“And the princes began to plot sedition against each other...”

Kyivan Rus’ was formed territorially during the 10 th century. Capturing the city of the legendary Prince Kyi, the Varangian Prince Oleh decided that “this will be the mother of all Rus’ cities.” During the reign of Oleh and his successors Ihor and Sviatoslav Kyiv spread its influence throughout the region inhabited by the Eastern Slavs, creating the largest state in Europe. In the beginning its rulers chiefly collected tributes from various vassal tribes, and invaded and plundered neighboring lands.

Rus’ began to take a qualitatively new shape under Volodymyr the Great whose reforms strengthened the defenses of the Rus’ lands. Christianity, as the compulsory religion for the whole country, united those lands ideologically. The period of rule under Volodymyr and his son Yaroslav the Wise were the Golden Age of ancient Rus’. The lengthy absence of internecine conflicts and nomadic invasions led to the considerable economic and cultural rise of Rus’.

In the mid-1030s Kyiv experienced a real construction boom. Within a short period of time the “city of Yaroslav” was built next to the “city of Volodymyr.” The new site was more than seven times bigger than the old one and had numerous tower-chambers owned by boyars and wealthy merchants. The architectural ensemble consisting of St. Sofia’s Cathedral, the largest church in Rus’, the monumental cathedrals of St. George and St. Irene, and another unidentified stone church became true ornaments of the “city of Yaroslav.”

Magnificent church buildings were erected in Novhorod, Chernihiv, and Polotsk. Naming the main cathedral St. Sophia and the main city gates, “Golden,” was not simply emulation of Constantinople but a manifestation of the desire to become its equal. This desire was also attested by the next challenge from the “sole ruler of the Rus’ land” to the world empire; the appointment of Ilarion, a citizen of Rus’, as metropolitan of Kyiv. Earlier, this prerogative had belonged to the patriarch of Constantinople, who was dependant on the emperor. Thus, European rulers considered it a great honor to intermarry into Yaroslav’s dynasty.

In his old age Yaroslav, taught by his own experience and that of his predecessors, contemplated how to preserve peace and stability in his state. After Prince Sviatoslav’s death, a bloody struggle for power began among his sons, which ended with the deaths of Oleh and Yaropolk. Dark times of uncertainty also descended on Rus’ following the death of Prince Volodymyr.

This time among the victims of the long internecine war were his sons Borys, Hlib, Sviatoslav, and Sviatopolk. The conflict between Yaroslav and his brother Mstyslav was long and difficult. Finally, the princes wisely resolved their quarrel and established a durable peace. But their agreement divided Rus’ along the Dnipro River. Perhaps Yaroslav’s desire to avoid such situations in the future explains why he tended to legitimize the succession to the Kyiv throne only of rulers’ eldest sons.

What status would their younger sons have? Would they become a factor of destabilization? Accordingly, before his death the old prince established the principle of rotation of princes as the rulers of the capital and the provinces. The Kyiv throne had to be occupied by the eldest prince, so each of Yaroslav’s heirs had an opportunity to become grand prince of Kyiv legally. At the same time, provincial princes were not supposed to remain in the same province for long. This was designed to eliminate the threat of separatism and encourage all the princes to defend Rus’ as the land owned by all of them.

In fact, this was the first attempt to place the process of succession into a legal framework. But the dynastic principle, which Yaroslav intended to be applied to his sons, had several substantial and long-term drawbacks. In the end it became one of the main factors that led to the state’s decline. Later, the expansion of Yaroslav’s family led to confusion concerning seniority (e.g., an uncle could be younger than his nephew) which resulted in misunderstandings and conflicts.

Neither did the fact that the entire Ryuryk dynasty was ruling Rus’ help strengthen the state. At times the younger princes’ disobedience, which had to be severely punished, was settled within the family, with the rebel evading all unpleasant consequences merely by taking an oath of loyalty — kissing a crucifix. Occasionally, the oldest prince would ignore his younger brothers and give the most prestigious provincial thrones to his sons or act according to the principle of “divide and rule” by engineering a confrontation among his rivals. Add to this the royal ambitions of some of the younger princes, and you get a tangle of controversies that are difficult to unravel to this very day.

Yaroslav’s hopes that Rus’ would become his dynastic patrimony were not fully realized. Already during Volodymyr’s rule the Polotsk region had broken away, and power was inherited among the Polotsk princes. After a princely assembly in Liubech the Chernihiv lands fell to the Olhovyches. In the 12 th century Yurii Dolgoruky received the lands of Vladimir-Suzdal, and Halych also separated. At the same time the rulers of those breakaway regions did not abandon their claims to the Kyiv throne.

This situation, which lasted until the Tartar-Mongol invasion, did not satisfy the grand princes of Kyiv, who found themselves at the top of the pyramid of power and wanted stability in a prosperous, unitary state. But it was entirely convenient for the provincial rulers because their position practically guaranteed their independence, and at the same time gave each of them a chance to claim the main throne. The grand prince could not ignore them. The attempts of some Kyivan princes to become “the sole rulers of Rus’” were always repelled resolutely by those whose rights were endangered. Perhaps this explains why no Kyivan Rus’ rulers became reformers after Volodymyr and Yaroslav.

The first crack in Yaroslav’s system of inherited power opened in 1073. His middle son Sviatoslav, who considered himself worthy of occupying the throne, plotted with his younger brother Vsevolod against their elder brother Iziaslav. Yaroslav’s testament was broken.

Worth mentioning here is a phenomenon that Yaroslav had not taken into consideration but which was not uncommon in those times, namely outcast princes. If a son of a grand prince died without having ascended to the throne, all his heirs were automatically stripped of their right of the Kyivan accession, which limited the number of candidates. The grand prince gave them some minor estates or often left them landless.

Such actions naturally sparked disgruntlement among a number of princes, who were loath to reconcile themselves with their diminished status. Many of them fled to Tmutarakan, a Rus’ enclave located beyond the Dyke pole (Wild Field) on the Azov seacoast. They usually usurped the principality there, recruited warriors among the local tribes and the Polovtsians to man their armies, and marched on Rus’ to claim their royal rights by sword.

After Sviatoslav Yaroslavovych’s death five of his sons replenished the ranks of the outcasts. While revenge was the motive behind Izyaslav’s decision to oppose them, Vsevolod’s motives were incomprehensible, as he was once Sviatoslav’s ally in the conspiracy against Iziaslav. This hasty decision, based on self- interest, led to a lengthy internecine war in which Oleh Sviatoslavovych played an instrumental role. The Polovtsian hordes fighting under him were paid with his permission to plunder Rus’. Grand Prince Iziaslav and Borys, one of the outcast princes, were killed in battle, and the country suffered major losses in manpower and materiel.

Some princes, particularly Volodymyr Monomakh and his son Mstyslav, understood the hopeless and destructive nature of the internecine conflict. It was they who initiated the princes’ assembly in Liubech in 1097. “Why do we destroy our own Rus’ land?” the princes implored. “And the Polovtsians plunder our land, rejoicing that we are unable to stop fighting each other. So let us bring our hearts together and protect the Rus’ land.”

The outcast princes were granted lands, and the participants of the assembly kissed the crucifix, declaring: “If one of us even tries to rise against another, we will all unite against him, we swear by the cross.” But in a few days Rus’ found itself on the verge of another civil war. Ignoring their oath sworn on the crucifix, Sviatopolk, Grand Prince of Kyiv, and Prince Davyd Ihorovych treacherously captured Vasylko Rostyslavovych, another participant of the princely conclave. Vasylko was later blinded. Revolted by this unprecedented act of treachery, Volodymyr Monomakh, Oleh Sviatoslavovych, and Davyd Sviatoslavovych rose up against Sviatopolk. War was averted only thanks to the Kyivites’ active position and Volodymyr Monomakh’s wisdom.

To be continued in the next publication of the Ukraina Incognita column.