As is normal for medieval Russia, the death of Vladimir Monomax in 1125 brings on a period of instability. Without functioning political institutions, political unity is brought into existence solely from the will of a powerful monarch. From 1125, the princes of Russia are vaguely organized around a North and South axis. This axis becomes an extremely powerful historical factor in Russian life, especially with the development of the Ukrainian question in the 19th century.
The “North” was and is represented by Suzdal, and later, Moscow, a heavily forested region, part-Finnish in race, and based heavily upon landed property and the agricultural life. The region itself is rather harsh on farmers due to poor soil and a short growing season, and so a centralized monarchy had developed. This general region (or more accurately, ideological formation and schism in Russian life) began to look to the east in terms of trade, including Persia and the Orient. The Volga riven is the main trading artery for northern interests. He major trading commodities were furs, wax and honey. This region became more militaristic than the south, as their major occupation was continuing war with the steppe nomads attacking Volga trading routes. This also contributed to the comparative centralization of the state.
The “South” is represented by Kiev and the steppe (or plains). Her economy carries on the Viking traditions of Novgorod and is based on trade and finance. These “southern regions” were basically “republican” in political organization, and, as a result, aristocratic/oligarchic. Rather than looking to east and Central Asia, these look to the Greeks or Arabs in trade.
In later years, this division is to take on a powerful ideological dimension. The “North” is accused of being “Asiatic,” while much of the “south” becomes absorbed into Poland and Austria, becoming quite westernized. This division in Russian life becomes more and more important as Moscow develops her own claim to authority in later generations.
Politically speaking, the “North” is represented by Yuri (George) of Suzdal, while the ”South,” by Iziaslav of Kiev after the death of Vladimir Monomax. These two monarchs represent two very different centers of power in Russian life. The former is of the firm belief that political fortunes favor the north, and this is borne out by the substantial weakness of the Greek empire to the south after the (later) mass-murders of the Crusaders in 1204 and afterwards, as well as the subsequent division of Greek territory.
The initial battles fought between the old capital of Russia and the young upstart favored Yuri. As a result, Iziaslav, related to the kings of Hungary, flees to them as Yuri occupies Kiev. The former monarch in Kiev is able to bring back a Hungarian army and defeats Yuri. Yuri then attempts to flee to Galicia (in the extreme Southwest of Russia) and is stopped by agents loyal to Kiev.
The result of all this is that Yuri is killed by Iziaslav and Yuri’s son, Andrew, takes over. Andrew is a competent leader and is very much imbued with a “northern” ideological outlook, and later scholars will take Andrew as the utter personification of this point of view. Andrew quickly forms a northern alliance and takes Kiev. Andrew then makes Suzdal the center of Russia, and rules the region from 1157 to 1174.
The fall of Kiev eliminates the center of the Russian consciousness. Andrew forces his new city of Vladimir to be this center, a center that is to become very significant, as Moscow, a small village, is under Andrew’s control. However, he is challenged by the might of Novgorod. Novgorod is a “southern” city, though one situated in the extreme North of the country. Russian history from Andrew’s taking of Kiev to the Mongol invasions centers around the politics of Novgorod, Galicia, and Suzdal/Vladimir. The later Tsars of Moscow find their first manifestation in Andrew.
Andrew’s significance cannot be overstated in medieval Russia. His changes in Russian political life are many and have far reaching consequences. First, the chieftain of the warrior clan becomes a monarch. Prior to Andrew, the European term “monarch” is an exaggeration. A Russian “prince” is a warrior chief, and the “bureaucracy” is his class of servitors. This loose relationship comes to an end in Andrew, not just as an empirical phenomenon, but as an ideological one as well. A warrior chief’s servitors are his moral and political equals. Under Andrew, his former equals become servitors or subjects.
Andrew deliberately removes himself from the Dniper, the artery of the southern trade routes. This move is also significant, for he severs himself from the oligarchy that controlled this lucrative trading artery (though one to be less lucrative once Constantinople falls). Andrew moves the Russian center of gravity to the Volga and points east and northeast. It is central an imperative for the “northern” alliance to smash Novgorod, the very heart of the “southern” mentality. He oligarchic wealth make her a force to be reckoned with, and, as a result, her dealings with the “northern” princes come to decide the future fate of Russia as a cultural unit. While it is true that Novgorod was able to beat off the advances of Andrew’s men, Suzdal did have the trump card of her substantial grain production, which Novgorod was dependent upon. Novgorod’s soil was marshy and unsuited for agriculture (this making northern Novgorod a “southern” style trading city), thus providing whoever would rule Suzdal with substantial leverage over the mighty trading colossus. Novgorod was forced to make peace.
However, all was not lost. Mystislav the Brave of Smolensk came to the defense of the “southern idea” and fought for Novgorod. Andrew, through his public preaching of the “northern” view, threatened other Russians who viewed the former “republican” notions of Russian statecraft seek to defend her older institutions. Mystislav and he son will soon emerge as the central figure in the military defense of the “southern” ideological idea. And as non-residents of Novgorod, his defense was the best of all possible worlds for the Novgorodian oligarchy, one that did not like military power invested in one local citizen of the city.
Andrew finally subdues Mystislav the Brave in 1173 and creates the city of Vladimir on the Kliazma river. He is deliberately attempting to make this city, named for St. Vladimir Monomax, the center of the Russian world; a new Kiev. He imports, at great expense, an army of Greek painters, architects and sculptors to beautify his new capital city. He also gave large sums of his own personal money to the poor. He created a tight alliance with northern, royalist clergy to provide a strong sense of national piety, and a political sense of Orthodox unity, the central mark of Russian identity. Further, he attempts to make Vladimir a metropolitan see, but Constantinople rejects this idea, and the metropolitan stays in Kiev. Regardless of Andrew’s victories, the defenders of the “republican” systems continue to harass Andrew and attack his agenda. Andrew pays for his building of a centralized monarchy with his life, as his servitors murder him in 1174, and is replaced by his son, Yuri II, though he is not alone in claiming the throne.
Andrew had two brothers he drove out of Russia, Vsevelod and Michael, both of whom lived in Greece and were very much against Andrew’s agenda. Vsevelod, the older brother, ruled in Suzdal from 1176-1212, and was known for fathering many children, marrying them off to the various Slavic and non-Slavic princes of Europe, creating a powerful alliance.
One of his sons was Yaroslav, who Vsevelod installed as ruler of Novgorod to the screams of the population. This particular ruler is not at all enamored with Novgorod’s oligarchic system of rule, and makes it clear he will subdue the city and bring it into his grandfather’s northern alliance. Yaroslav then attempts to starve the Novgorodians by blockading their access to the Dnieper. Apparently, he began to succeed, though this hard to believe, given that Novgorod had other food supplies rather than the Dniper, as well as having supporters ruling in Vladimir.
Novgorod, sufficiently threatened regardless, called in the son of Mystislav the Brave, Mystislav the Bold, who eventually drove Yaroslav out. With this, a particularly vicious warfare broke out between Vselvelod’s sons: Constantine held Rostov as an appanage, while Yuri II held Vladimir. Yaroslav was still wandering around, barely hanging on to some power in the extreme south of the Novgorodian empire with some troops loyal to him and Andrew. Yaroslav was viewed as the hope of all Russians who agreed with Andrew’s political agenda.
A new civil war breaks out among these grandsons of Andrew, eventually subdued by an alliance of Novgorod and Pskov (this latter city, small, right on the Gulf of Finland, was organized in a very similar manner to Novgorod). Novgorod wanted to achieve a bit of leverage to make sure no one like Yaroslav (or Andrew) ever ruled again. In the subsequent peace treaty, Yuri II was shifted to Suzdal, the heart of the northern alliance, while Constantine was given the city of Vladimir. Yaroslav was given whatever he wanted so long as he left Novgorod and never returned. In 1217, Constantine dies, and Yuri II is given the city of Vladimir in addition to Suzdal.
Galicia is a bit of a different matter, and many look to her as being the heart of the south and her specific ideological ideas. In Galicia, local princes elected the leader, and the prince ruled with the assembly (the vietche) run by boyars, or landed warriors. The system was strongly aristocratic and therefore distrusted monarchs. This oligarchy elected Roman to be their leader in 1188. His predecessor, Vladimir, was kicked out of the area as a follower of Andrew. Vladimir, in this spirit, had fled to Hungary in order to drive the boyars out of Galicia and failed. Vladimir is sent to prison.
Oddly, Roman seems to have gone to the Poles to drive out the remaining supporters of Vladimir, and turns out to be a follower of Andrew as well, and attempts to destroy the landed warrior caste of boyars. The exact nature of this turn of events is unclear, though it might be safe to say that he did not want to rule as a puppet of the oligarchy. He becomes wildly popular with the lower classes in his attempt. He uses the Poles to maintain his authority in southern Russia.
Daniel, son of Roman rules in Galicia from 1205-1264. Roman died while Daniel was a baby, and therefore, the boyars moved to make sure no follower of Andrew could ever rule. As a young man, Daniel marries the daughter of Mystislav the Bold as an insurance policy against being pushed around. Mystislav had been the protector of Daniel for some time, though no one really knows his motives in so doing, unless it is the simple notion of having leverage over the king, making sure he is not like his father. Apparently, Roman had weakened the boyar aristocracy to the point they could not combine to keep the monarchy under their control, particularly with the Smolensk-native Mystislav protecting the boy king. Daniel is eventually driven out of Galicia by the Mongols in 1264, and goes to Rome to organize a crusade against them and fails. The stories of two Russias are to be found in the distinctions between Galicia and Suzdal. They typify two visions of Russia; and two possible futures. Understanding this division in Russian life becomes central for understanding subsequent Russian history, and the various ideological schisms she is wracked with. This “north/south” divide still plagues Russia until this day.
Why use the rather awkward “north/south” axis?
I use it because it is the preferred Ukrainian typology of the era, and is therefore familiar. For many Ukrainian nationalists, the “north” represents everything bad: centralization, royalism and absolutism. The south, everything good: democracy, westernization and free trade. I find this humorous in light of the evidence, but this is the 19th century typology. Historians like Doroshenko believed that original population of Kiev had moved west, to Galicia, and continued the tradition there. Suzdal, on the other hand, was populated by a mix of Slavic and Finnic peoples, and thus created a new civilization. I’m in no position to comment on such a thesis, but I can comment on the two types of Russia that were founded. I do accept the Ukrainian idea of two civilizations, though normally accept that this was created by economic, political and geographical factors rather than through the influence of an influx of people after the Mongols.
Would you not say then that Moscow is the successor of Kiev?
Well, this is the heart of the matter. Moscow is the literal successor of Kiev, through not its cultural successor. By “literal” I mean that the metropolitans of Kiev eventually found themselves in Moscow, providing it with that Kievan legitimacy. Culturally, though, Suzdal/Vladimir/Moscow (i.e. the north), was very different from the organization of Kiev. St. Andrew was a Byzantine, a Constantian; the Kievan mentality (though I’m speaking generally) was “libertarian communalist.” Could that have survived Poland or Turkey? That is really the issue. Therefore, the centralization of St. Andrew was a necessity, but that is not a flaw, and, if it were, not a flaw that is any fault of the northerners. The reality is that the decentralization of the Kievan state could not withstand organized invasion. Only strong institutions could do that.
In Serbia the situation was similar. Serbia was able to maintain the Byzantine ideal only under strong rulers such as Dusan. Once those personalities were off the scene (he was murdered for this reason), local notables took over, and this was the green light for Serbia’s enemies. Had Dusan lived, he would have become emperor of the Serbs and Greeks, and would have maintained Orthodox civilization for longer than the Greeks could have. But this would have been solely the result of a strong control over the local notables. Serbia fell due to internal incohesion.