In the history of Russia, a long and difficult period is known, when the country was divided into many small, practically independent specific principalities. It was a time of constant internecine wars and the ongoing struggle for power between the Rurikovichs. In history, this period was called "feudal fragmentation." But what was it? And what were the specific principalities? This question often confuses not only schoolchildren, but also adults.
Meaning of term
The concept of "specific principality" is directly related to the word "divide". This word in Russia was called a part of the country's territory, which is due to the young princes by inheritance. Remember folk tales, where the hero who performed the sovereign's service was promised a beautiful girl and half the kingdom in addition? This is an echo of the specific period. Is it that in ancient Russia, the princes usually received not half of their father's lands, but much lesspart of them: there were always many sons in the families of Rurikovich.
Causes of feudal fragmentation
In order to understand why a strong centralized state broke up into many specific principalities in less than a few decades, one will have to remember the peculiarities of succession to the throne in Russia. In contrast to Western European countries, where the principle of primacy (that is, the transfer of the entire inheritance only to the eldest son) was in effect, in our country each of the princes had the right to part of his father's lands. This system was called "ladders" (literally - "ladders", that is, a kind of hierarchy).
For example, Vladimir I had 13 recognized male children.
Only 11 survived to a more or less conscious age, at which it was customary to allocate land plots to princes. But even this turned out to be more than Russia, united at that time, could withstand. After the death of Vladimir, a struggle for power began between his sons, which ended only with the accession to the Kyiv throne of Yaroslav the Wise.
Peace, however, was short-lived. Yaroslav did not draw conclusions from the civil strife that made him the Grand Duke. He formalized the Ladder system of transfer of power. Russia, once united, began to fragment. Each specific principality was, in fact, an independent state, subordinate to Kyiv only formally. And this process finally ended only in the 15th century, during the reign of Ivan III.
Peculiarities of feudal fragmentation
The specific principalities and lands in Russia were a colorful and rather strange formation in political, economic and legal terms:
- Each had its own borders and capital.
- The desire of the princes to separate led to the fact that internal economic ties were strengthened, while external, between the principalities, on the contrary, weakened.
- The internecine struggle had several goals at once: to strengthen its borders, to expand the lands, to gain more political influence. And most importantly - to seize power in the city in which the Grand Duke's throne was located. First it was Kyiv, then, from the end of the XII century, Vladimir, after - Moscow.
- Despite the fact that the specific principalities were legally subordinate to the Grand Duke, in practice each was an independent state. Even to fight an external enemy (for example, with the Pechenegs, Polovtsians or Mongols), they had to negotiate with their neighbors. And often the principalities found themselves face to face with the enemy. This happened, for example, with Ryazan during the invasion of Batu. Vladimir and Kyiv princes refused to help their relative, preferring to strengthen their own lands.
Russian specific principalities, unlike fiefs in Western Europe, had political independence. And this meant a rather paradoxical situation. The Polish king or the Polovtsian khan could be an ally of one principality and at the same time fight against another.
Number of principalities
In the era of Yaroslav the Wise in Russia, there were only 12 principalities, completelycontrolled by Kyiv:
- Properly Kiev, giving the right to the grand throne.
- Chernigov, where the second-in-command in the Rurik dynasty ruled.
- Pereyaslavskoye, the third in the Ladder system.
- Tmutarakan, which lost its independence after the death of Mstislav the Brave.
- Novgorod (in fact, it was the second most important in Russia, but the city council called for princes in it from time immemorial, and even Yaroslav did not dare to go against this order).
- Galician.
- Volyn (in 1198 it turned into Galicia-Volyn, annexing the lands of Galich).
- Smolensk.
- Suzdal.
- Turovo-Pinsk with the capital in Turov (it was given to the reign of the stepson of Vladimir I, Svyatopolk).
- Murom.
- Suzdal.
Plus one thing, Polotsk, remained independent and was under the rule of Vseslav. Total 13.
However, already with the sons and grandchildren of Yaroslav, the situation began to change rapidly. It became more and more difficult to control the isolated territories. Each prince sought to strengthen his land, to gain greater power and influence. Under the first Yaroslavichs, Kyiv was the most coveted prize in the political struggle. The prince, who received the title of the Great, moved to the capital. And his inheritance passed to the next in seniority, Rurikovich. But already under the grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, Vladimir Monomakh, the concept of "patrimony" began to appear - that is, a land allotment, which was the property of the princely family. Literally, this word can be translated as "fatherland", "father's inheritance." Exactly thishappened to the Principality of Pereyaslav: it remained in the possession of Vladimir Vsevolodovich even after he began to rule in Kyiv.
In practice, this meant that the lands continued to be divided into parts, only between the descendants of individual dynasties: the Monomashichs, the Svyatoslavichs, etc. The number of principalities in a specific period increased with each generation and reached almost 180 by the 15th century.
Political consequences of feudal fragmentation
In 1093, the first shock occurred, showing the weakness of specific Russia. After the death of Vsevolod Yaroslavich, the Polovtsy demanded confirmation of the union treaty (and it included the payment of a kind of "payoff"). When the new Grand Duke Svyatopolk refused to negotiate and threw the ambassadors into prison, the offended steppe inhabitants went to war against Kyiv. Due to disagreements between Svyatopolk and Vladimir Monomakh, Russia was unable to give a worthy rebuff; moreover, for a long time they could not even agree on whether to fight or make peace with the Polovtsian khans.
When Vladimir came to Kyiv, they met in the monastery of St. Michael, started feuds and quarrels among themselves, having agreed, they kissed each other's cross, and meanwhile the Polovtsians continued to devastate the earth, - and reasonable men said to them: " Why do you have strife among yourselves? And the filthy ones are destroying the Russian land. After that, settle down, and now go towards the filthy ones - either with peace or with war."
(A Tale of Bygone Years)
As a result of the lack of unity between the brothers inbattle on the river Stugna, near the town of Trepol, the prince's army was defeated.
Subsequently, it was the rivalry between the specific principalities that caused the tragedy at Kalka, where the Russian troops were utterly defeated by the Mongols. It was civil strife that prevented the princes from uniting in 1238, when the hordes of Batu moved to Russia. And it was they who, ultimately, became the cause of the Mongol-Tatar yoke. It was possible to get rid of the rule of the Golden Horde only when the specific lands again began to rally around a single center - Moscow.
