Russian land and a special relationship to it. The concept of "Russian land" in the X-XII centuries

"Russian land" - the Kievan state of the IX-XII centuries

In chronicle sources, the terms "Russian land", "Rus" in relation to the IX-XI centuries usually designate all the lands of the Kievan state. In the X-XI centuries, "Rus" in the annals occupies a vast territorial space from the Carpathians to the Don and from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and as an ethnic group, as a country, it is opposed to the "Varangians", "Greeks", "Lyash land", "Polovtsian land" and other peoples and countries. At the same time, historians note that in the sources of the 10th-beginning of the 12th centuries, the “Russian Land” is also distinguished as the territorial and political core of the Kievan state. So, Konstantin Porphyrogenitus in his essay “De administrando imperio” writes about Novgorod as “outer Rus'”, and also contrasts Rus' with countries “paying tribute to the Russian land”. In The Tale of Bygone Years in the 10th century, "Rus" is contrasted with the Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribal unions of the emerging Kievan state; as an exception - the tribal union "glade", which is identified with "Rus". In the first articles of the short edition of Russkaya Pravda, “Rusyns” and “Slovenes” simultaneously appear. In addition, the researchers point to the fact that the Kiev princes, until the end of the 11th century, sought to preserve the unity of the lands of the Middle Pneprovye (that is, the Kiev, Chernihiv and Pereyaslav lands), thereby discovering in the lands of the Middle Dnieper "internal Rus'" IX-XI centuries.

"Russian land" in the XII-XIII centuries

In the 12th century, with the disintegration of the Kievan state into separate principalities-half-states, the tradition of using the term "Russian land" in the annals also changed. "Russian land" in XII-XIII centuries chroniclers, as a rule, designate either the lands of the Middle Dnieper (that is, the lands of the Kyiv, Chernigov and Pereyaslav principalities), or the lands of the Kyiv principality. It should be noted that in the XII century, the chronicler once contrasted the city of Vruchiy with its surroundings (North-Western Polissya of the Kiev Principality) to the “Russian Land”, and from the “Russian Land” of the Chernigov Principality, the chroniclers exclude all the lands of this principality to the north and north-east of the cities of Starodub , Trubchevsk and Kursk. However, in the XII-XIII centuries, the terms "Rus", "Russian land" in the annalistic sources often refer to all the lands of Southern Rus'. The ancient annalistic meaning of the "Russian Land" as all Eastern European lands controlled by the princes of the Rurik dynasty was also preserved at this time.

Literature

Chronicles according to Ipat., Lavr. lists; Novg. I chronicle of the senior and junior editions
Nasonov A.N. "Russian land" and the formation of the territory of the ancient Russian state "- Moscow, 1951
Rybakov B. A. "Kievan Rus and Russian Principalities of the XII-XIII centuries." - Moscow, 1982

Notes

Russian lands in relation to the ulus of Jochi (Horde):
is it a vassal state or part of the Horde state?

I.I. Nazipov

Senior Lecturer of the Department of Legal Disciplines
Perm Institute of Economics and Finance
614068, Perm, st. Bolshevik, 141
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You must have JavaScript enabled to view.

The article examines one of the most debatable in historical science, the question of the state ownership of the Russian lands of the XIII-XV centuries. ulus of Jochi. So far, scientists have not applied scientific and legal methods to solve it. The legal approach (within the framework of the theory of the state) makes it possible to isolate a number of basic features of the state, which can be classified as generally recognized. The study of the connections between the Russian lands and the ulus of Jochi, within the framework of these features, adjusted for the realities of the 13th-15th centuries, gives the following answer to the research question: the Russian lands were not always part of the Horde state. Identified periods of belonging of the Russian lands to the statehood of the Horde and periods of the sovereign status of the Russian lands in the XIII-XV centuries. indicated in the article.

Keywords: signs of the state; ulus of Jochi; state affiliation of Russian lands

Domestic historical and historical-legal science gives three answers to the question of whether the Russian lands belong to the Horde statehood. However, each of the options is not supported by a special in-depth study of the signs of the state that appear in the Russian lands as evidence of the functioning of the Horde state or the states - Russian principalities. These answers are only a short incidental statement in the presentation and study of other aspects of Russian-Horde relations - a retelling of the events of Russian-Horde relations, identifying the consequences of the Horde's influence on historical development Rus'. 

The first position in historiography: complete disregard for the issue. The phrase "under Mongol rule" replaces the answer to the question what this power was, replaces the identification of this power. Within the framework of this approach, scientists qualitatively describe the events of Russian-Horde relations, characterize their forms, the severity of the influence of the Horde for Rus', use the term “yoke”, but do not touch on the issue of the state ownership of Russian lands. Probably, at the same time, they understand that the problem exists, but are not ready to solve it and therefore “do not notice”. To solve this problem, it is not enough to be a historian (even an outstanding one), one must simultaneously be a specialist in political science and legal sciences. Perhaps it is precisely the lack of development of the theory of the state, before the twentieth century, that explains this position in historiography, because it is precisely the scientists who lived and worked before the twentieth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century that it is represented.

I will quote the most famous representatives of this group of scientists, choosing quotes so that they reflect their way of bypassing this issue while getting as close to the problem as possible.

N.M Karamzin:“The princes, humbly groveling in the Horde, returned from there as formidable rulers: for they commanded in the name of the supreme king.” “If the Mongols did the same with us as they did in China, in India, or what the Turks did in Greece; if, leaving the steppe and nomadism, they returned to our cities, they could still exist in the form of a state. Fortunately, the harsh climate of Russia removed this thought from them. The khans only wanted to be our masters "from afar", not interfering in civil affairs, they demanded only silver and obedience from the princes.

CM. Solovyov:"The Mongols remained to live far away, they only cared about collecting tribute, not interfering in any way with internal relations, leaving everything as it was."

IN. Klyuchevsky: "The Horde khans did not impose any orders on Rus', being content with tribute, they even poorly understood the order that operated there."

S.F Platonov:“The Tatars called Rus' their “ulus”, that is, their parish or possession; but they left his old device in this ulus.

The second position in historiography: the Russian lands (North-Eastern, Southern Rus') belonged to the Horde state, being part of it. Basically, representatives of this position are scientists of the early twentieth century. These are the so-called "Eurasians". This point of view was shared by N.I. Kostomarov. Below are quotes characterizing the position of these scientists.

G.V. Vernadsky:“... the Golden Horde Khan was the supreme ruler of Rus' - its “king”, as the Russian chronicles call him”; “While Western and Eastern Rus' were under the control of the khan, both were parts of one political entity, the Golden Horde.”

N.S. Trubetskoy:“Russia was at that time a province of a large state. It is authentically known that Russia was drawn into the general financial system Mongolian state".

N.I. Kostomarov:"A number of princes and states are in unconditional dependence on the supreme sovereign, the Tatar Khan, the true owner of the Russian land"; "The supreme lord, conqueror and owner of Rus', the khan, correctly called by the Russians, the tsar, distributed the land to the princes into estates."

The third position in historiography: the preservation of the Russian lands of their own statehood during the period of the "yoke". It is represented by "Soviet historiography" (the idea that Rus' in relation to the Horde is a "vassal state") and L. Gumilyov (the idea of free Russian states and their union with the Horde).

Here is how the most famous representatives of "Soviet historiography" write about it.

B.D. Grekov, A.Yu. Yakubovsky:“The Russian lands conquered by the Tatar army were not directly included in the Golden Horde. The Golden Horde khans considered the Russian lands as politically autonomous, having their own power, but being dependent on the khans and obliged to pay tribute to them - "exit". Russian feudal principalities became vassal to the khan.

V.V. Kargalov:“Unlike other countries conquered by the Mongol-Tatars, Rus' has retained its political and social system. There has never been a Mongol administration on Russian soil. Even the Mongol-Tatars themselves did not call the Russian land "ulus", that is, part of the Golden Horde, completely subject to the khan.

V.V. Mavrodin:“Vasselage was expressed in the payment of tribute and in the fact that the Russian princes, in order to rule in their own principality, were obliged to receive special letters-labels from the khan.”

I.B. Grekov, F.F. Shahmagonov: “The occupation of North-Eastern Rus', as well as the Middle Dnieper, was beyond the Horde's strength and did not promise her, in essence, any benefits. These lands were needed by the Horde as a permanent and reliable source of income in the form of tribute.

It is not clear to the author of the article how the state, i.e. an organization that has sovereignty can be a vassal, i.e. a subject of social relations that does not have a sign of sovereignty. Even if we accept the application of the term characterizing feudal relations within the class of feudal lords to interstate relations, we observe a contradiction.

L.N. Gumilyov: “There was no question of any Mongol conquest of Rus'. The Mongols did not leave the garrisons, they did not think of establishing their permanent power. With the end of the campaign, Batu went to the Volga. "Alexander Yaroslavich...< >... went to Berka and agreed on a tribute to the Mongols in exchange for military assistance against the Lithuanians and Germans ”(i.e., tribute is just a payment for military assistance under a business deal); "The Russian principalities that accepted an alliance with the Horde have fully retained their ideological independence and political independence"; "The label is a pact of friendship and non-aggression".

Below is a brief version of the study of the problem by the author of the article, using the methods of legal sciences.

The concept of "state" is ambiguous. Here the state is defined as a political-territorial sovereign organization of public power, having a special apparatus of control and coercion, capable of making its regulations binding on the population of the entire country. The state is revealed and characterized through a number of features: 1) the presence of public authority, which has a special apparatus of management and state coercion, violence; 2) organization of power and population on a territorial basis; 3) state sovereignty, understood as the dual unity of the supremacy and uniqueness of the power of the state in a certain territory in relation to individuals and communities within the country and independence in relations with other states; 4) comprehensive, obligatory nature of acts issued by the state; the prerogative (exclusive right) of the state to issue laws and other normative acts containing generally binding rules of conduct for the population of the country; 5) taxation and collection of taxes, duties and other fees. Quite often, as the main features of the state in the literature are called: 6) a single language of communication; 7) the presence of an army; 8) a unified system of defense and foreign policy.

Let us characterize the features of the state listed above, including those adjusted for the realities of the Russian lands and the Horde in the era of the 13th–15th centuries.

1. public authority. It "stands" above society, separated from it. Regardless of whether the exercise of power is entrusted to an individual or to any body, they act on behalf of the state (in the Middle Ages, on behalf of the monarch - the owner of the land, and, importantly, on behalf of the prince, in Russian lands sometimes on behalf of the khan) and as state bodies (whose bodies are important here: khan, Horde or independent Russian, princely). This power is independent and independent in relation to other sources of power. Power in the state must be legal and legitimate. Legal power is a power that acquires powers in accordance with the law and rules with the help of laws. In the realities of the Middle Ages, in addition to laws, also in accordance with customs, orders of the monarch, and religious principles. In the study, we need to determine whether the power over the Russian lands was based on the Horde customs of the organization of management, on the orders of the khan. The legitimacy of power characterizes the special relationship between the government and the population of a given state, legitimacy characterizes the degree of recognition of power by the population, the subordination of the population to power orders. (It is important whether the population of the Russian lands obeyed the khan in the person of his officials and (or) through his orders, whether the Russians, from peasants to princes, recognized the power of the khan).

2. Territory. Includes the land and the people who lived on it, who are subject to the power of the state. The state determines its borders (it is important whether the borders of the Russian principalities were changed by the decision of the khan or the khan's administration) and protects its borders from invasions (it is important whether the Horde protects the Russian lands as their own or not).

3. state sovereignty. It includes the supremacy of state power within the country, i.e. independence in determining the content of their activities, policies. It includes full rights in determining the life of society within its territory (internal sovereignty) and independence in relations with other states in determining its foreign policy (external sovereignty). (It is important for our study: did the Russian lands and their public authorities have internal independence and external independence from the Horde). A number of important features of sovereignty duplicate other features of the state, which have been or will be discussed separately. For example, territorial supremacy (only the laws of this state apply on the territory of a given state) or territorial integrity (the territory of a state cannot be changed, either downward or upward, without the consent of a higher authority of this state).

An important sign of sovereignty, both within the state and outside it, is formal independence from other states or monarchs. (It is important for our study: there were non-Russian lands and their rulers were formally independent of the Horde and (or) Khan or recognized their supremacy and suzerainty).

External sovereignty implies, first of all, that another state and its ruler cannot exercise their power over this state and its ruler (par in paren non habet jmperium - an equal has no power over an equal). This is expressed, in particular, in non-subordination of the foreign and domestic policy of the state to another state. It is important for us whether there was such disobedience to the Horde of the Russian lands. For example, did the Russian rati, at the behest of the khan, fight with other, neighboring and non-neighboring, states. For example, whether new taxes were established in the Russian lands by order of the khan. This is expressed in disobedience at the level of foreign policy relations to legislation (any regulations; here - labels) of another state. The immunity of a sovereign state also covers the lack of jurisdiction of its judicial authorities of another state. (To determine the sovereignty of the Russian lands, it is important: whether they and their rulers were subjected to trial in the Horde).

4. The Comprehensive Binding Nature of State Acts. This sign is determined by the exclusive powers of the state to carry out lawmaking, i.e. to issue, change or cancel generally binding acts for the entire population of the state and to force their execution. (The presence of acts issued in the Horde and binding on the population in the Russian lands means the limitation or absence of this feature of the state in these lands. What is important for our study). Acts are not only rules of conduct that are binding on everyone to whom they are addressed in constant life, but also acts " state law”, i.e. on the succession to the throne, on the appointment of a specific person to the post of head of state.

5. Taxation. This sign includes the rule according to which only the state has the right to establish taxes and extend the obligation to pay them to absolutely everyone who is on its territory, or to exempt certain categories of people and organizations from them. (If the khans established taxes in Rus' and collected them, if they exempted certain categories of people and organizations from taxes, then this sign of the state will be absent in Rus' or will be severely limited. Which we should note in our study.)

6. Single language of communication. Multinational states also existed in antiquity, but a single language of communication (for communication at the highest state level, for the state of laws, leadership in the army, for legal proceedings) was usually the language of the people who, having subjugated others, created this state and is the main people in it . In the Hellenistic states and in Byzantium, for example, Greek was such, in Ancient Rome - Latin. (If the acts in the Russian lands were written in Kypchak or Mongolian, then this indicates the limitation or absence of this feature of the state in the Russian lands).

7. Having an army. A medieval state, unlike a number of modern ones, could not exist without an army. The absence of such (regular troops or squads plus militias) indicates that this territorial unit was not a state. But the presence does not at all mean that this territory was a sovereign state. In those days, the armed forces performed the following functions: police against internal enemies of the ruling force in the territory; protection against attacks by external land and water (sea, river) gangs of bandits; protection from the aggression of other states in conditions when the main armed forces of the state have not yet come to the rescue or for some reason cannot come. Local feudal lords without fail had armed forces, regardless of whether the given territory was a separate state (de jure or de facto, as was often the case during the period of medieval fragmentation) or was part of another state.

8. Unified system of defense and foreign policy. In the Middle Ages, the foreign and military policy of states often did not express the interests of these states for the reason that it expressed the interests of their rulers, which often did not coincide with the interests of states. Then dynastic politics, politics related to religion, the need for glory of rulers, even the desire of rulers to change their throne to a more prestigious and rich throne of another state, mattered. But when neither the interests of the state, nor the interests of the ruler, nor the aggression of another state induce the state to take hostile actions against this other state (its ruler), and these actions are actively carried out, we can conclude that this policy is part of the policy of another state, imposed given. For example, if Russian soldiers participated in military operations far beyond the borders of Rus' and not in the interests of their lands or rulers, then this means that they participated in the implementation of the foreign policy of the Horde. It is important for us to study this too and take it into account when assessing Russian-Horde relations in terms of the entry or non-inclusion of Russian lands into the Horde as part of it.

If the above features of the state in the study prove to be evidence of Russian statehood, then we can conclude that the Russian lands were independent states. If these signs in relation to the Russian lands appear precisely as signs of the Horde state, then, consequently, the Russian lands in this period of history were part of the Horde. If a number of signs indicate that the Russian lands were independent, and a number of signs indicate that they were part of the Horde, then, drawing conclusions, it is necessary to focus on the most important ones in the context of belonging to the Horde.

Power in the Russian lands was exercised on behalf of the "tsar", not the prince. And this indicates that the lands belong to the Horde state. This is also evidenced by the Russian chronicles, which call the Khan of the Horde “king”, reporting on the position of the Russian princes subordinate to the khan, on the “secondary” nature of their power over the Russian lands, a derivative of the power and will of the khan. For example: “Batu is almost Yaroslav with great honor and his men, and let him go, and tell him: Yaroslav, be old and all the prince in the Russian language.” “Oleksandr and Andrey arrived in Kanovich. And order Oleksandrov Kiev and all the Russian land and Andrey to your table in Volodimer. Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich of Tver, grandson of Yaroslavl, came from the Horde with a grant from Tsar Azbyak for the great reign of Volodimer.

The princes were the "officials" of the khan, who performed the duties assigned by the khan to them in their lands. This speaks for the belonging of the Russian lands to the Horde state. Here is a quote about the assigned duty to collect tribute for the khan, which Mikhail of Tverskoy did not cope with enough, in the opinion of Uzbek Khan who judged him: “... you did not give tribute to the kings.” To refuse to serve the khan meant not to be a prince in one’s own land, moreover, to flee from it: “Prince Andrei Yaroslavich and his boyars were thinking of running away, rather than serve as a tsar and run away to an unknown land.”

In the Russian lands, the khan administration from among the foreigners (foreigners for the population of these lands) operates. This testifies to the belonging of the Russian lands to the Horde state. In the story about the torment of Mikhail Chernigov, it is said that Batu appointed governors and authorities in all Russian cities. The story about the Kursk Baskak Akhmat says that the Tatars kept the Basques in Russian cities throughout the Russian land. Under the year 1262, the chronicler speaks of the Russian council against the Tatars, whom Batu and Sartak planted in all cities by Russian rulers. The annals describe both the administrative activities of these officials in the Russian lands, and the structure of the staff of these officials: “The same winters arrived in numbers, and counted the entire land of Suzhlsk and Ryazan and Murom and put foremen and centurions and thousandths and temniks” .

The territory of the principalities was changed by the decision of the khan. This testifies to their belonging to the Horde state. This happened more than once, when the khan wished it: the divisions of the Great Vladimir reign in 1328, 1341, in the 50s of the XIV century.

The princes and people of Rus' recognized the power of the khan ("tsar") over the Russian lands as legitimate. It also speaks of the lack of formal sovereignty of the Russian lands they rule. The following are quotes about recognition by princes supreme power"king" and the impossibility of fighting with him for this reason. Oleg Ryazansky says: "... it is not appropriate for a Russian prince to stand against an eastern king." Opinion of Ivan III before standing on the Ugra: “Under the oath of the spring from the forefathers, if you don’t raise your hand against the king, then how can I destroy the oath and stand against the king.”

The formal recognition of the power of the khan was accompanied by humiliating procedures for the Russian princes! For example, according to Herberstein, there was a ceremony according to which the prince went outside the city on foot, towards the Horde ambassadors who brought basma, bowed to them, brought a cup of koumiss and listened to the khan's letter while kneeling. Here is how, during a visit to the Horde in order to recognize the power of the khan, one of the most proud and famous Russian princes was humiliated at the same time: “Daniel Romanovich, the great prince, possessed the Russian land, Vladimir and Galich, together with his brother; and now he sits on his knees and is called a serf, they want tribute, he does not care for his stomach, and thunderstorms come. Oh, the evil honor of the Tatar!

Russian people, especially princes and boyars, were subjected to trial in the Horde, and, moreover, they themselves (!) went to court on the khan’s call (not as prisoners of war, for example, were subjected to trial, but precisely as subjects, subordinates!). Also, individual Russian lands were subjected to khan's condemnation and punitive military action. This indicates the degree of subordination of the Russian lands to the Horde, their corresponding belonging to the Horde statehood. For example, Mikhail of Tverskoy and his governor Fedor, Roman Ryazansky, were tried and executed in the Horde. How a prime example punishment to the principality, one can recall the ruin of Tver, which showed rebelliousness, in 1328.

The khans received regular taxes and fees from Rus' and even instructed their officials to collect them. We see here the operation in the Russian lands of the system of taxation of the Horde state. Systems developed, with population censuses. Moreover, the khans (which suggests that tribute is taxes, and not reparations from a defeated enemy) exempted certain categories of the population and organizations from taxes - the church and its ministers.

Russian detachments were forced to fight at the behest of the khans; thus, in foreign policy their Russian lands were not sovereign, but were subordinate to the Horde. In these cases, the Russian lands often had to fight against their will: “Because then the need is great from foreigners, and the Christians are driven to order to fight with them.” Russian troops often had to fight for interests alien to them and their nobility in distant countries: in China, in the Caucasus, in Central Asia.

All the signs of the state, in part from the total duration of the Russian-Horde political ties, appear in the Russian lands as signs of the Horde state and, therefore, as evidence of the state ties of the Horde and Russian lands. Accordingly, for such periods it is necessary to conclude that the lands of North-Eastern Rus' were not sovereign states, but part of the Horde state.

The above set of manifestations of signs of state ties in political relations between the Horde and the lands of North-Eastern Rus' did not always take place, in the duration of 261 calendar year of Russian-Horde relations. Or not always completely. In a number of periods, the nature of Russian-Horde relations, according to the analysis of the totality of the features of the state, manifests itself as evidence of the functioning of the statehood of the Russian lands and, accordingly, the interstate type of Russian-Horde ties. The signs of the state must be studied separately, according to the totality of events, periods of Russian-Horde ties.

Period 1242-1362 is characterized by pronounced Russian-Horde ties, subordinate to the state character. In 1243–1244 Russian princes come to the Horde, receive a label from the Khan for reigning, Yaroslav Vsevolodovich is appointed "Grand Duke", and Vladimir is approved as the main city in Rus'. The payment of tribute to the Horde began. In 1252, a punitive campaign was organized by the Khan against a number of princes who did not want to obey in North-Eastern Rus'. During this period, Khan officials conducted two censuses of the population of North-Eastern Rus' (1257, 1275), a permanent institution of officials of non-Russian origin began to function in the Russian lands, and permanent Horde military garrisons were placed. There is chronicle evidence of a "tribute in blood" - forced, judging by the nature of chronicle reports, the participation of Russian squads (1263, 1278) in military campaigns organized by the khan against other countries. The collection of tribute to the Horde during this period is regular; controls direct and indirect taxation. In a short period of time, in the late 50's - early 60's. In the 13th century, Muslim merchants-farmers collected tribute with particular cruelty in the Russian lands. After 1280, there were no permanent Horde administration and garrisons in the Russian lands of non-Russian origin. There is no information about the "tribute in blood". There were no population censuses after 1275. Tribute was collected and taken to the Horde from Russian lands only by Russian princes. Otherwise, the content of Russian-Horde ties is the same. For this time period, there are two groups of especially cruel Horde military campaigns on Russian lands, organized by the ruler of the Horde, to punish the lands and princes who did not submit to him and to approve their decisions (the first: 1281–1293; the second: 1315–1327) . In order to punish attacks on Russian lands and to protect them from expansion during this period, the Horde actively carries out campaigns against Lithuania and Poland, both independently and together with Russian detachments. In order to protect Russian lands from the expansion of Lithuania and Poland in the 80s.

Period 1362-1427 characterized by the absence of a subordinate position of the Russian lands to the Horde. In the context of the internecine war in the Horde, called in the annals "The Great Zamyatnya", the power of the Horde and its rulers over the Russian lands was formal until 1372, and in 1372-1382. it has not become formal either. Since 1362, in North-Eastern Rus', all issues have been resolved by the balance of power of the local Russian principalities. The label for the reign of Vladimir, being given to a non-Moscow prince (1365 and 1371), did not give its owner the actual opportunity to receive the Vladimir lands to rule, due to opposition to the will of the khan from Moscow. The princes do not take tribute to the Horde, there is no “tribute in blood” to the Horde. In the 1370s, an anti-Lithuanian and anti-Horde coalition of princes was formed in North-Eastern Rus', headed by the Moscow prince. This coalition wages war with the Horde and detachments of the Horde, isolated in the conditions of civil strife in the Horde, until 1382. In 1382, for 12 years, the full dependence of the Russian lands on the Horde is restored: paying tribute to the Horde, trips of princes to the Horde to the Khan, receiving labels for reigning , the participation of Russian soldiers in the distant Horde campaigns. In 1395, the dependence of the Russian lands on the Horde, defeated by Timur, led by a non-khan from the Jochi dynasty and engulfed in a special war, ceased again. (The exception is 1412-1414, when the power in the Horde belonged to the children of Tokhtamysh). During this period, the Russian lands do not pay tribute to the Horde, the princes do not receive labels. In December 1408, a campaign of the Horde against Rus' was undertaken in order to punish disobedience and restore dependence, but it did not achieve its goal. The participation of the Horde in repelling the Lithuanian aggression against Rus' took place in 1406 and 1408.

In the period 1428–1480, with actual independence from the Horde, the Russian lands recognize the formal sovereignty of the Horde "tsar". In 1428–1437 in Rus', there is a confrontation between Vasily the Dark and Yuri Galitsky, they turn to the Khan of the Horde with a request to judge in the dispute and issue a label to one of the applicants. Princes aspire to princes to use the Horde as an instrument in the internal struggle, and this was associated with obtaining a label, with tribute payments to the Horde. In 1437–1445 in the Horde, the confrontation continues, with the complete advantage of Vasily the Dark and the children of Yuri Galitsky. Tribute under these conditions is not paid, the khans of the Horde do not have actual power over Russia. In 1445-1461, except for the period 02/12/1446 - 02/17/1447, there is a political dependence of the Russian lands on the Kazan Khanate. Rus' pays a ransom to Kazan in long-term payments for the captive Vasily the Dark, a system of Kazan officials functions in the Russian lands, Kazan military detachments on the side of Vasily the Dark participate in the suppression of the opposition of Dmitry Shemyaka, and also protect the borders of Rus' from attacks by the Horde troops. In short time intervals: April - May 1434 and 02/12/1446 - 02/17/1447. power in Rus' was seized by Yuri Galitsky and Dmitry Shemyaka. During these years, Rus' openly showed itself to be independent of the Horde and hostile to it. In 1461-1472, in the first decade of the reign of Ivan III, no tribute was paid to the Horde, the Khan's power over Russia was only formal. For the Horde, this is a time of constant wars with the Crimean Khanate. The Horde does not undertake military campaigns on Russian lands. In 1472-1480. there is a dependence of Russian lands on the Horde. The khan had formal power over Russia, and the Moscow prince calls himself his “ulusnik”. Until 1476, tribute was paid to the Horde, but in smaller amounts than in past periods of dependence. There were two powerful campaigns of the Horde troops against Rus' - 1472, 1480.

In the period 1481-1502. there were no manifestations of submission to the Horde and its Khan on the part of the Russian lands, Rus' was independent from the Horde in fact and formally.

On the whole, from 1242 to 1502, we observe in Russian-Horde political relations periods of pronounced power-subordinate ties, periods with formal power-subordinate ties with virtually equal relations, periods of actually and formally equal relations. The nature of the connections reflected the ratio of the military potential of the Russian lands and the Horde, as well as the legitimacy of the ruler of the Horde, by origin from the Jochid khan family, which was recognized by Russia as the ruling dynasty of the supreme rulers in the feudal hierarchy.

The state-political status of the lands of North-Eastern Rus' as a territorial and political element of the statehood of the Horde was revealed in the periods: 1242–1361. (120 years), "September 1382 - April 1395" (aged 12.5), 1412–1414 (aged 3), summer 1445–1461 (16.5). As an element of the statehood of the Kazan Khanate - in the period 1445-1461. The status of the lands of North-Eastern Rus' as sovereign states was revealed for the periods: 1362 - September 1382. (aged 21), April 1395–1411 (aged 16.5), 1415–1427 (aged 13), 1481–1502 (22 years old). In the periods 1428 - summer 1445. (17.5 years) and 1461 - 1480. (19 years old) - North-Eastern Rus' recognized the power of the Khan of the Horde over itself and was part of the Horde, only formally, in fact, being sovereign.

Of the 261 years of Russian-Horde relations, the principalities of North-Eastern Rus' in relation to the Horde were independent for 89 years. But of these, 16.5 years was the subordination of the Kazan Khanate, positioned as the successor of the Horde. The state nature of the political relations of North-Eastern Rus' and the Horde amounted to a total of 172 years. Of these, approximately 36-37 years, this involvement is only formal - in the form of a formal recognition of the Khan's suzerainty over Russian lands and sending him gifts. The belonging of the Russian lands to the Horde statehood, not only formal, but also actual, lasted 135-136 years. In this period, there are 24 years when the forms of involvement in the Horde state of the Russian lands were especially strong: the functioning of permanent Horde officials and garrisons in the Russian lands, the implementation of censuses to streamline taxation.

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Rus (Russian Land) - the name of the state-political formation of the Eastern Slavs of the 9th - 13th centuries. created the ancient Russian state. Then, the concept of "Rus" referred not so much to the name of the people, but to the designation of territories - lands and principalities. The term "Rus" was firmly entrenched in the northeastern territories of the former Old Russian state and became the basis for the concept of "Russians". Already at the beginning of the 12th century. the term "Russian land" meant all the Slavic tribes that inhabited Eastern Europe.

According to the data of the 11th-12th centuries, in the composition of the Russian land, except for major cities Kyiv, Chernigov and Pereyaslavl, included Vyshgorod, Belgorod, Torchesk, Trepol, Boguslavl, Korsun, Kanev, Shumsk, Tikhoml, Vygoshev, Gnojnitsa, Buzhsk. These were the original tribal territories of the Polyans, parts of the territories of the northerners and Radimichi, perhaps this included some lands of the streets and Vyatichi.

At the beginning of the 13th c. the name Rus, Russian land began to be applied to the northeastern lands of the Old Russian state: Rostov-Suzdal and Novgorod. After the Mongol-Tatar conquest of 1237-41, the term "Rus" was assigned to this territory, although in the monuments of the 13-14th centuries. it meets with a wider meaning, meaning all the lands inhabited by the Eastern Slavs.

In the 13th century and later, when the connection between the various territories of the Old Russian state was greatly weakened, new names appeared: White Rus', Little Rus', Black Rus', Red Rus'.

The origin of the word Rus, which gave the name to one of the most ancient states, is still being discussed and has a number of scientifically substantiated versions. One of the versions says that Rus' is the name of the Varangian tribe, from which the oldest Russian princes (Rurik and Prophetic Oleg) came out. Another version indicates that the word "Rus" is of Slavic origin and means a hollow, a riverbed, depth, vir.

The oldest settlements of the Eastern Slavs, from which the first Russian cities later formed, all, without a single exception, settled on the rivers. The river largely provided for the livelihoods of our ancestors: it provided water for cooking and housekeeping, supplied fish and water birds, provided an easy, ideally smooth path through the water in summer, over ice in winter; the river also formed a natural defense on steep banks cut by tributaries ...

Our distant ancestors deified the river, and the first evidence of the veneration of rivers and water deities by the Slavs was recorded by the Byzantine Procopius in the 6th century AD. Nestor also wrote that in the pagan era we worshiped rivers, lakes, springs instead of gods. The Slovak linguist and ethnographer Pavel Szafranek (1795-1860) noted in his writings that in the Proto-Slavic language the river was called Rusa (rusa). He wrote: "This is the root Slavic word, as a common noun, has already remained in use only among Russians in the word channel, denoting a hollow, riverbed, depth, vir; but as a proper name for rivers, cities and villages, more or less lying near them, is used by almost all Slavs.

The famous Russian historian of the last century D.I. Ilovaisky wrote: The popular name Ros or Rus, like many other names, is in direct connection with the names of rivers. Eastern Europe is replete with rivers that bear or once bore this name. So the Neman in the old days was called Ros; one of its sleeves retained the name Rus; and the bay into which it flows was called Rusna. Then follow: Ros or Rusa, a river in the Novgorod province, Rus, a tributary of the Nareva; Ros, the famous tributary of the Dnieper in Ukraine; Rusa, a tributary of the Seven; Ros-Embach; Ros-Oskol; Porusie, Polist tributary and others. But most importantly, the name Ros or Ras belonged to our Volga. From the same Proto-Slavic root "rus" the word mermaid is formed, many pagan beliefs are associated with her ancient cult.

V. I. Dal recorded in his dictionary many dialectal Russian words derived from the same original root “rus”: Ruslen is a shed overboard, for which shrouds are attached; ruslina - rapid, rod; rust - "water is rustling", which means it goes in a stream, a stream; own name Rus - "a fabulous monster of the Dnieper rapids"; male name Ruslan, memorable from Pushkin's poem.

The main guiding word for us remains “channel”, inherent only in the Russian language and formed from the root “rus” with a final Russian inflection, very common in our language: weight-lo, wind-lo, draft-lo, sus-lo, we -lo, mas-lo, rocker-lo, tochi-lo and so on.

A great many tribes and peoples on earth were named after the place of their predominant habitat. The self-name of the Primorye Chukchi is an kalyn (“sea dwellers”), the Bedouins are “desert dwellers”, the Selkups are shesh kul (“taiga man”), the Seneca Indians are nunda-ve-o-no (“the great people of the hills”).

Let's proceed to the main conclusion: If "Rus" is a "river" - the eternal place of settlements of our ancestors, with which their way of life and beliefs have always been so closely connected, "Rus" is a Proto-Slavic root that formed a large nest of words only in Russian, "Rus" - already a half-forgotten mythical Dnieper deity, then the generalized ethnonym "Rus" or "Russ" - from ancient times meant "living on the rivers", "river dwellers", "river people".

In "Avesta" holy book of the ancient Persians, they speak of the river Ranha, where people live without leaders, where winter reigns and the earth is covered with snow; later among the Persians it is the river Raha, separating Europe from Asia. With a rigorous philological analysis, F. Knauer proves the etymological identity of these names with the ancient name of the Volga - Ra, which later acquired such forms as Ros among the Greeks and Arabs, Ros, Rus, Rosa, Rusa among the Slavs. Thus, F. Knauer believes that "... the name of the people Rus is of purely Slavic-Russian origin" and in the exact rendering of the word means nothing more than the Volga people.

Russian land. Between paganism and Christianity. From Prince Igor to his son Svyatoslav Tsvetkov Sergey Eduardovich

The concept of "Russian land"

Acquisition by Kiev in the late 30s - early 40s. 10th century political independence was immediately reflected in the content of the term Russian land. Now, along with the narrow meaning of the tribal region of the Middle Dnieper Rus, it received a broader meaning of the state territory. In the latter meaning, the term Russian land covered the whole of Igor's state, that is, a significant area of Eastern Europe, inhabited by Slavic-Finno-Baltic tribes and subject to the Kievan Rus.

In the middle of the X century. this broad interpretation was used mainly at the level of interstate relations, denoting the sovereign territory over which the power of the Grand Duke of Kyiv extended. For Byzantine diplomats, the Russian land in this sense was "Russia", "country of Russia", "Russian land" or, in the terminology of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, "outer Russia", in contrast to "inner Russia", Tauride Rus'. Russia has a similar meaning in the message of Ibrahim ibn Yakub (circa 966): “Rus neighbors in the east with Mieszko [country of Prince Meshko - Poland]”, in the Latin-language document Dagome iudex (circa 991): “The area of the Prussians, as they say , extends as far as the place called Russia, and the region of Russ extends as far as Krakow”, in the news of the Quedlinburg Annals about the death of St. Bruno in 1009 at the hands of the pagans “on the border of Russia and Lithuania” and in many other sources of that time.

But inside the country, under the Russian land, they still understood the Middle Dnieper proper with a narrow strip along the right bank of the Dnieper south of Kyiv, stretching almost to the very Black Sea coast. These ancient geographical boundaries of the Russian land in its narrow sense are attested by several chronicle articles. In 1170, two Polovtsian hordes invaded the Kyiv and Pereyaslav principalities. The chronicler calls the horde that went to Kiev along the right bank of the Dnieper, across the Russian land, Russian Polovtsy, while the other horde, moving towards Pereyaslavl along the Dnieper left bank, is called Pereyaslav Polovtsy. In 1193, Rostislav, the son of the Kyiv prince Rurik, went on a campaign against the Polovtsy. He crossed the southern border of the Kyiv principality - the river Ros - and went far into the steppe along the right bank of the Dnieper. All the steppe space he passed in the annals is called the Russian land. At the same time, stepping out of the Kyiv land a little further north, into the territory of the Pripyat basin, already meant leaving the borders of Rus'. In the same 1193, a prince, alarmed that the Kievan prince Rurik Rostislavich stayed too long in the city of Ovruch (on the Uzhe River, a tributary of the Pripyat), reproached him: “Why did you leave your land? Go to Rus' and guard her." “I go to Rus',” says the Novgorod I chronicle about the Novgorod archbishop, when he happened to go to Kyiv. In such a narrow sense, the Russian land corresponded to the tribal territory of "Polyanskaya Rus", which, from the second third of the 9th century. made military campaigns along the Dnieper and trade trips to the Black Sea.

Old Russian people often invested in the concept of the Russian land, along with geographical and political, also an ethnographic meaning, meaning by it Rus' itself, an armed crowd of Russian warriors under the command of a Russian prince. It was precisely this meaning that Prince Svyatoslav attached to the Russian land, when, before the battle with the Greeks, he addressed his soldiers with the words: “Let us not shame the Russian land, but we will lie down with that bone, we will not have a litter; if we run away, shame on us.” Here, the Russian land turns out to be equivalent to “we”, that is, to the entire Russian army, and by no means the territory of the Middle Dnieper, which, by the way, could not be put to shame when fighting the Greeks in the Balkans. In the same way, according to the subtle observation of V.O. Klyuchevsky, "the singer of The Tale of Igor's Campaign, a monument from the end of the 12th or the very beginning of the 13th century, remarks:" O Russian land! You are already behind the Shelomyan "; this expression means that the Russian land has already gone beyond the rows of steppe trenches that stretched along the southern borders of the principalities of Chernigov and Pereyaslavl. Under the Russian land, the singer of the Lay means a squad that went on a campaign against the Polovtsians with his hero, Prince Igor, therefore, he understood the term geographical in the ethnographic sense. - to someone else". The author of the Word looked at the movement of Igor's squad to the Don from the side of Russia, and not through the eyes of the Russians themselves, who went deep into the steppe. Therefore, his sorrowful exclamation "O Russian land! you are already behind the hill" refers to the retreating Russian army.

This text is an introductory piece.

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Which ITAR-TASS asked various experts about certain aspects of the history of Russia that should be reflected in textbooks and educational standard, I decided, as an intellectual exercise, to give answers to those questions about which I was not asked.

Question 1. The formation of the Old Russian state and the role of the Varangians in this process

The answer to this question can be divided into several different answers on different sides of the question.

A. Would an ancient Russian state have been formed if not a single Scandinavian had ever appeared on the territory of Rus'? Answer: it would have formed and, most likely, at about the same time.

b. Would there be something shameful or humiliating for the Russians in the participation of the Normans in the process of state formation if it really took place? Answer: absolutely nothing. On the contrary, the Norman origin of the state would be a mark of quality. Around the same time, the Duchy of Normandy in France and the Kingdom of Sicily in southern Italy were created by the Normans. These were powerful, dangerous, highly developed states with the most developed administrative and military system. The Normans conquered England, the Sicilian Normans became the decisive factor due to which the political power of the papacy was established in the fight against the emperors. The contribution of the Normans to the Crusades was also enormous. That is, if Old Russian state and indeed created by the Norman Conquest, there would be nothing to be ashamed of.

V. Is there any reason to believe that the Norman conquest or the peaceful calling of the Scandinavian elite actually took place? Answer: There is no reason to believe so. Archaeological traces and evidence of written documents do not give a picture of any Scandinavian dominance in the territory of Rus'. The names of all Russian cities - the centers of statehood, are of Slavic origin. Not a single source known to us speaks of the Russian state as a state where the "Varangians" or Scandinavians dominate the Slavs.

d. What was the real role of the Scandinavians in the formation of the Russian state? Answer: The role of the Scandinavians was that their presence, raids and attempts to take tribute from the Slavic, Baltic and Finno-Ugric tribes caused their resistance and the desire to create a military-political structure that would resist this pressure. This way of becoming a state is called "reactive" and consists in the fact that statehood develops not as a result of conquest, but in response to an external invasion. The chronicle under the year 862 contains information about exile Varangians and the refusal to pay tribute to them, and only then about the calling of Rurik and the creation with his participation of the foundations of sovereign statehood. Rus' began not with a calling, but with the expulsion of the Varangians.

e. Who were the Vikings called together with Rurik? Answer: the dogma of "Normanism" is that Rurik and his people were Swedes. No serious evidence for this thesis has been presented. The dogma of anti-Normanism is that the Varangians and Rurik were Western Slavs. Certain confirmations of this thesis exist, but they are not decisive. The most popular in modern historiography and, apparently, a fair point of view on Rurik is to identify him with Rurik of Friesland, the Danish king, who actively acted both in alliance and against the Carolingian Empire. It is likely that Rurik had a mixed Danish-Obodrite origin, the word "rerik" in Danish meant "encourage", among the Obodrite leaders who fought with the Franks, Gostomysl was recorded, considered in legends to be the ancestor of Rurik. It is known that Rurik repeatedly took part in the wars of Obodrites against the Franks. Modern anthropologists and linguists have established that the Slovene tribe, which, along with the Krivichi and the Chud, is considered the founders of Novgorod (however, Novgorod as a city arose much later than 862) and the initiators of Rurik's vocation are Western Slavs who migrated from the southern Baltic. Thus, the history of Rurik's vocation is presented as the vocation of an influential and strong military leader of mixed Danish-Slavic origin to ensure security from Scandinavian raids on the northern lands. Rurik, without stopping his activities in other regions of the Baltic and the North Sea, assumed these functions and, apparently, successfully coped with them. One of Rurik's comrades-in-arms, Oleg, managed to capture the southern Russian center of Kiev, formally in the interests of Rurik's son, Igor (in any case, the Rurik-Igor genealogy is the only one based on sources, everything else is speculation) and created a single political entity along the entire Black Sea-Baltic trade way, which took the name of Rus'.

e. Were the events associated with Rurik the only line of development of ancient Russian statehood? Answer: No, they were not. Obviously, the political center in Kyiv existed long before Rurik and Oleg. It was the territory around this center that was called "Rus" in later ancient Russian and foreign sources. There are sufficient written and archaeological data to speak of a serious threat from this political center, felt by Khazaria, forced to build fortresses on the northern border. In any case, it is not necessary to say that the Old Russian state was formed thanks to the "calling of the Varangians". A more powerful state center was formed in the south, in Kyiv, and the fact that it was captured by the princes who came from the north was, to a certain extent, a historical accident. One way or another, after the unification of the south and north, the military-political center of the state of Rus' was precisely in the south.

Question 2. The existence of the Old Russian people and the perception of the heritage of Ancient Rus' as a common foundation for the history of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

The existence of the Old Russian people is a historical fact. The historical succession from this nationality of the Great Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians is also a fact. The assertions of Ukrainian chauvinists that allegedly only Ukraine has the right to the historical succession of Kievan Rus obviously does not correspond historical facts. Of the largest political centers of Ancient Rus', some are located in Russia - Novgorod, Smolensk, Rostov the Great, others - in Ukraine - Kyiv, Chernigov, and finally Polotsk - in Belarus. At the same time, only the Russian state was founded by the very dynasty that ruled in Kievan Rus. Russian princes and tsars until the very end of the 16th century. - direct descendants of Rurik, Igor, Svyatoslav, Vladimir and Yaroslav. The politogenesis of Ukraine and Belarus has such a direct connection with Kievan Rus does not have because of the Lithuanian conquest, which brought Western and Southwestern Rus' under the rule of Poland.

Question 3. The historical choice of Alexander Nevsky in favor of the subordination of Russian lands to the Golden Horde.

"The historical choice of Alexander Nevsky in favor of subjugating the Russian lands to the Golden Horde" is a historical fiction, a fiction of the ideological school of the Eurasians, which, however, was readily taken up by the camp of Russophobes-Westerners. Both sides are actively exploiting the myth of the "Mongolization" of Russian statehood, of the extraordinary great influence Mongols on the internal political development of Rus' and about Alexander Nevsky as the alleged initiator of this process. All this has nothing to do with historical facts.
A. No choice to obey or not to obey the Mongols ("Golden Horde" during the life of Alexander did not exist) before the Russian princes did not stand in view of the overwhelming military superiority of the Mongols and their immediate proximity to Russia.
b. The relations of Rus' with the Mongols were settled by the father of Alexander Nevsky - Yaroslav Vsevolodovich. Settled on the principles of maintaining the independence of the Russian Lands with the recognition of vassalage from the Khan and the payment of tribute.
V. There was no "alternative course" to oppose the Mongols among the Russian princes. The mythical "course of Daniel of Galicia" towards an alliance with the West and opposition to the Mongols ceased as soon as he was threatened by a powerful Mongol invasion. To avoid this, Daniel dug down the fortified cities, and his sons took part in the Mongol campaign against Lithuania.
The role of Alexander Nevsky in forcing Novgorod to participate in the payment of tribute is quite understandable, given that Novgorod was a rich merchant city and his contribution could significantly lighten the tax burden of Rus' as a whole.
e. The assertion that Alexander relied on the Mongols for the purpose of "civilizational confrontation with the West" is completely mythical. There was simply no such confrontation in this era. The Russian principalities and cities and the Livonian Order were in a permanent swing between conflicts and alliances. And before Alexander and under him and after, Russians and Livonians no less often jointly made trips to Lithuania than they fought with each other. However, in the same way, either allies or opponents during the reign of Alexander were the principalities under his rule and Lithuania.
e. The veneration of Alexander Nevsky as an outstanding national hero and saint was not based on the mythical "choice between East and West" but on his specific deeds to protect the entire Russian Land from all its enemies, carried out both by military and diplomatic means.

Question 4. The reasons for the rise of Moscow, the policy of the first Moscow princes in relation to the Horde khans and the rulers of other Russian lands.

The reason for the rise of Moscow is rooted in the exceptionally high quality of feudal management carried out by the Moscow princes. They managed to attract the main military and political resource for that era - the service boyars, together with their military detachments, to create a military-political organization unique in effectiveness - the Sovereign Court, and with the help of military and diplomatic means to impose recognition of the primacy of the Moscow princely house as other Russian princes , and the Golden Horde.

Assertions that the rise of Moscow was carried out thanks to the "special relationship" between Moscow and the Horde do not correspond to reality. On the contrary, the Moscow princes were systematic troublemakers.

Daniil of Moscow was one of the leaders of the coalition of princes, which was guided by the temnik Nogai and opposed the henchman of the Great Horde Andrei Gorodetsky. At some point, the Moscow prince became the de facto leader of this coalition and opposed the Great Horde, even fighting the Tatar detachments. The founder of the Moscow Grand Duchy, Yuri Danilovich, twice disobeyed direct orders from the Horde, seized the great reign by force, since according to the old Russian ladder system he had no right to it - his father was never the Grand Duke) and actually imposed himself on the Horde in the role of Grand Duke. In this capacity, he challenged the khans by embezzling the tribute collected for the Horde. Ivan Kalita and Simeon the Proud had no conflicts with the Horde, not because they were servile to the khan, but because the policy of the khans generally coincided with Moscow's interests in strengthening control over the great reign and expanding the domain of the Moscow princes. Ivan Kalita managed to continue the policy of Yuri Danilovich, without entering into conflict with the khans, acting through diplomacy and bribery. Contrary to popular legends, Kalita was not the founder of the Moscow great power - many of the achievements of his father and elder brother were transferred to his personality, since Daniel was not a Grand Duke, and Yuri was not an ancestor of subsequent sovereigns. The main achievement of Kalita was the "silence" that he provided in Rus' during his reign, the complete freedom of the territories subject to the Moscow prince from the Horde raids and internecine strife. Simeon the Proud traveled to the Horde during his reign 5 times and each time received certain awards and profits from the khans. It was not so much that Moscow had to kowtow to the khans, but that the khans had to buy the loyalty of the distinguished Russian vassals.

When the policy of the Horde, shaken by confusion, came into conflict with the interests of Moscow in the youth of Dmitry Donskoy and the khans made an attempt to transfer the great reign to the Nizhny Novgorod princes, Moscow took tough military and church measures (another important factor in the rise of Moscow was the active assistance of the Church, which placed the residence of the metropolitans in Moscow ) against the inhabitants of Nizhny Novgorod, up to the hands of the Venerable. Sergius of Radonezh interdict (closing of churches). When Moscow’s active policy of subjugating the Upper and Middle Volga region to its power aroused the concern of Temnik Mamai, Grand Duke Dmitry went into open military confrontation, which included a significant victory of Russian troops over the Tatars on the Vozha River in 1378 and ended with a large-scale defeat of Mamai on the Kulikovo field. The Kulikovo victory unambiguously secured the primacy of Moscow among the Russian principalities and the heredity of the grand ducal power in the Moscow House.

Dmitry Donskoy in general turns out to be an extremely underestimated, and often unfairly attacked, hero of Russian history. He is an outstanding commander who won victories in two major battles- on the Vozha and on the Kulikovo Field. Vigorous statesman, who made the hegemony of Moscow in Rus' indisputable and energetically set a limit to the expansion of the sphere of influence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania under Olgerd and Jagiello. In domestic politics Dmitry sought to concentrate the fullness of power in the hands of the Grand Duke, eliminating the Moscow thousands and energetically insisting that church politics Constantinople after the death of Metropolitan Alexy was in line with the Moscow state interests. The attacks on Dmitry for his imaginary "flight" from Moscow (in fact, leaving for the sake of gathering troops) during the invasion of Tokhtamysh are unfair. The capture of Moscow and the massacre organized by the Tatars showed that the defense of the city without troops could only end with the death of the prince and the military-political catastrophe of Moscow. At the time of his death, Dmitry Donskoy left the Grand Duchy of Moscow as an influential regional power that inspired fear and respect for both the Horde and Lithuania and enjoyed unquestioned authority in Rus'. After the Kulikovo victory he won, even the capture of Moscow by Khan Tokhtamysh in 1382 did not return real control over the internal affairs of Rus' to the Horde. From now on, the khans could only count on tribute and on the formal right to approve the Moscow princes in the rank of grand duke. Gradually, these rudiments of dependence were eliminated by Moscow.

Thus, contrary to popular belief historical myth, Moscow achieved political elevation not by the special obedience of its princes to the Horde khans, but, on the contrary, by a daring aggressive policy, based on a powerful military service layer that rallied around Moscow. With the help of this policy, the Moscow princes managed to impose themselves on the Horde as the main partners in Rus' (having pushed aside, in particular, the influential house of Tver), to control relations with the Horde of other princes and force them to recognize Moscow hegemony. The fruit of this hegemony was the Battle of Kulikovo and the further liberation of Rus' from the power of the Horde, and at the same time its unification in a centralized state.

Question 5. The role of Ivan IV the Terrible in Russian history.

When talking about the role of Ivan the Terrible in the history of Russia, two completely different things can be meant. The first is the role of the era of his reign, which lasted almost half a century. The second is the role of the personality of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich himself.

These two aspects are by no means identical to each other, because, contrary to the myth of Russian absolutism, created primarily by the uncritical transfer to Ivan the Terrible of the features of the political power of Peter the Great, for most of the reign of Tsar Ivan, his personal power was by no means the source of all political, social, cultural, and religious changes. On the stretch early period During his reign, the boyar elite played a huge role, which from the 14th century, together with the princes, determined the political course of the emerging Russian state. The role of the Orthodox Church was also enormous, in particular, the role of Metropolitan Ivan Makariy, who set the entire style of the early period of the reign. On the other hand, a large number of epochal events of this period were an initiative from below, at best supported by the tsar - Yermak's campaign in Siberia, the defense of Pskov, the creation of the Zaporizhzhya Sich by Dmitry Vishnevetsky.

The course of events in the era of Ivan the Terrible was not entirely determined by the personal will of Ivan the Terrible himself, although most of his efforts as tsar were spent precisely on increasing the degree of personal control over the Russian state. Tsar Ivan tried to turn his power as an autocratic monarch, but involved in a variety of traditional political institutions, into a personal dictatorship with elements of tyranny. It was for this purpose that such an odious political instrument as the oprichnina was established, designed to remove obstacles to the concentration of all power personally in the hands of the king. This inclination towards the establishment of absolutist dictatorships with elements of tyranny within the framework of a monarchical system is a pan-European trend for the 16th century. Such dictatorships were the regime of Henry VIII in England, Philip II in Spain, Christian II in Denmark, and many others.

Ivan's efforts to establish his personal dictatorship have to be assessed rather negatively - on the way to it, he had to physically eliminate many first-class military men, diplomats, and political advisers, whose contribution to the success of his reign was very significant. The influence of external forces on Russia's policy - German advisers and, in particular, England, to which the tsar had a special favor and even received the nickname "English Tsar" - seriously increased. Ivan's personal diplomacy failed - he failed to prevent the creation of a broad coalition of Eastern European powers against Russia during the Livonian War, which led, in particular, to the invasion of the Crimean Tatars in 1571 and the burning of Moscow, he also failed to use internal contradictions in Livonia, failing to keep King Magnus in obedience, attempts to prevent the election ended in failure Polish king Stefan Batory, - also largely due to the diplomatic incontinence of the king personally. The Livonian War, in which Tsar Ivan made the greatest personal contribution as a politician, diplomat and military leader, he lost.

At the same time, the catastrophic nature of these failures cannot be exaggerated - much greater military and diplomatic failures fell to the lot of other sovereigns of that era. Measures to establish autocracy also had a very limited effect - Ivan's son Fedor, as well as the first sovereigns from the Romanov family, ruled based on all the same traditional institutions of the Muscovite state. By and large, only one thing has changed in the highest ruling stratum - after Ivan, not so much the dominant clans as the royal favorites and relatives begin to play a large role in management, and in this regard, the quality of management is significantly reduced. A blow to the influence and authority of the Russian Church as a result of the massacre of Met. Philip also did not have a critical impact, not preventing the Church from playing a mobilizing role during the Time of Troubles and not preventing the emergence of such ambitious church-political figures as Patriarch Nikon.

At the same time, the era of Ivan IV for the Russian state was brilliant
1547 - crowning the kingdom
1550 - the publication of a new Sudebnik, Zemstvo reforms and the formalization of the order system.
1553 - the capture of Kazan
1556 - annexation of Astrakhan
1558-59 - victories of Vishnevetsky and Adashev over the Crimean Tatars
1550-1560s - the development of the Russian privateer fleet in the Baltic.
1569 - reflection of the Turkish-Tatar campaign against Astrakhan
1572 - defeat Crimean Tatars in the battle of Molodi, which forever ensured the strategic security of Moscow from the south (the battle of Molodi should generally be recognized as one of greatest battles in the history of Russia and is included in the Russian military-patriotic canon).
1581 - heroic defense of Pskov
1582 - the beginning of the conquest of Siberia by Yermak

It is hard to deny that the contribution of the autocratic monarch in such a brilliant era should also have been significant, but at the same time, these were the successes not only of the tsar, but of the entire state system that was created by the ancestors of Tsar Ivan. And it can be stated that the tsar's struggle for despotic power, for the redistribution of powers in the state system in his favor rather hindered than contributed to its functioning. In any case, under the son and successor of Tsar Ivan, the pious Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, when the work of the state mechanism of Russia normalized, in short term no less outstanding successes were achieved - the establishment of the Patriarchate, the war of revenge with Sweden, the successful completion of the annexation of Siberia.

One way or another, when evaluating Ivan the Terrible, it is necessary to take into account 1). the difference between the systemic and personal impact of the king on the events of his reign, 2). the need for a resolute refusal to replicate pseudo-historical myths and direct slander against Tsar Ivan, a thorough check of the legends that arose around his name, 3). the need for an equally resolute rejection of false apologetics, up to attempts to canonize, in which the actions of the tsar are explained by a priori conspiracy theory, all the victims of repressive policies are obviously guilty, and the obvious miscalculations and failures of Ivan the Terrible's personal policy are intrigues of enemies.

Maybe I'll continue if the work does not wind up ...

Russian land and a special relationship to it. The concept of "Russian land" in the X-XII centuries

"Russian land" - the Kievan state of the IX-XII centuries

"Russian land" in the XII-XIII centuries

Literature

Notes

see also

See what "Russian land" is in other dictionaries:

Books

Russian lands in relation to the ulus of Jochi (Horde):
is it a vassal state or part of the Horde state?

I.I. Nazipov

The concept of "Russian land"

Russian land and a special relationship to it. The concept of "Russian land" in the X-XII centuries

"Russian land" - the Kievan state of the IX-XII centuries

"Russian land" in the XII-XIII centuries

Literature

Notes

see also

See what "Russian land" is in other dictionaries:

Books

Russian lands in relation to the ulus of Jochi (Horde): is it a vassal state or part of the Horde state?

I.I. Nazipov

The concept of "Russian land"

Russian lands in relation to the ulus of Jochi (Horde):
is it a vassal state or part of the Horde state?