The formation of the Great Russian nationality. Territory and population
It is generally accepted that the East Slavic peoples who inhabited the Russian Empire are divided into three different peoples - Great Russians, Little Russians and Belorussians (Belarusians). In accordance with this division, the lands on which these peoples live are also called differently - Great Russia, Little Russia and Belarus. However, Great Russians is a name for Russians that has become widespread in literature only since the mid-19th century.
The appearance of this name was preceded by the appearance of the name Great Russia, which was created by the clergy and began to be included in the royal title even earlier - in the 16th century. In this connection, the Russian people who lived in Great Russia began to be called by a second name - Great Russians, and the Russian people - the Great Russian people. It is obvious that, starting from the name of part of the Russian people as Great Russians, the Russian people living in the southwestern lands were also artificially called Little Russians.
And the Russians living to the north-west retained their name Belarusians, which originated from the name White Rus', which all of North-Eastern Rus' had. Abroad, Belaya Rus (White Russia) was also called the northeastern Russian lands. Thus, on the world map compiled in 1459 by the Venetian monk Fra Mauro, Novgorod-Moscow Rus' is called White Russia.
So among Russian people living in different lands, second, parallel names arose, dividing them by nationality, which, strictly speaking, contains a contradiction of logic and common sense. Because one people (Russian) cannot be three peoples at the same time, and three peoples (Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian - Little Russian) cannot be one people at the same time.
To overcome this contradiction, which arose historically, it is enough to return the name Great Russian to its correct meaning and meaning. Namely, all three parts of the great Russian people, who made up a historically single and great whole, now called Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, should be returned to the historically rightfully owned name of the Great Russian people.
Thanks to this, historical justice is restored, which consists in the fact that Russians are not only people now called Russians, but also Ukrainians and Belarusians. In addition, in this way artificial national discord between parts of the triune people, which is actively cultivated and incited by our enemies, is automatically eliminated. At the same time, the currently used names of individual parts of the people - Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians - can continue to be used without changes, but with only one caveat: that together they form a single Great Russian people.
And now let’s give a few quotes from the “Book of Veles,” which preserved for us the great testaments of our ancestors, which are especially important in the fateful trials that are taking place today.
“Gather and march, our brothers, tribe by tribe, clan by clan!
And fight the enemies on our land, as it should be for us and never for others. Die here, but don't turn back! And nothing will frighten you, and nothing will happen to you.”
“From Orey - this is our common father with the Borus - from the Ra River (Volga) to the Nepra (Dnieper) the clans were ruled by relatives (elders) and the veche. Every clan appointed a relative, who was essentially the ruler. And when we went to the mountain, then we (chose) a prince, a governor over the people, so that he would fight the enemies for the glory of Perun.”
“And when they began to count (votes), some said to be united, others said differently. And then Father Orey took his flocks and people away from them. And he led them far away and there he said: “Here we will build a city. From now on, Golun will be here, which was previously bare steppe and forest.”
“And Kiska walked away. And he also took his people to other places so that they would not mix with the people of Father Orey.”
“And the Yazis (other peoples) came to his land and began to take away the cattle. And then Kisek attacked them. I fought with them first for a day, then for a second, and the people fought. And sin came to those places, and many ate the remains, and people were killed with swords. And Oriev’s heart became disgusting, and he cried out to his relatives:
“Support Kisek and his people! Saddle up all your horses!” And then they all rushed at the Yaz and fought with them until they were defeated. And then they began to know the truth that we had strength only when we were together - then no one could defeat us. The same is true that both of us were not defeated, for we are Russians and received glory for ourselves from enemies who curse us.”
“From morning to morning we saw the evil that was happening in Rus', and waited for good to come. But it will never come if we do not rally our strength, and one (this) thought does not reach us, which the voice of the forefathers speaks to us. Listen to him - and therefore don’t do anything else!”
“Let us remember how our fathers fought with the enemies, who now look at us from the blue sky and smile at us well. And so we are not alone, but with our fathers!”
“And it was like this - the descendant, feeling his glory, held in his heart Rus', which is and will remain our land. And we defended her from enemies, and we died for her, like a day dies without the Sun and like the Sun goes out.”
, Russian historical dictionary, Terms,
GREAT RUSSIANS(Great Russians), the most numerous of the three branches of the Russian people (Great Russians, Little Russians, Belarusians), usually called simply Russians. Great Russians, like Little Russians and Belarusians, descended from a single
ancient Russian nationality, which formed in the VI-XIII centuries. According to many historians, the names “Russians”, “Great Russians”, “Rus”, “Russian Land” go back to the name of one of the Slavic tribes - the Rhodians, the Rosses, or the Russians. From their land in the Middle Dnieper region the name “Rus” spread to the entire Old Russian state, which included, in addition to the Slavic, some non-Slavic tribes. Already in those days, there were differences in the culture of the population of the forested northern and steppe and forest-steppe southern regions of Rus': for example, in the south they plowed with raal, in the north - with plow; The northern dwelling was a log house, high, with a wooden roof, the southern one was a half-dugout with frame walls, an earthen floor and a thatched roof. In numerous cities, crafts and trade, as well as ancient Russian culture, reached a high level of development. In the 10th century writing appeared, then historical works (chronicles) and literature in the Old Russian language, one of the brightest monuments of which is “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (XII century). There has long been a rich folklore - fairy tales, songs, epics. In the conditions of economic development of individual regions and specific fragmentation back in the 12th century. the prerequisites were created for the formation of the Great Russian, Little Russian and Belarusian branches of the Russian people. The formation of the Russian people is associated with the struggle against the Tatar-Mongol yoke and the creation of a centralized Russian state around Moscow in the 14th-15th centuries. This state included the northern and northeastern ancient Russian lands, where, in addition to the descendants of the Slavs - the Vyatichi, Krivichi and Slovenians, there were many immigrants from other regions. In the XIV-XV centuries. these lands began to be called Russia in the 16th century. - Russia. Neighbors called the country Muscovy. The names “Great Rus'” as applied to the lands inhabited by the Great Russians, “Little Rus'” by the Little Russians, and “White Rus'” by the Belarusians appeared in the 15th century. The colonization of the northern lands (the Baltics, Zavolochye), the Upper Volga region and the Kama region, which began in ancient times, by the Slavs continued in the 14th-15th centuries, and in the 16th-17th centuries. The Russian population appeared in the Middle and Lower Volga region and in Siberia. The Great Russians here came into close contact with other peoples, exerted economic and cultural influence on them, and themselves perceived the best achievements of their economy and culture. In the XVIII-XIX centuries. The territory of the state expanded significantly. The annexation of a number of lands in the Baltic states, Eastern Europe, the Black Sea region, and Central Asia was accompanied by the settlement of Great Russians in these territories.
The main ethnographic groups of Great Russians, differing in dialects (“okayy” and “akay”) and ethnographic features (buildings, clothing, etc.), are northern and southern Great Russians. The connecting link between them is the Middle Great Russian group, which occupies the central region - part of the Volga-Oka interfluve (with Moscow) and the Volga region, and has both northern and southern features in its dialect and culture. Smaller groups of Great Russians - Pomors (on the White Sea), Meshchera (in the northern part of the Ryazan region), various groups of Cossacks and their descendants (on the Don, Ural and Kuban rivers, as well as in Siberia), Old Believer groups - Bukhtarmintsy (on the river Bukhtarma in Kazakhstan), Semeyskie (in Transbaikalia).
Socio-economic system of Russia in the XIV-XVI centuries. The evolution of Russian statehood
Territory and population. Education of the Great Russian people.
The Mongol invasion led to the death of huge masses of people, the desolation of a number of areas, and the movement of a significant part of the population from the Dnieper region to North-Eastern and South-Western Rus'. Epidemics, for example, which broke out in the middle of the 14th century, also caused terrible damage to the population. "Black Death" - plague. Nevertheless, population reproduction in the XII-XV centuries. had an expanded character; in 300 years (from 1200 to 1500) it grew by about a quarter. If Ivan III in 1462 inherited a territory of 430 thousand square meters. km, then at the end of the century Russia occupied an area of 5,400 thousand square meters. km. The population of the Russian state in the 16th century, according to estimates by D.K. Shelestov, was 6-7 million people.
However, population growth lagged significantly behind the growth of the country's territory, which increased more than 10 times, including such vast regions as the Volga region, the Urals, and Western Siberia. Russia was characterized by low population density and its concentration in certain areas. The most densely populated were the central regions of the country, from Tver to Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod Land. Here was the highest population density - 5 people per 1 sq. km (for comparison, it can be noted that in Western Europe it ranged from 10 to 30 people per 1 sq. km). The population was clearly not enough to develop such vast areas.
The Russian state was formed as a multinational state from the very beginning. The most important phenomenon of this time was the formation of the Great Russian (Russian) nationality. The process of the formation of a nationality is a complex process, which can be reconstructed with great difficulty on the basis of surviving sources. Significant ethnic features can be found even at the level of tribal unions of times Kievan Rus. The formation of city-states only contributed to the accumulation of these differences, but the consciousness of the unity of the Russian lands remained.
The Slavic population between the Volga and Oka rivers was strongly influenced by the local Finno-Ugric population. Finding themselves under the rule of the Horde, the inhabitants of these lands could not help but absorb many features of the steppe culture. Over time, the language, culture and way of life of the more developed Moscow land began to increasingly influence the language, culture and way of life of the population of all North-Eastern Rus'.
Since the 14th century In the language of the population of the north-east of Rus', a single spoken language common to the entire region is gradually emerging, differing both from Old Russian and from the languages emerging in the Russian lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Characteristic feature The predominance of “akanya” over “okanye” and other features of Great Russian speech became increasingly noticeable.
Economic development contributed to the strengthening of political, religious and cultural ties between residents of cities and villages. Identical natural, economic and other conditions helped create certain common features in his activities and character, in family and social life. In total, all these common characteristics constituted the national characteristics of the population of north-east Rus'. As V.V. wrote Mavrodin, the population now began to consider this region their fatherland, although they never forgot about their kinship with the seized western and southwestern lands of Rus'. Moscow became a national center in the minds of the people, and from the second half of the 14th century. a new name for this region appears - Great Rus'.
Throughout this period (XIV-XVI centuries), the Russian state included many peoples of the Volga region, Bashkirs, etc. All these peoples brought a lot of new things into the life of society, but a kind of cement that formed from this bizarre mixture of peoples, tribes and early state entities something whole, was the Great Russian people.
Economic development. After the Mongol invasion, the economy of North-Eastern Rus' experienced a crisis, starting only around the middle of the 14th century. slowly reborn. The crisis led to the conservation of many archaic phenomena in the field of agriculture
The main arable tools, as in the pre-Mongol period, were the plow and the plow. In the 16th century the plow is replacing the plow throughout the entire territory of Great Russia, as it has a number of advantages for use in wooded areas of Eastern Europe. The plow is improved - a special board is attached to it - a policeman, which carries the loosened earth along with it and rakes it to one side.
The main crops grown at this time are rye and oats, which replaced wheat and barley, which is associated with the general cooling, the spread of more advanced plows and, accordingly, the development of previously inaccessible areas for plowing. Garden crops were also widespread.
The farming systems were varied, there was a lot of archaism here: along with the recently appeared three-field system, the two-field system, shifting system, and arable land were widespread, and in the north the slash-and-burn system dominated for a very long time.
During the period under review, soil manure begins to be used, which, however, lags somewhat behind the spread of the three-field system.
In areas where arable farming with manure fertilizer dominated, livestock raising occupied a very important place in agriculture. The role of livestock farming was also great in those northern latitudes where little grain was sown.
When discussing agriculture and the economy in the post-Mongol period, it is necessary to take into account that the main foreground of Russian history was the lands of the Non-Black Earth Region. This entire area is dominated by low-fertility soils, mainly soddy-podzolic, podzolic and podzolic-boggy soils. This poor soil quality was one of the reasons for low yields. The main reason for this is the specific nature and climatic conditions. The cycle of agricultural work here was unusually short, taking only 125-130 working days. This is why the peasant economy of the indigenous territory of Russia, according to L.V. Milov, had extremely disabilities for the production of commercial agricultural products. Due to the same circumstances, there was practically no commercial cattle breeding in the Non-Black Earth Region. It was then that the centuries-old problem of the Russian agrarian system arose - peasant land shortage.
Ancient crafts continued to play a major role in the life of the Eastern Slavs: hunting, fishing, beekeeping. About the scale of use of “gifts of nature” up to the 17th century. This is evidenced by many materials, including notes from foreigners about Russia.
The Mongol invasion dealt a strong blow to ancient Russian craft. B A Rybakov showed that some branches of craft disappeared for a long time or forever. However, the craft is gradually beginning to revive. As noted by AL. Shapiro, there are processes of specialization and differentiation of crafts, as well as simplification of technology in order to reduce the cost of products designed for wide sales. There are a number of significant shifts in craft technology and production: the emergence of water mills, deep drilling of salt wells, the beginning of the production of firearms, etc. In the 16th century the process of differentiation of crafts is very intensive, workshops appear that carry out sequential operations for the manufacture of the product. Handicraft production grew especially rapidly in Moscow and other major cities.
Russian trade gradually recovered from the Mongol invasion. True, marketable products were circulated mainly in local markets, but the trade in bread had already outgrown their scope. Merchants acted only as transmitters of goods produced by urban artisans and peasants; commercial and usurious capital did not move into the sphere of production
Many ancient trade ties have lost their former significance, but others have emerged, and trade with the countries of the West and East is developing quite widely. However, a feature of Russian foreign trade was the high share of such trade items as furs and wax. The scale of trade transactions was small, and trade was carried out mainly by small traders. However, there were also rich merchants who in the XIV-XV centuries. appear in sources under the name of guests or deliberate guests.
In general, it should be noted that the Russian economy developed in unfavorable natural and geopolitical conditions. This can explain the desire of the state to first concentrate the entire surplus product in its hands and then divide it. This also determined the importance of service relationships.
Social structure Directly related to the economy of the country, as well as to the forms of land ownership, were the dynamics social structure. In the XIV century. patrimonial land ownership begins to develop. However, the secular fiefdom, being small in number, quickly came under state control
The church estate found itself in more favorable conditions. After the invasion, the church enjoyed the support of the khans, who showed religious tolerance and pursued a flexible policy in the conquered lands. In addition, the Mongols sought to rely on the support of the church, which, with special labels addressed to metropolitans, received a number of benefits.
From the middle of the 14th century. In the monasteries there is a transition from the “Keliot” charter to the “coenobitic” one - the life of monks in separate cells with separate meals and housekeeping was replaced by a monastic commune, which had collective property. The land, which one way or another got into the monastery, never left it. Large monasteries grew: Trinity, Pafnutyev-Borovsky, Ferapontyev, Solovetsky.
Over time, the head of the Russian Church, the metropolitan, became a large landowner, and was in charge of a ramified and multifunctional economy.
However, the main body of land in the XIV-XV centuries. consisted of the so-called black volosts - a kind of state land, the manager of which was the prince, and the peasants considered it “God’s, the sovereign’s and their own.” In the 16th century “palace lands” are gradually allocated from the massif of black lands, and the Grand Duke becomes one of the largest landowners. But another process was more important - the collapse of the black volost due to the distribution of lands to church and secular landowners. As research by domestic historians (N.P. Pavlov-Silvansky, Yu.G. Alekseev, A.I. Kopanev, A.A. Gorsky) has shown, the entire period of the XIV-XVI centuries. - a time of tireless struggle between the volost and the “boyars,” for the peasants resisted in every possible way the transfer of communal lands to landowners.
However, the main danger to the ancient order was not the patrimony, but the estate, which became widespread from the end of the 15th century. and became the economic and social support of power until later times.
Before the wide spread of estates, the main income of the boyars came from all kinds of feeding and holding, i.e. remuneration for the performance of administrative, judicial and other socially useful functions. Also S.B. Veselovsky showed that the feeding system underlay the social and political system of Rus' at that time.
The remnants of the former princely families, boyars, and “landowners” gradually form the backbone of the “upper class.” The bulk of the population in the XIV-XV centuries. still consisted of free people, who received the name “peasants” (“Christians”, opposed to the conquerors - “infidels”).
The peasants, even finding themselves within the framework of the estate, enjoyed the right of free transition, which was formalized as large-scale land ownership developed and was included in the first all-Russian Code of Law of 1497. This is the famous St. George’s Day - the norm according to which peasants, having paid the so-called elderly, could transfer from one landowner to another.
In the worst position were the dependent peasants: ladles and silversmiths. Apparently, both of them found themselves in such difficult life situations that they were forced to take out loans and then work them off.
The main labor force of the estate was still slaves. However, the number of whitewashed slaves decreased, and the contingent of enslaved slaves increased, i.e. people who found themselves in slavery under the so-called service bondage.
At the end of the 16th century. The process of intensive enslavement of peasants begins. Some years are declared “reserve”, i.e. During these years, crossing on St. George's Day is prohibited. However, the main way of enslaving the peasants is the “prescribed summer”, i.e. the period of search for fugitive peasants, which is becoming increasingly longer. It should also be borne in mind that from the very beginning the process of enslavement captured not only the peasants, but also the country's townspeople.
It stands out as a separate stratum in the XIV-XVI centuries. The townspeople - black townspeople - unite into the so-called black townsman community, which existed in archaic forms in Rus' until the 18th century.
These were the class groups into which the once united ancient Russian “people” split up. A common feature of all these social groups, indicating their recent appearance, is the presence of a large family, which at that time permeated all strata of the East Slavic lands. To this we must add significant archaism in family and marriage relations in general.
Another important feature characterizing the classes of the East Slavic lands of that time was their service character. All of them had to perform certain official functions in relation to the state.
Statehood. In parallel with economic and social development, the development of Russian statehood took place. However, in Russia politics often went ahead of both the economy and social relations. East Slavic politogenesis has its roots in the period of Kievan Rus. Even then, statehood experienced a fairly long evolution from tribal unions to city-states. The latter were already statehood with a full set of its inherent characteristics: the presence of strengthened public power, the beginnings of taxation and the distribution of the population on a territorial basis. But this situation is when a community takes the form of a state, when, according to L.E. Kubbel, “intra-community potestar relations could develop into political relations within the community itself, turning it into a political structure.”
The community retained its importance in the subsequent period. From our point of view, on the territory of Eastern Europe in the XIII-XV centuries. There was a communal system, with its roots going back to the previous period.
Here we can find a variety of types of communities that go back to one thing - the ancient Russian city-state. All these types are different stages of the collapse of the Old Russian community and its different modifications.
Community self-government has long coexisted with other government bodies. It is impossible not to note the simplicity of this apparatus. These are governors, tivouns, etc. All these people were in one way or another connected with the prince and the princely economy, but at the same time they also dealt with the problems of the local population. A huge role in the state apparatus was played by all kinds of “feeding and holding”, which was also a legacy of Kievan Rus.
In general, what was new that appeared in the state structure during the period of the 13th-15th centuries was the growth of the power and influence of princely power, which took place due to the expansion of official relations. The “service system” - the circle of persons and services associated with the prince even in the previous period, begins to grow and covers the entire population of the state ( we're talking about for now about the principalities that replaced the city-states). Such statehood can be defined as military-service statehood. We find the closest analogies to it in Central Europe (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic). Pre-revolutionary historians, trying to somehow define this statehood, most often defined it as “patrimonial”.
The administration of a unified state under Ivan III was practically not far from the traditions of military-service statehood, since the same arsenal of means and mechanisms was used. It is no coincidence that in pre-revolutionary historiography there was a point of view that presented this process as the formation of one large fiefdom through the merger of smaller fiefdoms - local principalities. Indeed, the main national department was the Palace, which was in charge of the personal, palace lands of the Grand Duke. And in latest literature This form of government is quite rightly called a relic of “specific antiquity.”
The main state repository and financial body was the treasury, which also had its roots in the princely court of the previous time. Not only money and jewelry were kept here, but also the state archive and the state seal. Already in this early period, scribes - clerks - played a large role in the emerging apparatus of power. Relations with the population were built according to the very archaic form of the former military-service states. The entire territory was divided into counties, the boundaries of which, going back to the boundaries of the former principalities, were varied. Counties were divided into camps and volosts. Power in the district belonged to the governor, in camps and volosts - to the volostels.
The reign of Ivan the Terrible became a turning point in the development of Russian statehood. Reforms of the 1550s - an attempt to change the form of existence Russian state, adapt it to new conditions. But the oprichnina played an outstanding role here. Among the whole host of explanations for the reasons for this phenomenon, the simplest is closer to the truth - there was a process of formation of an autocratic monarchy, which, in turn, was only a reflection of the new Russian state-serf system, the formation of which occurred in the period of the 16th-17th centuries .
The process of formation of a unified Russian state was at the same time a process of folding Great Russian people.
The issue of the formation of the Great Russian nationality can be resolved on the basis of studying the works of I.V. Stalin. The brilliant works of Comrade Stalin, along with his works on the national question, make it possible to trace the history of the development of the Eastern Slavs, in particular the history of the formation of the Great Russian people.
Speaking about various ethnic formations characteristic of different stages of development of human society, I.V. Stalin first of all defines the concept of clan and tribe, pointing out that tribe is an ethnographic category.
Clan and tribe are types of ethnic formation characteristic of the primitive communal system.
During the period of the emergence of feudal society and the state, tribal associations, characteristic of the last stage of primitive communal relations, give way to a more complex formation. I.V. Stalin defines this entity as a nationality.
What were the paths and stages of the ethnic development of the Eastern Slavs, how did the Russian people come into being? Slavic languages, and language is a determinant of ethnicity, developed in very distant times.
I.V. Stalin notes: “We must assume that the elements of modern language were laid down in ancient times, before the era of slavery,” that is, during the period of the primitive communal system.
“It was not a complex language, with a very meager vocabulary, but with its own grammatical structure, admittedly primitive, but still a grammatical structure.”
The linguistic kinship of the Slavic peoples is a phenomenon dating back to hoary antiquity.
I.V. Stalin writes: “N.Ya. Marr arrogantly dismisses any attempt to study groups (families) of languages as a manifestation of the theory of “proto-language”. Meanwhile, it cannot be denied that the linguistic kinship, for example, of such nations as the Slavic ones, is beyond doubt, and that the study of the linguistic kinship of these nations could bring great benefit to linguistics in the study of the laws of language development.”
If we try to answer the question of when did those first ethnic formations appear that we can call Slavic, then for this we will have to first resort to the analysis of Slavic languages. In this way, we can reconstruct the most ancient linguistic features, which over time took shape as Slavic, determine the social environment in which they arose, the level of social development of their speakers, and therefore establish approximately the time from which the most ancient elements of the Slavic languages have reached us.
Slavic terms of the clan system: “clan”, “tribe”, “star”, “veche”, etc., terms denoting family relationships: “otts” (father), “mati” (mother), “son”, “grandfather”, “woman”, “grandson”, “brother”, “sister”, “yatrov”, “stry”, “daughter-in-law”, “mother-in-law”, “father-in-law”, “zolva” (sister-in-law), “uy” , “brother-in-law”, etc., found in all Slavic languages and common to all of them, indicate that the Slavs went through the process of formation of the clan organization during a period of close and inextricable mutual connection.
Extremely characteristic of Slavic languages already in the historical era is the preservation of the account of kinship along the maternal line and the presence of corresponding terms in the language - a relic of the distant past, a relic of the maternal gens, arising at a very early stage of the development of human society.
The presence of a number of terms for birds, animals, fish, tools and techniques of fishing and hunting, common in all Slavic languages, indicates that elements of Slavic speech already existed among the population of Europe back in the days when hunting and fishing dominated , even before the Slavic speech sounded in the areas occupied by farmers.
Common Slavic names are the names of hunting and fishing tools: “bow”, “arrow”, “string”, “tul”, “net”, “merezha”, “top”, as well as the names of fish, animals, birds: “fish” , “caviar”, “perch”, “pike”, “tench”, “ide”, “roach”, “korop”, “ruff”, etc.
Were the clan associations, whose members used Slavic-sounding words in their speech, Slavs? No. These were the predecessors of the Slavs, with a simple language, distinguished by a primitive grammatical structure and a very meager vocabulary. Their language still contained many archaic features of the languages of that distant time, when in Europe the speech of small clan groups of hunters and fishermen of the Mesolithic and early Neolithic moving north following the retreating glacier was heard. If the germs of Slavic languages can be discovered at the stage of the tribal organization of hunters and fishermen in Europe, when pastoral cattle breeding was just emerging and the beginnings of agriculture arose, then undoubtedly in those times when cattle breeding, and then agriculture, became the main occupation of the population of Europe, Slavic languages reached more high level of development.
Characterizing the stages of development of productive forces from ancient times to the present day, I.V. Stalin notes “the transition from crude stone tools to bows and arrows and in connection with this the transition from a hunting way of life to the domestication of animals and primitive cattle breeding; the transition from stone tools to metal tools (an iron axe, a plow with an iron plowshare, etc.) and, accordingly, the transition to the cultivation of plants and agriculture.” During the same period of time, a transition to pottery production is planned.
It was a time of relatively high development of productive forces primitive society. All Slavs in these distant times acquired such general terms as “gori” (pot) - evidence of the emerging and developing pottery production; like “beef”, “korva” (cow), “ox”, “bull”, “tele” (calf), “sheep”, “agne” (lamb), “horse”, “zherbe” (stallion), “fine” (milk), “cheese”, “sour cream”, “butter”, etc. - evidence of the emergence of primitive cattle breeding.
A thorough analysis of agricultural terms in all Slavic languages makes it possible to talk about their amazing closeness, moreover, about identity, despite the enormous distances separating (and indeed separating) the Slavic peoples from one another. A trace of agriculture, which over time became dominant among the Slavs at the middle stage of barbarism, is the commonality of such terms as “zhito”, “abundance”, “brushno”, “p'shenitsa" (wheat), "p'sheno", "zrano" (grain ), “yell” (plow), “ralo” (ancient plow), “plow”, “borna” (harrow), “hoe”, “sickle”, “sev”, “ratai” (plowman), “niva” , “seed”, “rolya” (arable land), “lyada”, “virgin land”, “ugr”, “fallow land”, “brazda” (furrow), “spit”, “yar”, “winter”, “flour” , “sieve”, “zhorn” (millstone), “threshing floor”, etc. From the field of gardening, one can point out such common Slavic names as “peas”, “sochevitsa”, “onion”, “garlic”, “turnip”, “ hops,” “poppy,” “chaff,” “weed,” etc.
This is also indicated by the ancient agricultural pagan calendar, the names of the months of which mainly correspond to the cycle of agricultural work, a calendar now preserved by Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles and other Slavic peoples.
Thus, a specific analysis of the Slavic languages once again demonstrates the genius of Stalin’s determination of the extreme antiquity of the elements of modern languages and the linguistic kinship of the Slavic nations.
Deep antiquity was the period of greatest linguistic and cultural community of the Slavs. Then, during the period of the great migration of peoples, the Slavic tribes “split and diverged, mixed and crossed” and West Slavic, South Slavic and East Slavic tribal languages began to take shape, having much in common, but at the same time beginning to separate into three groups. Already in the VI-VII centuries. the main features of the language of the Eastern Slavs are outlined (“gorod” instead of “grod” of the Western Slavs and “grad” of the Southern Slavs; “crow” instead of “vron” in the West Slavic languages and “vrana” in the South Slavic languages, i.e., the so-called “polnoglasie” is established ; “k” and “g” are replaced with the sounds “ts” and “z”, for example “color” instead of “kvet” and “star” instead of “nail”; replacement of “e” - “o”, for example “deer”, “lake”, “autumn” instead of “elen”, “ezero”, “esen”; replacement of “a” - “ya”, for example “yaz”, “yagne” instead of “az”, “agne”; combination of voiceless vowels “ ъ" and "ь" with smooth consonants; softening of dental "d" and "t", etc.).
The process of settlement of the Slavs across the vast expanses of Eastern Europe, accompanied by the crossing of the tribal languages of the Eastern Slavs with the language of non-Slavic tribes, from which the language of the Eastern Slavs always emerged victorious, led to the appearance of some local features in their speech.
In the VIII-IX centuries. In the advanced lands of Rus', the tribal system is dying out, giving way to the state. The former linguistic unity of the Eastern Slavs is complemented by the unity of political life.
Social development, which resulted in the creation of the Kyiv state, caused great changes in the ethnic composition of the population of Eastern Europe.
The strengthening of statehood in Eastern Europe was of great importance for the formation of the Russian people.
The Kievan state united the East Slavic tribes into a single political organism, connected them with a commonality of political life, culture, religion, and contributed to the emergence and strengthening of the concept of the unity of Rus' and the Russian people.
Developing trade relations between individual cities and regions of Rus', relations between the Russian population of various lands, established as a result of the management and management of princely “husbands”, the expansion and spread of the princely state and patrimonial administration, the development by the princely squad, boyars and their “youths” of more and more new and new spaces, polyudye, collection of tribute, court, resettlement on their own initiative and at the will of the prince, resettlement and colonization, joint trips, campaigns, meetings at the auction, etc. - all this together contributed to the unification of the East Slavic tribes into a single nation.
Elements of the dialects of neighbors penetrate into tribal languages and local dialects, and features of the life of Russian and non-Russian people of other places penetrate into the life of the population of individual lands. Speech, customs, mores, way of life, orders, religious ideas, while retaining many things that are different, at the same time acquire common features characteristic of the entire Russian land.
And since “language is the most important means of human communication,” these changes towards the unity of the Slavic population of Eastern Europe go primarily through strengthening the commonality of language, since the basis of ethnic education is language.
Thought V.I. Lenin's idea of language as the most important means of human communication cannot be understood except as a direct indication that language is the basis of the ethnic community of people.
We find this idea in the classic work of I.V. Stalin “Marxism and the National Question”, where the first sign of a nation is a common language. In the work “Concerning Marxism in Linguistics” I.V. Stalin notes: “Language is a means, an instrument with the help of which people communicate with each other, exchange thoughts and achieve mutual understanding. Being directly connected with thinking, language registers and consolidates in words and in the combination of words in sentences the results of the work of thinking, the successes of human cognitive work and, thus, makes it possible to exchange thoughts in human society.
The exchange of thoughts is a constant and vital necessity, since without it it is impossible to establish joint actions of people in the fight against the forces of nature, in the struggle for the production of necessary material goods, it is impossible to achieve success in the production activities of society - therefore, the very existence of social production is impossible. Consequently, without a language that is understandable to society and common to its members, society ceases production, disintegrates and ceases to exist as a society. In this sense, language, being an instrument of communication, is at the same time an instrument of struggle and development of society.”
In the end, the belonging of a person or an entire group of people to a particular nationality is determined not by anthropological, racial characteristics, not by the type of costume and way of life, not by the type of weapon, architecture or household utensils, but by language.
“...Culture and language are two different things,” points out I.V. Stalin.
Tribal languages corresponded to tribal life in Rus'. Each tribal language of the Eastern Slavs had a number of common features with other tribal languages “Slovenian language in Rus'” and at the same time differed in a number of features, and sometimes very significant ones. Changes in social and political life have led to new stage ethnic development of the Eastern Slavs.
I.V. Stalin points out: “The further development of production, the emergence of classes, the emergence of writing, the emergence of the state, which needed more or less orderly correspondence for governance, the development of trade, which even more needed orderly correspondence, the appearance of the printing press, the development of literature - all this made great changes in language development. During this time, tribes and nationalities fragmented and diverged, mixed and interbred...”
The development of production, which led to the replacement of the primitive communal system in Rus' with a new, feudal system, the emergence of classes and the emergence of the Old Russian Kievan state, the development of trade, the emergence of writing, the development of the Old Russian literary language and ancient Russian literature- all this together led to the smoothing out of the speech characteristics of the Eastern Slavs from different lands of Rus', the development of the Old Russian language and the formation of the Russian nationality.
“There is no language outside of society,” notes I.V. Stalin. “Therefore, a language and the laws of its development can only be understood if it is studied in inextricable connection with the history of society, with the history of the people to whom the language being studied belongs and who is the creator and speaker of this language.”
Changes in the social and political life of the Eastern Slavs associated with the emergence of the Kievan state inevitably had to cause and did cause changes in their speech.
If in the IV-VIII centuries. Slavic tribes “split and dispersed”, populating the steppe, forest-steppe and forests of Eastern Europe, and local linguistic features emerged, then on the verge of the 8th and 9th centuries. and later, when the political unity of the Eastern Slavs began to take shape, there was a process of “further development... from tribal languages to languages of nationalities...”.
Already in ancient times, at the very dawn of Russian statehood, from the time of the rise of Kyiv, the dialect of the glades, “even the call of Rus',” which absorbed elements of the languages of newcomers to this area of Slavic and non-Slavic origin, was put forward as a common Russian language.
It spread throughout the Russian land as a result of trade trips, resettlement, joint campaigns, performance of various government functions, etc.
This is how the common Russian language was born, or more precisely, the common spoken Old Russian language.
In the creation of a common Russian spoken language, although it retained dialectal features, but nevertheless became the speech of the entire Russian land, the masses played a decisive role. Trips of “guests”, resettlement of artisans at their own and at the princely will, “cutting” of warriors in different parts of Rus' and settlements of warriors of different tribes on the borders of the Russian land, the large role of city militias in the military enterprises of the princes, when the princes and the squads surrounding them had not yet closed themselves off into the military-feudal elite of society were possible both the chronicle-epic Yan Usmoshvets and the epic Ilya Muromets, who emerged from the common people and became warriors of the prince - all this is evidence of the decisive role of the masses themselves in the formation of the all-Russian spoken language. The dialectal features in it are becoming more and more smoothed out. The speech of the Russian city is especially characteristic in this regard. Along with the complication of socio-political life, it becomes more and more complicated, absorbing the specialized speech of soldiers and clergy, that is, peculiar jargons that serve not the masses, but a narrow social elite, or people of a certain profession. Gradually, the language of the townspeople, and first of all “kiyan”, began to influence the speech of the rural population, which is also evolving towards an all-Russian community.
Language played a significant role in the creation of a common Russian language folk epic(songs, tales, epics), unusually widespread in Ancient Rus', the language is bright and rich, characterized by abstract concepts, standards and other elements of the epic, the language of the “boyans”, “nightingales of the old time”.
Finally, in the formation of the all-Russian language, a prominent place was occupied by the language of legal documents and norms, the language of business literature, which arose even before the “Russian Pravda”, during the time of the “Russian law”, if not earlier. This language grew out of colloquial speech long before the activities of Cyril and Methodius. Already in the 11th century. The Old Russian literary language took shape, based on the Old Russian spoken language, only colored by the language of Old Church Slavonic writing. The breeding ground for the rich Old Russian literary language was the local dialects of the Eastern Slavs and only partly the Old Church Slavonic language. This explains the exceptional richness of the Old Russian literary language, the high level of its development, its rich stylistics and semantics.
This is the initial stage of the Russian language, one of “the strongest and richest living languages” (F. Engels).
The Russian language of that time was the speech of all Eastern Slavs. It was a kind of East Slavic speech of the Kyiv era, the era of the Old Russian state, Old Russian speech.
So, there is the first factor that determines the unity of the Russian people - language.
Let us now dwell on the consciousness of the unity of the Russian people.
A quick glance at our sources is enough - and they reflect the thoughts of the people of Ancient Rus', even a superficial acquaintance with ancient Russian legends is enough, and they reflect the ideology of the people - in order to be convinced of how developed the sense of unity of the people was among our ancestors, a feeling of patriotism, love for the motherland, the very concept of the Motherland, the Russian land, how large, comprehensive the concept they put into the word “Rus”, “Russian land”.
Vivid monuments of ancient Russian patriotism, reflecting the sense of self-awareness of the Russian people, are both “The Tale of Bygone Years” (“Where did the Russian land come from, who was the first prince in Kiev, and where did the Russian land come from”), and “The Word of Law and Grace” Metropolitan Hilarion, and “Memory and Praise” by Jacob Mnich, and “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” and other pearls of ancient Russian literature.
They are imbued with a feeling of love for the Russian land and speak with pride about the Russian people, about their glorious heroic deeds. The works of the “bookish” people of the Kyiv era are imbued with the consciousness of the unity of the Russian land, the unity of the Russian people from the “Cherven Castles” to Tmutarakan, from Ladoga to Oleshye.
This consciousness of unity is the greatest contribution of the Kyiv period to the history of all three fraternal Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe, which had one common ancestor - the Russian people of the times of Vladimir, Yaroslav and Monomakh.
At the same time, the unity of material and spiritual culture, the unity of the way of life is taking shape from Przemysl and Berladi, from Pryashev and Uzhgorod, from Maly Galich and Belz to Murom and Ryazan, Rostov and Vladimir, from Ladoga and Pskov, Izborsk and Beloozero to Oleshya and Tmutarakan ; unity, manifested literally in everything - from architecture to epic, from jewelry and wood carvings to wedding rituals, beliefs, songs and sayings, from utensils and clothing to linguistic relics; a unity that even today brings together the Hutsuls and Lemkos of the Carpathians with the Russian peasants of Mezen and Onega, the Belarusian from near Grodno with the inhabitant of the Ryazan forests. And in this unity we see the great legacy of the Kyiv period in Russian history, for it, the Kiev period of our history, made Russians Russians. And the consciousness of unity, the memory that in Lvov, Galich, Vladimir Volynsky, Berestye, Kholm, Yaroslav, Pryashev, Khust, Uzhgorod, Kiev, Minsk, Polotsk live the same “Russians” as in Vladimir on Klyazma, in Tver , Novgorod, Smolensk, Yaroslavl, Suzdal, Galich Mersky, connected by a common origin, similarity of language and culture, common religion, historical traditions of the Kiev times - never disappeared from the self-consciousness of the Great Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, and neither Batu’s invasion could erase them, neither the heavy Tatar yoke, nor the centuries-long domination of the Lithuanian and Polish lords, Hungarian magnates, Moldavian boyars, nor the years of hard times, nor the difficult trials that befell all three branches of the great Russian people. The linguistic unity of all three branches of the Eastern Slavs - the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples - was also preserved, and no oppression could force the Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians to abandon their native speech. “History records the great resilience and colossal resistance of language to forced assimilation.”
The commonality that unites a Great Russian, a Ukrainian and a Belarusian is the result not only of a common origin going back to ancient times, but also of unbreakable ties established between the population of different parts of Rus' at the dawn of the history of the Russian people and their state during the times of Kievan Rus. And this is the enormous significance of the Kyiv period in the history of the Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe.
It is unlikely that anyone will now doubt that in the 9th-10th centuries. The Eastern Slavs are forming into a single Russian people.
Based on ancient connections and traditions, on the basis of the ethnic community of the Eastern Slavs, on the basis of a common language dating back to ancient times, for “the structure of the language, its grammatical structure and the basic vocabulary is a product of a number of eras”, on the basis of the established community of customs, way of life, laws, religion, ideology, on the basis of the unity of material and spiritual culture, in the conditions of the emerging ancient Russian state, unity in the international arena, the joint struggle for the “Russian land and faith,” and joint political life, the consciousness of the unity of the Russian people begins to emerge. Russian people recognize themselves as people of the same faith, the same language, the same customs, the customs of “their father,” the same morals, people of the same mental make-up, sons and daughters of their country - Rus'.
This is how the Russian people of Kyiv times developed - the distant ancestor of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian nations.
What definition can we give to that ethnic unification of the Eastern Slavs, which is characteristic of the Kyiv period of its history?
The unification of the Eastern Slavs, united into a single Russian people, must be defined as a nationality. As we have already seen, I.V. Stalin notes that nationality is replacing clan and tribe. The nationality was already formed during the period of feudalism. Feudalism in Rus' arose already in the 9th century. IN AND. Lenin points out that “...serfdom Maybe hold and over the centuries keeps millions of peasants downtrodden (for example, in Russia from the 9th to the 19th centuries...).”
Thus, it can be considered established that during the time of the Kievan state, the East Slavic world developed into a single Russian people, or, to be more specific, into a single Russian nationality. But the process of further unification of dialects, material and spiritual culture, further merging of the Eastern Slavs into a single nationality was interrupted by the feudal fragmentation of Rus' and mainly (this factor played a decisive role) by Batu’s invasion, the rejection of Russian lands, the seizure of western, southern and eastern Russian lands by Sweden , Livonian Order, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Golden Horde. Russian lands were torn apart, separated, isolated, and fell into different historical conditions. Naturally, the Russian people also found themselves dismembered and disunited; individual parts were torn off from each other, separated by political borders, and isolated economically.
All these historical conditions determined the further path of ethnic development of the Eastern Slavs. Having gone through the stage of feudal fragmentation, dismembered and disunited, the Russians over time formed not into one nationality, as was planned in the Kiev period of the history of Rus', but united into three fraternal peoples (or nationalities) of the Eastern Slavs: Russian proper (Russian in the narrow sense of the word ), or Great Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian.
It begins in the 11th century, and in the 12th century. feudal fragmentation is finally established.
The process of merging the Eastern Slavs into a single nationality is suspended, slowed down, and then interrupted. Old linguistic features inherited from the tribes and lands of Rus', not eliminated by the commonality of the Kyiv times, are complicated by new features that arose during the period of feudal fragmentation and due to the economic and political isolation of the Russian principalities of the appanage period.
Ethnic formations are outlined that correspond to large “independent semi-states” (I.V. Stalin) of the period of feudal fragmentation, large principalities of the appanage period.
Just as “Rus” - a single Russian state - gave way to separate “independent semi-states” - principalities, so the emerging unity of the Russian people of the Kiev era gives way to the isolation of local ethnic formations of the Eastern Slavs to the population of individual “national regions” (V.I. Lenin) specific time: Pskov and Novgorod residents, Nizhny Novgorod and Ryazan residents.
It is no coincidence that V.I. Lenin points out that before the formation of national states, there were national regions.
It is no coincidence that the sometimes striking coincidence of the boundaries of dialects of the Russian language and the boundaries of large principalities (Moscow, Pskov, Novgorod, Ryazan) of the period of feudal fragmentation is well known to linguists.
For the XIII-XIV centuries. The territorial isolation and fragmentation of East Slavic dialects is characteristic. The unifying tendencies are weakening.
Tribal languages and local dialects crystallize in new ways within the boundaries of feudal principalities.
Pskovites with their peculiarities of speech (mixture of “ch” and “ts”, “sh” and “s”, “zh” and “z”, hard “r”, “akanie”, change of “u” and “v”), “Okayaya” Novgorodians with their peculiarities of vocabulary, “Akayaya” Ryazan people, “Okayaya”, but not in Novgorod, “Volodimertsy” and other entities make up the population of the “national regions” of Rus'.
A remarkable feature of dialects is that they preserve remnant relationships between the population of individual regions that currently no longer exist.
The ancient principality of Novgorod, for example, disappeared from the arena of history a long time ago, but its borders are still preserved in a slightly modified form in the linguistic features of northwestern Rus'.
Many such examples could be given. The period of feudal fragmentation was the time when the borders of the Russian principalities were dismembered and divided the Russian people.
This division was largely imposed by the feudal lords from above, contradicting the views and aspirations of the masses. The unity of national (we discard the specific features of local culture, due, in turn, to the peculiarities of the political life of the feudal elites of individual Russian principalities) material and spiritual culture continues to take place not only in the 11th, but also in the 12th century, and only in the 12th-13th centuries centuries and later the process of identifying local features is outlined.
The long-term political and economic isolation of the Russian principalities - the result of the feudal lords' inherent desire for isolation - begins to influence the population and determines its linguistic and cultural characteristics.
The development of dialects (Pskov and Novgorod, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan and Tver) is planned; some local features of life, customs, etc. appear.
This was a time when Rus' was fragmented “into separate independent principalities, which not only were not connected with each other by national ties, but resolutely denied the need for such ties.”
Speaking about the history of the Russian people, N.G. Chernyshevsky notes that there are countries where “parts of the same people are ready to sacrifice national unity to regional interests. We have never had this (with the possible exception of Novgorod): the consciousness of national unity has always had a decisive advantage over provincial aspirations.”
Developing this absolutely correct idea, N.G. Chernyshevsky considers it necessary to emphasize that “the disintegration of Rus' into appanages was purely a consequence of the division between the princes..., but not a consequence of the aspirations of the Russian people themselves.” Therefore, “specific fragmentation did not leave any traces in the concepts of the people, because it never had roots in their hearts.”
The materials at our disposal make it possible to confidently assert that the bearers of separatism and isolation, “which” and “disorder”, opponents of the unity of Rus', the unity of the Russian people, who denied the need for national bonds, were the appanage princes and the boyar nobility of the veche cities, at that time how the broad masses of the people both in the city and in the countryside strove for unification, opposed feudal fragmentation, and never lost the sense of unity of all Russian people.
But the end was coming to the feudal fragmentation of Rus'.
Just as the formation of the Old Russian nationality from individual East Slavic tribes was once conditioned by the development of productive forces, changes in the public, social and political life of Rus', so later, in the XIV-XVI centuries, in the north-west and north-east of Rus', the formation of the Russian population " national regions" - principalities - into the Great Russian nationality was due to shifts in the development of productive forces, the elimination of the system of feudal fragmentation and the formation of a centralized state with autocratic power at its head.
Russian lands from Pskov to Nizhny Novgorod and from Zavolochye to the outskirts of the Wild Field were united by Moscow into a single state.
Another side of this process was the unification of the Russian population in the territory from Lake Peipus to the lower reaches of the Oka and from the Northern Dvina and Beloozero to the Seim into a single Great Russian nation. Local dialects of the period of feudal fragmentation, in which remnants of tribal languages can be traced, merge into a single language.
The formation of the Great Russian people took place on the ancient tribal territory of the Krivichi (without their Polotsk branch), the Ilmen Slovenes, the Vyatichi and the Northerners (for the most part).
The formation of Great Russian speech with its local dialects took place on the basis of Central Russian and Northern Russian dialects. The Great Russian speech also included the dialect of the northerners, close to the southern Russian and central Russian dialects, and the Vladimir-Suzdal dialects, which stand apart.
In the process of the formation of the Great Russian nationality, both the Baltic tribes took part (for example, Golyad, who lived on the Porotva River), and the tribes of the Finno-Ugric languages (Merya, Ves, Muroma), quickly Russified and completely (with the exception of Vesi) dissolved among the Russians, handing over to them , of course, some linguistic elements and everyday features. Speaking about the crossing of languages, when one language emerges victorious, I.V. Stalin notes: “This was the case, for example, with the Russian language, with which the languages of a number of other peoples crossed in the course of historical development and which always emerged victorious.
Of course, the vocabulary of the Russian language was replenished at the expense of the vocabulary of other languages, but this not only did not weaken, but, on the contrary, enriched and strengthened the Russian language.”
The formation of a centralized Russian state and the formation of the Great Russian nationality accompany each other and are different sides of the same phenomenon.
The terms “Great Russian” people, “Great Russians” (“Great Russians”) can be replaced by the terms “Russian nationality”, “Russians”, but we can stop at the term “Great Russians”, since this eliminates the possibility of mixing the Russian people of the Kievan times and the Russian people of the times Ivan III, his son and grandson.
We find the term “Great Russians” in the works of V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin.
IN AND. Lenin entitled one of his works, directly devoted to the problem that interests us - the sense of national self-consciousness - “On the national pride of the Great Russians,” and he uses this term throughout the text. I.V. Stalin in his work “Marxism and the National Question” and in others uses the term “Great Russians”. As for the term “Great Rus'” itself, it should be noted that it has a very ancient origin. The concept of “Great Rus'” is found in the designation of the entire Russian land, and in this meaning it is reflected not only in the oldest Russian literary monuments (“The Tale of Boris and Gleb”), but also a very long time ago, from the 12th century. found in foreign literature(“Roussie la large” in the novel about Fulk of Candia, “Roussie la grant” in the novel about “Bouve de Hantone”). In the 13th century the term “Great Rus'” is assigned to the northern part of Russian lands, although back in the 14th century. the term “Great Rus'” is used to refer to all of Rus' as a whole. This was the case in the 15th and even in the 16th centuries, when we encounter the term “Great Rus'” in both meanings. Only in the 16th century. " Great Russia“Only Muscovite Rus' began to be called from Pskov to the Ob and from the Icy Sea to the Wild Field. Its population received the name Great Russians. The term “Great Russians” was first found in the work of Pamva Baranda (1627).
In what way is the formation of the Russian (Great Russian) nationality going?
The process of formation of the Russian nationality is based on economic phenomena.
I.V. points out the importance of the economic factor in the unification of Rus' into a single state. Stalin. V.I. wrote about the economic necessity of creating a national state. Lenin.
Economic communication between individual Russian lands, regions and principalities, and their political connections with each other are the basis for the formation of the Great Russian (Russian in the narrow sense of the word) nationality or nationality. We know that during the formation of a centralized state in Russia a nation could not emerge, because a nation is a historical category that arises during the period of rising capitalism. During the formation of a unified Russian state, the Russian nationality took shape.
The formation of the Russian nationality, thus, took place back in the feudal period in the process of eliminating feudal fragmentation. Chronologically these were the XIV-XVI centuries. During this period of time, individual elements of a nation already existed - language, territory, cultural community, but, of course, there is no need to talk about a nation yet.
I.V. Stalin notes: “Of course, the elements of a nation - language, territory, cultural community, etc. - did not fall from the sky, but were created gradually, even in the pre-capitalist period. But these elements were in their infancy and, at best, represented only potential in the sense of the possibility of forming a nation in the future under certain favorable conditions.”
What elements of the nation are taking shape at this time among the Russian population, defining it as a nationality, which, under certain favorable conditions, could in the future define it as a nation?
Let's start with language - the basis of any ethnic education.
The formation of the Russian (Great Russian) language took place on the territory of the ancient Rostov-Suzdal principality, in the area between the Volga and Oka rivers; its breeding ground was the eastern part of the Central Russian dialects and the North Russian ones.
The formation of the Russian nationality took place mainly in the Middle Great Russian zone, the transitional dialects of the population of which went the furthest in erasing linguistic boundaries.
Over time, the core around which various dialects of the Great Russian language, more precisely, local, “territorial” dialects (Tver, Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Pskov, Novgorod) were wrapped, became the dialect of Moscow, which stood at the junction of the southern Great Russian and northern Great Russian dialects. The population of Moscow is both okala in Northern Great Russian and okala in South Great Russian.
Recent archaeological excavations have proven that Moscow was located on the territory of the Vyatichi, was a Vyatichi city; these excavations made it possible to accept, develop and supplement the assumption that the masses of Moscow, its oldest Vyatichi population, were Akali, while the feudal elite, who came from Vladimir, Suzdal, Rostov, Pereyaslavl, were predominantly Okala.
And although from the XIV century. Moscow leads the unification of Rus'; the Moscow dialect in those days was only one of the dialects of the emerging Great Russian language. This is quite understandable if we take into account the complete or almost complete independence at that time of individual principalities and lands within even such a powerful feudal political union as the Grand Duchy of Vladimir.
But on the basis of the territorial community that emerged at the beginning of the 16th century, a linguistic community is emerging. The language of the Great Russian (Russian) people is taking shape and developing. True, dialectisms and local dialects are still very strong, they have been preserved in the village for centuries, however, along with the Moscow dialect, the Novgorod dialect is still very widespread, and only in the 17th century, this, according to V.I. Lenin, a “new period” in the history of Russia, will smooth out regional dialects in the Russian national language. I.V. Stalin notes that “... with the elimination of feudal fragmentation and the formation of a national market, nationalities developed into nations, and the languages of nationalities into national languages.”
This period in Russian history was the 17th century. - the time of the formation of the all-Russian national market, national connections.
But already in the 16th century. The Moscow written language, the language of the Moscow “book” and clerks, reflecting the speech of the masses, becomes the national language, and the competing Novgorod and Ryazan dialects, the most isolated dialects, having contributed to the Great Russian language, fade into the background and over time become speech mainly, or even almost exclusively, from the Novgorod and Ryazan villages. Speaking about languages common to tribes and nationalities, I.V. Stalin points out: “Of course, along with this there were dialects, local dialects, but the single and common language of the tribe or nationality prevailed over them and subordinated them.”
This was the case in Rus'.
The Moscow dialect absorbs local dialects, local dialects, and the speech of the population of “national regions,” which significantly enriches it. Over time, in the 16th century, along with the return by Russia of the lands it had once lost, of various “Ukraines” captured at one time by the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, the Moscow dialect was strongly influenced by Southern Great Russian speech. We also find an explanation for this phenomenon in the reforms of Ivan Vasilyevich. “Sorting through” and “pulling apart the little people,” relocating them with his decrees, redistributing the land to “serving people of the sovereign,” Ivan the Terrible uprooted the nests of “boyar-princes,” dispersed them and resettled them along with “children and household members,” with all kinds of servants, and since these nests lay in a continuous massif in the surrounding north and northeast, and the new owner of these lands was the oprichnik, who often came from the service small fry of some southern or southwestern “Ukraine” of the Moscow state, it is quite natural that here, on north, his screeching speech and his vocalisms began to penetrate.
Living speech, the speech of the people, is increasingly becoming part of the official language, the written language. This was explained by a sense of national pride, so characteristic of Russian “bookish” people, which encouraged them not to shun folk speech, but to absorb it into their language.
Together with the living folk speech, the speech of the working masses, all these “younger”, “lesser”, “little” people, with the speech of the townspeople and all sorts of service people “according to the equipment” and the serving small fry, although they were serving “the sovereign’s service in the fatherland”, but not much different in “wealth” from the Streltsy and Gunners, the written language of Moscow included the local dialects of the “lands” and “Ukrains”.
Such a “Ukraine” was primarily Seversk Ukraine - Kursk, Putivl, Rylsk, Kromy, Orel, Sevsk, Starodub, etc. In “Answer to Comrades” I.V. Stalin writes: “Local (“territorial”) dialects, on the contrary, serve the masses and have their own grammatical structure and basic vocabulary. In view of this, some local dialects in the process of formation of nations can form the basis of national languages and develop into independent national languages. This was the case, for example, with the Kursk-Oryol dialect (Kursk-Oryol “speech”) of the Russian language, which formed the basis of the Russian national language.”
This is how a new written language was developed, increasingly approaching the living spoken language of the middle strata of society, that is, the same servicemen, clerks and townspeople. And this speech in some cases became one of the forms of business language.
This is how different styles of the Russian written language, different social and professional dialects of the Russian national language were created, and this is how the Russian national language took shape.
I.V. Stalin notes that “...language, as a means of communication between people in society, equally serves all classes of society and in this regard shows a kind of indifference to classes. But people are separate social groups, classes are far from indifferent to language. They try to use the language to their advantage, to impose on it their own special vocabulary, their own special terms, their own special expressions. Particularly different in this regard are the upper strata of the propertied classes, who have broken away from the people and hate them: the noble aristocracy, the upper strata of the bourgeoisie. “Class” dialects, jargons, and salon “languages” are created.”
The social dialects and jargons of Rus' in the 15th-16th centuries were not special languages.
Speaking about the formation of national languages and noting the various ways of their formation, K. Marx and F. Engels pointed out that “... in any modern developed language, spontaneously arising speech has risen to the level of a national language... thanks to the concentration of dialects into a single national language, due to economic and political concentration."
The formation of the national Russian language is a classic example of precisely this way of developing national languages, indicated by the founders of scientific socialism.
This is how the rich and expressive, strong and beautiful, sonorous and vibrant national Russian language took shape.
The common territory of the Russian people was also taking shape, consolidated by the successful unification policy of Ivan III and his son.
The dawn of national awakening dates back to the beginning of the unification of Russian lands by Moscow, more precisely, to the second half of the 14th century. The spark of national self-awareness was only covered up by the ashes of princely strife, appanage orders and the Tatar yoke. And she caught fire. The Battle of Kulikovo fanned it into flames. The first attempt at a nationwide struggle, an attempt to throw off the hated Tatar yoke with arms in hand, played a big role in the development of national self-awareness. The Russian people perked up, their patriotic feeling awakened. Moscow acted as the deliverer of Rus' from the invasion of Mamaia, its authority and popularity among the masses strengthened and grew even more.
These sympathies of the masses forced the Novgorod boyar nobility, hostile to Moscow, to make concessions to the Novgorod “lesser”, “little people”, “thin eternal men”, who praised Moscow and its prince for the fact that his military people “harrowed” the “whole land” Russian" "from the enemy", and insert into the IV Novgorod Chronicle a lengthy story about the Battle of Kulikovo, compiled in a tone favorable to Moscow; these sympathies of the masses forced Sophrony, two years after the invasion of Mamai, to write in Ryazan, the prince of which played such a sad role during the Battle of Kulikovo and “retreated” from Rus', the famous “Zadonshchina”, compiled in the spirit of glorifying Moscow, which stood up in defense of the entire earth Russian.
The Battle of Kulikovo gave impetus to the rise of self-awareness of the Russian people and was the greatest factor in the ideological preparation of the formation of the Russian people and their state.
The national awakening that followed the Battle of Kulikovo stimulated the development of Russian culture. This latter goes at that time along the line of establishing all-Russian norms and forms, the desire for “living”, and the rejection of the conventions of previous times. And this tendency towards realism, towards “liveness”, when it comes to fine art, was most clearly reflected in the work of Andrei Rublev. Natural landscape, natural human figures and faces, the beginnings of perspective, chiaroscuro, departure from the conventional, gloomy, the appearance of narrative and psychological moments in painting, brightness and variety of colors - all these phenomena reflected in the work of Andrei Rublev and in the Novgorod fresco painting of the second half of the 14th century (Volotovo, Kovalevo, Fedor Stratilat, Spas on Ilyin), indicate great changes in the worldview of the Russian people.
The national awakening of the times of Dmitry Donskoy is associated with the development of interest in the past, in the history of Rus'. This explains the restoration of ancient architectural monuments(Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, Cathedral in Pereyaslavl-Zalessky).
In the field of chronicle writing, the desire of Moscow princes and “bookish” people to create all-Russian chronicle collections is very characteristic. Regional chronicles, chronicles of princes and principalities, cities and lands are processed, reissued and used to compile chronicles of “all Rus'”. This ideological work of Moscow chroniclers sometimes warned and outpaced the growth of the political significance of Moscow and testified to the growing consciousness of all-Russian interests among the “bookish” people of Rus', to the growing consciousness of the unity of the Russian land among the people even in those days when these ideas only arose in the political plans of the rulers of Moscow .
The first chronicle of “all Rus'” was the so-called “Great Russian Chronicler,” compiled at the end of the 14th century. But in it the idea of all-Russian unity is still just emerging. It was truly reflected in the Moscow chronicle of 1408, in the so-called “Trinity Chronicle”. The Photius codex is even brighter in this regard, and the idea of unity that permeates it is intertwined with clearly prominent democratic tendencies, which is reflected in emphasizing the role of the people, the Moscow townspeople in the defense of their city (“The Tale of the Invasion of Tokhtamysh”).
By the middle of the 15th century. The unified Kiev cycle of the Russian epic with its idea of the unity and independence of Rus' finally takes shape. Epics that arose in different places on the basis of local historical recollection, preserving only vague memories of the ancient unity of Kiev times, along with the growing consciousness of all-Russian unity, lose their local features and rise to the idea of the “sameness” of the land, power and people, becoming the property of the entire Russian people, which is explained by the evolution of the historical views of the people. Maxim Gorky was deeply right when he wrote that “from ancient times, folklore has invariably and in a unique way accompanied history.”
The idea of the unity of Rus' and the Russian people, which never died in it, although relegated to the background by the ideology of the “timelessness” of the appanage era and separatism by the princess “Kotori” and the Tatar hard times, is now being revived on a new basis, in different economic and political conditions, in the other social relationships, at other times, is reborn with renewed vigor. Moscow becomes its bearer. And if at one time Tver and Novgorod opposed this idea with their separatist theories, then over time they themselves perceive it and act not as ideological antipodes of Moscow striving for unity, but only as its rivals and competitors, armed with its own sword, who accepted it ideological weapon.
But both in Novgorod and Tver the number of adherents of the most consistent supporter of the unity of Rus' - Moscow - is growing. These were mainly small feudal lords and townspeople. An expression of these sentiments of the main masses of the population of Novgorod was the activity of Upadysh, who riveted the Novgorod cannons, ready to open fire on the Moscow army, and the ideas of the “Life of Mikhail Klopsky”.
In the “Word” of the monk Thomas, addressed to the Tver prince Boris Alexandrovich, we will find both the idea of the unity of Rus' and the “singleness” of power, and the idea of autocracy, first called “tsarist power.” The ideas of the “Slovo” are undoubtedly advanced, progressive, but the question of who will lead the Russian land - Moscow or Tver, had already been decided in favor of Moscow, and in this particular situation, the progressive ideas of the late Tver were only an obstacle to the victorious march of Moscow, and soon their age-old dispute was resolved by arms in favor of Moscow.
The idea of Russian unity was so strong in Moscow and so firmly conquered the literature of that time, so captured the minds of educated Russian people and statesmen of Rus' that it was not supplanted by the theory of the “Third Rome” with its specter of “world power” and “universal kingdom”, nor the idea of Moscow - the heir of Byzantium, the stronghold of “true Christianity”, widespread among the Russian clergy since the marriage of Ivan III with Sophia Paleologus. The Muscovite sovereigns were, first of all, sovereigns of “all Rus'”, and not Eastern Christian monarchs of a ghostly kingdom; they were “from the beginning sovereigns in their land” and, in the words of Maxim the Greek, “were looking for their own”, and did not seek the throne of the porphyry-born Byzantine emperors, they believed “not in the Greeks, but in Christ”, they fought not for the throne of the emperor of the Eastern Christian kingdom, but for “fatherland” and “grandfatherland” are ancient Russian lands, for the “inheritance” not of Paleologus and Constantine Monomakh, but of Svyatoslav and Vladimir, Yaroslav the Wise and Vladimir Monomakh. From here, from a sense of superiority of one’s own, Russian, flowed the difference between Byzantine and Russian court customs and church rituals and the relationship between the tsar and the metropolitan. And the changes in the title of “Sovereign of All Rus'”, the pomp of the court ceremonial, the proud and independent tone of Russian diplomatic acts of the time of Ivan III are not at all connected with his marriage to Sophia Paleolog, but, first of all, with the liberation from the Tatar yoke, with the establishment of the formal independence of Rus'.
The idea of the unification and independence of Rus', the idea of the unity of the Russian people are manifested in all aspects of spiritual culture and leave an indelible imprint on it. Although there is still a lot of local, specific things left in the everyday life and customs, orders and morals of Russian people from different parts of the Russian land, the process of leveling is going on faster and faster. The life and customs of Russian people in different places are penetrated by features of the life and customs of their near and distant neighbors. The same beliefs and customs, a single epic, etc., are spreading throughout the Russian land.
The idea of the unity of the Russian land and the Russian people is reflected in the monuments material culture. In the 15th century There is a unification of various Russian architectural trends and schools, local architectural traditions (Pskov, Tver, Novgorod) into a single Russian architecture, called from now on to erect majestic buildings in the capital of “all Rus'” - Moscow, which has become “the center of the national life of the Russian people.”
We dwelled only on some of the most important aspects of the development of Russian material and spiritual culture, on the development of the idea of unity, the growth of national consciousness and self-awareness, on some aspects of the “national awakening”, which determines the formation of the nationality. But the above is enough to come to the conclusion that at the end of the 15th and 16th centuries. in Rus', “a community of mental makeup is established, which is reflected in a community of culture,” a bright and colorful, original Russian material and spiritual culture.
So, at the end of the 15th and 16th centuries. on the basis of a common language, a common territory, on the basis of a common mental make-up, reflected in a common culture, the Great Russian, or, what is synonymous, the Russian nationality (nationality) is taking shape.
But why can’t we talk about the Russian nation in relation to this period of time? It would seem that if there are a number of features that define a nation: a common language, territory and mental makeup, manifested in a common culture, then we can talk about the formation of the Russian nation.
But, as Comrade Stalin emphasizes, “not one of these characteristics, taken separately, is sufficient to define a nation”; Furthermore, " only the presence of all the signs taken together gives us a nation“,” “the absence of at least one of these signs is enough for a nation to cease to be a nation.”
What did the Russian people lack in the period of time we are considering in order to turn into a nation? In his work “Marxism and the National Question” I.V. Stalin emphasizes that a unique way of forming states in the East of Europe could have taken place under conditions of feudalism that had not yet been eliminated, when nationalities had not yet had time to consolidate economically into nations, and thereby he puts the economic factor in first place. Nationalities are consolidated into integral nations, primarily economically. And in fact, in another work, “The National Question and Leninism,” speaking about the elements of the nation that were created gradually, even in the pre-capitalist, i.e., feudal period, I.V. Stalin considers it necessary to note the language, territory, cultural community, but does not talk about such an element of the nation as a community of economic life, as economic connectivity, because it did not yet exist in the full sense of the word during the formation of the Great Russian (Russian) nationality. “It was hardly possible to talk about national ties in the proper sense of the word at that time: the state was breaking up into separate “lands”, sometimes even principalities, which retained living traces of the former autonomy, features in governance, sometimes their own special troops (local boyars went to war with their regiments), special customs borders, etc.,” - this is how V.I. defines this period in Russian history. Lenin.
So, in the XV - early XVI centuries. there was no Russian nation yet, but the Great Russian, or Russian, nationality (nationality) already existed, and the Moscow unified state created at that time was the state of the Russian nationality. At the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries. The Russian state was not yet multinational, since small ethnic entities that spoke Finno-Ugric, Turkic and other languages and lived on the lands that were part of the Russian state, as a rule, had not yet had time to form into nationalities, but were clan groups, tribes or tribal unions that were still experiencing the primitive communal system, very few in number, lost in the vast expanses of the taiga and tundra. But at the same time, the centralized Russian state that was emerging under Ivan III already carried some of the features of a multinational state, although it still was not one. Only over time, when the grandson of Ivan III, Ivan the Terrible, completes the work of his grandfather, who laid the foundation of the Russian centralized state, and the Russian centralized state appears in all its power, will it appear before us as a multinational state, uniting a number of non-Russian nationalities. “In Russia, the role of unifier of nationalities was assumed by the Great Russians, who were headed by a historically strong and organized noble military bureaucracy.”
The emergence of this noble military bureaucracy was possible only under the conditions of the creation of a centralized state with autocratic power at its head. This last becomes from the middle of the 16th century. multinational because it unites not only tribes and tribal unions, but also nationalities - Tatars, Bashkirs, etc. In addition, among other tribes, including those that were still in the 15th century. were part of Rus', as a result of the increasing influence of the social system of Rus', a transition begins to semi-patriarchal-semi-feudal forms of social relations, and then to feudalism, and consequently, the process of their formation into a nationality begins. But we’ll talk about this in more detail later.
Thus, the core of the multinational centralized state of the times of Ivan the Terrible and later is the Russian state, created during the times of Ivan III and Vasily III, who laid the foundation for centralized government in Rus', a state that is basically ethnically homogeneous, populated by Russian nationalities and small, few in number, scattered, loosely connected with each other by tribal groups, tribes and tribal unions that spoke Finno-Ugric, Turkic and other languages, were at various stages of development of the primitive communal system and did not determine the ethnic appearance of the state created by Moscow.
Having created their unified and powerful state, the Great Russians did not remain indifferent to the fate of their fellow Ukrainians and Belarusians, whose ancestors, together with the ancestors of the Great Russians, once, in Kiev times, formed into a single ancient Russian nation.
Residents of swampy Polesie and the banks of the Western Dvina, the wilds of Belovezhskaya Pushcha and the Transcarpathian plains, the inhabitants of the Carpathian mountains and steppes of the Dnieper region, the oak forests of Polesie and the gloomy forests of Black Rus' well remembered that they were all Russians, that they had the same faith, language, and themselves constitute a single “language” (people).
But the paths of historical development of the Eastern Slavs in different parts of their vast lands were different. The south and west found themselves under the rule of the Livonian knights, the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, the kings of Poland and Hungary, and the Moldavian rulers. The process of the formation of a single Russian nationality was interrupted, and new factors in economic, political and cultural life led to the formation of the Belarusian nationality within the borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, within the borders of Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Moldova, and later and mainly in Russia - the Ukrainian nationality. Both fraternal peoples found themselves under heavy oppression: class, national, religious, and, having created a powerful state, the Great Russians began to “look for their own” in Vitebsk and Minsk, Smolensk and Kiev, Chernigov and Gomel, to demand their “fatherland”, to fight for the ancient Russian lands , dreaming of a united Rus' within the borders of the Kiev state, providing assistance to Ukrainians and Belarusians in their struggle for independence, in their desire to unite with the fraternal Russian people.
I.V. Stalin. Op. T. 2. P. 296.
I.V. Stalin. Op. T. 2.
Right there. P. 304.
IN AND. Lenin. Op. T. 1. P. 137.
I.V. Stalin. Op. T. 2. P. 304.
Historical truth and Ukrainophile propaganda Volkonsky Alexander Mikhailovich
6. Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians
We saw that before the invasion of the Tatars, a single nationality - the Russians - acted and dominated throughout the entire territory of what was then Russia. But we also saw that about a hundred years after this invasion, from the 14th century, the official name “Little Russia” was found (for Galicia), a name from which over time the name of part of our southern population Little Russians would come. This population would develop a special dialect, its own customs, and in the 17th century some, albeit rudimentary, semblance of state independence would appear. Such historical phenomena are not improvised; their roots must go back centuries - and don’t we have the right to assume that already during the pre-Mongol period under consideration, some changes took place in the mass of the people, which from afar prepared the bifurcation of the united Russian nationality?
In 1911, the venerable Professor Klyuchevsky, the newest of the luminaries of Russian historiography, a man gifted with the exceptional gift of penetrating into the secret places of the past life of the people, died in Petrograd. At the touch of his critical chisel, historical figures fall away from the conventional outlines imposed on their appearance by traditional, superficial judgments that were repeated on faith. You will not find either the embodiment of state virtues or carriers of unparalleled villainy on the pages of his book; there live people pass before you - a combination of selfishness and kindness, state wisdom and reckless personal lusts. But not only Andrei Bogolyubsky or Ivan the Terrible are resurrected under his creative touch; The nameless, almost silent builder of his history, the ordinary Russian man, also comes to life: he fights for life in the grip of harsh nature, fights off strong enemies and devours the weakest; he plows, trades, cheats, humbly endures and brutally rebels; he craves power over himself and overthrows it, destroys himself in strife, goes into the dense forests to prayerfully bury the rest of his years in a monastery, or runs away to the unbridled expanse of the Cossack steppes; he lives the daily gray life of petty personal interests - these annoying engines, from the continuous work of which the skeleton of the people's building is composed; and in years of difficult trials he rises to high impulses of active love for his dying homeland. This simple Russian man lives on the pages of Klyuchevsky as he was, without embellishment, in all the diversity of his aspirations and deeds. Major personalities, bright events - these are only milestones of Klyuchevsky’s historical presentation: thousands of threads stretch to them and depart from them to those unknown units who, with their daily lives, without knowing it, weave the fabric of people’s history. Klyuchevsky’s thought, born in the high region of love for truth, over decades of scientific work has penetrated a powerful layer of historical raw material, transformed it and flows calmly, in a stream of exceptional specific gravity, dispassionate and free. Nowhere is there a phrase, nowhere does he humiliate himself to a one-sided hobby, everywhere, as in life itself, there is a combination of light and shadow, everywhere about persons, classes, nationalities, about eras, an impartial, balanced judgment. In our age of slavish party thought and false words, this book is mental delight and spiritual relaxation. We can trust her. She talks about the ramifications of the Russian people as follows.
Kievan Russia reached its peak in the middle of the 11th century. With the death of Yaroslav I (1054), gradual decline begins; its main reason was the continuous struggle with the Asian tribes, who were pressing on Southern Rus' from the east and south. Russia fought back and went on the offensive; often united princely squads went far into the steppe and inflicted cruel defeats on the Polovtsians and other nomads; but one enemy was replaced by another from the east. The strength of Rus' was exhausted in the unequal struggle, and finally it could not stand it and began to give up. Life in the border lands (in the east along Vorskla, in the south along Ros) became extremely dangerous, and from the end of the 11th century the population began to leave them. From the 12th century we have a number of irrefutable evidence of the desolation of the Pereyaslav principality, that is, the space between the Dnieper and Vorskla. In 1159, two cousins argued among themselves: Prince Izyaslav, who had just taken the Kiev throne, and Svyatoslav, who replaced him on the Chernigov table. To the first’s reproaches, Svyatoslav replies that, “not wanting to shed Christian blood,” he humbly contented himself with “the city of Chernigov with seven other cities, and even then empty: hounds and Polovtsians live in them.” This means that in these cities there were only princely courtyard people and peaceful Polovtsians who crossed over to Rus'. Among these seven desolate cities, to our surprise, we meet one of the oldest and richest cities of Kievan Rus - Lyubech, lying on the Dnieper. If cities are desolate even in the very center of the country, then what happened to the defenseless villages? Along with signs of an ebb of population from Kievan Rus, we also notice traces of the decline in its economic well-being. Its foreign trade turnover was increasingly constrained by the triumphant nomads. “...But the filthy ones are already taking away our (trade) routes,” says Prince Mstislav of Volyn in 1167, trying to move his brotherhood of princes on a campaign against the steppe barbarians.
So, the desolation of the southern part of the Kiev region in the second half of the 12th century is beyond doubt. It remains to resolve the question of where the population of the deserted Kievan Rus went.
The outflow of population from the Dnieper region occurred in the 12th–14th centuries in two directions: to the northeast and to the west. The first of these movements led to the emergence of the Great Russian branch of the Russian people, the second - to the emergence of its Little Russian branch.
Great Russians
Resettlement to the northeast was directed to the space lying between the upper Volga and Oka, to the Rostov-Suzdal lands. This country was separated from the south of Kyiv by the dense forests of the upper reaches of the Oka, which filled the space of the present Oryol and Kaluga provinces. There were almost no direct communications between Kiev and Suzdal. Vladimir Monomakh (?1125), a tireless rider who in his lifetime traveled the length and breadth of the Russian land, says in his teaching to children with a certain shade of boasting that he once traveled from Kiev to Rostov through these forests - it was such a difficult task then. But in the middle of the 12th century, the Rostov-Suzdal prince Yuri I, fighting for the Kiev table, led entire regiments from Rostov to Kyiv this way against his rival, the Volyn Izyaslav. This means that during this period there was some movement in the population that cleared the way in this direction. At the very time when people began to complain about the desolation of Southern Rus', in the remote Suzdal region we noticed intensified construction work. Under Yuri 1 and his son Andrei of Suzdal, new cities appeared here one after another. Since 1147, the town of Moscow has become known. Yuri gives loans to displaced people; they fill its borders with "many thousands." Where the bulk of the settlers came from is evidenced by the names of the new cities: their names are the same as the names of the cities of Southern Rus' (Pereyaslavl, Zvenigorod, Starodub, Vyshgorod, Galich); The most interesting cases are the transfer of a pair of names, that is, the repetition of the name of the city and the river on which it stands.
The fate of our ancient epics also testifies to the resettlement from the Dnieper region. They developed in the south, in the pre-Tatar period, they talk about the fight against the Polovtsians, and glorify the exploits of the heroes who stood for the Russian land. People in the south no longer remember these epics - they were replaced there by Cossack dumas, singing about the struggle of the Little Russian Cossacks with the Poles in the 16th and 17th centuries. But the Kyiv epics were preserved with amazing freshness in the north - in the Urals, in the Olonets and Arkhangelsk provinces. Obviously, the epic tales moved to the distant north along with the very population that composed and sang them. The resettlement took place before the 14th century, that is, before the appearance of Lithuania and the Poles in the south of Russia, because in the epics there is no mention of these later enemies of Rus'.
Who did the new inhabitants find in Suzdal land? History finds North-Eastern Rus' as a Finnish country, and then we see it as Slavic. This indicates strong Slavic colonization; it took place already at the dawn of Russian history: Rostov existed before the calling of the princes; under Saint Vladimir, his son Gleb already reigns in Murom. This first settlement of the country by Russians came from the north, from the Novgorod land and from the west. Thus, the Dnieper settlers entered the Russian land. But there were also remnants of ancient natives here - the Finns. The Finnish tribes were still at a low level of culture, had not emerged from the period of tribal life, were in pagan primitive darkness and easily yielded to the peaceful pressure of the Russians. The pressure was indeed peaceful; no traces of the struggle remained. The Eastern Finns were of a meek disposition, the newcomer was also not overwhelmed by the spirit of conquest, he was only looking for a safe corner, and most importantly, there was plenty of space for everyone. Currently, settlements with Russian names are located interspersed with villages in whose names one can guess their Finnish origin; this indicates that the Russians occupied empty spaces between the Finnish sections. The meeting of the two races did not result in a stubborn struggle, neither tribal, nor social, nor even religious. The cohabitation of Russians with Finns led to the almost universal Russification of the latter and to some change in the anthropological type of northern Russians: wide cheekbones, a wide nose - this is the heritage of Finnish blood. Weak Finnish culture could not change the Russian language - it contains only 60 Finnish words; The pronunciation has undergone some changes.
So, in the Rostov-Suzdal land, the streams of resettlement of the Russian element from the north-west, from Novgorod, and the south-west, from Kyiv, crossed and merged; in this sea of Russian nationality, the Finnish tribes drowned without a trace, only slightly coloring its water. The presence of Finnish influence has been noted by specialist research; practically it does not exist: not a single Great Russian feels or recognizes Finnish blood in himself, and ordinary people do not even suspect its existence. This is the ethnographic factor in the formation of the Great Russian tribe. The influence of nature on a mixed population is another factor. Klyuchevsky devotes several beautiful pages to how harsh nature - frosts, rainfalls, forests, swamps - affected the economic life of the Great Russians, how it scattered them among small villages and made social life difficult, how it taught them to loneliness and isolation and how they developed the habit of patient struggle with adversity and deprivation. “In Europe there is no people less spoiled and pretentious, accustomed to expect less from nature and more resilient.” The short summer forces excessive short-term exertion of strength, autumn and winter - into involuntary long idleness, and “not a single people in Europe is capable of such labor intensity for a short time that the Great Russians can develop; but nowhere in Europe, it seems, will you find such a lack of habit of steady, constant work as in Great Russia”; “The Great Russian fought with nature alone, in the depths of the forest, with an ax in his hand.” Life in secluded villages could not teach him to act in large unions, friendly masses, and “Great Russians are better than Great Russian society.” You need to know the nature there and the people there in order to appreciate the mind shining in these pages of Klyuchevsky, filled with that true love for the homeland that does not want to be expressed, but involuntarily comes through between the lines.
Let us take a look at the political conditions in which the process of formation of the Great Russian tribe took place. The Russians entered the Rostov-Suzdal land and settled in it freely, but leaving it and further settlement encountered obstacles. There were no strong foreign neighbors in the north, but there, along the rivers of the White Sea basin, Novgorod freemen had long walked; there was no point in delving into the endless forest wilds without owning the rivers. In the east, near the mouths of the Kama and Oka, in addition to the Finnish tribes, lived the Volga Bulgarians, who represented a certain state force hostile to the Russians. From the south, nomadic Asian tribes obscured the space, and in the west, from the 13th century, the state of Lithuania began to take shape. Of course, the possibility of spread was not completely excluded, but we will be close to the truth if we say that history took care to place the population of the Rostov-Suzdal lands in a separate position for two centuries (1150–1350); it was as if she wanted the population, left to its own devices, to become reborn, merge, weld together and form a certain tribal unity. And so it happened - and it happened largely contrary to the understanding of the then numerous bearers of state power.
The population of the central part of European Russia, contained within the specified limits, was part of a whole conglomerate of principalities. Tver, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Rostov, Suzdal, Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod - these are the capital cities of the most important of them. The Monomakhovichs, descendants of the brother of Andrei of Suzdal - the already mentioned Vsevolod III the Big Nest, reigned here. The order of succession to the throne in the Grand Duchy of Vladimir was the same as in Kievan Rus, that is, “tribal order with frequent restrictions and violations.”
Among the factors leading to the violation of the clan order of succession to the throne, a new one appeared from the middle of the 13th century - the consent of the Tatar khan. The proliferation of princes leads to the formation of local princely lines and to the establishment of dynastic interests of local great principalities (Tver, Ryazan, etc.). With the weakening of blood ties, the consciousness of the unity of the earth weakens among the princes. The combination of these conditions leads to the fact that the more dexterous and stronger of the local princes takes possession of the great reign of Vladimir; at the same time, he limits himself only to the title of Grand Duke of Vladimir (and sometimes of Kyiv), but sits in his family capital city (for example, in Tver, in Kostroma). In 1328, the strongest of the local princes turned out to be the prince of an insignificant Moscow appanage, John I Kalita. From this year the picture changes: the great reign remains forever in the tenacious hands of Kalita and his descendants.
The Moscow inheritance was very young: a continuous series of princes began here only in 1283; the inheritance was small in size (Kalita inherited only lands along the Moscow River and Pereyaslavl-Zalessky); The princes of Moscow were from the younger line of the Monomakhovichs.
What are the reasons for their initial success over their rivals, which laid the foundation for the future power of the Moscow principality? We list these reasons as they are established in historical literature.
1. Moscow lay in the ethnographic center of the Great Russian tribe; both streams of migration crossed here - from Klevo and from Novgorod; it lay at the junction of several major roads and on the trade route from Novgorod through Ryazan to the then Far East - to the lower Volga.
2. The Moscow inheritance was protected from foreign invasions or influences by neighboring principalities: the first blows of the Tatars were taken by the principalities of Ryazan and Chernigov, the pressure of Lithuania was absorbed to a large extent by the principality of Smolensk.
3. The first Moscow princes were exemplary owners: they knew how to “invent” a neighboring estate for their inheritance by purchase or marriage, they knew how to attract and save money.
4. In relations with the Tatars, they showed exceptional resourcefulness: going to the Golden Horde, they cleverly obtained the khan's label for the great reign. They themselves collect tribute for the Tatars, send it to the Horde, and the Tatar “tributers” do not bother the Moscow population with their raids.
5. In other principalities there are civil strife due to the seniority of the princes, and in a small Moscow family there is a correct succession to the throne. The Moscow principality is calmer than others; both Kyiv and Novgorod settlers willingly settle in it; the population from the eastern parts of Suzdal, suffering from Tatar pogroms and attacks by eastern foreigners, also flows to it. Silence and order attract prominent service people to the Moscow prince.
6. The highest clergy, brought up in the Byzantine concept of power, sensitively guessed a possible state center in Moscow and began to promote it. The metropolitans who moved (since 1299) from the decayed Kyiv to the north of Russia preferred Moscow to the capital city of Vladimir. At the same time, a center of both political and ecclesiastical power was formed in Moscow, and recently the still small city of Moscow became the center of “all Rus'.”
The appanage princes lived by petty interests, brought discord and turmoil to the people, and the exhausted people wanted peace and quiet. Moscow gave him peace. “From then on (from the day of the reign of John Kalita) there was great silence throughout the Russian land for forty years,” the chronicle recorded. The people followed the path of ethnographic unification; “By the middle of the 15th century, a new national formation had emerged amid political fragmentation.” And Moscow was creating a political unification: by the middle of the 14th century it had already absorbed many inheritances and was so strong that, according to the chronicler, Kalita’s son Simeon the Proud (1341–1353) “all the Russian princes were given the arm.” Another thirty years will pass, and the Moscow prince will unite Russian forces against the Tatars and boldly lead them away from Moscow, to the Kulikovo Field, for he will militate against them not only to protect his inheritance, but to shield them from the entire Russian land. There, on the Kulikovo Field, the national Moscow state will be born. A century later, the strengthened Moscow would take on another high national task - the liberation of the jugular parts of the Russian land from foreign rule: in 1503, Lithuanian ambassadors began to reproach John III for why he accepted the Chernigov (Prioksky) Rurikovichs who had come to him from Lithuania with their inheritances. “Don’t I feel sorry,” John will answer them, “for my patrimony, the Russian land, which is beyond Lithuania; - Kyiv, Smolensk and other cities!”
This is how the Great Russian tribe came to be and united around Moscow. The privately owned traits of a small appanage prince fell away from the Moscow prince: he recognized himself as the head of a national state, and the people sensed their state unity. What national idea lived among these people? The aspirations of which nationality did this sovereign embody? Great Russian? Anyone who knows Russian life will smile at this assumption. The Great Russian idea, the feeling of the Great Russian - such goals and objectives do not exist and never have existed. It would be ridiculous to talk, for example, about Great Russian patriotism. The national feeling that inspired Muscovite Rus' was not Great Russian, but Russian, and its sovereign was a Russian sovereign. The official Moscow language knew the expression “Great Rus'”, but as a contrast to other Russian regions - White and Little Rus'; He understood this Great Rus' (Great Russia) as nothing other than part of a single, whole Russia: “By the grace of God, the Great Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke of All Great, Little and White Rus', the Autocrat” - this is how this thought is formulated in the title of the Moscow tsars. But Moscow hardly knew the term “Great Russian”: this artificial, bookish word was probably born after the annexation of Little Russia - as a counterbalance to the name of its population. It came into wide use only in our days, after the revolution. The Kostroma peasant still had little suspicion that he was a Great Russian, just as the Yekaterinoslav peasant suspected that he was Ukrainian, and when asked who he was, he answered: “I am Kostroma” or “I am Russian.”
Little Russians
Let us return to the presentation of the conclusions of Professor Klyuchevsky. Another stream of the ebb of the Russian population from the Dnieper region headed, as we said, to the west, beyond the Western Bug, to the region of the upper Dniester and upper Vistula, deep into Galicia and Poland. Traces of this ebb are found in the fate of two regional principalities - Galician and Volyn. In the hierarchy of Russian regions, these principalities belonged to the junior ones. In the second half of the 12th century, the Galician principality unexpectedly became one of the strongest and most influential in the southwest. From the end of the 12th century, under the princes Roman Mstislavich, who annexed Galicia to his Volhynia, and under his son Daniel, the united principality grew noticeably, became densely populated, its princes quickly grew rich, despite internal unrest, managed the affairs of South-Western Rus' and Kiev itself; The Roman chronicle (1205) calls him “the autocrat of the entire Russian land.”
The desolation of Dnieper Rus', which began in the 12th century, was completed in the 13th century by the Tatar pogrom of 1229–1240. Since then, the ancient regions of this Rus', once so densely populated, for a long time turned into a desert with a meager remnant of the former population. Even more important was the fact that the political and economic system of the entire region collapsed. In Kyiv itself, after the pogrom of 1240, there were only two hundred houses, the inhabitants of which suffered terrible oppression. Along the deserted steppe borders of Kievan Rus wandered the remnants of its ancient neighbors - the Pechenegs, Polovtsians, Torques and other foreigners. The southern regions - Kiev, Pereyaslavl and partly Chernigov - remained in such desolation almost until the half of the 15th century. After Southwestern Rus' with Galicia was captured by Poland and Lithuania in the 14th century, the Dnieper deserts became the southern outskirts of Lithuania, and later the southeastern outskirts of the united Polish-Lithuanian state. In documents from the 14th century, a new name appears for South-Western Rus', but the name is not “Ukraine”, but “Little Russia”.
“In connection with this outflow of population to the west,” says Klyuchevsky, “one important phenomenon in Russian ethnography is explained, namely the formation of the Little Russian tribe.” The Dnieper population, who found a reliable shelter from the Polovtsians and other nomads in the depths of Galicia and Poland in the 13th century, remained here throughout the entire Tatar period. Remoteness from the center of Tatar power, stronger Western statehood, the presence of stone castles, swamps and forests in Poland, and mountainous terrain in Galicia protected the southerners from complete enslavement by the Mongols. This stay in his only begotten Galicia and visiting the Poles lasted two or three centuries. Since the 15th century, the secondary settlement of the middle Dnieper region has become noticeable. It is a consequence of the reverse ebb of the peasant population, which was “facilitated by two circumstances: 1) the southern steppe outskirts of Rus' became safer due to the collapse of the Horde and the strengthening of Moscow Rus'; 2) within the boundaries of the Polish state, the former quitrent peasant economy in the 15th century began to be replaced by corvee and serfdom received accelerated development, strengthening the desire of the enslaved rural population to leave the lord’s yoke for more free places.”
In the next chapter we present some chronological data characterizing this return of the Russian population to their native places, but here we adhere as closely as possible to our author.
“When the Dnieper Ukraine began to be settled in this way, it turned out that the mass of the population that came here was of purely Russian origin. From this we can conclude that most of the colonists who came here from the depths of Poland, from Galicia and Lithuania, were descendants of that Rus' that left the Dnieper to the west in the 12th and 13th centuries and for two or three centuries, living among Lithuania and the Poles, preserved their nationality. This Rus', now returning to its old ashes, met with the remnants of ancient nomads wandering here - the Torks, Berendeys, Pechenegs, etc. I do not affirm decisively that by mixing the Rus' that returned to its ancient Dnieper dwellings and remained here with these eastern foreigners, Little Russian was formed tribe, because I myself do not have, and in historical literature I do not find sufficient grounds to either accept or reject such an assumption; I also cannot say whether it has been sufficiently clarified when and under what influences the dialectical features that distinguished the Little Russian dialect from both the ancient Kievan and Great Russian dialects were formed. I am only saying that the formation of the Little Russian tribe as a branch of the Russian people (our italics - A.V.) took part in the return movement to the Dnieper of the Russian population that emerged and intensified from the 14th century, moving from there to the west, to the Carpathians and the Vistula, in the 12th century. -XIII centuries."
Everything that we have said so far about the Little Russians is a verbatim or almost verbatim extract from Professor Klyuchevsky’s course (Vol. 1, pp. 351–354). We deliberately resorted to such a simplified method of presentation. The Ukrainophile party does not hesitate to accuse its opponents of lies and fraud. Let her consider not me, but Professor Klyuchevsky. There are dead people who are more difficult to slander than the living.
The last phrase of this excerpt contains a complete denial of all the current absurd assertions of Ukrainophile propaganda that there is some kind of “Ukrainian people”, and, moreover, of a different origin than Russian.
Klyuchevsky did not consider himself entitled to speak out “decisively” when the Little Russian branch was formed and when the Little Russian dialect began to take shape. He knew the value of his conclusions, and did not dare to make them definitively, without being able to indisputably support every word in them. For us, however, there is not the slightest doubt that the situation was exactly as he says. The population that came from the Dnieper to Poland in the 12th and 13th centuries came there as refugees, unhappy and ruined; in search of daily bread, it could not help but disperse across foreign territory, could not occupy a position in a foreign country other than a humiliated one; religious strife protected, to a certain extent, the purity of Russian and Polish blood, but the language of the Russian settlers could not help but succumb to the influence of the surrounding nationality: it absorbed many Polish words, and its pronunciation, of course, then began to change; This is how the Little Russian dialect was born. Being a guest of our Western neighbors also introduced many Hungarian and Moldovan words into the Little Russian vocabulary. Returning to their homeland, the descendants of this Rus' found here the descendants of former nomads and Tatars: their blood sometimes shows through in the appearance of the Little Russian, in the darkness of his skin and in his character. A beautiful country, where in the 14th and 15th centuries the Little Russian tribe finally took shape, beautiful
...a land where everything breathes abundantly,
Where rivers flow purer than silver,
Where the breeze of the steppe feather grass sways,
Farmsteads are drowning in cherry groves...
Here the sun shines brightly, the snow lasts only three months; there are neither the swamps of Polesie, nor the sands of the Don, nor the shallow spaces of the Black Sea steppes. Once upon a time, thick grass here completely hid the Ukrainian horseman from the predatory gaze Crimean Tatar; now a heavy ear of wheat sways in quiet waves across vast fields or a wide leaf of beet plantations spreads. The oak trees in Ukraine are magnificent, its pyramidal poplars are, and its orchards are rich. Nature did everything to surround his happier southern brother with contentment and joy. And he appreciates the gifts of nature: his song is usually composed in joyful, major tones, and she sings about love and happiness; he loves the beauty and comfort of life; his white mud huts surrounded by flowers are poetic; parties are cheerful and frequent in crowded villages; beautiful clothes, longer than in other parts of Russia, resisting the pressure of factory depersonalization. Charming humor is inherent in the very nature of the Little Russian and does not leave him either in the story, or in unexpected, randomly thrown remarks, or in a joke on himself. And with all this gaiety, some imprint of slowness and oriental immobility lies on his thinking; When a Little Russian has reached a decision, even an absurd one, you cannot convince him with any arguments of logic, and it is not for nothing that other Russians say: “Stubborn, like a little Russian.” But this stubbornness, perseverance, along with good physical data, makes him one of the best soldiers in the Russian army. He is an excellent, intelligent worker in the field, not sparing fertilizer even for his richest black soil. His agricultural qualities developed not only thanks to his generous nature, but also due to economic and legal reasons: the Little Russian peasant is the full owner of his land, while the Great Russian mass of the peasantry until recent years (before the Stolypin reform of 1907) languished under the socialist yoke of the rural community, already many centuries ago, almost realized the ideal of socialism - forced comparison with the weakest.
Perhaps our characterization is somewhat artificial; this is understandable - we tried to emphasize the difference between the two branches of the Russian people. In life this difference is less noticeable; in the cultured class it completely disappeared. The Little Russians, who moved beyond the Volga and into Siberia or settled the Black Sea steppes together with the Great Russians, having become in the same natural conditions with them, gradually lose, albeit slowly, their distinctive features; their speech, having enriched the speech of the Great Russian, gradually gives way to the all-Russian language, and to the question: “Who will you be?” - such a migrant will answer either “Russian” or “Little Russian”. But no one has ever heard the answer in this case: “I am Ukrainian.”
The Little Russian tribe was formed in difficult political conditions. With the capture of Kyiv by the Tatars (1240), the Principality of Kiev lost even external signs of independence: for over a hundred years there was no mention of the Kyiv princes. Mr. Grushevsky was also forced to express doubt about their existence. In 1363, the deserted region became easy prey for Lithuania; in Kyiv and other capital southern cities, members of the Gediminas family reigned. When Rus' returned to the Dnieper region, it found foreign statehood here, and its fate from then on (until the middle of the 17th century) remained in foreign hands. From the middle of the 16th century, the benevolent Lithuanian power was replaced by the callous power of Poland; under the influence of economic and religious oppression, national self-awareness awakens in the passively vegetating population: the fight against the Poles and against Catholicism, which appeared to them in the form of the “Polish faith,” fills the life of the Little Russian population for more than a hundred years. The reader will find the main facts of this struggle in the subsequent presentation, but for now let us remember one undoubted historical fact: from the beginning of its inception until the day when it politically merged with the Moscow state, the Little Russian tribe was never independent. History has shown the three branches of the Russian people to lovingly intertwine in friendly unity: otherwise the foreigner will tear them apart and trample them under his merciless heel for centuries.
Belarusians
Among the Slavic tribes mentioned on the first pages of the Nestor Chronicle are the Krivichi and Dregovichi tribes. Both names indicate the nature of the area in which these tribes settled.
The connection between the tribal name and the area - a phenomenon characteristic of other Nesterov tribes - can serve as an indication of the close affinity of these tribes: one must think that before settling across the Russian Plain they did not have separate names; No wonder the chronicler testifies that they all had a single language - Slavic. The Krivichi lived along the upper reaches of the Volga, Western Dvina and Dnieper; their old cities were Izborsk, Polotsk and Smolensk. The Dregovichi settled the space between the Dvina and Pripyat; the most important city here was Minsk. These tribes quickly merged with the rest, forming the Russian people, and their names soon disappeared from the pages of the chronicles. Soloviev, having analyzed those two or three texts where Nestor names these tribes, no longer speaks about them. They are like archaeological antiquities, interesting only in a museum, and who would have thought three years ago that the enemies of Russia would remember them for the practical purposes of modern life and take them out for speculation on the political exchange.
The Belarusians occupy approximately the same area that was occupied by the Krivichi and Dregovich tribes, and since there are no traces of any mass migrations in these areas, it can be assumed that the Belarusians are their descendants. We will not understand the differences between this branch of the Russian people and its dialects from the branches and dialects of the Great Russians and Little Russians, but we want to establish here with complete clarity that the Belarusians have always been and have always been considered part of the Russian people and that their land is, in essence, inalienable part of Russian land. And in the Belarusian, as well as in the Ukrainian, issue, the enemies of Russian unity have a powerful ally - I mean little foreign awareness public opinion in Russian geography, history and ethnography. It would therefore be useful to list the basic data.
It is difficult to establish the exact boundaries of the settlement of the Belarusians (and even more so the Nesterov Krivichi and Dregovichi), and it will be shorter and easier to trace the fate of the principalities into which the entire western strip of Russia was divided in ancient times - from Pskov in the north to the Principality of Kyiv in the south.
Pskov existed even before the calling of the princes (862); Saint Olga, the grandmother of Vladimir the Saint, was, according to legend, originally from Pskov. Its region was part of the Novgorod land. The border position, the struggle with the Estonians, and then with the German Order gave this Novgorod suburb special significance, and it gradually achieved independence from Novgorod; for this purpose, he sometimes invites Lithuanian princes to his place (since the 13th century). This circumstance did not give rise to dependence on Lithuania: princely power had little meaning in the veche Pskov. It is known that the Pskov political system is a typical example of a republican system in Rus'; it succeeded better here than on the vast Novgorod land. The fight against the Germans and quarrels with Novgorod forced Pskov to turn to Moscow, and from 1401 it received princes - proteges of the Grand Duke; a hundred years later it was finally absorbed by Moscow: in 1509, Grand Duke Vasily III ordered the veche not to exist and the veche bell to be removed. Ethnographically, the Pskov region was Russian land from ancient times, and with the formation of the Great Russian tribe it entered the Great Russian orbit.
Polotsk is considered a colony of Novgorod. Even Rurik, distributing cities to his “husbands,” gave it to one of them. The Polotsk land early became a separate principality: Vladimir the Holy gave Polotsk to his son Izyaslav (?1001), who became the founder of the most ancient of the local lines of the Rurikovichs. Initially, the principality embraced the lands inhabited by the Krivichi, who here took the name Polotsk; they lived along the middle reaches of the Western Dvina, along the Polot River and in the upper reaches of the Berezina. In the 11th century, the Principality of Polotsk spread to neighboring non-Slavic lands - to the Lithuanian, Latvian and Finnish tribes. The 11th and 12th centuries are the time of the greatest strength of the principality: the princes wage internecine wars with Novgorod and the Kyiv princes. One of the grandsons, Izyaslav, was for a short time the Grand Duke of Kyiv. Mstislav of Kiev, son of the Monomakhs, devastated the Polotsk land around 1127, exiled the local princes and imprisoned his son in Polotsk. The veche beginning had significant development in Polotsk. In the middle of the 12th century, the Polotsk princes dominated the entire course of the Western Dvina, but in the same century the Germans settled at its mouth. In the 13th century, with the creation of the German Order of the Swordsmen and the emergence of Lithuanian statehood, the western border of the Polotsk land moved to the east and by the time the Tatars appeared, it coincided with the ethnographic Russian border. With the collapse of Russian statehood, the Polotsk land gradually passed into the power of Lithuania and under Vytautas (1392–1430) it finally became part of the Lithuanian state. The Polotsk land was divided into many principalities, of which the most important were Vitebsk and Minsk.
Vitebsk mentioned already in the 10th century. Since 1101, the Vitebsk inheritance was separated from the Principality of Polotsk; it lasted without interruption until the last years of the 12th century, when, as a result of internal strife, it came under the authority of the princes of Smolensk. In the 13th century it is again mentioned as independent. In the first half of the 13th century it was attacked by the Lithuanian princes; upon the death of the last Vitebsk prince - Rurikovich - the inheritance passes through kinship to Olgerd and is absorbed into Lithuania.
Minsk has been mentioned since 1066 as belonging to the Principality of Polotsk; the great princes of Kyiv, including Vladimir Monomakh, took it more than once during the struggle with the Polotsk princes (for example, in 1087 and 1129). Minsk became the capital city in 1101; Three generations of one of the Polotsk branches reigned here. In the second half of the 12th century, Lithuanian power was established in the principality. At the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th century, the principality was divided into many fiefs (up to fourteen); Among them are Pinsk, Turov and Mozyr, they lie in the Pripyat River basin. Thus, we reached the borders of the Principality of Kyiv.
The Polotsk and Minsk principalities were the border strip of Russian land; in their rear lay the Principality of Smolensk; when Lithuania moved east, it became a border area.
Smolensk land has been known since the 10th century. It lay east of Polotsk and went far to the east, so that the place where Moscow later grew was within its borders. It was ruled by the posadniks of the Kyiv prince, but in the middle of the 12th century it became a separate principality: in 1054, Yaroslav I planted his son Vsevolod in Smolensk. Then Vsevolod’s son Vladimir Monomakh and his descendants reigned here. They fought against their Polotsk relatives who wanted to annex Smolensk to their possessions. The waterway between Novgorod and Kiev and between Kiev and Suzdal land passed through Smolensk land; Trade with the West was another reason for the prosperity of the principality. It reached its greatest power under the grandson of Vladimir Monomakh, Rostislav Mstislavich (1128–1161). Since 1180, the principality has been divided into fiefs. An internecine struggle ensues for the possession of the Smolensk grand-ducal table; Among the appanages, the most notable are Toropets and Vyazemskiy (both from the beginning of the 13th century). In the second quarter of the 13th century, Lithuanian attacks began. In 1242, the Tatar invasion was repulsed. Nevertheless, the glory of the principality fades: influence on Polotsk and Novgorod is gradually lost, and communication with Kiev ceases. In 1274, Smolensk submitted to the Tatar Khan. Around 1320, noticeable influence of Lithuania begins; the principality becomes a subject of contention between Moscow and Lithuania and fights with one or the other. In 1395, Vytautas captured the “flattery” of all the Smolensk princes and installed a governor; the Ryazan people stand up for this part of the Russian land, but in 1404 Vitovt takes Smolensk, and its independence ceases. The boundaries of the principality by this time had been reduced to the size of the current Smolensk province.
The Slavic elements have long spilled over these lands, which became White Russia several centuries later. Here they spoke Slavic, “and the Slovenian language and the Russian language are one,” Nestor wrote down; here, before the conquest of the country by foreign power, the Rurikovichs reigned everywhere; life took shape in forms common to appanage Rus'. The principalities fought among themselves, but it was a fight against their own - not against a natural enemy, but against a political rival. When danger for all of Russia was approaching from the east, the local Rurikovichs led their squads and local militias against the common enemy and died for a united Rus' both in the Polovtsian campaigns and under the attacks of the Tatars. Thus, in the first unfortunate meeting of the Russians with the Tatars on the distant southern Kalka River (1224), the Smolensk militia also fought. The famous Mstislavs - the Brave (?1180) and the Daring (?1228), - who labored in military affairs in all parts of Rus', were from here, from the Smolensk princes.
But the closest enemy of this part of Rus' - the Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Germans - lived in the west, and here, to the west, its main front was turned here in all centuries. Initially, the power of Rus' did not go beyond ethnographic limits; with the strengthening of Russian statehood, it passes them: Yaroslav the Wise in 1030 founded the city of Yuryev (Dorpat) in the land of the Estonians; in the 11th century, Polotsk began to subjugate the Livs; in the middle of the next century, all lands along the lower reaches of the Western Dvina are dependent on the Principality of Polotsk; Polotsk residents own the fortresses of Kukonois and Gertsik here; further south, Lithuanian tribes came under the rule of Polotsk, and Grodno was included in Russian borders.
Since the 13th century the picture has changed. In 1201, the Germans founded Riga, the next year the Livonian Order (Order of the Swordsmen) was born - a weapon of bloody Germanization. Gradually moving east, the Germans over half a century ousted Russian power from the lands of Latvians and Estonians; they settled here as the ruling class and went no further. But Lithuanian power spread far into the depths of the Russian land.
Lithuanians in the ethnographic sense are an independent tribe, different from both the Slavs and the Germans. Their country is the Neman basin; they lived here from ancient times with their separate lives. In the 13th century, they were captured by “international” life: the Teutonic Order was advancing from the west, and the Russians from the east and south. The founder of the Lithuanian state is considered to be Mindovg (?1263), who defeated the Teutonic Order and held Vilna, Grodno and even Russian Volkovysk and Russian Pinsk under his rule. Christianity and with it culture came to the Lithuanians from the east, from the Russians. Mindovg was the first Lithuanian prince to be baptized. After his death in Lithuania there is a struggle between the Lithuanian (pagan) and Russian (Christian) parties. Around 1290, the Lithuanian dynasty was established, later known as the Gediminids. Under Gediminas (1316–1341), the principality grew stronger: the new onslaught of the Livonian Order was stopped; the principalities of Minsk, Pinsk and some parts of neighboring lands come under the rule of Gediminas. Two thirds of Lithuania's territory consists of Russian lands; the Russians play the main role with him in Vilna; he is titled “Grand Duke of Lithuania, Zhmud and Russia.” After the death of Gediminas, the Germans, taking advantage of the division of Lithuania between several (eight) heirs, resume their onslaught, this time in alliance with Poland; but Olgerd (?1377), son of Gediminas, defeats the order. All thoughts of Olgerd, a Christian, twice married to a Russian (first to the princess of Vitebsk, then to Tver), are directed towards Russian lands: he seeks to influence the affairs of Novgorod, Pskov, wants to own Tver, for which he makes campaigns against Moscow, but unsuccessfully. Around 1360, he annexed the Russian principalities of Bryansk, Chernigov, Seversk, captured Podolia and, finally, in 1363, Kiev.
So, within one century (from the middle of the 13th to the middle of the 14th century), the Lithuanian-Russian state, stretching in a wide strip from the north of the Dvina to the south beyond Kiev, united all the western Russian principalities, the entire basin of the right tributaries of the Dnieper; half a century later it swallowed up Smolensk. The beginning of this process coincided with the weakening of Rus' from the Tatar pogrom; its rapid development was facilitated by a number of reasons. Let us remember that the power of the Galician principality had faded a hundred years earlier (since the death of Prince-King Daniel in 1264), that the Moscow state during the life of Olgerd was still a weak principality, the borders of which to the west were a semicircle, only a hundred miles away from Moscow, that the process of forming the Great Russian tribe was far from completed, and finally, that subjugation to Lithuania liberated the princes of the devastated principalities of Western and Southern Russia from Tatar oppression - and we will understand the success of Olgerd.
There was another reason why Lithuania met with such weak resistance: the Lithuanian state from its very inception was under political and cultural Russian influence; Russian was its official language; the Gediminovich family, related to the Rurikovichs, became Russified - they were Russian princes, only of a new, Lithuanian dynasty; church life received direction from Moscow; In the principalities that were subordinate to Lithuania, the Lithuanian government did not violate either the political system or the national way of life. By the end of the 14th century, Lithuania, both in terms of population composition and lifestyle, was a more Russian than Lithuanian principality; in science it is known under the name of the Russian-Lithuanian state. It seemed that the center of gravity of Russian state life did not know where to stop - in Moscow or in Vilna; a long battle for this dominance began; it lasted two centuries. The strong Moscow sovereigns Ivan III (1462–1505) and Vasily III (1505–1533) begin to take away Russian regions from Lithuania and lay claim to everything Russian that belonged to Lithuania. In the middle of the 14th century, in the 60s, the troops of Ivan the Terrible (1533–1584) took Polotsk and ruled in Lithuania. But here Poland also became against Moscow: Moscow had to give in to their combined forces.
We have traced the political fate of the Belarusian part of the Russian population until the end of the 13th century, but have not yet encountered the influence of Poland on it. This is understandable: in the northern part of Belarus, between the western border of the Russian nationality and the eastern ethnographic border of Poland, there lay a third nationality - Lithuanian, different from both Russian and Polish; she pushed them apart by 150–400 versts. The Polish people spread eastward approximately to the meridian of Lublin. South of the parallel of Minsk and Mogilev, the borders of both peoples, Russian and Polish, touched; but even here, in the Belarusian south, their meeting could only take place after the Lithuanian statehood was absorbed by the Polish one.
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