8 Kievan Rus’: Its Disintegration

During the century following the reign of Volodymyr II Monomakh’s first son and successor, Mstyslav I (r. 1125-1132), Kievan Rus’ entered a period marked by two contradictory tendencies.

Symbolic of the breakdown in centralized political authority was the changing position of the grand prince. If, for instance, during the first two stages of Kievan Rus’, a period lasting over two and one-half centuries (878-1132), there were fourteen grand princes, by contrast, during only the first thirty-seven years of the era of disintegration (1132-1169), the Kievan throne changed hands eighteen times. Even in subsequent decades, when the political situation at the center was less volatile, Kiev itself steadily lost its attractiveness as the seat of power. Symbolic of this shift in attitudes was the year 1169, when the ruler of the northern principality of Rostov-Suzdal’, Andrei Bogoliubskii (r. 1157-1174), was behind a coalition of Rus’ princes who attacked Kiev, sacked the city, and killed many of its inhabitants. Despite his victory Bogoliubskii did not assume the title of grand prince. Instead, he was content with leaving the city to rulers whom he could manipulate, so that he could remain in his northern capital of Vladimir, which he began to develop as a rival to what still remained the formal capital of Kievan Rus’.

8.1 Capture of Kiev in 1169 by the allies of Prince Andrei Bogoliubskii of Vladimir-Suzdal’ as depicted in the 15th-century Radziwill Chronicle.

Aside from the seemingly incessant interprincely warfare among Rus’ princes and their retainers, there was the ever-present threat from the nomadic peoples of the steppes. In fact, most of present-day southern and eastern Ukraine had never come under the hegemony of Kievan Rus’. The realm’s boundary was generally fixed along the Ros’ River and a fluctuating line of settlement just east of the city of Pereiaslav. Farther south and east was the open steppe, which after the decline of Khazar authority in the ninth century was to remain under the control of nomadic tribal confederations made up of various Turkic peoples.

8.2 Mobile “tent cities” drawn by teams of oxen were characteristic of nomadic peoples who dominated the steppeland south and east of Kievan Rus’.

The first of these confederations to threaten Kievan Rus’ were the Pechenegs, who dominated the steppe from the early 900s to 1036. As a result of the Pecheneg presence, the Rus’ were in the course of eleventh century forced to give up their outposts of Bila Vezha (the former Khazar fortified city of Sarkel on the lower Don River) and at Tmutorokan’ along the Straits of Kerch (see Map 7). Even more ominous for Kievan Rus’ were the Polovtsians, who arrived in Ukraine’s steppe during the second half of eleventh century. They drove out the Torks (who had just pushed out the Pechenegs) and settled in the open steppe between the lower Danube and middle Don rivers. Despite their nomadic lifestyle, the Polovtsians (also known as Kipchaks or Qipçaqs in Turkic and Cumans in western sources) established towns such as Sharukan’, Sugrov, and Balin along the Donets’ River where they maintained trade and other relations with Kievan Rus’.

In fact, military conflict was not the only aspect of the relationship of Kievan Rus’ with the steppe peoples. Several nomadic groups (including Torks, Berendei, and remnants of the Pechenegs) settled along the Ros’ River, where they became loyal allies of the Rus’ princes. These people, known as the Karakalpaks, were described in the Rus’ chronicles as Chorni Klobuky (Black Caps) and as “our pagans.” The nearly two centuries of interrelations between Kievan Rus’ and Polovtsians were also characterized by peace as well as war. At times flourishing trade relations and intermarriage between Rus’ princes and Polovtsian ruling families were the norm. At other times, especially at the turn of the twelfth century and again in the 1160s-1180s, it seemed as if Polovtsian-Rus’ battles would never end. It was during the latter period that the most famous literary work attributed to (although perhaps not written during) Kievan Rus’ times draws its subject matter. This is the famous Lay of Ihor’s Campaign (Slovo o polku Ihorevi), a story based on an actual historical event about the Rus’ prince Ihor of Chernihiv and his ill-fated military campaign in 1185 against the Polovtsians on the steppes just south of the Donets’ River.

8.3 Kiev attacked by the Polovtsians in 1096 as depicted in the 15th-century Radziwiłł Chronicle.

As a result of all these factors, the political map of Kievan Rus’ was transformed during the era of disintegration. If at the death of Iaroslav I “the Wise” in 1054 there were eight principalities, by the thirteenth century there were eleven. New principalities were carved out of existing ones: Turaü-Pinsk from Kiev; Novhorod Sivers’kyi and Murom-Riazan’ from Chernihiv. At the same time three other principalities enhanced their territorial size and their political and economic influence: Novgorod in the far north; Rostov-Suzdal (renamed Vladimir-Suzdal’) in the northeast; and Galicia-Volhynia in the southwest. It was these three new power centers that were to continue, each in its own way, the political and cultural traditions of Kievan Rus’. But before the realm could be completely transformed and reconfigured into these three spheres of influence, a momentous event had yet to take place—the invasion of the Mongols.

8.4 Polovtsian camp during a military campaign.

MAP 9 THE MONGOL INVASIONS