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Kyivan Rus

The invasion of the Tartars in the middle of the thirteenth century took place when Russia was torn asunder by two kindred and yet hostile branches of the house of Rurick: the younger branch had settled in the northern (at the present time the middle) part of the country; the elder, after many struggles and reverses, had succeeded in regaining its inheritance, the ancient metropolis Kieff, and the whole of the southern principalities. Both branches bore a revengeful remembrance of their mutual feuds, and while the elder viewed with jealousy the gradual rise of the northern princes, the latter envied the firm grasp with which the southern princes clutched their long disputed sway. Hence it came that, when hordes of Tartars overran the northern principalities, the princes of the South lent no ear to the entreaties of their northern brethren for help. Hence, also, the reason of these latter remaining inert and submissive to their recent conquerors, the Tartars, when those conquerors laid waste the fertile territories which extended along the south of Russia.

Soon afterwards, the trans-Carpathian parts of Russia, Red Russia, i.e., Galicia, Lodomeria, &c., ceased to be any longer accounted as forming part of Russia. The marshy tracts of land to the east of Poland, White Russia, formed a new and distinct power, Lithuania, soon destined to merge into Poland. The north of Russia, Great Russia, had yet two centuries more to endure the yoke of the Tartars. At this time Southern or Little Russia, called also Ukraine (i.e., the borders), gave birth to a new people, the Cossacks.

Long before the appearance of Kievan Rus', Iranian and other peoples lived in the area of the present-day Ukrainian Republic. The most famous of these were the Scythians (ca. 600-200 B.C.), whose stylized animal jewelry can be seen in museums throughout the world. From A.D. 100 to 900, Goths and nomadic Huns, Avars, and Magyars passed though this region but left little of lasting import. More significant was the simultaneous spread of the East Slavs, who were agriculturists and beekeepers, as well as hunters, fishers, herders, and trappers. The East Slavs demographically dominated the region.

Little is known of the origins of the Slavs. Philologists and archaeologists have surmised that they settled very early in the Carpathian Mountains or in the area of the present-day Belorussian Republic. By A.D. 600, they had split linguistically into southern, western, and eastern branches. The East Slavs settled along the Dnepr River and its tributaries and then spread northward to Lake Ladoga and the Neva River Basin, northeastward to the northern Volga River region, and westward to the northern Dnestr and western Bug river basins. In the eighth and ninth centuries, many of the East Slavic tribes paid tribute to the Khazars, a Turkic-speaking people living in the southern Volga and Caucasus regions.

By the ninth century, Scandinavian warriors and merchants, called Varangians, had penetrated the East Slavic regions. According to the earliest chronicle of Kievan Rus', a Varangian named Rurik first established himself in Novgorod around 860 [862?] before moving south and extending his authority to Kiev. The chronicle cited Rurik as the progenitor of the Rurikid Dynasty. This princely clan was to rule in eastern Europe until 1598. Another Varangian, named Oleg, moved south from Novgorod, expelled the Khazars from Kiev, and founded Kievan Rus' ca. 880. In a period of thirty-five years, he subdued the various East Slavic tribes. In 907 he led a campaign against Constantinople, and in 911 he signed a commercial treaty with the Byzantine Empire on the basis of equality. The new state prospered because it controlled the trade route stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and because it had an abundant supply of furs, wax, honey, and slaves for export. Historians have debated the role of the Varangians in the establishment of Kievan Rus'. Most Russian -- and particularly Soviet -- historians stressed the Slavic influence in the development of the state. Although Slavic tribes had formed their own regional entities by 860, the Varangians undoubtedly accelerated the crystallization of Kievan Rus'.

Kiev dominated Kievan Rus' for the next two centuries. Vladimir's choice of Eastern Orthodoxy reflected his close political ties with Constantinople, which dominated the Black Sea and hence the Dnepr River trade. His decision had long-range political, cultural, and religious consequences. The Eastern Orthodox Church had a liturgy written in Cyrillic and a corpus of translations, which had been produced earlier for the South Slavs. This literature facilitated the conversion to Christianity and introduced East Slavs to rudimentary Greek philosophy, science, and historiography without their having to learn Greek. In contrast, educated people in medieval western and central Europe learned Latin. East Slavs learned neither Greek nor Latin and thus were isolated from Byzantine culture as well as from the culture of their European neighbors to the west.

The unfortunate state of Russia was rendered worse by the appearance of the Polovtzee, the Comanes of the Byzantine, a nomadic nation who arrived from the deserts of Central Asia, and encamped in the country extending northward from the shores of tho Black Sea and that of Azoff, about the middle of tho llth century. These nomadic people made continual inroads into tho territories of the Russian princes, but were also frequently employed by them as auxiliaries in their internal and foreign wars.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the princes and their retinues -- a mixture of Varangian and native Slavic elites plus small Finno-Ugric and Turkic elements -- dominated the society of Kievan Rus'. Leading warriors and officials, who sometimes constituted an advisory council, or duma, received income or land from the princes in return for their services. The society of Kievan Rus' did not develop class institutions, the concept of legal reciprocity, or autonomous towns, all of which characterized Western feudalism. Nevertheless, urban merchants, artisans, and laborers sometimes exercised political influence through a popular assembly, or veche. In some cases, the veche either made agreements with princes or expelled them and invited others to take their places. At the bottom of society was a small stratum of slaves. More important were tribute-paying peasants, who gradually came under the influence of the Orthodox Church and landlords. As in the rest of eastern Europe, the peasants owed labor duty to the princes, but the widespread personal serfdom characteristic of western Europe did not exist in Kievan Rus'.

Kievan Rus' was not able to maintain its position as a powerful and prosperous state. Many factors contributed to its decline, among them its being an amalgamation of disparate lands held together by a ruling clan. As the descendants of Rurik multiplied, they identified themselves with regional interests rather than with a larger patrimony. The princes fought among themselves, frequently forming alliances with Polovtsians, Poles, Hungarians, and others. The decline of Kievan Rus' was further accelerated by a shift in European trade routes resulting from the Crusades. The sacking of Constantinople in 1204 by the Crusaders made the Dnepr trade route marginal. As it declined, Kievan Rus' splintered into many principalities and several large regional centers. The people inhabiting the regional centers evolved into several nationalities: Ukrainians in the southeast and southwest, Belorussians in the northwest, and Russians in the north and northeast.

In the north, Novgorod prospered because it controlled trade routes from the Volga River to the Baltic Sea. As Kievan Rus' declined, Novgorod became more independent. It was ruled by a town oligarchy, and major decisions, including the election or dismissal of a prince, were made at town meetings. In the twelfth century, Novgorod acquired its own archbishop -- a sign of its importance and its political independence. In its political structure and mercantile activities, Novgorod, which became a republic in 1136, resembled the north European towns of the Hanseatic League more than the other principalities of Kievan Rus'.

During its fragmentation, Kievan Rus' faced its greatest threat from invading Mongols. An army from Kievan Rus', together with the Turkic Polovtsians, met a Mongol raiding party in 1223 at the Kalka River. The army of Kievan Rus' and its Polovtsian allies were soundly defeated. A much larger Mongol force overran much of Kievan Rus' in the winter of 1237-38. In 1240 the city of Kiev was sacked, and the Mongols moved on to Poland and Hungary. Of the principalities of Kievan Rus', only the Republic of Novgorod escaped the invasion; it did, however, pay tribute to the Mongols. One branch of the Mongols withdrew to Sarai on the lower Volga River and established the Golden Horde. From Sarai the Golden Horde Mongols controlled Kievan Rus', ruling indirectly through its princes and tax collectors.

The impact of the Mongol invasion was uneven. Some centers, Kiev for example, never recovered from the devastation of the initial attack. The Republic of Novgorod continued to prosper unscathed, and a new entity, the city of Moscow, flourished under the Mongols. Although a Russian army defeated the Golden Horde at Kulikovo in 1380, Mongol domination of territories inhabited by Russians, and demands for tribute from Russian princes, continued until about 1480. In the early fourteenth century, however, Lithuania pushed the Mongols from territories inhabited by Ukrainians and Belorussians and claimed these lands. The Lithuanians accepted the Ruthenian language (Ukrainian-Belorussian) as the state language and maintained the judicial and administrative practices of Kievan Rus'. The grand duke of Lithuania became a contender for the political and cultural heritage of Kievan Rus'. Ultimately, the traditions of Kievan Rus' were superseded by Polish influences in Lithuania.

Historians have debated the long-term impact of Mongol rule on Russian and Soviet society. The Mongols have been blamed for the destruction of Kievan Rus'; the breakup of an old "Russian" nationality into Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Russian components; and the introduction of "oriental despotism" to Russia. But most historians have agreed that Kievan Rus' was not a homogeneous political, cultural, or ethnic entity and that the Mongols merely accelerated its breakup, which had begun before the invasion. Nevertheless, modern historians have tended to credit the Mongol regime with a very important role in the development of Muscovy as a state. Muscovy, for example, adopted its postal road network, census, fiscal system, and military organization from the Mongols.

Kievan Rus' left a powerful legacy. Under the leadership of the Rurikid Dynasty, a large territory inhabited by East Slavs was united into an important, albeit unstable, state. After the acceptance of Eastern Orthodoxy, Kievan Rus' was united by a church structure and developed a Byzantine-Slavic synthesis in culture, the arts, and traditions. In the western part of this area, these traditions helped form the Ukrainian and Belorussian nationalities. In the northeastern periphery of Kievan Rus', these traditions were adapted to form the Russian autocratic state.