Lecture 2. Period of feudal fragmentation

OF KIEVAN RUS’ (2 HRS)

1. The reasons of feudal fragmentation of Kievan Rus’.

After the death of Vladimir Monomakh in 1125, Kievan Rus’ went into a significant decline, from which it could not recover. The chronic problem of political fragmentation returned, with various princes seeking autonomy for regions under their control. As a consequence, throughout the 12th century, a number of regions (e.g., Halych [also called Galicia] and Volynia in the west, Chernihiv just to the north of Kiev, and Vladimir, Novgorod, and Smolensk farther to the north) gained de facto independence from Kiev. Kievan Rus’ became “an entity that had multiple centers related by language, common religiocultural bonds, and dynastic ties, but these centers were largely independent and often in competition with each other.” Control of Kiev, however, was still a prize, subject to political instability (24 princes ruled it from 1146 to 1246) and even military attacks from would-be princes.

In addition, Kievan Rus’ suffered from economic decline. The Dnieper trade route became less important thanks to the emergence of Italian merchants who opened and controlled new trade links and the Crusader raids on Constantinople.

Moreover, attacks from nomadic tribes made it difficult for Rus’ to control its southern border toward the Black Sea. Various efforts to unite the principalities of Rus’ and defeat these enemies came to naught. The Song of Ihor’s Campaign, a chronicle dating from 1187, records the campaigns of Prince Ihor of Chernihiv against the Polovtsians, who had previously been subdued by Monomakh. This time, however: Brother says to brother: “This is mine and that is mine too” and the princes have begun to say of what is small: “This is big” while against their own selves they forge discord while from all sides with victories pagans enter the Russian [Rus] land.

The final blow came at the hands of the Mongols, who originated in central Asia and whose mobile and well-led armies conquered much of Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. In 1237, Batu, grandson of the notorious Mongol leader Genghis Khan, led an army that overran the cities in northeastern Rus’ such as Suzdal and Vladimir. In 1240, the Mongols attacked Kiev. Despite brave resistance by its citizens, Kiev fell. All but a few of its churches were burned and its city walls were razed to the ground. Kiev would not recover its glory, and, in a move rich in symbolic and practical importance, in 1299, its Metropolitan was transferred to Vladimir and then later to Moscow.