Russian principalities- a period in the history of Russia (from the 12th to the 16th centuries), when the territory was divided into destinies headed by the princes of the Rurik dynasty. Within the framework of Marxist theory, it is described as a period of feudal fragmentation.
Review
From its very beginning, Kievan Rus was not a unitary state. The first section was made between the sons of Svyatoslav Igorevich in 972, the second - between the sons of Vladimir Svyatoslavich in 1015 and 1023, and the descendants of Izyaslav of Polotsk, having become outcasts for Kyiv, stood out in a special dynasty already at the beginning of the 11th century, as a result of which the Polotsk principality was earlier others separated from Kievan Rus. However, the beginning of the division into principalities proper is considered to be the division of Rus' by Yaroslav the Wise in 1054. The next important step was the decision of the Lubech Congress of Princes “everyone keeps his fatherland” in 1097, but Vladimir Monomakh and his eldest son and heir Mstislav the Great, through seizures and dynastic marriages, were able to once again put all the principalities under the control of Kyiv.
The death of Mstislav in 1132 is considered to be the beginning of a period of feudal fragmentation, but Kyiv remained not only a formal center, but also a powerful principality for several more decades, its influence on the periphery did not disappear, but only weakened in comparison with the first third of the XII century. The Kyiv prince continued to dispose of the Turov, Pereyaslav and Vladimir-Volyn principalities and to have both opponents and supporters in each region of Rus' until the middle of the century. The Chernigov-Seversk, Smolensk, Rostov-Suzdal, Muromo-Ryazan, Przemysl and Terebovl principalities and the Novgorod land separated themselves from Kyiv. Chroniclers began to use the name for the principalities land, which previously designated only Rus' as a whole (“Russian land”) or other countries (“Greek land”). The lands acted as independent subjects of international relations and were ruled by their own Rurik dynasties, with some exceptions: the Kiev principality and Novgorod land did not have their own dynasty and were objects of struggle between princes from other lands (at the same time, in Novgorod, the rights of the prince were severely limited in favor of the local boyar aristocracy) , and for the Galicia-Volyn principality after the death of Roman Mstislavich for about 40 years there was a war between all the southern Russian princes, ending in the victory of Daniil Romanovich Volynsky. At the same time, the unity of the princely family and church unity were preserved, as well as the idea of Kyiv as formally the most important Russian table and Kyiv land as the common property of all princes. By the beginning of the Mongol invasion (1237), the total number of principalities, including appanages, reached 50. The process of formation of new appanages continued everywhere (in the XIV century the total number of principalities was estimated at 250), but in the XIV-XV centuries the reverse process began to gain strength, as a result of which was the unification of Russian lands around two great principalities: Moscow and Lithuania.
In historiography, when considering the period of the XII-XVI centuries, special attention, as a rule, is paid to several principalities.
Novgorod Republic
In 1136, Novgorod got out of the control of the Kievan princes. Unlike other Russian lands, the Novgorod land became a feudal republic, its head was not a prince, but a posadnik. The posadnik and the tysyatsky were elected by the veche, while in the rest of the Russian lands the tysyatsky was appointed by the prince. The Novgorodians entered into an alliance with some Russian principalities to protect their independence from others, and from the beginning of the 13th century, to fight external enemies: Lithuania and Catholic orders that settled in the Baltic states.
Releasing the eldest son Konstantin to the throne of Novgorod in 1206, the Grand Duke of Vladimir Vsevolod the Big Nest made a speech: “ my son, Konstantin, on you, God has put eldership in all your brothers, and Novgorod the Great has eldership in all the Russian land».
Since 1333, Novgorod for the first time invited a representative of the Lithuanian princely house to reign. In 1449, under an agreement with Moscow, the Polish king and Grand Duke of Lithuania Casimir IV renounced claims to Novgorod, in 1456 Vasily II the Dark concluded an unequal peace treaty with Novgorod, and in 1478 Ivan III completely annexed Novgorod to his possessions, abolishing the Veche . In 1494, the Hanseatic trading yard was closed in Novgorod.
Vladimir-Suzdal Principality, Grand Duchy of Vladimir
In the annals until the 13th century, it was usually called "Suzdal land", with con. XIII century - "Great Prince of Vladimir". In historiography it is designated by the term "North-Eastern Rus'".
Soon after the Rostov-Suzdal prince Yuri Dolgoruky, as a result of many years of struggle, established himself in the Kiev principality, his son Andrei left for the north, taking with him the icon of the Mother of God from Vyshgorod (1155). Andrei moved the capital of the Rostov-Suzdal principality to Vladimir and became the first Grand Duke of Vladimir. In 1169, he organized the capture of Kyiv, and, in the words of V. O. Klyuchevsky, “separated seniority from place”, placing his younger brother on the Kiev reign, while he himself remained to reign in Vladimir. The seniority of Andrei Bogolyubsky was recognized by all Russian princes, except for those of Galicia and Chernigov. The winner in the struggle for power after the death of Andrei was his younger brother Vsevolod the Big Nest, supported by the inhabitants of the new cities of the southwestern part of the principality (“serfs-masons”) against the henchmen of the old Rostov-Suzdal boyars. By the end of the 1190s, he achieved recognition of his seniority by all the princes, except for Chernigov and Polotsk. Shortly before his death, Vsevolod convened a congress of representatives of various social strata on the issue of succession to the throne (1211): The Great Prince Vsevolod called all his boyars from the cities and volosts and Bishop John, and abbots, and priests, and merchants, and nobles, and all people.
The Pereyaslav principality was under the control of the Vladimir princes from 1154 (with the exception of a short period of 1206-1213). They also used the dependence of the Novgorod Republic on the supply of food from the agricultural Opole through Torzhok in order to extend their influence to it. Also, the princes of Vladimir used their military capabilities to protect Novgorod from invasions from the west, and from 1231 to 1333 they invariably reigned in Novgorod.
In 1237-1238, the principality was devastated by the Mongols. In 1243 Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich of Vladimir was summoned to Batu and recognized as the oldest prince in Rus'. In the late 1250s, a census was carried out and systematic exploitation of the principality by the Mongols began. After the death of Alexander Nevsky (1263), Vladimir ceased to be the residence of the Grand Dukes. During the 13th century, specific principalities were formed with their own dynasties: Belozersk, Galicia-Dmitrov, Gorodetsk, Kostroma, Moscow, Pereyaslav, Rostov, Starodub, Suzdal, Tver, Uglitsk, Yuriev, Yaroslavl (up to 13 principalities in total), and in the 14th century Tver , Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal princes began to be titled "great". Actually, the great reign of Vladimir, which included the city of Vladimir with a vast territory in the zone of the Suzdal opolye and the right to collect tribute for the Horde from all the principalities of North-Eastern Rus', except for the great ones, was received by a label from the Horde Khan one of the princes.
In 1299, the Metropolitan of All Rus' moved from Kyiv to Vladimir, and in 1327 to Moscow. Since 1331, the reign of Vladimir was assigned to the Moscow princely house, since 1389 it appeared in the wills of Moscow princes along with the Moscow domain. In 1428, the final merger of the Vladimir principality with Moscow took place.
Galicia-Volyn principality
After the suppression of the first Galician dynasty, Roman Mstislavich Volynsky seized the Galician throne, thereby uniting the two principalities in his hands. In 1201, he was invited to reign by the Kyiv boyars, but left his younger relative to reign in Kyiv, turning Kyiv into an outpost of his possessions in the east.
Roman hosted the Byzantine emperor Alexei III Angel, expelled by the crusaders during the fourth crusade. Received an offer of the royal crown from Pope Innocent III. According to the “first Russian historian” Tatishchev V.N., Roman was the author of the project of the political structure of all Russian lands, in which the Kyiv prince would be elected by six princes, and their principalities would be inherited by the eldest son. In the annals, Roman is called "the autocrat of all Rus'."
After the death of Roman in 1205, a long struggle for power took place, the winner of which was the eldest son and heir of Roman Daniel, who regained control over all his father's possessions by 1240 - the year the last phase of the western campaign of the Mongols began - a campaign against Kyiv, the Galicia-Volyn principality and to Central Europe. In the 1250s, Daniel fought against the Mongol-Tatars, but he still had to admit dependence on them. The Galician-Volyn princes paid tribute and participated as forced allies in the Horde campaigns against Lithuania, Poland and Hungary, but retained the procedure for the transfer of the throne.
The Galician princes also extended their influence to the Turov-Pinsk principality. Since 1254, Daniel and his descendants bore the title of "Kings of Rus'". After the transfer of the residence of the Metropolitan of All Rus' from Kyiv to Vladimir in 1299, Yuri Lvovich Galitsky founded a separate Galician metropolis, which existed (intermittently) until the capture of Galicia by Poland in 1349. Finally, the Galician-Volynian lands were divided between Lithuania and Poland in 1392 following the war for the Galician-Volynian inheritance.
Smolensk principality
Separated under the grandson of Vladimir Monomokh - Rostislav Mstislavich. The Smolensk princes were distinguished by their desire to occupy tables outside their principality, due to which it was almost not subjected to fragmentation into destinies and had interests in all regions of Rus'. The Rostislavichs were constant contenders for Kyiv and firmly entrenched themselves in a number of its suburban tables. From 1181 to 1194, a duumvirate was established in the Kyiv land, when the city was owned by Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich of Chernigov, and the rest of the principality by Rurik Rostislavich. After the death of Svyatoslav, Rurik gained and lost Kyiv several times, and in 1203 he repeated the act of Andrei Bogolyubsky, for the second time in the history of civil strife, subjecting the capital of Rus' to defeat.
The pinnacle of Smolensk power was the reign of Mstislav Romanovich, who occupied the Kyiv table from 1214 to 1223. During this period, Novgorod, Pskov, Polotsk, Vitebsk and Galich were under the control of the Rostislavichs. It was under the auspices of Mstislav Romanovich as the prince of Kyiv that an essentially all-Russian campaign against the Mongols was organized, ending in a rout on the river. Kalka.
The Mongol invasion touched only the eastern outskirts of the principality and did not affect Smolensk itself. The princes of Smolensk recognized their dependence on the Horde, and in 1275 a Mongolian census was conducted in the principality. The position of Smolensk was more favorable in comparison with other lands. It was hardly subjected to Tatar raids, the destinies that arose in its composition were not assigned to individual princely branches and remained under the control of the Smolensk prince. In the 90s. In the 13th century, the territory of the principality expanded due to the annexation of the principality of Bryansk from the Chernigov land, at the same time, the Smolensk princes, through dynastic marriage, established themselves in the principality of Yaroslavl. In the 1st floor. XIV century, under Prince Ivan Alexandrovich, the Smolensk princes began to be called great. However, by this time the principality was in the role of a buffer zone between Lithuania and the Moscow principality, whose rulers sought to make the Smolensk princes dependent on themselves and gradually captured their volosts. In 1395 Smolensk was conquered by Vitovt. In 1401, Prince Yuri Svyatoslavich of Smolensk, with the support of Ryazan, regained his throne, but in 1404 Vitovt again captured the city and finally included it in Lithuania.
Chernihiv Principality
Separated in 1097 under the rule of the descendants of Svyatoslav Yaroslavich, their rights to the principality were recognized by other Russian princes at the Lyubech Congress. After the youngest of the Svyatoslavichs was deprived of his reign in 1127 and, under the rule of his descendants, the lands on the lower Oka separated from Chernigov, and in 1167 the line of descendants of Davyd Svyatoslavich was cut off, the Olgovichi dynasty established itself on all the princely tables of the Chernigov land: the northern and upper Oka lands the descendants of Vsevolod Olgovich owned (they were also constant contenders for Kyiv), Novgorod-Seversky principality - the descendants of Svyatoslav Olgovich. Representatives of both branches reigned in Chernigov (until 1226).
In addition to Kyiv and Vyshgorod, at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries, the Olgoviches managed to briefly extend their influence to Galich and Volyn, Pereyaslavl and Novgorod.
In 1223, the princes of Chernigov took part in the first campaign against the Mongols. In the spring of 1238, during the Mongol invasion, the northeastern lands of the principality were devastated, and in the autumn of 1239, the southwestern ones. After the death of the Chernigov prince Mikhail Vsevolodovich in the Horde in 1246, the lands of the principality were divided between his sons, and the eldest of them, Roman, became a prince in Bryansk. In 1263, he liberated Chernigov from the Lithuanians and annexed it to his possessions. Beginning with Roman, the Bryansk princes were usually titled as the Grand Dukes of Chernigov.
At the beginning of the XIV century, Smolensk princes established themselves in Bryansk, presumably through dynastic marriage. The struggle for Bryansk lasted for several decades, until in 1357 the Grand Duke of Lithuania Olgerd Gediminovich installed one of the contenders, Roman Mikhailovich, to reign. In the second half of the XIV century, in parallel with him, the sons of Olgerd Dmitry and Dmitry-Koribut also reigned in the Bryansk lands. After the Ostrovsky agreement, the autonomy of the Bryansk principality was liquidated, Roman Mikhailovich became the Lithuanian governor in Smolensk, where he was killed in 1401.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
It arose in the XIII century as a result of the unification of the Lithuanian tribes by Prince Mindovg. In 1320-1323, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gedimin conducted successful campaigns against Volhynia and Kyiv (the battle on the Irpin River). After the establishment in 1362 by Olgerd Gediminovich of control over Southern Russia, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania became a state in which, in the presence of a foreign ethnic core, the majority of the population were Russians, and Orthodoxy was the predominant religion. The principality acted as a rival to another towering center of the Russian lands at that time - the Moscow principality, but Olgerd's campaigns against Moscow turned out to be fruitless.
The Teutonic Order intervened in the struggle for power in Lithuania after the death of Olgerd, and the Grand Duke of Lithuania Jagiello was forced to abandon the plan to conclude a dynastic union with Moscow and recognize (1384) the condition of baptism into the Catholic faith within the next 4 years. Already in 1385, the first Polish-Lithuanian union was concluded. In 1392, Vitovt became the Lithuanian prince, who finally included Smolensk and Bryansk in the principality, and after the death of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily I (1425), married to his daughter, extended his influence to Tver, Ryazan and Pronsk for several years.
The Polish-Lithuanian union of 1413 granted privileges to the Catholic nobility in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but during the struggle for power after the death of Vitovt, they were canceled (the equality of rights of the Catholic and Orthodox nobility was confirmed by the privilege of 1563).
In 1458, on the Russian lands subject to Lithuania and Poland, the Kyiv metropolis was formed, independent of the Moscow metropolis of "All Rus'".
After the entry of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into the Livonian War and the fall of Polotsk, the principality united with Poland into the confederation of the Commonwealth (1569), while the lands of Kyiv, Podolsk and Volhynia, which had previously been part of the principality, became part of Poland.
Grand Duchy of Moscow
It stood out from the Vladimir Grand Duchy at the end of the 13th century as the inheritance of the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky - Daniel. In the first years of the XIV century, it annexed a number of adjacent territories and began to compete with the Tver principality. In 1328, together with the Horde and Suzdal, Tver was defeated, and soon the Moscow prince Ivan I Kalita became the Grand Duke of Vladimir. Subsequently, the title, with rare exceptions, was retained by his offspring. After the victory at the Kulikovo field, Moscow secured the importance of the center of the unification of Russian lands. In 1389, Dmitry Donskoy bequeathed the great reign to his son Vasily I, which was recognized by all the neighbors of Moscow and the Horde.
In 1439, the Moscow metropolis of "All Rus'" did not recognize the Florentine Union of the Greek and Roman churches and became, in fact, autocephalous.
After the reign of Ivan III (1462), the process of unification of the Russian principalities under the rule of Moscow entered a decisive phase. By the end of the reign of Vasily III (1533), Moscow became the center of the Russian centralized state, having annexed, in addition to all of North-Eastern Rus' and Novgorod, also the Smolensk and Chernigov lands conquered from Lithuania. In 1547, the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan IV was crowned king. In 1549, the first Zemsky Sobor was convened. In 1589, the Moscow metropolis was transformed into a patriarchy. In 1591, the last lot was liquidated in the kingdom.
Economy
As a result of the capture of the city of Sarkel and the Tmutarakan principality by the Polovtsy, as well as the success of the first crusade, the significance of trade routes changed. The path “From the Varangians to the Greeks”, on which Kyiv was located, gave way to the Volga trade route and the route connecting the Black Sea with Western Europe through the Dniester. In particular, the campaign against the Polovtsy in 1168 under the leadership of Mstislav Izyaslavich was aimed at ensuring the passage of goods along the lower Dnieper.
The “Charter of Vladimir Vsevolodovich”, issued by Vladimir Monomakh after the Kyiv uprising in 1113, introduced an upper limit on the amount of interest on debts, which saved the poor from the threat of long and eternal bondage. In the 12th century, although the work of craftsmen to order remained predominant, many signs indicate the beginning of more progressive work for the market.
Large craft centers became the targets of the Mongol invasion of Rus' in 1237-1240. Their ruin, the capture of masters and the subsequent need to pay tribute caused the decline of crafts and trade.
At the end of the 15th century, in the Moscow principality, the distribution of land into the possession of the nobles under the condition of service (estate) began. In 1497, the Sudebnik was adopted, one of the provisions of which limited the transfer of peasants from one landowner to another on St. George's autumn day.
Warfare
In the XII century, the regiment became the main fighting force instead of the squad. The senior and junior squads are transformed into the militia of the boyars-landowners and the court of the prince.
In 1185, for the first time in Russian history, the division of the battle order was noted not only along the front into three tactical units (regiments), but also in depth up to four regiments, the total number of tactical units reached six, including the first mention of a separate rifle regiment, which is also mentioned on Lake Peipsi in 1242 (Battle on the Ice).
The blow inflicted on the economy by the Mongol invasion was also reflected in the state of military affairs. The process of differentiation of functions between detachments of heavy cavalry, which delivered a direct blow with melee weapons, and detachments of shooters, broke off, a reunification took place, and the combatants again began to use a spear and sword and shoot from a bow. Separate rifle units, moreover, on a semi-regular basis, reappeared only at the end of the 15th-beginning of the 16th century in Novgorod and Moscow (pishchalniks, archers).
Outer Wars
Polovtsy
After a series of offensive campaigns at the beginning of the 12th century, the Polovtsy were forced to migrate to the southeast, up to the foothills of the Caucasus. The resumption of internecine struggle in Rus' in the 1130s allowed the Polovtsy to again ruin Rus', including as allies of one of the opposing princely groups. The first offensive movement of the allied forces against the Polovtsians in several decades was organized by Mstislav Izyaslavich in 1168, then Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich in 1183 organized a general campaign of the forces of almost all the southern Russian principalities and defeated the large Polovtsian association of the southern Russian steppes, led by Khan Kobyak. And although the Polovtsy managed to defeat Igor Svyatoslavich in 1185, in subsequent years the Polovtsy did not undertake large-scale invasions of Rus' outside of princely strife, and the Russian princes undertook a number of powerful offensive campaigns (1198, 1202, 1203). By the beginning of the 13th century, there was a noticeable Christianization of the Polovtsian nobility. Of the four Polovtsian khans mentioned in the annals in connection with the first invasion of the Mongols into Europe, two had Orthodox names, and the third was baptized before a joint Russian-Polovtsian campaign against the Mongols (battle on the Kalka River). The Polovtsy, like Rus', became victims of the western campaign of the Mongols in 1236-1242.
Catholic orders, Sweden and Denmark
The first appearance of Catholic preachers on the lands of the Livs dependent on the Polotsk princes occurred in 1184. By 1202, the foundation of the city of Riga and the Order of the Sword. The first campaigns of the Russian princes were undertaken in 1217-1223 in support of the Estonians, but gradually the order not only subjugated the local tribes, but also deprived the Russians of their possessions in Livonia (Kukeinos, Gersik, Viljandi and Yuryev).
In 1234, the crusaders were defeated by Yaroslav Vsevolodovich of Novgorod in the battle of Omovzha, in 1236 by Lithuanians and Semigallians in the battle of Saul, after which the remnants of the Order of the Swordbearers became part of the Teutonic Order, founded in 1198 in Palestine and seized the lands of the Prussians in 1227, and northern Estonia went into the possession of Denmark. An attempt at a coordinated attack on Russian lands in 1240, immediately after the Mongol invasion of Rus', ended in failure (Battle of the Neva, Battle of the Ice), although the crusaders managed to capture Pskov for a short time.
After the unification of the military efforts of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Teutonic Order suffered a decisive defeat in the Battle of Grunwald (1410), subsequently became dependent on Poland (1466) and lost possessions in Prussia as a result of secularization (1525). In 1480, while standing on the Ugra, the Livonian Order launched an attack on Pskov, but to no avail. In 1561, the Livonian Order was liquidated as a result of the successful actions of the Russian troops at the initial stage of the Livonian War.
Mongolian Tatars
After the victory on the Kalka in 1223 over the combined forces of the Russian principalities and the Polovtsy, the Mongols abandoned the plan to march on Kyiv, which was the ultimate goal of their campaign, turned east, were defeated by the Volga Bogars at the crossing over the Volga and undertook a large-scale invasion of Europe only 13 years later , but at the same time they did not meet with organized resistance. Poland and Hungary also became victims of the invasion, while Smolensk, Turov-Pinsk, Polotsk principalities and the Novgorod Republic managed to avoid defeat.
The Russian lands became dependent on the Golden Horde, expressed in the right of the Horde khans to approve the princes on their tables and the payment of an annual tribute. The rulers of the Horde were called "tsars" in Rus'.
During the offensive in the Horde of the “great commemoration” after the death of Khan Berdibek (1359), Olgerd Gediminovich defeated the Horde at Blue Waters (1362) and established control over South Russia, thereby putting an end to the Mongol-Tatar yoke in it. In the same period, the Grand Duchy of Moscow took a significant step towards liberation from the yoke (the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380).
During periods of struggle for power in the Horde, the Moscow princes suspended the payment of tribute, but were forced to resume it after the invasions of Tokhtamysh (1382) and Edigei (1408). In 1399, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vitovt, who tried to return the Horde throne to Tokhtamysh and thus establish control over the Horde, was defeated by Timur's proteges in the Battle of Vorskla, in which the Lithuanian princes participating in the Battle of Kulikovo also died.
After the disintegration of the Golden Horde into several khanates, the Moscow principality got the opportunity to pursue an independent policy in relation to each khanate. The descendants of Ulu-Mohammed received Meshchera lands from Vasily II, forming the Kasimov Khanate (1445). Starting in 1472, in alliance with the Crimean Khanate, Moscow fought against the Great Horde, which entered into an alliance with the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Casimir IV. The Crimeans repeatedly ravaged the southern Russian possessions of Casimir, primarily Kyiv and Podolia. In 1480, the Mongol-Tatar yoke (standing on the Ugra) was overthrown. After the liquidation of the Great Horde (1502), a common border arose between the Moscow principality and the Crimean Khanate, immediately after which the regular raids of the Crimeans on Moscow lands began. From the middle of the 15th century, the Kazan Khanate was increasingly under the military and political pressure of Moscow, until in 1552 it was annexed to the Moscow kingdom. In 1556, the Astrakhan Khanate was also annexed to it, in 1582 the conquest of the Siberian Khanate began.
In the middle of the XIV century, the princely tables in North-Eastern Rus' were occupied by the descendants of Vsevolod the Big Nest. The most powerful of them was Prince of Moscow and Vladimir Ivan Krasny, the father of Dmitry Donskoy.
The Moscow principality in the middle of the XIV century was one of the most populated principalities of North-Eastern Rus'. In terms of territory, it occupied a middle position among other principalities. It stretched from the headwaters of the Gzhat and Moskva rivers in the west to the headwaters of the Nerskaya River, as well as the middle reaches of the Tsna River (left tributary of the Oka River) in the east. In the north, the principality extended to the upper reaches of the Klyazma and Veli rivers. In the south, the border ran along the Oka River below the Protvinsk mouth.
The most populated area was along the Moskva River. All the then cities of the Moscow Principality were located precisely on the Moscow River. These are Moscow, Mozhaisk, Zvenigorod and Kolomna. The city of Mozhaisk in 1303 was conquered by Yuri of Moscow from the princes of Smolensk. Kolomna was torn away from the Ryazan principality in 1306.
The Great Moscow Prince Ivan Krasny owned Moscow jointly with his nephew Vladimir Andreevich. In addition to these four cities, the Moscow principality included numerous volosts. Not the entire territory of the Moscow Principality was subordinate to the Grand Duke. A significant part of the territory was in the possession of other members of the local ruling dynasty. So, the widow of the elder brother of Ivan the Red Simeon the Proud, Princess Maria owned the Kolomna volosts, which lay along the lower reaches of the Moscow River, as well as along its tributaries - the rivers Tre (Otra), Severka, Nerskaya, Mezyna, the left tributary of the Oka - the Kashirka River. The princess also owned lands in the south-west of the Moscow principality along the middle course of the Luzha River and along the Bereg River. Princess Maria had several villages in the Moscow district and even near Moscow itself. She owned the village of Neprudsky, which later merged with Moscow, and the village of Malakhovsky.
The second wife of Ivan Kalita, Uliana, was the stepmother of Grand Duke Ivan the Red. Ulyana and her daughter owned land in the basins of the rivers Istra, Upper Klyazma, Vori, as well as volosts to the east of Moscow (along the rivers Gzhel, Volkhonka and Drezna). She owned several villages near Moscow, as well as in the Moscow district.
Mongol Empire around 1300The brother of Ivan the Red, Andrei, had a son, Vladimir. He owned the southern volosts of the Moscow principality. These were the basins of the Lopasnya and Nara rivers, the Pakhra river and its tributaries - the Desna, Mocha and Rozhai rivers. He also owned the upper reaches of the Severka River, as well as the villages of Nogatinskoye and Kolomenskoye near Moscow, etc.
Income from Moscow, which came as various taxes from the population, was also divided among relatives. These are tamga, myto, various court fees. Prince Vladimir Andreevich was the youngest grandson of Ivan Kalita. At first, he owned a fourth, and then a third of these incomes.
Prince Ivan the Red had income from the fact that he collected the Mongol-Tatar tribute (exit, kharaj) of the Golden Horde.
The Principality disposed of the united armed forces commanded by the Grand Duke. He also decided on foreign policy issues.
The Grand Duke of the Moscow Principality Ivan Ivanovich Krasny (the second son of Ivan Kalita) also occupied the table of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir.
Vladimir Monomakh laid the foundation for the Vladimir principality. At the beginning of the 12th century, he founded a small fortress Vladimir on the Klyazma River. Time passed, and a small fortress turned into the main city of North-Eastern Rus'.
The Mongol-Tatars canceled the inheritance of the Vladimir principality. In the Horde, those princes were appointed to the Vladimir table, whom they considered necessary and beneficial for themselves. Thus, the Vladimir principality was transferred by the Horde khans only to management, and not to ownership. Why the Vladimir Principality? Because even before the conquest of the Mongol-Tatars, the Vladimir principality was the main principality of North-Eastern Rus'. Even during the period of the Mongol yoke, it retained its leading political role among the other principalities of North-Eastern Rus'. The one who occupied the table of the Vladimir principality was the eldest among the other princes. It was he who led the combined military forces of North-Eastern Rus'. The Prince of Vladimir resolved diplomatic issues that concerned all the principalities. However, the main advantage of the Prince of Vladimir was that it was he who collected tribute to the Golden Horde from all Russian lands. This gave him a considerable income.
Vladimir principality by those standards was very extensive. In addition to Vladimir, it included the cities: Pereyaslavl, Yuryev Polsky, Yaropolch, which used to be the capitals of independent principalities. On the territory of the Vladimir principality were the richest salt deposits. They were in the region of Nerekhta and Great Salt (Big). The Vladimir Principality included vast Trans-Volga lands, which stretched almost to the Kuban Lake. The center of these lands was Kostroma. Since the time of Ivan Kalita, the Vladimir principality also included part of Rostov (Stretensky half of the city in the east). Only the western half of the city remained in the hands of the local Rostov prince. It was also called Borisoglebskaya, because the church of Boris and Gleb towered in the Rostov Kremlin.
The Grand Duke of Vladimir usually combined his reign in Vladimir with his reign in Veliky Novgorod. The power of the prince in Novgorod was limited by civil and ecclesiastical institutions. Nevertheless, this place was very profitable. So, the prince had considerable income from the Novgorod lands. In addition, he retained the right to manage the grand ducal parts of the territories of Volok Lamsky, Torzhok and Vologda.
As for Prince Ivan the Red, he had khan's labels for the administration of the Galician and Uglitsky principalities. The Galician principality became independent by the 30s of the XIV century. The territory of the principality was significant. There were rich salt springs on it. There were cities in the principality: Galich Mersky, Chukhloma, Salt of Galicia.
The principality of Uglitsia was much smaller. Its territory occupied the left bank of the Volga River, the basin of the Volka tributary of the Korozhichna River, as well as the upper reaches of the City and Sutka Rivers. The principality of Uglitsia occupied part of the Volga right bank. The principality of Uglitsia was ruled by Ivan Kalita, Simeon the Proud and Ivan the Red. These are the princes of the Moscow principality. The principality of Uglitsia occupied an important strategic position - it was located on the busiest part of the Volga trade route from Kostroma to Rzhev.
The Vladimir principality could not be turned into property and inherited. But on the other hand, it was possible to buy arbitrarily large parts of it - land, villages, volosts. It was possible to buy land and real estate in any other principality. Actually, this was what the princes and other wealthy people did. Villages bought in the Vladimir Principality became inviolable property and were inherited. Moscow princes owned lands near Vladimir itself, in Pereyaslavl, in Kostroma, and also in Yuryev. They acquired land in other principalities - Rostov, Dmitrovsky, etc. These acquisitions served as a source of enrichment for the Moscow princes. These villages served as a good springboard for their policy. This practice was very widespread. This can be seen in the example of the possessions of the Moscow prince Ivan the Red. The lands belonging to him in other principalities several times exceeded the size of his "fatherland" - the Moscow principality. They were dozens of times superior to his own possessions within the Moscow Principality.
Other principalities of North-Eastern Rus' were much smaller in size and population. This also applies to the Grand Duchy of Tver. Its territory adjoined in the north-west to the Pereyaslav volosts of the Vladimir Grand Duchy. The principality of Tver played an important role in the fate of North-Eastern Rus'. His lands stretched along the Volga from the city of Zubtsov to the city of Kalyazin. Kalyazin was founded in the 15th century. The width of the strip of land along the Volga ranged from 15 to 90 km. The Principality of Tver had more cities than the Principality of Moscow, and the territory was smaller. The following cities are Tver, Kashin, Zubtsov, Staritsa, Klin, Holm, Mikulin, Konyatin, Khorvach (New Town), Bely Gorodok, etc.
The Tver principality was inherited by the descendants of the Tver prince Mikhail Yaroslavich. The prince himself was executed in the Horde in 1318 by Khan Uzbek. Tver belonged to the youngest son of the executed prince Vasily. He also owned the volosts that adjoined Tver. According to his father's will, Vasily also owned the city of Kashin.
Another prince of Tver, Alexander Mikhailovich, was also executed in the Horde. His wife and children owned lands in the south of the Tver principality. Princess Anastasia and her sons Vsevolod, Mikhail, Vladimir and Andrei owned the cities of Kholm, Mikulin, Staritsa and Zubtsov. The princely family exercised collective princely sovereignty over these territories.
The executed Mikhail Yaroslavich in the Tver Principality lived with the children of his third son, Konstantin. He occupied the Tver table in 1328-1346. Konstantin had sons Yeremey and Semyon. The great-grandchildren of Yeremey, Princes Yuri and Osip, bore the nickname Dorogobuzhsky. In the first half of the 15th century, their father received the Smolensk city of Dorogobuzh, as well as a number of Smolensk volosts, from the Grand Duke of Lithuania. In the Tver principality, the ancestors of the Dorogobuzh princes owned the city of Klin (this is the southeastern part of the Tver principality) as an inheritance. The Klin inheritance is not only Klin itself, but also the lands that stretched from the Lama River (the right tributary of the Shosha River) to Bely Gorodok. Bely Gorodok stood on the right bank of the Volga River. Between Yeremey and Semyon Konstantinovich, the Klin principality was divided so that Semyon owned the northern part of the principality.
The principality of Tver constantly competed with the principality of Moscow for supremacy in North-Eastern Rus'. At the same time, the Tver principality itself was not united. It was divided into a number of domains. The largest part of the Tver principality belonged to the Grand Duke of Tver Vasily Mikhailovich Kashinsky. Another part of the Tver principality belonged to the family of Alexander Mikhailovich executed in the Horde, and two more parts of the Tver principality belonged to Yeremey and Semyon Konstantinovich. This situation could not but cause internecine struggle. The most powerful was the prince, who occupied the grand princely Tver table. Using his power, starting from 1346, he began to oppress the specific princes. At the same time, he sought to increase his property. But the specific princes turned to Lithuania and Moscow for help. The situation was controlled by the Horde. Moscow supported the Grand Duke of Tver Vasily Mikhailovich Kashinsky. The eldest son of Alexander Mikhailovich executed in the Horde, Vsevolod, relied on Lithuania in this struggle. After the death of Ivan the Red, who supported Kashinsky, the confrontation subsided, and in 1360 peace was concluded between them. There was a transfer of property.
The Nizhny Novgorod principality was formed by the will of the horde. Khan Uzbek singled out the territories of Nizhny Novgorod and Gorodets from the Vladimir principality. They were given to the Suzdal prince Konstantin Vasilyevich. So the Nizhny Novgorod principality was formed. The Horde achieved the weakening of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir, and in fact the Moscow princes, since it was they who ruled this principality. The Horde created the Principality of Nizhny Novgorod, which was supposed to carry out their policy. In the middle of the XIV century, the Nizhny Novgorod Principality occupied the territory from the Nerl Klyazminskaya River to its right tributary of the Irmes River in the west. In the east, the border ran to the Sura River and its left tributaries, the Pyana and Kishi rivers. The Principality of Nizhny Novgorod included the following cities: Nizhny Novgorod, Suzdal, Gorodets, Gorokhovets, Berezhets.
The district of the city of Suzdal was the most densely populated. Suzdal was surrounded by many ancient large villages. The other area was sparsely populated. Nizhny Novgorod in the XIV century turned into one of the largest cities in Eastern Europe. Here they were engaged in casting bells, gilding on copper, stone construction. In 1372, a stone Kremlin began to be erected in Nizhny Novgorod. The city gradually developed into an international trade center.
The first prince of Nizhny Novgorod was Konstantin Vasilyevich Suzdal. He ruled the kingdom unanimously. In 1354, after the death of the Moscow prince Simeon the Proud, the prince of Nizhny Novgorod laid claim to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir. According to the established tradition, the prince of Nizhny Novgorod divided the principality between his four sons. The eldest son Andrei got Nizhny Novgorod itself and the volosts adjacent to it, located along the lower Oka, as well as along the lower Klyazma. He also received settlements along the Volga River, mainly along the right tributaries of the river. The second son, Thomas, received the city of Suzdal, as well as villages in the Suzdal opolye. The third son Boris was given Gorodets and its volosts, which were located along the banks of the Volga River from the lower reaches of the Unzha River to Balakhna. The fourth son Dmitry (Nail) received possession of the piedmont Suzdal villages and lands along the lower reaches of the Uvod River, as well as lands in the right tributaries of the Vyazma and Ukhtoma rivers. As always in their cases, a struggle began between the brothers. Everyone wanted to capture more at the expense of their brothers. This fact speaks volumes. In 1356, Prince Andrei Konstantinovich asked for guardianship from Moscow Prince Ivan the Red. So he tried to protect himself from his brothers.
The Starodub principality was formed in the second decade of the 13th century. It was located in the lower reaches of the Klyazma River. On the one hand, it bordered on the Grand Duchy of Nizhny Novgorod, and on the other, on the Grand Duchy of Vladimir. The territory of this principality was small. It stretched from the village of Palekha in the north to the rivers Nerekhta and Tara, the right tributaries of the Klyazma River in the south, and from the lower reaches of the Uvori River in the west to the middle course of the Lukha River in the east. There was only one city in the principality - the capital Starodub. Later it was renamed into Klyazemsky town.
The Starodub princes usually followed the political path of the Grand Duke of Vladimir. It was the only principality where the princes acted reasonably and did not split up their possessions.
The Principality of Dmitrov was located west of Starodub. Its territory captured the very sources of the Klyazma River. The principality of Dmitrov bordered on Moscow in the southwest, south and east. This line passed along the upper reaches of the Maglusha River, the left tributary of the Malaya Istra River and the Istra River, as well as the left tributary of the Moscow River. In the east, the upper reaches of the Veli and Yakhroma rivers, the right tributaries of the Sestra River, served as the border, then the upper reaches of the Talitsa River, the right tributary of the Vori River, which flowed into the Klyazma River. In the west, the territory of the Dmitrovsky principality occupied the lands along the upper reaches of the Sestra River, as well as the entire course of the Lutosna and Yakhroma rivers. In the north and northeast, the Dmitrov principality occupied the left bank of the rivers Veli and Dubna. The principality of Dmitrov was smaller than Starodub in terms of territory.
Representatives of the senior line of Vsevolod the Big Nest ruled in the Rostov, Yaroslavl and Belozersky principalities. The Rostov principality was very extensive. It included the volosts of "Rostov and Yaroslavl, Belozer and Ustyug, Uglich Fields and Mologa". So writes N.M. Karamzin. These lands were located in the basins of the Yukhot, Cheremkhi, Pozhi and Kotorosl rivers. These rivers are right tributaries of the Volga River. Most of the land was located in the Volga region (near the lakes of Kuban, Bely, Vozhe, Loch). They were also located in the north in the basins of the rivers of the South, Sukhona, and also on the upper Northern Dvina. All these lands were owned by the son of Vsevolod the Big Nest Konstantin. Rostov was in its heyday in the XIII century. In the XIV century, it largely lost its significance and political weight. Its territory has become much smaller. It stretched for 25 - 70 km around Rostov. True, the Rostov princes owned vast lands around the city of Ustyug. Their area was several thousand square kilometers.
In the XIV century, the Rostov principality was divided into many destinies (“How many gates, so many masters”). This resulted in a significant change in the size of the property. Numerous representatives of the Rostov princes solved their life problems by hiring for the service of the Moscow princes. They became simple estate owners of medium and small hands. The Moscow princes owned lands in the Rostov principality. This is the village of Bogoroditskoye and Sretenskaya half of Rostov. In the middle of the 14th century, the Rostov Principality was ruled by Ivan Kalita's son-in-law, who was married to Kalita's daughter Maria. His name was Konstantin Vasilyevich. He took part in all-Russian princely congresses. He also led the Rostov regiments and traveled to the Horde. There was another prince of Rostov, Andrei Fedorovich - the nephew of Konstantin Rostov. He was on the sidelines and, obviously, ruled over a small part of the Rostov Principality.
During the heyday of the principality, the Rostov princes owned vast lands along the lower reaches of the Vaga River. They owned lands on both sides of the right tributary of the Vaga River, the Kuloya River (throughout its entire length). They also owned land along the Yumysh River, which is the left tributary of the Northern Dvina River. The princes of Rostov also owned land in the upper reaches of the Vaga River, as well as in the basins of its left tributaries - the Veli, Pezhma and right tributaries of the Termeng and Dvinitsa rivers. They also owned lands along the course of the Northern Dvina River, its left tributary the Siya River, as well as the right tributaries - the Pingishe and Chelmakhta rivers. All these lands were owned by the Rostov princes Ivan Vladimirovich, Fedor Andreevich, Ivan Alexandrovich and Konstantin Vladimirovich. These are the descendants of Prince Konstantin Vasilyevich of Rostov. Before these lands were divided, they were part of a single Rostov principality. In the middle of the 14th century, Konstantin Rostovsky owned not only Rostov, but also lands that stretched along the Northern Dvina and Vaga rivers. The city of Ustyug was also part of the Rostov Principality.
Yaroslavl principality was located north of Rostov. The principality included lands on both banks of the Volga River, as well as along the lower reaches of its tributaries of the Yukhot, Kotorosl and Sheksna rivers. The principality included a large area from the upper reaches of the Ukhra River, the left tributary of the Sheksna River, further to the watershed of the Ukhra River with the Sotya River. Then south to the Volga River. This also included land along the lower reaches of the Mologa River to the city of Ustyuzhin. In addition to these lands, the Yaroslavl princes owned lands that adjoined the southern shore of the Kuban Lake, as well as lands to the northeast of the lake in the Kuban River basin. The lands of the princes extended to the upper reaches of the rivers Veli, Pezhma and Kulai.
The Yaroslavl Principality included the cities of Yaroslavl, Mologa, Ustyuzhna. In the second half of the 14th century, the city of Romanov was founded. The cities of Nerekhta and Velikaya Salt were located in the Yaroslavl Principality. These were the centers of salt extraction.
Prince Fyodor Rostislavich Cherny of Yaroslavl died in 1299. The principality passed to his son Davyd. In 1321 Prince Davyd died. Two sons Vasily and Mikhail remained. They divided the principality in half. Vasily sat on the table in Yaroslavl, and Mikhail reigned in Mologa. Vasily was considered more important. He went to the Horde. He participated in all-Russian princely congresses. Vasily was the son-in-law of Ivan Kalita. The chronicle says that in 1361 the Yaroslavl principality was united, it was ruled by Mikhail Davydovich. After 1361, the Yaroslavl principality was divided between the sons of Prince Mikhail Davydovich and the sons of his brother Vasily Davydovich. The sons of Vasily Davydovich Vasily and Roman acted at the head of their special regiments. This means that they had their own "fathers". Thus, before the Battle of Kulikovo, the Yaroslavl principality consisted of four parts. The Molozhsky principality completely separated from Yaroslavsky. Fyodor Mikhailovich reigned there. The remaining Yaroslavl principality was divided among the three sons of Vasily Davydovich. The eldest of them, Vasily, owned the city of Yaroslavl itself and the lands on the right bank of the Volga River, as well as the Zaozersky-Kuban territories. The second son Gleb owned land on the left bank of the Volga River to the northeast of Yaroslavl in the basins of the Kasti and Iti rivers. The third son received land on the left bank of the Volga River from the lower reaches of the Sheksna River to the Iti River. It is believed that the districts of the city of Yaroslavl belonged simultaneously to all the brothers. This united them and allowed them to pursue a single policy.
The Belozersky principality from the north and from the west adjoined the lands of the Yaroslavl princes. It included the areas of lakes Lache, Vozhe and Bely. The principality also included lands in the basin of the right tributary of the Sheksna River - the Suda River, as well as in the basin of the left tributary of the Sheksna River, the Sogozha River. In addition, the Belozersky Principality included lands along the middle course of the Ukhra River, as well as the left tributary of the Sheksna River. The principality also included lands along the Sheksna River itself (almost along its entire length). The territory of the Belozersky principality was very extensive. But it was sparsely populated. The most populated area was around the capital of the principality - Belozero. Actually, it was the only city of the principality. In 1352 the capital was moved to the southern shore of Lake Beloye. The new city is located 17 kilometers from the old city in the direction to the west. The Belozersky principality was endowed with various natural resources. There were significant outcrops of marsh iron in the upper reaches of the Suda River. In the vast Belozersky forests, furs and hunting birds were mined in large quantities. Fishing in the rivers was very successful. The principality was located on important trade and military routes that connected the central regions of North-Eastern Rus'.
Until the beginning of the 14th century, the Belozersky Principality was part of the Rostov Principality. After 1302, it fell under the rule of the descendants of the first Belozersky prince Gleb Vasilyevich. Around 1328 - 1339, the principality passed to Ivan Kalita, for which he received a label in the Horde. In the records, this was listed as "purchase." This is understandable, since the Russian princes did not go empty-handed. In 1338 the principality became independent. Chronicles testify that Prince "Romanchuk Belozersky" had direct relations with the Horde. The Belozersky prince Roman Mikhailovich had two sons. It is believed that therefore the Belozersky principality was divided into two parts. Son Fedor owned lands along the rivers Sheksna, Suda and Ukhra. The younger son Vasily owned lands along the Komi and Andoga rivers (near Lake Beloye), as well as in Poshekhonye along the Sogozha and Ukhtoma rivers. The eldest son Fedor remained the eldest in political and military affairs. He commanded Belozersky regiments in campaigns against Tver in 1375, and also in a campaign against Mamai in 1380.
The 11 principalities and 20 districts described above made up North-Eastern Rus'. All of them belonged to one large family - the descendants of Vsevolod the Big Nest. They did not form a single state. On the contrary, they were constantly fighting with each other. This could not lead to good, since the neighbors of North-Eastern Rus' were strong states, in which power was centralized. The fact that the Horde conquered the Russian principalities without much effort is quite natural. The strong one always wins. If this had not happened, then the Russian principalities would have fallen under the rule of the Lithuanian-Russian state (Belarusian and Ukrainian lands had already fallen there), and then under the rule of the Teutonic Order. Then there would be no question of any Russian state. The Germans would have imposed Catholicism on the population and in general would have Germanized the people.
The reason for the weakness of the Russian lands lies on the surface. Unlike other lands (states), where the state was not divided into parts during the inheritance of power, the Russian princes took the path of suicide. They did not care about the state, and even more so about the people, they only thought about their children and cut the state into pieces like a loaf of bread. It is a pity that they were never punished for this.
There were other Russian principalities that were not part of the North-Eastern Rus' conglomerate. So, to the west of North-Eastern Rus' was the Smolensk principality. It was founded in the XII century. It lost its independence and became part of the Lithuanian-Russian state. By the middle of the XIV century, the Smolensk Principality included the following cities: Smolensk, Toropets, Dorogobuzh, Mstislavl, Medyn, Vyazma, Belaya. The principality included not only cities, but also volosts related to them. It was part of the Smolensk principality and the city of Rzhev with its district. The Lithuanians had previously captured the main Rzhev volosts. In the middle of the XIV century, Olgerd of Lithuania took Rzhev, Mstislavl and Belaya from the Smolensk principality. In 1362 he captured the city of Toropets. Smolensk itself was annexed to the state of Lithuania in 1404.
In the Smolensk principality, there were at least two appanages - Vyazemsky and Toropetsky.
The Principality of Bryansk occupied the territory along the upper and middle reaches of the Desna River, as well as along its tributaries. It included the city of Trubchevsk.
Between the Smolensk Principality and the Moscow Principality there were very significant territories owned by the descendants of Mikhail Vladimirovich Chernigov.
To the east of the Bryansk principality was the Karachaev principality. It included Karachaevo, Kozelsk, Przemysl and Mosalsk. In the Karachay principality, there was a Kozelsky inheritance.
The Novosilsk principality was located to the east of the Karachay principality. It included the cities: Novosil, Odoev, Belev, Vorotynsk, Mtsensk and Kaluga. The principality of Novosilsk even went beyond the Protva River. In these places, on the right bank of the Berega River, in the first half of the 14th century, there was the Novosilsky volost of Zaberega. In the forties of the XIV century, it was sold by Semyon Novosilsky to Grand Duke Simeon the Proud.
The principality of Obolensky and Tarussky occupied the interfluve of the Oka, Ugra and Protva rivers. It also included the city of Mezchesk (Mezetsk), which stood near the headwaters of the Serena River.
The principalities of Moscow, Vladimir and others often waged wars with the Ryazan principality. The Ryazan principality occupied the lands to the right and left of the Oka River to the place where the Gusya River flows into the Oka. The Ryazan principality included lands in the basin of the tributary of the Ob River - the Proni River. Even before the Mongol invasion, there were two inheritances in the Ryazan principality. One lot was called that - the Ryazan principality. Its center was Ryazan (the city of Pereyaslavl Ryazansky). The second destiny was the Principality of Pron. This principality occupied the left bank of the Prony River. The capital of this specific principality was the city of Pronsk, located in the middle reaches of the Prony River. As usual in Rus', these two specific principalities fought with each other from time to time. But even when there was no open war, both principalities pursued an independent policy independent of each other.
North-east of the Ryazan principality was the Principality of Murom. The lands of this principality were located on both sides of the Oka River. Northeast of the Murom Principality was the Principality of Nizhny Novgorod. In the northeast, the border of both principalities passed in the area of the city of Gorokhovets. The western border between them went beyond the middle course of the Pra River. There is little information about the Principality of Murom. However, separate historical fragments testify that here life flowed according to the rules common to all Russian principalities - some princes overthrew others. So, the chronicle of 1355 reports that Prince Fyodor Glebovich overthrew the Murom prince Yuri Yaroslavich. In 1348, Fedor Glebovich was part of the embassy of the Grand Duke of Vladimir Simeon the Proud in the Horde.
From the north, North-Eastern Rus' bordered on the Novgorod feudal republic. The Republic extended to the vast expanses of the European North. The Novgorod Republic included lands in the Pechora River basin. They reached the western spurs of the Urals. Chronicles report that the Novgorod volost Yugra was located in this place in the Urals. The Novgorod Republic in the west bordered on the Norwegian and Swedish kingdoms. The Novgorod Republic in the west bordered on the Livonian Order, which was a vassal of the Teutonic Order. In the south, the Novgorod Republic bordered on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the region of the upper Lovat, its right tributary of the Pola River, and also near the sources of the Western Dvina.
Until the forties of the XIV century, Pskov was also part of the Novgorod Republic. Subsequently, the Pskov feudal republic separated from the Novgorod republic. The territory of the Pskov Republic was insignificant. It occupied the basin of the Velikaya River. Where the Pskov River flows into the Velikaya River, the city of Pskov stood. The Pskov Republic stretched out in a narrow strip to the north up to the Livonian fortress of Rugodivy (Narva). Pskov land in the south was fixed by the Opochka fortress. She helped protect the Pskov Republic in the south from Lithuanian troops. In the west, the Pskov Republic bordered on the Livonian Order. In the middle of the 14th century, the Livonian and Teutonic Orders began to noticeably press both the Pskov and Novgorod republics. Therefore, they sought help from Moscow.
We emphasize once again that North-Eastern Rus' was a conglomerate of principalities owned by the descendants of Vsevolod the Big Nest. This "family" conglomerate, which constantly shuddered from civil strife, was surrounded by other Russian principalities, which were not part of North-Eastern Rus'. These principalities built their internal life and foreign policy on the same principles of enmity and struggle for power with their relatives.
As for the 11 family principalities of the descendants of Yaroslav the Big Nest (they made up North-Eastern Rus'), there was a continuous struggle for power between the individual principalities. It was a struggle primarily for the table of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir. This post provided "seniority in princes". Only the most powerful princes participated in the struggle for power. The descendants of the eldest son Vsevolod Konstantinovich of Rostov did not enter into the struggle for power, which was fought between the descendants of the younger brothers of Konstantin. In the XIV century, this struggle was expressed in the rivalry of various lines of descendants of the third son of Vsevolod the Big Nest, Yaroslav.
During the XIV century, the princes of Tver, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod principalities claimed the title of Grand Duke of Vladimir. The rivalry of these three principalities was to determine the main leader. During the reign of Ivan Ivanovich Krasny, the principality of Moscow acted as such a leader. This rivalry depended not only on their own forces, but also on the Horde and Lithuania. Often influenced the balance of power and other principalities that were outside the North-Eastern Rus'. We have described them above.
The factors that caused the collapse of Kievan Rus are manifold. The system of subsistence farming in the economy that had developed by that time contributed to the isolation of individual economic units (family, community, inheritance, land, principality) from each other. Each was self-sustaining, consuming all the product it produced. There was no significant trade exchange.
Along with the economic prerequisites for fragmentation, there were socio-political prerequisites. Representatives of the feudal elite (boyars), having turned from the military elite (combatants, princely husbands) into feudal landowners, strove for political independence. There was a process of "settlement of the squad on the ground."
In the financial field, it was accompanied by the transformation of tribute into feudal rent. Conventionally, these forms can be divided as follows: tribute was collected by the prince on the grounds that he was the supreme ruler and defender of the entire territory to which his power extended; rent is collected by the owner of the land from those who live on this land and use it. During this period, the system of state administration changed: the decimal was replaced by the palace and patrimonial. Two control centers are being formed: the palace and the patrimony. All court ranks (Kravchiy, bed-keeper, equestrian, etc.) are simultaneously government posts within each individual principality, land, inheritance, etc.
Finally, foreign policy factors played an important role in the process of disintegration of the relatively unified Kievan state.
The invasion of the Tatar-Mongols and the disappearance of the ancient trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks", which united the Slavic tribes around itself, completed the collapse. In the XIII century. The principality of Kiev, seriously affected by the Mongol invasion, is losing its significance as a Slavic state center. But already in the XII century. a number of principalities are separated from it. A conglomerate of feudal states formed:
Rostov-Suzdal;
Smolensk;
Ryazan;
Murom;
Galicia-Volynskoe;
Pereyaslavskoe;
Chernihiv;
Polotsk-Minsk;
Turovo-Pinsk;
Tmutarakan;
Kyiv;
Novgorod land.
Within these principalities, smaller feudal formations were formed, the process of fragmentation deepened.
In the XII - XIII centuries. The immune system has been greatly developed. liberated the boyar estates from princely administration and court. A complex system of vassal relations and the corresponding system of landed feudal property were established. The boyars received the right of free "departure", that is, the right to change overlords.
Old Russian principalities- These are state formations that existed in Rus' during the period of feudal fragmentation.
Arising in the second half of the X century. and became in the XI century. In the second quarter of the 12th century, the practice of distributing lands in conditional holding by the rulers of the Old Russian state to their sons and other relatives became the norm. to its actual collapse.
The conditional holders wanted, on the one hand, to turn their conditional holdings into unconditional ones and achieve economic and political independence from the center, and on the other hand, by subjugating the local nobility, to establish full control over their possessions.
The prince was considered the supreme owner of all the lands in the principality: part of them belonged to him as a personal possession (domain), and he disposed of the rest as the ruler of the territory, they were divided into domain possessions of the church and conditional holdings of the boyars and their vassals (boyar servants).
In the middle of the XI century. the process of disintegration of large principalities began, which first of all affected the most developed agricultural regions. In the XII - the first half of the XIII century. this trend has become universal. Particularly intense fragmentation was in the Kiev, Chernigov, Polotsk, Turov-Pinsk and Muromo-Ryazan principalities. To a lesser extent, it affected the Smolensk land, and in the Galicia-Volyn and Rostov-Suzdal (Vladimir) principalities, periods of disintegration alternated with periods of temporary unification of appanages under the rule of the "senior" ruler. Only Novgorod land throughout its history continued to maintain political integrity.
Smolensk principality was located in the basin of the Upper Dnieper. It bordered in the west with Polotsk, in the south with Chernigov, in the east with the Rostov-Suzdal principality, and in the north with the Pskov-Novgorod land. It was inhabited by the Slavic tribe of Krivichi.
In 1125, the new Kyiv prince Mstislav the Great allocated Smolensk land as an inheritance to his son Rostislav, the ancestor of the local princely dynasty of the Rostislavichs, since then it has become an independent principality.
In the second half of the XII - the beginning of the XIII century. Rostislavichi very actively tried to put under their control the most prestigious and richest regions of Rus'.
In the second half of the XIII century. the lines of Davyd Rostislavich were established on the Smolensk table: it was successively occupied by the sons of his grandson Rostislav Gleb, Mikhail and Theodore. Under them, the collapse of the Smolensk land became inevitable, Vyazemskoye and a number of other destinies stood out from it. The princes of Smolensk had to recognize vassal dependence on the great prince of Vladimir and the Tatar khan (1274).
In the XIV century. under Alexander Glebovich, his son Ivan and grandson Svyatoslav, the principality completely lost its former political and economic power, the Smolensk rulers unsuccessfully tried to stop Lithuanian expansion in the west. After the defeat and death of Svyatoslav Ivanovich in 1386 in the battle with the Lithuanians on the Vekhra River near Mstislavl, the Smolensk land became dependent on the Lithuanian prince Vitovt, who began to appoint and dismiss the Smolensk princes at his own discretion, and in 1395 established his direct rule.
In 1401, the Smolensk people rebelled and, with the help of the Ryazan prince Oleg, expelled the Lithuanians, the Smolensk table was occupied by the son of Svyatoslav Yuri. However, in 1404 Vitovt took the city, liquidated the principality of Smolensk and included its lands into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Galicia - Volyn principality. The southwestern lands of Rus' - Volyn and Galicia, where Slavic tribes of Dulebs, Tivertsy, Croats, Buzhans have long settled - became part of Kievan Rus at the end of the 10th century. under Vladimir Svyatoslavich.
The heyday of the Galician principality falls on the reign of Yaroslav Vladimirovich Osmomysl (1153 - 1187), Yaroslav Osmysl had unquestioned authority, both in Russian affairs and in international affairs, he resolutely rebuffed the Hungarians and Poles who pressed on him and waged a fierce struggle against the boyars. After the death of Yaroslav Osmysl, the Galician land became the scene of a long internecine struggle between the princes and the local boyars.
Its duration and complexity is explained by the relative weakness of the Galician princes, whose land ownership lagged behind that of the boyars in size.
The situation was different in the Volyn land. Volyn until the middle of the XII century. did not have its own dynasty of princes. From the middle of the 12th century, the Volyn land became the family property of the descendants of Izyaslav Mstislavich. A powerful princely patrimony formed early here.
In 1189 Volyn Prince Roman Mstislavich united the Galician and Volyn lands. With the death of Osmomysl's son, Vladimir Yaroslavich, the Rostislavich dynasty ceased to exist. In 1199, Roman Mstislavich again took possession of the Galician principality and again united the Galician and Volyn lands into a single Galician-Volyn principality.
The economic and cultural rise of the Galicia-Volyn principality during the reign of Daniel Romanovich was interrupted by the invasion of Batu. In 1259, at the request of the Tatars, Daniel demolished the fortifications of the cities of Danilov, Lvov, Kremenets, Lutsk, Vladimir, the only way he managed to save these cities from destruction and ruin. Hoping to create an anti-Horde coalition on a European scale with the help of the pope, Daniil Romanovich agreed to accept the royal crown offered to him by Innocent IV. The coronation took place in 1253 during campaigns against the Lithuanian Yotvingians, in the small town of Dorogichin, located near the western border of the principality. The Roman Curia turned their attention to Galicia and Volhynia, hoping to spread Catholicism in these lands.
In 1264 Daniel Romanovich died in Kholm. After his death, the decline of the Galicia-Volyn principality began, which broke up into four destinies.
In the 1270s, Lev Daniilovich moved the capital of the principality to Lvov, where it remained until 1340. In 1292 Lublin was annexed.
In the XIV century. Galicia was captured by Poland, and Volhynia by Lithuania. After the Union of Lublin in 1569, the Galician and Volyn lands became part of a single multinational Polish-Lithuanian state - the Commonwealth.
Rostov-Suzdal (Vladimir-Suzdal) Principality. The state of society in the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality is easiest to understand by its class composition, dividing the population according to class, legal and social status.
The class of feudal lords consisted of princes, boyars, free servants, nobles, children of boyars and church feudal lords. The legal status of the princes was characterized by:
Ownership of hereditary princely estates - domains;
The combination of the supreme power of the prince and his ownership of the largest land estates, villages and cities;
Allocation of the estates of the prince, merging with state lands, into palace lands.
The legal status of the boyars was characterized by:
1. vassal dependence on the prince, military service with him;
2. Ownership of land patrimonies formed as a result of princely grants and the seizure of communal lands;
3. the existence of the right to break official ties with the prince at his own discretion while maintaining the estates;
4. the development of immunities, i.e., the release of estates from princely taxes and duties;
5. exercising the right of sovereign rulers in their fiefdoms;
6. the presence of their own vassals - that is, medium and small feudal lords.
The majority of the feudal lords of the North-East belonged to the free servants. They were obliged to perform military service to the Vladimir princes, they were given the right to freely move from one prince to another. The former descendants of the impoverished boyar families belonged to the boyar children. The nobles, who arose as a social group at the top of society in the 12th century, constituted its lowest stratum. The following features of the legal status are characteristic of the nobles: they served their prince, received land for this, the property was conditional - that is, during the time the nobleman served.
Church feudal lords occupied a significant place among the feudal lords. Their landed property grew out of princely grants, land contributions from the boyars, and the seizure of peasant communal lands. The dependent population united, in addition to smerds, purchasers, outcasts, and serfs, also new categories: ladles, pawnbrokers, and sufferers. Ladles went into bondage to the feudal lords for a share of the harvest. The pawns were "mortgaged" to the feudal lords for the sake of food. Under the sufferers they understood the serfs planted on the ground.
For the legal status of dependent peasants, it was characteristic that they had the right to transfer from one feudal lord to another after the payment of the debt. Peasants carried a duty in the form of quitrent in kind, labor rent (corvée), state duties.
By the middle of the XII century. The Rostov-Suzdal principality withdrew from the Kyiv state and became an independent land, at the end of the same century the capital of the land moved to Vladimir, the city of the Great Vladimir-Suzdal prince. The power of the prince extended to most of the territory of North-Eastern Rus'.
The features of the government were a very strong princely power, the deprivation of cities of veche independence, the construction of new cities. The transfer of the grand-ducal throne from Kyiv to Vladimir, as well as the relocation of the Kyiv Metropolitan, contributed to the transformation of Vladimir into the central city of the Northeast.
Vladimir-Suzdal Principality began to claim not only for independence, but also for a central position in all of Rus'. It strengthened and grew. The principality maintained international relations with the countries of the West and East, waged a struggle with the neighboring Russian principalities and established close economic and political ties with Novgorod. It reached its peak in the twelfth and first half of the thirteenth centuries.
There were many large cities on the territory of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, but the urban population was divided into two categories: citizens of old cities, with veche privileges, and residents of new cities, wholly subject to the prince.
The feudal-dependent population consisted of peasants who lived on lands belonging to princes and boyars. Partly it was completely enslaved, partly - semi-free.
At the head of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality was the Grand Duke, who had great political influence. The prince had a council consisting of boyars and clergy; to restore order and wars - the princely squad. Occasionally, feudal congresses were held. Even more rarely, a city people's assembly - a veche - was convened to resolve important issues.
In the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, there was a palace-patrimonial system of government, with all the characteristic features: the butler was at the head of the system, local representatives of the princely power were posadniks (governors) and volosts, who performed the functions of administration and court; instead of a salary for their service, they received "food" - part of the collected from the population. The time of the greatest prosperity of the principality coincided with the time of its decline: in the XIII century. it was conquered by the Mongols.
Novgorod land. It occupied a vast territory (almost 200 thousand square kilometers) between the Baltic Sea and the lower reaches of the Ob. Its western border was the Gulf of Finland and Lake Peipus, in the north it included Lakes Ladoga and Onega and reached the White Sea, in the east it captured the Pechora basin, and in the south it was adjacent to the Polotsk, Smolensk and Rostov-Suzdal principalities (modern Novgorod, Pskov, Leningrad, Arkhangelsk, most of the Tver and Vologda regions, Karelian and Komi autonomous republics). It was inhabited by Slavic (Ilmen Slavs, Krivichi) and Finno-Ugric tribes (Vod, Izhora, Korela, Chud, All, Perm, Pechora, Lapps).
The unfavorable natural conditions of the North hindered the development of agriculture; grain was one of the main imports. At the same time, huge forests and numerous rivers favored fishing, hunting, fur trade, and the extraction of salt and iron ore was of great importance.
Since ancient times, the Novgorod land has been famous for its various crafts and the high quality of handicrafts. Its favorable location at the crossroads from the Baltic Sea to the Black and Caspian ensured her the role of an intermediary in the trade of the Baltic and Scandinavia with the Black Sea and the Volga region. Craftsmen and merchants, united in territorial and professional corporations, represented one of the most economically and politically influential strata of Novgorod society. Its highest stratum, large landowners (boyars), also actively participated in international trade.
Novgorod land was divided into administrative districts - pyatins, directly adjacent to Novgorod (Votskaya, Shelonskaya, Obonezhskaya, Derevskaya, Bezhetskaya), and remote volosts: one extended from Torzhok and Volok to the Suzdal border and the upper reaches of the Onega, the other included Zavolochye (onega interfluve and Mezen), and the third - the land to the east of the Mezen (Pechora, Perm and Yugra regions).
In 1102, the Novgorod elites (boyars and merchants) refused to accept the reign of the son of the new Grand Duke Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, wishing to keep Mstislav, and the Novgorod land ceased to be part of the Grand Duke's possessions. In 1117 Mstislav handed over the Novgorod table to his son Vsevolod (1117–1136).
In 1136 the Novgorodians revolted against Vsevolod. Accusing him of bad management and neglect of the interests of Novgorod, they imprisoned him with his family, and after a month and a half they expelled him from the city. From that time on, a de facto republican system was established in Novgorod, although the princely power was not abolished.
The supreme governing body was the people's assembly (veche), which included all the free citizens. The veche had broad powers - it invited and dismissed the prince, elected and controlled the entire administration, resolved issues of war and peace, was the highest court, introduced taxes and duties.
The prince from a sovereign ruler turned into the highest official. He was the supreme commander in chief, could convene a council and issue laws if they did not contradict customs; embassies were sent and received on his behalf. However, when elected, the prince entered into contractual relations with Novgorod and gave an obligation to govern “in the old way”, appoint only Novgorodians as governors in the volosts and not impose tribute on them, wage war and make peace only with the consent of the veche. He did not have the right to remove other officials without trial. His actions were controlled by an elected posadnik, without whose approval he could not make judicial decisions and make appointments.
The local bishop (lord) played a special role in the political life of Novgorod. From the middle of the XII century. the right to elect him passed from the Metropolitan of Kyiv to the veche; the metropolitan only sanctioned the election. The Novgorod lord was considered not only the main clergyman, but also the first dignitary of the state after the prince. He was the largest landowner, had his own boyars and military regiments with a banner and governors, certainly participated in peace negotiations and inviting princes, and was a mediator in internal political conflicts.
Despite the significant narrowing of princely prerogatives, the rich Novgorod land remained attractive to the most powerful princely dynasties. First of all, the senior (Mstislavichi) and junior (Suzdal Yuryevich) branches of the Monomashichs competed for the Novgorod table; Chernigov Olgovichi tried to intervene in this struggle, but they achieved only episodic successes (1138–1139, 1139–1141, 1180–1181, 1197, 1225–1226, 1229–1230).
In the XII century. the preponderance was on the side of the Mstislavich clan and its three main branches (Izyaslavichi, Rostislavichi and Vladimirovichi); they occupied the Novgorod table in 1117-1136, 1142-1155, 1158-1160, 1161-1171, 1179-1180, 1182-1197, 1197-1199, some of them (especially the Rostislavichs) managed to create independent, but short-lived principalities in the Novgorod land (Novotorzhskoye and Velikolukskoye).
However, already in the second half of the XII century. the positions of the Yurievichs began to strengthen, who enjoyed the support of the influential party of the Novgorod boyars and, in addition, periodically put pressure on Novgorod, closing the routes for the delivery of grain from North-Eastern Rus'.
In 1147, Yuri Dolgoruky made a trip to the Novgorod land and captured Torzhok, in 1155 the Novgorodians had to invite his son Mstislav to reign (until 1157). In 1160, Andrei Bogolyubsky imposed on the Novgorodians his nephew Mstislav Rostislavich (until 1161); in 1171 he forced them to return Rurik Rostislavich, who had been expelled by them, to the Novgorod table, and in 1172 to transfer him to his son Yuri (until 1175). In 1176 Vsevolod the Big Nest managed to plant his nephew Yaroslav Mstislavich in Novgorod (until 1178).
In the XIII century. Yuryevichi (Vsevolod's Big Nest line) achieved complete predominance. In the 1200s, the Novgorod throne was occupied by the sons of Vsevolod Svyatoslav (1200–1205, 1208–1210) and Konstantin (1205–1208). True, in 1210 the Novgorodians were able to get rid of the control of the Vladimir-Suzdal princes with the help of the Toropetsk ruler Mstislav Udatny from the Smolensk Rostislavich family; The Rostislavichs held Novgorod until 1221 (with a break in 1215–1216). However, then they were finally ousted from the Novgorod land by the Yurievichs.
The success of the Yurievichs was facilitated by the deterioration of the foreign policy situation of Novgorod. In the face of the increased threat to its western possessions from Sweden, Denmark and the Livonian Order, the Novgorodians needed an alliance with the most powerful Russian principality at that time - Vladimir. Thanks to this alliance, Novgorod managed to defend its borders. Called to the Novgorod table in 1236, Alexander Yaroslavich, the nephew of the Vladimir prince Yuri Vsevolodich, defeated the Swedes at the mouth of the Neva in 1240, and then stopped the aggression of the German knights.
The temporary strengthening of princely power under Alexander Yaroslavich (Nevsky) was replaced at the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th century. its complete degradation, which was facilitated by the weakening of external danger and the progressive disintegration of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality. At the same time, the role of the veche also declined. In Novgorod, an oligarchic system was actually established.
The boyars turned into a closed ruling caste that shared power with the archbishop. The rise of the Moscow principality under Ivan Kalita (1325–1340) and its formation as the center of the unification of Russian lands aroused fear among the Novgorod leaders and led to their attempts to use the powerful Lithuanian principality that had arisen on the southwestern borders as a counterweight: in 1333, for the first time, he was invited to the Novgorod table Lithuanian prince Narimunt Gedeminovich (although he only lasted a year on it), in the 1440s the Grand Duke of Lithuania was granted the right to collect irregular tribute from some Novgorod volosts.
Although the 14th century became a period of rapid economic prosperity of Novgorod, largely due to its close ties with the Hanseatic Trade Union, the Novgorod leaders did not use it to strengthen their military-political potential and preferred to pay off the aggressive Moscow and Lithuanian princes. At the end of the XIV century. Moscow launched an offensive against Novgorod. Vasily I captured the Novgorod cities of Bezhetsky Verkh, Volok Lamsky and Vologda with the adjacent regions, in 1401 and 1417 he tried, though unsuccessfully, to seize Zavolochye.
Chernihiv Principality separated in 1097 under the rule of the descendants of Svyatoslav Yaroslavich, their rights to the principality were recognized by other Russian princes at the Lyubech Congress. After the youngest of the Svyatoslavichs was deprived of his reign in 1127 and under the rule of his descendants the lands on the lower Oka separated from Chernigov, and in 1167 the line of descendants of David Svyatoslavich was cut off, the Olegovich dynasty established itself on all the princely tables of the Chernigov land: the northern and upper Oka lands the descendants of Vsevolod Olegovich owned (they were also constant contenders for Kyiv), Novgorod-Seversky principality - the descendants of Svyatoslav Olegovich. Representatives of both branches reigned in Chernigov (until 1226).
In addition to Kyiv and Vyshgorod, at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries, the Olegovichs managed to briefly extend their influence to Galich and Volyn, Pereyaslavl and Novgorod.
In 1223, the princes of Chernigov took part in the first campaign against the Mongols. In the spring of 1238, during the Mongol invasion, the northeastern lands of the principality were devastated, and in the autumn of 1239, the southwestern ones. After the death of the Chernigov prince Mikhail Vsevolodovich in the Horde in 1246, the lands of the principality were divided between his sons, and the eldest of them, Roman, became a prince in Bryansk. In 1263, he liberated Chernigov from the Lithuanians and annexed it to his possessions. Beginning with Roman, the Bryansk princes were usually titled as the Grand Dukes of Chernigov.
At the beginning of the XIV century, Smolensk princes established themselves in Bryansk, presumably through dynastic marriage. The struggle for Bryansk lasted for several decades, until in 1357 the Grand Duke of Lithuania Olgerd Gediminovich installed one of the contenders, Roman Mikhailovich, to reign. In the second half of the XIV century, in parallel with him, the sons of Olgerd Dmitry and Dmitry-Koribut also reigned in the Bryansk lands. After the Ostrovsky agreement, the autonomy of the Bryansk principality was liquidated, Roman Mikhailovich became the Lithuanian governor in Smolensk, where he was killed in 1401.
The Grand Duchy of Moscow was formed around the middle of the 14th century. as a result of the growth of the Moscow principality, which stood out in the 1st half. 13th century as a lot of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality.
From the 1320s, the Moscow princes bore the title of Grand Dukes of Vladimir. In 1247, the Moscow principality went to Prince Mikhail Yaroslavich Khorobrit.
From 1267, Daniel, the son of Prince Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky, reigned in Moscow. At the beginning of the XIV century. The Moscow principality expanded significantly due to the annexation of Kolomna (1301), Pereslavl-Zalessky (1302), Mozhaisk (1303). Relying on the growing material forces, the Moscow princes waged a stubborn struggle for political supremacy in the Russian lands.
Prince Yuri Danilovich, relying on the support of Novgorod the Great, as well as using the Golden Horde khans, in 1318 became the Grand Duke of Vladimir, but from 1325 the great reign was transferred to the Tver prince. Ivan Danilovich Kalita acquired great confidence in the Khan and in 1328 became the Grand Duke of Vladimir.
The skillful policy of Ivan Kalita provided the Moscow principality with a long respite from the Mongol invasions, which contributed to the rise of its economy and culture. Kalita's heir, Grand Duke Semyon Ivanovich Proud (1340 - 53) called himself "the Grand Duke of All Rus'."
In the 1360s, after a struggle with the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod prince, the great reign was established by Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy (1359 - 89). Moscow became the center of gathering forces against the Mongol-Tatar conquerors, the Moscow troops repulsed the attacks of the Mongol-Tatars in the Nizhny Novgorod and Ryazan principalities, and in 1380 Dmitry Ivanovich led the all-Russian forces that moved towards the troops of the temnik Mamai.
The victory in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380 secured the leading position of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in the Russian lands. Dmitry Ivanovich for the first time transferred the Great reign to his son Vasily Dmitrievich (1389-1425) as his “fatherland”, without the sanction of the Golden Horde Khan.
The territory of the Grand Duchy of Moscow gradually expanded at the end of the 14th century, Nizhny Novgorod was annexed in 1392, and the influence of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in the possessions of the Novgorod feudal republic increased significantly.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania. One of the consequences of the state decentralization of the Kievan state, intensified by the Batu pogrom, was the disunity of the ancient Russian territories, when Southern and Western Rus' fell under the rule of Lithuania. The once united Russian people was divided into three branches - Great Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. The rupture of cultural and political ties between the parts of the previously unified whole led to the conservation of some dialect and ritual features, although the awareness of the spiritual and ethnic community did not leave the descendants of the ancient Russians even in conditions of mutual isolation.
The annexation of Western Russian lands to Lithuania began in the second third of the 13th century under the Grand Duke of Lithuania Mindovge. During the reign of Gediminas and his son Olgerds, the territorial acquisitions of Lithuania continued. It included Polotsk, Vitebsk, Minsk, Drutsk principalities, Turov-Pinsk Polissya, Beresteyshchyna, Volyn, Podolia, Chernihiv land and part of the Smolensk region. In 1362, Kyiv was brought under the rule of the Lithuanian prince. Indigenous Lithuania was surrounded by a belt of Russian lands subject to it, which accounted for 9/10 of the entire territory of the newly formed state, stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Russian cultural influence in the new state enjoyed an overwhelming predominance, subordinating the politically dominant people - the Lithuanians. Gediminas and his sons were married to Russian princesses, the Russian language dominated at court and in official office work. Lithuanian writing at that time did not exist at all.
Until the end of the 14th century, the Russian regions, joining Lithuania, did not experience national-religious oppression. The structure and character of local life was preserved, the descendants of Rurik remained in their economic positions, having lost little politically, since the political system of Lithuania was of a federal nature. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was more of a conglomerate of lands and possessions than a single political entity. Until some time, the Russian cultural influence in the Lithuanian-Russian state was growing steadily. The Gediminids became Russified, many of them converted to Orthodoxy. There were obvious trends leading towards the formation of a new, original version of Russian statehood in the southern and western lands of the former Kievan state.
These tendencies were broken when Jagiello became the Grand Duke of Lithuania. His pro-Western orientation was the result of Jagiello's personal characteristics: lust for power, vanity, cruelty. In 1386, he converted to Catholicism and formalized the union of Lithuania with Poland. The ambitions of the Polish gentry, associated with the desire to penetrate the vast Western Russian lands, were satisfied.
Her rights and privileges quickly outweighed those of the Russian aristocracy. Catholic expansion began in the western lands of Rus'. Large regional principalities were abolished in Polotsk, Vitebsk, Kyiv and other places, self-government was replaced by governorship. The Lithuanian aristocracy changed its cultural orientation from Russian to Polish.
Polonization and catholicization captured part of the Western Russian nobility, while the majority of Russians remained faithful to Orthodoxy and ancient traditions. National-religious hostility began, which did not exist until the 80s of the XIV century. This enmity developed into a tough political struggle, during which the nationally minded part of the Western Russian population inevitably grew stronger in favor of a unified Russian state. The process of folding the state core in the northeast of Rus' influenced these sentiments and strengthened them.
So, each principality in southwestern Rus' had its own prince. The prince was considered the supreme owner of all the lands in the principality: part of them belonged to him as a personal possession (domain), and he disposed of the rest as the ruler of the territory, they were divided into domain possessions of the church and conditional holdings of the boyars and their vassals.
In ancient times, Lithuanian tribes occupied the northern lands almost to the present Tambov. But then they merged with the Finno-Ugric and Slavic populations. Lithuanian tribes survived only in the Baltic states and Belarus. The central part of this range was occupied by the Lithuanian tribe or Lithuanians, Zhmud lived to the west, Prussians lived even further to the west. In the east of modern Belarusian lands, the Yatvags lived, and the golyad tribe was located in the Kolomna region.
From these disparate tribes, the Lithuanian prince Mindovg created a single principality. After his assassination by conspirators in 1263, the Lithuanian princes fought for power until the beginning of the 14th century. The winner in these internecine wars was Prince Gediminas (ruled 1316-1341). It was to him that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 14th century owed its successful policy of conquest.
The very first conquest was Black Rus'. This is an area near the city of Grodno - the westernmost part of Rus'. Then Gediminas subjugated Minsk, Polotsk, Vitebsk. After that, the Lithuanians penetrated into Galicia and Volhynia. But Gediminas failed to conquer Galicia. It was occupied by the Poles, and the Lithuanians settled only in eastern Volhynia and began to prepare for a campaign against Kyiv.
Black Rus' on the map
At the time described, Kyiv had already lost its greatness, but Stanislav, who reigned in the city, decided to defend himself and the townspeople to the end. In 1321, he entered into battle with the army of Gediminas, but was defeated. And the victorious Lithuanians laid siege to Kyiv. The people of Kiev were forced to submit to the great Lithuanian prince on the basis of vassalage. That is, all property was left to the people of Kiev, but the Kyiv prince fell into complete submission to the winners.
After the capture of Kyiv, the Lithuanian army continued its military expansion. As a result, Russian cities up to Kursk and Chernigov were conquered. So, under Gediminas and his son Olgerd, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania arose in the 14th century. It continued its policy of conquest after the death of Gediminas, when his sons Olgerd and Keistut entered the political arena.
The brothers divided spheres of influence. Keistut settled in Zhmudi and resisted the Germans, while Olgerd pursued an aggressive policy in the Russian lands. It should be noted that Olgerd and his nephew Vitovt formally accepted Orthodoxy. Lithuanian princes married Russian princesses and united around themselves the Rurikovichs from the Turov-Pinsk land. That is, they gradually included the Russian lands in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Olgerd managed to subjugate a vast territory to the Black Sea and the Don. In 1363, the Lithuanians defeated the Tatars at the Blue Waters (Sinyukha River) and captured the western part of the steppe between the Dnieper and the mouth of the Danube. Thus, they went to the Black Sea. But Lithuania continued to be sandwiched between Orthodox Russia and Catholic Europe. The Lithuanians waged active wars with the Teutonic and Livonian Orders, and therefore Poland could become their ally.
Poland at that time was in a state of deepest crisis. She was periodically tormented by both anti-papist German orders and the Czechs who captured Krakow and the lands adjacent to it. The latter were hardly driven out by the Polish king Vladislav Loketek from the Piast dynasty. In 1370, this dynasty ceased to exist, and the Frenchman Louis of Anjou became the king of Poland. He gave the crown to his daughter Jadwiga. The Polish magnates strongly advised that she should be legally married to the Lithuanian prince Jagaila, the son of Olgerd. Thus, the Poles wanted to unite Poland with Lithuania and stop German expansion.
In 1385, Jagiello married Jadwiga and became the full ruler of Lithuania and Poland in accordance with the Union of Kreva. In 1387, the population of Lithuania officially adopted the Catholic faith. However, not everyone greeted it with enthusiasm. Those Lithuanians who linked themselves with the Russians did not want to accept Catholicism.
This was taken advantage of by the cousin of Jagiello Vitovt. He led the opposition and led the struggle for the throne of the Grand Duke. This man was looking for allies among the Lithuanians, and among the Poles, and among the Russians, and among the crusaders. The opposition was so strong that in 1392 Jagiello concluded the Ostrov agreement with Vytautas. According to him, Vitovt became the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and Jagiello appropriated the title of the Supreme Duke of Lithuania.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the XIV century on the map
Vitovt continued to conquer Russian lands and in 1395 captured Smolensk. Soon he refused to submit to Jagiello and, thanks to an alliance with the Tatars, annexed a large territory of the Wild Field to Lithuania. So the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the XIV century significantly expanded its borders. However, in 1399 military happiness turned away from Vitovt. He lost Smolensk and part of other lands. In 1401, Lithuania was so weakened that it again entered into an alliance with Poland - the Union of Vilna-Radom.
After that, Vitovt again gained serious political weight. In 1406, an official border was established between Moscow Rus and Lithuania. The Principality of Lithuania waged a successful struggle against the Teutonic Order. In 1410, the Battle of Grunwald took place, in which the crusader knights suffered a crushing defeat. In the last years of his reign, Vytautas sought to separate Lithuania from Poland again, and for this purpose he decided to be crowned. But this idea ended in failure.
Thus, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the XIV century became a strong state militarily and politically. It united, noticeably expanded its borders and acquired high international prestige. An important historical event was the adoption of Catholicism. This step brought Lithuania closer to Europe, but moved it away from Rus'. It played a big political role in later centuries.
Alexey Starikov
INTRODUCTION 3
1. RUSSIAN PRINCIPALITIES IN THE CONDITIONS OF POLITICAL Fragmentation 5
2. NOVGOROD AND PSKOV STATES 10
3. DEVELOPMENT OF LAW IN THE NORTH-WEST OF Rus' 14
4. THE GOLDEN HORDE AS A MILITARY-FEUDAL STATE 16
5. RUSSIAN LANDS IN THE GRAND PRINCIPALITY OF LITHUANIA 18
6. DEVELOPMENT OF THE LAW IN THE STATE OF LITHUANIA 20
7. MOSCOW PRINCIPALITY (XIII-XV CENTURIES) AND THE FORMATION OF THE GREAT RUSSIAN
STATES 22
CONCLUSION 25
INTRODUCTION
The Russian state, formed on the border of Europe with Asia, which reached its peak in the 10th - early 11th century, at the beginning of the 12th century broke up into many principalities. This disintegration took place under the influence of the feudal mode of production. The external defense of the Russian land was especially weakened. The princes of individual principalities pursued their own separate policy, taking into account, first of all, the interests of the local feudal nobility and entered into endless internecine wars. This led to the loss of centralized control and to a strong weakening of the state as a whole. The Vladimir-Suzdal principality, later the dominant territory of North-Eastern Rus', covered the interfluve of the Oka and Volga. On its territory lay the path from the White Lake along the Shezhna to the Volga. The principality was connected not only with Novgorod trade, which already meant a lot, but also with European trade, and along the Volga with the Caspian, Central Asia, the Celestial Empire, and Byzantium. Along the Moscow River led the way to Kolomna, along the Oka to the Volga and along
Klyazma to the Volga. The principality of Vladimir was part of the once mighty and united, but in the 13th century it was snatched to pieces by the principality of Kyiv. Pereyaslavl became an independent principality, principalities:
Chernigov, Novgorod-Severskoe, Galicia-Volynskoe, Smolensk - became independent. Former Kievan Rus was divided into two parts:
South and Northeast. Due to the loss of its political significance by Kyiv, the Galician principality, then headed by Yaroslav Osmysl, became the center of Southern Rus'. In the North-Eastern part, the Vladimir-Suzdal land began to occupy a predominant position.
Along with Galich, another political center was formed - Vladimir, which was guarded by impenetrable forests, swamps, rivers and the Ryazan-Murom principality.
In 1206, in distant places on the Onon River, the leaders of nomadic tribes gathered for a kurultai, where they proclaimed their supreme leader Temuchin, one of the successful steppe leaders, and named him Genghis Khan. This kurultai played a tragic role in the fate of all Ancient Rus'. Genghis Khan by force united under his hand all the Mongols, some neighboring tribes and, on the basis of a generic trait, created an army that in the 12-13 centuries, in the era of developed feudalism, in the Central Asian states, in Rus' and in
Europe was unmatched.
First of all, Genghis Khan fixed his eyes on the richest states of Central Asia. Genghis Khan's goal is to plunder cities:
Bukhara, Samarkand, Merv, Urgench and others. The entire conquest was accomplished in 3 years - 1219-1221.
“In 1224 an unknown people appeared; an unheard-of army came, godless Tatars, about whom no one knows very well who they are and where they came from, and what kind of language they have, and what tribe they are, and what faith they have ...
RUSSIAN PRINCIPALITIES IN THE CONDITIONS OF POLITICAL Fragmentation
The factors that caused the collapse of Kievan Rus are varied. The natural economy system that had developed by that time contributed to the isolation of individual economic units (family, community, inheritance, land, principality), each of them was self-sustaining, consuming the entire product that it produced. Trade was virtually non-existent.
Along with the economic prerequisites for fragmentation, there were also socio-political ones. Representatives of the feudal elite (boyars), having turned from the military elite (combatants, princely husbands) into landowners, strove for political independence. There was a process
"settlement of the squad on the ground." In the financial field, it was accompanied by the transformation of tribute into feudal rent. Conventionally, these forms can be divided as follows: tribute was collected by the prince on the grounds that he was the supreme ruler and defender of the entire territory to which his power extended; rent was collected by the owner of the land from those who lived on this land and used it.
During this period, the system of state administration changed - the decimal was replaced by the palace and patrimonial. Two control centers are formed
- Palace and patrimony. All court ranks (kravchiy, bed-keeper, equestrian, etc.) are simultaneously government posts within a separate principality, land, inheritance, etc.
Finally, foreign policy factors played an important role in the process of disintegration of the relatively unified Kievan state. The invasion of the Tatar-Mongols and the disappearance of the ancient trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks”, which united Slavic tribes around itself, completed the collapse.
In the XIII century. The principality of Kiev, seriously affected by the Mongol invasion, is losing its significance as a Slavic state center.
Back in the XII century. a number of principalities separated from it. A conglomerate of feudal states was formed: Rostov-Suzdal, Smolensk, Ryazan,
Murom, Galicia-Volyn, Pereyaslav, Chernihiv, Polotsk-Minsk,
Turov-Pinsk, Tmutarakan, Kiev, Novgorod land. Within these principalities, smaller feudal formations were formed, and a process of fragmentation was observed.
In the XII-XIII centuries. the system of immunities, which freed the boyar estates from princely administration and court, received great development.
A complex system of vassal relations and the corresponding system of landed feudal property were established. The boyars received the right of free "departure" - the right to change overlords.
Judicial jurisdiction during this period falls into two areas:
The judiciary in general, protecting the national interests;
Judicial rights of local feudal lords who considered mutual disputes of their people.
The procedure for litigation in respect of people living on public lands was different from the judicial procedure applied to people living on privately owned lands. In all specific principalities, so-called “local” courts were formed to consider cases that went beyond the limits of local jurisdiction. They were a combination of two judicial systems:
Court of the landowner enjoying immunity, and
Court of the princely governor.
Rostov (Vladimir)-Suzdal Principality, located in the north-east of Rus', later became the center of the unification of Russian lands. During the period of feudal fragmentation (after the 30s of the 12th century) it acted as a competitor to Kyiv. The first princes (Yuri Dolgoruky, Andrei Bogolyubsky,
Vsevolod the Big Nest) managed to form a large domain, from which they provided land for serving boyars and nobles, creating for themselves a strong social support in their person. A significant part of the lands of the principality was developed in the process of colonization, new lands became the property of the prince. He did not experience strong economic competition from the boyar families (the old boyar aristocracy and large land estates were absent in the principality). The main form of feudal landownership became landownership.
The feudal system was characterized by a number of features: the fragmentation of the supreme power and its close merger with land ownership; hierarchical organization of feudal society with a complex interweaving of vassal ties; the conventionality of land ownership in general, when the main form remains the feud.
By means of charters, the princes transferred to their vassals a number of rights: the exercise of judicial power, the right to judge all those living on this land, the right to collect taxes and duties from them. The Grand Dukes, with their letters of commendation, ensured the independence of boyar and monastic estates from local authorities (volostels, tiuns, closers), forming their immunities.
The patrimonial principle during this period supersedes the old tribal relations, the private law, possessory principles are strengthened. Large boyar landownership tore apart the ancient communal system. The concept itself
“parish”, which used to mean a territorial community, acquires a different meaning, denoting an administrative district that includes boyar and noble estates, monastic lands, etc. within the boundaries of an ancient volost territory. At the same time, a process is going on
“mortgaging”, when whole villages and volosts were “mortgaged” for a specific prince or boyar, passed under his control.
The social support of the prince was the newly formed cities (Vladimir,
Pereyaslavl, Yaroslavl, Moscow, Dmitrov, etc.). The political authority of the principality was strengthened when the Metropolitan's residence was transferred to Vladimir. Power in the principality belonged to the prince, who had the title of great.
The existing organs of power and administration were similar to the systems of organs of the early feudal monarchies - the princely council, veche, feudal congresses, governors and volostels. There was a palace-patrimonial system of government.
In the XI-XII centuries. in Rus' there is a rapid growth of cities, by the XIII century. their number reached three hundred. Cities arose as fortified points and trading centers. Settlements (collections) and suburbs were formed around them, some of them later acquire the status of a city. Cities became centers of commodity production and work to order; merchant and craft (guild) organizations are emerging. The city boyars (“the elders of the city”) make up the patriciate of the cities, and the veche becomes a permanent body.
NOVGOROD AND PSKOV STATES
These state formations have developed in the north-west of Rus'. They are characterized by some features of the social system and feudal relations: the significant social and economic weight of the Novgorod
(Pskov) boyars, which has a long tradition, and its active participation in trade and fishing activities.
The main economic factor was not land, but capital. This led to a special social structure of society and an unusual form of state government for medieval Rus'. Novgorod
The (Pskov) boyars organized commercial and industrial enterprises, trade with their western neighbors (cities of the Hanseatic Trade Union) and with the Russian principalities.
By analogy with some regions of medieval Western Europe
(Genoa, Venice) in Novgorod and Pskov, a kind of republican
(feudal) system. The development of crafts and trade, more intensive than in other Russian lands (which was explained by access to the seas), required the creation of a more democratic state system, the basis of which was a fairly wide middle class of Novgorod-Pskov society: people were engaged in trade and usury, natives (of their own kind of farmers or farmers) leased or cultivated the land, the merchants united into several hundred (communities) and traded with the Russian principalities and with “foreign countries” (“guests”). The urban population was divided into patricians
(“oldest”) and “black people”.
The Novgorod (Pskov) peasantry consisted, as in other Russian lands, of communal smerds, ladles - dependent peasants working
"out of the floor" for a part of the product on the master's land, pawns
(“laid down”), who entered bondage, and serfs.
State administration of Novgorod and Pskov was carried out through a system of veche bodies: in the capitals there was a city-wide veche, separate parts of the city (sides, ends, streets) convened their own veche meetings. Formally, the veche was the highest authority (each at its own level), which decided the most important issues of the economic, political, military, judicial, and administrative spheres. Veche elected the prince. All the free people of the city took part in the veche meetings. An agenda was prepared for the meetings, as well as candidates for officials elected at the veche. Decisions at the meetings were to be taken unanimously. There was an office and an archive of the veche meeting, office work was carried out by veche clerks.
The organizational and preparatory body (preparation of bills, veche decisions, control activities, convening a veche) was the boyar council (“Ospoda”), which included the most influential persons (representatives of the city administration, noble boyars) and worked under the chairmanship of the archbishop.
The highest officials of the “Lord of Veliky Novgorod” were the posadnik, the thousand, the archbishop, the prince.
The posadnik was elected by him for one or two years and supervised the activities of all officials, together with the prince was in charge of management and court issues, commanded the army, led the veche meeting and the boyar council, and represented in external relations.
Tysyatsky dealt with issues of trade and the merchant court, led the people's militia.
The archbishop was the custodian of the state treasury, the controller of trade measures and weights (his main role is the spiritual leadership in the church hierarchy).
The prince was invited by citizens to reign, served as commander in chief and organizer of the defense of the city, shared military and judicial activities with the posadnik. Under agreements with the city (it is known about
80 treaties of the 13th-15th centuries) the prince was forbidden to acquire land in Novgorod, distribute the land of Novgorod volosts to his close associates, manage Novgorod volosts, administer justice outside the city, legislate, declare war and make peace. He was also forbidden to conclude agreements with foreigners without the mediation of the Novgorodians, to judge serfs, to accept pawns from merchants and smerds, to hunt and fish outside the lands allotted to him. In case of violation of the treaties, the prince could be expelled.
The territory of the Novgorod land was divided into volosts and pyatins, the administration of which was based on the principles of local autonomy. Each pyatina was assigned to one of the five ends of Novgorod. The suburb was the center of self-government.
Once upon a time, Pskov was such a suburb, which, in the course of a stubborn struggle, grew into an independent political center, around which the Pskov state developed. The political and state organizations of Pskov repeated the Novgorod one: the veche system, the elected prince, but instead of the thousandth - two sedate posadniks. There were six ends, twelve suburbs.
Administrative division was made into districts (lips), volosts, villages.
From the 12th century in Novgorod, as in other cities of Rus', a permanent place was established for holding veche meetings and for the stay of the posadnik and the thousand.
In the XIII century. 17 monasteries existed on the territory of Novgorod land and active church colonization took place.
At the end of the XII century. Novgorod signed an international treaty with the Germans, which became one of the sources for the future codification (Novgorod and Pskov judicial charters).
DEVELOPMENT OF LAW IN THE NORTH-WEST OF Rus'
The sources of law in this region were Russkaya Pravda, veche legislation, city treaties with princes, judicial practice, and foreign legislation. As a result of the codification of the XV century. appeared
Novgorod and Pskov court letters.
A fragment has been preserved from the Novgorod Judicial Charter, which gives an idea of the judicial system and legal proceedings. All authorities and administrations had judicial rights: veche, posadnik, thousand, prince, boyar council, archbishop, sotsk, headman. Judicial powers were vested in merchant and guild corporations (brothers). The judicial ranks were clerks, bailiffs, “callmen”, scribes, mezhniks, clerks, etc.
The Pskov Judicial Charter (PSG) of 1467 consisted of 120 articles. Compared to Russkaya Pravda, it more thoroughly regulates civil law relations and institutions, law of obligations and judicial law, and considers certain types of political and state crimes.
Property law provided for the division of things into immovable (“fatherland”) and movable (“belly”), distinguished between hereditary (“patrimony”) and conditional
(“feeding”) land ownership. The ways of the emergence of property rights were determined: the expiration of the limitation period for possession, the transition by contract, by inheritance, award.
The law of obligations regulated contracts of sale, donation, pledge, loan, exchange, luggage, rent of premises, personal hire.
The form of the contract could be oral and written. Its registration was carried out in the presence of a priest or witnesses. When concluding some contracts, a pledge was required (for loans and borrowings in excess of 1 ruble), a guarantee (“guarantee”, if the amount is less than 1 ruble), or mandatory written registration (“record”).
PSG knows two types of inheritance - by law (“wrinkle”) and by will (“mandatory”). The will needed state approval.
Only legal heirs (ascending, descending, lateral, spouse) were directly listed.
Under the crime PSG for the first time in Russian law understands the infliction of damage not only to private individuals, but also to the state. The law knows the following types of crimes: against the state (treason or "transfer"); against the judiciary (bribery or “promise” to a judge, forcible entry into a courtroom, violence against judicial officials); property
(simple tatba, qualified or repeated tatba, theft of church property, arson, horse theft, robbery - violent and open seizure of property, robbery - an armed attack for the purpose of robbery); against a person (murder or “anniversary”, beating, assault).
Judicial law was regulated in the PSG in more detail than in
Russian Pravda. The process was of an adversarial nature, but the role of the court was strengthened: a summons to court on a summons (“callman”) and through a bailiff (“callman”). The forensic evidence mentioned in Russkaya Pravda is preserved and new ones appear: a judicial duel (“field”) and written evidence, divided into “boards” (private receipts) and “records”
(officially certified documents). There is an institution of judicial representation in a judicial duel (“complicity”), which could only be used by women, teenagers, monks, and old people. Cases resolved by the court were not subject to review.
GOLDEN HORDE AS A MILITARY-FEUDAL STATE
At the end of the XIII century. From the empire of Genghis Khan, a state formation stood out, which received the name of the Golden Horde and existed in the immediate vicinity of the Russian principalities until the end of the 14th century.
The features of feudal relations here were: the nomadic and semi-nomadic nature of society; the important role played by the tribal chiefs; hierarchy of nomadic landownership. The state religion in the Horde was Islam.
The remaining tribal relations were based on the nomadic hierarchy: khan, princes, beks, nyons, tarkhans, nukers. Accordingly, the military hierarchy of the Mongols was formed, based on the decimal system,
- temniks (from darkness - 10 thousand), thousanders, centurions, tenants. The entire army consisted of heavy and light cavalry.
The empire of Genghis Khan was divided by him into 4 uluses, headed by his sons; The Golden Horde was led by a khan, who had the powers of a dictator. He was elected by the congress of the Mongolian aristocracy - kurultai.
Divans were the organs of central sectoral administration, the work of which was coordinated by the head of government - the vizier. The highest officials in the uluses were emirs, in the army - bakouls and temniks. The local government was headed by the Baskaks and Darugs, who relied on a staff of officials.
After the defeat of the Russian principalities by the Mongols in the first half of the XIII century. the latter fell into the position of tributaries to the Horde. The Russian principalities retained their statehood, church and administration, but were forced to pay taxes, the collection of which was entrusted to one of the princes. This order was reinforced by the issuance of the Khan's "label", which, as it were, gave the right to the title of Grand Duke and political and military support from Saray (the capital of
Hordes). This situation was skillfully used by some Russian princes to strengthen their role and influence on other principalities. Tributes and requisitions, counting the population, punitive and police functions on the territory of the Russian principalities were carried out by the Baskaks.
In Muscovy, some features of the administration used by the Mongols were adopted; this influence affected the system and procedure for taxation, the formation of the Yamskaya transport service, the organization of the troops and the financial and state department.
The main source of law of the Golden Horde was the Great Yasa of Genghis Khan
(1206), which contained mainly the norms of criminal law, customary law and later the norms of Sharia. The property and obligation law was in its infancy: political power and vassal relations were identified with property relations. Family, marriage, hereditary relations were regulated by custom and tradition (polygamy, father's power, minority, i.e., the priority of the youngest son in inheritance).
The death penalty was imposed for various types of crimes: disobedience to the khan, lying in court, adultery, magic, urinating in a fire, etc. In the trial, in addition to testimonies and oaths, torture was used, the principle of bloody bail, group responsibility was used. The judiciary was not separated from the administrative. With the intensification of the Islamization of the Horde, the Qadi and Irguchi courts arose, acting on the basis of the Koran.
Due to internal (struggle for power) and external (defeat in
Battle of Kulikovo in 1380) causes the Golden Horde to disintegrate in the 15th century. On the territory of the former empire of Genghis Khan, a number of state formations arose: the Siberian, Kazan, Astrakhan khanates, which often found themselves in hostile relations with each other in the 16th century. alternately submit to the Muscovite state.
RUSSIAN LANDS AS PART OF THE GRAND PRINCIPALITY OF LITHUANIA
In the middle of the XII century. account for the heyday of the Galicia-Volyn principality, which in the XIV century. was divided between Lithuania and Poland. These Russian lands as part of the Lithuanian state had some features of the social system: the presence of a wealthy boyars, who owned large land plots, significant political and legal autonomy for these groups. Within
Galicia-Volyn principality, there were more than 80 cities, in the principality a fairly wide layer of service nobility was formed, endowed with local lands.
Before the adoption of the Union of Lublin, the Chernigov and Smolensk lands seceded from the Lithuanian principality and went to Moscow, but a significant part of the Russian lands remained part of the Commonwealth until the end of the 18th century. (Polotsk, Vitebsk, Turovo-Pinsk, Beresteiskaya, etc.). The Union of Lublin formed a multinational state - the Commonwealth.
The development of the social, state and legal system of these principalities took place within the framework of the Lithuanian and Polish orders and traditions.
The head of state was the hospodar, who relied in his activities on the Council of Pans (“pany-rada”), i.e., large feudal magnates. The Council included Catholic bishops, chancellor, sub-chancellor, hetman, marshalok, podkarby, governors. In the composition of the Council, over time, a narrower “secret council” is distinguished.
Since 1507, the Great Wall Sejm began to convene (every two years) - a class-representative body, consisting of two chambers: the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. The deputies were elected at local sejmiks, they represented pans, bishops, and the nobility. When discussing issues in the Sejm from the middle of the XVII century. the right of "veto" was established, when any deputy could cancel the decision of the Sejm.
The highest officials of the Lithuanian state were: marshals
(zemstvo, noble, etc.), chancellor (state office work, office and treasury), zemstvo treasurer (state treasury),
“Podkarby dvorny” (sovereign treasury), Zemstvo hetman (military command).
After the signing of the Union of Lublin, unified central bodies were formed: the king (elected by the gentry), the Senate (of 16 members), and the Sejm.
Before the signing of the union, the local administration of Lithuania consisted of voivodships, elders, povets, volosts, states, counties. Local sejmiks were formed.
Local rulers were governors, elders, officers, voits, derzhavtsy, lavniki.
At the head of the city administration were elected bodies: voit, radtsy, burmisters. They owned the administrative and judicial power in the city.
The supreme judicial body was the court of the ruler. Other judicial instances were the court of the panov-rada. The main tribunal (since 1581 elected at the sejmiks from the nobility and clergy), zemstvo and Podkomorsky (on land disputes) courts. From the beginning of the XVI century. a court of assessors (on behalf of the ruler) and a Marshal's court (travelling court) are formed. On the ground, there were mop (communal) peasant courts, courts of elders and governors.
DEVELOPMENT OF LAW IN THE STATE OF LITHUANIA
In the Russian lands, Russian Pravda and the norms of customary law were used as sources, the Russian language was the official language in legal proceedings. From the end of the XIV century. the system of gospodar "sheets", "leads", resolutions and charters is developing.
In 1447, the first all-zemstvo law of Lithuania, Rus' and Zhmudi was adopted, in 1468 - the first judicial code (25 articles on criminal and procedural law). In 1529, the first statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was adopted, which had a significant impact on the development of Russian law and was based on
Russian Pravda and Russian customary law. Other sources of the statute were Lithuanian and Polish legislation, led, Roman and German law, judicial practice. The new edition, or the second Lithuanian Statute, appeared in
1566, in 1588 the third statute.
Law formalized the feudal relations that had developed in the state: the rights of feudal lords (lords, gentry, bishops) were fixed in the leads. In 1528, the Zemsky Honor was compiled - a noble family tree guide. According to the statute, the nobility was divided into gentry, princes, pans-horugovs, commonwealth boyars.
The peasants were divided into “similar” (free) and “dissimilar”
(attached). The unfree peasants were divided into three groups - courtyards, servants, Naimins, differing in varying degrees of dependence on the master.
In 1477, the rules of feudal duties and the right of the seigneurial court were established. In 1557, according to the reform, “gospodar peasants” were attached to the land of the gospodar, at the end of the 16th century. the same was done with respect to private lands and the peasants living on them. However, within
The Principality of Lithuania continued to be inhabited by a large number of free people
(“bayors”).
Citizens organized into guilds and guilds governed on the basis
Magdeburg law, sought to create a system of self-government
(magistrates). However, the feudal pressure on the cities was very significant, they could not get full independence.
The basis of feudal relations was land ownership, which arose as a result of “feudal holding” - distribution for life (“up to the stomach”), for two generations (“up to two stomachs”) or indefinitely (“up to the will and affection of the ruler”). The Lithuanian statute distinguishes three forms of land ownership - granted (holding), hereditary (fatherland) and purchase. The law imposed restrictions on the disposal of land in order to prevent its fragmentation, a complex procedure was established for putting land into possession: issuance of letters, input, registration.
In criminal law, there was the concept of “falsehood” (an analogue of “resentment”), which later turned into “maliciousness”, already associated with the violation of norms. A more developed legal technique of statutes establishes the personal responsibility of the subject, the lower age limit (7 years), distinguishes between intent and negligence. The statutes provide for liability for state (lèse majesty, treason, rebellion) and religious
(magic, exit from Christianity, seduction to another faith) crimes.
Fines were a common type of punishment, but frightening types of the death penalty (burning, wheeling), self-mutilation punishments appear. In the system of punishments, a class character can be traced: for the same crime, a gentry and a commoner were punished differently.
MOSCOW PRINCIPALITY (XIII-XV CENTURIES) AND THE FORMATION OF THE GREAT RUSSIAN
STATES
In the second half of the XIV century. in northeastern Rus', the tendency to unite the lands intensified. The center of the association was the Moscow principality, separated from Vladimir-Suzdal in the 12th century.
The weakening and disintegration of the Golden Horde, the development of economic relations between princes and trade, the formation of new cities and the strengthening of the social stratum of the nobility played the role of unifying factors. AT
In the Moscow principality, a system of local relations was intensively developed: the nobles received land from the Grand Duke (from his domain) for service and for the duration of their service. This made them dependent on the prince and strengthened his power.
From the 13th century Moscow princes and the church begin to carry out a wide colonization of the Trans-Volga territories, new monasteries, fortresses and cities are formed, the local population is subjugated and assimilated.
Speaking of “centralization”, one should keep in mind two processes - the unification of Russian lands around a new center - Moscow and the creation of a centralized state apparatus, a new power structure in
Moscow state.
In the course of centralization, the entire political system was transformed. In place of many independent principalities, a single state is formed. The whole system of suzerain-vassal relations is changing: the former grand dukes themselves become vassals of the Grand Duke of Moscow, a complex hierarchy of feudal ranks is taking shape. By the 15th century there is a sharp reduction in feudal privileges and immunities. There is a hierarchy of court ranks given for service: an introduced boyar, a roundabout, a butler, a treasurer, the ranks of duma nobles, duma clerks, etc. The principle of parochialism is being formed, linking the possibilities of holding public office with the origin of the candidate, his generosity. This led to a thorough and detailed development of the problems of genealogy, "pedigrees", individual feudal clans and families.
An estate of nobles is being formed, which has a very ancient origin.
The first service category, from which the nobility would later develop, were
“youths” or “gridi”, the prince’s junior combatants. Then the princes appear
“yard” servants or “servants under the court”, which included both free people and serfs. All these categories are combined into a group of “children of the boyars”, who never grew up to be boyars and “princely husbands”, but who formed the social base of the nobility.
The service nobility, strengthening its positions, becomes a support for the Grand Duke (Tsar) in the struggle against the feudal aristocracy, which does not want to sacrifice its independence. In the economic field, a struggle is unfolding between patrimonial (boyar, feudal) and local (noble) types of land tenure.
The church became a serious political force, concentrating significant land holdings and values in its hands and mainly determining the ideology of the emerging autocratic state (the idea
“Moscow is the third Rome”, “the Orthodox kingdom”, “the king is the anointed of God”).
The clergy were divided into "white" (church ministers) and "black"
(monastic). Church institutions (parishes and monasteries) were landowners, had their own jurisdiction and judicial authorities, the church had its own military formations.
The elite of the urban population waged a continuous struggle against the feudal aristocracy (for land, for workers, against its outrages and robberies) and actively supported the policy of centralization. She formed her corporate bodies (hundreds) and insisted on exemption from heavy taxation (tax) and on the elimination of privileged feudal trades and trades (“white settlements”) in the cities.
In the emerging political situation, all three social forces - the feudal (secular and spiritual) aristocracy, the service nobility and the top tenants - formed the basis of the estate-representative system of government.
Centralization led to significant changes in the state apparatus and state ideology. The Grand Duke began to be called the king by analogy with the Horde Khan or the Byzantine emperor. Rus' took over
Byzantium attributes of an Orthodox state, state and religious symbols. The emerging concept of autocratic power meant its absolute independence and sovereignty. In the XV century. the metropolitan in Rus' began to be appointed without the consent of the Byzantine patriarch (by this time
Byzantine Empire).
The strengthening of the power of the Grand Duke (Tsar) took place in parallel with the formation of a new system of state administration - the prikaz-vosvodskaya. It was characterized by centralization and estates. The highest authority was the Boyar Duma, which consisted of secular and spiritual feudal lords, acting constantly on the basis of the principle of parochialism and relying on the professional (noble) bureaucracy. It was an aristocratic deliberative body.
During the XV century. Moscow Grand Dukes from patrimonial princes became monarchs of a centralized state. Their power was strengthened by reducing the power of specific princes and Tatar khans.
An autocratic, i.e., politically independent, power was being formed. From an ideological standpoint, this power was presented as a duty, a nationwide, sovereign service.
CONCLUSION
By the middle of the XVI century. finally formed the national Great Russian state. At the top of the state hierarchical pyramid is royal power, which is not limited either politically or legally. Royal power is limited only by the canon, that is, the basic church rules and secular customs. The word “king” as a title was fixed in the middle of the 16th century, the word “autocrat” was introduced into official circulation at the beginning of the 17th century. The means of obtaining power were inheritance and election.
The essence of the supreme power was not expressed in legislation and was not subject to the action of state-established norms. The tsar himself issued statutes, decrees, lessons and lawsuits. The king was recognized as the highest source of state power.
The body, which is approved in the literature under the name “Boyarskaya
Duma”, in the legal documents of the era was defined as “thought”, “sovereign top”, “chamber”, “boyars, okolnichy and duma people”, etc. In the XV-beginning of the XVI century. The Duma exists as an advisory and legislative institution.
The formation of the state apparatus was carried out according to the principle of parochialism, largely adopted from the Polish-Lithuanian state tradition. Localism, based on the criteria of nobility of origin (the higher the origin of the applicant, the higher the position in the state hierarchy he can occupy), turned the boyars into a closed corporation, reduced the quality of state leaders and replaced national interests with estates.
The competence of the Duma included participation in the formation of legislation, participation in management and judicial activities. The solution of these issues was not based on a legal basis, but was carried out at the initiative of the supreme power.
The Boyar Duma eventually begins to strive to acquire the fullness of power (“without a tsar and without listening to the earth”). At the same time, from
In the Duma, a narrower body is distinguished, consisting of advisers close to the tsar (“The Chosen Rada”, “Near Duma” - in the middle of the 16th century). A special group in the Duma in the XV century. were princes. Its aristocratic part is okolnichy and boyar children, "who live in the Duma." Since the 17th century Duma appear duma nobles and duma clerks. The number of the Duma increased as it turned into a specific service body and council for management affairs.
as the supreme governing body. The Duma merged with the orders. Through orders and the command apparatus, the supreme power introduced new people into the Duma, circumventing the principle of parochialism.
From the 16th century, the palace and patrimonial system of government was transformed into a prikaz-voivodship system. The Grand Dukes give orders to their boyars
“Know” this or that area of management, i.e. “order”. From these instructions, specialized, sectoral governing bodies arise - orders. Unlike palace departments, orders were more bureaucratic, technical in nature.
The main site of the administrative-territorial division in the Russian state was the county, made up of large land parts: suburbs and lands. Whole lands were divided into volosts, camps, thirds and quarters. The volost remained as the main economic unit.
Features of the process of state centralization were as follows: Byzantine and Eastern influence led to strong despotic tendencies in the structure and policy of power; the main support of autocratic power was not the union of cities with the nobility, but the local nobility; centralization was accompanied by the enslavement of the peasantry and the strengthening of class differentiation.
