Russian History: A Very Short Introduction

A close relationship with Byzantium was especially beneficial to a people who already traded with it. Orthodox Christianity had other advantages: it accepted partnership with secular authority, and its liturgy was conducted in a language akin to the vernacular, so that it was closer to the people than Latin Christianity. On the other hand, after the Byzantine and Roman churches split apart in the 11th century, Orthodoxy lost its ecumenical contact with much of Central and Western Europe.

To coordinate the sinews of authority, Vladimir dispersed his sons to various regional bases within his realm. Each had a druzhina, entitled to kormlenie from local communities. Vladimir’s work of consolidation was continued by his son, Iaroslav (r. 1019–54), who rebuilt Kiev as an imposing capital city, with stone fortifications, its own Cathedral of St Sophia, named after Byzantium’s principal church, and a Golden Gate for ceremonial entry. The Kievan Caves Monastery became a centre of Christian learning and culture, and over several decades in the 11th and early 12th centuries, it produced the Primary Chronicle, which identified the Kievan realm as the joint enterprise of Vladimir’s Riurikovich dynasty (called after the first Varangian prince, Riurik). Iaroslav promulgated the first Rus-ian law code, the Russkaia Pravda. Pravda is a key word for understanding Russian culture: it means not only truth, but also justice and what is right according to God’s law. The code’s main contribution was to severely restrict blood feud and supplant it with a closely calibrated scheme of fines for murder, injury, insult, or violation of property. The capacity to impose such fines presupposed both strong central authority and a stable monetary system.

At the northern end of the trading route from Scandinavia to Byzantium, the city of Novgorod developed as a major economic centre. It gained control over the immense territories of the far north and east, and it enforced tribute on the local Baltic and Finno-Ugrian peoples. From the huge forests, the Novgorodians could sell timber, furs, wax, and honey both southwards to Kiev and Byzantium, and westwards to the Baltic and Germany through the Hanseatic League. It had its own Cathedral of St Sophia and its own archbishop, who was second only to the Kiev Metropolitan. Its veche was especially influential and frequently reasserted its right to elect its own prince, whatever the dynastic arrangements laid down from Kiev.

1. The Caves Monastery, Kiev

Iaroslav did his best to ensure strong collective leadership by regularizing the succession to the princely thrones, not in direct succession from father to son, but passing through the younger brothers according to seniority. This was to establish the principle that the realm was a kind of federation belonging to the princely family as a whole, while also removing the grounds for feuds within that family. The oldest living brother was to supervise the whole arrangement.

Collective rule was honoured in principle, but proved too difficult to manage in practice. After Iaroslav’s death, his brothers and cousins periodically fought each other over the inheritance, yet at times they had to curtail their feuds to face common threats from the nomadic horsemen of the steppe. During the especially alarming raids of the Kipchaks (or Polovtsy) in the 1090s, the princes met and renewed their dynastic agreement. It was successful in coping with the immediate danger, and gave Kievan Rus another generation of peace, but it did not prove durable.

In 1113, the citizens of Kiev invited Vladimir of Pereiaslavl, the most successful commander against the Kipchaks, to rule over them as Great Prince. After his victories, he received from Byzantium a fur-lined crown, the ‘Monomakh crown’, as a symbol of his God-given authority. He was a thoughtful and pious but also practical ruler, who believed in taking personal responsibility for all the major burdens of princely authority: war, the dynasty and its household, justice, charity and patronage, and the observance of pravda. He outlined his precepts in a written Exhortation (Pouchenie) to his sons, urging them to rule not only through military means, but also through ‘repentance, tears, and almsgiving’. This combination of physical power with Christian morality continued to be an ideal for the rulers of Rus/Russia.