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p The economy of Europe and Anterior Asia, based on slave-labour, suffered a serious decline about the middle of the first millennium of our era. Slave-owning states, that in the past had been big and powerful, were collapsing. New social relations were emerging among the peoples and tribes—the Germanic and Slav tribes in Europe, the Turkic tribes in Asia—and even among tribes that had been far removed from the centres of the old slave-owning states. The aristocracy that was growing up in these tribes and peoples could not employ slave-labour on a large scale; they had become rich by constant armed raids on their neighbours and also at the expense of members of their own communities whom they forced to hand over part of their labour or their produce. The working population never left the soil, but the ownership of the chief means of production, the land, was gradually concentrated in the hands of the newly emerging aristocracy. Marx classed as feudalism the social relations under which the exploited working people are owners of means of production and of their own farms.

p The general features of feudalism as it affected the lives-of the peoples inhabiting the present territory of the Soviet Union began to appear to some degree in the middle and, especially, towards the end of the first millennium.

p The Transcaucasus and Central Asia were the first to adopt the feudal system, in the fourth to the sixth centuries; these were the parts of the country most closely connected with the old slave-owning states of Europe and the East. The feudal state of Rus (or ancient Russia) took shape later, in the second half of the first millennium A. D., that is, at approximately the same time as the West European feudal states.

p Ever since it was formed, the ancient Russian state, situated on the Great East European plain, was one of the largest states at the time and played an important role in the history of the peoples of the whole of Europe, and not just those of the Soviet Union.

p The ancient Russian state emerged as the result of the, long process of development of the East Slav tribes. The Slavs constitute one of the biggest and most important ethnic groups of Europe.

p The first mention of the Slav tribes in written sources dates back to the first and second centuries A. D. (Tacitus, Pliny, Ptolemy). Known as Venedi, Slavs were then settling in the Vistula basin and, probably, along the Baltic coast. Hardly any mention is made of the Slavs in 24 written sources dating from the third to the fifth centuries. Only the Tabula Peutingerana, which are not later than the fourth century, refer to the Slavs, calling them Venedi-Sarmati (north-west of the Carpathians) and just Venedi (Danube estuary).

p Much more was written about them in the sixth century, due to the role the Slav tribes were beginning to play in Eastern Europe and to their struggle against Byzantium. According to Byzantine sources, the Slavs occupied an enormous area stretching from the Danube to the Vistula in the sixth century and were divided into three large groups; the Sclaveni, the Antes and the Venedi. The Sclaveni lived between the Dniester, the middle reaches of the Danube and the upper reaches of the Vistula, the Antes were in the area between the lower reaches of the Dniester and the Dnieper and in the Black Sea area, and the Venedi had settled in the Vistula basin. It has been suggested that these three groups subsequently gave rise to the threefold division of the Slavs, with the Sclaveni becoming the South Slavs, the Venedi the West Slavs and the Antes the East Slavs. Yet sixth-century sources provide no indication of any differences between these groups; if anything, they show their unity, pointing out that they had the same language, customs and laws.

p The unity of the Slavs was expressed in their social system. In the sixth century the Slavs were going through the last stage of development of the clan system of social organisation, the basis of which was the patriarchal family commune. Statehood had not yet been achieved in the sixth century. A contemporary Byzantine writer stated: "These tribes, the Slavs and Antes, are not ruled by any one man, but have lived in democracy from time immemorial.” Side by side with the people’s assembly there were the tribal chiefs or knyazya (princes). Chronicles record, for instance, that Musoky, Piragast and Ardagast were chiefs of the Sclaveni who warred against Byzantium. The tribal chiefs belonged to the tribal aristocracy, who were beginning to emerge from the mass of the tribesmen on account of their property status. In the sixth century tribal disunity had still not been overcome, but there were signs that the Slavs were ready for unity on a more stable basis. This development was largely prompted by the constant wars that the Slavs waged against Byzantium throughout almost the whole of the sixth century. Alliances were set up between the Slav tribes in the course of the struggle. When the Slav emissary Lavrit addressed the Byzantines with the proud words "Has the man who could subdue our strength yet been born on earth, and is he warming himself in the sun’s rays?”, he could only have been speaking on behalf of a powerful military and political amalgamation of Slavs.

p Unlike the Western Roman Empire that collapsed under the blows of the Germanic tribes, Byzantium proved able to withstand the advance of the Slavs. Byzantium as a state remained, but a considerable part of its territory south of the Danube and in the Balkans was settled by the Slavs who subsequently founded the Kingdom of Bulgaria, the Principality of Serbia and other Slav states, and who constituted the southern branch of Slavdom.

p In its struggle against the Slavs Byzantium made use of the Avar hordes that surged into the Danube area in the second half of the sixth century. The nomadic Avars constantly attacked the Slavs, plundering 25 and lading waste the land. A Russian chronicle tells of a defeat inflicted by the Avars on the Dulebian tribal alliance in the Carpathian foothills. The Avars also dealt a heavy blow to the Antes, the most powerful amalgamation of the Slav tribes in the Black Sea area. At the beginning of the seventh century the Avar kagan sent his warriors to completely annihilate the Antes, and after this their name disappears entirely from Byzantine chronicles. This disappearance should not, of course, be explained by supposing that the tribes comprising the Antes were exterminated; it is simply that they withdrew from direct contact with Byzantine possessions and moved on to the areas along the Dnieper, where they were safe from nomadic incursions.

p This migration of the Slavs is recorded in a Russian chronicle in the narrative about the dispersal of the Slavs from the Danube in various directions “(they scattered over the land”), with some heading into Eastern Europe. The migration of the Slavs from the Danube into the Dnieper area is also enshrined in the story of Prince Kii, who wished at first to settle "with his kinsfolk" along the Danube, but who was driven out by the people already there and moved on to the Dnieper. The Slav migration that is recorded in the chronicle is also supported by archaeological evidence. Early archaeological traces of the Slavs (turn of the sixth and seventh centuries) found on the right bank of the Dnieper are similar to the Slav remains along the Danube. The Sc/avem’probably joined in this north-eastward movement from the Danube as well as the Antes. The view has even been put forward that the tradition whereby the Radimichi and the Vyatichi arrived in Eastern Europe "from the land of the Lyakhs" (Poles) is evidence showing that some of the tribes of the Venedi, which occupied the northern part of the East European Plain, were also involved in the process of migration from west to east that occurred at the turn of the seventh and eighth centuries.

p A grandiose picture of the migration of the Slav tribes on the Great East European Plain was given by a Russian chronicler living at the end of the eleventh and in the early twelfth century. Although he was describing events that had taken place nearly 300 years earlier, most of his statements have been corroborated by other sources, written and archaeological alike.

p The chronicler begins his description with the right bank of the middle reaches of the Dnieper. This was the home of the Polyane, the people of the plains with their centre in the town of Kiev; to the north and west of the Polyane, between the rivers Ros and Pripyat, lived the Drevlyaneor forest people, whose centre was the town of Iskorosten; in the swamps of the left bank of the Pripyat, to the north of these two tribes, lived another tribe, the Dregovichi; to the west of the Polyane, on the upper reaches of the Southern Bug, were the Buzhane or Volhyniane, and further to south-west, in the basin of the River Dniester, the Ulichiand Tivertsi; in the Transcarpathian area there were the White Croatians; on the left bank of the Dnieper, in the basin of the rivers Sula, Seim and Desna and as far to the east as the Northern Donets, lived the Severyane; north of them, between the upper reaches of the Dnieper and the Sozh, were the Radimichi, and still further north, around the upper reaches of the Volga, the Dnieper, and the Dvina, were the Krivichi, with their centre in the town of Smolensk; along the River Polota, a tributary of the 26 Western Dvina (Daugava) lived the Polochane whose centre was the town of Polotsk; around Lake Ilmen there were the Slovenye&nd, lastly, the most easterly of the Slav tribes were the Vyatichi who occupied the basin of the upper and middle reaches of the Oka and the Moskva rivers.

p During their slow advance northwards and north-eastwards the Slav tribes took over large areas that were already peopled by Baltic tribes (the upper Dnieper) and Finno-Ugrian tribes (the Lake Ladoga area and the territory between the Volga and the Oka). The newly arrived Slavs settled among the small local populations and eventually, after long contact, assimilated them.

p The chronicler singles out the Polyaneas being the Slav tribe that was far ahead of the others in its development. Yet archaeological finds dating from the eighth and ninth centuries show that the Slav tribes differed little from one another in material culture. The Slavs had a settled mode of existence. They fortified their settlements by building ramparts, or chose a site that was eminently defensible. But in areas where there was no threat of attack the settlements were not fortified (in the area to the west of the Dnieper). The settlements were arranged in clusters consisting of 3-4 smaller communities. The distance between the communities would be up to five kilometres, while that between the clusters would be anything from 30 to 100 kilometres. A Slav dwelling took the form of a semidugout with a roof sloping in two or three directions. Inside there would be a stove or hearth, with the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof, and benches up to a metre wide were placed around the walls. The work premises were alongside the living quarters.

p The Slavs’ main occupation was farming, which had already become ploughland cultivation everywhere. The land was tilled with animaldrawn tools of the plough type, and a wide range of grain crops was grown: there was wheat (of two kinds: soft and hard), rye (winter and spring), barley, leguminous and fibrous plants. The slash-and-burn and the fallow field methods, which were still prominent, particularly in northern areas, began to give way to the two- and three-field system involving fallow strips. Livestock raising was very important in Slav farming. Fodder was prepared for the winter, as is shown by the scythes found during excavations. To judge by the quantities of bones unearthed in Slav settlements, the most important animals were big-horned cattle, next came pigs and then small-horned cattle. Relatively few bones from horses were found, showing that the horse was only used as a draught animal. Hunting and fishing were practised everywhere, with animals being hunted for their fur as well as for meat.

p The spread of permanent ploughland farming throughout the area settled by the Slavs marked an enormous advance on the earlier slash-and-burn system.

p A further important indication of the growth of productive forces among the East Slavs was the development of handicraft industries. The working of iron developed in areas where there were deposits of bog ore. Dozens of small blast furnaces in which iron was smelted have been found on the sites of several Slav settlements. Nearly every settlement had a number of forges. Jewellers worked on imported materials. 27 Excavations show that spinning, and hence weaving, was carried out in Slav houses, furs and skins were dressed and pottery was produced. Some of the commodities were undoubtedly made for exchange.

p Handicraft production paved the way for the appearance of towns as centres of the handicraft industry. By the beginning of the tenth century several fortified Slav towns had already become centres of the handicraft industry; they included Kiev, Chernigov, Smolensk and Novgorod.

p The period from the seventh to the ninth centuries was also one in which external economic relations grew up between the East Slavs and the countries of the East, Byzantium and the Baltic countries. The Great Volga Route was a link between the East Slavs and the tribes inhabiting the Middle Volga and, farther, across the Khvalyn (Caspian) Sea, with the countries of the East. The Dnieper Route connected the East Slavs with Byzantium. By the end of the ninth century, both the Volga Route and the Dnieper Route “(the path from the Varangians to the Greeks”) were extended to the Baltic area and thus became trade routes of all-European importance.

p Archaeological evidence shows that the social system of the Slavs in the eighth and ninth centuries was characterised everywhere by the existence of a village or territorial commune as a union of individual households (small families) owning their living accommodation, their tools, the product of their labour, and the plot of land that they cultivated. The small size of a dwelling, accommodating only 4-5 people, the siting and size of the work premises, and the smallness of the stock of products all indicate the individual nature of the Slav economy. This is also supported by the fact that among the Slavs tribute was collected from each house, as is recorded in a Russian chronicle. Although archaeologists have not unearthed any traces of collective life or activities in the Slav communities of the eighth and ninth centuries “(large houses”, common storehouses, common cattle enclosures, etc.), nevertheless, to judge from the subsequent development of the peasant commune, one must also assume that collective ownership of the land and, here and there, collective work and vestiges of the clan system in everyday life, notions of law and ideology must have been features of the Slav commune of the eighth and ninth centuries.

p Private ownership and the individual labour based on it led inevitably to inequality as regards property and hence to social inequality. The emergence of property-owning elite from the commune bore witness to the formation of classes. This process was also reflected in the appearance by the end of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth centuries of both rich and poor Slav burials which have been found by archaeologists in the largest Slav towns, and in the formation within the Slav settlements of fortified houses set apart from the others — the castles which were the homes of the economically powerful e"lite that had emerged from the commune. All these developments were reflected in the ancient Russkaya Pravda (Russian Law), a code of laws compiled in the eleventh century under Prince Yaroslav the Wise (for which reason it is also known as Pravda Yaroslava) but which basically refers to the period immediately preceding the formation of the ancient Russian state.

28

p This first Russkaya Pravda undoubtedly reflects a class society, but one that had still not freed itself from the outward forms of clan society. That important institution of the clan system of social organisation, the blood feud, still existed. Clan relations, however, were giving way to territorial relations. The main social organisation mentioned in the document was the mir, the territorial village commune (the word mir means “world”, but right up to the twentieth century, it also conveyed the idea of the community in which the peasants lived—the village commune that was their “world”). The mir, however, had ceased to be a community of equals.

p The ancient Russkaya Pravda demonstrates clearly that the Slav mir contained antagonistic class elements. Russkaya Pravda is devoted mainly to the protection of the interests of the muzh, the man of upper social stratum of Slav society. The muzh was closely connected with the mir, he lived in the mir, but unlike the other members of the mir, he was not a tiller of the,soil, not a worker; he was a man of war, or mostly so. The muzh lived in the hall (khoromi) with his numerous retainers (chelyad). The retainers were mostly slaves, but as time went on larger numbers of free men appeared among them, members of the mir who had been ruined and had become dependent on the rich muzh. The hall was not only the residence of the muzh but was also the centre of his estate, the lands, meadows, forests and waters that he had seized from the commune and converted into his hereditary private property (otchina or votchina, i. e., that belonging to the father, the basic term for feudal landed estates in ancient Russia). As the muzh grew richer, his political power increased too.

p The emergence of classes among the Slavs went hand in hand with the formation of the state.

p It can be concluded from Byzantine sources that the Antes of the sixth century had not as yet developed a state, their princes or reges were military commanders who had not interfered with the prerogatives and rights of the people’s assemblies, and their troops were drawn from all the people who bore arms. The princes’ military cohorts had not yet appeared. By and large, it was the troops who retained the booty: valuables and captives were shared, and the conquered land was settled by the victors.

p During the further development of the Slav tribes on the East European Plain between the seventh and ninth centuries, the democratic elements gradually disappeared. The Slite that had emerged from the Slav commune, the muzhi, to use the term of the ancient Russkaya Pravda, took over the organs of tribal self-government. Forming a group around the tribal prince, the muzhi came to constitute his armed retinue, through which the prince was already able to pit his strength against the vestigial organs of tribal self-government and to make use of them for the benefit of the rising class of rulers. The common law which had taken shape in the commune altered in accordance with the new conditions. The principal aim of these changes was to protect the feudal ownership that was developing. The ordinary member of the commune tilling his small plot of land ceased to be a soldier of any kind and became a mere farmer. War was now a matter for the prince and his army. Thus, in the course of a lengthy period of development, individual elements of the 29 state apparatus gradually took shape, i. e., the apparatus used as the instrument for the rule of one class over another.

p The old Russian chronicler did not ignore the fact that the initial elements of statehood had appeared among the Slavs. In an undated section of the chronicle he refers to princely rule among the Polyane, Drevlyane, Dregovichi and the Novgorod Slovenye, and mentions by name the princes of the Vyatichi (Khodota) and the Drevlyane (Mai). Tribal alliances were also formed. Arab sources speak of three political centres in the area occupied by the Slav tribes in the eighth century—Kuyaba, Slavia and Artania. Kuyaba (Kuyava) was apparently the political union of the southern group of Slav tribes headed by the Kiev Polyane, Slavia was the alliance of the northern group of tribes headed by the Novgorod Slovenye. As far as Artania is concerned, the Eastern writers were probably referring to the south-eastern group of Slav tribes, perhaps the Vyatichi and the town of Ryazan.

p The Russian chronicles confirm the Arab historians; they divide the Slavs into two groups — the southern group consisting of the Polyane, Severyane and Vyatichi, and the northern group of Slovenye, Krivichi and a number of non-Slav tribes. These two alliances of Slav tribes constituted the core of the ancient Russian state.

p The final stage in the formation of the ancient Russian state is mentioned in the sources as the foundation of “Rus”, the "Russian land”; these sources call the people who founded this state “Rusi” or “Rosi”.

p The terms are met with in many sources, beginning with the sixth century. A number of Arab writers mention the campaigns of the Rusi against Derbent and the Transcaucasian possessions of the Persian King Khosrow in the thirties and forties of the seventh century.

p Historical sources contain much greater information on Rus and the Rusi in the eighth and ninth centuries. Frequent mention is made of the 30 trade between Rus and Byzantium and other countries, and there is information on the political system of Rus and on the Rusi. In the ninth century the Rusi were already a powerful force with a political organisation and headed by princes (kagans); they were by then well known beyond their own territory. The information enables us to define the area occupied by the Rusi between the sixth and ninth centuries. This was the region around the middle reaches of the Dnieper and its tributary, the Ros. Rodnya, the chief town of the Rusi, stood on the high, sheer bank by the confluence of these two rivers. For a very long time this area had been called “Rus” or the "Russian land”. Later, when the dominant position in the tribal alliance in the Dnieper area passed to the Polyane, the names “Rus” and "Russian land" were transferred to a much wider area, centred on Kiev, and were later assumed by the ancient Russian state.

p At the same time as the core of the Russian state was formed by the unification of the southern group of the East Slav tribes around Kiev as the centre and was headed by the Polyane, the northern group of the East Slav tribes united around Novgorod and were headed by the Slovenye.

p The culminating point in this process was the unification of the southern and northern groups of East Slavs into a single Russian state with its centre at Kiev. This was accomplished when the southern group was fighting against the Khazars and the northern group against the Varangians.

p The Slav tribes had reached a higher level of social and economic development than the nomad Khazars. The Khazars did not succeed in maintaining dominance over the Slavs for a long period. The first to free themselves from Khazar dominance were the Polyane.

p Events in the north developed somewhat differently. The inroads made by the Varangians "from overseas”, i. e., from Scandinavia, into the lands of the East Slavs were piratical raids by Varangian freebooters for whom the Slav tribes were a new object of plunder and predatory commerce. The Russian chronicles tell of the atrocities of the Varangians, perpetrated against the Slavs and other tribes. The Slovenye, Krivichi and others revolted against the Varangians, drove them "over the sea" and became "masters of themselves”. By this time Novgorod, like Kiev, had become a political centre of emergent Slav statehood. The Novgorod Chronicle has preserved the legend of an elder named Gostomysl who governed Novgorod together with other elders. It seems, however, that the traditions of the clan system were still strong in Novgorod and this led to an acute struggle for power between the elders of Novgorod and other towns.

p It was in this period of internecine struggle that Rurik made his appearance in Novgorod to become the legendary founder of the ruling dynasty in Russia.

p The legend of Rurik, the legend of the "invitation of the Varangians”, gave rise to the Normanic theory of the origin of the Russian state that was invented by German historians living in Russia in the eighteenth century; this theory was widespread in pre-revolutionary Russia and is still sometimes met with in the historiography of other countries. The “Normanists”, the supporters of this theory, tendentiously distorted 31 historical facts and represented the Slavs as primitive savage tribes at a very low level of historical development and incapable of founding a state without outside help. According to the Normanic theory, the Varangians, that is, the Normans of Scandinavia, were simultaneously the conquerors of the Slavs and the founders of the Russian state. In actual fact, the Slavs began to lay the foundations of their statehood long before the ninth century, the period of the Norman raids into Eastern Europe. The raids of the Norman freebooters served only as a hindrance to the development of Slav society and state.

p The efforts of the Normanists to present the legend of the "invitation of the Varangians" as the historically authentic relation of real events are also groundless. Scholars who have studied the Russian chronicles have proved beyond doubt that the tale of the "invitation of the Varangians" was the invention of a Novgorod chronicler living in the eleventh century, who tried to explain the origin of the power of the princes in Russia on the basis of contemporary events in eleventh-century Novgorod, when the Novgorod people did invite to their city princes that were to their liking.

p In addition to the legend of the "invitation of the Varangians”, the Russian chronicles have preserved a few real data on Rurik which provide a picture of the events in Novgorod that were connected with the name of Rurik and constitute the reality underlying the legend. Among them is the important information contained in the Ipatyevskaya Letopis (Ipatyev Chronicle) that before he came to Novgorod, Rurik had lived in the castle he built at Ladoga. This evidence, confirmed by Scandinavian sources and by archaeological finds of Scandinavian artifacts in the Ladoga area, refutes the story that the Varangians were "invited from over the sea”. Actually Rurik came to Novgorod from Ladoga and not from overseas; his castle was only about two hundred kilometres from Novgorod down the River Volkhov on which both Novgorod and Ladoga stood. The real circumstances of Rurik’s appearance in Novgorod were also different. The prominent nineteenthcentury historian, Klyuchevsky, expressed the idea that Rurik came to Novgorod as the head of a band of Varangian mercenaries invited by the Novgorod elders at the time of the internecine struggle. It was this struggle that enabled him to seize power in Novgorod. The internecine warfare, however, did not lead to the collapse of the northern tribal alliance or the weakening of Novgorod’s role as the political centre of the alliance. On the contrary, when Rurik ceased to be the captain of a band of mercenaries and became Prince of Novgorod, the struggle ceased and the power of Novgorod was consolidated. This enabled Rurik’s successor, Prince Oleg of Novgorod, to organise a campaign to the south in which he conquered Kiev and killed the Kiev Princes, Askold and Dir. Kiev became the centre of the united state. This event, which the chronicles date at 882, is traditionally regarded as the date of the foundation of the ancient Russian state.

p Although Rurik and Oleg were of Varangian origin, the state was Slav and not Varangian. The success of Rurik and Oleg is due to their activities having objectively promoted the unification of the Slav tribes, which had begun long before the appearance of the Varangians and independently of them, and which was determined by the development 32 of the social system of the Slavs themselves. Rurik did not become Prince of Novgorod as a conqueror, but because he was supported by the Slav tribal aristocracy, which saw in him a defender of its interests. The decisive role played by internal Slav social forces is seen still more clearly in the activities of Oleg. The main body of his army for the campaign against Kiev consisted of Slav tribes (Slovenye, Krivichi and others); there were very few Varangians. The Slav nature of the emergent state is also evident in the inability of the small number of Varangians, who were at a lower cultural level than the Slavs, to maintain their ethnical integrity. They were rapidly assimilated, and merged with the Slav aristocracy to form the ethnically uniform ruling class of feudal Rus.

p The most important feature of the early period in the history of the ancient Russian state was the conquest of the Slav tribes and their subordination to Kiev as the political centre. Oleg (882–912) subdued the Drevlyane, Severyane and Radimichi, freeing the Severyane and Radimichi of their dependence on the Khazars to whom they had been paying tribute. Cleg’s successor, Igor (912–945), subdued the Ulichiand Tivertsi and again brought under his rule the Drevlyane who had broken away from Kiev after the death of Oleg. Svyatoslav (965–972) and Vladimir (978–1015) carried out campaigns against the Vyatichi, the last Slav tribe to maintain its independence. In these campaigns the old tribal divisions were broken down and disappeared, and the territory of the ancient state of Rus was defined. The initial period in the history of the ancient Russian state is marked by the completion of the process whereby the ancient Russian nationality took shape. The economic and cultural ties that had long existed between the individual East Slav tribes, which were the basic component in the ancient Russian nationality, gave rise to the community of language, economy and culture which was responsible for the fusion of the separate tribes and other ethnic elements absorbed by the Slavs into an ancient Russian nationality.

p Simultaneously with the unification of the Slav tribes, the tenthcentury princes of Kiev made war on the neighbours of the state of Rus—the Khazars, the peoples of the North Caucasus, the Bulgars of the Kama and the Danube, and the Poles. These wars served to extend the territory of Rus and to strengthen her frontiers. Instrumental here were Svyatoslav’s defeat of the Khazars in 965 and the conclusion of an agreement with the Kama Bulgars.

p The wars of Rus against Byzantium in the ninth and tenth centuries were of a different character; they were, in a way, the continuation of the wars against Byzantium of the sixth and seventh centuries. It was the struggle of a young and developing barbarian state against a big centre, against the successor to the civilisation of antiquity; it was a struggle to affirm its international position and strengthen economic and cultural ties with Byzantium.

p If we discount the campaign of 860 which took place before the foundation of ancient Rus, the first campaign against Byzantium was undertaken by Oleg in 907; in this campaign he reached Constantinople (called Tsargrad by the Slavs) and concluded a triumphant peace with Byzantium. The terms of this peace were given legal form in the Russo-Byzantine Treaty of 911 and were very favourable to Rus. Oleg’s 33 successor, Igor, made war on Byzantium on two occasions, in 941 and 944. The first campaign was a failure — the Russian fleet reached Constantinople but was destroyed by "Greek fire”; the second was more successful and ended with the conclusion, in 944, of a new treaty with Byzantium. During the visit paid by Princess Olga to Constantinople in 957 the treaty of 944 was probably confirmed and extended. The luxurious reception that was accorded to Princess Olga by the Emperor Constantine (she was received in the sumptuous hall of the Mangaura Palace in which only great rulers were received, and she was allowed to sit in the Emperor’s presence and to greet him not on her knees but merely with a nod of her head, etc.) and the rich gifts that were presented to Princess Olga and her retinue were all evidence of Byzantium’s wish to preserve friendly relations with Kiev.

p Soon, however, the successes achieved by Rus in the Black Sea area gave rise to concern in Byzantium. The Byzantine Government embarked on a three-handed game: it stirred up conflict between Rus and Bulgaria, and between the Pechenegs and Rus. Prince Svyatoslav, the son of Igor and Princess Olga, became the hero in this war. He invaded Bulgaria, seized a number of towns and set himself the task of turning the Danube area of Bulgaria into the centre of his state and moving his capital from Kiev to Pereyaslavets on the Danube. On June 21, 971, however, the Byzantine Emperor loann Zimisces succeeded in defeating Svyatoslav in a battle near Dorostol on the Danube; although the Greeks were unable to destroy the Russian forces who took cover behind the walls of Dorostol, Svyatoslav was forced to negotiate and sign a treaty with the Byzantine Emperor (July 971) in which Rus undertook never again to engage in campaigns against Byzantium and Bulgaria. On the way back to Rus, Svyatoslav was killed by Pechenegs, probably not without the participation of the Byzantines who were anxious to get rid of a dangerous enemy.

p Despite the defeat of Svyatoslav, the struggle between Rus and Byzantium continued under his son Vladimir, and on this occasion Rus achieved an important victory. An insurrection of the Bulgars and a mutiny among the troops in Asia Minor raised by Phocas compelled the Emperor Basil II to turn to Vladimir for help. Vladimir sent an army against Phocas, suppressed the mutiny and then demanded that Basil II give him his sister Anna in marriage. The political significance of such a marriage was obvious. It would mean that Byzantium recognised the might of the young Russian state. For this reason Basil attempted to evade fulfilment of the promise he had made; this inspired Vladimir to attack the Greek town of Korsun in the Crimea. When Vladimir captured Korsun, the Byzantine Emperor was compelled to fulfil the terms of the agreement.

p The campaigns of Rus against Byzantium in the ninth and tenth centuries had great significance for the development of the Russian state since they led to the establishment of economic and cultural relations between Rus and Byzantium and brought Rus into the orbit of the advanced states of Western Europe.

p One important outcome of these relations was the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of Rus by Prince Vladimir (circa 988). With the development of classes and of statehood, the old pagan religion 34 of Rus that had been the ideological expression of the primitive clan social system was in contradiction to the new conditions of social life and was not capable of fulfilling the main function of religion in a class society, that of strengthening and making sacred the existing social order.

p At the beginning of his reign Vladimir tried to reform the pagan religion. He ordered the wooden statues of six gods from different tribes (Perun with his silver head and golden moustaches, Khors, Dazhdbog, Stribog, Semargl and Mokosha) to be placed on a hill next his palace and established a fixed ritual for offering up prayers and sacrifices. This curious pantheon of pagan deities was intended to express the unity of Rus, the supremacy of Kiev in the country, and the rule of the prince and the feudal elite within the state.

p But this mechanical amalgamation of the pagan gods was unable to perform these functions or to produce any unified religion, since the pagan beliefs were deeply rooted in the remote past of Slavdom, continued to disunite certain parts and regions in the state, and preserved certain ideas of equality and democracy.

p The ruling class of Rus needed a new religion, and the gap was filled by Christianity.

p Christianity had long been known in Kiev. According to tradition, Princess Olga was baptised in Constantinople and prompted her son Svyatoslav to follow suit. Tenth-century Kiev had its Church of Elijah, and Christian literature spread into Rus from Bulgaria. The feudal circles undoubtedly knew the basic dogmas of the Christian faith, which were well suited to the social relations of a feudal society and state. Consequently, the supposed choice of faith (according to the chronicle, Vladimir consulted the representatives of different faiths—Judaism, Islam and Christianity) was, historically, a foregone conclusion in favour of Christian Byzantium, a state that was similar in its social essence and political system to the growing state of Rus.

p The events that preceded the adoption of Christianity and which were described above (Vladimir’s demand for the hand of the Emperor’s sister, the capture of Korsun, etc.) show that Vladimir’s government did everything to see that their baptism by the Byzantines did not imply in any way that Rus had become a vassal of Byzantium.

p Rus turned out to be sufficiently powerful to accept Christianity without sacrificing any of its independence.

p The adoption of Christianity by Rus was a relatively progressive event, and one fraught with great significance. For the ruling classes of Rus, Christianity was a powerful weapon with which to strengthen their domination, and the Christian Church became a new branch of the state organisation whose task was to give sacred sanction to the social system then in existence. The conversion of Rus to Christianity also served to strengthen the ideological unity of the state. And, lastly, together with Christianity Rus acquired the art of writing and an opportunity to take advantage of the higher culture of Byzantium, the successor to the civilisation of antiquity.

p Following the adoption of Christianity, the international links of the ancient Russian state expanded and grew stronger. As a Christian state, it entered into relations with Catholic countries as well as Byzantium. 35 According to the chronicle, Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich "lived in peace with the neighbouring princes— Boleslaw of the Poles, Stephen of the Hungarians and Andrich of the Czechs—and there was peace and love between them”. Subsequently ties were established with more distant countries—France, Germany and England.  [35•* 

p The reign of Vladimir I brings to a close the first period in the history of the ancient Russian state, the period of its formation.

p The economic basis of the social order established in Rus was feudal landed proprietorship, with the big estates in the hands of the princes, the boyars, their armed retainers and, after the adoption of Christianity, the church.

p Feudal economy was based on the exploitation of the labour of numerous categories of actual producers: smerdi, zakupi, ryadovichi, izgoyf  [35•**  and, lastly, the kholopi (slaves). The smerdi constituted the largest section of the population; these were the peasants who belonged to the communes and who owned their own farms and implements. The smerdi were divided into two big groups, those who still maintained their independence and those who had become dependent on the feudal landowner. The other categories of the dependent population were also made up of smerdi who had been ruined and had become the bondsmen of the feudal upper classes.

p The Chief form of the exploitation of the actual producers was through corvee service—rent paid in the form of labour on the estates of the feudal lord. Quit rent in kind was also current in Rus.

p Side by side with the feudal estates, the towns continued to grow; they were centres of handicraft industries and commerce. The towns were also the centres of political and cultural life; the greater part of the urban population consisted of artisans of various trades.

p Commerce was closely connected with the urban industries. Every Russian town had its market (torg, torgovishche, where local and foreign merchants and artisans sold their wares. The local traders and the artisans were the most important groups of townsmen. Higher on the social ladder than the artisans and merchants were the boyars, the feudal aristocracy, the chief political power in the towns of Rus.

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p The social structure of the towns of Rus made them the scene of an acute class struggle in which the boyars and the bigger merchants were opposed by the "lower orders”, the mass of the urban population.

p The development of feudal relations in Rus brought about the formation of local political centres and as they grew bigger, the importance of Kiev as the state political centre began to fade. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the struggle of the local feudal centres against Kiev brought about the division of the ancient state of Rus into a number of independent feudal principalities.

p The first signs that Rus was collapsing as a centralised state became evident at the end of the reign of Prince Vladimir I. They were to be seen in the struggle between Kiev and Novgorod, where a tendency to independence first made itself felt. For instance, the people of Novgorod decided to discontinue the annual tribute of 2,000 grivny to Kiev. Only Vladimir’s death prevented a Kievan military campaign against Novgorod. After the death of Vladimir in 1015, his son Svyatopolk the Accursed ascended the throne and continued his father’s policy of consolidating the rule of the Kiev Prince over the whole of Rus. Vladimir’s other sons—Yaroslav, Boris, Gleb of Murom, Svyatoslav of Drevlyane and Mstislav of Tmutarakan—defended the interests of the local feudal aristocracy and adopted a position hostile to Svyatopolk. A bitter struggle ensued in the course of which three of Svyatopolk’s brothers (Boris, Gleb and Svyatoslav) were killed; Yaroslav, aided by an army from Novgorod, attacked Svyatopolk and defeated him (1016). Svyatopolk fled to his father-in-law, the Polish King Boleslaw the Brave, returned with a Polish army and defeated Yaroslav (1018). Yaroslav, however, with the aid of Novgorod, launched a new campaign against Svyatopolk and on this occasion ousted him from Kiev and himself ascended the throne.

p The struggle for power, however, was not over; Yaroslav still had to fight Mstislav. During this struggle Yaroslav was driven from Kiev once again and was unable to return to his capital until 1026, when he had been obliged to hand over control of the east bank of the Dnieper to Mstislav. Yaroslav managed to consolidate his power throughout Rus only after the death of Mstislav in 1036.

p Yaroslav, however, did not overcome the centrifugal tendencies that were manifest in Rus. He was compelled to admit the disintegration when, shortly before his death (1054), he divided the territory between his five sons. Izyaslay, the eldest, was supposed to stand in loco parentis to the others. In reality, however, he never became the “elder” among the princes and was forced to share power with them — Svyatoslav ruled over Chernigov and Vsevolod over Pereyaslavl.

p The joint rule of the three sons of Yaroslav (1054–73) over the three biggest regions of Rus enabled them to exercise control of the entire state of Rus and be the arbiters of its fate. Their most important act in domestic policy was the publication of a new Pravda (Code of Laws) which in part annulled (the blood feud was eliminated) and in part complemented the old Russkaya Pravda. This new Code, known as Pravda Yaroslavichei (Law of the Sons of Yaroslav), was intended to protect the big feudal landed estates and regulate internal relations within those estates.

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p The external relations of the period were concerned mainly with the beginning of the struggle against the Polovtsi, a tribe of Turkic nomad horsemen. Before this, in the tenth century and during the first half of the eleventh century, the princes of Kiev had been forced to protect their frontiers against the inroads of other peoples, mainly the Turkic Pechenegs; in the mid-eleventh century, however, the Polovtsi appeared, a more powerful tribal alliance of nomad horsemen who came out of the southern steppes and drove the Pechenegs to the west (to Hungary) and occupied their territory.

p The development of feudal relations and, as a result, the increased exploitation of the direct producers in town and country, served to sharpen class contradictions. As early as the eleventh century there were open revolts of the oppressed classes against the feudal lords of ancient Rus.

p The first important action—"the great revolt"—took place in Suzdal in 1024. But probably the biggest during the entire period of ancient Rus was the Kiev insurrection of 1068. The urban lower classes were the main force of the insurrection; the insurgents destroyed the court of the governor of Kiev, and Prince Izyaslav fled to Poland. The ruling classes, however, were able to suppress the insurrection on account of its sporadic, unorganised nature.

p Shortly after this (c. 1071) there was a widespread revolt of the smerdi (peasants) at Beloozero in the land of Rostov.

p In that same year of 1071 the urban lower classes of Novgorod made an attempt to revolt against the prince and his retainers.

p The insurrection of 1068 and the events which followed broke up the alliance of the three sons of Yaroslav and led to the internecine wars, typical feudal wars that filled the second half of the eleventh century. These wars were complemented by meetings of the princes at which the 38 results of the current struggle were discussed and the lands and power redistributed among them according to the new alignment of forces. One of the most important meetings was at Liubek in 1097 which formulated a new principle in relations between the princes—"each shall hold his estate”; this reflected the collapse of the paramount rule of the Kiev princes and marked the independence and autonomy of the local feudal centres.

p All these events worsened the international position of Rus as evidenced by the growing strength of the attacks on her by the Polovtsi at the turn of the twelfth century. Kiev no longer played the leading role in the war against the Polovtsi — that role was taken over by Vladimir Monomach, Prince of Southern Pereyaslavl; this naturally strengthened his position in the struggle for power, the more so because his most powerful rivals, the sons of Svyatoslav of Chernigov, acted in alliance with the Polovtsi. The urban population was the determining factor in this struggle, especially the people of Kiev.

p During the reign in Kiev of Prince Svyatopolk, son of Izyaslav (1093–1113), there was a considerable deepening of class contradictions due mainly to the increase of usury with the resultant ruin of the artisans and traders of Kiev who became the bondsmen of the usurers. Prince Svyatopolk himself engaged in usury and speculation (especially in salt). When Svyatopolk died in 1113, a sharp struggle over the succession arose between those who championed the descendants of Svyatoslav and who had the support of a strong group led by the Kiev tysyatsky (military governor) Putyata, and the champions of Monomach, Prince of Pereyaslavl. This struggle for power between the two Kiev political groups, however, was pushed into second place by the revolt of the urban lower classes of Kiev that broke out spontaneously. The insurgents first attacked Putyata’s palace and the palaces of local and foreign merchants. Then the insurrection began to threaten not only the boyars, but also the monasteries and even the widow of Svyatopolk. Under these circumstances the feudal aristocracy of Kiev, "great and important men”, united in promoting the candidacy of Vladimir Monomach. In response to their appeal to put an end to "the spirit of revolt among the people”, Monomach arrived in Kiev and suppressed the revolt.

p When Vladimir Monomach became Prince of Kiev, he strengthened his alliance with the Kiev feudal aristocracy by issuing new laws — the Ustav o Rezakh (Ordinance on Interest) and the Ustav o Zakupakh (Ordinance on Bondsmen). The first of these regulated trading and, especially, money credit and usury, protecting the interests of the creditors (with, however, certain elements of social demagogy). The second ordinance provided legal grounds for the exploitation of bonded peasants (smerdi-zakupi) by the boyars; it stated in particular that a bondsman who attempted to escape from his master would be made a slave.

p The regnal years of Vladimir Monomach (1113–25) and his son Mstislav (1125–32) were marked by the first attempts at overcoming feudal disunity by strengthening the power of the Prince or Grand Duke by means of an alliance with the towns. After the death of Mstislav, however, feudal struggles began again and did not cease throughout the 39 twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries. In the course of this feudal struggle, when Kiev passed from one warring prince to another, the state of ancient Rus finally ceased to exist as a political unit. By the second half of the twelfth century a number of feudal principalities differing in strength and importance had grown on the ruins of the old state. Novgorod showed a marked tendency to separatism earlier than the other Russian lands.

p Three features of the economic life of Novgorod, the town and its land, are of importance. First, the tremendous significance of commerce, including foreign trade, owing mainly to the situation of the town at the northern end of the great waterway "from the Varangians to the Greeks”. Second, the great significance of handicraft industries, of which Novgorod was the biggest centre in Rus. Third, the existence of Novgorod’s extensive “colonies”, which provided many valuable commodities — furs, silver, wax and other items.

p The tiny minority of boyars and rich merchants in Novgorod were opposed by the great majority of the rural and urban population. For the ruling class to be able to rule and maintain its power, it had to dominate the body that had always possessed considerable authority in Novgorod side by side with that of the prince — that is the veche, the assembly of all free townsmen. The boyars, the real masters of Novgorod, took advantage of their ability to organise themselves politically and of their economic strength to guide, in actual fact, the work of the veche, to determine its decisions and to dictate to it their own political line. Organs of executive authority existed parallel to the Novgorod veche; these were the posadnik (vicegerent) and the tysyatsky (military governor) — up to the thirties of the twelfth century the posadnik, factually the head of the Novgorod government, was appointed from Kiev.

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p Novgorod’s struggle for independence became particularly acute in the thirties of the twelfth century, and ended in the victorious insurrection of the Novgorod people against Prince Vsevolod in 1136 and 1137. This insurrection put an end to Novgorod’s dependence on Kiev and established the Novgorod Republic. The prince no longer possessed any authority as the head of the Novgorod state. Supreme power was vested in the veche which now not only elected the posadniK and the tysyatsky, but invited its own princes and concluded treaties with them. The rights and duties of the prince were reduced mainly to the fulfilment of functions of a military nature.

p The people, the masses of Novgorod, played the leading part in the events of the thirties, but the results of those events were made use of by the boyars who were able to rule Novgorod through the elected republican institutions; the boyars monopolised the posts of posadnik and tysyatsky, and later introduced a special organ of power, the Sovet Gospod (Council of the Lords), the real government of Novgorod.

p The historical development of the other two big political formations that resulted from the collapse of Rus was on different lines; these two formations were the Vladimir-Suzdal land in the north-east and the Galicia-Volhynia land in the south-west.

p The north-eastern part of the old Russian state was distinguished by a number of specific features in its social and political structure. As it was rather far removed territorially from the centre of the state, its dependence on the authority of the Prince of Kiev was relatively small. The development of feudal relations produced there a powerful group of boyar farmers who were the factual masters of the region. The political centres were the towns of Rostov—the citadel of the “old” boyars — and Suzdal; it was these two towns that at first gave theirnames to the territory (Rostov-Suzdal land). In the twelfth century important changes took place. There was a considerable increase in the population, due mainly t6 colonisation from other regions of the ancient Russian state. New groups appeared in the population that were not connected with the “old” Rostov boyars and that were independent of them; new towns grew up (Vladimir, Pereyaslavl Zalessky, Yuriev Polsky and others), the most important of which was Vladimir on the River Klyazma, founded during the reign of Vladimir Monomach.

p The political weight and the importance of the Rostov-Suzdal land became considerably greater during the reign of Yuri Dolgoruki, a younger son of Vladimir Monomach. It was during his reign that the records first made mention of Moscow (1147). The Rostov-Suzdal land and the power of its prince were further consolidated during the reign of Yuri Dolgoruki’s son, Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky (1157–74). Andrei began by transferring his residence to Vladimir and by building a castle in the neighbouring village of Bogolyubovo (hence his surname of Bogolyubsky), thus demonstrating that he looked for support to the new towns. And it was with the support of the new stratum of feudal farmers, the new nobility that emerged from the groups of armed retainers, and of the artisans and tradespeople of the new towns (miziniye lyudi, or "little people”), that he got rid of the old boyar counsellors. In 1169, Andrei organised a campaign against Kiev in an effort to subordinate the Grand Duke of Kiev and keep him under his control; in this campaign he 41 enlisted the aid of eleven other princes. The campaign ended with the capture and plunder of Kiev. Andrei set up his brother as vicegerent in Kiev and himself remained in Vladimir. This spelled the end of Kiev’s rule, and the role of political centre of Rus passed over to Vladimir (and partly to Galich). Andrei also tried to extend his rule over Novgorod, but in this he was not successful; the army he sent against Novgorod was defeated in 1170 and Novgorod retained its independence.

p The greatly increased power ’of the Vladimir ruler aroused the discontent and direct opposition of the boyars. Their resistance took the form of a conspiracy and in 1174 Andrei was assassinated by them.

p For two years after Andrei’s assassination the boyars of Rostov and Suzdal carried on a persistent struggle to re-establish the old order and restore their former political supremacy. They were, however, unable to achieve any lasting success. Under Andrei’s successors Vladimir regained its political importance.

p It was during the reign of Andrei’s younger brother, Vsevolod Bolshoe Gnezdo (Vsevolod of the Great Nest—1176–1212) that the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal reached the zenith of its power. Vsevolod was successful in his policy because he relied mainly on the support of the tradespeople and artisans of the towns and the armed retainers who formed the new nobility, i. e., on the social forces that were interested in strengthening the rule of the prince. Despite his achievements Vsevolod did not succeed in putting an end to feudal disunity. He was opposed by the feudal aristocracy of Vladimir-Suzdal and also by those of other principalities, especially by the boyars of Novgorod and Ryazan. After the death of Vsevolod, a new period of internecine struggle began. These internal struggles to a considerable extent nullified the results of Vsevolod’s policy of consolidating the Principality of Vladimir and by the time of the Mongol-Tatar invasion, the prince of Vladimir proved unable to unite the forces of the Russian lands under his leadership.

p At this time important changes were taking place in the southern parts of the disintegrating ancient Russian state. In the south-east, in the Chernigov land, the fall of Kiev accelerated the process of feudal break-up with the result that in the twenties of the twelfth century the Murom-Ryazan land separated and was then (in the sixties of the same century) divided into the principalities of Murom and Ryazan; the process ended in the disintegration of the former Principality of Chernigov into twenty-odd tiny feudal domains that were preserved right up to the fifteenth century.

p The historical development of the south-western parts of the ancient Russian state — Galicia and Volhynia—was much more complicated and of a contradictory nature. The principalities of Galicia and Volhynia separated — the former in the nineties of the eleventh century and the latter in the mid-twelfth century — and continued independent up to the end of the twelfth century, when they were united under the rule of Prince Roman Mstislavich of Volhynia (1199). In the twelfth century the Principality of Galicia made great economic progress and its political power grew considerably, largely due to its favourable geographical situation. When the waterway "from the Varangians to the Greeks" lost its international significance owing to the inroads of the Polovtsi, the 42 trade routes shifted to the west and passed through the Galician land; the internecine wars among the princes and the constant raids of the Polovtsi on Rus increased not only the colonisation of the north-east, but also of the west, the Galician land included. This led to the strengthening of the Galician towns and an increase in their commercial and political significance. Furthermore, Galicia was the meeting point of three important East European countries—Rus, Poland and Hungary, which gave the principality considerable international importance and promoted the strengthening of the power vf the prince which was resisted by the local boyars. The prince had gained power in Galicia at a relatively late date, when feudal relations were already firmly established; the class of boyar farmers had possessed exceptional economic and political power and this made the struggle between them and the Grand Duke (or Prince) an unusually bitter one.

p The most brilliant of the princes who ruled Galicia and Volhynia was Roman Mstislavich who united those two regions into a single principality with its centre in the town of Galich. Roman ruled for six years (1199–1205), the years of struggle against the boyars and of an active foreign policy. Although he achieved some success in the straggle against the boyars, Roman was unable to break their power. His death led to another period of internecine conflicts that lasted almost forty years. Hungary and Poland took an active part in these minor wars with the object of profiting from them.

In the long and bittef feudal struggle for power, the urban population, the merchants and artisans were extremely hostile to the boyars. Because of this situation, Daniil, the son of Roman, was finally able to regain his throne. In 1236, he laid siege to Galich and the townspeople forced the boyars to surrender the town and recognise the authority of Daniil. In this way the lengthy crisis in Galicia and Volhynia ended in the defeat of the boyars and the victory of the prince. This victory was progressive because Daniil’s policy was one of strengthening the power of the prince with the support of the townspeople and uniting under his rule the surrounding lands; this objectively reflected the urge to overcome feudal disunity. This important historical process of unification was interrupted by the Mongol-Tatar invasion.