The twin terrors of Kievan Russia, internal division and invasion from abroad, prevailed in the age which followed the collapse of the Kievan state.
The new period has been named after the udel, or appanage, the separate holding of an individual prince. And indeed appanages proliferated at that time. Typically, in his will a ruler would divide his principality among his sons, thus creating with a single act several new political entities. Subdivision followed upon subdivision, destroying the tenuous political unity of the land. As legal historians have emphasized, private law came to the fore at the expense of public law. The political life of the period corresponded to - some would say was determined by - the economic, which was dominated by agriculture and local consumption. Much Kievan trade, and in general a part of the variety and richness of the economy of Kievan Russia, disappeared.
The parceling of Russia in the appanage period combined with population shifts, a political, social, and economic regrouping, and even the emergence of new peoples. These processes began long before the final fall of Kiev, on the whole developing gradually. But their total impact on Russian history may well be considered revolutionary. As the struggle against the inhabitants of the steppe became more exhausting and as the fortunes of Kiev declined, migrants moved from the south to the southwest, the west, the north, and especially the northeast. The final terrible Mongol devastation of Kiev itself and southern Russia only helped to emphasize this development. The areas which gained in relative importance included Galicia and Volynia in the southwest, the Smolensk and Polotsk territories in the west, Novgorod with its huge holdings in the north, as well as the principalities of the northeast, notably Rostov, Suzdal, Vladimir, and eventually Moscow. Population movements led to a colonization of vast lands in the north and northeast of European Russia, although there too the continuity with the Kievan period persisted, for the new expansion radiated from such old Kievan centers as Novgorod, Rostov, and Suzdal.
Of special significance was the linguistic and ethnic differentiation of the Kievan Russians into three peoples: the Great Russians, usually referred to simply as Russians, the Ukrainians, and the Belorussians or White Russians. While certain differences among these groups go far back, the ultimate split was in part caused by the collapse of the Kievan state and the subsequent history of its population, in particular by the fact that southwestern and western Russia, where the Ukrainian and the White Russian nationalities grew, experienced Lithuanian and Polish rule and influences, whereas virtually the entire territory of the Great Russians remained out of their reach.
Appanage Russia was characterized not only by internal division and differentiation but also by external weakness and, indeed, conquest. The Mongol domination over the Russians lasted from 1240 to 1380 or even 1480 depending on whether we include the period of a more or less nominal Mongol rule. But divided Russia became subject to aggression from nu-
merous other quarters as well. As already mentioned, the western and southwestern parts of the country fell to the Lithuanians - whose state as we shall see represented in a sense a successor state to that of Kiev - and eventually fell to the Poles. Novgorod to the north had to fight constant wars against the German Knights, the Swedes, and the Norwegians, in addition to the Lithuanians. With the collapse of the Kievan state and the Mongol conquest, Russia lost its important international position, even though a few principalities, such as Novgorod, acted vigorously on the diplomatic stage. In general, in contrast to the earlier history of the country, a relative isolation from the rest of Europe became characteristic of appanage Russia, cut off from many former outside contacts and immersed in local problems and feuds. Isolation, together with political, social, and economic parochialism, led to stagnation and even regression, which can be seen in the political thought, the law, and most, although not all, fields of culture of the period. The equilibrium of appanage Russia proved to be unstable. Russian economy would not permanently remain at the dead level of local agriculture. Politically, the weak appanage principalities constituted easy prey for the outside aggressor or even for the more able and ambitious in their own midst. Thus Lithuania and Poland obtained the western part of the country. In the rest, several states contended for leadership until the final victory of Moscow over its rivals. The successful Muscovite "gathering of Russia" marked the end of the appanage period and the dawn of a new age. Together with political unification, came economic revival and steady, if slow, cultural progress, the entire development reversing the basic trends of the preceding centuries. The terminal date of the appanage period has been variously set at the accession to the Muscovite throne of Ivan III in 1462, or Basil III in 1505, or Ivan IV, the Terrible, in 1533. For certain reasons of convenience, we shall adopt the last date.
VIII
The churches of God they devastated, and in the holy altars they shed much blood. And no one in the town remained alive: all died equally and drank the single cup of death. There was no one here to moan, or cry - neither father and mother over children, nor children over father and mother, neither brother over brother, nor relatives over relatives - but all lay together dead. And all this occurred to us for our sins.
"the tale of the ravage of riazan by batu"
And how could the Mongol influence on Russian life be considerable, when the Mongols lived far off, did not mix with the Russians, and came to Russia only to gather tribute or as an army, brought in for the most part by Russian princes for the princes' own purposes?… Therefore we can proceed to consider the internal life of Russian society in the thirteenth century without paying attention to the fact of the Mongol yoke…
A convenient method of gauging the extent of Mongol influence on Russia is to compare the Russian state and society of the pre-Mongol period with those of the post-Mongol era, and in particular to contrast the spirit and institutions of Muscovite Russia with those of Russia of the Kievan age… The picture changed completely after the Mongol period.
The Mongols - or Tatars as they are called in Russian sources * - came upon the Russians like a bolt from the blue. They appeared suddenly in 1223 in southeastern Russia and smashed the Russians and the Polovtsy in a battle near the river Kalka, only to vanish into the steppe. But they returned to conquer Russia, in 1237-40, and impose their long rule over it. Unknown to the Russians, Mongolian-speaking tribes had lived for centuries in the general area of present-day Mongolia, and in the adjoining parts of Manchuria and Siberia. The Chinese, who watched their northern neigh-
* "Tatars" referred originally to a Mongol tribe. But, with the expansion of the Mongol state, the Tatars of the Russian sources were mostly Turkic, rather than Mongol, linguistically and ethnically. I am using "Mongol" throughout in preference to "Tatar."
bors closely, left us informative accounts of the Mongols. To quote one Chinese author:
… they are preoccupied exclusively with their flocks, they roam and they possess neither towns, nor walls, neither writing, nor books; they conclude all agreements orally. From childhood they practice riding and shooting arrows… and thus they acquire courage necessary for pillage and war. As long as they hope for success, they move back and forth; when there is no hope, a timely flight is not considered reprehensible. Religious