Soviet historians, as well as some other specialists, also pointed to social conflicts as a factor in the decline of Kiev. They refer in particular to the gradual enserfment of the peasants by the landlords and to the worsening position of the urban poor, as indicated by events at the time of Vladimir Monomakh. Slavery, which Kievan Russia inherited from earlier societies, has also been cited as an element of weakness.
Another essentially economic explanation of the fall of Kievan Russia stresses trade, or rather the destruction of trade. In its crude form it argues that the Kievan state arose on the great commercial route "from the Varangians to the Greeks," lived by it, and perished when it was cut. In a more limited and generally accepted version, the worsening of the Kievan position in international trade has been presented as one major factor in the decline of Kiev. The city on the Dnieper suffered from the change in trade routes which began in the eleventh century and resulted, largely through the activities of Italian merchants in the Mediterranean, in the establishment of closer connections between western and central Europe on the one hand and Byzantium and Asia Minor on the other, and a bypassing of Kiev. It was adversely affected by the Crusades, and in particular by the sacking of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, as well as by the decline of the Caliphate of Bagdad. The fact that certain Russian towns and areas, such as Smolensk and especially Novgorod, profited by the rearrangement of the commercial map of Europe and the rise of Italian and German cities only tended to make Kievan control over them less secure. Finally, Kiev experienced tremendous difficulty, and ultimately failed, in protecting from the steppe peoples the commercial line across the southern steppe to the Black Sea.
In addition to the economic and social analyses, one can turn to the political. A number of historians have placed much stress on the failure of the Kievan system of government which they consider a major, possibly decisive, cause of the collapse of Kievan Russia, rather than merely a reflection of more fundamental economic and social difficulties. There is a consensus that the Kievan princely political system did not function well, but no agreement as to the exact nature of that system. Of the two main interpretations, one considers it simply to be confusion worse confounded and a rule of force without broad agreement on principle, while the other gives full credence and weight to the practice of joint clan rule and of
brother to brother rotation with such further provisions as the equation of the claims of the elder son of a prince to those of his father's third brother, his third uncle. In any case, the system did collapse in constant disputes and endemic internal strife. Pogodin calculated that of the 170 years following the death of Iaroslav the Wise 80 witnessed civil war. Kievan princes have also been blamed for various faults and deficiencies and in particular for being too militant and adventurous and often lacking the more solid attributes of rulers. On this point it would seem, however, that their qualities in general were well suited to the age.
Towns added further complications to princely rule and princely relations. Towns in Kievan Russia had existed before princely authority appeared, and they represented, so to speak, a more fundamental level of political organization. As princely disputes increased and princely power declined, the towns proceeded to play an increasingly significant role in Kievan politics, especially in determining what prince would rule in a given town and area. The later evolution of Novgorod represents an extreme case of this Kievan political tendency.
At least one other factor must be mentioned: foreign pressure. While it can well be argued that Kievan economics, social relations, and politics all led to the collapse of the state, the fall of Kiev can also - perhaps paradoxically - be explained primarily in terms of outside aggression. For Kiev had to fight countless exhausting wars on many fronts, but above all in the southeast against the inhabitants of the steppe. The Pechenegs replaced the Khazars, and the Polovtsy the Pechenegs, but the fighting continued. After the Polovtsy and the Kievan Russians virtually knocked each other out, the Mongols came to give the coup de grace. In contrast to the wars of medieval Europe, these wars were waged on a mass scale with tremendous effort and destruction. It might be added that during the centuries of Kievan history the steppe had crept up on the forest, and deforestation has been cited as one development weakening the military defenses of Kiev. There exists an epic Russian tale about the destruction of the Russian land. It tells of the bogatyri, the mighty warriors of Kievan Russia, meeting the invaders head on. The bogatyri fought very hard; indeed they split their foes in two with the blows of their swords. But then each half would become whole, and the enemies kept pressing in ever-increasing numbers until finally they overwhelmed the Russians.
V
KIEVAN RUSSIA: ECONOMICS, SOCIETY, INSTITUTIONS
… merry-go-round, moving harmoniously and melodiously, full of joy… This spirit permeates, this form marks everything that comes from Russia; such is our song itself, such is its tune, such is the organization of our Land.
The decisive factor in the process of feudalization proved to be the emergence of private ownership in land and the expropriation of the small farmer, who was turned into a feudal "tenant" of privately owned land, and his exploitation by economic or extra-economic compulsion.
the traditional view of Kievan economy stresses the role of trade. Its classic document is an account of the activities of the Rus composed by the tenth-century Byzantine emperor and scholar Constantine Porphyro-genitus. Every November, writes Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the Kievan princes and their retainers went on a tour of the territories of different tributary Slavic tribes and lived on the fat of those lands during the winter. In April, after the ice on the Dnieper had broken, they returned, with the tribute, down the river to Kiev. In the meantime, Slavs, subject to the Rus, would fell trees, build boats, and in the spring, when rivers became navigable, take them to Kiev and sell them to the prince and his retinue. Having outfitted and loaded the boats, the Rus next moved down the Dnieper to Vitichev where they waited for more boats carrying goods from Novgorod, Smolensk, Liubech, Chernigov, and Vyshgorod to join them. Finally, the entire expedition proceeded down the Dnieper toward the Black Sea and Constantinople.
Kliuchevsky and other historians have expounded how this brief Byzantine narrative summarizes some of the most essential characteristics of Kievan Russia, and even, so to speak, its life cycle. The main concern of the prince and his retainers was to gather tribute from subject territories, either, as described above, by visiting the different parts of the realm during the winter - a process called poliudie in Russian - or by having the tribute brought to them - povoz. The tribute in kind, which the prince obtained in his capacity as ruler and which consisted in particular of such items as furs, wax, and honey, formed the foundation of the commercial undertakings of the Rus. Slaves constituted another major commodity: the
continuous expansion of the Kievan state connected with repeated wars enabled the prince constantly to acquire human chattels for foreign markets. The Kievan ruler thus acted as a merchant-prince on a grand scale. His retainers, the druzhina, emulated him as best they could: they helped him gather tribute in winter, and received their share of it, which they took for sale abroad with the great summer expedition of the Rus. Many other merchants from different parts of Kievan Russia with their merchandise joined the princely train to secure protection on the way and support for their interests at the end of the journey. The gathering of tribute, the construction of boats and their sale each spring near Kiev, the organization of the commercial convoy, and finally the expedition itself linked the entire population of the Dnieper basin, and even of Kievan Russia in the large, and constituted the indispensable economic foundation of the Kievan state. With regularity, coins from Byzantium or Bagdad found their way to the banks of the Oka or the Volkhov rivers.