Iaroslav the Wise has the reputation also of a lawgiver, for he has generally been considered responsible for the first Russian legal code, The Russian Justice, an invaluable source for our knowledge of Kievan society and life. And he played a significant role in Kievan culture by such measures as his patronage of artists and architects and the establishment of a large school and a library in Kiev.
The Decline and Fall of the Kievan State
Before his death Iaroslav assigned separate princedoms to his sons: Iziaslav, the eldest, received the Kiev and Novgorod areas; Sviatoslav, the second, the area centered on Chernigov; Vsevolod, the third, Pereiaslavl; Viacheslav, the fourth, Smolensk; and Igor, the fifth, Vladimir-in-Volynia - always with their surrounding territories. The princes, apparently, were expected to co-operate and to hold Kievan Russia together. Moreover, it would seem that when a vacancy occurred, they were to move up step by step, with the position in Kiev the summit. Some such moves did in fact take place, but the system - if indeed it can be called a system - quickly bogged down: Iaroslav's arrangement, based quite possibly on old clan concepts and relations still present in the ruling family, worked to break the natural link between a prince and his state, and it excluded sons from succession in favor of their uncles, their late father's brothers. Besides, with a constant increase in the number of princes, precise calculations of appropriate appointments became extremely difficult. At their meeting in Liubech in 1097 the princes agreed that the practice of succession from father to son should prevail. Yet the principle of rotation from brother to brother remained linked for a long time to the most important seat of all, that of the Grand Prince in Kiev.
The reigns of Iziaslav, Sviatoslav, and Vsevolod, the last of whom died in 1093, as well as that of Iziaslav's son Sviatopolk, who succeeded Vsevolod and ruled until his death in 1113, present a frightening record of virtually constant civil wars which failed to resolve with any degree of permanence the problem of political power in Kievan Russia. At the same time the Kievan state had to face a new major enemy, the Polovtsy, or the Cumans as they are known to Western authors. This latest wave of Turkic invaders from Asia had defeated the Pechenegs, pushing them toward the Danube, and had occupied the southeastern steppe. They attacked Kievan territory for the first time in 1061, and after that initial assault became a persistent threat to the security and even existence of Kievan Russia and a constant drain on its resources.
Although hard beset, the Kievan state had one more revival, under an outstanding ruler, Vladimir Monomakh. A son of Grand Prince Vsevolod, Vladimir Monomakh became prominent in the political life of the country long before he formally assumed the highest authority: he acted with and for his father in many matters and he took the lead at princely conferences, such as those of 1097 and 1100 to settle internecine disputes or that of 1103 to concert action in defense of the steppe border. Also, he played a major role in the actual fighting against the Polovtsy, obtaining perhaps his
greatest victory over them, in 1111 at Salnitsa, before his elevation to the Kievan seat. As Grand Prince, that is, from 1113 until his death in 1125, Vladimir Monomakh fought virtually all the time. He waged war in Livonia, Finland, the land of the Volga Bulgars, and the Danubian area, repulsing the Poles and the Hungarians among others; but above all he campaigned against the Polovtsy. His remarkable Testament speaks of a grand total of eighty-three major campaigns and also of the killing of two hundred Polovetsian princes; according to tradition, Polovetsian mothers used to scare their children with his name. Vladimir Monomakh distinguished himself as an effective and indefatigable organizer and administrator, a builder, for instance, possibly, of the town of Vladimir in the northeast on the river Kliazma, which was to become in two generations the seat of the grand prince, and also as a writer of note. Of special interest is his social legislation intended to help the poor, in particular the debtors.
Vladimir Monomakh was succeeded by his able and energetic son Mstislav (ruled 1125-32) and after him by another son, Iaropolk, who reigned until his death in 1139. But before long the Kievan seat became again the object of bitter contention and civil war which often followed the classic Kievan pattern of a struggle between uncles and nephews. In 1169 one of the contenders, Prince Andrew, or Andrei, Bogoliubskii of the northeastern principalities of Rostov and Suzdal, not only stormed and sacked Kiev but, after his victory in the civil war, transferred the capital to his favorite city of Vladimir. Andrew Bogoliubskii's action both represented the personal preference of the new grand prince and reflected a striking decline in importance of the city on the Dnieper. Kiev was sacked again in 1203. Finally, it suffered virtually complete destruction in 1240, at the hands of the Mongols.
The Fall of Kiev: The Reasons
The decline and collapse of Kievan Russia have been ascribed to a number of factors; but there is considerable controversy about the precise nature of these factors and no consensus concerning their relative weight. The most comprehensive general view, held by Soviet historians as a group and by some others, emphasizes the loose nature of the Kievan state and its evolution in the direction of further decentralization and feudalism. In fact, certain specialists raised the question of whether Kievan Russia could be called a state at all. Aside from this extreme opinion, it has been generally recognized that the Kievan state, very far from resembling its modern counterparts, represented in a sense a federation or association of a number of areas which could be effectively held together only for limited periods of time and by exceptionally able rulers. Huge distances and poor com-
munications made the issue of centralization especially acute. Moreover, it is argued that Russia, as well as Europe in general, evolved toward natural economy, particularism, and feudalism. Therefore, the relatively slender unifying bonds dissolved, and Russia emerged as an aggregate of ten or twelve separate areas. We shall return to this view when we discuss the question of feudalism in Russia, and on other occasions.