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Returning, however, to Kiev to complete the outline narrative of dynastic politics: Sviatopolk's death in 1113 did not precipitate another change of gen­erations, but it did bring into focus, with respect to Kiev itself, a potential ambiguity in the conventions which had emerged over the second half of the eleventh century Who was the legitimate successor: Oleg, son of Sviatoslav of Chernigov? or Vladimir Monomakh, son of Vsevolod of Pereiaslavl'? On the one hand: Oleg was a son of the older brother, Vladimir was a son of the younger brother, Oleg's father Sviatoslav had been prince of Kiev before Vladimir's father Vsevolod (1073-6 and 1078-93 respectively), therefore obvi­ously Oleg was senior and had the legitimate claim. On the other hand, Oleg's father Sviatoslav had not become prince of Kiev legitimately according to seniority, nor had he outlasted his older brother as seniority passed down the line of siblings: he had ousted his older brother Iziaslav, whom he had then predeceased, and on both these counts the claims of his offspring were dubious. In 1113 the issue was resolved in favour of Vladimir Vsevolodovich, who (in the chronicle account) recognised the problem but allowed himself to be persuaded by the townspeople of Kiev However, this ambiguity between the claims of Vladimir and the claims of his cousin Oleg Sviatoslavich was to resurface periodically in disputes over the Kievan succession for at least the next hundred years.

Such, in brief but already sufficiently confusing outline, was the process of improvisation and adaptation through which the dynasty's political culture emerged. Yet whatever the dynasty's own preferences, family agreements in themselves were not enough to ensure their own implementation nor was dynastic seniority in itself a mechanism for the exercise of power. The political culture of a few brothers or cousins or uncles or nephews would have been irrelevant if it were not held in place by structures of coercion and legitimacy involving broader social groups.

Power and governance

The princes of Rus' were warlords, heading a military elite. While prince of Kiev, Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh wrote an 'Instruction' for his sons, a kind of brief curriculum vitae presenting as exemplary his own credentials and achievements. What, in Vladimir's presentation, does an exemplary prince do? The answer is simple: he engages in military campaigns, and in their recreational equivalent, the hunt. Vladimir introduces the narrative of his life thus: 'Here I relate to you, my children, the tale of the labours that I have laboured: of my campaigns and of my hunts since I was thirteen years old.' And he concludes the narrative with a summary boast: 'In all [I completed] 83 major campaigns, besides minor campaigns too numerous to recall.'[35] Besides his kin, then, the social group closest to and most vital for the prince was his druzhina: his retinue, the protective and coercive basis for his power.

The druzhina owed its loyalty to the prince personally. Thus to some extent the druzhina could choose whom to support. In 1015 Vladimir Sviatoslavich's son Boris was reputedly on a campaign in the steppes with the druzhina of his father. When Vladimir died 'they said to him: "You have your father's druzhina and his troops; go to Kiev and sit on your father's throne."' But Boris declined, so the troops dispersed, leaving him with no protection except the singing of psalms, which on this occasion proved ineffectual against the agents of his murderous brother Sviatopolk.[36] Boris was a saint, hence virtuous; but a saint's virtue can be foolhardiness in ordinary men: a wise prince nurtured his druzhina, kept it close to him, feasted with it, consulted it and heeded its counsel, rewarded it for its labours on his behalf.[37]

Druzhina was a flexible term and flexible institution.[38] At its core was the 'small' (malaia) druzhina, the prince's permanent personal bodyguards, but beyond that the druzhina merges with the prince's extended household, his dvor (the word for a 'court' in all senses) and it formed the nucleus of his administration. Perhaps at one stage the druzhina had truly corresponded to some egalitarian ideal of military fellowship, with the prince as patron and first among equals, but as the business ofbeing a prince and running a principality in Rus' - especially for one of the senior princes - grew more complex, so the druzhina developed its internal hierarchies, its divisions of functions, its struc­ture of offices and responsibilities. It had its own senior members - the boyars - along with the rank-and-file 'youths' (otroki) in the junior (mladshaia) druzhina. Boyar offices spanned military, domestic and urban administration, from gen­eral (voevoda) to head of household (kormilets) to steward or estate manager (tiun) to military governor of a city (tysiatskii, 'thousander', 'chiliarch'; sup­ported by sotskie, 'hundreders', 'centurions'). Lesser functionaries included the domestic manager (kliuchnik, literally 'key-man'), enforcement officers such as the birich, and - eventually - more specialised servitors such as the 'seal-man' (pechatnik) or scribe (pisets). In a warrior elite, however, the distinction between military and administrative office is not always clear: thus, for example, the mechnik ('swordman') is well attested in Novgorodian inscriptions as having a role in fiscal administration or tribute-gathering.[39]

The political order was not, therefore, just a matter of agreement or dis­pute within the princely family, the inner circle of his kin. A prince needed his druzhina, his inner circle of servitors. And he also needed wider struc­tures of support at least in the towns, an outer circle linked to him more loosely. The pre-Mongol period in general was a time of notable urban eco­nomic and demographic growth, and throughout the period the rulers not merely exploited that growth but played a part in stimulating and developing it, whether through early ventures into long-distance trade and diplomacy, or through the cultural initiatives which helped develop local skills and create markets for local craft and manufacture. Around some of the regions, through the establishment and proliferation of patrimonial possessions, princes could often come to be identified intimately with their urban bases, but in Kiev and Novgorod (and perhaps elsewhere) the prince was not integrated into the urban social structure unconditionally. Not that princely rule itself was in question: a city needed a prince as much a prince needed a city; a prince; but not necessarily the particular prince. There were significant variations both in the degree of the prince's support from the city, and in the nature and extent of his authority over it.[40]

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35

PVL, vol. I, pp. 158, 162.

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36

PVL, vol. I, pp. 90-1.

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37

See e.g. PVL, vol. I, p. 86.

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38

See Uwe Halbach, DerrussischeFiirstenhofvor demi6.Jahrhundert: einevergleichende Unter- suchung zur politischen Lexikologie und Verfassungsgeschichte der alten Rus' (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des ostlichen Europa, 23; Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1985), pp. 94-113; A. A. Gorskii, Drevnerusskaia druzhina. K istorii genezisa klassovogo obshchestva i gosudarstvanaRusi (Moscow: Prometei, 1989).

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39

See V L. Ianin, U istokov novgorodskoi gosudarstvennosti (Novgorod: Novgorodskii gosu- darstvennyi universitet, 2001).

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40

See A. P. Tolochko, Kniaz' v Drevnei Rusi: vlast', sobstvennost', ideologiia (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1992).