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The chronicle of the ancient Slavic state was almost forgotten thanks to the German professors who wrote Russian history and set as their goal to rejuvenate the history of Rus', to show that the Slavic peoples were supposedly pristine, not stained by the actions of the Russians, Antes, barbarians, Vandals and Scythians, whom the whole world remembered very well . The goal is to tear Rus' away from the Scythian past. Based on the work of German professors, a domestic historical school arose. All history textbooks teach us that before baptism, wild tribes lived in Rus' - pagans.
This is a big Lie, because history has been rewritten many times to please the existing ruling system - starting with the first Romanovs, i.e. history is interpreted as beneficial at the moment to the ruling class. Among the Slavs, their past is called Heritage or Chronicle, and not History (the word “Summer” preceded the concept of “year” introduced by Peter the Great in 7208 from S.M.Z.H., when instead of the Slavic chronology they introduced 1700 from the supposed Nativity of Christ). S.M.Z.H. - this is the Creation / signing / of Peace with the Arim / Chinese / in the summer called the Star Temple - after the end of the Great World War (something like May 9, 1945, but more significant for the Slavs).
Therefore, is it worth trusting textbooks that, even in our memory, have been rewritten more than once? And is it worth trusting textbooks that contradict many facts that say that before baptism, in Rus' there was a huge state with many cities and villages (Country of Cities), a developed economy and crafts, with its own unique Culture (Culture = Kultura = Cult of Ra = Cult of Light). Our ancestors who lived in those days had a vital Wisdom and worldview that helped them always act according to their Conscience and live in harmony with the world around them. This attitude to the World is now called the Old Faith (“old” means “pre-Christian”, but previously it was called simply – Faith – Knowledge of Ra – Knowledge of Light – Knowledge of the Shining Truth of the Almighty). Faith is primary, and Religion (for example, Christian) is secondary. The word “Religion” comes from “Re” - repetition, “League” - connection, unification. Faith is always one (there is either a connection with God or there is not), and there are many religions - as many as there are Gods among the people or as many ways as intermediaries (popes, patriarchs, priests, rabbis, mullahs, etc.) come up with to establish connection with them.
Since the connection with God, established through third parties - intermediaries, for example, priests, is artificial, then, in order not to lose the flock, each religion claims to be “Truth in the first instance.” Because of this, many bloody religious wars have been and are being waged.
Mikhailo Vasilyevich Lomonosov fought alone against the German professorship, arguing that the history of the Slavs goes back to ancient times.
The ancient Slavic state RUSKOLAN occupied lands from the Danube and the Carpathians to the Crimea, the North Caucasus and the Volga, and the subject lands captured the Trans-Volga and South Ural steppes.
The Scandinavian name for Rus' sounds like Gardarika - a country of cities. Arab historians also write about the same thing, numbering Russian cities in the hundreds. At the same time, claiming that in Byzantium there are only five cities, the rest are “fortified fortresses.” In ancient documents, the state of the Slavs is referred to as Scythia and Ruskolan. In his works, Academician B.A. Rybakov, the author of the books “Paganism of the Ancient Slavs” 1981, “Paganism of Ancient Rus'” 1987, and many others, writes that the state of Ruskolan was the bearer of the Chernyakhov archaeological culture and experienced a heyday in the Trojan centuries (I-IV centuries AD. ). To show the level of scientists who studied ancient Slavic history, let us cite who Academician B.A. was. Rybakov.
Boris Aleksandrovich Rybakov headed the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences for 40 years, was director of the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician-secretary of the Department of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, honorary member of the Czechoslovak, Polish and Bulgarian Academies of Sciences, emeritus professor of Moscow University. M. V. Lomonosov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Honorary Doctor of the Krakow Jagiellonian University.
The word “Ruskolan” has the syllable “lan”, which is present in the words “hand”, “valley” and means: space, territory, place, region. Subsequently, the syllable “lan” was transformed into the European land - country. Sergei Lesnoy in his book “Where are you from, Rus'?” says the following: “With regard to the word “Ruskolun”, it should be noted that there is also a variant “Ruskolan”. If the latter option is more correct, then the word can be understood differently: “Russian doe.” Lan - field. The whole expression: “Russian field.” In addition, Lesnoy makes the assumption that there was a word “cleaver”, which probably meant some kind of space. It is also found in other verbal environments. Historians and linguists also believe that the name of the state “Ruskolan” could come from two words “Rus” and “Alan” after the names of the Rus and Alans who lived in a single state.
Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov had the same opinion, who wrote:
“The same tribe of Alans and Roxolans is clear from many places of ancient historians and geographers, and the difference is that Alans are the common name of an entire people, and Roxolans are a word derived from their place of residence, which, not without reason, is derived from the River Ra, as among ancient writers is known as Volga (VolGa).”
The ancient historian and scientist Pliny places the Alans and Roxolans together. Roksolane, by the ancient scientist and geographer Ptolemy, is called Alanorsi by figurative addition. The names Aorsi and Roxane or Rossane from Strabo - “the exact unity of the Rosses and Alans asserts, to which the reliability is increased, that they were both of the Slavic generation, then that the Sarmatians were of the same tribe from ancient writers and are therefore attested to have the same roots with the Varangian-Russians.”
Let us also note that Lomonosov also refers to the Varangians as Russians, which once again shows the fraud of the German professors, who deliberately called the Varangians a stranger, and not a Slavic people. This manipulation and the birth of a legend about the calling of a foreign tribe to reign in Rus' had a political background so that once again the “enlightened” West could point out to the “wild” Slavs their denseness, and that it was thanks to the Europeans that the Slavic state was created. Modern historians, in addition to adherents of the Norman theory, also agree that the Varangians are precisely a Slavic tribe.
Lomonosov writes:
“According to Helmold’s testimony, the Alans were mixed with the Kurlanders, the same tribe of the Varangian-Russians.”
Lomonosov writes - Varangians-Russians, and not Varangians-Scandinavians, or Varangians-Goths. In all documents of the pre-Christian period, the Varangians were classified as Slavs.
Lomonosov further writes:
“The Rugen Slavs were called for short the Ranas, that is, from the Ra (Volga) River, and the Rossans. This will be more clearly demonstrated by their resettlement to the Varangian shores. Weissel from Bohemia suggests that the Amakosovians, Alans, and Wends came from the east to Prussia.”
Lomonosov writes about the Rugen Slavs. It is known that on the island of Rügen in the city of Arkona there was the last Slavic pagan temple, destroyed in 1168. Now there is a Slavic museum there.
Lomonosov writes that it was from the east that Slavic tribes came to Prussia and the island of Rügen and adds:
“Such a resettlement of the Volga Alans, that is, Rossans or Rosses, to the Baltic Sea took place, as can be seen from the evidence given above by the authors, not just once and not in a short time, as is clear from the traces that have remained to this day, with which the names of cities and rivers are honored must"
But let's return to the Slavic state.
The capital of Ruskolani, the city of Kiyar, was located in the Caucasus, in the Elbrus region near the modern villages of Upper Chegem and Bezengi. Sometimes it was also called Kiyar Antsky, named after the Slavic tribe of Ants. The results of the expeditions to the site of the ancient Slavic city will be written at the end. Descriptions of this Slavic city can be found in ancient documents.
“Avesta” in one place talks about the main city of the Scythians in the Caucasus, near one of the highest mountains in the world. And as you know, Elbrus is the highest mountain not only in the Caucasus, but also in Europe in general. “Rigveda” tells about the main city of the Rus, all on the same Elbrus.
Kiyara is mentioned in the Book of Veles. Judging by the text, Kiyar, or the city of Kiya the Old, was founded 1300 years before the fall of Ruskolani (368 AD), i.e. in the 9th century BC.
The ancient Greek geographer Strabo, who lived in the 1st century. BC. - early 1st century AD writes about the Temple of the Sun and the sanctuary of the Golden Fleece in the sacred city of the Russians, in the Elbrus region, on the top of Mount Tuzuluk.
Our contemporaries discovered the foundation of an ancient structure on the mountain. Its height is about 40 meters, and the diameter of the base is 150 meters: the ratio is the same as that of the Egyptian pyramids and other religious buildings of antiquity. There are many obvious and not at all random patterns in the parameters of the mountain and the temple. The observatory-temple was created according to a “standard” design and, like other Cyclopean structures - Stonehenge and Arkaim - was intended for astrological observations.
In the legends of many peoples there is evidence of the construction on the sacred Mount Alatyr (modern name - Elbrus) of this majestic structure, revered by all ancient peoples. There are mentions of it in the national epic of the Greeks, Arabs, and European peoples. According to Zoroastrian legends, this temple was captured by Rus (Rustam) in Usenem (Kavi Useinas) in the second millennium BC. Archaeologists officially note at this time the emergence of the Koban culture in the Caucasus and the appearance of the Scythian-Sarmatian tribes.
The temple of the Sun is also mentioned by the geographer Strabo, placing in it the sanctuary of the Golden Fleece and the oracle of Eetus. There are detailed descriptions of this temple and evidence that astronomical observations were carried out there.
The Sun Temple was a veritable paleoastronomical observatory of antiquity. Priests who had certain knowledge created such observatory temples and studied stellar science. There, not only dates for farming were calculated, but, most importantly, the most important milestones in world and spiritual history were determined.
The Arab historian Al Masudi described the Temple of the Sun on Elbrus as follows: “In the Slavic regions there were buildings revered by them. Among the others they had a building on a mountain, about which philosophers wrote that it was one of the highest mountains in the world. There is a story about this building: about the quality of its construction, about the arrangement of its different stones and their different colors, about the holes made in the upper part of it, about what was built in these holes for observing the sunrise, about the precious stones placed there and the signs marked in it, which indicate future events and warn against incidents before their implementation, about the sounds heard in the upper part of it and about what befalls them when listening to these sounds.”
In addition to the above documents, information about the main ancient Slavic city, the Temple of the Sun and the Slavic state as a whole is in the Elder Edda, in Persian, Scandinavian and ancient Germanic sources, in the Book of Veles. If you believe the legends, near the city of Kiyar (Kiev) there was the sacred Mount Alatyr - archaeologists believe that it was Elbrus. Next to it was the Iriysky, or Garden of Eden, and the Smorodina River, which separated the earthly and afterlife worlds, and connected Yav and Nav (that Light) Kalinov Bridge.
This is how they talk about two wars between the Goths (an ancient Germanic tribe) and the Slavs, the invasion of the Goths into the ancient Slavic state by the Gothic historian of the 4th century Jordan in his book “The History of the Goths” and “The Book of Veles”. In the middle of the 4th century, the Gothic king Germanarech led his people to conquer the world. He was a great commander. According to Jordanes, he was compared to Alexander the Great. The same thing was written about Germanarakh and Lomonosov:
“Ermanaric, the Ostrogothic king, for his courage in conquering many northern peoples, was compared by some to Alexander the Great.”
Judging by the evidence of Jordan, the Elder Edda and the Book of Veles, Germanarekh, after long wars, captured almost all of Eastern Europe. He fought along the Volga to the Caspian Sea, then fought on the Terek River, crossed the Caucasus, then walked along the Black Sea coast and reached Azov.
According to the “Book of Veles,” Germanareh first made peace with the Slavs (“drank wine for friendship”), and only then “came against us with a sword.”
The peace treaty between the Slavs and Goths was sealed by the dynastic marriage of the sister of the Slavic prince-tsar Bus - Lebedi and Germanarech. This was payment for peace, for Hermanarekh was many years old at that time (he died at 110 years old, the marriage was concluded shortly before that). According to Edda, Swan-Sva was wooed by the son of Germanarekh Randver, and he took her to his father. And then Earl Bikki, Germanareh's adviser, told them that it would be better if Randver got the Swan, since both of them were young, and Germanareh was an old man. These words pleased Swan-Sva and Randver, and Jordan adds that Swan-Sva fled from Germanarech. And then Germanareh executed his son and Swan. And this murder was the cause of the Slavic-Gothic War. Having treacherously violated the “peace treaty,” Germanarekh defeated the Slavs in the first battles. But then, when Germanarekh moved into the heart of Ruskolani, the Antes stood in the way of Germanarekh. Germanarekh was defeated. According to Jordan, he was struck in the side by the Rossomons (Ruskolans) - Sar (king) and Ammius (brother). The Slavic prince Bus and his brother Zlatogor inflicted a mortal wound on Germanarech, and he soon died. This is how Jordan, the Book of Veles, and later Lomonosov wrote about it.
“The Book of Veles”: “And Ruskolan was defeated by the Goths of Germanarakh. And he took a wife from our family and killed her. And then our leaders rushed against him and defeated Germanarekh.”
Jordan. “History is ready”: “The unfaithful family of Rosomons (Ruskolan) ... took advantage of the following opportunity... After all, after the king, driven by rage, ordered a certain woman named Sunhilda (Swan) from the named family to be torn apart for treacherously leaving her husband, tied to fierce horses and prompting the horses to run in different directions, her brothers Sar (King Bus) and Ammius (Zlat), avenging the death of their sister, struck Germanarech in the side with a sword.”
M. Lomonosov: “Sonilda, a noble Roksolan woman, Ermanarik ordered to be torn apart by horses because her husband ran away. Her brothers Sar and Ammius, avenging the death of their sister, pierced Yermanarik in the side; died of a wound at one hundred and ten years old"
A few years later, the descendant of Germanarech, Amal Vinitarius, invaded the lands of the Slavic tribe of Antes. In the first battle he was defeated, but then “began to act more decisively,” and the Goths, led by Amal Vinitar, defeated the Slavs. The Slavic prince Busa and 70 other princes were crucified by the Goths on crosses. This happened on the night of March 20-21, 368 AD. On the same night that Bus was crucified, a total lunar eclipse occurred. Also, a monstrous earthquake shook the earth (the entire Black Sea coast shook, there was destruction in Constantinople and Nicaea (ancient historians testify to this. Later, the Slavs gathered strength and defeated the Goths. But the former powerful Slavic state was no longer restored.
“The Book of Veles”: “And then Rus' was defeated again. And Busa and seventy other princes were crucified on crosses. And there was great turmoil in Rus' from Amal Vend. And then Sloven gathered Rus' and led it. And that time the Goths were defeated. And we did not allow the Sting to flow anywhere. And everything worked out. And our grandfather Dazhbog rejoiced and greeted the warriors - many of our fathers who won victories. And there were no troubles and many worries, and so the Gothic land became ours. And so it will remain until the end"
Jordan. “History of the Goths”: Amal Vinitarius... moved the army into the territory of the Antes. And when he came to them, he was defeated in the first skirmish, then he behaved more bravely and crucified their king named Boz with his sons and 70 noble people, so that the corpses of the hanged would double the fear of the conquered.”
Bulgarian chronicle “Baraj Tarikha”: “Once in the land of the Anchians, the Galidzians (Galicians) attacked Bus and killed him along with all 70 princes.”
The Slavic prince Busa and 70 Gothic princes were crucified in the eastern Carpathians at the sources of the Seret and Prut, on the current border of Wallachia and Transylvania. In those days, these lands belonged to Ruskolani, or Scythia. Much later, under the famous Vlad Dracula, it was at the site of Bus’s crucifixion that mass executions and crucifixions were held. The bodies of Bus and the rest of the princes were removed from the crosses on Friday and taken to the Elbrus region, to Etaka (a tributary of the Podkumka). According to Caucasian legend, the body of Bus and other princes was brought by eight pairs of oxen. Bus's wife ordered a mound to be built over their grave on the banks of the Etoko River (a tributary of Podkumka) and in order to perpetuate the memory of Bus, she ordered the Altud River to be renamed Baksan (Busa River).
Caucasian legend says:
“Baksan (Bus) was killed by the Gothic king with all his brothers and eighty noble Narts. Hearing this, the people gave in to despair: the men beat their chests, and the women tore out the hair on their heads, saying: “Dauov’s eight sons are killed, killed!”
Anyone who has carefully read “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” remembers that it mentions the long-gone Time of Busovo.
The year 368, the year of the crucifixion of Prince Bus, has an astrological meaning. According to Slavic astrology, this is a milestone. On the night of March 20-21, turn 368, the era of Aries ended and the era of Pisces began.
It was after the story of the crucifixion of Prince Bus, which became known in ancient world and the plot of the crucifixion of Christ appeared (was stolen) in Christianity.
The canonical Gospels nowhere say that Christ was crucified on the cross. Instead of the word “cross” (kryst), the word “stavros” is used there, which means pillar, and it does not talk about crucifixion, but about pillaring. That is why there are no early Christian images of the crucifixion.
The Christian Acts of the Apostles 10:39 says that Christ was “hanged on a tree.” The plot with the crucifixion first appeared only 400 years later!!! years after the execution of Christ, translated from Greek. The question arises: why, if Christ was crucified and not hanged, did Christians write in their holy books for four hundred years that Christ was hanged? Somehow illogical! It was the Slavic-Scythian tradition that influenced the distortion of the original texts during translation, and then the iconography (for there are no early Christian images of crucifixions).
The meaning of the original Greek text was well known in Greece itself (Byzantium), but after the corresponding reforms were carried out in the modern Greek language, unlike the previous custom, the word “stavros” took on, in addition to the meaning of “pillar,” also the meaning of “cross.”
In addition to the direct source of execution - the canonical Gospels, others are also known. In the Jewish tradition, which is closest to the Christian one, the tradition of the hanging of Jesus is also affirmed. There is a Jewish “Tale of the Hanged Man” written in the first centuries of our era, which describes in detail the execution of Jesus by hanging. And in the Talmud there are two stories about the execution of Christ. According to the first, Jesus was stoned, not in Jerusalem, but in Lud. According to the second story, because Jesus was of royal descent, and stoning was also replaced by hanging. And this was the official version of Christians for 400 years!!!
Even throughout the Muslim world it is generally accepted that Christ was not crucified, but hanged. In the Koran, based on early Christian traditions, Christians are cursed who claim that Jesus was not hanged, but crucified, and who claim that Jesus was Allah (God) himself, and not a prophet and the Messiah, and also denies the crucifixion itself. Therefore, Muslims, while respecting Jesus, do not reject either the Ascension or the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ, but they reject the symbol of the cross, since they rely on early Christian texts that speak of hanging, not crucifixion.
Moreover, the natural phenomena described in the Bible simply could not have occurred in Jerusalem on the day of Christ’s crucifixion.
The Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew say that Christ suffered passionate torment on the spring full moon from Holy Thursday to Good Friday, and that there was an eclipse from the sixth to the ninth hour. The event, which they call an “eclipse,” occurred at a time when, for objective astronomical reasons, it simply could not have happened. Christ was executed during the Jewish Passover, and it always falls on a full moon.
Firstly, there are no solar eclipses during a full moon. During a full moon, the Moon and the Sun are on opposite sides of the Earth, so the Moon cannot block the Earth's sunlight.
Secondly, solar eclipses, unlike lunar eclipses, do not last three hours, as is written about in the Bible. Maybe the Judeo-Christians meant a lunar eclipse, but the whole world did not understand them?...
But solar and lunar eclipses are very easy to calculate. Any astronomer will say that in the year of Christ’s execution and even in the years close to this event there were no lunar eclipses.
The nearest eclipse accurately indicates only one date - the night of March 20-21, 368 AD. This is an absolutely accurate astronomical calculation. Namely, on this night from Thursday to Friday, March 20/21, 368, Prince Bus and 70 other princes were crucified by the Goths. On the night of March 20-21, a total lunar eclipse occurred, which lasted from midnight until three o'clock on March 21, 368. This date was calculated by astronomers, including the director of the Pulkovo Observatory N. Morozov.
Why did Christians write from move 33 that Christ was hanged, and after move 368 they rewrote the “holy” scripture and began to claim that Christ was crucified? Obviously, the plot with the crucifixion seemed more interesting to them and they once again engaged in religious plagiarism - i.e. simply theft... This is where the information in the Bible came from that Christ was crucified, that he suffered torment from Thursday to Friday, that there was an eclipse. Having stolen the plot with the crucifixion, the Jewish Christians decided to provide the Bible with details of the execution of the Slavic prince, without thinking that people in the future would pay attention to the described natural phenomena, which could not have happened in the year of Christ’s execution in the place in which he was executed.
And this is far from the only example of theft of materials by Jewish Christians. Speaking about the Slavs, I remember the myth of Arius’s father, who received a covenant from Dazhbog on Alatyr Mountain (Elbrus), and in the Bible, Arius and Alatyr miraculously turned into Moses and Sinai...
Or the Judeo-Christian baptismal rite. The Christian rite of baptism is one third of the Slavic pagan rite, which included: naming, fire baptism and water bath. In Judeo-Christianity, only the water bath remained.
We can recall examples from other traditions. Mithra - born on December 25th!!! 600 years before the birth of Jesus!!! December 25th - to the day 600 years later, Jesus was born. Mithra was born of a virgin in a stable, a star rose, the Magi came!!! Everything is the same as with Christ, only 600 years earlier. The cult of Mithras included: baptism with water, holy water, belief in immortality, belief in Mithras as a savior god, the concepts of Heaven and Hell. Mithra died and was resurrected in order to become a mediator between God the Father and man! Plagiarism (theft) of Christians is 100%.
More examples. Immaculately conceived: Gautama Buddha - India 600 BC; Indra - Tibet 700 BC; Dionysus - Greece; Quirinus - Roman; Adonis - Babylon all in the period from 400-200 BC; Krishna - India 1200 BC; Zarathustra - 1500 BC. In a word, whoever read the originals knows where the Jewish Christians got the materials for their writings.
So modern neo-Christians, who are trying in vain to find some kind of mythical Russian roots in the native Jew Yeshua - Jesus and his mother, need to stop doing nonsense and start worshiping Bus, nicknamed - the Cross, i.e. The Bus of the Cross, or what would be completely clear to them - the Bus of Christ. After all, this is the real Hero from whom the Judeo-Christians based their New Testament, and the one they invented - the Judeo-Christian Jesus Christ - turns out to be some kind of charlatan and rogue, to say the least... After all, the New Testament is just a romantic comedy in the spirit of Jewish fiction, supposedly written by the so-called. “Apostle” Paul (in the world - Saul), and even then, it turns out, it was not written by him himself, but by unknown/!?/ disciples of disciples. Well, they had fun though...
But let's return to the Slavic chronicle. The discovery of an ancient Slavic city in the Caucasus no longer looks so surprising. In recent decades, several ancient Slavic cities have been discovered in Russia and Ukraine.
The most famous today is the famous Arkaim, whose age is more than 5000 thousand years.
In 1987, in the Southern Urals in the Chelyabinsk region, during the construction of a hydroelectric power station, a fortified settlement of the early urban type, dating back to the Bronze Age, was discovered. to the times of the ancient Aryans. Arkaim is five hundred to six hundred years older than the famous Troy, even older than the Egyptian pyramids.
The discovered settlement is an observatory city. During its study, it was established that the monument was a city fortified by two wall circles inscribed within each other, ramparts and ditches. The dwellings in it were trapezoidal in shape, closely adjacent to each other and located in a circle in such a way that the wide end wall of each dwelling was part of the defensive wall. Every home has a bronze casting stove! But according to traditional academic knowledge, bronze came to Greece only in the second millennium BC. Later, the settlement turned out to be an integral part of the ancient Aryan civilization - the “Country of Cities” of the Southern Trans-Urals. Scientists have discovered a whole complex of monuments belonging to this amazing culture.
Despite their small size, fortified centers can be called proto-cities. The use of the concept “city” to fortified settlements of the Arkaim-Sintashta type is, of course, conditional. However, they cannot be called simply settlements, since the Arkaim “cities” are distinguished by powerful defensive structures, monumental architecture, and complex communication systems. The entire territory of the fortified center is extremely rich in planning details; it is very compact and carefully thought out. From the point of view of the organization of space, what we have in front of us is not even a city, but a kind of super-city.
The fortified centers of the Southern Urals are five to six centuries older than Homeric Troy. They are contemporaries of the first dynasty of Babylon, the pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and the Cretan-Mycenaean culture of the Mediterranean. The time of their existence corresponds to the last centuries of the famous civilization of India - Mahenjo-Daro and Harappa.
In Ukraine, in Tripoli, the remains of a city were discovered, the same age as Arkaim, more than five thousand years. It is five hundred years older than the civilization of Mesopotamia - Sumerian!
At the end of the 90s, not far from Rostov-on-Don in the town of Tanais, settlement cities were found, the age of which even scientists find it difficult to name... The age varies from ten to thirty thousand years. The traveler of the last century, Thor Heyerdahl, believed that from there, from Tanais, the entire pantheon of Scandinavian Gods, led by Odin, came to Scandinavia.
On the Kola Peninsula, slabs with inscriptions in Sanskrit that are 20,000 years old have been found. And only Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, as well as the Baltic languages coincide with Sanskrit. Draw conclusions.
The results of the expedition to the site of the capital of the ancient Slavic city of Kiyara in the Elbrus region.
Five expeditions were carried out: in 1851,1881,1914, 2001 and 2002.
In 2001, the expedition was headed by A. Alekseev, and in 2002 the expedition was carried out under the patronage of the State Astronomical Institute named after Shtenberg (SAI), which was supervised by the director of the institute, Anatoly Mikhailovich Cherepashchuk.
Based on the data obtained as a result of topographic and geodetic studies of the area, recording astronomical events, the expedition members made preliminary conclusions that are fully consistent with the results of the 2001 expedition, based on the results of which, in March 2002, a report was made at a meeting of the Astronomical Society at the State Astronomical Institute Institute in the presence of employees of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, members of the International Astronomical Society and the State Historical Museum.
A report was also made at a conference on the problems of early civilizations in St. Petersburg.
What exactly did the researchers find?
Near Mount Karakaya, in the Rocky Range at an altitude of 3,646 meters above sea level between the villages of Upper Chegem and Bezengi on the eastern side of Elbrus, traces of the capital of Ruskolani, the city of Kiyar, were found, which existed long before the birth of Christ, which is mentioned in many legends and epics of different peoples of the world, as well as the oldest astronomical observatory - the Temple of the Sun, described by the ancient historian Al Masudi in his books precisely as the Temple of the Sun.
The location of the found city exactly coincides with the instructions from ancient sources, and later the location of the city was confirmed by the 17th century Turkish traveler Evliya Celebi.
The remains of an ancient temple, caves and graves were discovered on Mount Karakaya. An incredible number of ancient settlements and temple ruins have been discovered, many of which are quite well preserved. In the valley near the foot of Mount Karakaya, on the Bechesyn plateau, menhirs were found - tall man-made stones similar to wooden pagan idols.
On one of the stone pillars the face of a knight is carved, looking straight to the east. And behind the menhir you can see a bell-shaped hill. This is Tuzuluk (“Treasury of the Sun”). At its top you can actually see the ruins of the ancient sanctuary of the Sun. At the top of the hill there is a tour marking the highest point. Then three large rocks, hand-cut. Once upon a time, a slit was cut in them, directed from north to south. Stones were also found laid out like sectors in the zodiac calendar. Each sector is exactly 30 degrees.
Each part of the temple complex was intended for calendar and astrological calculations. In this, it is similar to the South Ural city-temple of Arkaim, which has the same zodiac structure, the same division into 12 sectors. It is also similar to Stonehenge in Great Britain. It is similar to Stonehenge, firstly, by the fact that the axis of the temple is also oriented from north to south, and secondly, one of the most important distinguishing features of Stonehenge is the presence of the so-called “Heel Stone” at a distance from the sanctuary. But there is also a menhir landmark at the Sun Sanctuary on Tuzuluk.
There is evidence that at the turn of our era the temple was plundered by the Bosporan king Pharnaces. The temple was finally destroyed in IV AD. Goths and Huns. Even the dimensions of the temple are known; 60 cubits (about 20 meters) in length, 20 (6-8 meters) in width and 15 (up to 10 meters) in height, as well as the number of windows and doors - 12 according to the number of Zodiac signs.
As a result of the work of the first expedition, there is every reason to believe that the stones on the top of Mount Tuzluk served as the foundation of the Sun Temple. Mount Tuzluk is a regular grassy cone about 40 meters high. The slopes rise to the top at an angle of 45 degrees, which actually corresponds to the latitude of the place, and, therefore, looking along it you can see the North Star. The axis of the temple foundation is 30 degrees with the direction to the Eastern peak of Elbrus. The same 30 degrees is the distance between the axis of the temple and the direction to the menhir, and the direction to the menhir and the Shaukam pass. Considering that 30 degrees - 1/12 of a circle - corresponds to a calendar month, this is not a coincidence. The azimuths of sunrise and sunset on the days of the summer and winter solstice differ by only 1.5 degrees from the directions to the peaks of Kanjal, the “gate” of two hills in the depths of pastures, Mount Dzhaurgen and Mount Tashly-Syrt. There is an assumption that the menhir served as a heel stone in the Temple of the Sun, similar to Stonehenge, and helped predict solar and lunar eclipses. Thus, Mount Tuzluk is tied to four natural landmarks along the Sun and is tied to the Eastern peak of Elbrus. The height of the mountain is only about 40 meters, the diameter of the base is about 150 meters. These are dimensions comparable to the dimensions of the Egyptian pyramids and other religious buildings.
In addition, two square tower-shaped aurochs were discovered at the Kayaeshik pass. One of them lies strictly on the axis of the temple. Here, on the pass, are the foundations of buildings and ramparts.
In addition, in the central part of the Caucasus, at the northern foot of Elbrus, in the late 70s and early 80s of the 20th century, an ancient center of metallurgical production, the remains of smelting furnaces, settlements, and burial grounds were discovered.
Summarizing the results of the work of the expeditions of the 1980s and 2001, which discovered the concentration within a radius of several kilometers of traces of ancient metallurgy, deposits of coal, silver, iron, as well as astronomical, religious and other archaeological objects, we can confidently assume the discovery of one of the most ancient cultural and administrative centers of the Slavs in the Elbrus region.
During expeditions in 1851 and 1914, archaeologist P.G. Akritas examined the ruins of the Scythian Temple of the Sun on the eastern slopes of Beshtau. The results of further archaeological excavations of this sanctuary were published in 1914 in the “Notes of the Rostov-on-Don Historical Society.” There, a huge stone “in the shape of a Scythian cap” was described, installed on three abutments, as well as a domed grotto.
And the beginning of major excavations in Pyatigorye (Kavminvody) was laid by the famous pre-revolutionary archaeologist D.Ya. Samokvasov, who described 44 mounds in the vicinity of Pyatigorsk in 1881. Subsequently, after the revolution, only some mounds were examined; only initial exploration work was carried out on the sites by archaeologists E.I. Krupnov, V.A. Kuznetsov, G.E. Runich, E.P. Alekseeva, S.Ya. Baychorov, Kh.Kh. Bidzhiev and others.
During the VI-IX centuries. among the Eastern Slavs there was a process of class formation and the creation of the preconditions for feudalism. The territory where ancient Russian statehood began to take shape was located at the intersection of routes along which the migration of peoples and tribes took place, and nomadic routes ran. The South Russian steppes were the scene of endless struggle among moving tribes and peoples. Often Slavic tribes attacked the border regions of the Byzantine Empire.
In the 7th century In the steppes between the Lower Volga, Don and North Caucasus, a Khazar state was formed. The Slavic tribes in the regions of the Lower Don and Azov came under his rule, retaining, however, a certain autonomy. The territory of the Khazar kingdom extended to the Dnieper and the Black Sea. At the beginning of the 8th century. The Arabs inflicted a crushing defeat on the Khazars, and through the North Caucasus they deeply invaded the north, reaching the Don. A large number of Slavs - allies of the Khazars - were captured.
The Varangians (Normans, Vikings) penetrate into Russian lands from the north. At the beginning of the 8th century. they settled around Yaroslavl, Rostov and Suzdal, establishing control over the territory from Novgorod to Smolensk. Some of the northern colonists penetrated into southern Russia, where they mixed with the Rus, adopting their name. The capital of the Russian-Varangian Kaganate, which ousted the Khazar rulers, was formed in Tmutarakan. In their struggle, the opponents turned to the Emperor of Constantinople for an alliance.
In such a complex environment, the consolidation of Slavic tribes into political unions took place, which became the embryo of the formation of a unified East Slavic statehood.
In the 9th century. As a result of the centuries-long development of East Slavic society, the early feudal state of Rus' was formed with its center in Kyiv. Gradually, all the East Slavic tribes united in Kievan Rus.
The topic of the history of Kievan Rus considered in the work seems not only interesting, but also very relevant. Recent years have been marked by changes in many areas of Russian life. The lifestyle of many people has changed, the system of life values has changed. Knowledge of the history of Russia, the spiritual traditions of the Russian people, is very important for increasing the national self-awareness of Russians. A sign of the revival of the nation is the ever-increasing interest in the historical past of the Russian people, in their spiritual values.
FORMATION OF THE ANCIENT RUSSIAN STATE IN THE 9th century
The time from the 6th to the 9th centuries is still the last stage of the primitive communal system, the time of the formation of classes and the imperceptible, at first glance, but steady growth of the preconditions of feudalism. The most valuable monument containing information about the beginning of the Russian state is the chronicle “The Tale of Bygone Years, where the Russian land came from, and who began to reign first in Kiev and where the Russian land came from,” compiled by the Kiev monk Nestor around 1113.
Having begun his story, like all medieval historians, with the Flood, Nestor talks about the settlement of Western and Eastern Slavs in Europe in ancient times. He divides the East Slavic tribes into two groups, the level of development of which, according to his description, was not the same. Some of them lived, as he put it, in a “beastly manner,” preserving the features of the tribal system: blood feud, remnants of matriarchy, the absence of marriage prohibitions, “kidnapping” (kidnapping) of wives, etc. Nestor contrasts these tribes with the glades, in whose land Kiev was built. The Polyans are “sensible men”; they have already established a patriarchal monogamous family and, obviously, have overcome blood feud (they are “distinguished by their meek and quiet disposition”).
Next, Nestor talks about how the city of Kyiv was created. Prince Kiy, who reigned there, according to Nestor’s story, came to Constantinople to visit the Emperor of Byzantium, who received him with great honors. Returning from Constantinople, Kiy built a city on the banks of the Danube, intending to settle here for a long time. But the local residents were hostile to him, and Kiy returned to the banks of the Dnieper.
Nestor considered the formation of the principality of Polans in the Middle Dnieper region to be the first historical event on the path to the creation of the Old Russian states. The legend about Kiy and his two brothers spread far to the south, and was even brought to Armenia.
Byzantine writers of the 6th century paint the same picture. During the reign of Justinian, huge masses of Slavs advanced to the northern borders of the Byzantine Empire. Byzantine historians colorfully describe the invasion of the empire by Slavic troops, who took away prisoners and rich booty, and the settlement of the empire by Slavic colonists. The appearance of the Slavs, who dominated communal relations, on the territory of Byzantium contributed to the eradication of slave-owning orders here and the development of Byzantium along the path from the slave-owning system to feudalism.
The successes of the Slavs in the fight against the powerful Byzantium indicate a relatively high level of development of Slavic society for that time: the material prerequisites had already appeared for equipping significant military expeditions, and the system of military democracy made it possible to unite large masses of Slavs. Long-distance campaigns contributed to the strengthening of the power of the princes in the indigenous Slavic lands, where tribal principalities were created.
Archaeological data fully confirms the words of Nestor that the core of the future Kievan Rus began to take shape on the banks of the Dnieper when the Slavic princes made campaigns in Byzantium and the Danube, in the times preceding the attacks of the Khazars (7th century).
The creation of a significant tribal union in the southern forest-steppe regions facilitated the advance of Slavic colonists not only in the southwest (to the Balkans), but also in the southeast direction. True, the steppes were occupied by various nomads: Bulgarians, Avars, Khazars, but the Slavs of the Middle Dnieper region (Russian land) were obviously able to protect their possessions from their invasions and penetrate deep into the fertile black earth steppes. In the VII-IX centuries. The Slavs also lived in the eastern part of the Khazar lands, somewhere in the Azov region, participated together with the Khazars in military campaigns, and were hired to serve the Kagan (Khazar ruler). In the south, the Slavs apparently lived in islands among other tribes, gradually assimilating them, but at the same time absorbing elements of their culture.
During the VI-IX centuries. Productive forces grew, tribal institutions changed, and the process of class formation began. As the most important phenomena in the life of the Eastern Slavs during the VI-IX centuries. The development of arable farming and the development of crafts should be noted; the collapse of the clan community as a labor collective and the separation from it of individual peasant farms, forming a neighboring community; the growth of private land ownership and the formation of classes; the transformation of the tribal army with its defensive functions into a squad that dominates its fellow tribesmen; seizure by princes and nobles of tribal land into personal hereditary property.
By the 9th century. Everywhere in the territory of settlement of the Eastern Slavs, a significant area of arable land cleared from forest was formed, indicating the further development of productive forces under feudalism. An association of small clan communities, characterized by a certain unity of culture, was the ancient Slavic tribe. Each of these tribes assembled a national assembly (veche). The power of the tribal princes gradually increased. The development of intertribal ties, defensive and offensive alliances, the organization of joint campaigns and, finally, the subjugation of their weaker neighbors by strong tribes - all this led to the consolidation of tribes, to their unification into larger groups.
Describing the time when the transition from tribal relations to the state took place, Nestor notes that various East Slavic regions had “their own reigns.” This is confirmed by archaeological data.
The formation of an early feudal state, which gradually subjugated all the East Slavic tribes, became possible only when the differences between the south and the north in terms of agricultural conditions were somewhat smoothed out, when in the north there was a sufficient amount of plowed land and the need for hard collective labor in cutting and forest uprooting has decreased significantly. As a result, the peasant family emerged as a new production team from the patriarchal community.
The decomposition of the primitive communal system among the Eastern Slavs occurred at a time when the slave system had already outlived its usefulness on a world-historical scale. In the process of class formation, Rus' came to feudalism, bypassing the slave-owning formation.
In the 9th-10th centuries. antagonistic classes of feudal society are formed. The number of vigilantes is increasing everywhere, their differentiation is increasing, and the nobility - the boyars and princes - are being separated from their midst.
An important question in the history of the emergence of feudalism is the question of the time of the appearance of cities in Rus'. In the conditions of the tribal system, there were certain centers where tribal councils met, a prince was chosen, trade was carried out, fortune telling was carried out, court cases were decided, sacrifices were made to the gods and the most important dates of the year were celebrated. Sometimes such a center became the focus of the most important types of production. Most of these ancient centers later turned into medieval cities.
In the 9th-10th centuries. feudal lords created a number of new cities that served both the purposes of defense against nomads and the purposes of domination over the enslaved population. Craft production was also concentrated in cities. The old name “grad”, “city”, denoting a fortification, began to be applied to a real feudal city with a detinets-kremlin (fortress) in the center and an extensive craft and trading area.
Despite the gradual and slow process of feudalization, one can still indicate a certain line, starting from which there is reason to talk about feudal relations in Rus'. This line is the 9th century, when the Eastern Slavs had already formed a feudal state.
The lands of the East Slavic tribes united into a single state received the name Rus. The arguments of “Norman” historians who tried to declare the Normans, who were then called Varangians in Rus', the creators of the Old Russian state, are unconvincing. These historians stated that the chronicles meant the Varangians by Rus. But as has already been shown, the prerequisites for the formation of states among the Slavs developed over many centuries and by the 9th century. gave noticeable results not only in the West Slavic lands, where the Normans never penetrated and where the Great Moravian state arose, but also in the East Slavic lands (in Kievan Rus), where the Normans appeared, robbed, destroyed representatives of local princely dynasties and sometimes became princes themselves. It is obvious that the Normans could neither promote nor seriously hinder the process of feudalization. The name Rus' began to be used in sources in relation to part of the Slavs 300 years before the appearance of the Varangians.
The first mention of the Ros people was found in the middle of the 6th century, when information about them had already reached Syria. The glades, called, according to the chronicler, Russia, become the basis of the future ancient Russian nation, and their land - the core of the territory of the future state - Kievan Rus.
Among the news belonging to Nestor, one passage has survived, which describes Rus' before the Varangians appeared there. “These are the Slavic regions,” writes Nestor, “that are part of Rus' - the Polyans, the Drevlyans, the Dregovichi, the Polochans, the Novgorod Slovenes, the Northerners...”2. This list includes only half of the East Slavic regions. Consequently, Rus' at that time did not yet include the Krivichi, Radimichi, Vyatichi, Croats, Ulichs and Tivertsy. At the center of the new state formation was the Polyan tribe. The Old Russian state became a kind of federation of tribes; in its form it was an early feudal monarchy
ANCIENT Rus' OF THE END OF THE IX – BEGINNING OF THE 12TH CENTURY.
In the second half of the 9th century. Novgorod prince Oleg united power over Kiev and Novgorod in his hands. The chronicle dates this event to 882. The formation of the early feudal Old Russian state (Kievan Rus) as a result of the emergence of antagonistic classes was a turning point in the history of the Eastern Slavs.
The process of uniting the East Slavic lands as part of the Old Russian state was complex. In a number of lands, the Kyiv princes encountered serious resistance from local feudal and tribal princes and their “husbands.” This resistance was suppressed by force of arms. During the reign of Oleg (late 9th - early 10th centuries), a constant tribute was already levied from Novgorod and from the lands of the North Russian (Novgorod or Ilmen Slavs), Western Russian (Krivichi) and North-Eastern lands. The Kiev prince Igor (beginning of the 10th century), as a result of a stubborn struggle, subjugated the lands of the Ulitches and Tiverts. Thus, the border of Kievan Rus was advanced beyond the Dniester. A long struggle continued with the population of the Drevlyansky land. Igor increased the amount of tribute collected from the Drevlyans. During one of Igor’s campaigns in the Drevlyan land, when he decided to collect a double tribute, the Drevlyans defeated the princely squad and killed Igor. During the reign of Olga (945-969), Igor's wife, the land of the Drevlyans was finally subordinated to Kyiv.
The territorial growth and strengthening of Rus' continued under Svyatoslav Igorevich (969-972) and Vladimir Svyatoslavich (980-1015). The Old Russian state included the lands of the Vyatichi. The power of Rus' extended to the North Caucasus. The territory of the Old Russian state expanded in a western direction, including the Cherven cities and Carpathian Rus'.
With the formation of the early feudal state, more favorable conditions were created for maintaining the security of the country and its economic growth. But the strengthening of this state was associated with the development of feudal property and the further enslavement of the previously free peasantry.
The supreme power in the Old Russian state belonged to the Grand Duke of Kyiv. At the princely court there lived a squad, divided into “senior” and “junior”. The boyars from the prince's military comrades turn into landowners, his vassals, patrimonial fiefs. In the XI-XII centuries. the boyars are formalized as a special class and their legal status is consolidated. Vassalage is formed as a system of relations with the prince-suzerain; its characteristic features are the specialization of the vassal service, the contractual nature of the relationship and the economic independence of the vassal4.
Princely warriors took part in government. Thus, Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich, together with the boyars, discussed the issue of introducing Christianity, measures to combat “robberies” and decided on other matters. Certain parts of Rus' were ruled by their own princes. But the Grand Duke of Kiev sought to replace the local rulers with his proteges.
The state helped strengthen the rule of feudal lords in Rus'. The apparatus of power ensured the flow of tribute, collected in money and in kind. The working population also performed a number of other duties - military, underwater, participated in the construction of fortresses, roads, bridges, etc. Individual princely warriors received control over entire regions with the right to collect tribute.
In the middle of the 10th century. under Princess Olga, the size of duties (tributes and quitrents) was determined and temporary and permanent camps and graveyards were established in which tribute was collected.
The norms of customary law have developed among the Slavs since ancient times. With the emergence and development of class society and the state, along with customary law and gradually replacing it, written laws appeared and developed to protect the interests of the feudal lords. Already in Oleg’s treaty with Byzantium (911) the “Russian law” was mentioned. The collection of written laws is “Russian Truth”, the so-called “Short Edition” (late 11th - early 12th centuries). In its composition, the “Most Ancient Truth” was preserved, apparently written down at the beginning of the 11th century, but reflecting some norms of customary law. It also talks about the remnants of primitive communal relations, for example, about blood feud. The law considers cases of replacing revenge with a fine in favor of the relatives of the victim (later in favor of the state).
The armed forces of the Old Russian state consisted of the squad of the Grand Duke, the squads that were brought by the princes and boyars subordinate to him, and the people's militia (warriors). The number of troops with which the princes went on campaigns sometimes reached 60-80 thousand. Foot militia continued to play an important role in the armed forces. Detachments of mercenaries were also used in Rus' - nomads of the steppes (Pechenegs), as well as Cumans, Hungarians, Lithuanians, Czechs, Poles, and Norman Varangians, but their role in the armed forces was insignificant. The Old Russian fleet consisted of ships hollowed out of trees and lined with boards along the sides. Russian ships sailed in the Black, Azov, Caspian and Baltic seas.
The foreign policy of the Old Russian state expressed the interests of the growing class of feudal lords, who expanded their possessions, political influence and trade relations. Striving to conquer individual East Slavic lands, the Kyiv princes came into conflict with the Khazars. Advancement to the Danube, the desire to seize the trade route along the Black Sea and the Crimean coast led to the struggle of the Russian princes with Byzantium, which tried to limit the influence of Rus' in the Black Sea region. In 907, Prince Oleg organized a campaign by sea against Constantinople. The Byzantines were forced to ask the Russians to conclude peace and pay an indemnity. According to the peace treaty of 911. Rus' received the right to duty-free trade in Constantinople.
The Kyiv princes also undertook campaigns to more distant lands - beyond the Caucasus ridge, to the western and southern coasts of the Caspian Sea (campaigns of 880, 909, 910, 913-914). The expansion of the territory of the Kyiv state began to be especially active during the reign of Princess Olga's son, Svyatoslav (Svyatoslav's campaigns - 964-972). He dealt the first blow to the Khazar empire. Their main cities on the Don and Volga were captured. Svyatoslav even planned to settle in this region, becoming the successor to the empire he destroyed6.
Then the Russian squads marched to the Danube, where they captured the city of Pereyaslavets (previously owned by the Bulgarians), which Svyatoslav decided to make his capital. Such political ambitions show that the Kyiv princes had not yet connected the idea of the political center of their empire with Kiev.
The danger that came from the East - the invasion of the Pechenegs, forced the Kyiv princes to pay more attention internal structure own state.
ADOPTION OF CHRISTIANITY IN Rus'
At the end of the 10th century. Christianity was officially introduced in Rus'. The development of feudal relations prepared the way for the replacement of pagan cults with a new religion.
The Eastern Slavs deified the forces of nature. Among the gods they revered, the first place was occupied by Perun, the god of thunder and lightning. Dazhd-bog was the god of the sun and fertility, Stribog was the god of thunderstorms and bad weather. Volos was considered the god of wealth and trade, and the blacksmith god Svarog was considered the creator of all human culture.
Christianity began to penetrate early into Rus' among the nobility. Back in the 9th century. Patriarch Photius of Constantinople noted that Rus' changed “pagan superstition” to “Christian faith”7. Christians were among Igor's warriors. Princess Olga converted to Christianity.
Vladimir Svyatoslavich, having been baptized in 988 and appreciating the political role of Christianity, decided to make it the state religion in Rus'. Russia's adoption of Christianity occurred in a difficult foreign policy situation. In the 80s of the 10th century. The Byzantine government turned to the prince of Kyiv with a request for military assistance to suppress uprisings in the lands under its control. In response, Vladimir demanded an alliance with Russia from Byzantium, offering to seal it with his marriage to Anna, the sister of Emperor Vasily II. The Byzantine government was forced to agree to this. After the marriage of Vladimir and Anna, Christianity was officially recognized as the religion of the Old Russian state.
Church institutions in Rus' received large land grants and tithes from state revenues. Throughout the 11th century. bishoprics were founded in Yuryev and Belgorod (in the Kyiv land), Novgorod, Rostov, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl-Yuzhny, Vladimir-Volynsky, Polotsk and Turov. Several large monasteries arose in Kyiv.
The people met the new faith and its ministers with hostility. Christianity was imposed by force, and the Christianization of the country dragged on for several centuries. Pre-Christian (“pagan”) cults continued to live among the people for a long time.
The introduction of Christianity was a progress compared to paganism. Together with Christianity, the Russians received some elements of a higher Byzantine culture and, like other European peoples, joined the heritage of antiquity. The introduction of a new religion increased the international significance of ancient Rus'.
DEVELOPMENT OF FEUDAL RELATIONS IN Rus'
Time from the end of the X to the beginning of the XII century. is an important stage in the development of feudal relations in Rus'. This time is characterized by the gradual victory of the feudal mode of production over a large territory of the country.
Sustainable field farming dominated Russian agriculture. Cattle breeding developed more slowly than agriculture. Despite the relative increase in agricultural production, harvests were low. Frequent phenomena were shortages and hunger, which undermined the Kresgyap economy and contributed to the enslavement of the peasants. Hunting, fishing, and beekeeping remained of great importance in the economy. The furs of squirrels, martens, otters, beavers, sables, foxes, as well as honey and wax went to the foreign market. The best hunting and fishing areas, forests and lands were seized by the feudal lords.
In the XI and early XII centuries. part of the land was exploited by the state by collecting tribute from the population, part of the land area was in the hands of individual feudal lords as estates that could be inherited (they later became known as estates), and estates received from princes for temporary conditional holding.
The ruling class of feudal lords was formed from local princes and boyars, who became dependent on Kiev, and from the husbands (combatants) of the Kiev princes, who received control, holding or patrimony of the lands “tortured” by them and the princes. The Kyiv Grand Dukes themselves had large land holdings. The distribution of land by princes to warriors, strengthening feudal production relations, was at the same time one of the means used by the state to subjugate the local population to its power.
Land ownership was protected by law. The growth of boyar and church land ownership was closely related to the development of immunity. The land, which was previously peasant property, became the property of the feudal lord “with tribute, virami and sales,” that is, with the right to collect taxes and court fines from the population for murder and other crimes, and, consequently, with the right of trial.
With the transfer of lands into the ownership of individual feudal lords, peasants in different ways became dependent on them. Some peasants, deprived of the means of production, were enslaved by landowners, taking advantage of their need for tools, equipment, seeds, etc. Other peasants, sitting on land subject to tribute, who owned their own tools of production, were forced by the state to transfer the land under the patrimonial power of the feudal lords. As the estates expanded and the smerds became enslaved, the term servants, which previously meant slaves, began to apply to the entire mass of the peasantry dependent on the landowner.
Peasants who fell into bondage to the feudal lord, legally formalized by a special agreement - nearby, were called purchases. They received from the landowner a plot of land and a loan, which they worked on on the feudal lord's farm with the master's equipment. For escaping from the master, the zakuns turned into serfs - slaves deprived of all rights. Labor rent - corvée, field and castle (construction of fortifications, bridges, roads, etc.), was combined with nagural quitrent.
The forms of social protest of the popular masses against the feudal system were varied: from flight from their owner to armed “robbery”, from violating the boundaries of feudal estates, setting fire to the trees belonging to the princes to open uprising. The peasants fought against the feudal lords with weapons in their hands. Under Vladimir Svyatoslavich, “robberies” (as armed uprisings of peasants were often called at that time) became a common phenomenon. In 996, Vladimir, on the advice of the clergy, decided to apply the death penalty against “robbers”, but then, having strengthened the apparatus of power and, needing new sources of income to support the squad, he replaced the execution with a fine - vira. The princes paid even more attention to the fight against popular movements in the 11th century.
At the beginning of the 12th century. further development of the craft took place. In the village, under the conditions of state dominance of the natural economy, the production of clothing, shoes, utensils, agricultural implements, etc. was home production, not yet separated from agriculture. With the development of the feudal system, some of the community artisans became dependent on the feudal lords, others left the village and went under the walls of princely castles and fortresses, where craft settlements were created. The possibility of a break between the artisan and the village was due to the development of agriculture, which could provide the urban population with food and the beginning of the separation of crafts from agriculture.
Cities became centers for the development of crafts. In them by the 12th century. there were over 60 craft specialties. Russian artisans of the 11th-12th centuries. produced more than 150 types of iron and steel products, their products played an important role in the development of trade relations between the city and the countryside. Old Russian jewelers knew the art of minting non-ferrous metals. Tools, weapons, household items, and jewelry were made in craft workshops.
Rus''s foreign trade was more developed. Russian merchants traded in the possessions of the Arab Caliphate. The Dnieper route connected Rus' with Byzantium. Russian merchants traveled from Kiev to Moravia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Southern Germany, from Novgorod and Polotsk - along the Baltic Sea to Scandinavia, Polish Pomerania and further to the west. With the development of crafts, the export of handicraft products increased.
Silver bars and foreign coins were used as money. Princes Vladimir Svyatoslavich and his son Yaroslav Vladimirovich issued (albeit in small quantities) minted silver coins. However, foreign trade did not change the natural nature of the Russian economy.
With the growth of the social division of labor, cities developed. They arose from castle fortresses, which were gradually overgrown with settlements, and from trade and craft settlements, around which fortifications were erected. The city was connected with the nearest rural district, from whose products it lived and whose population it served with handicrafts. In the chronicles of the 9th-10th centuries. 25 cities are mentioned in the news of the 11th century - 89. The heyday of ancient Russian cities fell in the 11th-12th centuries.
Craft and merchant associations arose in the cities, although a guild system did not develop here. In addition to free artisans, patrimonial artisans also lived in cities, who were slaves of princes and boyars. The city nobility consisted of the boyars. The large cities of Rus' (Kyiv, Chernigov, Polotsk, Novgorod, Smolensk, etc.) were administrative, judicial and military centers. At the same time, having grown stronger, the cities contributed to the process of political fragmentation. This was a natural phenomenon under conditions of the dominance of subsistence farming and the weak economic ties between individual lands.
PROBLEMS OF STATE UNITY OF Rus'
The state unity of Rus' was not strong. The development of feudal relations and the strengthening of the power of the feudal lords, as well as the growth of cities as centers of local principalities, led to changes in the political superstructure. In the 11th century the head of the state was still headed by the Grand Duke, but the princes and boyars dependent on him acquired large land holdings in different parts of Rus' (in Novgorod, Polotsk, Chernigov, Volyn, etc.). The princes of individual feudal centers strengthened their own apparatus of power and, relying on local feudal lords, began to consider their reigns as paternal, that is, hereditary possessions. Economically, they were almost no longer dependent on Kyiv; on the contrary, the Kiev prince was interested in their support. Political dependence on Kyiv weighed heavily on local feudal lords and princes who ruled in certain parts of the country.
After the death of Vladimir, his son Svyatopolk became prince in Kyiv, who killed his brothers Boris and Gleb and began a stubborn struggle with Yaroslav. In this struggle, Svyatopolk used the military assistance of Polish feudal lords. Then a massive popular movement against the Polish invaders began in the Kyiv land. Yaroslav, supported by the Novgorod townspeople, defeated Svyatopolk and occupied Kyiv.
During the reign of Yaroslav Vladimirovich, nicknamed the Wise (1019-1054), around 1024, a large uprising of the Smerds broke out in the northeast, in the Suzdal land. The reason for it was severe hunger. Many participants in the suppressed uprising were imprisoned or executed. However, the movement continued until 1026.
During the reign of Yaroslav, the strengthening and further expansion of the borders of the Old Russian state continued. However, signs of feudal fragmentation of the state appeared more and more clearly.
After the death of Yaroslav, state power passed to his three sons. Seniority belonged to Izyaslav, who owned Kiev, Novgorod and other cities. His co-rulers were Svyatoslav (who ruled in Chernigov and Tmutarakan) and Vsevolod (who reigned in Rostov, Suzdal and Pereyaslavl). In 1068, nomadic Cumans attacked Rus'. Russian troops were defeated on the Alta River. Izyaslav and Vsevolod fled to Kyiv. This accelerated the anti-feudal uprising in Kyiv, which had been brewing for a long time. The rebels destroyed the princely court, released Vseslav of Polotsk, who had previously been imprisoned by his brothers during an inter-princely strife, and was released from prison and elevated to reign. However, he soon left Kiev, and a few months later Izyaslav, with the help of Polish troops, resorting to deception, again occupied the city (1069) and committed a bloody massacre.
Urban uprisings were associated with the peasant movement. Since the anti-feudal movements were also directed against the Christian Church, the rebellious peasants and townspeople were sometimes led by the Magi. In the 70s of the 11th century. There was a major popular movement in the Rostov land. Popular movements took place in other places in Rus'. In Novgorod, for example, the masses of the urban population, led by the Magi, opposed the nobility, headed by the prince and bishop. Prince Gleb, with the help of military force, dealt with the rebels.
The development of the feudal mode of production inevitably led to the political fragmentation of the country. Class contradictions intensified noticeably. The devastation from exploitation and princely strife was aggravated by the consequences of crop failures and famine. After the death of Svyatopolk in Kyiv, there was an uprising of the urban population and peasants from the surrounding villages. The frightened nobility and merchants invited Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh (1113-1125), Prince of Pereyaslavl, to reign in Kyiv. The new prince was forced to make some concessions to suppress the uprising.
Vladimir Monomakh pursued a policy of strengthening the grand ducal power. Owning, in addition to Kiev, Pereyaslavl, Suzdal, Rostov, ruling Novgorod and part of South-Western Rus', he simultaneously tried to subjugate other lands (Minsk, Volyn, etc.). However, contrary to Monomakh’s policy, the process of fragmentation of Rus', caused by economic reasons, continued. By the second quarter of the 12th century. Rus' was finally fragmented into many principalities.
CULTURE OF ANCIENT Rus'
The culture of ancient Rus' is the culture of early feudal society. Oral poetry reflected the life experience of the people, captured in proverbs and sayings, in the rituals of agricultural and family holidays, from which the cult pagan principle gradually disappeared, and the rituals turned into folk games. Buffoons - traveling actors, singers and musicians, who came from the people's environment, were bearers of democratic tendencies in art. Folk motifs formed the basis for the remarkable song and musical creativity of the “prophetic Boyan,” whom the author of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” calls “the nightingale of the old time.”
The growth of national self-awareness found particularly vivid expression in the historical epic. In it, the people idealized the time of political unity of Rus', although still very fragile, when the peasants were not yet dependent. The image of the “peasant son” Ilya Muromets, a fighter for the independence of his homeland, embodies the deep patriotism of the people. Folk art influenced the traditions and legends that developed in the feudal secular and church environment, and helped the formation of ancient Russian literature.
The emergence of writing was of enormous importance for the development of ancient Russian literature. In Rus', writing apparently arose quite early. The news has been preserved that the Slavic educator of the 9th century. Konstantin (Kirill) saw books in Chersonesus written in “Russian characters.” Evidence of the presence of writing among the Eastern Slavs even before the adoption of Christianity is an early 10th-century clay vessel discovered in one of the Smolensk mounds. with an inscription. Writing became widespread after the adoption of Christianity.
If we talk about the Old Russian state, then it was a state located in Eastern Europe. It is worth noting that the history of Rus' from ancient times dates back to the 9th century as a result of the unification of Finno-Ugric and East Slavic tribes under the unified rule of the Rurikovichs.
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As for the greatest flourishing of Ancient Rus', the state at that time occupied a vast territory, covering the Taman Peninsula, the Dniester, the Vistula, and the Northern Dvina. Towards the middle of the 12th century, the state broke up into small Russian principalities, the reason for the collapse of the great state was feudal fragmentation. Each principality was ruled by the same representatives of the Rurik dynasty. If Kyiv previously had enormous political influence, then in the 12th century it was lost. It is worth noting that the Principality of Kiev was under the collective ownership of the princes.
At that time, there were several historiographical terms for this state: “Ancient Rus'”, “Kievan State”, “Old Russian State”, “Kievan Rus”.
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History of ancient Rus': highlights
The Old Russian state appeared on one trade route, called from the Varangians to the Greeks. We are talking about lands that were occupied by East Slavic tribes: Krivichi, Ilmen Slovenes, Poyans. Then the territories of the Dregovichi, Drevlen, Polotsk, Northerners, and Radimichi were covered. As mentioned above, the first information about the represented state dates back to the 9th century. Thanks to the famous work “The Tale of Bygone Years,” it became known that Rus' made a campaign against Constantinople. It is important to say that some sources associate the first Baptism of Rus' with this campaign, after which the top government adopted Christianity.
Scientists identify two main theories of the origin of the Old Russian state: Norman and anti-Norman. The basis of the Norman theory is the opinion that the state was founded by the Varangians. It is told that the brothers Truvor, Rurik and Sineus are the creators of the new Old Russian state. The anti-Norman theory suggests that the new state could not arise in one day, and there are disagreements about the period of existence of the Varangians themselves. The founder of this theory is M. Lomonosov.
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Great rulers 
Speaking about the history of Ancient Rus', it is impossible not to talk about the reign of Prince Oleg, who extended power to the territory of the northerners and Drevlyans. The Radimichi agreed to the prince's terms without a fight. Chronicles say that Oleg was at the throne for about 30 years, during which time he began to be called the Grand Duke.
Also, the history of the ancient Russian state is unthinkable without Igor Rurikovich, who at one time made 2 campaigns against Byzantium. Princess Olga is the first ruler to officially accept Christianity of the Byzantine rite. Svyatoslav Igorevich managed to subjugate the Vyatichi to his power, and also made campaigns in Bulgaria.
This was the history of ancient Rus' before baptism. An important page in the history of Ancient Rus' is Baptism, which is associated with the name of Vladimir Svyatoslavovich. It is worth noting that Christianity was officially adopted in Rus' in 988.
The reign of Yaroslav the Wise was the highest flowering of the state, as the ruler pursued a competent foreign policy. After the death of the ruler, the so-called ladder principle of inheritance of territory in the Rurik dynasty was established.
Before his death in 1054, Yaroslav the Wise divided power between his sons (there were five of them). Then the Polovtsian raids began, the princes could not overcome their opponents. The state had many external and internal problems, as a result of which at the end of the 12th century it finally broke up into separate principalities. This is how the history of Rus' from ancient times sounds in a brief version.
Video: The stolen history of Rus'
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Russian medieval architecture represents the most striking page in the history of Ancient Rus'. It is worth noting that it is cultural monuments that provide the opportunity to fully become familiar with the history of a particular time. Today, the monument of ancient Russian architecture of the 12th century is reflected in many
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The pre-Epiphany period of Russian history was a big headache for Soviet historians and ideologists; it was easier to forget about it and not mention it. The problem was that in the late 20s and early 30s of the twentieth century, Soviet scientists in the humanities were able to more or less substantiate the natural “evolution” of the newly minted communist ideology of the “brilliant” Marx - Lenin, and divided the whole history into five known periods :
- from the primitive communal formation to the most progressive and evolutionary - communist.
But the period of Russian history before the adoption of Christianity did not fit into any “standard” pattern - it was neither a primitive communal system, nor a slaveholding system, nor a feudal one. But it was more like a socialist one.
And this was the whole comicality of the situation, and the great desire not to pay scientific attention to this period. This was also the reason for the dissatisfaction with Froyanov and other Soviet scientists when they tried to understand this period of history.
In the period before the baptism of Rus', the Rus undoubtedly had their own state, and at the same time there was no class society, in particular feudal. And the inconvenience was that the “classical” Soviet ideology argued that the feudal class creates the state as an instrument of its political domination and suppression of the peasants. And then there was a problem...
Moreover, judging by the military victories of the Rus over their neighbors, and that itself “Queen of the World” Byzantium paid them tribute, then it turned out that the “original” way of society and state of our ancestors was more effective, harmonious and advantageous compared to other ways and structures of that period among other peoples.
“And here it should be noted that the archaeological monuments of the Eastern Slavs recreate society without any clear traces of property stratification. The outstanding researcher of East Slavic antiquities I.I. Lyapushkin emphasized that among the dwellings known to us
“...in the most diverse regions of the forest-steppe zone, it is not possible to indicate those that, in their architectural appearance and in the content of household and household equipment found in them, would stand out for their wealth.
The internal structure of the dwellings and the inventory found in them do not yet allow us to divide the inhabitants of these latter only by occupation - into landowners and artisans.”
Another well-known specialist in Slavic-Russian archeology V.V. Sedov writes:
“It is impossible to identify the emergence of economic inequality based on materials from settlements studied by archaeologists. It seems that there are no clear traces of property differentiation of Slavic society in the grave monuments of the 6th-8th centuries.”
All this requires a different understanding of archaeological material.”– notes I.Ya. Froyanov in his study.
That is, in this ancient Russian society, the meaning of life was not the accumulation of wealth and transferring it to children, this was not some kind of ideological or moral value, and this was clearly not welcomed and was contemptuously condemned.
What was valuable? This can be seen from what the Russians swore by, because they swore by the most valuable thing - for example, in the treaty with the Greeks of 907, the Russians swore not with gold, not with their mother and not with their children, but “with their weapons, and Perun, their God, and Volos, the cattle god " Svyatoslav also swore by Perun and Volos in the 971 treaty with Byzantium.
That is, they considered their connection with God, with the Gods, their veneration and their honor and freedom to be the most valuable. In one of the agreements with the Byzantine emperor there is such a fragment of Svetoslav’s oath in case of breaking the oath: “may we be golden like this gold” (golden tablet-stand of a Byzantine scribe - R.K.). Which once again shows the despicable attitude of the Russians towards the golden calf.
And now and then the Slavs, the Rus, stood out and stand out in their overwhelming majority for their goodwill, sincerity, tolerance for other views, what foreigners call “tolerance”.
A striking example of this is even before the baptism of Russia, at the beginning of the 10th century in Russia, when in the Christian world it was out of the question for pagan temples, shrines or idols (idols) to stand on “Christian territory” (with glorious Christian love for all , patience and mercy), - in Kiev, half a century before the adoption of Christianity, the Cathedral Church was built and a Christian community existed around it.
It is only now that enemy ideologists and their journalists have falsely screamed about the non-existent xenophobia of the Russians, and with all their binoculars and microscopes they are trying to see this xenophobia of theirs, and even more so, to provoke it.
A researcher of Russian history, the German scientist B. Schubart wrote with admiration:
“The Russian person has Christian virtues as permanent national properties. Russians were Christians even before they converted to Christianity” (B. Schubart “Europe and the Soul of the East”).
The Russians did not have slavery in the usual sense, although they did have slaves from those captured as a result of battles, who, of course, had a different status. I.Ya. Froyanov wrote a book on this topic “Slavery and Tribute among the Eastern Slavs” (St. Petersburg, 1996), and in his last book he wrote:
“East Slavic society was familiar with slavery. Customary law prohibited turning one's fellow tribesmen into slaves. Therefore, captured foreigners became slaves. They were called servants. For Russian Slavs, servants are primarily a subject of trade...
The situation of slaves was not harsh, as, say, in the ancient world. Chelyadin was a member of the related team as a junior member. Slavery was limited to a certain period, after which the slave, having acquired freedom, could return to his land or remain with his former owners, but in the position of a free man.
In science, this style of relationship between slave owners and slaves is called patriarchal slavery.”
Patriarchal is paternal. You will not find such an attitude towards slaves not among the wise Greek slave owners, not among the medieval Christian slave traders, nor among the Christian slave owners in the south of the New World - in America.
Russians lived in tribal and intertribal settlements, engaged in hunting, fishing, trade, agriculture, cattle breeding and handicrafts. The Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan described in 928 that the Russians built large houses in which 30-50 people lived.
Another Arab traveler Ibn-Ruste at the turn of the 9th-10th centuries described Russian baths in severe frosts as a curiosity:
“When the stones become extremely hot, water is poured over them, which causes steam to spread, heating the home to the point where one takes off one’s clothes.”
Our ancestors were very clean. Moreover, in comparison with Europe, in which, even during the Renaissance, at the courts of Paris, London, Madrid and other capitals, ladies used not only perfumes - to neutralize the unpleasant “spirit”, but also special traps for catching lice on the head, and the problem of excrement Even at the beginning of the 19th century, the French Parliament viewed it from the windows onto the city streets.
Pre-Christian ancient Russian society was communal, veche, where the prince was accountable to the people's assembly - the veche, which could approve the transfer of power to the prince by inheritance, and could also re-elect the prince.
“The ancient Russian prince was not an emperor or even a monarch, for above him stood a veche, or people’s assembly, to which he was accountable.”– noted I.Ya. Froyanov.
The Russian prince of this period and his squad did not demonstrate feudal “hegemonic” signs. Without taking into account the opinions of the most authoritative members of society: heads of clans, wise “dids” and respected military commanders, no decision was made. A good example This was the famous Prince Svetoslav. A.S. Ivanchenko notes in his study:
“... Let us turn to the original text of Leo the Deacon... This meeting took place on the bank of the Danube on July 23, 971, after the day before Tzimisces asked Svetoslav for peace and invited him to his headquarters for negotiations, but he refused to go there... Tzimiskes had to, taming his pride, go to Svetoslav himself.
However, thinking in the Roman way, the Emperor of Byzantium wanted, if he did not succeed with military force, then at least with the splendor of his vestments and the richness of the outfits of his retinue accompanying him... Leo the Deacon:
“The Emperor, covered in ceremonial, gold-forged armor, rode up on horseback to the bank of the Istra; He was followed by numerous horsemen sparkling with gold. Soon Svyatoslav appeared, having crossed the river in a Scythian boat (this once again confirms that the Greeks called the Russians Scythians).
He sat on the oars and rowed like everyone else, not standing out among the others. His appearance was like this: of average height, not very large and not very small, with thick eyebrows, blue eyes, a straight nose, a shaved head and thick long hair hanging from his upper lip. His head was completely naked, and only a tuft of hair hung from one side of it... His clothes were white, which did not differ in anything other than noticeable cleanliness from the clothes of others. Sitting in the boat on the rowers’ bench, he talked a little with the sovereign about the conditions of peace and left... The Emperor happily accepted the conditions of the Rus...”
Had Svyatoslav Igorevich had the same intentions regarding Byzantium as he had against the Great Khazaria, he would have easily destroyed this arrogant empire even during his first campaign on the Danube: he had four days of travel left to Constantinople, when Sinkel Theophilus, the closest adviser to the Byzantine patriarch, fell kneel before him, asking for peace on any terms. And indeed Constantinople paid a huge tribute to Rus'.”
I would like to emphasize the important evidence - the prince of the Rus Svetoslav, equal in status to the Byzantine emperor, was dressed like all his warriors and rowed with oars along with everyone... That is, in Rus' during this period the communal, veche (conciliar) system was based on equality, justice and accounting interests of all its members.
Taking into account the fact that in the modern language of smart people, “society” is society, and “socialism” is a system that takes into account the interests of the entire society or its majority, then we see in pre-Christian Rus' an example of socialism, moreover, as a very effective way of organizing society and the principles of regulation life of society.
The story of the invitation to the reign of Rurik around 859-862. also shows the structure of Russian society of that period. Let's get acquainted with this story and at the same time find out who Rurik was by nationality.
Since ancient times, the Rus have developed two centers of development: the southern one - on the southern trade routes on the Dnieper River, the city of Kiev, and the northern one - on the northern trade routes on the Volkhov River, the city of Novgorod.
When Kyiv was built is unknown for certain, like much in the pre-Christian history of Rus', for numerous written documents, chronicles, including those on which the famous Christian chronicler Nestor worked, were destroyed by Christians for ideological reasons after the baptism of Rus'. But it is known that Kyiv was built by the Slavs, led by a prince named Kiy and his brothers Shchek and Khoriv. They also had a sister with a beautiful name - Lybid.
The world of that time suddenly found out and started talking about the Kiev princes, when on June 18, 860, the Kiev prince Askold and his governor Dir approached the capital of Byzantium Constantinople (Constantinople) with a Russian army from the sea on 200 large boats and presented an ultimatum, after which they attacked the capital of the world for a week.
In the end, the Byzantine emperor could not stand it and offered a huge indemnity, with which the Rus sailed to their homeland. It is clear that only an empire could resist the main empire of the world, and it was a great developed Slavic empire in the form of a union of Slavic tribes, and not dense barbarian Slavs, who were blessed by civilized Christians with their arrival, as the authors of books write about this even in 2006-7.
During the same period, another strong prince appeared in the north of Rus' in the 860s - Rurik. Nestor wrote that “Prince Rurik and his brothers arrived from their generations... those Varangians were called Russia.”
“...Russian Stargorod was located in the area of the present-day West German lands of Oldenburg and Macklenburg and the adjacent Baltic island of Rügen. It was there that Western Rus' or Ruthenia was located. – explained V.N. Emelyanov in his book. – As for the Varangians, this is not an ethnonym, usually mistakenly associated with the Normans, but the name of the profession of warriors.
The mercenary warriors, united under the common name Varangians, were representatives of various clans of the Western Baltic region. Western Russians also had their Varangians. It was from among them that the grandson of the Novgorod prince Rostomysl, Rurik, the son of his middle daughter Umila, was called up...
He came to Northern Rus' with his capital in Novgorod, since the male line of Rostomysl died out during his lifetime.
At the time of the arrival of Rurik and his brothers Saneus and Truvor, Novgorod was centuries older than Kyiv, the capital of Southern Rus'.”
“Novogorodtsi: these are the people of Novugorodtsi - from the Varangian family...” wrote the famous Nestor, as we see, meaning by Varangians all the northern Slavs. It was from there that Rurik began to rule, from Ladograd located to the north (modern Staraya Ladoga), as recorded in the chronicle:
“And Rurik, the oldest in Ladoz, is grayer.”
According to academician V. Chudinov, the lands of today’s northern Germany, where the Slavs previously lived, were called White Russia and Ruthenia, and accordingly the Slavs were called Rus, Ruten, Rugs. Their descendants are the Slavic Poles, who have long lived on the Oder and the shores of the Baltic.
“...The lie aimed at castrating our history is the so-called Norman theory, according to which Rurik and his brothers have been persistently considered Scandinavians, and not Western Russians, for centuries...– V.N. Emelyanov was indignant in his book. – But there is a book by the Frenchman Carmier “Letters about the North”, published by him in 1840 in Paris, and then in 1841 in Brussels.
This French researcher, who, fortunately, had nothing to do with the dispute between the anti-Normanists and the Normanists, during his visit to Macklenburg, i.e. precisely in the region from which Rurik was called, he also wrote down, among the legends, customs and rituals of the local population, the legend about the calling to Rus' of the three sons of the Slavic prince Godlav. Thus, back in 1840, among the Germanized population of Macklenburg there was a legend about the calling...”
Researcher of the history of ancient Rus' Nikolai Levashov in his book “Russia in Crooked Mirrors” (2007) writes:
“But the most interesting thing is that they couldn’t even make a fake without serious contradictions and gaps. According to the “official” version, the Slavic-Russian state of Kievan Rus arose in the 9th-10th centuries and arose immediately in a ready-made form, with a set of laws, a rather complex state hierarchy, a system of beliefs and myths. The explanation for this in the “official” version is very simple: the “Wild” Slavic Rus invited Rurik the Varangian, supposedly a Swede, to become their prince, forgetting that in Sweden itself at that time there simply was no organized state, but only squads of jarls who were engaged in armed robbery of their neighbors...
In addition, Rurik had no relation to the Swedes (who, moreover, were called Vikings, not Varangians), but was a prince from the Wends and belonged to the Varangian caste of professional Warriors who studied the art of combat from childhood. Rurik was invited to reign according to the tradition existing among the Slavs at that time to choose the most worthy Slavic prince as their ruler at the Veche.”
An interesting discussion took place in the magazine “Itogi” No. 38, September 2007. between the masters of modern Russian historical science, professors A. Kirpichnikov and V. Yanin, on the occasion of the 1250th anniversary of Staraya Ladoga - the capital of Upper or Northern Rus'. Valentin Yanin:
“It has long been inappropriate to argue that the calling of the Varangians is an anti-patriotic myth... At the same time, we must understand that before the arrival of Rurik we already had some kind of statehood (the same elder Gostomysl was before Rurik), thanks to which the Varangian, in fact, was invited reign over local elites.
The Novgorod land was the place of residence of three tribes: Krivichi, Slovenians and Finno-Ugric peoples. At first it was owned by the Varangians, who wanted to be paid “a squirrel from each husband.”
Perhaps it was precisely because of these exorbitant appetites that they were soon driven out, and the tribes began to lead, so to speak, a sovereign lifestyle, which did not lead to any good.
When fighting began between the tribes, it was decided to send ambassadors to (neutral) Rurik, to those Varangians who called themselves Russia. They lived in the southern Baltic, northern Poland and northern Germany. Our ancestors called the prince from where many of them themselves were from. You could say they turned to distant relatives for help...
If we proceed from the real state of affairs, then before Rurik there were already elements of statehood among the mentioned tribes. Look: the local elite ordered Rurik that he does not have the right to collect tribute from the population, only high-ranking Novgorodians themselves can do this, and he should only be given a gift for performing their duties, I will again translate into modern language, a hired manager. The entire budget was also controlled by the Novgorodians themselves...
By the end of the 11th century, they generally created their own vertical of power - the posadnichestvo, which then became the main body of the veche republic. By the way, I think it’s no coincidence that Oleg, who became the Novgorod prince after Rurik, did not want to stay here and headed to Kyiv, where he already began to reign supreme.”
Rurik died in 879, and his only heir Igor was still very young, so his relative Oleg led Rus'. In 882, Oleg decided to seize power in all of Rus', which meant the unification of the Northern and Southern parts of Rus' under his rule, and set out on a military campaign to the south.
And taking Smolensk by storm, Oleg moved towards Kyiv. Oleg came up with a cunning and insidious plan - he and the wars, under the guise of a large trade caravan, sailed along the Dnieper to Kyiv. And when Askold and Dir came ashore to meet the merchants, Oleg and the armed soldiers jumped out of the boats and, presenting a claim to Askold that he was not from the princely dynasty, killed both. In such an insidious and bloody way, Oleg seized power in Kyiv and thus united both parts of Rus'.
Thanks to Rurik and his followers, Kyiv became the center of Rus', which included numerous Slavic tribes.
“The end of the 9th and 10th centuries are characterized by the subordination of the Drevlyans, Northerners, Radimichi, Vyatichi, Ulichs and other tribal unions to Kyiv. As a result, under the hegemony of the Polyanskaya capital, a grandiose “union of unions”, or super-union, took shape, covering almost all of Europe geographically.
The Kiev nobility, the glades as a whole, used this new political organization as a means to receive tribute…” noted I.Ya. Froyanov.
The Ugric-Hungarians, neighboring Russia, once again moved through the Slavic lands towards the former Roman Empire and along the way tried to capture Kyiv, but it did not work and, concluding in 898. a treaty of alliance with the people of Kiev, moved west in search of military adventures and reached the Danube, where they founded Hungary, which has survived to this day.
And Oleg, having repelled the attack of the Ugrians-Huns, decided to repeat Askold’s famous campaign against the Byzantine Empire and began to prepare. And in 907, the famous second campaign of the Rus, led by Oleg, against Byzantium took place.
The huge Russian army again moved by boat and land to Constantinople - Constantinople. This time, the Byzantines, taught by previous bitter experience, decided to be smarter - and managed to tighten the entrance to the bay near the capital with a huge thick chain to prevent the entry of the Russian fleet. And they interfered.
The Russians looked at this, landed on land, put the boats on wheels (rollers) and, under their cover from arrows and under sails, went on the attack. Shocked by the unusual sight and frightened, the Byzantine emperor and his entourage asked for peace and offered ransom.
Perhaps, since then the popular expression about achieving a goal by any means has come into being: “We don’t wash, we just roll.”
Having loaded a huge indemnity onto the boats and carts, the Rus demanded and bargained for unhindered access of Russian merchants to the Byzantine markets and a rare exclusive: duty-free trading rights for Russian merchants throughout the Byzantine Empire.
In 911, both parties confirmed and extended this agreement in writing. And the next year (912) Oleg handed over the rule of prosperous Rus' to Igor, who married the Pskovian Olga, who once transported him on a boat across the river near Pskov.
Igor kept Rus' intact and was able to repel the dangerous Pecheneg raid. And judging by the fact that Igor launched a third military campaign against Byzantium in 941, one can guess that Byzantium ceased to comply with the agreement with Oleg.
This time the Byzantines prepared thoroughly; they did not hang chains, but decided to throw vessels of burning oil (“Greek fire”) at the Russian boats from throwing weapons. The Russians did not expect this, they were confused, and, having lost many ships, they landed on land and staged a brutal battle. Constantinople was not taken, suffered serious damage, and then within six months the evil ones returned home with various adventures.
And they immediately began to prepare more thoroughly for a new campaign. And in 944 they moved to Byzantium for the fourth time. This time, the Byzantine emperor, anticipating trouble, halfway asked for peace on terms favorable to the Rus; They agreed and, loaded with Byzantine gold and fabrics, returned to Kyiv.
In 945, during the collection of tribute by Igor and his squad, some kind of conflict occurred among the Drevlyans. The Drevlyan Slavs, led by Prince Mal, decided that Igor and his squad had gone too far in their demands and committed injustice, and the Drevlyans killed Igor and killed his warriors. The widowed Olga sent a large army to the Drevlyans and took fierce revenge. Princess Olga began to rule Russia.
Since the second half of the 20th century, new written sources - birch bark letters - began to become available to researchers. The first birch bark letters were found in 1951 during archaeological excavations in Novgorod. About 1000 letters have already been discovered. The total volume of the birch bark dictionary is more than 3200 words. The geography of the finds covers 11 cities: Novgorod, Staraya Russa, Torzhok, Pskov, Smolensk, Vitebsk, Mstislavl, Tver, Moscow, Staraya Ryazan, Zvenigorod Galitsky.
The earliest charters date back to the 11th century (1020), when the indicated territory had not yet been Christianized. Thirty letters found in Novgorod and one in Staraya Russa date back to this period. Until the 12th century, neither Novgorod nor Staraya Russa had yet been baptized, therefore the names of people found in the 11th century charters are pagan, that is, real Russians. By the beginning of the 11th century, the population of Novgorod corresponded not only with recipients located inside the city, but also with those who were far beyond its borders - in villages and other cities. Even villagers from the most remote villages wrote household orders and simple letters on birch bark.
That is why the outstanding linguist and researcher of the Novgorod letters of the Academy A.A. Zaliznyak claims that “This ancient writing system was very widespread. This writing was spread throughout Rus'. Reading the birch bark letters refuted the existing opinion that in Ancient Rus' only noble people and the clergy were literate. Among the authors and addressees of the letters there are many representatives of the lower strata of the population; in the texts found there is evidence of the practice of teaching writing - alphabets, copybooks, numerical tables, “tests of the pen.”
Six-year-old children wrote: “There is one letter where, it seems, a certain year is indicated. It was written by a six-year-old boy.” Almost all Russian women wrote - “now we know for sure that a significant part of women could both read and write. Letters from the 12th century in general, in a variety of respects, they reflect a society that is freer, with greater development, in particular, of female participation, than a society closer to our time. This fact follows quite clearly from the birch bark letters.” The fact that “a picture of Novgorod from the 14th century” speaks eloquently about literacy in Rus'. and Florence of the 14th century, in terms of the degree of female literacy - in favor of Novgorod."
Experts know that Cyril and Methodius invented the Glagolitic alphabet for the Bulgarians and spent the rest of their lives in Bulgaria. The letter called “Cyrillic”, although it has a similarity in name, has nothing in common with Kirill. The name "Cyrillic" comes from the designation of the letter - the Russian "doodle", or, for example, the French "ecrire". And the tablet found during excavations in Novgorod, on which they wrote in ancient times, is called “kera” (sera).
In the Tale of Bygone Years, a monument from the early 12th century, there is no information about the baptism of Novgorod. Consequently, Novgorodians and residents of surrounding villages wrote 100 years before the baptism of this city, and the Novgorodians did not inherit writing from Christians. Writing in Rus' existed long before Christianity. The share of non-ecclesiastical texts at the very beginning of the 11th century accounts for 95 percent of all found letters.
However, for academic falsifiers of history, for a long time, the fundamental version was that the Russian people learned to read and write from alien priests. From strangers! Remember, you and I have already discussed this topic: When our ancestors carved runes on stone, the Slavs were already writing letters to each other.”
But in his unique scientific work “The Craft of Ancient Rus'”, published back in 1948, archaeologist academician B.A. Rybakov published the following data: “There is an established opinion that the church was a monopolist in the creation and distribution of books; This opinion was strongly supported by the churchmen themselves. What is true here is that monasteries and episcopal or metropolitan courts were the organizers and censors of book copying, often acting as intermediaries between the customer and the scribe, but the performers were often not monks, but people who had nothing to do with the church.
We counted the scribes according to their position. For the pre-Mongol era, the result was this: half of the book scribes turned out to be laymen; for 14th - 15th centuries. the calculations gave the following results: metropolitans - 1; deacons - 8; monks - 28; clerks - 19; popov - 10; “servants of God” -35; Popovichey-4; parobkov-5. The Popovichs cannot be considered in the category of clergy, since literacy, which was almost obligatory for them (“the priest’s son does not know how to read and write—he is an outcast”) did not yet predetermine their spiritual career. Under vague names like “servant of God”, “sinner”, “sad servant of God”, “sinful and bold in evil, but lazy in good”, etc., without indicating affiliation with the church, we must understand secular artisans. Sometimes there are more specific instructions: “Wrote to Eustathius, a worldly man, and his nickname was Shepel,” “Ovsey Raspop,” “Thomas the Scribe.” In such cases, we no longer have any doubt about the “worldly” character of the scribes.
In total, according to our calculations, there are 63 laymen and 47 clergy, i.e. 57% of artisan scribes did not belong to church organizations. The main forms in the era under study were the same as in the pre-Mongol era: work to order and work for the market; Between them there were various intermediate stages that characterized the degree of development of a particular craft. Work to order is typical for some types of patrimonial craft and for industries associated with expensive raw materials, such as jewelry or bell casting.”
The academician cited these figures for the 14th - 15th centuries, when, according to the narratives of the church, she served almost as a helmsman for the multi-million Russian people. It would be interesting to look at the busy, single metropolitan, who, together with an absolutely insignificant group of literate deacons and monks, served the postal needs of the multi-million Russian people from several tens of thousands of Russian villages. In addition, this Metropolitan and Co. must have had many truly miraculous qualities: lightning speed of writing and movement in space and time, the ability to simultaneously be in thousands of places at once, and so on.
But not a joke, but a real conclusion from the data provided by B.A. Rybakov, it follows that the church was never in Rus' a place from which knowledge and enlightenment flowed. Therefore, we repeat, another academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences A.A. Zaliznyak states that “the picture of Novgorod of the 14th century. and Florence 14th century. in terms of the degree of female literacy - in favor of Novgorod." But by the 18th century the church led the Russian people into the fold of illiterate darkness.
Let's consider another side of the life of ancient Russian society before the arrival of Christians to our lands. She touches the clothes. Historians are accustomed to depicting Russian people dressed exclusively in simple white shirts, sometimes, however, allowing themselves to say that these shirts were decorated with embroidery. Russians seem so poor, barely able to dress at all. This is another lie spread by historians about the life of our people.
To begin with, let us recall that the world’s first clothing was created more than 40 thousand years ago in Rus', in Kostenki. And, for example, at the Sungir site in Vladimir, already 30 thousand years ago, people wore a leather jacket made of suede, trimmed with fur, a hat with earflaps, leather pants, and leather boots. Everything was decorated with various objects and several rows of beads. The ability to make clothes in Rus', naturally, was preserved and developed to a high level. And silk became one of the important clothing materials for the ancient Rus.
Archaeological finds of silk on the territory of Ancient Rus' from the 9th to the 12th centuries were discovered in more than two hundred locations. The maximum concentration of finds is in the Moscow, Vladimir, Ivanovo and Yaroslavl regions. Precisely those that experienced population growth at that time. But these territories were not part of Kievan Rus, on whose territory, on the contrary, finds of silk fabrics are very few. As you move away from Moscow - Vladimir - Yaroslavl, the density of silk finds generally drops rapidly, and already in the European part they are rare.
At the end of the 1st millennium AD. The Vyatichi and Krivichi lived in the Moscow region, as evidenced by groups of mounds (near the Yauza station, in Tsaritsyn, Chertanovo, Konkovo, Derealyovo, Zyuzin, Cheryomushki, Matveevsky, Fili, Tushino, etc.). The Vyatichi also formed the original core of the population of Moscow.
According to various sources, Prince Vladimir baptized Rus', or rather, began the baptism of Rus' in 986 or 987. But there were Christians and Christian churches in Russia, specifically in Kyiv, long before 986. And it wasn’t even a matter of the pagan Slavs’ tolerance of other religions, and in one important principle - the principle of freedom and sovereignty of the decision of every Slav, for whom there were no masters , he was a king for himself and had the right to any decision that did not contradict the customs of the community, therefore no one had the right to criticize, reproach or condemn him if the decision or action of the Slav did not harm the community and its members. Well, then the history of Baptized Rus' began...
sources
The basis is the research of our modern scientist from St. Petersburg, Igor Yakovlevich Froyanov, who published a monograph in the USSR in 1974 entitled “Kievan Rus. Essays on socio-economic history”, then many scientific articles were published and many books were published, and in 2007 his book “The Mystery of the Baptism of Rus'” was published.
A.A. Tyunyaev, academician of the Academy of Physical Sciences and the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences
The ancestors of the Slavs - the Proto-Slavs - have long lived in Central and Eastern Europe. By language, they belong to the Indo-European group of peoples who inhabit Europe and part of Asia up to India. The first mentions of the Proto-Slavs date back to the 1st-2nd centuries. The Roman authors Tacitus, Pliny, Ptolemy called the ancestors of the Slavs Wends and believed that they inhabited the Vistula River basin. Later authors - Procopius of Caesarea and Jordan (VI century) divide the Slavs into three groups: the Sklavins, who lived between the Vistula and the Dniester, the Wends, who inhabited the Vistula basin, and the Antes, who settled between the Dniester and the Dnieper. It is the Ants who are considered the ancestors of the Eastern Slavs.
Detailed information about the settlement of the Eastern Slavs is given in his famous “Tale of Bygone Years” by the monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery Nestor, who lived at the beginning of the 12th century. In his chronicle, Nestor names about 13 tribes (scientists believe that these were tribal unions) and describes in detail their places of settlement.
Near Kyiv, on the right bank of the Dnieper, lived the Polyans, along the upper reaches of the Dnieper and Western Dvina lived the Krivichi, and along the banks of the Pripyat lived the Drevlyans. On the Dniester, Prut, in the lower reaches of the Dnieper and on the northern coast of the Black Sea lived the Ulichs and Tivertsy. To the north of them lived the Volynians. The Dregovichi settled from Pripyat to the Western Dvina. Northerners lived along the left bank of the Dnieper and along the Desna, and Radimichi lived along the Sozh River, a tributary of the Dnieper. The Ilmen Slovenes lived around Lake Ilmen.
The neighbors of the Eastern Slavs in the west were the Baltic peoples, the Western Slavs (Poles, Czechs), in the south - the Pechenegs and Khazars, in the east - the Volga Bulgarians and numerous Finno-Ugric tribes (Mordovians, Mari, Muroma).
The main occupations of the Slavs were agriculture, which, depending on the soil, was slash-and-burn or fallow, cattle breeding, hunting, fishing, beekeeping (collecting honey from wild bees).
In the 7th-8th centuries, due to the improvement of tools and the transition from fallow or fallow farming systems to a two-field and three-field crop rotation system, the Eastern Slavs experienced a decomposition of the clan system and an increase in property inequality.
The development of crafts and its separation from agriculture in the 8th-9th centuries led to the emergence of cities - centers of crafts and trade. Typically, cities arose at the confluence of two rivers or on a hill, since such a location made it possible to defend much better from enemies. The most ancient cities were often formed on the most important trade routes or at their intersections. The main trade route that passed through the lands of the Eastern Slavs was the route “from the Varangians to the Greeks,” from the Baltic Sea to Byzantium.
In the 8th - early 9th centuries, the Eastern Slavs developed a tribal and military nobility, and a military democracy was established. Leaders turn into tribal princes and surround themselves with a personal retinue. It stands out to know. The prince and the nobility seize the tribal land as a personal hereditary share and subordinate the former tribal governing bodies to their power.
By accumulating valuables, seizing lands and holdings, creating a powerful military squad organization, making campaigns to seize military booty, collecting tribute, trading and engaging in usury, the nobility of the Eastern Slavs turns into a force standing above society and subjugating previously free community members. Such was the process of class formation and the formation of early forms of statehood among the Eastern Slavs. This process gradually led to the formation of an early feudal state in Rus' at the end of the 9th century.
The State of Rus' in the 9th - early 10th centuries
On the territory occupied by the Slavic tribes, two Russian state centers were formed: Kyiv and Novgorod, each of which controlled a certain part of the trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks.”
In 862, according to the Tale of Bygone Years, the Novgorodians, wanting to stop the internecine struggle that had begun, invited the Varangian princes to rule Novgorod. The Varangian prince Rurik, who arrived at the request of the Novgorodians, became the founder of the Russian princely dynasty.
The date of formation of the ancient Russian state is conventionally considered to be 882, when Prince Oleg, who seized power in Novgorod after the death of Rurik, undertook a campaign against Kyiv. Having killed Askold and Dir, the rulers there, he united the northern and southern lands into a single state.
The legend about the calling of the Varangian princes served as the basis for the creation of the so-called Norman theory of the emergence of the ancient Russian state. According to this theory, the Russians turned to the Normans (as they called
or immigrants from Scandinavia) in order for them to restore order on Russian soil. In response, three princes came to Rus': Rurik, Sineus and Truvor. After the death of the brothers, Rurik united the entire Novgorod land under his rule.
The basis for such a theory was the position rooted in the works of German historians that the Eastern Slavs had no prerequisites for the formation of a state.
Subsequent studies refuted this theory, since the determining factor in the process of formation of any state is objective internal conditions, without which it is impossible to create it by any external forces. On the other hand, the story about the foreign origin of power is quite typical for medieval chronicles and is found in the ancient histories of many European states.
After the unification of the Novgorod and Kyiv lands into a single early feudal state, the Kiev prince began to be called the “Grand Duke”. He ruled with the help of a council consisting of other princes and warriors. The collection of tribute was carried out by the Grand Duke himself with the help of the senior squad (the so-called boyars, men). The prince had a younger squad (gridi, youths). The oldest form of collecting tribute was “polyudye”. In late autumn, the prince traveled around the lands under his control, collecting tribute and administering justice. There was no clearly established norm for the delivery of tribute. The prince spent the entire winter traveling around the lands and collecting tribute. In the summer, the prince and his retinue usually went on military campaigns, subjugating the Slavic tribes and fighting with their neighbors.
Gradually, more and more of the princely warriors became land owners. They ran their own farms, exploiting the labor of the peasants they enslaved. Gradually, such warriors became stronger and could in the future resist the Grand Duke both with their own squads and with their economic strength.
The social and class structure of the early feudal state of Rus' was unclear. The class of feudal lords was varied in composition. These were the Grand Duke with his entourage, representatives of the senior squad, the prince’s inner circle - the boyars, local princes.
The dependent population included serfs (people who lost their freedom as a result of sale, debt, etc.), servants (those who lost their freedom as a result of captivity), purchases (peasants who received a “kupa” from the boyar - a loan of money, grain or draft power) etc. The bulk of the rural population were free community members-smerds. As their lands were seized, they turned into feudal dependent people.
Reign of Oleg
After the capture of Kyiv in 882, Oleg subjugated the Drevlyans, Northerners, Radimichi, Croats, and Tiverts. Oleg fought successfully with the Khazars. In 907 he besieged the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople, and in 911 he concluded a profitable trade agreement with it.
Reign of Igor
After Oleg's death, Rurik's son Igor became the Grand Duke of Kyiv. He subjugated the Eastern Slavs who lived between the Dniester and the Danube, fought with Constantinople, and was the first of the Russian princes to clash with the Pechenegs. In 945, he was killed in the land of the Drevlyans while trying to collect tribute from them a second time.
Princess Olga, reign of Svyatoslav
Igor's widow Olga brutally suppressed the Drevlyan uprising. But at the same time, she determined a fixed amount of tribute, organized places for collecting tribute - camps and graveyards. Thus, a new form of collecting tribute was established - the so-called “cart”. Olga visited Constantinople, where she converted to Christianity. She ruled during the childhood of her son Svyatoslav.
In 964, Svyatoslav came of age to rule Russia. Under him, until 969, the state was largely ruled by Princess Olga herself, since her son spent almost his entire life on campaigns. In 964-966. Svyatoslav liberated the Vyatichi from the power of the Khazars and subjugated them to Kyiv, defeated the Volga Bulgaria, the Khazar Kaganate and took the capital of the Kaganate, the city of Itil. In 967 he invaded Bulgaria and
settled at the mouth of the Danube, in Pereyaslavets, and in 971, in alliance with the Bulgarians and Hungarians, he began to fight with Byzantium. The war was unsuccessful for him, and he was forced to make peace with the Byzantine emperor. On the way back to Kyiv, Svyatoslav Igorevich died at the Dnieper rapids in a battle with the Pechenegs, who had been warned by the Byzantines about his return.
Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich
After the death of Svyatoslav, a struggle for rule in Kyiv began between his sons. Vladimir Svyatoslavovich emerged as the winner. By campaigning against the Vyatichi, Lithuanians, Radimichi, and Bulgarians, Vladimir strengthened the possessions of Kievan Rus. To organize defense against the Pechenegs, he established several defensive lines with a system of fortresses.
To strengthen the princely power, Vladimir attempted to transform folk pagan beliefs into a state religion and for this purpose established the cult of the main Slavic warrior god Perun in Kyiv and Novgorod. However, this attempt was unsuccessful, and he turned to Christianity. This religion was declared the only all-Russian religion. Vladimir himself converted to Christianity from Byzantium. The adoption of Christianity not only equalized Kievan Rus with neighboring states, but also had a huge impact on the culture, life and customs of ancient Rus'.
Yaroslav the Wise
After the death of Vladimir Svyatoslavovich, a fierce struggle for power began between his sons, ending with the victory of Yaroslav Vladimirovich in 1019. Under him, Rus' became one of the strongest states in Europe. In 1036, Russian troops inflicted a major defeat on the Pechenegs, after which their raids on Rus' ceased.
Under Yaroslav Vladimirovich, nicknamed the Wise, a uniform judicial code for all of Rus' began to take shape - “Russian Truth”. This was the first document regulating the relationship of princely warriors among themselves and with city residents, the procedure for resolving various disputes and compensation for damage.
Important reforms under Yaroslav the Wise were carried out in the church organization. Majestic cathedrals of St. Sophia were built in Kyiv, Novgorod, and Polotsk, which was supposed to show the church independence of Rus'. In 1051, the Kiev Metropolitan was elected not in Constantinople, as before, but in Kyiv by a council of Russian bishops. Church tithes were established. The first monasteries appear. The first saints were canonized - the brothers Princes Boris and Gleb.
Kievan Rus under Yaroslav the Wise reached its greatest power. Many of the largest states in Europe sought her support, friendship and kinship.
Feudal fragmentation in Rus'
However, Yaroslav's heirs - Izyaslav, Svyatoslav, Vsevolod - were unable to maintain the unity of Rus'. The civil strife between the brothers led to the weakening of Kievan Rus, which was taken advantage of by a new formidable enemy who appeared on the southern borders of the state - the Polovtsians. These were nomads who displaced the Pechenegs who had previously lived here. In 1068, the united troops of the Yaroslavich brothers were defeated by the Polovtsians, which led to an uprising in Kyiv.
A new uprising in Kyiv, which broke out after the death of the Kyiv prince Svyatopolk Izyaslavich in 1113, forced the Kyiv nobility to call Vladimir Monomakh, the grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, a powerful and authoritative prince, to reign. Vladimir was the inspirer and direct leader of military campaigns against the Polovtsians in 1103, 1107 and 1111. Having become the prince of Kyiv, he suppressed the uprising, but at the same time was forced to somewhat soften the position of the lower classes through legislation. This is how the charter of Vladimir Monomakh arose, who, without encroaching on the foundations of feudal relations, sought to somewhat alleviate the situation of peasants who fell into debt bondage. The “Teaching” of Vladimir Monomakh is imbued with the same spirit, where he advocated the establishment of peace between feudal lords and peasants.
The reign of Vladimir Monomakh was a time of strengthening of Kievan Rus. He managed to unite significant territories of the ancient Russian state under his rule and stop princely civil strife. However, after his death, feudal fragmentation in Rus' intensified again.
The reason for this phenomenon lay in the very course of economic and political development of Rus' as a feudal state. The strengthening of large landholdings - fiefs, in which subsistence farming dominated, led to the fact that they became independent production complexes associated with their immediate environment. Cities became economic and political centers of fiefdoms. The feudal lords became complete masters of their land, independent of the central government. The victories of Vladimir Monomakh over the Cumans, which temporarily eliminated the military threat, also contributed to the disunity of individual lands.
Kievan Rus disintegrated into independent principalities, each of which, in terms of the size of its territory, could be compared with the average Western European kingdom. These were Chernigov, Smolensk, Polotsk, Pereyaslavl, Galician, Volyn, Ryazan, Rostov-Suzdal, Kiev principalities, Novgorod land. Each of the principalities not only had its own internal order, but also pursued an independent foreign policy.
The process of feudal fragmentation opened the way for strengthening the system of feudal relations. However, it turned out to have several negative consequences. The division into independent principalities did not stop the princely strife, and the principalities themselves began to split up among the heirs. In addition, a struggle began within the principalities between the princes and local boyars. Each side strove for maximum power, calling on foreign troops to its side to fight the enemy. But most importantly, the defense capability of Rus' was weakened, which the Mongol conquerors soon took advantage of.
Mongol-Tatar invasion
By the end of the 12th - beginning of the 13th century, the Mongol state occupied a vast territory from Baikal and Amur in the east to the upper reaches of the Irtysh and Yenisei in the west, from the Great Wall of China in the south to the borders of southern Siberia in the north. The main occupation of the Mongols was nomadic cattle breeding, so the main source of enrichment was constant raids to capture booty, slaves, and pasture areas.
The Mongol army was a powerful organization consisting of foot squads and mounted warriors, who were the main offensive force. All units were shackled by cruel discipline, and reconnaissance was well established. The Mongols had siege equipment at their disposal. At the beginning of the 13th century, the Mongol hordes conquered and ravaged the largest Central Asian cities - Bukhara, Samarkand, Urgench, Merv. Having passed through Transcaucasia, which they turned into ruins, Mongol troops entered the steppes of the northern Caucasus, and, having defeated the Polovtsian tribes, hordes of Mongol-Tatars led by Genghis Khan advanced along the Black Sea steppes in the direction of Rus'.
A united army of Russian princes, commanded by the Kiev prince Mstislav Romanovich, came out against them. The decision on this was made at the princely congress in Kyiv, after the Polovtsian khans turned to the Russians for help. The battle took place in May 1223 on the Kalka River. The Polovtsians fled almost from the very beginning of the battle. The Russian troops found themselves face to face with an as yet unfamiliar enemy. They knew neither the organization of the Mongol army nor the techniques of combat. There was no unity and coordination of actions in the Russian regiments. One part of the princes led their squads into battle, the other chose to wait. The consequence of this behavior was the brutal defeat of the Russian troops.
Having reached the Dnieper after the Battle of Kalka, the Mongol hordes did not go north, but turned east and returned back to the Mongol steppes. After the death of Genghis Khan, his grandson Batu in the winter of 1237 moved his army, now against
Rus'. Deprived of assistance from other Russian lands, the Ryazan principality became the first victim of the invaders. Having devastated the Ryazan land, Batu’s troops moved to the Vladimir-Suzdal principality. The Mongols ravaged and burned Kolomna and Moscow. In February 1238, they approached the capital of the principality - the city of Vladimir - and took it after a fierce assault.
Having ravaged the Vladimir land, the Mongols moved to Novgorod. But due to the spring thaw, they were forced to turn towards the Volga steppes. Only the next year Batu again moved troops to conquer southern Rus'. Having captured Kiev, they passed through the Galicia-Volyn principality to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. After this, the Mongols returned to the Volga steppes, where they formed the state of the Golden Horde. As a result of these campaigns, the Mongols conquered all Russian lands, with the exception of Novgorod. The Tatar yoke hung over Russia, which lasted until the end of the 14th century.
The yoke of the Mongol-Tatars was to use the economic potential of Rus' in the interests of the conquerors. Every year Rus' paid a huge tribute, and the Golden Horde strictly controlled the activities of the Russian princes. In the cultural field, the Mongols used the labor of Russian craftsmen to build and decorate the Golden Horde cities. The conquerors plundered the material and artistic values of Russian cities, depleting the vitality of the population with numerous raids.
Invasion of the Crusaders. Alexander Nevskiy
Rus', weakened by the Mongol-Tatar yoke, found itself in a very difficult situation when a threat from Swedish and German feudal lords loomed over its northwestern lands. After the capture of the Baltic lands, the knights of the Livonian Order approached the borders of the Novgorod-Pskov land. In 1240, the Battle of the Neva took place - a battle between Russian and Swedish troops on the Neva River. Novgorod Prince Alexander Yaroslavovich completely defeated the enemy, for which he received the nickname Nevsky.
Alexander Nevsky led the united Russian army, which he marched with in the spring of 1242 to liberate Pskov, which by that time had been captured by German knights. Pursuing their army, the Russian squads reached Lake Peipsi, where on April 5, 1242, the famous battle took place, called the Battle of the Ice. As a result of a fierce battle, the German knights were completely defeated.
The significance of Alexander Nevsky's victories against the aggression of the crusaders can hardly be overestimated. If the crusaders were successful, there could have been a forced assimilation of the peoples of Rus' in many areas of their life and culture. This could not have happened during almost three centuries of the Horde yoke, since the general culture of the steppe nomads was much lower than the culture of the Germans and Swedes. Therefore, the Mongol-Tatars were never able to impose their culture and way of life on the Russian people.
The Rise of Moscow
The founder of the Moscow princely dynasty and the first independent Moscow appanage prince was the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky, Daniel. At that time, Moscow was a small and poor place. However, Daniil Alexandrovich managed to significantly expand its borders. In order to gain control over the entire Moscow River, in 1301 he took Kolomna from the Ryazan prince. In 1302, the Pereyaslav inheritance was annexed to Moscow, and the next year - Mozhaisk, which was part of the Smolensk principality.
The growth and rise of Moscow was associated primarily with its location in the center of that part of the Slavic lands where the Russian nation took shape. The economic development of Moscow and the Moscow Principality was facilitated by their location at the crossroads of both water and land trade routes. Trade duties paid to the Moscow princes by passing merchants were an important source of growth for the princely treasury. No less important was the fact that the city was located in the center
Russian principalities, which protected it from the attacks of invaders. The Moscow principality became a kind of refuge for many Russian people, which also contributed to the development of the economy and rapid population growth.
In the 14th century, Moscow emerged as the center of the Moscow Grand Duchy - one of the strongest in North-Eastern Rus'. The skillful policy of the Moscow princes contributed to the rise of Moscow. Since the time of Ivan I Danilovich Kalita, Moscow has become the political center of the Vladimir-Suzdal Grand Duchy, the residence of Russian metropolitans, and the ecclesiastical capital of Rus'. The struggle between Moscow and Tver for supremacy in Rus' ends with the victory of the Moscow prince.
In the second half of the 14th century, under the grandson of Ivan Kalita, Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy, Moscow became the organizer of the armed struggle of the Russian people against the Mongol-Tatar yoke, the overthrow of which began with the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, when Dmitry Ivanovich defeated the hundred thousandth army of Khan Mamai on the Kulikovo field. The Golden Horde khans, understanding the significance of Moscow, tried more than once to destroy it (the burning of Moscow by Khan Tokhtamysh in 1382). However, nothing could stop the consolidation of Russian lands around Moscow. In the last quarter of the 15th century, under Grand Duke Ivan III Vasilyevich, Moscow turned into the capital of the Russian centralized state, which in 1480 forever threw off the Mongol-Tatar yoke (standing on the Ugra River).
Reign of Ivan IV the Terrible
After the death of Vasily III in 1533, his three-year-old son Ivan IV ascended the throne. Because of his early age, Elena Glinskaya, his mother, was declared ruler. Thus begins the period of the notorious “boyar rule” - a time of boyar conspiracies, noble unrest, and city uprisings. Ivan IV's participation in state activities begins with the creation of the Elected Rada - a special council under the young tsar, which included the leaders of the nobility, representatives of the largest nobility. The composition of the Elected Rada seemed to reflect a compromise between various layers of the ruling class.
Despite this, the aggravation of relations between Ivan IV and certain circles of the boyars began to brew in the mid-50s of the 16th century. A particularly sharp protest was caused by Ivan IV’s policy of “opening a big war” for Livonia. Some members of the government considered the war for the Baltic states to be premature and demanded that all efforts be directed toward developing the southern and eastern borders of Russia. The split between Ivan IV and the majority of members of the Elected Rada pushed the boyars to oppose the new political course. This prompted the tsar to take more drastic measures - the complete elimination of the boyar opposition and the creation of special punitive authorities. The new order of government, introduced by Ivan IV at the end of 1564, was called the oprichnina.
The country was divided into two parts: the oprichnina and the zemshchina. The tsar included the most important lands in the oprichnina - economically developed regions of the country, strategically important points. The nobles who were part of the oprichnina army settled on these lands. It was the duty of the zemshchina to maintain it. Boyars were evicted from oprichnina territories.
In the oprichnina, a parallel system of government was created. Ivan IV himself became its head. The oprichnina was created to eliminate those who expressed dissatisfaction with the autocracy. This was not only administrative and land reform. In an effort to destroy the remnants of feudal fragmentation in Russia, Ivan the Terrible did not stop at any cruelty. Oprichnina terror, executions and exiles began. The center and north-west of the Russian land, where the boyars were especially strong, were subjected to especially brutal defeat. In 1570, Ivan IV launched a campaign against Novgorod. On the way, the oprichnina army defeated Klin, Torzhok and Tver.
The oprichnina did not destroy princely-boyar land ownership. However, it greatly weakened his power. The political role of the boyar aristocracy, which opposed
centralization policies. At the same time, the oprichnina worsened the situation of the peasants and contributed to their mass enslavement.
In 1572, shortly after the campaign against Novgorod, the oprichnina was abolished. The reason for this was not only that the main forces of the opposition boyars had been broken by this time and that they themselves had been physically exterminated almost completely. The main reason for the abolition of the oprichnina is the clearly matured dissatisfaction with this policy of various segments of the population. But, having abolished the oprichnina and even returned some boyars to their old estates, Ivan the Terrible did not change the general direction of his policy. Many oprichnina institutions continued to exist after 1572 under the name of the Sovereign's Court.
The oprichnina could only give temporary success, since it was an attempt by brute force to break what was generated by the economic laws of the country's development. The need to combat appanage antiquity, strengthening centralization and the power of the tsar were objectively necessary at that time for Russia. The reign of Ivan IV the Terrible predetermined further events - the establishment of serfdom on a national scale and the so-called “Time of Troubles” at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries.
"Time of Troubles"
After Ivan the Terrible, his son Fyodor Ivanovich, the last tsar from the Rurik dynasty, became the Russian Tsar in 1584. His reign marked the beginning of that period in Russian history, which is usually referred to as the “time of troubles.” Fyodor Ivanovich was a weak and sickly man, unable to rule the huge Russian state. Among his associates, Boris Godunov gradually stands out, who, after the death of Fedor in 1598, was elected by the Zemsky Sobor to the throne. A supporter of tough power, the new tsar continued his active policy of enslaving the peasantry. A decree on indentured servants was issued, and at the same time a decree was issued establishing “period years,” that is, the period during which peasant owners could file a claim for the return of runaway serfs to them. During the reign of Boris Godunov, the distribution of lands to service people continued at the expense of estates taken to the treasury from monasteries and disgraced boyars.
In 1601-1602 Russia suffered severe crop failures. The cholera epidemic that affected the central regions of the country contributed to the deterioration of the situation of the population. Disasters and popular discontent led to numerous uprisings, the largest of which was the Cotton Rebellion, which was suppressed with difficulty by the authorities only in the fall of 1603.
Taking advantage of the difficulties of the internal situation of the Russian state, Polish and Swedish feudal lords tried to seize the Smolensk and Seversk lands, which had previously been part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Part of the Russian boyars was dissatisfied with the rule of Boris Godunov, and this was a breeding ground for the emergence of opposition.
In conditions of general discontent, an impostor appears on the western borders of Russia, posing as Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Terrible, who “miraculously escaped” in Uglich. “Tsarevich Dmitry” turned to the Polish magnates for help, and then to King Sigismund. To gain the support of the Catholic Church, he secretly converted to Catholicism and promised to subordinate the Russian Church to the papal throne. In the fall of 1604, False Dmitry with a small army crossed the Russian border and moved through Seversk Ukraine to Moscow. Despite the defeat at Dobrynichi at the beginning of 1605, he managed to rouse many regions of the country into rebellion. The news of the appearance of the “legitimate Tsar Dmitry” raised great hopes for changes in life, so city after city declared support for the impostor. Meeting no resistance on his way, False Dmitry approached Moscow, where by that time Boris Godunov had suddenly died. The Moscow nobility, which did not accept Boris Godunov’s son as tsar, made it possible for the impostor to establish himself on the Russian throne.
However, he was in no hurry to fulfill the promises he had made earlier - to transfer the outlying Russian regions to Poland, and even more so to convert the Russian people to Catholicism. False Dmitry did not justify
hopes and peasantry, since he began to pursue the same policy as Godunov, relying on the nobility. The boyars, who used False Dmitry to overthrow Godunov, were now only waiting for a reason to get rid of him and come to power. The reason for the overthrow of False Dmitry was the wedding of the impostor with the daughter of a Polish tycoon, Marina Mnishek. The Poles who arrived for the celebrations behaved in Moscow as if they were in a conquered city. Taking advantage of the current situation, the boyars, led by Vasily Shuisky, on May 17, 1606, rebelled against the impostor and his Polish supporters. False Dmitry was killed, and the Poles were expelled from Moscow.
After the murder of False Dmitry, Vasily Shuisky took the Russian throne. His government had to fight the peasant movement of the early 17th century (uprising led by Ivan Bolotnikov), with Polish intervention, a new stage of which began in August 1607 (False Dmitry II). After the defeat at Volkhov, the government of Vasily Shuisky was besieged in Moscow by Polish-Lithuanian invaders. At the end of 1608, many regions of the country came under the rule of False Dmitry II, which was facilitated by a new surge in class struggle, as well as growing contradictions among Russian feudal lords. In February 1609, the Shuisky government concluded an agreement with Sweden, according to which, in exchange for hiring Swedish troops, it ceded part of Russian territory in the north of the country.
At the end of 1608, a spontaneous people's liberation movement began, which Shuisky's government managed to lead only from the end of winter 1609. By the end of 1610, Moscow and most of the country were liberated. But back in September 1609, open Polish intervention began. The defeat of Shuisky's troops near Klushino from the army of Sigismund III in June 1610, the uprising of the urban lower classes against the government of Vasily Shuisky in Moscow led to his downfall. On July 17, part of the boyars, the capital and provincial nobility, Vasily Shuisky was overthrown from the throne and forcibly tonsured a monk. In September 1610, he was handed over to the Poles and taken to Poland, where he died in custody.
After the overthrow of Vasily Shuisky, power was in the hands of 7 boyars. This government was called the “Seven Boyars”. One of the first decisions of the “Seven Boyars” was the decision not to elect representatives of Russian clans as tsar. In August 1610, this group concluded an agreement with the Poles near Moscow, recognizing the son of the Polish king Sigismund III, Vladislav, as the Russian Tsar. On the night of September 21, Polish troops were secretly allowed into Moscow.
Sweden also launched aggressive actions. The overthrow of Vasily Shuisky freed her from allied obligations under the treaty of 1609. Swedish troops occupied a significant part of northern Russia and captured Novgorod. The country faced a direct threat of loss of sovereignty.
Discontent was growing in Russia. The idea of creating a national militia to liberate Moscow from the invaders arose. It was headed by governor Prokopiy Lyapunov. In February-March 1611, militia troops besieged Moscow. The decisive battle took place on March 19. However, the city has not yet been liberated. The Poles still remained in the Kremlin and Kitai-Gorod.
In the autumn of the same year, at the call of Nizhny Novgorod Kuzma Minin, a second militia began to be created, the leader of which was Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. Initially, the militia advanced in the eastern and northeastern regions of the country, where not only new regions were formed, but also governments and administrations were created. This helped the army to enlist the support of people, finances and supplies from all the most important cities in the country.
In August 1612, the militia of Minin and Pozharsky entered Moscow and united with the remnants of the first militia. The Polish garrison experienced enormous hardships and hunger. After a successful assault on Kitay-Gorod on October 26, 1612, the Poles capitulated and surrendered the Kremlin. Moscow was liberated from the interventionists. An attempt by Polish troops to retake Moscow failed, and Sigizmund III was defeated near Volokolamsk.
In January 1613, the Zemsky Sobor, meeting in Moscow, decided to elect 16-year-old Mikhail Romanov, the son of Metropolitan Philaret, who was in Polish captivity at that time, to the Russian throne.
In 1618, the Poles again invaded Russia, but were defeated. The Polish adventure ended with a truce in the village of Deulino that same year. However, Russia lost Smolensk and the Seversk cities, which it was able to return only in the middle of the 17th century. Russian prisoners returned to their homeland, including Filaret, the father of the new Russian Tsar. In Moscow, he was elevated to the rank of patriarch and played a significant role in history as the de facto ruler of Russia.
In the most brutal and severe struggle, Russia defended its independence and entered a new stage of its development. In fact, this is where its medieval history ends.
Russia after the Troubles
Russia defended its independence, but suffered serious territorial losses. The consequence of the intervention and the peasant war led by I. Bolotnikov (1606-1607) was severe economic devastation. Contemporaries called it “the great Moscow ruin.” Almost half of the arable land was abandoned. Having ended the intervention, Russia begins to slowly and with great difficulty restore its economy. This became the main content of the reign of the first two kings from the Romanov dynasty - Mikhail Fedorovich (1613-1645) and Alexei Mikhailovich (1645-1676).
To improve the work of government bodies and create a more equitable taxation system, by decree of Mikhail Romanov, a population census was carried out and land inventories were compiled. In the first years of his reign, the role of the Zemsky Sobor increased, which became a kind of permanent national council under the tsar and gave the Russian state an outward resemblance to a parliamentary monarchy.
The Swedes, who ruled in the north, failed at Pskov and in 1617 concluded the Peace of Stolbovo, according to which Novgorod was returned to Russia. At the same time, however, Russia lost the entire coast of the Gulf of Finland and access to the Baltic Sea. The situation changed only almost a hundred years later, at the beginning of the 18th century, already under Peter I.
During the reign of Mikhail Romanov, intensive construction of “barrages” against the Crimean Tatars was also carried out, and further colonization of Siberia took place.
After the death of Mikhail Romanov, his son Alexei ascended the throne. Since his reign, the establishment of autocratic power actually begins. The activities of the Zemsky Sobors ceased, the role of the Boyar Duma decreased. In 1654, the Order of Secret Affairs was created, which reported directly to the tsar and exercised control over government administration.
The reign of Alexei Mikhailovich was marked by a number of popular uprisings - urban uprisings, the so-called. “Copper Riot”, peasant war led by Stepan Razin. In a number of Russian cities (Moscow, Voronezh, Kursk, etc.) uprisings broke out in 1648. The uprising in Moscow in June 1648 was called the “salt riot.” It was caused by the dissatisfaction of the population with the predatory policies of the government, which, in order to replenish the state treasury, replaced various direct taxes with a single tax on salt, which caused its price to rise several times. Citizens, peasants and archers took part in the uprising. The rebels set fire to the White City, Kitai-Gorod, and destroyed the courtyards of the most hated boyars, clerks, and merchants. The king was forced to make temporary concessions to the rebels, and then, causing a split in the ranks of the rebels,
executed many leaders and active participants in the uprising.
In 1650, uprisings took place in Novgorod and Pskov. They were caused by the enslavement of the townspeople by the Council Code of 1649. The uprising in Novgorod was quickly suppressed by the authorities. This failed in Pskov, and the government had to negotiate and make some concessions.
On June 25, 1662, Moscow was shocked by a new major uprising - the “Copper Riot”. Its causes were the disruption of the economic life of the state during the wars between Russia and Poland and Sweden, a sharp increase in taxes and the strengthening of feudal-serf exploitation. The release of large quantities of copper money, equal in value to silver, led to their depreciation and the mass production of counterfeit copper money. Up to 10 thousand people took part in the uprising, mainly residents of the capital. The rebels went to the village of Kolomenskoye, where the tsar was, and demanded the extradition of the traitorous boyars. The troops brutally suppressed this uprising, but the government, frightened by the uprising, abolished copper money in 1663.
The strengthening of serfdom and the general deterioration in the life of the people became the main reasons for the peasant war under the leadership of Stepan Razin (1667-1671). Peasants, the urban poor, and the poorest Cossacks took part in the uprising. The movement began with the Cossacks' robbery campaign against Persia. On the way back, the differences approached Astrakhan. Local authorities decided to let them pass through the city, for which they received part of the weapons and loot. Then Razin’s troops occupied Tsaritsyn, after which they went to the Don.
In the spring of 1670, the second period of the uprising began, the main content of which was an attack against the boyars, nobles, and merchants. The rebels again captured Tsaritsyn, and then Astrakhan. Samara and Saratov surrendered without a fight. At the beginning of September, Razin’s troops approached Simbirsk. By that time, the peoples of the Volga region - the Tatars and Mordovians - had joined them. The movement soon spread to Ukraine. Razin failed to take Simbirsk. Wounded in battle, Razin retreated to the Don with a small detachment. There he was captured by wealthy Cossacks and sent to Moscow, where he was executed.
The turbulent time of Alexei Mikhailovich's reign was marked by another important event - the split of the Orthodox Church. In 1654, on the initiative of Patriarch Nikon, a church council met in Moscow, at which it was decided to compare church books with their Greek originals and establish a uniform and mandatory procedure for performing rituals.
Many priests, led by Archpriest Avvakum, opposed the resolution of the council and announced their departure from the Orthodox Church, headed by Nikon. They began to be called schismatics or Old Believers. The opposition to the reform that arose in church circles became a unique form of social protest.
Carrying out the reform, Nikon set theocratic goals - to create a strong church authority standing above the state. However, the patriarch's intervention in government affairs caused a break with the tsar, which resulted in the deposition of Nikon and the transformation of the church into part of the state apparatus. This was another step towards the establishment of autocracy.
Reunification of Ukraine with Russia
During the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich in 1654, the reunification of Ukraine with Russia took place. In the 17th century, Ukrainian lands were under Polish rule. Catholicism was forcibly introduced to them, Polish magnates and gentry appeared, who brutally oppressed the Ukrainian people, which caused the rise of the national liberation movement. Its center was the Zaporozhye Sich, where the free Cossacks were formed. The leader of this movement was Bohdan Khmelnitsky.
In 1648, his troops defeated the Poles near Zheltye Vody, Korsun and Pilyavtsy. After the defeat of the Poles, the uprising spread to all of Ukraine and part of Belarus. At the same time, Khmelnitsky appealed
to Russia with a request to accept Ukraine into the Russian state. He understood that only in an alliance with Russia could one get rid of the danger of the complete enslavement of Ukraine by Poland and Turkey. However, at this time, the government of Alexei Mikhailovich could not satisfy his request, since Russia was not ready for war. Nevertheless, despite all the difficulties of its domestic political situation, Russia continued to provide diplomatic, economic and military support to Ukraine.
In April 1653, Khmelnitsky again turned to Russia with a request to accept Ukraine into its composition. On May 10, 1653, the Zemsky Sobor in Moscow decided to grant this request. On January 8, 1654, the Great Rada in the city of Pereyaslavl proclaimed the entry of Ukraine into Russia. In this regard, a war began between Poland and Russia, which ended with the signing of the Truce of Andrusovo at the end of 1667. Russia received Smolensk, Dorogobuzh, Belaya Tserkov, Seversk land with Chernigov and Starodub. Right-bank Ukraine and Belarus still remained part of Poland. The Zaporozhye Sich, according to the agreement, was under the joint control of Russia and Poland. These conditions were finally consolidated in 1686 by the “Eternal Peace” of Russia and Poland.
The reign of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich and the regency of Sophia
In the 17th century, Russia's noticeable lag behind advanced Western countries became obvious. The lack of access to ice-free seas interfered with trade and cultural ties with Europe. The need for a regular army was dictated by the complexity of Russia's foreign policy situation. The Streltsy army and the noble militia could no longer fully ensure its defense capability. There was no large manufacturing industry, and the order-based management system was outdated. Russia needed reforms.
In 1676, the royal throne passed to the weak and sickly Fyodor Alekseevich, from whom one could not expect the radical transformations so necessary for the country. And yet, in 1682, he managed to abolish localism - the system of distribution of ranks and positions according to nobility and birth, which had existed since the 14th century. In the field of foreign policy, Russia managed to win the war with Turkey, which was forced to recognize the reunification of Left Bank Ukraine with Russia.
In 1682, Fyodor Alekseevich died suddenly, and since he was childless, a dynastic crisis broke out again in Russia, since two sons of Alexei Mikhailovich could lay claim to the throne - sixteen-year-old sickly and weak Ivan and ten-year-old Peter. Princess Sophia did not renounce her claims to the throne. As a result of the Streltsy uprising of 1682, both heirs were declared kings, and Sophia was declared their regent.
During her reign, small concessions were made to the townspeople and the search for runaway peasants was weakened. In 1689, there was a break between Sophia and the boyar-noble group that supported Peter I. Having been defeated in this struggle, Sophia was imprisoned in the Novodevichy Convent.
Peter I. His domestic and foreign policies
During the first period of the reign of Peter I, three events occurred that decisively influenced the formation of the reformer tsar. The first of these was the trip of the young tsar to Arkhangelsk in 1693-1694, where the sea and ships conquered him forever. The second is the Azov campaigns against the Turks in order to find access to the Black Sea. The capture of the Turkish fortress of Azov was the first victory of the Russian troops and the fleet created in Russia, the beginning of the country's transformation into a maritime power. On the other hand, these campaigns showed the need for changes in the Russian army. The third event was the trip of the Russian diplomatic mission to Europe, in which the Tsar himself participated. The embassy did not achieve its direct goal (Russia had to abandon the fight with Turkey), but it studied the international situation and prepared the ground for the struggle for the Baltic states and for access to the Baltic Sea.
In 1700, the difficult Northern War with the Swedes began, which lasted for 21 years. This war largely determined the pace and nature of the reforms carried out in Russia. The Northern War was fought for the return of lands captured by the Swedes and for Russia's access to the Baltic Sea. In the first period of the war (1700-1706), after the defeat of the Russian troops near Narva, Peter I was able not only to assemble a new army, but also to rebuild the country's industry on a war footing. Having captured key points in the Baltic states and founded the city of St. Petersburg in 1703, Russian troops gained a foothold on the coast of the Gulf of Finland.
During the second period of the war (1707-1709), the Swedes invaded Russia through Ukraine, but, having been defeated near the village of Lesnoy, were finally defeated in the Battle of Poltava in 1709. The third period of the war occurred in 1710-1718, when the Russians troops captured many Baltic cities, drove the Swedes out of Finland, and together with the Poles pushed the enemy back to Pomerania. The Russian fleet won a brilliant victory at Gangut in 1714.
During the fourth period of the Northern War, despite the machinations of England, which made peace with Sweden, Russia established itself on the shores of the Baltic Sea. The Northern War ended in 1721 with the signing of the Peace of Nystadt. Sweden recognized the annexation of Livonia, Estland, Izhora, part of Karelia and a number of islands of the Baltic Sea to Russia. Russia pledged to pay Sweden monetary compensation for the territories going to it and return Finland. The Russian state, having returned to itself the lands previously captured by Sweden, secured access to the Baltic Sea.
Against the backdrop of the turbulent events of the first quarter of the 18th century, a restructuring of all sectors of the country’s life took place, and reforms of the public administration and political system were also carried out - the power of the tsar acquired an unlimited, absolute character. In 1721, the tsar took the title of Emperor of All Russia. Thus, Russia became an empire, and its ruler became the emperor of a huge and powerful state, on a par with the great world powers of that time.
The creation of new power structures began with a change in the image of the monarch himself and the foundations of his power and authority. In 1702, the Boyar Duma was replaced by the “Concilia of Ministers”, and since 1711 the Senate became the supreme institution in the country. The creation of this authority also gave rise to a complex bureaucratic structure with offices, departments and numerous staff. It was from the time of Peter I that a peculiar cult of bureaucratic institutions and administrative authorities was formed in Russia.
In 1717-1718 instead of the primitive and long-outdated system of orders, collegiums were created - the prototype of future ministries, and in 1721 the establishment of the Synod, headed by a secular official, completely made the church dependent and at the service of the state. Thus, from now on, the institution of patriarchy in Russia was abolished.
The crowning achievement of the bureaucratic structure of the absolutist state was the “Table of Ranks”, adopted in 1722. According to it, military, civil and court ranks were divided into fourteen ranks - steps. Society was not only streamlined, but also came under the control of the emperor and the highest aristocracy. The functioning of government institutions has improved, each of which has received a specific area of activity.
Feeling an urgent need for money, the government of Peter I introduced a poll tax, which replaced household taxation. In this regard, to take into account the male population in the country, which became a new object of taxation, a census was carried out - the so-called. revision. In 1723, a decree on succession to the throne was issued, according to which the monarch himself received the right to appoint his successors, regardless of family ties and primogeniture.
During the reign of Peter I, a large number of manufactories and mining enterprises arose, and the development of new iron ore deposits began. Promoting the development of industry, Peter I established central bodies in charge of trade and industry and transferred state-owned enterprises to private hands.
The protective tariff of 1724 protected new industries from foreign competition and encouraged the import of raw materials and products into the country, the production of which did not meet the needs of the domestic market, which was reflected in the policy of mercantilism.
Results of the activities of Peter I
Thanks to the energetic activity of Peter I, enormous changes occurred in the economy, the level and forms of development of the productive forces, in the political system of Russia, in the structure and functions of government bodies, in the organization of the army, in the class and estate structure of the population, in the life and culture of peoples. Medieval Muscovite Rus' turned into the Russian Empire. Russia's place and role in international affairs has changed radically.
The complexity and inconsistency of Russia's development during this period also determined the inconsistency of Peter I's activities in implementing reforms. On the one hand, these reforms had enormous historical meaning, since they met the national interests and needs of the country, contributed to its progressive development, and were aimed at eliminating its backwardness. On the other hand, the reforms were carried out using the same serfdom methods and thereby contributed to the strengthening of the rule of the serf owners.
From the very beginning, the progressive transformations of Peter the Great's time contained conservative features, which became more and more prominent as the country developed and could not ensure the complete elimination of its backwardness. Objectively, these reforms were bourgeois in nature, but subjectively, their implementation led to the strengthening of serfdom and the strengthening of feudalism. They could not be different - the capitalist structure in Russia at that time was still very weak.
It is also worth noting the cultural changes in Russian society that occurred during Peter’s time: the emergence of first-level schools, specialized schools, and the Russian Academy of Sciences. A network of printing houses has emerged in the country to print domestic and translated publications. The country's first newspaper began to be published, and the first museum appeared. Significant changes have occurred in everyday life.
Palace coups of the 18th century
After the death of Emperor Peter I, a period began in Russia when supreme power quickly changed hands, and those who occupied the throne did not always have legal rights to do so. This began immediately after the death of Peter I in 1725. The new aristocracy, formed during the reign of the reformer emperor, fearing the loss of its prosperity and power, contributed to the ascension to the throne of Catherine I, Peter’s widow. This made it possible to establish the Supreme Privy Council under the Empress in 1726, which actually seized power.
The greatest benefit from this was the first favorite of Peter I - His Serene Highness Prince A.D. Menshikov. His influence was so great that even after the death of Catherine I, he was able to subjugate the new Russian emperor, Peter II. However, another group of courtiers, dissatisfied with Menshikov’s actions, deprived him of power, and he was soon exiled to Siberia.
These political changes did not change the established order. After the unexpected death of Peter II in 1730, the most influential group of the late emperor’s associates, the so-called. “sovereigns”, decided to invite the niece of Peter I, the Duchess of Courland Anna Ivanovna, to the throne, stipulating her accession to the throne with conditions (“Conditions”): not to marry, not to appoint a successor, not to declare war, not to introduce new taxes, etc. The acceptance of such conditions made Anna is an obedient toy in the hands of the highest aristocracy. However, at the request of the noble deputation, upon accession to the throne, Anna Ivanovna rejected the conditions of the “supreme leaders”.
Fearing intrigues from the aristocracy, Anna Ivanovna surrounded herself with foreigners, on whom she became completely dependent. The empress was almost not interested in state affairs. This prompted foreigners from the tsar’s entourage to commit many abuses, plunder the treasury and insult the national dignity of the Russian people.
Shortly before her death, Anna Ivanovna appointed the grandson of her older sister, baby Ivan Antonovich, as her heir. In 1740, at the age of three months, he was proclaimed Emperor Ivan VI. Duke Biron of Courland, who enjoyed enormous influence even under Anna Ivanovna, became its regent. This caused extreme discontent not only among the Russian nobility, but also in the immediate circle of the late empress. As a result of a court conspiracy, Biron was overthrown, and the rights of the regency were transferred to the emperor's mother, Anna Leopoldovna. Thus, the dominance of foreigners at the court was preserved.
A conspiracy arose among Russian nobles and guard officers in favor of the daughter of Peter I, as a result of which Elizaveta Petrovna ascended the Russian throne in 1741. During her reign, which lasted until 1761, there was a return to Peter's order. The Senate became the highest body of state power. The Cabinet of Ministers was abolished, and the rights of the Russian nobility expanded significantly. All changes in government were primarily aimed at strengthening the autocracy. However, unlike Peter's times, the main role in decision-making began to be played by the court-bureaucratic elite. Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, like her predecessor, was very little interested in state affairs.
Elizabeth Petrovna appointed her heir as the son of Peter I's eldest daughter, Karl-Peter-Ulrich, Duke of Holstein, who in Orthodoxy took the name Peter Fedorovich. He ascended the throne in 1761 under the name of Peter III (1761-1762). The Imperial Council became the highest authority, but the new emperor was completely unprepared to govern the state. The only major event that he carried out was the “Manifesto on the granting of liberty and freedom to the entire Russian nobility,” which abolished the obligatory nature of both civil and military service for nobles.
Peter III's admiration for the Prussian king Frederick II and the implementation of policies that were contrary to the interests of Russia led to dissatisfaction with his rule and contributed to the growing popularity of his wife Sophia Augusta Frederica, Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, in Orthodoxy Ekaterina Alekseevna. Catherine, unlike her husband, respected Russian customs, traditions, Orthodoxy, and most importantly, the Russian nobility and army. The conspiracy against Peter III in 1762 elevated Catherine to the imperial throne.
Reign of Catherine the Great
Catherine II, who ruled the country for more than thirty years, was an educated, intelligent, businesslike, energetic, and ambitious woman. While on the throne, she repeatedly declared that she was the successor of Peter I. She managed to concentrate all legislative and most of the executive power in her hands. Its first reform was the reform of the Senate, which limited its functions in government. She confiscated church lands, which deprived the church of economic power. A colossal number of monastic peasants were transferred to the state, thanks to which the Russian treasury was replenished.
The reign of Catherine II left a noticeable mark on Russian history. Like many other European states, Russia during the reign of Catherine II was characterized by a policy of “enlightened absolutism,” which presupposed a wise ruler, a patron of art, and a benefactor of all science. Catherine tried to correspond to this model and even corresponded with French enlighteners, giving preference to Voltaire and Diderot. However, this did not prevent her from pursuing a policy of strengthening serfdom.
And yet, a manifestation of the policy of “enlightened absolutism” was the creation and activity of a commission to draw up a new legislative code of Russia instead of the outdated Council Code of 1649. Representatives of various segments of the population were involved in the work of this commission: nobles, townspeople, Cossacks and state peasants. The commission's documents established the class rights and privileges of various segments of the Russian population. However, the commission was soon dissolved. The Empress found out the mindset of class groups and relied on the nobility. There was one goal - to strengthen local government power.
From the beginning of the 80s, a period of reforms began. The main directions were the following provisions: decentralization of management and increasing the role of the local nobility, almost doubling the number of provinces, strict subordination of all local government structures, etc. The law enforcement system was also reformed. Political functions were transferred to the zemstvo court, elected by the noble assembly, headed by the zemstvo police officer, and in district cities - by the mayor. A whole system of courts arose in the districts and provinces, depending on the administration. Partial election of officials in provinces and districts by the nobility was also introduced. These reforms created a fairly advanced system of local government and strengthened the connection between the nobility and the autocracy.
The position of the nobility was further strengthened after the appearance of the “Charter on the rights, liberties and advantages of the noble nobility,” signed in 1785. In accordance with this document, nobles were exempted from compulsory service, corporal punishment, and could also lose their rights and property only by the verdict of the noble court approved by the empress.
Simultaneously with the Charter of the nobility, a “Charter of Rights and Benefits to the Cities of the Russian Empire” also appeared. In accordance with it, townspeople were divided into categories with different rights and responsibilities. A city duma was formed, which dealt with issues of urban management, but under the control of the administration. All these acts further consolidated the class-corporate division of society and strengthened autocratic power.
The uprising of E.I. Pugacheva
The tightening of exploitation and serfdom in Russia during the reign of Catherine II led to the fact that in the 60-70s a wave of anti-feudal protests by peasants, Cossacks, assigned and working people swept across the country. They acquired their greatest scope in the 70s, and the most powerful of them went down in Russian history under the name of the Peasant War under the leadership of E. Pugachev.
In 1771, unrest engulfed the lands of the Yaik Cossacks who lived along the Yaik River (modern Ural). The government began to introduce army regulations in the Cossack regiments and limit Cossack self-government. The unrest of the Cossacks was suppressed, but hatred was brewing among them, which spilled out in January 1772 as a result of the activities of the investigative commission, which examined complaints. This explosive region was chosen by Pugachev to organize and campaign against the authorities.
In 1773, Pugachev escaped from a Kazan prison and headed east, to the Yaik River, where he proclaimed himself to be Emperor Peter III who had allegedly escaped death. The “Manifesto” of Peter III, in which Pugachev granted the Cossacks land, hayfields, and money, attracted a significant part of the dissatisfied Cossacks to him. From that moment the first stage of the war began. After failure near the Yaitsky town, with a small detachment of surviving supporters, he moved towards Orenburg. The city was besieged by the rebels. The government brought troops to Orenburg, which inflicted a severe defeat on the rebels. Pugachev, who retreated to Samara, was soon defeated again and with a small detachment disappeared into the Urals.
In April-June 1774, the second stage of the peasant war occurred. After a series of battles, the rebel detachments moved to Kazan. At the beginning of July, the Pugachevites captured Kazan, but they could not resist the approaching regular army. Pugachev with a small detachment crossed to the right bank of the Volga and began a retreat to the south.
It was from this moment that the war reached its highest scale and acquired a pronounced anti-serfdom character. It covered the entire Volga region and threatened to spread to the central regions of the country. Selected army units were deployed against Pugachev. The spontaneity and locality characteristic of peasant wars made it easier to fight the rebels. Under the blows of government troops, Pugachev retreated to the south, trying to break through into the Cossack lines
Don and Yaik regions. Near Tsaritsyn, his troops were defeated, and on the way to Yaik, Pugachev himself was captured and handed over to the authorities by wealthy Cossacks. In 1775 he was executed in Moscow.
The reasons for the defeat of the peasant war were its tsarist character and naive monarchism, spontaneity, locality, poor armament, disunity. In addition, various categories of the population participated in this movement, each of which sought exclusively to achieve its own goals.
Foreign policy under Catherine II
Empress Catherine II pursued an active and highly successful foreign policy, which can be divided into three directions. The first foreign policy task that her government set for itself was the desire to achieve access to the Black Sea in order, firstly, to secure the southern regions of the country from the threat from Turkey and the Crimean Khanate, and secondly, to expand opportunities for trade and, consequently, , to increase the marketability of agriculture.
In order to complete the task, Russia fought twice with Turkey: the Russian-Turkish wars of 1768-1774. and 1787-1791 In 1768, Turkey, incited by France and Austria, who were very concerned about strengthening Russia’s position in the Balkans and Poland, declared war on Russia. During this war, Russian troops under the command of P.A. Rumyantsev won brilliant victories over superior enemy forces at the Larga and Kagul rivers in 1770, and the Russian fleet under the command of F.F. Ushakov twice inflicted major defeats on the Turkish fleet in the same year in the Chios Strait and in Chesme Bay. The advance of Rumyantsev's troops in the Balkans forced Turkey to admit defeat. In 1774, the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty was signed, according to which Russia received the lands between the Bug and the Dnieper, the fortresses of Azov, Kerch, Yenikale and Kinburn, Turkey recognized the independence of the Crimean Khanate; The Black Sea and its straits were open to Russian merchant ships.
In 1783, the Crimean Khan Shagin-Girey resigned and Crimea was annexed to Russia. The lands of Kuban also became part of the Russian state. In the same 1783, the Georgian king Irakli II recognized the Russian protectorate over Georgia. All these events aggravated the already difficult relations between Russia and Turkey and led to a new Russian-Turkish war. In a number of battles, Russian troops under the command of A.V. Suvorov again showed their superiority: in 1787 at Kinburn, in 1788 at the capture of Ochakov, in 1789 at the Rymnik River and near Focsani, and in 1790 it was taken impregnable fortress Izmail. The Russian fleet under the command of Ushakov also won a number of victories over the Turkish fleet in the Kerch Strait, near Tendra Island, and at Kali-akria. Türkiye again admitted defeat. According to the Treaty of Iasi in 1791, the annexation of Crimea and Kuban to Russia was confirmed, and the border between Russia and Turkey along the Dniester was established. The Ochakov fortress went to Russia, Türkiye renounced its claims to Georgia.
The second foreign policy task - the reunification of Ukrainian and Belarusian lands - was carried out as a result of the divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by Austria, Prussia and Russia. These divisions took place in 1772, 1793, 1795. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceased to exist as an independent state. Russia regained all of Belarus, right-bank Ukraine, and also received Courland and Lithuania.
The third task was the fight against revolutionary France. The government of Catherine II took a sharply hostile position towards the events in France. At first, Catherine II did not dare to openly intervene, but the execution of Louis XVI (January 21, 1793) caused a final break with France, which the Empress announced by a special decree. The Russian government provided assistance to French emigrants, and in 1793 entered into agreements with Prussia and England on joint actions against France. Suvorov's 60,000-strong corps was preparing for the campaign; the Russian fleet took part in the naval blockade of France. However, Catherine II was no longer destined to solve this problem.
Paul I
On November 6, 1796, Catherine II suddenly died. Her son Paul I became the Russian emperor, whose short reign was filled with an intense search for a monarch in all spheres of public and international life, which from the outside looked more like a hectic rushing from one extreme to another. Trying to restore order in the administrative and financial spheres, Pavel tried to penetrate into every little detail, sent out mutually exclusive circulars, severely punished and punished. All this gave rise to an atmosphere of police surveillance and barracks. On the other hand, Paul ordered the release of all political prisoners arrested under Catherine. True, it was easy to end up in jail just because a person, for one reason or another, violated the rules of everyday life.
Paul I attached great importance to lawmaking in his activities. In 1797, with the “Act on the Order of Succession to the Throne” and the “Institution on the Imperial Family,” he restored the principle of succession to the throne exclusively through the male line.
Paul I's policy towards the nobility turned out to be completely unexpected. Catherine's liberties came to an end, and the nobility was placed under strict state control. The emperor especially severely punished representatives of the noble classes for failure to perform public service. But even here there were some extremes: while infringing on the nobles, on the one hand, Paul I at the same time, on an unprecedented scale, distributed a significant part of all state peasants to landowners. And here another innovation appeared - legislation on the peasant issue. For the first time in many decades, official documents appeared that gave some relief to the peasants. The sale of courtyard people and landless peasants was abolished, a three-day corvee was recommended, and peasant complaints and requests that were previously unacceptable were allowed.
In the field of foreign policy, the government of Paul I continued the fight against revolutionary France. In the fall of 1798, Russia sent a squadron under the command of F.F. Ushakov to the Mediterranean Sea through the Black Sea straits, which liberated the Ionian Islands and southern Italy from the French. One of the largest battles of this campaign was the Battle of Corfu in 1799. In the summer of 1799, Russian warships appeared off the coast of Italy, and Russian soldiers entered Naples and Rome.
In the same 1799, the Russian army under the command of A.V. Suvorov brilliantly carried out the Italian and Swiss campaigns. She managed to liberate Milan and Turin from the French, making a heroic transition through the Alps to Switzerland.
In the middle of 1800, a sharp turn in Russian foreign policy began - a rapprochement between Russia and France, which strained relations with England. Trade with it was virtually stopped. This turn largely determined events in Europe in the first decades of the new 19th century.
Reign of Emperor Alexander I
On the night of March 11-12, 1801, when Emperor Paul I was killed as a result of a conspiracy, the question of the accession of his eldest son Alexander Pavlovich to the Russian throne was decided. He was privy to the conspiracy plan. Hopes were pinned on the new monarch to carry out liberal reforms and soften the regime of personal power.
Emperor Alexander I was raised under the supervision of his grandmother, Catherine II. He was familiar with the ideas of the enlighteners - Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau. However, Alexander Pavlovich never separated thoughts about equality and freedom from autocracy. This half-heartedness became a feature of both the transformations and the reign of Emperor Alexander I.
His first manifestos indicated the adoption of a new political course. It proclaimed the desire to rule according to the laws of Catherine II, to lift restrictions on trade with England, and contained an amnesty and the reinstatement of persons repressed under Paul I.
All work related to the liberalization of life was concentrated in the so-called. A secret committee where friends and associates of the young emperor gathered - P.A. Stroganov, V.P. Kochubey, A. Czartoryski and N.N. Novosiltsev - adherents of constitutionalism. The committee existed until 1805. It was mainly involved in preparing a program for the liberation of peasants from serfdom and the reform of the state system. The result of this activity was the law of December 12, 1801, which allowed state peasants, petty bourgeois and merchants to acquire uninhabited lands, and the decree of February 20, 1803 “On free cultivators,” which gave landowners the right, at their request, to free the peasants with their land for ransom.
A serious reform was the reorganization of the highest and central government bodies. Ministries were established in the country: military and ground forces, finance and public education, the State Treasury and the Committee of Ministers, which received a unified structure and were built on the principle of unity of command. Since 1810, in accordance with the project of the prominent statesman of those years M.M. Speransky, the State Council began to operate. However, Speransky could not implement a consistent principle of separation of powers. The State Council turned from an intermediate body into a legislative chamber appointed from above. The reforms of the early 19th century never affected the foundations of autocratic power in the Russian Empire.
During the reign of Alexander I, the Kingdom of Poland annexed to Russia was granted a constitution. The Constitutional Act was also granted to the Bessarabia region. Finland, which also became part of Russia, received its own legislative body - the Diet - and a constitutional structure.
Thus, constitutional government already existed in part of the territory of the Russian Empire, which raised hopes for its spread throughout the country. In 1818, the development of the “Charter of the Russian Empire” even began, but this document never saw the light of day.
In 1822, the emperor lost interest in state affairs, work on reforms was curtailed, and among the advisers of Alexander I, the figure of a new temporary worker stood out - A.A. Arakcheev, who became the first person in the state after the emperor and ruled as an all-powerful favorite. The consequences of the reform activities of Alexander I and his advisers turned out to be insignificant. The unexpected death of the emperor in 1825 at the age of 48 became the reason for open action on the part of the most advanced part of Russian society, the so-called. Decembrists, against the foundations of autocracy.
Patriotic War of 1812
During the reign of Alexander I there was a terrible test for all of Russia - the war of liberation against Napoleonic aggression. The war was caused by the desire of the French bourgeoisie for world domination, a sharp aggravation of Russian-French economic and political contradictions in connection with the wars of conquest of Napoleon I, and Russia’s refusal to participate in the continental blockade of Great Britain. The agreement between Russia and Napoleonic France, concluded in the city of Tilsit in 1807, was temporary. This was understood both in St. Petersburg and in Paris, although many dignitaries of the two countries advocated maintaining peace. However, contradictions between states continued to accumulate, leading to open conflict.
On June 12 (24), 1812, about 500 thousand Napoleonic soldiers crossed the Neman River and
invaded Russia. Napoleon rejected Alexander I's proposal for a peaceful solution to the conflict if he would withdraw his troops. Thus began the Patriotic War, so called because not only the regular army fought against the French, but also almost the entire population of the country in the militia and partisan detachments.
The Russian army consisted of 220 thousand people, and it was divided into three parts. The first army - under the command of General M.B. Barclay de Tolly - was located on the territory of Lithuania, the second - under General Prince P.I. Bagration - in Belarus, and the third army - under General A.P. Tormasov - in Ukraine. Napoleon's plan was extremely simple and consisted in defeating the Russian armies piece by piece with powerful blows.
The Russian armies retreated to the east in parallel directions, conserving strength and exhausting the enemy in rearguard battles. On August 2 (14), the armies of Barclay de Tolly and Bagration united in the Smolensk area. Here, in a difficult two-day battle, the French troops lost 20 thousand soldiers and officers, the Russians - up to 6 thousand people.
The war was clearly taking on a protracted nature, the Russian army continued its retreat, leading the enemy with it into the interior of the country. At the end of August 1812, M.I. Kutuzov, a student and colleague of A.V. Suvorov, was appointed commander-in-chief instead of Minister of War M.B. Barclay de Tolly. Alexander I, who did not like him, was forced to take into account the patriotic sentiments of the Russian people and army, general dissatisfaction with the retreat tactics chosen by Barclay de Tolly. Kutuzov decided to give a general battle to the French army in the area of the village of Borodino, 124 km west of Moscow.
On August 26 (September 7) the battle began. The Russian army was faced with the task of exhausting the enemy, undermining its combat power and morale, and, if successful, launching a counteroffensive themselves. Kutuzov chose a very successful position for the Russian troops. The right flank was protected by a natural barrier - the Koloch River, and the left - by artificial earthen fortifications - flushes occupied by Bagration's troops. The troops of General N.N. Raevsky, as well as artillery positions, were located in the center. Napoleon's plan envisaged breaking through the defenses of Russian troops in the area of Bagrationov's flushes and encircling Kutuzov's army, and when it was pressed against the river, its complete defeat.
The French launched eight attacks against the flushes, but were unable to completely capture them. They managed to make only slight progress in the center, destroying Raevsky's batteries. In the midst of the battle in the central direction, the Russian cavalry made a daring raid behind enemy lines, which sowed panic in the ranks of the attackers.
Napoleon did not dare to bring into action his main reserve - the old guard - in order to turn the tide of the battle. The Battle of Borodino ended late in the evening, and the troops retreated to their previously occupied positions. Thus, the battle was a political and moral victory for the Russian army.
On September 1 (13) in Fili, at a meeting of the command staff, Kutuzov decided to leave Moscow in order to preserve the army. Napoleon's troops entered Moscow and stayed there until October 1812. Meanwhile, Kutuzov carried out his plan called the “Tarutino Maneuver”, thanks to which Napoleon lost the ability to track the locations of the Russians. In the village of Tarutino, Kutuzov’s army was replenished by 120 thousand people and significantly strengthened its artillery and cavalry. In addition, it actually closed the French troops’ path to Tula, where the main weapons arsenals and food warehouses were located.
During their stay in Moscow, the French army was demoralized by hunger, looting, and fires that engulfed the city. In the hope of replenishing his arsenals and food supplies, Napoleon was forced to withdraw his army from Moscow. On the way to Maloyaroslavets on October 12 (24), Napoleon's army suffered a serious defeat and began a retreat from Russia along the Smolensk road, already ruined by the French themselves.
At the final stage of the war, the tactics of the Russian army consisted of parallel pursuit of the enemy. Russian troops, no
entering the battle with Napoleon, they destroyed his retreating army piece by piece. The French also suffered seriously from the winter frosts, for which they were not prepared, since Napoleon hoped to end the war before the cold weather. The culmination of the war of 1812 was the battle of the Berezina River, which ended in the defeat of Napoleonic army.
On December 25, 1812, in St. Petersburg, Emperor Alexander I published a manifesto, which stated that the Patriotic War of the Russian people against the French invaders ended in complete victory and the expulsion of the enemy.
The Russian army took part in the foreign campaigns of 1813-1814, during which, together with the Prussian, Swedish, English and Austrian armies, they finished off the enemy in Germany and France. The campaign of 1813 ended with the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig. After the capture of Paris by Allied forces in the spring of 1814, Napoleon I abdicated the throne.
Decembrist movement
The first quarter of the 19th century in the history of Russia became the period of formation of the revolutionary movement and its ideology. After the foreign campaigns of the Russian army, advanced ideas began to penetrate into the Russian Empire. The first secret revolutionary organizations of nobles appeared. Most of them were military officers - guard officers.
The first secret political society was founded in 1816 in St. Petersburg under the name "Union of Salvation", renamed the following year into the "Society of True and Faithful Sons of the Fatherland." Its members were the future Decembrists A.I. Muravyov, M.I. Muravyov-Apostol, P.I. Pestel, S.P. Trubetskoy and others. The goal they set for themselves was a constitution, representation, the liquidation of the serf rights. However, this society was still small in number and could not realize the tasks that it set for itself.
In 1818, on the basis of this self-liquidated society, a new one was created - the “Union of Welfare”. It was already a larger secret organization, numbering more than 200 people. Its organizers were F.N. Glinka, F.P. Tolstoy, M.I. Muravyov-Apostol. The organization had a branched nature: its cells were created in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Tambov, and in the south of the country. The goals of society remained the same - the introduction of representative government, the elimination of autocracy and serfdom. Members of the Union saw ways to achieve their goal in promoting their views and proposals sent to the government. However, they never heard a response.
All this prompted radical members of society to create two new secret organizations, established in March 1825. One was founded in St. Petersburg and was called the “Northern Society”. Its creators were N.M. Muravyov and N.I. Turgenev. Another one arose in Ukraine. This “Southern Society” was led by P.I. Pestel. Both societies were interconnected and were actually a single organization. Each society had its own program document, the Northern one - the “Constitution” by N.M. Muravyov, and the Southern one - “Russian Truth”, written by P.I. Pestel.
These documents expressed a single goal - the destruction of autocracy and serfdom. However, the “Constitution” expressed the liberal nature of the reforms - with a constitutional monarchy, restrictions on voting rights and the preservation of landownership, while “Russkaya Pravda” was radical, republican. It proclaimed a presidential republic, the confiscation of landowners' lands and a combination of private and public forms of property.
The conspirators planned to carry out their coup in the summer of 1826 during army exercises. But unexpectedly, on November 19, 1825, Alexander I died, and this event pushed the conspirators to take active action ahead of schedule.
After the death of Alexander I, his brother Konstantin Pavlovich was supposed to become the Russian emperor, but during the life of Alexander I he abdicated the throne in favor of his younger brother Nicholas. This was not officially announced, so initially both the state apparatus and the army swore allegiance to Constantine. But soon Constantine’s renunciation of the throne was made public and a re-oath was ordered. That's why
members of the “Northern Society” decided to speak out on December 14, 1825 with the demands laid down in their program, for which they planned to conduct a demonstration of military force at the Senate building. An important task was to prevent senators from taking the oath of office to Nikolai Pavlovich. Prince S.P. Trubetskoy was proclaimed the leader of the uprising.
On December 14, 1825, the Moscow Regiment, led by members of the “Northern Society” brothers Bestuzhev and Shchepin-Rostovsky, was the first to arrive on Senate Square. However, the regiment stood alone for a long time, the conspirators were inactive. The murder of the Governor-General of St. Petersburg, M.A. Miloradovich, who went to join the rebels, became fatal - the uprising could no longer end peacefully. By mid-day, the rebels were still joined by a guards naval crew and a company of the Life Grenadier Regiment.
The leaders continued to hesitate to take active action. In addition, it turned out that the senators had already sworn allegiance to Nicholas I and left the Senate. Therefore, there was no one to present the “Manifesto” to, and Prince Trubetskoy never appeared on the square. Meanwhile, troops loyal to the government began shelling the rebels. The uprising was suppressed and arrests began. Members of the “Southern Society” tried to carry out an uprising in early January 1826 (uprising of the Chernigov regiment), but it was brutally suppressed by the authorities. Five leaders of the uprising - P.I. Pestel, K.F. Ryleev, S.I. Muravyov-Apostol, M.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin and P.G. Kakhovsky - were executed, the rest of its participants were exiled to hard labor in Siberia.
The Decembrist uprising was the first open protest in Russia, which aimed at radically reorganizing society.
Reign of Nicholas I
In the history of Russia, the reign of Emperor Nicholas I is defined as the apogee of Russian autocracy. The revolutionary upheavals that accompanied the accession to the throne of this Russian emperor left their mark on all his activities. In the eyes of his contemporaries, he was perceived as a strangler of freedom and free-thinking, as an unlimited despot ruler. The emperor believed in the destructiveness of human freedom and the independence of society. In his opinion, the prosperity of the country could be ensured exclusively through strict order, the strict fulfillment of their duties by every subject of the Russian Empire, control and regulation of public life.
Believing that the issue of prosperity can only be resolved from above, Nicholas I formed the “Committee of December 6, 1826.” The committee's tasks included the preparation of reform bills. 1826 also saw the transformation of “His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancellery” into the most important body of state power and administration. The most important tasks were assigned to its II and III departments. The II department was supposed to deal with the codification of laws, and the III department was supposed to deal with matters of higher politics. To solve problems, it received subordinate corps of gendarmes and, thus, control over all aspects of public life. The all-powerful Count A.H. Benckendorf, close to the emperor, was placed at the head of the III department.
However, the over-centralization of power did not lead to positive results. The higher authorities were drowned in a sea of paperwork and lost control over the course of affairs on the ground, which led to red tape and abuses.
To resolve the peasant question, ten successive secret committees were created. However, the result of their activities was insignificant. The most important event in the peasant question can be considered the reform of the state village of 1837. State peasants were given self-government, and their management was put in order. Taxation and land allocation were revised. In 1842, a decree on obligated peasants was issued, according to which the landowner received the right to release the peasants by providing them with land, but not for ownership, but for use. 1844 changed the situation of peasants in the western regions of the country. But this was done not with the aim of improving the situation of the peasants, but in the interests of the authorities, striving
trying to limit the influence of the local, opposition-minded non-Russian nobility.
With the penetration of capitalist relations into the economic life of the country and the gradual erosion of the class system, changes were also associated in the social structure - the ranks giving nobility were increased, and a new class status was introduced for the growing commercial and industrial strata - honorary citizenship.
Control over public life also led to changes in the field of education. In 1828, a reform of lower and secondary educational institutions was carried out. Education was class-based, i.e. The school levels were separated from each other: primary and parish - for peasants, district - for urban inhabitants, gymnasiums - for nobles. In 1835, a new university charter was issued, which reduced the autonomy of higher educational institutions.
The wave of European bourgeois revolutions in Europe in 1848-1849, which horrified Nicholas I, led to the so-called. During the “dark seven years,” when censorship control was tightened to the limit, the secret police were rampant. A shadow of hopelessness loomed before the most progressively minded people. This last stage of the reign of Nicholas I was essentially the death throes of the system that he created.
Crimean War
The last years of the reign of Nicholas I passed against the backdrop of complications in Russia's foreign policy situation, associated with the aggravation of the eastern question. The cause of the conflict was problems related to trade in the Middle East, for which Russia, France and England fought. Turkey, in turn, was counting on revenge for its defeat in the wars with Russia. Austria, which wanted to expand its sphere of influence into Turkish possessions in the Balkans, also did not want to miss its chance.
The direct cause of the war was the old conflict between the Catholic and Orthodox churches for the right to control the holy places for Christians in Palestine. Supported by France, Turkey refused to satisfy Russia's claims to the priority of the Orthodox Church in this matter. In June 1853, Russia broke off diplomatic relations with Turkey and occupied the Danube principalities. In response to this, the Turkish Sultan declared war on Russia on October 4, 1853.
Turkey relied on the ongoing war in the North Caucasus and provided all possible assistance to the mountaineers who rebelled against Russia, including carrying out landings of its fleet on the Caucasian coast. In response to this, on November 18, 1853, the Russian flotilla under the command of Admiral P.S. Nakhimov completely defeated the Turkish fleet in the roadstead of Sinop Bay. This naval battle became the pretext for France and England entering the war. In December 1853, the combined English and French squadron entered the Black Sea, and in March 1854 a declaration of war followed.
The war that came to the south of Russia showed the complete backwardness of Russia, the weakness of its industrial potential and the unpreparedness of the military command for war in new conditions. The Russian army was inferior in almost all indicators - the number of steam ships, rifled weapons, artillery. Due to the lack of railways, the situation with the supply of equipment, ammunition and food to the Russian army was poor.
During the summer campaign of 1854, Russia managed to successfully resist the enemy. The Turkish troops were defeated in several battles. The English and French fleets tried to attack Russian positions in the Baltic, Black and White Seas and in the Far East, but to no avail. In July 1854, Russia had to accept the Austrian ultimatum and leave the Danube principalities. And from September 1854, the main hostilities began in Crimea.
Mistakes by the Russian command allowed the Allied landing force to successfully land in the Crimea, and on September 8, 1854 to defeat Russian troops near the Alma River and besiege Sevastopol. The defense of Sevastopol under the leadership of admirals V.A. Kornilov, P.S. Nakhimov and V.I. Istomin lasted 349 days. Attempts by the Russian army under the command of Prince A.S. Menshikov to draw back part of the besieging forces were unsuccessful.
On August 27, 1855, French troops stormed the southern part of Sevastopol and captured the height dominating the city - Malakhov Kurgan. Russian troops were forced to leave the city. Since the forces of the fighting parties were exhausted, on March 18, 1856, a peace treaty was signed in Paris, under the terms of which the Black Sea was declared neutral, the Russian fleet was reduced to a minimum and fortifications were destroyed. Similar demands were made to Turkey. However, since the exit from the Black Sea was in the hands of Turkey, such a decision seriously threatened the security of Russia. In addition, Russia was deprived of the mouth of the Danube and the southern part of Bessarabia, and also lost the right to patronize Serbia, Moldova and Wallachia. Thus, Russia lost its position in the Middle East to France and England. Its prestige on the international stage was greatly undermined.
Bourgeois reforms in Russia in the 60s - 70s
The development of capitalist relations in pre-reform Russia came into increasing conflict with the feudal-serf system. The defeat in the Crimean War exposed the rottenness and impotence of serf Russia. A crisis arose in the policy of the ruling feudal class, which could no longer carry it out using the previous, serf-based methods. Urgent economic, social and political reforms were needed in order to prevent a revolutionary explosion in the country. The country's agenda included activities necessary to not only preserve, but also strengthen the social and economic basis of the autocracy.
The new Russian Emperor Alexander II, who ascended the throne on February 19, 1855, was well aware of all this. He also understood the need for concessions and compromise in the interests of state life. After his accession to the throne, the young emperor introduced his brother Constantine, who was a staunch liberal, into the cabinet. The emperor's next steps were also progressive in nature - free travel abroad was allowed, the Decembrists were amnestied, censorship on publications was partially lifted, and other liberal measures were taken.
Alexander II also took the problem of abolishing serfdom very seriously. Starting from the end of 1857, a number of committees and commissions were created in Russia, the main task of which was to resolve the issue of liberating the peasantry from serfdom. At the beginning of 1859, Editorial Commissions were created to summarize and process the committees' projects. The project they developed was submitted to the government.
On February 19, 1861, Alexander II issued a manifesto on the liberation of the peasants, as well as the “Regulations” regulating their new condition. According to these documents, Russian peasants received personal freedom and the majority of general civil rights, peasant self-government was introduced, whose responsibilities included collecting taxes and some judicial powers. At the same time, the peasant community and communal land ownership were preserved. Peasants still had to pay a poll tax and carry out conscription duties. As before, corporal punishment was used against peasants.
The government believed that the normal development of the agricultural sector would make it possible for two types of farms to coexist: large landowners and small peasants. However, the peasants received land for plots that were 20% less than the plots they used before liberation. This greatly complicated the development of peasant farming, and in some cases brought it to naught. For the land received, the peasants had to pay the landowners a ransom that was one and a half times its value. But this was unrealistic, so the state paid 80% of the cost of the land to the landowners. Thus, the peasants became debtors to the state and were obliged to repay this amount within 50 years with interest. Be that as it may, the reform created significant opportunities for the agrarian development of Russia, although it retained a number of remnants in the form of class isolation of the peasantry and communities.
The peasant reform entailed transformations in many aspects of the country's social and state life. 1864 was the year of birth of zemstvos - local government bodies. The sphere of competence of zemstvos was quite wide: they had the right to collect taxes for local needs and hire employees, and were in charge of economic issues, schools, medical institutions, and charity issues.
The reforms also affected city life. Since 1870, self-government bodies began to be formed in cities. They were mainly in charge of economic life. The self-government body was called the city duma, which formed the government. The city mayor was at the head of the Duma and the executive body. The Duma itself was elected by city voters, whose composition was formed in accordance with social and property qualifications.
However, the most radical was the judicial reform carried out in 1864. The former class-based and closed court was abolished. Now the verdict in the reformed court was made by jurors who were representatives of the public. The process itself became public, oral and adversarial. The prosecutor-prosecutor spoke on behalf of the state at the trial, and the defense of the accused was carried out by a lawyer - a sworn attorney.
The media and educational institutions were not ignored. In 1863 and 1864 new university statutes are being introduced, restoring their autonomy. A new regulation on school institutions was adopted, according to which the state, zemstvos and city councils, as well as the church took care of them. Education was declared accessible to all classes and religions. In 1865, preliminary censorship on publications was lifted and responsibility for already published articles was assigned to publishers.
Serious reforms were also carried out in the army. Russia was divided into fifteen military districts. Military educational institutions and military courts were modified. Instead of conscription, in 1874, universal conscription was introduced. The transformations also affected the sphere of finance, the Orthodox clergy and church educational institutions.
All these reforms, called “great” ones, brought the socio-political structure of Russia in line with the needs of the second half of the 19th century and mobilized all representatives of society to solve national problems. The first step was taken towards the formation of a rule of law state and civil society. Russia has entered a new, capitalist path of development.
Alexander III and his counter-reforms
After the death of Alexander II in March 1881 as a result of a terrorist attack organized by Narodnaya Volya, members of a secret organization of Russian utopian socialists, his son, Alexander III, ascended the Russian throne. At the beginning of his reign, confusion reigned in the government: knowing nothing about the forces of the populists, Alexander III did not risk dismissing the supporters of his father’s liberal reforms.
However, the very first steps of Alexander III’s state activities showed that the new emperor was not going to sympathize with liberalism. The punitive system was significantly improved. In 1881, the “Regulations on measures to preserve state security and public peace” were approved. This document expanded the powers of governors, giving them the right to declare a state of emergency for an unlimited period and carry out any repressive actions. “Security departments” arose, under the jurisdiction of the gendarmerie corps, whose activities were aimed at suppressing and suppressing any illegal activity.
In 1882, measures were taken to tighten censorship, and in 1884, higher educational institutions were effectively deprived of their self-government. The government of Alexander III closed liberal publications and increased
times the tuition fee. The decree of 1887 “on cooks’ children” made it difficult for children of the lower classes to access higher educational institutions and gymnasiums. At the end of the 80s, reactionary laws were adopted, which essentially repealed a number of provisions of the reforms of the 60s and 70s
Thus, peasant class isolation was preserved and consolidated, and power was transferred to officials from among the local landowners, who combined judicial and administrative powers in their hands. The new Zemstvo Code and City Regulations not only significantly reduced the independence of local government, but also reduced the number of voters several times. Changes were made in the activities of the court.
The reactionary nature of the government of Alexander III was also evident in the socio-economic sphere. An attempt to protect the interests of bankrupt landowners led to a tougher policy towards the peasantry. In order to prevent the emergence of a rural bourgeoisie, family divisions of peasants were limited and obstacles were put in place to alienate peasant plots.
However, in the context of a more complicated international situation, the government could not help but encourage the development of capitalist relations, primarily in the field of industrial production. Priority was given to enterprises and industries of strategic importance. A policy was pursued of their encouragement and state protection, which led to their transformation into monopolists. As a result of these actions, threatening imbalances grew, which could lead to economic and social upheaval.
The reactionary transformations of the 1880-1890s were called “counter-reforms”. Their successful implementation was due to the absence of forces in Russian society that would be capable of creating effective opposition to government policies. To top it all off, they have extremely strained relations between the government and society. However, the counter-reforms did not achieve their goals: society could no longer be stopped in its development.
Russia at the beginning of the 20th century
At the turn of two centuries, Russian capitalism began to develop into its highest stage - imperialism. Bourgeois relations, having become dominant, required the elimination of the remnants of serfdom and the creation of conditions for the further progressive development of society. The main classes of bourgeois society had already emerged - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and the latter was more homogeneous, bound by the same adversities and difficulties, concentrated in the large industrial centers of the country, more receptive and mobile in relation to progressive innovations. All that was needed was a political party that could unite his various detachments and arm him with a program and tactics of struggle.
At the beginning of the 20th century, a revolutionary situation developed in Russia. There was a division of the country's political forces into three camps - government, liberal-bourgeois and democratic. The liberal-bourgeois camp was represented by supporters of the so-called. “Union of Liberation”, whose goal was to establish a constitutional monarchy in Russia, introduce general elections, protect the “interests of the working people,” etc. After the creation of the Cadets (Constitutional Democrats) party, the Liberation Union ceased its activities.
The social democratic movement, which appeared in the 90s of the 19th century, was represented by supporters of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), which in 1903 divided into two movements - the Bolsheviks led by V.I. Lenin and the Mensheviks. In addition to the RSDLP, this included the Socialist Revolutionaries (Socialist Revolutionary Party).
After the death of Emperor Alexander III in 1894, his son Nicholas I ascended the throne. Easily susceptible to outside influences and lacking a strong and firm character, Nicholas II turned out to be a weak politician, whose actions in the country’s foreign and domestic policy plunged it into the abyss of disasters, the beginning which resulted in the defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The mediocrity of the Russian generals and the tsarist entourage, who sent thousands of Russians into the bloody massacre
soldiers and sailors, further inflamed the situation in the country.
First Russian Revolution
The extremely deteriorating situation of the people, the complete inability of the government to resolve the pressing problems of the country's development, and defeat in the Russo-Japanese War became the main reasons for the first Russian revolution. The reason for it was the shooting of a workers' demonstration in St. Petersburg on January 9, 1905. This shooting caused an explosion of indignation in wide circles of Russian society. Mass riots and unrest broke out in all parts of the country. The movement of discontent gradually took on an organized character. The Russian peasantry also joined him. In the conditions of the war with Japan and complete unpreparedness for such events, the government did not have enough strength or means to suppress numerous protests. As one of the means to relieve tension, tsarism announced the creation of a representative body - the State Duma. The fact of neglect of the interests of the masses from the very beginning put the Duma in the position of a stillborn body, since it had practically no powers.
This attitude of the authorities caused even greater discontent both on the part of the proletariat and peasantry, and on the part of liberal-minded representatives of the Russian bourgeoisie. Therefore, by the autumn of 1905, all conditions were created in Russia for the maturation of a national crisis.
Losing control over the situation, the tsarist government made new concessions. In October 1905, Nicholas II signed the Manifesto, which granted Russians freedom of the press, speech, assembly and unions, which laid the foundations of Russian democracy. This Manifesto caused a split in the revolutionary movement. The revolutionary wave has lost its breadth and mass character. This can explain the defeat of the December armed uprising in Moscow in 1905, which was the highest point in the development of the first Russian revolution.
Under the current conditions, liberal circles came to the fore. Numerous political parties emerged - the Cadets (constitutional democrats), the Octobrists (Union of October 17). A notable phenomenon was the creation of patriotic organizations - the “Black Hundreds”. The revolution was on the decline.
In 1906, the central event in the life of the country was no longer the revolutionary movement, but the elections to the Second State Duma. The New Duma was unable to resist the government and was dispersed in 1907. Since the manifesto on the dissolution of the Duma was promulgated on June 3, the political system in Russia, which lasted until February 1917, was called the Third June Monarchy.
Russia in World War I
Russia's participation in the First World War was due to the aggravation of Russian-German contradictions caused by the formation of the Triple Alliance and the Entente. The murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, became the reason for the outbreak of hostilities. In 1914, simultaneously with the actions of German troops on the western front, the Russian command launched an invasion of East Prussia. It was stopped by German troops. But in the Galicia region, the troops of Austria-Hungary suffered a serious defeat. The result of the 1914 campaign was the establishment of balance on the fronts and the transition to trench warfare.
In 1915, the center of gravity of the fighting was transferred to the Eastern Front. From spring to August, the Russian front along its entire length was breached by German troops. Russian troops were forced to leave Poland, Lithuania and Galicia, suffering heavy losses.
In 1916 the situation changed somewhat. In June, troops under the command of General Brusilov broke through the Austro-Hungarian front in Galicia in Bukovina. This offensive was stopped by the enemy with great difficulty. The military operations of 1917 took place in the context of a clearly mature political crisis in the country. The February bourgeois-democratic revolution took place in Russia, as a result of which the Provisional Government that replaced the autocracy found itself hostage to the previous obligations of tsarism. The course to continue the war to a victorious end led to an aggravation of the situation in the country and to the Bolsheviks coming to power.
Revolutionary 1917
The First World War sharply aggravated all the contradictions that had been brewing in Russia since the beginning of the 20th century. Human casualties, economic devastation, hunger, people's dissatisfaction with tsarism's measures to overcome the brewing national crisis, and the inability of the autocracy to compromise with the bourgeoisie became the main reasons for the February bourgeois revolution of 1917. On February 23, a workers' strike began in Petrograd, which soon grew into an all-Russian one. The workers were supported by the intelligentsia, students,
army. The peasantry also did not remain aloof from these events. Already on February 27, power in the capital passed into the hands of the Council of Workers' Deputies, headed by the Mensheviks.
The Petrograd Soviet completely controlled the army, which soon completely went over to the side of the rebels. Attempts at a punitive campaign undertaken by troops removed from the front were unsuccessful. The soldiers supported the February coup. On March 1, 1917, a Provisional Government was formed in Petrograd, consisting mainly of representatives of bourgeois parties. Nicholas II abdicated the throne. Thus, the February Revolution overthrew the autocracy, which was hindering the progressive development of the country. The relative ease with which tsarism was overthrown in Russia showed how weak the regime of Nicholas II and its support - the landowner-bourgeois circles - were in their attempts to maintain power.
The February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917 was political in nature. She could not solve the country's pressing economic, social and national problems. The provisional government had no real power. An alternative to his power - the Soviets, created at the very beginning of the February events, controlled for the time being by the Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, supported the Provisional Government, but could not yet take on the leading role in implementing radical changes in the country. But at this stage, the Soviets were supported by both the army and the revolutionary people. Therefore, in March - early July 1917, the so-called dual power arose in Russia - that is, the simultaneous existence of two authorities in the country.
Finally, the petty-bourgeois parties, which then had a majority in the Soviets, ceded power to the Provisional Government as a result of the July crisis of 1917. The fact is that at the end of June - beginning of July on the Eastern Front, German troops launched a powerful counter-offensive. Not wanting to go to the front, the soldiers of the Petrograd garrison decided to organize an uprising under the leadership of the Bolsheviks and anarchists. The resignation of some ministers of the Provisional Government further strained the situation. There was no consensus among the Bolsheviks about what was happening. Lenin and some members of the party's central committee considered the uprising premature.
On July 3, mass demonstrations began in the capital. Despite the fact that the Bolsheviks tried to direct the actions of the demonstrators in a peaceful direction, armed clashes began between the demonstrators and troops controlled by the Petrograd Soviet. The Provisional Government, having seized the initiative, with the help of troops arriving from the front, resorted to harsh measures. The demonstrators were shot. From that moment on, the leadership of the Council gave full power to the Provisional Government.
The dual power is over. The Bolsheviks were forced to go underground. A decisive offensive by the authorities began against all those dissatisfied with the government's policies.
By the autumn of 1917, a national crisis had once again matured in the country, creating the ground for a new revolution. The collapse of the economy, the intensification of the revolutionary movement, the increased authority of the Bolsheviks and support for their actions in various sectors of society, the disintegration of the army, which suffered defeat after defeat on the battlefields of the First World War, the growing distrust of the masses in the Provisional Government, as well as the unsuccessful attempt at a military coup undertaken by General Kornilov , - these are the symptoms of the maturation of a new revolutionary explosion.
The gradual Bolshevization of the Soviets, the army, the disappointment of the proletariat and peasantry in the ability of the Provisional Government to find a way out of the crisis made it possible for the Bolsheviks to put forward the slogan “All power to the Soviets,” under which in Petrograd on October 24-25, 1917 they managed to carry out a coup called the Great October Revolution. At the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets on October 25, the transfer of power in the country to the Bolsheviks was announced. The provisional government was arrested. At the congress, the first decrees of the Soviet government were promulgated - “On Peace”, “On Land”, and the first government of the victorious Bolsheviks was formed - the Council of People's Commissars, headed by V.I. Lenin. On November 2, 1917, Soviet power established itself in Moscow. Almost everywhere the army supported the Bolsheviks. By March 1918, the new revolutionary government had established itself throughout the country.
The creation of a new state apparatus, which at first encountered stubborn resistance from the previous bureaucratic apparatus, was completed by the beginning of 1918. At the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets in January 1918, Russia was proclaimed a republic of Soviets of workers, soldiers and peasants' deputies. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was established as a federation of Soviet national republics. The All-Russian Congress of Soviets became its highest body; In the intervals between congresses, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK), which had legislative power, worked.
The government - the Council of People's Commissars - through the formed people's commissariats (People's Commissariats) exercised executive power, people's courts and revolutionary tribunals exercised judicial power. Special government bodies were formed - the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh), which was responsible for regulating the economy and the processes of nationalization of industry, and the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) - for the fight against counter-revolution. The main feature of the new state apparatus was the merger of legislative and executive powers in the country.
To successfully build a new state, the Bolsheviks needed peaceful conditions. Therefore, already in December 1917, negotiations began with the command of the German army on concluding a separate peace treaty, which was concluded in March 1918. Its conditions for Soviet Russia were extremely difficult and even humiliating. Russia abandoned Poland, Estonia and Latvia, withdrew its troops from Finland and Ukraine, and ceded the Transcaucasian region. However, this “obscene” peace, as Lenin himself put it, was urgently needed by the young Soviet republic. Thanks to the peaceful respite, the Bolsheviks managed to carry out the first economic measures in the city and in the countryside - to establish workers' control in industry, begin its nationalization, and begin social transformations in the countryside.
However, the course of the ongoing transformations was interrupted for a long time by the bloody civil war, which began with the forces of internal counter-revolution in the spring of 1918. In Siberia, the Cossacks of Ataman Semenov spoke out against Soviet power, in the south, in the Cossack regions, Krasnov’s Don Army and Denikin’s Volunteer Army were formed
in Kuban. Socialist Revolutionary riots broke out in Murom, Rybinsk, and Yaroslavl. Almost simultaneously, intervention troops landed on the territory of Soviet Russia (in the north - the British, Americans, French, in the Far East - the Japanese, Germany occupied the territories of Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic states, British troops occupied Baku). In May 1918, the revolt of the Czechoslovak Corps began.
The situation on the country's fronts was very difficult. Only in December 1918 did the Red Army manage to stop the advance of General Krasnov’s troops on the southern front. From the east, the Bolsheviks were threatened by Admiral Kolchak, who was striving for the Volga. He managed to capture Ufa, Izhevsk and other cities. However, by the summer of 1919 he was thrown back to the Urals. As a result of the summer offensive of General Yudenich's troops in 1919, a threat now loomed over Petrograd. Only after bloody battles in June 1919 was it possible to eliminate the threat of capture of the northern capital of Russia (by this time the Soviet government had moved to Moscow).
However, already in July 1919, as a result of the offensive of General Denikin’s troops from the south to the central regions of the country, Moscow now turned into a military camp. By October 1919, the Bolsheviks had lost Odessa, Kyiv, Kursk, Voronezh and Orel. The Red Army troops managed to repel the offensive of Denikin's troops only at the cost of huge losses.
In November 1919, the troops of Yudenich were finally defeated, who again threatened Petrograd during the autumn offensive. Winter 1919-1920 The Red Army liberated Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk. Kolchak was captured and shot. At the beginning of 1920, having liberated Donbass and Ukraine, Red Army troops drove the White Guards into Crimea. Only in November 1920 was Crimea cleared of the troops of General Wrangel. The Polish campaign of the spring-summer of 1920 ended in failure for the Bolsheviks.
From the policy of “war communism” to the new economic policy
The economic policy of the Soviet state during the civil war, aimed at mobilizing all resources for military needs, was called the policy of “war communism.” This was a set of emergency measures in the country's economy, which was characterized by such features as nationalization of industry, centralization of management, introduction of surplus appropriation in the countryside, ban on private trade and equalization in distribution and payment. In the conditions of peaceful life, she no longer justified herself. The country was on the verge of economic collapse. Industry, energy, transport, agriculture, as well as the country's finances experienced a protracted crisis. Demonstrations by peasants dissatisfied with food appropriation became more frequent. The uprising in Kronstadt in March 1921 against Soviet power showed that the dissatisfaction of the masses with the policy of “war communism” could threaten its very existence.
The consequence of all these reasons was the decision of the Bolshevik government in March 1921 to move to the “new economic policy” (NEP). This policy provided for the replacement of surplus appropriation with a fixed tax in kind for the peasantry, the transfer of state enterprises to self-financing, and the permission of private trade. At the same time, a transition was made from in-kind to cash wages, and equalization was abolished. Elements of state capitalism in industry in the form of concessions and the creation of state trusts associated with the market were partially allowed. It was allowed to open small artisanal private enterprises, serviced by the labor of hired workers.
The main merit of the NEP was that the peasant masses finally went over to the side of the Soviet government. Conditions were created for the restoration of industry and the beginning of a rise in production. Providing a certain economic freedom to workers gave them the opportunity to show initiative and entrepreneurship. NEP, in essence, demonstrated the possibility and necessity of a variety of forms of ownership, recognition of the market and commodity relations in the country's economy.
In 1918-1922. small and compactly living peoples living on the territory of Russia received autonomy within the RSFSR. In parallel with this, the formation of larger national entities - sovereign Soviet republics allied with the RSFSR - took place. By the summer of 1922, the process of unification of the Soviet republics entered its final phase. The Soviet party leadership prepared a unification project, which provided for the entry of the Soviet republics into the RSFSR as autonomous entities. The author of this project was I.V. Stalin, the then People's Commissar for Nationalities.
Lenin saw in this project an infringement of the national sovereignty of peoples and insisted on the creation of a federation of equal union republics. On December 30, 1922, the First Congress of Soviets of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics rejected Stalin’s “autonomization project” and adopted a declaration and agreement on the formation of the USSR, which was based on the federal structure plan that Lenin insisted on.
In January 1924, the Second All-Union Congress of Soviets approved the Constitution of the new union. According to this Constitution, the USSR was a federation of equal sovereign republics that had the right to freely secede from the union. At the same time, the formation of representative and executive union bodies at the local level took place. However, as subsequent events will show, the USSR gradually acquired the character of a unitary state, governed from a single center - Moscow.
With the introduction of the new economic policy, the measures taken by the Soviet government to implement it (denationalization of some enterprises, allowing free trade and wage labor, emphasis on the development of commodity-money and market relations, etc.) came into conflict with the concept of building a socialist society on a non-commodity basis. The priority of politics over economics, preached by the Bolshevik Party, and the beginning of the formation of an administrative-command system led to the crisis of the NEP in 1923. In order to increase labor productivity, the state artificially increased prices for industrial goods. It turned out that the villagers could not afford to purchase industrial goods, which overflowed all the warehouses and shops of the cities. The so-called "crisis of overproduction." In response to this, the village began to delay supplies of grain to the state under the tax in kind. Peasant uprisings broke out in some places. New concessions to the peasantry from the state were needed.
Thanks to the successfully carried out monetary reform of 1924, the ruble exchange rate was stabilized, which helped overcome the sales crisis and strengthen trade relations between the city and the countryside. Taxation in kind for peasants was replaced by cash taxation, which gave them greater freedom to develop their own economy. In general, thus, by the mid-20s, the process of restoring the national economy was completed in the USSR. The socialist sector of the economy has significantly strengthened its position.
At the same time, the USSR's position in the international arena was improving. In order to break the diplomatic blockade, Soviet diplomacy took an active part in the work of international conferences in the early 20s. The leadership of the Bolshevik Party hoped to establish economic and political cooperation with the leading capitalist countries.
At an international conference in Genoa dedicated to economic and financial issues (1922), the Soviet delegation expressed its readiness to discuss the issue of compensation to former foreign owners in Russia, subject to the recognition of the new state and the provision of international loans to it. At the same time, the Soviet side put forward counterproposals to compensate Soviet Russia for losses caused by the intervention and blockade during the civil war. However, during the conference these issues were not resolved.
But the young Soviet Diplomacy managed to break through the united front of non-recognition of the young Soviet republic from the capitalist environment. In Rapallo, suburb
Genoa, managed to conclude an agreement with Germany, which provided for the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries on the terms of mutual renunciation of all claims. Thanks to this success of Soviet diplomacy, the country entered a period of recognition from the leading capitalist powers. In a short time, diplomatic relations were established with Great Britain, Italy, Austria, Sweden, China, Mexico, France and other states.
Industrialization of the national economy
The need to modernize industry and the entire economy of the country in a capitalist environment became the main task of the Soviet government from the beginning of the 20s. During these same years, there was a process of strengthening control and regulation of the economy by the state. This led to the development of the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR. The first five-year plan, adopted in April 1929, included indicators of a sharp, accelerated growth in industrial production.
In this regard, the problem of lack of funds for an industrial breakthrough has clearly emerged. Capital investment in new industrial construction was sorely lacking. It was impossible to count on help from abroad. Therefore, one of the sources of the country’s industrialization was the resources pumped out by the state from the still fragile agriculture. Another source was government loans, which covered the entire population of the country. To pay for overseas deliveries industrial equipment the state began to forcibly confiscate gold and other valuables from both the population and the church. Another source of industrialization was the export of the country's natural resources - oil, timber. Grain and furs were also exported.
Against the backdrop of a lack of funds, the technical and economic backwardness of the country, and a lack of qualified personnel, the state began to artificially speed up the pace of industrial construction, which led to imbalances, disruption of planning, a discrepancy between wage growth and labor productivity, disruption of the monetary system and rising prices. As a result, a commodity shortage was discovered, and a rationing system for supplying the population was introduced.
The command-administrative system of economic management, accompanied by the establishment of Stalin’s regime of personal power, attributed all the difficulties in implementing industrialization plans to certain enemies who were interfering with the construction of socialism in the USSR. In 1928-1931 A wave of political trials swept across the country, in which many qualified specialists and managers were condemned as “saboteurs,” allegedly holding back the development of the country’s economy.
Nevertheless, the first five-year plan, thanks to the broad enthusiasm of the entire Soviet people, was completed ahead of schedule in terms of its main indicators. Only during the period from 1929 to the end of the 1930s did the USSR make a fantastic leap in its industrial development. During this time, about 6 thousand industrial enterprises came into operation. The Soviet people created such an industrial potential that, in terms of its technical equipment and sectoral structure, was not inferior to the level of production of the advanced capitalist countries of that time. And in terms of production volume, our country has taken second place after the United States.
Collectivization of agriculture
The acceleration of the pace of industrialization, mainly at the expense of the countryside, with an emphasis on basic industries, very quickly aggravated the contradictions of the new economic policy. The end of the 20s was marked by its overthrow. This process was stimulated by the fear of the administrative-command structures of the prospect of losing control of the country's economy in their own interests.
Difficulties were growing in the country's agriculture. In a number of cases, the authorities came out of this crisis using violent measures, which was comparable to the practice of war communism and surplus appropriation. In the fall of 1929, such violent measures against agricultural producers were replaced by forced, or, as they said then, complete collectivization. For these purposes, with the help of punitive measures, all potentially dangerous elements, as the Soviet leadership believed, were removed from the village in a short time - kulaks, wealthy peasants, that is, those whom collectivization could prevent the normal development of their personal farming and who could resist it.
The destructive nature of the forced unification of peasants into collective farms forced the authorities to abandon the extremes of this process. Voluntariness began to be observed when joining collective farms. The main form of collective farming was the agricultural artel, where the collective farmer had the right to a personal plot, small equipment and livestock. However, land, cattle and basic agricultural implements were still socialized. In these forms, collectivization in the main grain-producing regions of the country was completed by the end of 1931.
The gain of the Soviet state from collectivization was very important. The roots of capitalism in agriculture were eliminated, as were undesirable class elements. The country gained independence from the import of a number of agricultural products. Grain sold abroad became a source for the acquisition of advanced technologies and advanced equipment necessary during industrialization.
However, the consequences of the breakdown of the traditional economic structure in the village turned out to be very difficult. The productive forces of agriculture were undermined. Crop failures in 1932-1933 and unreasonably inflated plans for the supply of agricultural products to the state led to famine in a number of regions of the country, the consequences of which were not immediately eliminated.
Culture of the 20s and 30s
Transformations in the field of culture were one of the tasks of building a socialist state in the USSR. The peculiarities of the implementation of the cultural revolution were determined by the backwardness of the country, inherited from old times, and the uneven economic and cultural development of the peoples that became part of the Soviet Union. The Bolshevik authorities focused on building a system public education, perestroika high school, increasing the role of science in the country’s economy, forming a new creative and artistic intelligentsia.
Even during the civil war, the fight against illiteracy began. Since 1931, universal primary education was introduced. The greatest successes in the field of public education were achieved by the end of the 30s. In the higher education system, together with old specialists, measures were taken to create the so-called. “people's intelligentsia” by increasing the number of students from among workers and peasants. Significant advances have been made in the field of science. The research of N. Vavilov (genetics), V. Vernadsky (geochemistry, biosphere), N. Zhukovsky (aerodynamics) and other scientists became famous throughout the world.
Against the backdrop of success, some areas of science experienced pressure from the administrative-command system. Significant damage was caused to the social sciences - history, philosophy, etc. - by various ideological purges and persecution of individual representatives. As a result of this, almost all of the science of that time was subordinated to the ideological ideas of the communist regime.
USSR in the 1930s
By the beginning of the 30s in the USSR, the economic model of society was being formalized, which can be defined as state-administrative socialism. According to Stalin and his inner circle, this model should have been based on complete
the nationalization of all means of production in industry, the implementation of collectivization of peasant farms. Under these conditions, command-administrative methods of managing and managing the country's economy became very strong.
The priority of ideology over economics against the backdrop of the dominance of the party-state nomenclature made it possible to industrialize the country by reducing the living standards of its population (both urban and rural). In organizational terms, this model of socialism was based on maximum centralization and strict planning. In social terms, it relied on formal democracy with the absolute dominance of the party-state apparatus in all areas of life of the country's population. Directive and non-economic methods of coercion prevailed, and the nationalization of the means of production replaced the socialization of the latter.
Under these conditions, the social structure of Soviet society changed significantly. By the end of the 30s, the country's leadership declared that Soviet society, after the liquidation of capitalist elements, consists of three friendly classes - workers, collective farm peasantry and the people's intelligentsia. Several groups have formed among the workers - a small, privileged layer of highly paid skilled workers and a significant layer of main producers who are not interested in the results of labor and are therefore low-paid. The turnover of workers has increased.
In the countryside, the socialized labor of collective farmers was paid very low. Almost half of all agricultural products were grown on small plots of collective farmers. The collective farm fields themselves produced significantly less produce. Collective farmers were infringed on their political rights. They were deprived of passports and the right to free movement throughout the country.
The Soviet people's intelligentsia, the majority of whom were unskilled petty employees, was in a more privileged position. It was mainly formed from yesterday's workers and peasants, and this could not but lead to a decrease in its general educational level.
The new Constitution of the USSR of 1936 found a new reflection of the changes that took place in Soviet society and the state structure of the country since the adoption of the first constitution in 1924. It declaratively confirmed the fact of the victory of socialism in the USSR. The basis of the new Constitution was the principles of socialism - the state of socialist ownership of the means of production, the elimination of exploitation and exploiting classes, work as a duty, the duty of every able-bodied citizen, the right to work, rest and other socio-economic and political rights.
The Soviets of Working People's Deputies became the political form of organization of state power in the center and locally. The electoral system was also updated: elections became direct, with secret voting. The Constitution of 1936 was characterized by a combination of new social rights of the population with a whole series of liberal democratic rights - freedom of speech, press, conscience, rallies, demonstrations, etc. Another thing is how consistently these declared rights and freedoms were implemented in practice...
The new Constitution of the USSR reflected the objective tendency of Soviet society towards democratization, which flowed from the essence of the socialist system. Thus, it contradicted the already established practice of Stalin’s autocracy as the head of the communist party and state. In real life, mass arrests, arbitrariness, and extrajudicial killings continued. These contradictions between word and deed became a characteristic phenomenon in the life of our country in the 1930s. The preparation, discussion and adoption of the new Basic Law of the country was sold simultaneously with rigged political processes, rampant repression, and the forcible elimination of prominent figures of the party and state who did not accept the regime of personal power and Stalin’s cult of personality. The ideological basis for these phenomena was his well-known thesis about the intensification of the class struggle in the country under socialism, which he proclaimed in 1937, which became the most terrible year of mass repression.
By 1939, almost the entire “Leninist Guard” was destroyed. Repressions also affected the Red Army: from 1937 to 1938. About 40 thousand army and navy officers were killed. Almost the entire senior command staff of the Red Army was repressed, a significant part of them were shot. Terror affected all layers of Soviet society. The standard of life was the exclusion of millions of Soviet people from public life - deprivation of civil rights, removal from office, exile, prisons, camps, the death penalty.
The international position of the USSR in the 30s
Already in the early 30s, the USSR established diplomatic relations with most of the countries of the world at that time, and in 1934 it joined the League of Nations, an international organization created in 1919 with the aim of collectively resolving issues in the world community. In 1936, a Franco-Soviet treaty on mutual assistance in the event of aggression followed. Since in the same year Nazi Germany and Japan signed the so-called. “Anti-Comintern Pact”, which Italy later joined; the response to this was the conclusion of a non-aggression treaty with China in August 1937.
The threat to the Soviet Union from the countries of the fascist bloc was growing. Japan provoked two armed conflicts - near Lake Khasan in the Far East (August 1938) and in Mongolia, with which the USSR was bound by an allied treaty (summer 1939). These conflicts were accompanied by significant losses on both sides.
After the conclusion of the Munich Agreement on the separation of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, the USSR's distrust of Western countries that agreed with Hitler's claims to part of Czechoslovakia intensified. Despite this, Soviet diplomacy did not lose hope of creating a defensive alliance with England and France. However, negotiations with delegations from these countries (August 1939) ended in failure.
This forced the Soviet government to move closer to Germany. On August 23, 1939, a Soviet-German non-aggression treaty was signed, accompanied by a secret protocol on the delimitation of spheres of influence in Europe. Estonia, Latvia, Finland, and Bessarabia were included in the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union. In the event of the division of Poland, its Belarusian and Ukrainian territories were to go to the USSR.
After Germany’s attack on Poland on September 28, a new agreement was concluded with Germany, according to which Lithuania also transferred to the sphere of influence of the USSR. Part of the territory of Poland became part of the Ukrainian and Belarusian SSR. In August 1940, the Soviet government granted the request to admit three new republics into the USSR - Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian, where pro-Soviet governments came to power. At the same time, Romania gave in to the ultimatum demand of the Soviet government and transferred the territories of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to the USSR. Such a significant territorial expansion of the Soviet Union pushed its borders far to the west, which, given the threat of invasion from Germany, should be assessed as a positive development.
Similar actions of the USSR towards Finland led to an armed conflict that escalated into the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940. During heavy winter battles, the Red Army troops only managed to overcome the defensive “Mannerheim Line”, which was considered impregnable, only in February 1940, with great difficulty and losses. Finland was forced to transfer the entire Karelian Isthmus to the USSR, which significantly moved the border away from Leningrad.
The Great Patriotic War
The signing of a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany only briefly delayed the start of the war. On June 22, 1941, having assembled a colossal invasion army of 190 divisions, Germany and its allies attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. The USSR was not ready for war. The miscalculations of the war with Finland were slowly eliminated. Serious damage to the army and the country was caused by Stalin's repressions of the 30s. The situation with technical support was no better. Despite the fact that Soviet engineering created many examples of advanced military equipment, little of it was sent to the active army, and its mass production was just getting started.
The summer and autumn of 1941 were the most critical for the Soviet Union. Fascist troops invaded a depth of 800 to 1200 kilometers, blocked Leningrad, came dangerously close to Moscow, occupied most of the Donbass and Crimea, the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova, almost all of Ukraine and a number of regions of the RSFSR. Many people died, the infrastructure of many cities and towns was completely destroyed. However, the enemy was opposed by the courage and strength of spirit of the people and the material capabilities of the country brought into action. A massive resistance movement was unfolding everywhere: partisan detachments were created behind enemy lines, and later even entire formations.
Having bled German troops in heavy defensive battles, Soviet troops in the Battle of Moscow went on the offensive in early December 1941, which continued in some directions until April 1942. This dispelled the myth of the enemy’s invincibility. The international authority of the USSR increased sharply.
On October 1, 1941, a conference of representatives of the USSR, USA and Great Britain ended in Moscow, at which the foundations for the creation of an anti-Hitler coalition were laid. Agreements were signed on the supply of military aid. And already on January 1, 1942, 26 states signed the United Nations Declaration. An anti-Hitler coalition was created, and its leaders resolved issues of warfare and the democratic structure of the post-war system at joint conferences in Tehran in 1943, as well as in Yalta and Potsdam in 1945.
At the beginning - mid-1942, a very difficult situation arose for the Red Army again. Taking advantage of the absence of a second front in Western Europe, the German command concentrated maximum forces against the USSR. The successes of the German troops at the beginning of the offensive were the result of an underestimation of their strength and capabilities, a consequence of an unsuccessful offensive attempt by Soviet troops near Kharkov and gross miscalculations of the command. The Nazis were rushing to the Caucasus and the Volga. On November 19, 1942, Soviet troops, having stopped the enemy in Stalingrad at the cost of colossal losses, launched a counteroffensive, which ended in the encirclement and complete liquidation of more than 330,000 enemy forces.
However, a radical turning point in the course of the Great Patriotic War came only in 1943. One of the main events of this year was the victory of Soviet troops in the Battle of Kursk. This was one of the largest battles of the war. In just one tank battle in the Prokhorovka area, the enemy lost 400 tanks and more than 10 thousand people killed. Germany and its allies were forced to move from active actions to defense.
In 1944, an offensive Belarusian operation was carried out on the Soviet-German front, codenamed “Bagration”. As a result of its implementation, Soviet troops reached their former state border. The enemy was not only expelled from the country, but the liberation of the countries of Eastern and Central Europe from Nazi captivity began. And on June 6, 1944, the Allies who landed in Normandy opened a second front.
In Europe in the winter of 1944-1945. During the Ardennes operation, Hitler's troops inflicted a serious defeat on the Allies. The situation was becoming catastrophic, and the Soviet army, which launched a large-scale Berlin operation, helped them get out of the difficult situation. In April-May this operation was completed, and our troops stormed the capital of Nazi Germany. A historic meeting of the allies took place on the Elbe River. The German command was forced to capitulate. During its offensive operations, the Soviet army made a decisive contribution to the liberation of the occupied countries from the fascist regime. And on May 8 and 9, for the most part
European countries and the Soviet Union began to celebrate as Victory Day.
However, the war was not over yet. On the night of August 9, 1945, the USSR, true to its allied obligations, entered the war with Japan. The offensive in Manchuria against the Japanese Kwantung Army and its defeat forced the Japanese government to admit final defeat. On September 2, the act of surrender of Japan was signed. Thus, after six long years, the Second World War was over. On October 20, 1945, the trial began in the German city of Nuremberg against the main war criminals.
Soviet rear during the war
At the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis managed to occupy industrially and agriculturally developed areas of the country, which were its main military-industrial and food base. However, the Soviet economy was able not only to withstand extreme stress, but also to defeat the enemy’s economy. In an unprecedentedly short time, the economy of the Soviet Union was rebuilt on a military basis and turned into a well-functioning military economy.
Already in the first days of the war, a significant number of industrial enterprises from the front-line territories were prepared for evacuation to the eastern regions of the country in order to create the main arsenal for the needs of the front. The evacuation was carried out in an extremely short time, often under enemy fire and air strikes. The most important force that made it possible to quickly restore evacuated enterprises in new places, build new industrial capacities and begin producing products intended for the front was the selfless work of the Soviet people, which gave unprecedented examples of labor heroism.
In mid-1942, the USSR had a rapidly growing military economy capable of meeting all the needs of the front. During the war years in the USSR, iron ore production increased by 130%, cast iron production - by almost 160%, steel - by 145%. In connection with the loss of Donbass and the enemy’s access to the oil-bearing sources of the Caucasus, vigorous measures were taken to increase the production of coal, oil and other types of fuel in the eastern regions of the country. The light industry worked with great effort, and after a difficult year for the entire national economy of the country in 1942, in the next year, 1943, it was able to fulfill the plan of supplying the warring army with everything necessary. Transport also worked at maximum load. From 1942 to 1945 Freight turnover of railway transport alone increased by almost one and a half times.
With each war year, the military industry of the USSR produced more and more small arms, artillery weapons, tanks, aircraft, and ammunition. Thanks to the selfless work of home front workers, by the end of 1943 the Red Army was already superior to the fascist army in all combat means. All this was the result of persistent combat between two different economic systems and the efforts of the entire Soviet people.
The meaning and price of the victory of the Soviet people over fascism
It was the Soviet Union, its fighting army and people that became the main force that blocked the path of German fascism to world domination. More than 600 fascist divisions were destroyed on the Soviet-German front; the enemy army lost three-quarters of its aviation, a significant part of its tanks and artillery.
The Soviet Union provided decisive assistance to the peoples of Europe in their struggle for national independence. As a result of the victory over fascism, the balance of forces in the world radically changed. The authority of the Soviet Union in the international arena has grown significantly. In the countries of Eastern Europe, power passed to the governments of people's democracies, and the system of socialism went beyond the boundaries of one country. The economic and political isolation of the USSR was eliminated. The Soviet Union became a great world power. This became the main reason for the emergence of a new geopolitical situation in the world, characterized in the future by a confrontation between two various systems- socialist and capitalist.
The war against fascism brought untold losses and destruction to our country. Almost 27 million Soviet people died, more than 10 million of them on the battlefields. About 6 million of our compatriots were captured by fascists, 4 million of them died. Almost 4 million partisans and underground fighters died behind enemy lines. The grief of irrevocable losses came to almost every Soviet family.
During the war years, more than 1,700 cities and about 70 thousand villages were completely destroyed. Almost 25 million people lost a roof over their heads. Large cities such as Leningrad, Kiev, Kharkov and others suffered significant destruction, and some of them, such as Minsk, Stalingrad, Rostov-on-Don, were completely in ruins.
A truly tragic situation has developed in the village. About 100 thousand collective and state farms were destroyed by the invaders. Cultivated areas have decreased significantly. Livestock farming suffered. In terms of technical equipment, the country's agriculture was thrown back to the level of the first half of the 30s. The country has lost about a third of its national wealth. The damage caused by the war to the Soviet Union exceeded the losses during World War II of all other European countries combined.
Restoration of the USSR economy in the post-war years
The main objectives of the fourth five-year plan for the development of the national economy (1946-1950) were the restoration of the regions of the country destroyed and devastated by the war, and the achievement of the pre-war level of development of industry and agriculture. At first, the Soviet people faced enormous difficulties in this area - a shortage of food, the difficulties of restoring agriculture, aggravated by the severe crop failure of 1946, the problems of transferring industry to a peaceful path, and the mass demobilization of the army. All this did not allow the Soviet leadership to exercise control over the country's economy until the end of 1947.
However, already in 1948, the volume of industrial production still exceeded the pre-war level. Back in 1946, the 1940 level for electricity production was exceeded, in 1947 - for coal, and in the next 1948 - for steel and cement. By 1950, a significant part of the indicators of the Fourth Five-Year Plan had been realized. Almost 3,200 industrial enterprises were put into operation in the west of the country. The main emphasis, therefore, was placed, as during the pre-war five-year plans, on the development of industry, and above all, heavy industry.
The Soviet Union did not have to count on the help of its former Western allies in restoring its industrial and agricultural potential. Therefore, only our own internal resources and the hard work of the entire people became the main sources of restoration of the country’s economy. Massive investments in industry grew. Their volume significantly exceeded the investments that were directed into the national economy in the 1930s during the period of the first five-year plans.
Despite all the close attention to heavy industry, the situation in agriculture has not yet improved. Moreover, we can talk about its protracted crisis in the post-war period. The decline of agriculture forced the country's leadership to turn to methods proven back in the 30s, which concerned primarily the restoration and strengthening of collective farms. The leadership demanded the implementation at any cost of plans that were based not on the capabilities of collective farms, but on the needs of the state. Control over agriculture again sharply increased. The peasantry was under heavy tax pressure. Purchasing prices for agricultural products were very low, and peasants received very little for their labor on collective farms. They were still deprived of passports and freedom of movement.
And yet, by the end of the Fourth Five-Year Plan, the severe consequences of the war in agriculture were partially overcome. Despite this, agriculture still remained a kind of “pain point” for the entire country’s economy and required a radical reorganization, for which, unfortunately, there were neither the funds nor the strength in the post-war period.
Foreign policy in the post-war years (1945-1953)
The victory of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War led to a serious change in the balance of forces in the international arena. The USSR acquired significant territories both in the West (part of East Prussia, Transcarpathian regions, etc.) and in the East (Southern Sakhalin, Kuril Islands). The influence of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe grew. Immediately after the end of the war, communist governments were formed here in a number of countries (Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc.) with the support of the USSR. A revolution took place in China in 1949, as a result of which the communist regime also came to power.
All this could not but lead to confrontation between the former allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. In conditions of severe confrontation and rivalry between two different socio-political and economic systems - socialist and capitalist, called the “Cold War”, the USSR government made great efforts to carry out its policies and ideology in those states of Western Europe and Asia that it considered objects of its influence . The split of Germany into two states - the FRG and the GDR, the Berlin crisis of 1949 marked the final break between the former allies and the division of Europe into two hostile camps.
After the formation of the military-political alliance of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) in 1949, a single line began to emerge in the economic and political relations of the USSR and the people's democracies. For these purposes, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) was created, which coordinated the economic relations of the socialist countries, and to strengthen their defense capabilities, their military bloc (Warsaw Pact Organization) was formed in 1955 as a counterweight to NATO.
After the US lost its monopoly on nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union was the first to test a thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb in 1953. The process of rapid creation in both countries - the Soviet Union and the USA - began of more and more new carriers of nuclear weapons and more modern weapons - the so-called. arms race.
This is how the global rivalry between the USSR and the USA arose. This most difficult period in the history of modern mankind, called the “Cold War,” showed how two opposing political and socio-economic systems fought for dominance and influence in the world and were preparing for a new, now all-destroying war. This split the world into two parts. Now everything has begun to be viewed through the prism of harsh confrontation and rivalry.
The death of I.V. Stalin became a milestone in the development of our country. The totalitarian system created in the 30s, which was characterized by the features of state-administrative socialism with the dominance of the party-state nomenklatura in all its links, had already exhausted itself by the beginning of the 50s. A radical change was required. The process of de-Stalinization, which began in 1953, developed in a very complex and contradictory manner. Ultimately, it led to the rise to power of N.S. Khrushchev, who became the de facto head of the country in September 1953. His desire to abandon previous repressive methods of leadership won the sympathy of many honest communists and the majority of the Soviet people. At the 20th Congress of the CPSU, held in February 1956, the policies of Stalinism were sharply criticized. Khrushchev's report to the delegates of the congress, later, in softer terms, published in the press, revealed the distortions of the ideals of socialism that Stalin allowed during almost thirty years of his dictatorial rule.
The process of de-Stalinization of Soviet society was very inconsistent. He did not touch upon the essential aspects of the formation and development
tia of the totalitarian regime in our country. N.S. Khrushchev himself was a typical product of this regime, who only realized the potential inability of the previous leadership to preserve it in an unchanged form. His attempts to democratize the country were doomed to failure, since in any case, the real work to implement changes in both the political and economic lines of the USSR fell on the shoulders of the previous state and party apparatus, which did not want any radical changes.
At the same time, however, many victims of Stalin’s repressions were rehabilitated; some peoples of the country, repressed by Stalin’s regime, were given the opportunity to return to their former places of residence. Their autonomy was restored. The most odious representatives of the country's punitive authorities were removed from power. N.S. Khrushchev’s report to the 20th Party Congress confirmed the country’s previous political course, aimed at finding opportunities for peaceful coexistence of countries with different political systems and at defusing international tension. It is characteristic that it already recognized various ways of building a socialist society.
The fact of public condemnation of Stalin's tyranny had a huge impact on the life of the entire Soviet people. Changes in the life of the country led to the weakening of the system of state, barracks socialism built in the USSR. Total control of the authorities over all areas of life of the population of the Soviet Union was becoming a thing of the past. It was precisely these changes in the previous political system of society, no longer controlled by the authorities, that caused them to strive to strengthen the authority of the party. In 1959, at the 21st Congress of the CPSU, the entire Soviet people were told that socialism had won a complete and final victory in the USSR. The statement that our country has entered the period of “full-scale construction of a communist society” was confirmed by the adoption new program CPSU, which set out in detail the tasks of building the foundations of communism in the Soviet Union by the beginning of the 80s of our century.
The collapse of Khrushchev's leadership. Return to the system of totalitarian socialism
N.S. Khrushchev, like any reformer of the socio-political system that had developed in the USSR, was very vulnerable. He had to change it, relying on its own resources. Therefore, the numerous, not always well-thought-out reform initiatives of this typical representative of the administrative-command system could not only significantly change it, but even undermine it. All his attempts to “cleanse socialism” from the consequences of Stalinism were unsuccessful. By ensuring the return of power to party structures, returning the party-state nomenclature to its significance and saving it from potential repressions, N.S. Khrushchev fulfilled his historical mission.
The worsening food difficulties of the early 60s, if they did not turn the entire population of the country into dissatisfied with the actions of the previously energetic reformer, then at least determined indifference to his future fate. Therefore, the removal of Khrushchev in October 1964 from the post of leader of the country by the forces of senior representatives of the Soviet party and state nomenklatura passed quite calmly and without incidents.
Increasing difficulties in the country's socio-economic development
In the late 60s - 70s, there was a gradual slide of the USSR economy towards stagnation in almost all its sectors. A steady decline in its main economic indicators was obvious. The economic development of the USSR looked especially unfavorable against the backdrop of the world economy, which was progressing significantly at that time. The Soviet economy continued to reproduce its industrial structures with an emphasis on traditional industries, in particular the export of fuel and energy products.
resources This certainly caused significant damage to the development of high-tech technologies and complex equipment, the share of which was significantly reduced.
The extensive nature of the development of the Soviet economy significantly limited the solution of social problems associated with the concentration of funds in heavy industry and the military-industrial complex; the social sphere of life of the population of our country during the period of stagnation was out of sight of the government. The country gradually plunged into a severe crisis, and all attempts to avoid it were unsuccessful.
An attempt to accelerate the socio-economic development of the country
By the end of the 70s, for part of the Soviet leadership and millions of Soviet citizens, it became obvious that it was impossible to maintain the existing order in the country without changes. The last years of the reign of L.I. Brezhnev, who came to power after the dismissal of N.S. Khrushchev, took place against the backdrop of a crisis in the economic and social spheres in the country, the growth of apathy and indifference of the people, and the deformed morality of those in power. The symptoms of decay were clearly felt in all areas of life. Some attempts to find a way out of the current situation were made by the new leader of the country, Yu.V. Andropov. Although he was a typical representative and sincere supporter of the previous system, nevertheless, some of his decisions and actions had already shaken the previously indisputable ideological dogmas that did not allow his predecessors to carry out, although theoretically justified, but practically failed reform attempts.
The new leadership of the country, relying mainly on tough administrative measures, tried to rely on establishing order and discipline in the country, on eradicating corruption, which by this time had affected all levels of government. This brought temporary success - the economic indicators of the country's development improved somewhat. Some of the most odious functionaries were removed from the leadership of the party and government, and criminal cases were opened against many leaders who held high positions.
The change of political leadership after the death of Yu.V. Andropov in 1984 showed how great the power of the nomenklatura is. The new General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, terminally ill K.U. Chernenko, seemed to personify the system that his predecessor was trying to reform. The country continued to develop as if by inertia, the people indifferently watched Chernenko’s attempts to return the USSR to the Brezhnev order. Numerous initiatives of Andropov to revive the economy, renew and cleanse the leadership were curtailed.
In March 1985, M.S. Gorbachev, a representative of a relatively young and ambitious wing of the country's party leadership, came to the leadership of the country. On his initiative, in April 1985, a new strategic course for the country’s development was proclaimed, aimed at accelerating its socio-economic development based on scientific and technological progress, technical re-equipment of mechanical engineering and the activation of the “human factor”. Its implementation at first was able to somewhat improve the economic indicators of the development of the USSR.
In February-March 1986, the XXVII Congress of Soviet Communists took place, the number of which by this time amounted to 19 million people. At the congress, which was held in a traditional ceremonial atmosphere, a new edition of the party program was adopted, from which unfulfilled tasks for building the foundations of a communist society in the USSR by 1980 were removed. Instead, a course was proclaimed for the “improvement” of socialism, issues of democratization of Soviet society and the system were determined elections, plans were outlined to solve the housing problem by the year 2000. It was at this congress that a course was put forward for the restructuring of all aspects of the life of Soviet society, but specific mechanisms for its implementation had not yet been worked out, and it was perceived as an ordinary ideological slogan.
The collapse of perestroika. Collapse of the USSR
The course towards perestroika, proclaimed by Gorbachev's leadership, was accompanied by slogans of accelerating the country's economic development and openness, freedom of speech in the field of public life of the population of the USSR. The economic freedom of enterprises, the expansion of their independence and the revival of the private sector have resulted in rising prices, a shortage of basic goods and a falling standard of living for the majority of the country's population. The policy of glasnost, which at first was perceived as a healthy criticism of all the negative phenomena of Soviet society, led to an uncontrollable process of denigration of the entire past of the country, the emergence of new ideological and political movements and parties alternative to the course of the CPSU.
At the same time, the Soviet Union radically changed its foreign policy - now it was aimed at easing tensions between the West and the East, resolving regional wars and conflicts, expanding economic and political ties with all states. The Soviet Union ended the war in Afghanistan, improved relations with China and the United States, contributed to the unification of Germany, etc.
The disintegration of the administrative-command system generated by the perestroika processes in the USSR, the abolition of the previous levers of managing the country and its economy, significantly worsened the life of the Soviet people and radically influenced the further deterioration of the economic situation. Centrifugal tendencies grew in the union republics. Moscow could no longer strictly control the situation in the country. Market reforms, proclaimed in a number of decisions of the country's leadership, could not be understood by ordinary people, since they further worsened the already low level of well-being of the people. Inflation increased, prices on the “black market” rose, and there was a shortage of goods and products. Worker strikes and interethnic conflicts became frequent occurrences. Under these conditions, representatives of the former party-state nomenklatura attempted a coup d'etat - the removal of Gorbachev from the post of president of the collapsing Soviet Union. The failure of the August 1991 putsch showed the impossibility of resuscitating the previous political system. The very fact of the attempted coup was the result of Gorbachev’s inconsistent and ill-considered policies, leading the country to collapse. In the days following the putsch, many former Soviet republics declared their full independence, and the three Baltic republics achieved recognition from the USSR. The activities of the CPSU were suspended. Gorbachev, having lost all the levers of governing the country and the authority of the party and state leader, resigned as president of the USSR.
Russia at a turning point
The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the American president congratulating his people on their victory in the Cold War in December 1991. The Russian Federation, which became the legal successor of the former USSR, inherited all the difficulties in the economy, social life and political relations of the former world power. Russian President B.N. Yeltsin, who had difficulty maneuvering between various political movements and parties in the country, relied on a group of reformers who took a strict course towards carrying out market reforms in the country. The practice of ill-conceived privatization of state property, appeals for financial assistance to international organizations and major powers of the West and East have significantly worsened the overall situation in the country. Non-payment of wages, criminal clashes at the state level, uncontrolled division of state property, a decline in the living standards of the people with the formation of a very small layer of super-rich citizens - this is the result of the policy of the current leadership of the country. Great trials await Russia. But the entire history of the Russian people shows that their creative powers and intellectual potential will in any case overcome modern difficulties.
Russian history. A short reference book for schoolchildren - Publishers: Slovo, OLMA-PRESS Education, 2003.
