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Royal Ancestors
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Kievan Rus
INTRODUCTION
The formative
centuries of the Russian state are perhaps best divided into
three main periods; the era of Kievan Rus from its roots in the
ninth century to the Mongol invasion of 1237-1240; a century of
Mongol dominance from 1240 to c. 1340, during which Kievan
traditions and structures lost their potency and the Rus
principalities adapted to Mongol or Tatar suzerainty; and the
period from c. 1340 to the mid-fifteenth century, when the
foundations of the new state of Muscovy were laid.
The lands that made
up Kievan Rus were located in the forst region of Eastern Europe
along a group of rivers, the Dnieper, the western Dvina, the
Lovat Volkhov, and the Volga, the headwaters of which all
emanate from the Valdai hills. They were populated mainly by
Slavic and Finnic tribes. The members of those tribes supported
themselves, to some degree, by fishing, hunting, and gathering
fruits, berries, nuts, mushrooms, honey, and other natural
products in the forest around their villages. But the Slavs
were primarily agriculturalists. In natural forests clearings
or in those they created by the slash-and-burn method, they
typically cultivated one or more cereal grains and also raised
livestock as well as supplementary crops such as peas, lentils,
flax or hemp.
Although each tribe
followed its own leaders and worshiped its own set of gods, they
interacted with one another, at times exchanging goods, at
others fighting one another. The more adventurous among their
members transported the valuable goods their societies produced
to the markets of distant neighbors – Bulgar on the mid-Volga,
the Khazar capital of Itil at the base of the Volga, and the
Byzantine outpost of Kherson on the coast of the Cromean
peninsula. There they exchanged their goods for oriental finery
and, most conspicuously, silver coin.
The transformation
of these tribes into the state of Kievan Rus is shrouded in
uncertainty. Legends and literature recorded much later,
archeological evidence, and the notations of foreign observers,
however, suggest that by the early ninth century Scandinavian
adventurers (known variously as ‘Varangians’ and ‘Rus”) had
entered the Slav lands. Primarily attracted by the silver at
the Volga market centers, they plundered Slav villages and
carried their booty to the same markets that the Slavs
themselves had visited. In the course of the ninth century the
Varagians protected its own group of Slavs from competing
Scandinavian pirates in exchange for regular tribute payments.
Those stable relationships were mutually beneficial. The Slavs
were relieved of the sporadic, violent raids, while the armed
Rus bands received regular supplies of goods used in their
exchanges for silver and oriental luxury products. Gradually,
the Rus leaders acquired the character of princes, and the Slav
populace became their subjects.
According to a
legend in the Primary Chronicle compiled during the eleventh and
early twelfth centuries, one of the first Rus princes was called
Rurik. The legend states that Rurik and his brothers were
“invited” by Slav tribes to rule their lands. Tribes that
dwelled in the general vicinity of the Lovat and Volkhov rivers
and the lands to their east had ejected previous Scandinavian
protectors, but then became embroiled in warfare among
themselves. Unable to reconcile their differences, the
chronicler explained, they called upon Rurik in 862 to restore
peace and rule over them.
Rurik, the legends
continue, survived his two brothers to become sole ruler until
his own death in 879 or 882. A regent, Oleg, then ruled on
behalf of Rurik’s young son Igor. After Oleg’s death in 912,
Igor ruled until 945; a tribe called the Drevliane killed him
after he attempted to collect more than its standard tribute
payment. Igor’s wife, Olga, assumed the regency and took
cunning revenge upon her husband’s murderers. Their son,
Sviatoslav, claimed his father’s place in 962.
By that time the
realm of the Rurikid clan had expanded substantially. According
to the chronicle, the tribes subject to the Rurikids had
increased to include Krivichi, the Poliane, and the Drevliane.
The Rurikids, furthermore, had taken command of the Dnieper, a
major commercial artery. From the vantage-point of Kiev they
could control all traffic moving towards the Black Sea, the
Byzantine colony of Kherson, and towards the sea route to the
Don river and the Khazar Empire. Oleg in 907 and Igor, less
successfully in 944, conducted military campaigns agains
Constantinople, which resulted in treaties permitting the Rus to
trade not only at Kherson, but at the rich markets of
Constantinople itself, where they mingled with merchants and had
access to goods from virtually every corner of the known world.
Sviatoslav continued
to expand is father’s domain. He first subdued the Viatichi,
who inhabited lands along the Oka and Volga rivers and had
previously paid tribute to the Khazars, and in 965 he launched a
campaign against the Khazars themselves. His venture led to the
collapse of their empire, subsequently, the destabilization of
the lower Volga and the steppe, a region of grasslands south of
the Slav territories. Although he did rescue Kiev from the
Pechenegs in 968, Sviatoslav devoted most of his attention to
establishing control over lands on the Danube river. Forced to
abandon the project by the Byzantines, he was returning to Kiev
when he was killed by the Pechenegs in 972.
Shortly after
Sviatoslav’s death his son Iaropolk became prince of Kiev, but
conflict erupted between him and his brothers. After one died
in battle against him, another, Vladimir, fled from Novgorod,
the city he governed, to raise an army in Scandinavia. Upon his
return in 980, he first engaged the prince in Polotsk, one of
the last non-Rurikid rulers of the East Slav tribes.
Victorious, Vladimir married the prince’s daughter and added the
prince’s military retinue to his own army, with which he then
defeated Iaropolk and seized the throne of Kiev. Vladimir also
subjugated the Radimichi, and in 985 attacked the Volga Bulgars;
the agreement he subsequently reached with the latter was the
basis for peaceful relations that lasted for a century.
Over the two
centuries following Vladimir’s death in 1015, Kievan Rus became
an amalgam of principalities, whose number increased as the
dynasty itself grew. The Rurikid dynasty also converted to
Christianity and thereby provided it with a uniform religious
and cultural framework. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam had
long been known in these lands, and Olga had personally
converted to Christianity. When Vladimir assumed the throne,
however, he set idols of Norse, Slav, Finn, and Iranian gods,
worshipped by the disparate elements of his society, on a
hilltop in Kiev in an attempt to create a single pantheon for
his people. As the Rurikid dynasty and Christian clergy
displaced tribal political and spiritual leaders, their
political and religious-cultural structures transformed the
conglomeration of East Slav tribes into a dynamic and
flourishing state.
The dynastic system,
however, also encouraged co-operation among the princes when
they faced crises. Concerted action was prompted particularly
by the Polovsty, another population of Turkic nomads that moved
into the steppe and displaced the Pechenegs in the second half
of the eleventh century.
The political
organization of the Ruriks also contributed to repeated dynastic
conflicts over succession to the throne of Kiev.
Russia
During
the pre-Christian era the vast territory which became Russia was
sparsely inhabited by groups of nomadic barbarian tribes, many
of which were described by the Greeks and Roman writers. In the
comparatively unknown north, a region of great forests, dwelt
tribes later known collectively as the Slavs, the ancestors of
most of the modern Russian people. Far more important was the
south, where th Crimean peninsula and the open steppes,
considered part of an indeterminate region known to the ancient
world as Scythia, was occupied by a succession of Asiatic
peoples including, chronologically, the Cimmerians, Scythians,
and Sarmatians. In these early times, East Slavic tribes and
their neighbors coalesced into the Christian state of Kievan
Rus. Its ruling Riurikid dynasty oversaw increasing political
complexity, territorial expansion, economic growth, and frequent
warfare, but was defeated by Mongol invaders. During the
ensuing Mongol era a junior dynastic branch extended its
authority and laid the foundation for a new state – Muscovy.
Ruler/Ancestor |
Born |
Reign |
Died |
Rurik |
|
862-882 |
|
Igor |
|
912-945 |
|
Svyatoslav |
|
962-972 |
|
St. Vladimir I |
|
978-1015 |
|
Yaroslav I "The Wise" |
|
1019-1054 |
|
Vsevolod I |
|
1078-1093 |
|
Vladimir Monomakh II |
|
1113-1125 |
|
Mstislav II |
|
1168-1169 |
|
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