The Story of Russia

by R. Van Bergen

It cannot be supposed that the Russian people were converted at once into good Christians by Vladimir's forceful method. Several centuries were to pass away before the peasants could be induced to part with their heathen customs. The priests preferred to let them remain under a Christian name. There is something mystic in the Slav character. He nurses the belief in magicians and sorcerers, which has never been uprooted. It is seen at present in the worship of the eikon or saint's image.

Vladimir died in 1015. He, too, divided Russia among his numerous sons. One of them, Iaroslaf, received Novgorod, where he began to interfere with the rights of the people. A deputation of leading citizens came to him with a protest. He ordered their arrest and condemned them to death. Meanwhile Vladimir's other heirs had indulged in the usual quarrels and wars, until it seemed as if Sviatopolk, a nephew, would become the sole ruler. Iaroslaf then called the principal people of Novgorod together, and threw himself upon their generosity. They forgave him and promised their support. They kept their word, and after a long and bloody war he entered Kief as his father's successor.

Iaroslaf was unfortunate in a war with the Byzantine Empire. The Russian fleet was badly defeated in the Bosphorus; 8,000 men were killed, and 800 prisoners were taken to Constantinople.

Of greater importance was Iaroslaf's work at home. He built churches and monasteries; St. Sophia church was the pride of Kief; the monastery of The Catacombs still draws pilgrims from all parts of Russia. Kief became known as "the city of four hundred churches." He also founded a school for three hundred boys at Novgorod, thereby showing that Russia at that time was second to no European nation.

Kief, under his reign, was one of the most prosperous cities. This was due to her situation on the Dnieper and her trade with the Byzantine Empire, to the great fertility of the Black Earth land, and to Iaroslaf's connection by marriage with the reigning families of Europe. Of his daughters Elizabeth was the wife of the King of Norway, Anne of the King of France, and Anastasia of the King of Hungary; his sister Mary was married to the King of Poland, and his sons had married into royal families. Merchants from Holland, Germany, Hungary, and Scandinavia were established at Kief. The Dnieper was alive with merchant vessels, and she counted eight markets. It is evident that Iaroslaf took pains to protect and advance commerce. He had coins minted with his Slav name on one side, and his Christian name Ioury (George), on the other.

Perhaps his greatest work is the code of laws established by him, known as the Russkaïa Pravda or Russian Right. Though necessarily primitive, it was a long step in advance of that time. It followed chiefly the ideas of right and wrong according to the conceptions of the Scandinavians.

At this time, although the dignity of kniaz, duke or prince, was hereditary in the family of Rurik, it was understood by all parties that the reign of the prince depended upon the consent of his subjects, and perhaps more still upon that of his drujina. A story is told that in Vladimir's time the drujina complained that they were made to eat from wooden bowls, whereupon he gave them silver ones, saying: I could not buy myself a drujina with gold and silver; but with a drujina, I can acquire gold and silver, as did my father and my grandfather.

Ever since Kief had been the residence of Rurik's descendants, they had been recognized as Grand Dukes, because they represented the eldest of the descendants. They did not, as a rule, interfere with the administration, but were the dukes, the commanders of the armies. Many districts had such a duke, who was, however, invariably of the blood of Rurik, and recognized the superior authority as the eldest of the blood. When the Grand Duke of Kief died, he was not succeeded by his son, unless he had neither uncle nor brother living; but it was within the power of the grand duke to leave one or more districts to his sons.

The descendants of the Norsemen were, therefore, the defenders of the districts which they ruled as dukes. Novgorod and Pskof were republics on the northwest frontier, and usually had the same duke. Smolensk was an important dukedom, because it contained the sources of the Volga, the Dnieper, and the Dwina, and embraced the ancient forest of Okof. Not far from it was the dukedom of Toropetz. On the Upper Oka was Tchernigof—a rival of Kief; further to the south was Novgorod-Swerki, and east of the Upper Don, extending as far as the Oka, were Riazan and Mourom. The dukedom of Souzdal, inhabited by a mixture of Finns and Slavs, was in the north, the soil still covered by forests. Southeast Russia embraced Red Russia, that is Volhynia and Gallicia Proper.

The introduction of the Greek Church caused important changes. The Greek Priests could not comprehend the relation between the people and its defenders. To them the duke was not a dux (leader), but a Cæsar, Kaiser, or Czar, ruling, not with the consent of the governed, but by the grace of God, as did the emperors at Constantinople. This idea gradually penetrated into the minds of the several dukes, until it was accepted and enforced by them.