians of Ukraine and Belarus often present this process as the original one, going back to the Kiev period. However, this is hardly legal. The formation of these peoples unfolded in the 15th-16th centuries. Their self-awareness was formed under the influence of the real socio-political situation in Lithuania, and then in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and anti-Catholic, anti-Polish sentiments. The threat of Polonization and Catholicization of the population stimulated awareness of the community of people based on Orthodoxy. By the way, the official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since the 14th century. became the Belarusian language. At the same time, the western lands received the name White Rus'. With the adoption of Catholicism and the strengthening of Polish influence, the situation of the Ukrainian and Belarusian people worsened somewhat.
Thus, the western and southwestern lands, where the formation of the Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnic groups took place, existed much longer under the conditions of the European tradition. Deeper roots of the progressive type were formed there. Northwestern Rus' found itself in a different situation. Novgorod was a major center of the Russian Slavs in the north-west. It developed relatively independently and demonstrated closeness to the European type of development, especially clearly during the period of the Novgorod Republic (late 11th-15th centuries). In the XIV century. Pskov received republic status, but this republic did not last long. Novgorod was not subjected to the Tatar-Mongol invasion, although it paid tribute. If Ancient Rus' demonstrated closeness to antiquity and perished like the Greco-Latin world, then Novgorod developed at the same pace as Europe of that time and was part of it. in fact, the Novgorod Republic was an analogue to the city-republics of the Hanseatic League, the city-republics of Italy: Venice, Genoa, Florence. Novgorod was a republic with elected senior officials (mayors), with a people's assembly (veche), which had the rights of the highest authority, local self-government organized on the principle of community, etc. The princes did not have full state power; they were invited to Novgorod only to perform certain functions in the role of hired military leaders. They were prohibited from owning land in the Novgorod volosts. But there were also great rights. The prince had representative functions, representing Novgorod in relations with other lands. He had the highest judicial power. Tribute was paid to the prince. The Pskov Republic developed similarly, having separated from Novgorod. The princes did not stay long on the Novgorod table (throne). In just over 200 years - from 1095 to 1304 - about 40 people visited the Novgorod table, and some princes even more than once. So the change of princely power occurred 58 times.
The church in Novgorod was also independent and differed in position from other Russian lands. At a time when Novgorod was part of Kievan Rus, the Metropolitan of Kiev sent a bishop, the head of the church, to Novgorod. However, having strengthened themselves, the Novgorodians became isolated in church matters. Since 1156, Novgorodians began to elect a spiritual shepherd. The election procedure is interesting. The Veche named three candidates, the most authoritative ministers of the church. Their names were written on parchment. The mayor sealed the records with his seal. Then these notes were carried to the other side of the Volkhov to the main St. Sophia Cathedral, where the liturgy was taking place. After the end of the service, the blind man or child took one of the notes and the name written on it was read out. Only then did the elected bishop go to the metropolitan in Kyiv for consecration. Never, neither before the Novgorod Republic nor after, has the Orthodox Church known such a democratic order in which the believers themselves chose their spiritual shepherd. This order is close to the Protestant tradition.
It is curious that heresies flourished in Novgorod. Heretical teachings were a mixture of Judaism and Christianity. Adherents of heresies promoted the Old Testament and even placed it above the New Testament. Novgorod heretics denied the monastic and church hierarchy, rejected the worship of icons, denied the trinity of the Divinity and the Divinity of Christ. Some refused to believe in the immortality of the soul. The priests often opposed canonical Byzantine Orthodoxy. In the XIV-XV centuries. Novgorod was the source of church heresies that shook Orthodoxy. Please note: much earlier than in the West, reformist tendencies towards the church and even atheistic sentiments appeared in Novgorod. Much was reminiscent of the future European reformation. After the fall of Novgorod, a church council in 1504 decided to mercilessly eradicate heresy. Most of the heretics were executed in a cruel manner: they were burned in a cage, others were imprisoned.
In the Novgorod and Pskov republics, the process of forming a class of owners was actively underway. In the Pskov Judgment Charter, private property was legally enshrined and protected. Novgorod was actively acquiring colonies, turning into a Western-type metropolis. From the 11th century active colonization of Karelia, Podvinia and the vast Northern Pomerania began. Trade and fishing expeditions were organized to the Pechora and Ugra lands. Located at the beginning of trade routes important for Eastern Europe, connecting the Baltic Sea with the Black and Caspian Seas, Novgorod played an intermediary role in trade.
The principles of Novgorod democracy made it possible not only for the nobility, owners of city palaces and estates, but also for the city plebs to participate in the life of the republic. The veche - the people's assembly - had broad rights. It considered the most important issues of domestic and foreign policy, invited the prince and concluded a series of agreements with him, elected a mayor in charge of administration and court, a thousand, who led the militia. It also elected a commercial court that was of particular importance in Novgorod.
Under pressure from both the West and the East, the republic sought to maintain its independence and its type of development. Prince Alexander Nevsky became especially famous in the struggle for the independence of Novgorod. He pursued a flexible policy, making concessions to the Golden Horde and organizing resistance to the advance of Catholicism from the West. Pre-revolutionary Russia highly regarded the feat of A. Nevsky. Here is how S. Solovyov wrote about him: “The preservation of the Russian land from misfortune in the East, significant feats for faith and land in the West brought Alexander Nevsky a glorious memory in Rus'.” However, in Novgorod itself the attitude towards Alexander was ambiguous. Stable Westernist orientations and sentiments remained there. Therefore, Alexander was valued as a skilled military leader, but concessions to the Golden Horde were condemned.
The Novgorod Republic lasted almost until the end of the 15th century. In 1478, it fell under the blows of the troops of the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III. The desire to suppress Novgorod liberties and sympathy for “Latinism” was observed on the part of Moscow from the middle of the 15th century. Pressure from Moscow strengthened pro-Western sentiments in Novgorod high society. In the 70s In the 15th century, that is, on the eve of the fall, persistent proposals were made to join Lithuania. Everything pro-Moscow was perceived negatively. In May 1477, three mayors were killed at a meeting on charges of betraying the interests of Novgorod. They tried to find help from the Grand Duke of Moscow in the fight against the group of boyars that was opposed to them. The chronicle, explaining this, testifies that “there was no such thing from the beginning when their land stood.” However, Lithuania, which converted to Catholicism, did not seem like salvation to most. As a result, Novgorod was defeated. Moscow brutally dealt with pro-Western representatives of the boyars and merchants. The Republic is a thing of the past. After 1478, a radical breakdown of patrimonial land ownership in Novgorod was undertaken, and the confiscation of property from the disgraced boyars began. However, in order not to cause open indignation, for some time Moscow preserved certain traditions of republican Novgorod. Direct relations with the Hanseatic League, the Baltic and Scandinavian states were maintained. Along with the governors of the Moscow Grand Duke, representatives of old Novgorod - boyars and merchant elders - took part in the execution of diplomatic acts.
So, the last independent island, which had a European type of development, disappeared in the territory modern Russia. In 1510, the Pskov Republic was liquidated by Vasily III, who presented an ultimatum to the Pskov residents: remove the veche bell and submit to the grand ducal governors. The Pskovites, reluctantly, accepted the ultimatum. Three hundred of the richest families, by order of Vasily III, were evicted from Pskov.
LECTURE 2. FROM Rus' TO RUSSIA
Fyodor Ioanovich’s mouth was extremely dangerous under an autocratic, unlimited power. In 1598, the Zemsky Sobor took place. The exact number of its participants is not known. N. Karamzin wrote about 500, S. Soloviev - 476, V. Klyuchevsky - 512 participants. Modern researchers stick to the figure of 600 participants. The composition of the Council is wide: boyars, nobles, clerks, guests (merchants), and representatives of all “peasants”. The Council spoke in favor of crowning Boris Godunov, who actually already ruled the country.
The Boyar Duma met separately from the Zemsky Sobor and called for allegiance to the Duma as the highest authority. As you can see, an alternative immediately arose: either elect a tsar and live as before, or swear allegiance to the Duma, and this meant the possibility of changes in public life, taking into account the characteristics of this body. The outcome of the struggle was decided by the street, which spoke out for Boris. Boris Godunov agreed to the kingdom.
It is believed that Boris Godunov belonged to a noble family of Tatar origin. The Tatar prince Chet-Murza was listed among his ancestors. The oprichnina helped him to advance (to a large extent thanks to his marriage to the daughter of the bloody head of the oprichniki, Malyuta Skuratov). As a political figure, Godunov was formed during the time of Ivan the Terrible, in his circle. Being an ignoramus by Russian standards, he managed to advance. Under Tsar Fedor, he was the de facto ruler of the country and pursued the same line in politics as Ivan the Terrible. The emphasis was placed on service people (bureaucracy). The nobles received benefits. Bark plowing, unlike peasant plowing, was not taxed. There was a “whitening” of the noble lands, that is, exemption from taxes. The brunt of ruinous taxes fell on the peasantry. The policy of enslavement and tightening of serfdom continued. The peasants lost the right to leave their landowner on St. George’s day in the autumn. To strengthen Moscow as an Orthodox center, on the initiative of Godunov, the patriarchate was established in 1589. The Russian Orthodox Church, which had de facto independence from Constantinople since the fall of Byzantium, has now formalized it legally. It seemed that Godunov’s choice for the kingdom predetermined development in the same direction. However, having become king, he chose different priorities.
Godunov showed a keen interest in science and the successes of Western civilization. To encourage trade with the West, he showered generous favors on German merchants who had once been resettled to Rus' from the conquered Livonian cities. They received large loans from the treasury and permission to move freely both within and outside the country. The church in Kukuy has reopened for residents of the German settlement in Moscow. Under Boris, there were more Western foreigners in Moscow than ever before. He loved the company of Western doctors and talked with them for a long time about the order in Europe. He went so far in his sympathy for the West that he formed his own personal guard (a detachment of bodyguards) from German mercenaries.
Godunov was the first of the Russian rulers who dared to send several noble “royats” abroad “for the science of different languages and (teaching - L.S.) literacy.”8. Under him, the authorities showed concern for the spread of book printing. Printing houses were opened in many cities. He hatched plans to establish schools and even universities in Russia based on European models. Much attention was paid to cities. They were rebuilt, especially Moscow. An unprecedented technical innovation appeared in the Kremlin - running water. Cities turned into centers of culture, trade actively developed. The flourishing of cities under Godunov was the most important an indicator of the pro-Western nature of his policies.
However, the pro-Western nature of his policy was very moderate and inconsistent. It's more of a trend. However, even what was stated could not be fully realized. The corporate structure of society, which held back the process of social mobility and change, remained intact. The authorities still dealt with corporate associations, not with citizens. His innovations concerned the urban population, which amounted to no more than 2%. As for the bulk of the population - peasants, Boris's policy did not bring them anything new. The nobles intensified the exploitation of peasants on their estates. The peasants rebelled, killed the landowners, and fled to the outskirts. Development was slow, the situation of the majority of the people was disastrous. IN early XVII V. agriculture fell into decline, added to this natural disasters. In 1601, a terrible famine broke out and lasted three years. According to foreign ambassadors, more than 120 thousand people who died of hunger were buried in mass graves in Moscow alone. Contemporaries reported that during three years of famine, “a third of the kingdom of Moscow died out.” In difficult conditions, the authorities made some concessions: St. George’s Day was restored, and the distribution of bread to the hungry was organized. But that didn't help. In 1603, the uprisings became widespread.
When assessing Godunov's short reign (seven years), one should also keep in mind that he was a deeply religious person and his religiosity intensified as his health deteriorated. Naturally, this blocked the transition to a secular state, without which acceleration of development would have been impossible. Despite the above, some historians believe that if Boris Godunov had had a few quiet years at his disposal, then perhaps the reforms that we associate with the name of Peter I would have been carried out a hundred years earlier. However, this did not happen. Tsar Boris died in 1605. Thus, the possibility of controlled transformations in society was not realized. The country was on the verge of a large-scale civil war,
Stage II of the Troubles: 1605 - 1609.
At this stage, the country plunged into the abyss of civil war, and the state collapsed. Moscow has lost its significance as a political center. In addition to the old capital, new, “thieves’” ones appeared:
Putivl, Starodub, Tushino. The intervention of Western countries began, attracted by the weakness of the state. Sweden and Poland were rapidly moving deeper into the Russian state. State power found itself in a state of paralysis. In Moscow, as if in a kaleidoscope, the authorities changed: False Dmitry I, Vasily Shuisky, the Boyar Duma, whose reign went down in history as the “Seven Boyars.” However, their power was ephemeral. Sitting in Tushino, False Dmitry II controlled almost half the country. Many cities and lands independently tried to resist disintegration and foreign intervention. Novgorod and Astrakhan separated from the state, Kazan wavered. Under these conditions, the traditions of direct democracy became stronger. Elections, collective organization of local leadership,
At this stage, the possibility of Europeanization of Russia is associated with the name of False Dmitry I. In 1603, a man appeared within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, calling himself the name of the son of Ivan IV Dmitry, who had been considered killed for twelve years. He secretly converted to Catholicism and oriented himself to the West. In Russia it was announced that the fugitive monk of the Chudov Monastery, Grigory Otrepiev, was hiding under this name. There is no exact evidence that this is exactly the case, but most experts still consider this version to be reliable. In 1604, False Dmitry I invaded Russia. He promised the Polish king and some Polish magnates significant territories in Russia for military support. However, there were only about two thousand mercenaries under his banners. If unsuccessful, these troops fled. The situation in the country contributed to the success of his campaign. The uprisings shook Russia. Often Cossacks and townspeople surrendered cities to the impostor without a fight and joined his armed forces. Strife in upper strata societies after the death of Godunov facilitated the advance of False Dmitry I to Moscow.
In Moscow, False Dmitry I was recognized as the real son of Ivan IV and crowned in the summer of 1605. Along with him, the aristocrat Marina Mnishek, who came from Poland, was crowned and agreed to become his wife in order to gain the royal crown. Once in the Kremlin, False Dmitry I disbanded his army and seemed to forget about the promises. distributed in Poland. He was faced with the problem of organizing the government of the country and stopping the collapse. What did False Dmitry 1 consider to be of paramount importance? First of all, the establishment of law and order and justice in the country, the fight against bureaucracy and corruption of officials. He prohibited bribes in his orders and stated that twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday, he would personally receive complaints from the population in the Kremlin. There are opinions that False Dmitry I intended to free the peasants from serfdom. He considered projects for establishing an Academy and schools in Russia. The impostor introduced freedom of trade, unprecedented in the Moscow state. He lifted the bans on playing chess, cards, dancing and singing. Attempts were made to shake up dogmatic Russian Orthodoxy. He spoke in conversations " You establish piety only in the fact that you maintain fasts, venerate relics, venerate icons, but have no idea about the essence of faith..."19. He preached freedom of conscience. False Dmitry 1 emphasized the superiority of Europeans over Russians, mocked Russian prejudices, foreign dress, surrounded himself with foreigners. He reproached the boyars as ignorant and uneducated people, invited them to go to foreign lands to learn something. The famous Russian historian N.I. Kostomarov wrote about False Dmitry I: “He spoke to the Russians with the voice of freedom, opened wide the borders of the previously closed state both for foreigners entering it and for Russians leaving it, declared complete religious tolerance, and granted freedom of religious conscience; all this was supposed to familiarize the Russians with new concepts, pointing them to a different life"20
A deeply religious society, oriented towards monastic ideals, was shocked by the new order. In the Kremlin, between the cathedrals, 68 musicians played all day long, and upon Marina Mnishek’s arrival, luxurious balls with dancing were held. False Dmitry I did not have a clear political program, but tried alone
Since the 30s of the 12th century. the process begins in Rus' feudal fragmentation, which was a natural stage in the development of feudalism. The great princes - Monomakh, his son Mstislav - managed to temporarily slow down the inevitable process of fragmentation of Kievan Rus, but then it resumed with renewed vigor: And the Lyubech Congress of Princes in 1097 established: “... let everyone keep his fatherland.”
The following reasons for feudal fragmentation in Rus' can be named:
· firstly, the features of the formation of feudalism in Rus'. The princes endowed their heirs not with a complex of vast estates, but with a rent-tax. Guarantees were needed that the heir would eventually be the head of the principality. At the same time, the increase in princely families and the relatively small growth of the total surplus product intensified the struggle between the princes for the best principalities and territories from which more taxes could be received. Therefore, princely feuds are, first of all, a struggle for the redistribution of taxes, which made it possible to seize the most profitable principalities and gain a foothold in the rank of head of a sovereign principality;
· secondly, subsistence farming and the lack of economic ties contributed to the creation of relatively small feudal worlds and separatism of local boyar unions;
· thirdly, the development of boyar land ownership: the expansion of boyar estates by seizing the lands of community members, purchasing land, etc. - led to increased economic power and independence of the boyars and, ultimately, to an aggravation of contradictions between the boyars and the Grand Duke of Kyiv. The boyars were interested in such princely power that could provide them with military and legal protection, in particular in connection with the growing resistance of the townspeople, the smerds, to contribute to the seizure of their lands and increased exploitation. Local boyars began to invite the prince and his retinue, but at first assigned them only police functions. Subsequently, the princes, as a rule, sought to gain full power. And this, in turn, led to an intensification of the struggle between the boyars and local princes;
· fourthly, the growth and strengthening of cities as new political and cultural centers;
· fifthly, in the 12th century. trade routes began to bypass Kyiv; European merchants, as well as Novgorodians, were increasingly attracted to Germany, Italy, the Middle East, the “path from the Varangians to the Greeks” gradually lost its significance;
· sixthly, the fight against nomads weakened the Principality of Kiev and slowed down its progress; in Novgorod and Suzdal it was much calmer.
So, in the middle of the 12th century. Kievan Rus broke up into 15 large and small principalities, and at the beginning of the 13th century. their number increased to 50.
Consequences of feudal fragmentation:
The disintegration of Rus' into separate principalities played not only a negative role (weakening before the Mongol-Tatar invasion), but also a positive role: it contributed to the rapid growth of cities and estates in individual principalities, the development of trade with the Baltic states, with the Germans, the development of local culture - architectural structures were built, chronicles were created, etc. Rus' did not completely collapse. The Principality of Kiev, although formally, cemented the country; the all-Russian Orthodox Church, which advocated the unity of Rus' and condemned the princely strife, retained its influence;
complete separatism (separation) was prevented by the external danger from the Polovtsians.
Composition of Rus':
The largest principalities were:
· Kyiv (Kyiv);
· Chernigovskoe (Chernigov), Severskoe (Novgorod-Seversky);
· Galicia-Volynskoye (Galich and Vladimir-Volynsky);
· Vladimir-Suzdal (Vladimir-on-Klyazma);
· Novgorod land (Veliky Novgorod).
But three main political centers were identified: in the southwest - the Galician-Volyn principality; in the northeast - the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality and the Novgorod Land.
Vladimir-Suzdal Principality.
For many centuries, North-Eastern Rus' was a wild outskirts, which East Slavs We checked in relatively late. Only in the 8th century. The Vyatichi tribe appeared here. Fertile soils, rich forests, many rivers and lakes created favorable conditions for the development of agriculture, cattle breeding and crafts. Trade routes to the south, east and west passed here, which led to the development of trade. It was also important that the northeastern lands were well protected by forests and rivers from the raids of nomads. Large urban centers have developed here - Rostov, Suzdal, Yaroslavl, Murom, Ryazan. Under Vladimir Monomakh, the cities of Vladimir and Pereyaslavl were built. In 1125 Suzdal prince became Monomakh's youngest son, Yuri (1125-1157), who received the nickname Dolgoruky for his thirst for power and for his military activity. Under Prince Yuri, the Rostov-Suzdal principality separated from Kyiv and became a vast independent state. He constantly fought with the Volga Bulgaria, fought with Novgorod for influence on the border lands and twice seized the Kiev throne. Moscow was mentioned for the first time when, after one of his victories over his rivals, Yuri invited his ally, Prince Svyatoslav of Chernigov, to celebrate this event in Moscow. On April 4, 1147, the allies met in Moscow, where a feast was held. This date is generally considered to be the year of the founding of Moscow, although archaeologists believe that a settlement on the site of Moscow arose in the 11th century. Moscow was built by Dolgoruky on the site of the estate of the boyar Kuchka. In 1157, Yuri died in Kyiv (poisoned) and power in the Rostov-Suzdal land passed to Yuri's son Andrei, nicknamed Bogolyubsky. Andrei Bogolyubsky continued his father’s policy aimed at expanding the Rostov-Suzdal principality: he fought with Novgorod and Volga Bulgaria. At the same time, he strove to elevate his principality over other Russian lands, went to Kyiv, took it, subjected it to terrible destruction, but did not stay in Kyiv. Andrei Bogolyubsky pursued a tough policy towards the boyars in his principality. Attacking their rights and privileges, he brutally dealt with the disobedient, expelled them from the principality, and deprived them of their estates. In an effort to further separate from the boyars and rely on the townspeople, he moved the capital from Rostov to the young commercial and industrial city of Vladimir. It was near Vladimir in the town of Bogolyubovo that he set up his residence, for which he received the nickname Bogolyubsky. A serious conflict was brewing between Andrei Bogolyubsky and the boyars. A conspiracy arose against the prince, in which Andrei's servants were involved - the Ossetian Anbal, the housekeeper Efrem Mozevich. On June 29, 1174, the conspirators broke into the prince's house and hacked the prince to death. After Andrei's death, strife began. The Rostov and Suzdal boyars tried to give the throne to their proteges, but the residents of Vladimir offered the sons of Yuri - Mikhail and Vsevolod. In the end, in 1176, Vsevolod became prince, nicknamed the Big Nest, as he had 8 sons and 8 grandchildren. Under him, the Vladimir-Suzdal principality reached its greatest prosperity. He was the first among the princes of the Northeast to accept the title of Grand Duke. Vsevolod severely punished the rebellious boyars. Ryazan was captured under him. Vsevolod interfered in the affairs of Novgorod, he was feared in Kyiv. After the death of the prince, his sons divided the principality into parts and waged strife. Only in the XIV century. North-Eastern Rus' will become the center of the unification of Russian lands.
Novgorod the Great. Veliky Novgorod occupied a special place among the Russian principalities. Like Kyiv, Novgorod was the center of Slavic lands in North-West Rus'. The Novgorod land was located between lakes Ilmen and Chudskoye, along the banks of the Volkhov, Lovat, and Velikaya rivers. It was divided into fives, and they, in turn, into hundreds and graveyards. Novgorod, like the Rostov-Suzdal principality, pursued an active policy of conquest, as a result of which the lands of the Karelians, Vods, Zavolodsk Chud (Finno-Ugric tribes), Sami and Nenets were annexed to the Novgorod land; they paid tribute to Novgorod. Novgorod was formed from three settlements of different tribes; in relation to them, it was a “new city” with its own Kremlin. The Volkhov River divided Novgorod into two sides - Sofia and Torgovaya. The city included five districts (ends), which were divided into streets. Merchants and artisans created their own professional associations (ulich hundreds and fraternities).
Natural conditions Novgorod was unsuitable for agriculture, so it developed as a trade and craft center. The basis of Novgorod's economic activity was crafts, cattle breeding, fishing, fur and salt trades, and iron ore mining. Blacksmiths, weavers, potters, jewelers, gunsmiths, carpenters produced very High Quality. Craftsmen mainly worked to order, but weavers, tanners, and representatives of some other specialties were already producing their products for the market, both domestic and foreign. Geographical position Novgorod was extremely favorable for trade. Novgorod merchants traded with Germany, Sweden, Central Asia, and Transcaucasia, exporting furs, wax, honey, flax, walrus ivory, and leather. From the West they brought cloth, wines, colored and precious metals. There were “German” and “Gothic” courtyards in the city. Not only merchants, but also boyars, priests, and monks participated in trade. The interests of the boyars, merchants, and churches were intertwined, the city elite - the aristocracy - played big role in political life. A special political system developed here - feudal democracy. The highest authority in Novgorod was the veche - the people's assembly. It gathered in the square near the market the most notable people of the city - the boyars, about 400 people - that was the number of boyar estates in Novgorod. Feudal-dependent, enslaved people were often present at it. They did not have the right to vote, but reacted violently when discussing certain issues. The veche elected a mayor from among the boyars, he was in charge of all the affairs of the feudal republic, administered justice, and controlled the activities of the prince. A thousand was elected, who collected taxes (from every thousand of the population), headed the people's militia, and ruled over trade matters. At the veche, the Novgorod archbishop (lord) was also elected, who not only headed the church, but was also in charge of the treasury and foreign relations. Ordinary Novgorod residents resolved their issues at the veche of the streets, and elders were also elected here. The veche system of Novgorod is a form of feudal democracy. In fact, power belonged to the boyars and the elite of the merchant class. All managerial positions - townspeople, thousand - were occupied only by representatives of the aristocratic nobility. Historically, Novgorod did not have its own princely dynasty. In the 11th century here the eldest son of the Grand Duke of Kyiv usually sat as a prince-governor. But as political separatism developed, Novgorod became increasingly independent from Kyiv. In 1136, the grandson of Monomakh, Vsevolod, reigned in Novgorod, with whom the Novgorodians were dissatisfied. An uprising occurred, the prince was arrested, a number of charges were brought against him and he was expelled from the city. From that moment on, the Novgorodians themselves invited the prince, concluding an agreement with him. The prince did not have the right to transfer power by inheritance, could not interfere in civil affairs, did not have the right to own lands and live in the city itself. He protected the city from enemies, tribute was received in his name, and he played the role of an arbitrator. If the prince was not liked, he was expelled. After the events of 1136, Novgorod finally became a boyar aristocratic republic, where large boyars, merchants, and the archbishop determined the policy of the city.
So, to summarize, it should be emphasized that feudal fragmentation in Rus' in the XII-XIV centuries. was a natural phenomenon associated with the peculiarities of the formation of the feudal system. Despite the progressiveness of this process, feudal fragmentation had a significant negative aspect: constant strife between the princes depleted the strength of the Russian lands, weakened them in the face of external danger, in particular in the face of the approaching Mongol-Tatar invasion. Although some of the princes made attempts to maintain a unified state, the process of disintegration during this period was irreversible.
9. Russian principalities during the period of feudal fragmentation
The period of feudal fragmentation, traditionally called the “appanage period,” lasted from the 12th to the end of the 15th centuries. Feudal fragmentation weakened the defensive capabilities of the Russian lands. This became noticeable in the second half of the 11th century, when a new strong enemy appeared in the south - the Polovtsians (Turkic nomadic tribes). According to the chronicles, it is estimated that from 1061 to the beginning of the 13th century. there were more than 46 major invasions of the Polovtsians. A feature of feudal fragmentation in Rus' compared to European countries was the simplified feudal hierarchy: it consisted of only 3 main levels - grand princes, appanage princes and their boyars (close associates), and all princely families were branches of only two families - the ruling dynasty of Rurikovich and Gediminovich. As a result of the fragmentation of the ancient Russian state by the middle of the 12th century. separated into independent ten states-principalities. Subsequently, by the middle of the 13th century, their number reached eighteen. They were given names based on the capital cities: Kiev, Chernigov, Pereyaslav, Muromo-Ryazans. Suzdal (Vladimir). Smolensk, Galicia, Vladimir-Volynsk, Polotsk, Novgorod Boyar Republic. In each of the principalities, one of the branches of the Rurikovichs ruled, and the sons of princes and governor-boyars ruled individual appanages and volosts. However, all lands retained the same written language, a single religion and church organization, the legal norms of the “Russian Truth”, and most importantly, an awareness of common roots, a common historical destiny. At the same time, each of the established independent states had its own development characteristics. The largest of them, which played a significant role in the subsequent history of Rus', were: Suzdal (later - Vladimir) principality - North-Eastern Rus'; Galician (later - Galician-Volyn) principality - South-Western Rus'; Novgorod boyar republic - Novgorod land (North-Western Rus'). The main centers of Rus' during the period of specific fragmentation were the great principalities of Vladimir-Suzdal (since 1169, after the victory of its prince Andrei Bogolyusbsky over Kiev, the city of Vladimir became the nominal capital of all Rus'), Kiev (according to tradition, Kiev remained for a long time the cultural and ecclesiastical center of Rus'; only in 1299 did the head of the Russian church, the Metropolitan, move to Vladimir), Galicia-Volyn in the west and the Novgorod feudal republic.
The Vladimir-Suzdal principality during the period of feudal fragmentation.
Features of development: the main branch of the economy is agriculture due to the abundance of fertile lands, a constant influx of population in search of protection from the raids of nomads, the rapid growth of cities, location at the intersection of trade routes, the unlimited nature of the power of the prince.
Political structure: Prince, Druzhina, Veche, Boyars
Novgorod boyar republic during the period of feudal fragmentation.
Features of development: the leading sectors of the economy are trade and crafts, poor development of agriculture due to harsh climatic conditions, widespread development of industries - salt making, hunting, etc., special public administration, constant orientation towards European countries.
Political structure: Veche, Boyar Council, Tysyatsky, Posadnik, Prince.
Consequences of fragmentation:
Positive: 1) development of crafts and trade. 2) growth in the number of cities. 3) political stabilization on the ground. 4) the flourishing of culture
Negative: 1) lack of a unified defense system. 2) external danger for each principality. 3) ruinous civil strife. 4) weakness of the central government
10. Mongol-Tatar invasion and its consequences. Rus' and Golden Horde. At the beginning of the 13th century. In the steppes of Central Asia, the Mongol-Tatars formed a military-feudal power. This was a unification not of a single people, but of dozens of nomadic tribes. In 1222, the hordes of Genghis Khan invaded Transcaucasia, passed through Iran and the Caucasus with fire and sword. Having devastated the country of the Alans (Ossetia), the Mongols defeated the Polovtsians and in the spring of 1223 they reached the banks of the Don. The threat of Mongol conquest loomed over the Cumans, who turned to the Russian princes for help, warning them of the impending danger. In conditions of feudal fragmentation, far from all the princes supported the Polovtsians. The united Russian-Polovtsian army took on the battle with the main forces of the Mongols on May 31, 1223 on the Kalka River. The battle ended in complete victory for the Mongol-Tatars. The reason for the defeat of the Russians was the complete lack of overall command. Thirteen years later, the army of the Mongol-Tatars, which was led by the grandson of Genghis Khan Batu, having defeated Volga Bulgaria, began the conquest of Russia. In 1236, Batu invaded the territory of North-Eastern Rus'. The first victim of his invasion was the Ryazan principality. In conditions of fragmentation, each principality defended itself with its own forces. Following the Ryazan army, Batu's army conquered the Vladimir-Suzdal and Smolensk principalities. In 1239-1240. Batu made his second campaign against Rus'. The southwestern principalities came under attack. Without encountering organized resistance, he conquered the Chernigov, Pereyaslav and Gapitsin-Volyn principalities. In 1242, Batu created a powerful state - the Golden Horde, with its capital Sarai on the Lower Volga. The Mongol-Tatar yoke was established in Rus'. The Mongols retained the previous system in the occupied lands government structure and social relations, but established control over them. The khans of the horde began to issue permits (labels) for the great reign in Rus'. To collect tribute, the Mongol-Tatars introduced the institution of baskaks (tribute collectors). At first, tribute was collected in kind, then in money. The Mongol conquest led to a long-term economic, political and cultural decline of the Russian lands. Many territories were ravaged and devastated, cities were destroyed, the most skilled artisans were taken to the Horde, and a demographic decline began. Despite the severity of the consequences of the Mongol- Tatar yoke, Rus' managed to preserve its statehood, religion and culture.
The reasons for the defeat of the Russian principalities in the fight against the Mongol-Tatars:
The absence of a unified Russian army, the significant numerical superiority of the Mongols, the high military skill of the Mongols, fragmentation and lack of unity in the Russian lands, the harshest discipline that reigned in Mongol army, lack of mounted warriors in the Russian troops.
Consequences of the Mongol-Tatar invasion:
Migration of the population to the northern regions, the weakening of the military potential of the Russian principalities, the decline of crafts and trade, the conversion of a significant number of the population into slavery, numerous casualties among the civilian population, the conservation of feudal fragmentation, the inhibition of the development of commodity-monetary relations, the political dependence of the Russian princes, the desolation of agricultural land, theft of artisans into the Horde.
11. Characteristic features of the development of the main countries of the East in the XV-XVII centuries
In the East by the end of the 15th century. Several regions with a developed civilization emerged. In the Near and Middle East - the Ottoman Empire; in the South, Southeast, Far East- India, China, Japan, etc. Scientists believe that the models of late feudalism in a number of eastern countries had a certain potential for capitalist evolution. The level of development of productive forces in some eastern countries in the XV-XVII centuries. was not inferior to the European one, but nevertheless, these countries not only did not create a new type of economy, but often even regressed. Some general reasons for this lie in the peculiarities of the socio-political structure and the spiritual uniqueness of the eastern type of society. But each eastern country is so specific that character traits East, the general and the particular can only be understood by considering the historical process in individual countries.
One of the largest states in the East was the Ottoman Empire, which reached its power in the 16th century. under Sultan Suleiman I, nicknamed the Great Turk. Its possessions stretched across Asia, Africa, and Europe. The powerful Turkish fleet controlled almost the entire Mediterranean basin. Heyday Ottoman Empire was based on the robbery of conquered territories.
The presence of cities, a high level of development of crafts, and commodity-money relations in themselves did not yet create the prerequisites for the formation of a new type of economy. Although private property relations existed in the Ottoman Empire, they were not sufficiently legally protected. In the second half of the 16th century. here the process of formation of private property intensified. The owners of military fiefs - spahii - shied away from fulfilling military duties and sought to turn land grants into hereditary property. At the end of the 16th century. The ban on the concentration of several fiefs in one hand was lifted, which led to the creation of large estates. The economic power of the Muslim clergy is increasing. Trade and usurious capital took part in the formation of new landowners. Taking advantage of their privileged position, the Janissaries also acquired land, engaged in crafts, and trade. All this destroyed the military-feudal system. New landowners were formed who did not bear military responsibilities, but enjoyed broad feudal rights, which led to an increase in arbitrary exactions and taxes. There is a “second edition of serfdom” in the Turkish version.
The main factor hindering the development of new trends was despotic power, not limited by law. The very specifics of the formation of the Ottoman Empire prompted the authorities to active administrative intervention in the economic process. In conditions of long-term expansion of state territories through conquest, an extensive bureaucratic apparatus was needed (for collecting taxes, duties, tribute, etc.). The consolidation of the ruling strata on the basis of the bureaucratic apparatus made it possible to maintain a high level of exploitation of direct producers, which made it difficult for them to be involved in new economic relations.
Another factor hindering capitalist development in the Muslim East was the lack of ethnic and cultural unity necessary for the formation of national statehood and the market. The destruction of material and cultural values, changes in private property relations, and national and religious strife that accompanied the process of conquest led to increased non-economic coercion and pressure on direct producers and, ultimately, to refeudalization.
WITH late XVI V. the conquests of the Ottoman Turks ceased. A hundred-year period began, called in Turkish history the “era of stopping.” The influence of the Ottoman Empire in Europe began to decline. In the 17th century here it was opposed by already consolidated national states. The growth of national self-awareness of the Balkan peoples conquered by the Turks and their desire for independence created favorable opportunities for the formation of anti-Turkish coalitions. Created at the end of the 17th century. The "Holy League" consisting of Austria, Poland, Venice and Russia inflicted several defeats on the Turks. The Karlowitz Congress of 1698-1699, summing up the major territorial losses of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, meant the beginning of a new stage in Turkish history - the “era of retreat.”
The Chinese model of feudalism, despite the specific features that distinguish it from the Muslim world, was also characterized by a static social system, which led to the suppression of impulses of a new type of development. Scientists believe that the socio-economic development of China during the Ming era (1368-1644), which began after liberation from the Mongol conquerors, contributed to the formation of the necessary preconditions for capitalist evolution. Many technical discoveries were made in China earlier than in Europe. For example, when Portugal was just mastering the technology of building multi-masted ships, their production had been going on in China for several centuries. Private ownership relations became widespread in China (there was the right of inheritance of land property by the bureaucracy and landowners, and peasant hereditary lease).
At the beginning of the 17th century. In China, the process of land concentration in the hands of large landowners has especially intensified. Private manufactories became widespread, especially in silk weaving, cotton, porcelain, and iron production. In agriculture and handicraft production, hired labor was used. In state crafts and manufactories, a partial abolition of the labor system began.
At the same time, the hypertrophied development of the state and its intervention in the economy became an obstacle to the formation of a new, capitalist system of relations. Imperial power in China, despite its despotic nature, was a “softer” option compared to the Muslim model. Civil power in China dominated over military power. Fearing the strengthening of the role of the military elite as a result of China's naval expeditions in the 15th century, the civilian bureaucracy achieved restrictions on military operations and expenditures and set a course for isolating the country.
Despite the presence of money circulation and elements of a market economy, the Chinese economy was distributive in nature. Through the tax system, the state distributed the surplus product in its favor. The state monopoly on many goods (salt, tea, silk, porcelain, iron, etc.) and on trade with foreigners contributed to the fact that production continued to be oriented towards the creation of consumer values rather than goods. Under such conditions, the bureaucracy could enrich itself without ideological and technical innovations, and without military expeditions.
The ideology of Confucianism, with its focus on honoring rank and observing traditions, also had a limiting effect on the development of the new system of social relations. In such a cultural and psychological environment, it was impossible to achieve an increase in social status by acquiring wealth as a result of private entrepreneurial activity.
The deep crisis of the Ming Empire at the end of the 16th-17th centuries, caused by the aggravation of internal contradictions and attacks from 1618 by the Manchu tribes, led to an acute struggle not only within the ruling class, which manifested itself in palace coups, but also to mass armed uprisings of townspeople and peasants. In northern China, peasant uprisings merged into the Peasants' War (1628-1645), which led to the overthrow of the Ming Dynasty. In such a situation, part of the feudal elite, resorting to the help of the Manchu tribes in defeating the uprisings, contributed to the seizure of China by the Manchu conquerors and the rise to power of the Manchu Qing dynasty, which existed in China until 1911.
A social structure different from the traditional East has developed in Japan. Here, throughout the Middle Ages, the mechanism of central despotic power was not formed. On the contrary, a differentiation of secular (shogunate) and spiritual (emperor) power developed. The establishment of the shogun's power over the entire country at the end of the 14th century. meant the rise of the military-feudal class as opposed to the old aristocracy led by the emperor. The compromise between these two forces was expressed in the partial preservation of the ownership rights to the land of the aristocracy and temples and in the nominal preservation of the imperial dynasty.
From the end of the 15th century. In Japan, the consolidation of feudal property began. The average feudal land tenure is being replaced by large ones - principalities. The strengthening of their power led to the weakening of central power. Scientists see at this stage of development the closeness of the Japanese and Western European models of feudalism, which is confirmed by the absence of a strong centralized power, the nature of the dependence of the peasants on the feudal lords, the establishment of full or limited self-government of a number of cities, and the emergence of the Buddhist sect Ikko, professing a rationalistic philosophy.
Acute social conflicts of the 15th-16th centuries. testified to the presence of social groups ready to support the transition to new system relationships. The largest uprisings at this time took place under the banner of the Ikko sect, whose activities represented the Japanese version of religious reformation. The social support of the Ikko sect were broad layers of the strengthening middle peasantry, who fought for the legalization of their rights to the land, as well as part of the small and middle feudal lords and the clergy.
As in Europe, the increased separatism of the Japanese princes led to a period of severe internecine wars. The further growth of the social division of labor, the development of cities, and the intensification of social struggle dictated the need to unite the principalities and create a single centralized government. Emerging in the first half of the 16th century. tendencies towards the unification of the country resulted in a powerful unification movement that ended at the beginning of the 17th century. with the rise to power of the Tokugawa shogun dynasty, which ruled Japan until 1867.
However, the process of unification of the country was accompanied by the strengthening and partial renewal of feudal orders in relation to the new level of development. The principalities became administrative and economic units. A system of strict control over the princes was established to prevent their conspiracies. A strictly regulated system of four classes (samurai, peasants, artisans and merchants) was introduced. Peasant unrest was brutally suppressed. During the cadastral census of land, peasants were assigned to the land. Taxes were established by law, alienating the peasants from 40% of the harvest and more. Free cities were deprived of their rights, control over cities, internal and foreign trade. The development of trade and usurious capital was limited, and the activities of the merchants were regulated.
The Europeans also began to cause concern for the Japanese authorities. Appeared in Japan in the middle of the 16th century. (in 1542 - the Portuguese) conducted mainly intermediary trade in goods from Asian countries. But Europeans, fulfilling a missionary role, from the end of the 16th century. began to spread Christianity in Japan, which met resistance from the Buddhist church, which supported the central government. Seeing in such activities the danger of foreign invasion, the Japanese government in the 30s. XVII century introduced a policy of self-isolation of Japan from the outside world. Foreign ships (with the exception of Dutch and Chinese) were prohibited from entering Japan.
Despite the fact that the measures taken led to the suppression of new development impulses, the very fact of the country’s unification, the cessation of civil strife, and certain agrarian reforms led to noticeable economic growth. But at the turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries. The decline of feudal Japan began.
Thus, if in the West in the 16th-17th centuries. technological progress is observed, the formation of a new type of economy and social relations, then in the East there is ultimately a slowdown in socio-economic development, despite a similar or even higher initial level of development of the productive forces. The reasons for the differences lie in the political, ideological and sociocultural environment. The absence in the East of some institutions and trends similar to European ones does not indicate a lag, but the characteristics of the Eastern type of society. The socio-political structure and spiritual-psychological atmosphere in the eastern countries not only did not favor the creation of a new type of economy, but also constantly blocked the impulses of new development, which slowed down the social division of labor and technical progress. Eastern society, due to the complete control of the bureaucracy, interested only in its own reproduction, was unable to create new social strata independent of the central government.
13. The main stages of the formation of the Moscow centralized state and their characteristics briefly
Stage 1.
The rise of Moscow (late XIII - early XIV centuries). By the end of the 13th century. the old cities of Rostov, Suzdal, Vladimir are losing their former importance. The new cities of Moscow and Tver are rising.
Stage 2.
Moscow is the center of the fight against the Mongol-Tatars (second half of the 14th - first half of the 15th centuries). The strengthening of Moscow continued under the children of Ivan Kalita - Simeon Gordom (1340-1353) and Ivan II the Red (1353-1359). Battle of Kulikovo.
Stage 3.
Completion of the formation of the Russian centralized state (end of the 10th - beginning of the 16th centuries). The unification of Russian lands was completed under the great-grandson of Dmitry Donskoy, Ivan III (1462 - 1505) and Vasily III (1505 - 1533).
Ivan III annexed the entire North-East of Rus' to Moscow: in 1463 - the Yaroslavl principality, in 1474 - the Rostov principality. After several campaigns in 1478, the independence of Novgorod was finally eliminated.
Historians identify three main stages in the unification of lands around the Moscow Principality. (see appendix 2.)
1. The first stage of unification (the first half of the 14th century) is associated with the activities of the Moscow princes Daniil Alexandrovich (1276-1303) and Ivan Danilovich Kalita (1325-1340). Daniil Alexandrovich expanded the territory of his inheritance and achieved control over the Moscow River. In 1301 he occupied Kolomna. In 1302 he received the Pereyaslav inheritance according to his will. In 1303 Mozhaisk annexed Moscow. Under Yuri Danilovich (1303-1325), the Moscow principality became one of the most powerful in North-Eastern Rus', he was able to receive the label for a great reign. In 1325, Yuri was killed by the Tver prince Dmitry. The claims of the Tver princes become the main obstacle to the gathering of Russian lands around Moscow. Ivan Kalita managed to take Tver out of the political struggle. In 1328, he received a label for the Great Reign, achieved the abolition of the Baska system and took over the collection of Horde tribute from Rus'. As a result, Tatars did not appear in Rus' for 40 years, economic growth was ensured and economic conditions were created for unification and transition in the second half of the 14th century. to armed struggle against the Tatars. Ivan Danilovich acquired and annexed the Galician, Belozersk and Uglich principalities to Moscow.
2. The second stage of unification (second half of the 14th - first half of the 15th centuries) is associated with the activities of the Moscow prince Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy (1359-1389), his son Vasily I (1389-1425) and grandson Vasily II the Dark (1425-1462). At this time, there was an awareness of the need for unification, the creation of a strong unified state and the overthrow of the power of the Mongol-Tatar khans. The main success in the reign of Dmitry Ivanovich was the first major victory over the Tatars on the Kulikovo Field on September 8, 1380, which marked the beginning of the process of overthrowing the Tatar yoke. For this victory, Dmitry was named Donskoy. After the battle, Moscow was recognized as the center of the emerging unified state. The son of Dmitry Donskoy, Vasily I, managed to strengthen the position of Moscow as the center of Russian lands. He annexed the Nizhny Novgorod, Murom, Tarusa principalities, and some possessions of Veliky Novgorod. Further unification and liberation of the Russian lands was slowed down by the brutal princely civil strife of the second quarter of the 15th century, called the feudal war. The reason for it was a dynastic conflict between the princes of the Moscow house. After the death of Dmitry Donskoy's son Vasily I, his 9-year-old son Vasily and brother Yuri Dmitrievich became contenders for the throne. According to Donskoy's will, after the death of Vasily I, the throne was supposed to pass to Yuri Dmitrievich, but it was not specified what to do if Vasily had a son. The forces in the ensuing struggle were not equal: Yuri was known as a brave warrior, a builder of fortresses and temples, and the guardian of the 9-year-old boy was the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas. The death of Vytautas in 1430 freed Yuri's hands.
Post-Mongol Rus' remained within the boundaries of the civilizational choice made by Prince Vladimir. The combination of basic elements that make up its civilizational identity has not undergone significant changes. The Moscow state, which overcame the pre-Mongol political fragmentation and became centralized, retained its commitment to the Christian faith and continued to try to combine it with force, the use of which was not mediated or limited by law. Not in the sense that the law was not used at all in ordering life. On the contrary, the scope of its action, compared to the Kyiv period, expanded significantly and began to extend not only to relationships between private individuals, but also to the state responsibilities of different groups of the population - elite and grassroots. Nevertheless, the state itself and its institutions remained outside the scope of legal regulation, and in those isolated cases when regulatory norms appeared, as in the case of vesting legislative powers in the Boyar Duma, they were not immune from being violated. Therefore, in relation to the Moscow statehood, it is right to assert that it, like the Kiev one, was in some kind of intermediate pre-civilizational state: having retained the borrowed faith and strengthened in it, it turned out to be little susceptible to another basic state-forming element - legality, without which the acquisition of civilizational quality is impossible.
However, corrections of civilizational choice can also occur in a pre-civilization state. And such corrections were carried out in Rus' in the Mongol and post-Mongol periods. They concerned the limits of the use of force, the subjects who can use it, the religious justifications for these limits, and the powers of these subjects. They also concerned the institutional design of force, as well as its organizational and technological support.
Innovations were determined by the increasing pace of centralization, the search for a form of government that corresponded to this centralization, and came mainly from the Mongols. Not because they imposed anything (as we have already noted, they imposed very little), but because they borrowed from them. And not so much during their rule, but after they were freed from it. In turn, this kind of borrowing was accompanied by a revision of the Byzantine religious component of the domestic power model, while simultaneously emphasizing the successive spiritual connection with Byzantium and the continued borrowing of individual elements of its political experience. Finally, something specifically Russian was introduced into this Mongol-Greek synthesis, which neither the Greeks nor the Mongols had. As a result, a hybrid and completely original proto-civilizational quality arose, which predetermined the development of the country for centuries to come.
The origins of this new quality were the Novgorod prince (and then the Grand Duke of Vladimir) Alexander Nevsky. The essence of the civilizational choice he made was to combine the Orthodox Christian faith with greater power than the Russian princes had - with the power of the Golden Horde. The grandson of Vladimir Monomakh and the grandfather of Ivan Kalita was destined to build a civilizational bridge from Kievan Rus to Moscow.
9.1. Pivot to Asia
Nevsky's bet on an alliance with the Horde was not his personal choice. This was the choice of the northeastern princes - the Vladimir table during the Mongol invasion was occupied by Alexander’s father Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, who recognized himself as their tributary. The question they faced was not whether to choose independence or loss of sovereignty. The question was in whose favor to give up sovereignty: the Mongols, Lithuanians, Poles or the Livonian Order. North-Eastern Rus', not without hesitation and struggle between Yaroslav's successors, chose the Mongols. Southwestern Rus' - western neighbors. Hence - two fundamentally different lines of political behavior, manifested in the activities of two contemporaries - Alexander Nevsky and Daniil Galitsky.
The first, Alexander Nevsky, not only opposed the West and fought with it (border clashes with the Germans and Swedes, which were later elevated to the rank of fateful victorious battles), but in his confrontation he made a strategic bet on the Mongols. Nevsky rejected the alliance proposed by the Pope (1248) for a joint fight against them. He was extremely consistent in his choice. His reprisal against the Novgorodians who opposed the Tatars and forcing them to pay tribute, leading the Mongol army against his brother Andrei, who ruled before Nevsky in Vladimir and was oriented to the West, fleeing to the Horde during the anti-Tatar uprising (1262) - all this indicates that the Russian prince viewed his power over the Russian lands as a projection of the power of the Horde, and the power of the Horde as the main source of his own strength.
Daniil Galitsky was not and could not be as consistent. The idea of an alliance with the West, to which he was inclined, was much more difficult to implement politically than becoming the governor of the Horde. Such a union meant recognition of the supremacy of the Catholic Church over the Orthodox Church and concessions in matters of faith, which the Galician-Volyn prince would like to avoid. Nevertheless, unlike Nevsky, he himself began to seek help from the pope, promising him church union, i.e. actual submission to Catholic Rome, in exchange for a European crusade against the Tatars. He accepted the royal title from the pope, established allied relations with the growing Principality of Lithuania, which was still pagan at that time, and invited colonists - Germans, Poles, and Hungarians - to his lands. This was a fundamentally different strategy than in the northeast, which Nevsky actively and purposefully opposed.
The civilizational choice of the Vladimir-Suzdal princes resulted in the centralized Moscow statehood maturing in the Mongolian “incubator.” The choice of Daniil Galitsky in the long term led and led to the entry of most of southwestern Rus' into Lithuania, which developed outside of Mongol tutelage. The Russian people were formed on the territory of Vladimir-Suzdal Rus'. On lands that were not under the rule of the Horde› the Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples were formed.
As in all other cases, we are not going to evaluate historical figures of that era, believing that this is an unproductive matter. In hindsight, we can say that Alexander Nevsky had the opportunity to enter into an anti-Tatar alliance with Danil Galitsky, as his already mentioned brother Andrei tried to do. It is not without foundation that it was the rejection of such an alliance and, accordingly, the alliance with the pope that caused a decline in interest in Russian problems in the West. However, we do not dare to judge what would have happened and what the overall historical result would have been if Nevsky’s choice had been different. And because no other choice could be supported by the Russian Church, which favored the tolerant Mongols and was kind to them. And because we don’t know how the West would behave in this case. After all, the pope still failed to help Daniil Galitsky, although he converted to Catholicism. No one responded to his calls to European monarchs for help to their eastern neighbor: the Galicia-Volyn principality had to endure several devastating Tatar raids and abandon the confrontation with the Horde.
Nevertheless, the fact remains: after the Mongol invasion, South-Western Rus' took the first step towards European civilization, and North-Eastern Rus' - away from it. But this is the only thing that can be stated with confidence. The question of whether it could have been different and what could have been different is hardly correct, because there is obviously no answer to it. Forecasting the past, unlike forecasting the future, is meaningless because in the first case, unlike the second, the forecast cannot be verified by life.
We believe that the different political and civilizational strategies chosen by Alexander Nevsky and Daniil Galitsky were largely dictated by the difference in the initial states of the two principalities and the traditions that developed in them. The princely-boyar model, which was formed in South-Western Rus', gravitated towards European feudalism and its inherent legal and contractual regulators. The idea of extra-legal and supra-legal power, embodied in the Horde type of rule, did not find any ground here. The Galicia-Volyn Principality did not fit into the Mongol order, it fell out of it.
In the presence of an influential and ambitious boyars, the prince could not transfer the Horde method of rule to his principality. To do this, it was necessary for the Mongols to be nearby, so that their strength was constantly present as an additional power factor. However, the Mongols were far away. Under such circumstances, agreeing to submit to the Horde and pay tribute to it was tantamount to weakening the position of the prince in his confrontation with the boyars. These positions would be weakened by the very fact of its dependence on external power, its political lack of self-sufficiency. Therefore, Daniil Galitsky decided to offer the pope a church union: he was ready to partially sacrifice his faith for the sake of maintaining the already achieved civilizational quality, which was expressed in the established principles of the feudal legal order. And he probably invited colonists to his principality for the same reason: he hoped to expand the Western civilizational enclave in Southwestern Rus', thereby ensuring the thoroughness and irreversibility of his choice.
We consider it necessary to make a reservation: we are talking about an emerging trend, and not about an established new quality. The movement of Southwestern Rus' towards the legal type of feudal relations in that era was not yet completed. Moreover, even in its completed form, the princely-boyar model that was taking shape there did not ensure entry into the Western civilizational state in the foreseeable future. This is evidenced by the subsequent experience of other Eastern European countries.
In the period of interest to us, the rights of land owners were already guaranteed there, their rights in relation to the princely or royalty- Same. But these countries did not know the struggle between feudal lords and cities, which was destined to play almost a fateful role in the history of Western Europe. Therefore, absolute monarchies will not arise in them, which in the West have done significant work to universalize the principle of legality, extend it to all segments of the population and strictly enforce it.
The history of Eastern Europe has shown that the dominance in the economic and political life of the feudal class with the relative weakness of the cities is not accompanied by either rapid dynamic development or a solution to the problems of the lower classes - in Eastern Europe, as in Rus', the peasants became enslaved at a time when their liberation began in the West. With such dominance, strong statehood does not arise, because power turns out to be completely dependent on land owners. So when we talk about the development of southwestern Rus' in the pre-Mongol and Mongol eras, we mean only the civilizational vector of this development and its incompatibility with the vector that was set by the Horde.
In North-Eastern Rus', nothing similar happened at the time of the Mongol invasion. The landowning boyars did not play here the role that they played in the South-West, and contractual legal relations between the prince and the prince could not arise: events developed in the opposite direction. The murder of Andrei Bogolyubsky slowed down the movement towards sole princely power that he had forced, but did not stop it.
And if you look at the choice of Alexander Nevsky under this point of view, the choice itself will be clearer.
Yielding to an obviously superior force, the Russian prince became the governor of the colonialists. But fulfilling the functions assigned to him did not require abandoning the model of power that was emerging in North-Eastern Rus'. On the contrary, the position of the prince in the subject territory was strengthened. It was a concession of sovereignty in exchange for autocracy.
A different choice, in the spirit of Daniil Galitsky, was tantamount to rejecting the political tradition that was being formed in Vladimir-Suzdal Rus'. Alexander Nevsky, who reigned in Novgorod, could learn from his own experience what the contractual legal limitation of princely power was, its dependence on the will of the people and the landowning boyars. Western feudalism and its Galician-Volyn Russian version were perceived by him, most likely, as variations of Novgorod rule, which was completely alien to the Vladimir-Suzdal princes.
Frictions and conflicts between Novgorod and the princes of North-Eastern Rus' began long before Ivan III. They began in the pre-Mongol period. These were clashes between the Novgorod political traditions and new political trends, breaking through the historical channel in the Vladimir-Suzdal principality. It was a confrontation between the principles of legality and supralegal force. Alexander Nevsky chose between them after the Tatar invasion. In his time, it was a choice between Europe and Asia. The Russian prince preferred Asia. This did not imply either a rejection of the principle of supralegal force (on the contrary, it sanctioned its uncontrolled use) or compromises in the area of faith. Feudal-urban Catholic Europe would most likely demand both in exchange for an alliance against the Mongols.
What has been said, however, still does not say anything about what it was like civilizational the content of Nevsky’s choice, which was then confirmed by the policies of his successors and followers. New Rus' was formed under the Mongols, but not like the second edition of the Golden Horde, and the point is not only that its most important civilizational element (religion) was different from that of the colonialists - at the time of the conquest of Rus' they were pagans, and then they accepted Islam. The fact is that Rus', being tributary Horde, that's why she couldn't become her a copy. And she did not repeat Byzantium, although she borrowed a lot from her. The Russian civilizational project was largely new and original. But its originality is difficult to grasp without taking into account those cross-Mongol-Byzantine influences under the influence of which it was formed.
9.2. Russian project
We have already noted that the main components of this project, as in Kievan Rus, were strength and faith, with the auxiliary role of law, which served as an instrument in the hands of the state, but not as a way of organizing it. However, after almost two and a half centuries lived under Tatar rule, and the fall of Byzantium, the interpretations of both components could not help but change. As a result of such changes, the new Russian project - in its Moscow incarnation - became a reality.
First, let's try to understand how the Horde experience was refracted in him. Naturally, in this case we cannot talk about faith, which the Mongols had a different faith. We can only talk about the force factor.
In pre-Horde Rus', the total military power of the Rurikovichs was dispersed among individual princes, politically and administratively independent from each other. In post-Horde Rus' there was only one center of power, and the Russian sovereigns had the opportunity to use it monopolistically and arbitrarily. In this regard, the influence of the Mongol experience, mastered by several generations of Moscow princes when they played the role of Mongol governors, is beyond doubt.
In pre-Horde Rus', the use of power resources of princely power was limited by the freedom of the warriors, their right to move from one prince to another. In post-Horde Rus', all these resources were subordinated to the sovereign: the liberties of the military class were a thing of the past, and lifelong service to the sovereign became mandatory for him. Such a rigid attachment military force One could, of course, learn how to gain supreme power not only from the Mongols. But the experience of the Mongols could be observed directly, and the Moscow rulers probably received, by visiting the Horde, additional incentives to transform the boyar squads into a centrally controlled army, and the free warriors into subjects obliged to serve.
In pre-Horde Rus', the possibilities of using force to expand territory were virtually exhausted. The princes fought mainly among themselves or fought off steppe nomads. The individual principalities did not have the strength to expand beyond the borders of Kievan Rus, and their unification under the generic principle of rule was impossible. In post-Horde Rus', forceful imperial expansion resumed: along with the former Russian territories that were conquered from Lithuania, lands inhabited by non-Orthodox peoples began to be annexed (Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, Siberia, an attempt to capture Livonia). And this, it is possible, was also not without the influence of the Mongols, for whom force directed outward for the sake of access to new resources was a natural way of existence, and it was used to subjugate not only (and not so much) individual tribes, but also state communities. Meanwhile, the pre-Mongol Russian princes could ruin and rob the state-organized Jews-Khazars or Muslims, but did not try to include their territories into Rus' or turn them into its permanent tributaries.
In pre-Horde Rus', the actions of the princes did not show an attitude towards what much later came to be called victory at any cost. In post-Horde Rus', such an attitude appeared. The use of force has become tantamount to the use of a significant numerical superiority in force, without regard for casualties. Or, to put it differently, it is equivalent to human costs. But this is exactly how the Mongols acted, for which there were reasons. In the Eurasian steppe, inhabited by many Turkic nomadic peoples, the mindset of winning at any cost opened up the prospect of a significant increase in power. Here human losses were not important, because after the victory over the enemy and the destruction of his hereditary elite, the entire mass of ordinary warriors joined the army of the winners, and this new replenishment usually exceeded any losses. Muscovite Rus' could not use a man-intensive force strategy with the same success - its opponents, as a rule, were not the same as those of the Mongols. But she would use it, primarily in the Livonian War, establishing a tradition that has survived to this day.
In pre-Horde Rus' there were no such organizational and technological tools capable of ensuring the functioning of a centralized state, such as a unified taxation system and postal services. In post-Horde Rus', such a system and such a connection (Yamskaya) already existed, and Moscow inherited them from the Mongols.
Finally, in pre-Horde Rus' there was no Russian autocracy, which in post-Horde Rus' became the political embodiment of the principle of supra-legal power: in the autocracy this principle took on a state form. Mongolian influence is beyond doubt in this case. It, of course, was not advertised, and perhaps was not clearly recognized. But in politics, as in everyday life. Borrowing someone else's experience is not always recognized, even when conscious, not to mention the fact that very often it occurs on a subconscious level. And if, after the collapse of the Horde, the Mongols so willingly entered Russian service in small numbers, eventually becoming a noticeable part of the Russian elite, this means that they did not have any special problems with adaptation. They found themselves in a political and cultural environment that differed little from the one from which they came.
The idea of unlimited autocratic power had, of course, not only Tatar, but also Russian, as well as Byzantine roots. In pre-Mongol times, the patrimonial prince also combined in one person the functions of a political ruler and owner of the territory. But, firstly, there were many such princes at that time, and, secondly, their capabilities were limited by the liberties of the boyars and squads. As for the Byzantine emperors, their autocracy was mediated, at least formally, by Byzantine legality inherited from Rome, which included the right to private property. Nevertheless, the Russian autocracy, being an unplanned product of the Golden Horde, emphasized its continuity with the Byzantine emperors. Because the second basic element of the Russian civilizational project was of Greek origin.
Muscovite Rus', universalizing in the Mongolian manner the application of the principle of force and institutionalizing this principle in an autocratic form of government, remained an Orthodox Christian country. Ideologically and culturally, it was connected not with the Horde, but with Byzantium. The unadvertised borrowing from the Mongols of the idea of supra-legal and uncontrolled force was legitimized by the Greek faith. Therefore, the self-identification of Moscow statehood was initially carried out by emphasizing continuity with Byzantium and continuing to borrow symbolic capital from it.
The double-headed eagle, which became the Moscow coat of arms, appeals to the legend about the transfer of the signs of royal dignity by the Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomakh to the Kiev prince Vladimir Monomakh, the Byzantine ceremony in the Kremlin, the very marriage of Ivan III to Sophia Palaeologus - all this indicated that there was no other source of legitimation of power than Greek tradition, Moscow The sovereigns did not see it at first. But they could not help but be aware that the Byzantine model had a significant flaw. It was not an example of a lasting synthesis of faith and strength. It was, on the contrary, an example of the surrender of faith to the power of the Gentiles represented by Ottoman Turks. Hence, perhaps, attempts to trace the genealogy of the Rurikovichs not to Byzantine emperors, and to the Roman Caesars (the chronicle legend that the first Russian prince was allegedly a descendant of Prus, the brother of the Roman Emperor Augustus). But from here comes the Moscow revision of Orthodoxy in those aspects that were directly related to the legitimation of political power and the justification of its powers.
The Russian civilizational project arose at the intersection of the Horde and Byzantine traditions and was the result of their synthesis. But, we repeat, he did not reproduce any of them literally, subjecting them to significant corrections. Let's see how these adjustments to traditions manifested themselves. Let's start with the Byzantine.
It has already been said above that the autocracy and sovereignty of the sovereign were justified in Muscovite Rus' through appeals to Old Testament texts. From them came the idea of an omnipotent and unpredictable God in his actions, whose unlimited power was transferred to the Russian Tsar as God's vicegerent. Such a transfer did not fully correspond to the spirit and letter of the Old Testament, but this did not bother Moscow ideologists and the rulers who assimilated their ideas, just as they were not embarrassed by the fact that in the New Testament the very image of God is presented somewhat differently. But all this had nothing to do with the Greek interpretation of Orthodoxy.
In addition, attempts to comprehend the fall of Byzantium, which the Orthodox faith did not help to resist the Turks, led to the proclamation of faith as a lower spiritual authority compared to the truth. The latter was declared the highest criterion allowing one to evaluate the sincerity and authenticity of faith and the conformity of people's behavior to it. In turn, the Moscow sovereign was declared the supreme bearer and guardian of this truth. We can say that the correction of the civilizational choice of the Kyiv prince Vladimir, carried out in Muscovite Rus', consisted precisely in supplementing faith with truth and elevating the second over the first.
Metropolitan Hilarion of Kiev, who exalted grace over the Law, thought and wrote in the spirit of the New Testament. In Muscovite Rus', similar ideas developed by “non-covetous” people (Nil Sorsky and his followers) quickly became oppositional and were discarded. But - not in favor of the law, but in favor of pagan pre-law, embodied in the unlimited supra-legal power of the autocratic totem. Thus, Byzantine religious doctrine was adapted to justify and legitimize the power model borrowed from the Golden Horde.
However, this model has also undergone significant correction. Muscovy could not become either a second Byzantium or a second Horde.
The Mongol Empire was the product of centuries of existence of steppe nomads and ancient eastern civilizations. Having captured a significant part of China and the Central Asian states, the Tatars borrowed from the conquered peoples and mastered what they saw as meaning for themselves - military and administrative technologies. The result was an extremely durable and effective fusion of imperial and barbarian traditions. He allowed the Mongols to create a system of life support and enrichment at the expense of conquered peoples and control over transit trade routes. Producing economic activity is not expected in a system of this type. In it, all men are warriors and only warriors. Therefore, its historical period is determined by the possibility of new conquests - as soon as such possibilities are exhausted, the system begins to disintegrate. The Golden Horde was no exception in this regard.
The formation of a militaristic statehood in the conditions of such management was ensured thanks to the creation of a special “estate”, which was endowed with the rights of conditional ownership of the sovereign’s land in exchange for their military service. The natural consequence of this was the attachment of peasants to the land with the assignment of responsibilities for maintaining the service class. The tribute that the Mongols took from strangers, in this case, was imposed on their own, who also had to pay state taxes.
In itself, this method of organizing military force and its life support was not, however, original. It was used in many early monarchies, and by the time of the liberation of Rus' from the Mongols, such a system existed in the Ottoman Empire, where ownership of land estates (timars) was also subject to compulsory military service. We do not know whether Moscow consciously borrowed the Turkish experience or whether paying for military service with land and peasant labor was its own invention. It is only known that the victory of the “infidel” Ottomans over the co-religious Byzantium led to the close attention of Moscow ideologists to Turkey and became one of the incentives for the Russian exaltation of truth over faith. But, be that as it may, it is wrong to consider the Russian civilizational project as a simple reproduction of the Turkish one. And not only because ideologically it was illuminated by Orthodoxy, and not Islam. The point is also that the Russian project assumed a different type of militarization.
Militarization of a way of life can be different. It can be carried out in the Mongolian manner, when all men are warriors. It can be combined with a producing economy, when the latter largely works for the army and war, as was the case in Turkey and Rus'. But even in this case, the depth of militarization, the degree of its penetration into daily life and the degree of her submission to this life are not necessarily the same.
The all-powerful Ottoman Empire, which had not known defeat for a long time, waged wars on foreign territories, annexing them to itself alone after another, and rapidly grew rich - both due to military spoils and thanks to the rapid development of its economy, which was ensured, among other things, by strong Turkish positions on maritime trade routes. Therefore, the militarization of everyday life remained in Turkey way of organizing life without undermining the foundations of peaceful lifestyle, without bringing anything extraordinary or extreme into it. In Muscovy, this was not the case.
Post-Mongol Rus' also sought and carried out military expansion. But, firstly, with incomparably less success and not without severe defeats. Secondly, it had to not only attack, but also defend: constant threats from Crimea created a situation in relation to which the metaphor of a “besieged fortress” sounds more appropriate than in relation to the situation in Stalin's USSR. That’s why there was militarization in Muscovy mobilization, virtually eliminating the boundaries between war and peace. This is the main feature of the post-Mongolian Russian project and, if you like, its uniqueness: borrowings from other projects and original interpretations of what was borrowed were combined in it with a special, unique mobilization component. It determined not only the deep penetration of the militaristic principle into the way of life, but also the consolidation of this principle in the cultural genotype, which, in turn, determined in the future the possibility of the emergence of such a figure as Peter I. In the Ottoman Empire, such a ruler did not appear and, rather, everything could not appear. But in the same - and a manifestation of the civilizational lack of self-sufficiency of the Moscow project and all its incarnations: general mobilization can be carried out to achieve military or other goals, but cannot be an end in itself.
Naturally, this project was not recognized and was not put forward as strategic. Its individual components were formed gradually, under the influence of external challenges and the state system gaining its own historical inertia. But that, What was formed and was also an application for a new socio-political and cultural dimension, for a “special path”. In this and only in this sense, it seems correct to us to talk about the Russian civilizational project.
Like all its imperial counterparts, it was a First Axial Age project focused on extensive development through territorial accretion. But, unlike these analogues, he was imperial-defensive. Therefore, perhaps, its imperial component, clearly manifested in expansionist political practice, has not yet acquired that universalist (“axial”) ideological design that usually accompanies globalist claims and ambitions.
Moscow did not feel confident enough for such claims and ambitions. Having synthesized strength and faith in her own way, she could not help but take into account the fact that she did not have enough strength even for defense, and faith, even within the country, had to be strengthened by supplementing it with truth. Including because the trials that befell the faith and fellow believers outside of Muscovy did not at all testify to its (the faith’s) self-sufficiency.
The Golden Horde disintegrated and was defeated, but Orthodox Byzantium was also defeated. Moreover, almost the entire Orthodox world was under Catholic or Muslim rule. An alarming feeling of universal loneliness did not leave Rus' throughout the Moscow period. Outwardly imperial, but devoid of imperial pathos, the formula “Moscow is the Third Rome” is a reaction to loneliness and uncertainty, their ideological compensation: Rus' is the only one who managed to preserve genuine faith in a world mired in sin. Therefore, only she is destined for salvation, only she will enter the Kingdom of Heaven after the imminent Second Coming. But this eschatological formula, coming from church circles, was not able to resolve the issues facing politicians.
They could not help but take into account that the main enemy - the Catholic West, as well as the Protestant West that was emerging before our eyes - not only resisted, unlike the Orthodox world, the Muslim military pressure, but began to confidently increase its power. The Livonian War of Ivan the Terrible is the first attempt to test the strength of the Moscow alloy of strength and faith in confronting the West and to provide Rus' with access to European cultural and civilizational resources. The attempt clearly demonstrated: this alloy is powerless in the western direction. Internal terror, which became a response to military defeats, and the country’s descent into general turmoil under the influence of the destructive consequences of the oprichnina indicated that the Russian civilizational project turned out to be unrealizable and, at the very least, needed new serious corrections.
Brief summary. Historical results of the second period
The results of a country's development in a given era are measured by the extent to which it managed to ensure stability in combination with dynamic development, its ability to respond to external challenges, its place and role in the world. Guided by these criteria, let's try to summarize everything said above about the times of Muscovite Rus'.
First, about what the figures of that era managed to achieve and what historical problems they solved. Of course, we are talking only about the tasks that they set for themselves.
1. The main result was the creation of a centralized domestic statehood, united around a new center - Moscow. The fragmentation into principalities, characteristic of the previous period, is a thing of the past, and political consolidation of the space has occurred. The archaic tribal principle of exercising power was overcome, and legitimate procedures were established and became customary to ensure its continuity. This statehood, slowly forming under Mongol rule, was strong enough to lift the country out of colonialism and ensure its sovereignty.
Typologically, it represented a new, original political entity. Unlike Western absolutist-monarchist analogues, the Moscow state emerged in the absence of a feudal contractual legal environment, developed trade and craft urban centers and a national market. Unlike the Mongol Empire, which lived on tribute from conquered peoples and income from trade transit, it was based on its own producing economy. Being, like the Byzantine state, Christian-Orthodox, it, unlike the Byzantine state, did without legally fixed private property rights and a professional bureaucratic apparatus.
Within the Moscow period, domestic statehood revealed its weakness and found itself on the verge of collapse during the Time of Troubles. But the turmoil simultaneously revealed its viability, and subsequent centuries - its ability to develop on its own basis and assimilate cultural and civilizational borrowings. Not the least role in this was played by the militaristic tradition established under the Moscow Rurikovichs, which involved building a way of life according to the army model and the use of military mobilization methods in solving non-military problems.
2. Some previous forms of sociocultural split were historically overcome. Orthodox Christianity consolidated the state community, contributed to the formation of state identity and, accordingly, the spiritual and religious prerequisites for a basic consensus. The abstraction of a single Christian God became emotionally charged with the idea of the unity of the country, which took the consciousness of people beyond the boundaries of their local worlds and introduced into it the image of a large society.
This was not yet a massive assimilation of the abstraction of the state. It is only legitimate to say that the Orthodox faith, in the specific conditions of Mongol colonization, contributed to the transformation of pre-state culture into different pre-state. Another thing was that culture, while remaining alien to rational abstraction, was enriched by a sense of belonging to a community incomparably broader than the local one, a community that included all co-religionists. The consolidation of broad sections of the population in 1612 around Minin and Pozharsky (or, what is the same, consolidation in the face of the threat of loss of religious identity emanating from Catholic Poland) would have been impossible without this.
3. The elimination of the collective-tribal principle of power and the elimination - in the Mongol era and the first post-Mongol Decades - of veche institutions testified to the overcoming of previous manifestations of the sociocultural split at the institutional level, which was accompanied by the consolidation of a previously fragmented political space. The bipolar model of power (prince - veche), transferred from the pre-state state to state life, was replaced by a unipolar model (unity of the Moscow sovereign). The veche, being a “superfluous” institution in a centralized state, naturally left the political scene along with the princes autonomous from the center.
However, in Muscovite Rus' it is also beginning to be realized that the authoritarian unipolar model needs legitimate management mechanisms that would ensure its functioning. Attempts to use local elected bodies to implement state functions (judicial, police, fiscal), the beginning of the convening of Zemsky Sobors are the first experiences in the history of the country of connecting the second pole to the unipolar model, but without vesting it with independent powers. These were not the beginnings of local self-government and representative democracy in the modern sense. These were attempts to compensate for the weakness and small number of the bureaucratic apparatus by assigning national tasks to representatives elected by the population and to strengthen the intra-elite consensus when the government encountered difficulties. But these first "democratizations" laid down a tradition that would play a role in later periods. national history.
4. If the state apparatus was not formed locally in the period of interest to us, then in the center it was gradually created. A whole network of departments (“orders”) arose with dismembered functions (foreign policy, military, financial, etc.). The specialization of management was still very shallow, the professionalization of officials was extremely undeveloped, their work was not regulated by rules and procedures and was paid, with rare exceptions, not by the state, but by the population to whom the officials provided services. But this does not negate the fact that in post-Mongol Rus' a state bureaucracy arose, which did not exist before.
Another new institution that was absent in previous periods was the Russian army. It was not yet regular; it was staffed only in case of war from service “classes” specially designed for its conduct - the old boyar class and the newly created noble class. However, unlike the princely squads, the army was subordinate to one power center, and military service was no longer determined by free choice and became an obligation. Its fulfillment was ensured by the fact that military service was conditional on land ownership, not only on noble estates, but also on hereditary boyar estates. Gradually, this theme of conditional land ownership will be complemented by the enslavement of peasants, who will be entrusted with the livelihood of those obliged to serve.
The implementation of such changes required changing the role of the law and expanding the area of its application. In Muscovy, unlike Kievan Rus, he began not only to regulate the property relations of private individuals and establish penalties for various crimes, but also to determine the emerging state responsibilities of certain groups of the elite and the population. For the first time, the subjects of legislation (the sovereign and the Boyar Duma) were also legally designated, which was, of course, a step towards the universalization of the principle of legality. However, in practice, this step, and with it the principle of legality as such, was disavowed by the established autocracy of Ivan the Terrible.
The system of allocation of civil and military state duties that developed in post-Mongol Rus' was effective for some time and within certain limits. It allowed Moscow to win several military victories and become a strong and influential international player in the region. And Muscovy remained so until the crushing defeats in the Livonian War. These successes were also achieved due to the fact that the Moscow statehood discovered, again within certain limits, the ability to borrow and assimilate foreign achievements - primarily in the field of military technologies.
5. During the Moscow period, the country’s movement along the extensive path of development was resumed. Its main sources were the export of raw materials and expansion of territory. During this period, it increased many times - both as a result of the reconquest of the former lands of Kievan Rus from Lithuania, and thanks to the annexation of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, as well as a significant part of Siberia. Thus, post-Horde Moscow set the imperial vector for the further historical evolution of the country. Or, to put it differently, the vector of its development in the first axial time, in which the country regained its subjectivity after the loss of the latter during the period of the state collapse of Kievan Rus and Mongol colonization.
The fall of Byzantium, the center of world Orthodoxy, opened up for Moscow the prospect of combining imperial political practice with imperial universalist ideology. And this new perspective was realized, albeit in the specific form of God’s chosenness for salvation. However, subsequently the formula “Moscow – the Third Rome”, which recorded this 6th choice, which appeared in addition to imperial practice and even before it, will be combined with it and become its ideological justification. The claim of the “Third Rome” to be chosen by God is transformed into a claim to master the Second Rome, i.e. Constantinople, which was under the Turks.
This task will prove insurmountable. Nevertheless, the imperial model, the contours of which emerged under the Moscow Rurikovichs, will ensure the reproduction of domestic statehood and its international weight for several centuries. But this model was as strong as it was fragile, and therefore not immune from catastrophic collapses.
The first of them will happen at the beginning of the 17th century and will be a consequence of the unresolved problems that turned out to be a stumbling block for Moscow rulers. These problems were partly due to the incompleteness of the post-Mongol centralized statehood. But among them there were also those who, while preserving this model and any of its transformations, were not solved at all.
Let's fix both of them again.
1. The dynastic-tribal principle of power, replaced by the dynastic-family principle in relation to the first person of the state, was preserved in the near-power boyar layer of Moscow Rus'. The former princes, who owned individual territories and then moved to Moscow, continued to view Rus' as their collective patrimonial fiefdom, which they had the right to govern together with the sovereign. Their claims were embodied in the practice of localism, which made the occupation of government positions dependent on the nobility of origin and the official status of their ancestors. This practice, on the one hand, prevented the promotion of the most capable people, and on the other hand, it blocked the consolidation of the boyars, making them powerless in the face of the arbitrariness of the autocratic power that was being formed in post-Horde Rus'. But this created a situation in which the intra-elite basic consensus regarding the understanding of the common interest could not gain stability. His instability, hidden for the time being, revealed itself during the period of military defeats and was expressed in the total distrust of the personification of the general interest in the entire princely-boyar and church elite. It was then that the conflict initially inherent in the Moscow statehood emerged between the principle of individual autocratic rule, which tended towards arbitrariness, and the aristocratic principle, which presupposed guaranteed protection of the elite from such arbitrariness.
The fact that this statehood was able to survive after the horrors of oprichnina terror and the crushing defeat in the Livonian War testified to the overwhelming political and sociocultural superiority of the autocratic principle over the aristocratic one. But this statehood collapsed when the sacredness of the autocracy was shaken by the breakage of the dynastic branch. The latent conflict between the two principles resulted in a clash within the political elite itself between supporters of the unborn Boris Godunov, who gravitated toward autocracy (only this made him independent of the well-born) and adherents of the Rurikovich descendant Vasily Shuisky, who expressed their desire to insure themselves against autocratic dictatorship. As a result, Shuisky and the forces behind him placed their bets on the impostor, after which the unrest quickly spread downwards, turning from the top to the nationwide one.
Subsequently, the conflict between the two principles will be resolved: the autocracy will establish itself as unlimited in the adoption of laws and decisions, but will refrain from unmotivated tyrannical arbitrariness in relation to the elite. Therefore, this conflict itself can be considered a product of the historical inertia of the pre-Mongol and Mongol eras, and not a product of the Moscow state system. But at the same time, he clearly demonstrated its main property - its inability to cope with the coexistence of different subjects (there can only be one subject in it) and, accordingly, to the legal regulation of relations between them. Such inadaptability will not come back to haunt us soon, but its longevity will turn out to be one of the main reasons that determine the country’s unpreparedness for a legal order even when all non-legal alternatives to it have exhausted themselves.
The pre-Mongol period left behind a tradition of freedom unregulated by law. Moskovsky – the opposing tradition of lawlessness in unfreedom.
2. The sociocultural split that Muscovite Rus' inherited from the previous era was not completely overcome. Partially, it has been preserved on the political surface: localism is a new manifestation of pre-state tribal culture under the conditions of a centralized state. Yes, localism, as subsequent developments showed, turned out to be only the inertia of past experience and could be eliminated. But there were also deeper layers of archaism, which still had a very long – right up to our time – historical life ahead of them.
The state principle, embodied in the sacred personality of the first person and only in it, is not able to displace pre-state culture. Including because it itself relies on this culture, finding in it the main source of its legitimation. But the legitimation of the first person is not yet the legitimation of the state.
The “paternal” model of power, transferred by Moscow rulers from the patriarchal family to the level of large society, does not imply intermediate management links between the father and other household members, and excludes any hierarchy of power among the latter. Therefore, the legitimacy of the ruling class and the state apparatus in this model is not easy to ensure, regardless of how susceptible some of their representatives are to official abuses. The only way developed for this by world history is through the professional and cultural separation of the elite and bureaucrats, which did not exist in Muscovy. Hence the fragility of the basic consensus between the “tops” and the “bottoms”, their existence in a state of constantly reproducing split, which has repeatedly spilled out in popular unrest and which will bring down the state during times of unrest. And this won't be the last time. Because the preserved “paternal” model of statehood, based on the patriarchal component of pre-state culture, preserved that component that the state denies.
With a unipolar “paternal” model of power, as the practice of its use in Muscovite Rus' has shown, the second (people's veche) pole is not eliminated and cannot be eliminated. Pre-state veche institutions, deprived of political functions, cannot be integrated into a unipolar model. Attempts to make them a management tool of the central government, which took place during the Moscow period, cannot be considered absolutely unsuccessful, but they did not contribute to the elimination of the sociocultural split. The Cossack and peasant worlds, which burst into politics during the time of unrest, opposed the disintegrating statehood to the pre-state veche archaism with “their” king as its second pole. Their pressure will be stopped, but only for a while. If the unipolar “paternal” model is preserved, the split between state and pre-state culture cannot be overcome in principle.
3. The experience of post-Horde Rus' demonstrated that a sense of religious community consolidates the population only in relation to an external enemy and is quite compatible with the lack of internal consolidation. Single-pole "father" model statehood is not capable of overcoming such a state; it can only block its destructive potential. But - only if the first person is sacralized as a pagan totem. Or, to put it differently, if the first person in the name of God is endowed with unlimited supralegal power.
The combination of archaic patriarchal culture with Orthodox identity in post-Mongol Rus' led to the presentation of the pagan totem in the image of the Orthodox sovereign. But such a totem sovereign can turn from the only stronghold of statehood into its destroyer if his sacred status begins to look problematic - for example, in the event of military defeats. The terror of Ivan the Terrible, which laid the foundations for future unrest, demonstrated exactly this.
The preconditions for the Troubles are, of course, not yet the Troubles themselves, which broke out more than two decades after the death of Ivan the Terrible. But she also had another, no less significant, prerequisite. The power of a unipolar totem does not imply differences between the sovereign and the state. She assumes that this is the same thing, that the sovereign is the only embodiment of the state. But such a model is powerless before the end of the ruling dynasty: the disappearance of the “natural”, hereditary sovereign, which is perceived as the disappearance of the state, legitimizes the unrest.
After the turmoil and under the influence of its experience and its lessons, the dismemberment of the images of the king and the kingdom in the minds of people will begin. But it will happen slowly and will not be completed until today. The abstraction of the state cannot be mastered until the abstraction of the universal law is mastered. The experience of Muscovite Rus' is interesting and important because it was in it that a model of statehood arose that was unable to master the idea of legality and put it into practice. There were already such attempts under the Moscow Rurikovichs, there will be many of them in the future, but all were unsuccessful.
4. The synthesis of supra-legal power and the Orthodox faith that legitimized it, which ensured the formation of Moscow statehood, turned out to be effective only within certain limits. Failures in the Livonian War, the country's powerlessness before the devastating raids from the Tatar Crimea showed that the weakest link in this synthesis was strength. It was enough to defeat the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates. But it was not enough to fight wars in the West.
The new combination of power and faith, which took hold in centralized post-Mongol Muscovy, presupposed a uniquely deep militarization of the way of life of all segments of the population. This laid the foundation for a tradition that would later allow Peter I to carry out a militaristic modernization unprecedented at that time. This method of development can be considered as an application for an original civilizational project, but in the absence of its own civilizational quality and civilizational self-sufficiency. Because building everyday life according to the army model may have as its goal the achievement of military victories, but cannot give meaning to human existence in peace. However, the country will face this problem much later. In post-Mongol Muscovy, the militarization of the way of life did not guarantee the country from military defeats.
Muscovite Rus' found itself face to face with an insoluble problem of technological and organizational innovation. It was insoluble because the concentration of almost all natural and material resources in the hands of the state and the cultivation of the ideology and practice of “selfless service” of subjects to the sovereign excluded the legitimation of private interests and, accordingly, the activation and mobilization of personal resources and personal energy. The outbreak of military competition with the West, conditioned, among other things, by the need to break through to sea trade routes, required an attitude towards self-change, towards a qualitative cultural transformation “ human factor" However, no such directive was received from the authorities. She could not legitimize private interests - this was contrary to her nature, the fundamental foundations of her existence as a totem of power. But it could not yet impose forced modernization from above.
Because large-scale borrowings of Western culture (and not just individual technical achievements) also needed to be legitimized, i.e. combine with the pathos of Russian being chosen by God, which did not involve learning from people of other faiths. For this, at a minimum, a preliminary military victory over the Gentiles was necessary, but this was not achieved. Moreover, it was unrealistic to impose modernization on a country devastated by war and oprichnina after defeat. Even if a project for such modernization arose in the heads of the rulers.
Before Peter I began to implement it, a whole century of slow Westernization would pass, preparing the ground both for the modernization reform breakthrough and for the emergence of the reformer himself. But the reasons for the failure of the Moscow rulers are perhaps even more important to understand than the reasons for Peter’s future relative successes. After all, the latter will not solve the problem of innovation and its stimulation; it will only intensify their borrowing from other peoples and ensure their development using extremely tough methods. This very problem, which was then passed on like a hereditary code from generation to generation, was predetermined by Russian history during the period of Moscow Rus'.
5. The method of increasing resources that developed during this period doomed the country to chronic lag. Extensive farming on an ever-expanding territory did not ensure productivity growth, did not create sources of economic self-development and incentives for employee self-development. The potential of this type of evolution will be quite significant; in the future it will allow Russia to become a powerful military power and reproduce itself in this capacity for a long time. But, firstly, this reproduction will alternate with collapses and disasters. And, secondly, sooner or later this type of development exhausts itself.
Extensiveness is perhaps the most significant feature of the historical development of Russia, which largely predetermined all its other features. The Russian civilizational paradigm is a paradigm of extensive development and its use to ensure military-technological competitiveness in relation to the West. In Muscovite Rus' it was first tested under conditions of centralized statehood, but with a generally negative result. In the future, the results will be more impressive. But they will be achieved mainly thanks to the historical movement in the logic of the first axial time, in the logic of imperial development. And the accumulated imperial inertia doomed the country to lag behind as its neighbors moved from the first axial age to the second.
Russia, however, will not face these problems any time soon. Having emerged from the shocks of the turmoil and installed the new Romanov dynasty on the throne, it will begin a new large cycle of its historical existence. Over the course of three centuries, the country will develop in the first (imperial) axial period by borrowing from other countries the achievements of the second and mastering them. On this path, it will have to experience many victorious ups and downs, and at the end of it, slide into the third state disaster in its history.
The foreign policy of Kievan Rus was aimed at strengthening the state, protecting borders, developing trade and cultural ties with neighbors, and expanding territories. Obtaining additional resources through military campaigns. Rus' had broad economic and political ties with Europe. Relations with Byzantium occupied a special place. Relations with nomads were based on the refusal of territorial acquisitions. The sedentary agricultural and urban life of Rus' was incompatible with the nomadic culture. Therefore, the borders with the steppe were strengthened, their raids were repelled, pre-emptive strikes were carried out, etc.
The level of development of Russian culture was very high. The famous English philosopher F. Copleston dates the origin of philosophical thought to the period of Kievan Rus, to the 11th century. The origins of philosophical culture are associated with the outstanding religious and philosophical work “The Sermon on Law and Grace.” Its author was Metropolitan Hilarion of Kiev, the first Russian metropolitan. He writes: “For what is written in other books and known to you, to state here is empty insolence and a desire for glory. After all, we are not writing to the ignorant, but to those who have been abundantly saturated with the sweetness of books...”, which undoubtedly testifies to the high culture of the Russians. Education in the ancient Russian state was developed quite widely thanks to international relations, especially with Byzantium. A significant amount of spiritual and secular literature has reached us - sermons, teachings, “Lays”, the pearl of world literature “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, etc. Extensive libraries arose at princely palaces and monasteries. Chronicle writing began to develop. In the 11th century, the Old Russian alphabet was improved and the Cyrillic alphabet was established. The works of foreign authors penetrate into the country, they are translated into their native language, rewritten and distributed. Literacy was widespread, and not only among the aristocracy. The princes and boyars knew foreign languages.
So, in Kievan Rus, the prerequisites were formed for the transition to a progressive path of development, close to the ancient one. But still, Rus' is not Ancient Greece. The most important problem of the relationship between the individual and society was resolved in favor of the collective.
The Kiev state began to disintegrate at the end of the 11th century. Many sovereign lands-principals arose: by the middle of the 12th century - fifteen, by the beginning of the 13th century there were already about fifty. The unified ancient Russian state disappeared. There was no single center of power. The process of fragmentation of the large early medieval state was natural and was determined by the following reasons: the development of feudal relations, the settling of warriors on the land, the insufficiently strong state principle, the movement of world trade to the Mediterranean Sea, the loss of Russia's former role as a mediator between the Asian, Greek and European worlds, the devastating raids of nomads on southern Russian lands, which caused an outflow of population to the northeast, the development of productive forces (the growth of cities). Europe also experienced a period of disintegration and fragmentation, but then national states arose in it. It can be assumed that ancient Rus' could have come to a similar result.
Fragmentation weakened the overall military potential, and strife devastated the population. At the same time, cities grew rapidly at this time and art flourished. The foundations of economic unity were laid, subsistence farming was destroyed, and craftsmen switched to working on the market. Usury appeared and contributed to the accumulation of capital. In conditions of fragmentation, the prerequisites for unification on a new basis - economic, cultural, political - were maturing. A national state could have arisen here, but development in the Russian lands went differently.
The 13th century became a turning point in the history of Ancient Rus'. In 1237, the Mongol-Tatars appeared within Russian borders, and with them - the death of people, the destruction of the economy and culture. However, the danger came not only from the East, but also from the West. The strengthening Lithuania, the Swedes, Germans, and Livonian knights were advancing on Russian lands. Fragmented Rus' was faced with the problem of self-preservation and survival. She found herself, as it were, between two millstones: the Tatars ravaged the Russian lands, the West demanded the adoption of Catholicism. Earl Birger from the famous Folkung family undertook two crusades against Northwestern Rus'. In this regard, the Russian princes could make concessions to the Horde to save lands and people, but actively resisted Western aggression.
The Mongol-Tatars, like a tornado, swept through the Russian lands, appeared in Hungary, Poland, then went to the lower reaches of the Volga, making crushing raids from there, collecting heavy tribute. During this period, the southwestern lands of Rus' came under the rule of Poland (Galich), pagan Lithuania (Minsk, Gomel, Kyiv) - they sought to escape the Mongol devastation and preserve their type of development.
The Principality of Lithuania appeared in the 40s of the 13th century and grew rapidly. In the 14th century it included Lithuania, Zhmud and Russian lands. In its heyday, this principality stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea, from the borders of Poland and Hungary to the Moscow region. Nine-tenths of the territory of Lithuania were Russian lands. Thus, the West and South-West of Rus', where the formation of Little Russia and Belarus took place, existed much longer under the conditions of the European tradition and had deeper roots of a progressive type of development. The Russian population of Lithuania called their state Rus; within Lithuania, Rus developed in accordance with its traditions (the institution of the veche can be traced back to the second half of the 15th century).
The political and financial situation of Rus' within Lithuania was favorable: cities developed, the largest received Magdeburg law. Russian laws and language dominated in Lithuania for a long time. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania emerged as a federation of individual lands and principalities, in which the lands were provided with significant autonomy. The Principality of Lithuania was built on the principles of vassalage, the corporate structure of society was destroyed, and a class structure took shape in its place. In 1386, Catholicism began to be established in Lithuania. The adoption of Christianity in the Catholic version tied Lithuania to the West.
Thus, in the West, under the auspices of first pagan, and from the end of the 14th century Catholic Lithuania, the development of Russian lands continued in accordance with progressive trends. The formation of the Belarusian and Ukrainian ethnic groups began in these lands. Their self-awareness was formed under the influence of the socio-political and cultural situation in Lithuania and Poland, under the influence of anti-Catholic sentiments. The threat of Polonization and Catholicization of the population stimulated people's awareness of a community based on Orthodoxy. Such was the situation in the southwestern Russian lands under conditions of fragmentation and the Mongol invasion.
Northwestern Rus' found itself in a different situation. The large Slavic center Novgorod developed relatively independently and demonstrated closeness to the European type of development, especially during the period of the Novgorod Republic (late 11th-15th centuries). Novgorod was not subjected to the Tatar-Mongol invasion, although it paid tribute. If Ancient Rus' showed a closeness to antiquity and perished like the Greco-Roman world, then Novgorod developed at the same pace as Western Europe of that time and was part of it. We can say that the Novgorod Republic was an analogue of the city-republics of the Hanseatic League, Venice, Florence, and Genoa. Already in the 12th century, Novgorod was a large trading city, known throughout Europe.
Novgorod had developed forms of republican democracy: political rights had not only the nobility, but also the common people. The Veche (people's assembly) is the highest body of power, it considered issues of domestic and foreign policy, invited princes, elected officials (the mayor, who was in charge of administration and court, the thousand, who headed the militia, who maintained public order. The Veche elected the court for trade matters, and was also the Supreme court.Parts of the republic had self-government based on the community principle.
The princes did not have state power and were invited to Novgorod to perform the following functions: protection from enemies, maintaining foreign economic and political relations, participating in court together with the mayor, collecting tribute. To prevent abuse of power, the prince was prohibited from owning property. Therefore, the princes changed often: in 200 years (1095-1304) 40 princes changed.
The church in Nizhny Novgorod was also independent and differed in position from other Russian lands in its isolation. From 1156 they themselves began to elect a spiritual shepherd (previously the Metropolitan of Kiev had sent a bishop), and only after that the elected bishop went to Kyiv for initiation. The Orthodox Church has never known such a democratic order; it was close to the Protestant tradition. In the XIV-XV centuries, Novgorod was the source of heresies that shook Orthodoxy. Much earlier than reformist sentiments appeared in Novgorod in the West. After the fall of Novgorod, the Church Council of 1504 decided to eradicate heresy.
A class of owners was emerging in Novgorod and the Pskov Republic. Since the 11th century, Novgorod has been turning into a metropolis: Karelia, Podvinia, and Northern Pomerania were colonies; Pechersk and Ugra lands were developed. Novgorod played the role of a trade intermediary between East and West.
Let us note that Novgorod was a city of high Culture, where literacy was widespread. This is evidenced by birch bark letters found by archaeologists. It is interesting that both men and women were literate, and love correspondence was conducted. Under pressure from both the West and the East, the republic sought to maintain its independence. Of great importance in this struggle was Prince Alexander Nevsky, who pursued a flexible policy of concessions to the Golden Horde and led active resistance to the Catholicism of the West. S. Soloviev wrote: “The preservation of the Russian land from misfortune in the East, significant feats for faith and land in the West brought Alexander Nevsky a glorious memory in Rus'.” However, the Novgorodians themselves had Westernizing sentiments and condemned Nevsky for making concessions to the Golden Horde.
Such was the situation in the second major center of Russian lands during the period of feudal fragmentation. The Novgorod Republic lasted almost until the end of the 15th century, and only with the strengthening of the Moscow state did the loss of independence by Novgorod become more and more noticeable.
The third major center of this period was the North-Eastern lands. Their colonization began around the 10th-11th centuries. The area between the Volga and Oka rivers was inhabited by peoples of the Finnish group: Merya, Ves, Muroma, etc. Most of them became Russified. The mixing of the Slavs with the Finns marked the beginning of the formation of the Russian people - the Great Russians. They differed from the Slavs of Kievan Rus both in appearance and in their way of life (they had round faces, with soft features, lived not in the steppes, but in forests, etc.). Changes also occurred in the mentality of the Slavs, in their perception of the world, in their attitude towards nature, etc. Commitment to Orthodoxy was preserved against the backdrop of pronounced pagan traditions.
However, the Mongol-Tatar factor had an even greater influence on the formation of the Russian people. The question of the influence of the Mongols has always worried Russian society. There are two directly opposite points of view on this matter:
1. The Mongol-Tatar invasion brought ruin to economic life, death of people, but did not significantly affect the life of the Russians and their statehood. This is the opinion of Solovyov, Klyuchevsky, Platonov, and a number of Soviet historians. Its essence is that Russia developed along the European path during the Mongol-Tatar invasion, but began to lag behind due to human losses and destruction.
2. The Mongol-Tatars had a great influence on the social organization of Russians and on the formation of the Moscow state. Karamzin, Kostomarov, and Zagoskin adhered to this idea. In the 20th century, it was developed by Eurasians, who considered the Moscow state to be part of the Mongol Khanate.
Where is the truth? The Mongol-Tatar invasion had a detrimental effect on the state of the Russian lands; they were thrown back centuries. In the XII-XIII centuries there were 74 cities in Rus', 49 of them were devastated by the Mongols, and 14 were never restored to life, and 15 cities were turned into villages. The population declined: thousands died, thousands were taken prisoner. All this speaks in favor of the first point of view. In addition, Rus' fell into political and economic dependence on the Horde. The Russians paid tribute in silver, the princes received the label for reign only from the hands of the Mongol Khan. These last facts lead to the conclusion that Rus' was part of the Golden Horde, which confirms the second position. Sources indicate that with the disintegration of the Golden Horde, which began in the 11th century, Rust gradually took over the management of its lands, and a number of Tatar Murzas and princes went into the service of the Moscow prince.
However, there are arguments refuting this hypothesis:
· Yasa (code of laws) of Genghis Khan was not in effect on Russian lands, no special laws were created for Rus', their own legal norms were in force there.
· The Mongols did not create their own dynasty in Rus' and did not eliminate the Russian princes. There was also no permanent governor. In fact, there was no control of Russia by the Golden Horde; it was in the hands of the Russian princes, and the Grand Duke maintained contacts with the Mongols.
· Russians have retained their spiritual foundation - Orthodoxy. First, the pagan and then the Muslim Golden Horde did not insist on a change of faith.
Thus, there is no reason to say that during the period of the Mongol-Tatar invasion, North-Eastern Rus' was an integral part of the Horde, although the political and economic dependence of Rus' and the Mongol-Tatar influence on the formation of the Russian people and the Moscow state are undoubted. The very fact of domination and the atmosphere of violence for two and a half centuries had an adverse effect.
The Mongol-Tatar yoke was overthrown in 1480 during the reign of Ivan III. At the same time, feudal fragmentation in Rus' ended and a unified Russian state was created.
LITERATURE
1. Gumilyov L.N. Rhythms of Eurasia: eras and civilizations. M.: Ecopros, 1993.
2. Same. From Rus' to Russia: essays on ethnic history. M.:Ekopros, 1994.
3. Zamaleev A.F., Ovchinnikov E.A. Heretics and orthodoxies. Essays on Russian spirituality. L.: Lenizdat, 1991.
4. Klyuchevsky V.O. About Russian history. M.: Education, 1993.
5. Platonov S.F. Lectures on Russian history. M., 1993.
6. The Tale of Bygone Years. Materials for practical classes on the history of the USSR. M., 1979.
7. Presnyakov A.E. Princely right in ancient Rus'. Lectures on Russian history. M.: Nauka, 1993.
8. Soloviev S.M. Essays. Book 1. M., 1988.
9. Grekov B.D. Kievan Rus. M., 1949.
10. History of Russia: people and power. St. Petersburg, 1997.
11. Karamzin N.M. History of Russian Goverment. M., 1991.
12. Klyuchevsky V.O. Works in 9 volumes. M., 1989.
13. Kostomarov N.I. Russian history in the biographies of its main figures. M., 1993.
14. Nikolsky N.M. History of the Russian Church. M., 1983.
15. Rybakov B.A. Kievan Rus and Russians Principalities XII-XIII centuries M., 1993.
16. Semennikova L.I. Russia in the world community of civilizations. M., 1994.
17. The World History. V.24 vols. T.8. Crusaders and Mongols. M., 1999.
CONTROL QUESTIONS
· What are the most important areas of discussion on the issue of Russia’s place in the world? historical process? Is Russia an independent civilization?
· What are the main versions of the origin of the Slavs? Since when can we talk about the formation of the Slavic ethnic group? What were the main occupations of the Slavs, their social structure, religion?
· Characterize the main versions of the formation of the Old Russian state. Which one do you prefer and why?
· Old Russian society exhibited tendencies characteristic of contemporary Western civilization. How did this manifest itself?
· What played a decisive role for Rus' in turning to the religious experience of Byzantium and in accepting Christianity? What is the significance of the baptism of Rus', what are the historical consequences of this event?
· Highlight the features of the social structure of Kievan Rus, its socio-economic system. In what historical document were they reflected?
· What were the goals of the foreign policy of Kievan Rus?
· Give arguments in favor of the fact that the level of culture in Rus' was quite high.
· What were the historical reasons for the feudal fragmentation of Kievan Rus?
· What historical factors created the problem of civilizational choice for Rus' in the 13th century? What large centers emerge under conditions of feudal fragmentation? What are the features of their political and social structure?
· What are the points of view on the influence of the Mongols on the formation of the Russian people and their statehood?
