THE UNITY OF THE PRINCIPALITIES
The disposition of these fifteen or sixteen principalities confirms what has been previously stated concerning the essential unity of the configuration of the Russian soil. None of the river-basins forms a closed or isolated region; no line of heights establishes between them barriers or political frontiers. The greater number of the Russian principalities belonged to the basin of the Dnieper, but pushed their limits everywhere beyond. Kiev, with Pereiaslavl, is the only one strictly confined within it; but Volhinia puts the basin of the Dnieper in communication with those of the Bug in the south and of the Vistula; Polotsk connects it with the basins of the Niemen and the Dvina, Novgorod-Seversk with that of the Don, Tchernigov and Smolensk with that of the Volga. Between these principalities, water-courses everywhere establish communications. Russia, though divided into appanages, was already making toward a great united empire. The lack of cohesion among nearly all the states and their frequent dismemberments prevented their becoming actual nationalities. The principalities of Smolensk, of Tchernigov, of Riazan never possessed that definite historical existence so characteristic of the duchy of Brittany or the county of Toulouse in France, the duchies of Saxony, Swabia, or Bavaria in Germany.
The interests of the princes and their ambition to provide an appanage for each of their children, necessitated at the death of every sovereign a fresh distribution of Russian territory. Yet a certain cohesion was evident in the midst of these vicissitudes. There was visible a unity of race and language, the more marked, notwithstanding differences of dialect, in that the Russian Slavs, excepting in the southwest, were surrounded everywhere by entirely dissimilar peoples—Lithuanians, Tchuds, Finns, Turks, and Magyars. There was also unity of religion; the Russians were differentiated from nearly all their neighbours in that, in contradistinction to the Slavs of the west, the Poles, Czechs, and Moravians, they represented a distinct form of Christianity, acknowledging no tie with Rome and rejecting Latin as the church language.
There was also a unity of historical development, since hitherto the Russian Slavs had all followed the same destiny, had equally accepted Greek civilisation, submitted to Varangian conquest, and pursued in common certain great enterprises, such as the expeditions against Byzantium and the wars with the nomads. There was finally political unity, as among all—in Galicia as in Novgorod, by the Dnieper as in the forests of Suzdal—the same family sat upon all the thrones. All the Russian princes were descended from Rurik, from St. Vladimir, and from Iaroslav the Great. The civil wars which desolated the country affirmed anew this unity. No state in Russia could regard the rest as outsiders, when the princes of Tchernigov and Suzdal were seen to take up arms solely to decide which among them was the eldest—which held the right to the title of grand prince and to the throne of Kiev. There were descendants of Rurik who governed successively the most distant states in Russia, and who, having reigned at Tmoutarakan on the straits of Ienikale, at Novgorod the Great, at Toropetz in the country of Smolensk, finished by obtaining recognition of their right to reign over Kiev.[b]
THE THEORY OF SUCCESSION
A Koriak
If the question be asked why the Russian state continued undivided throughout the two hundred years of the Varangian period, our answer is that it was due solely to the fact that during the greater part of this period the grand princes left one son and heir. Whenever the case was otherwise, as after the death of Sviatoslav and Vladimir, the brothers straightway entered upon a struggle for mastery that did not terminate until all but one were destroyed. That one then became undisputed master, for no one dared dispute the possession of power with the descendants of Rurik.
The theory of succession in the Rurik family was as follows: the grand prince of Kiev was lord paramount of Russia. He disposed of all vacant principalities, and was supreme judge and general; but each of his brothers had, according to his seniority, the right of succession to the throne. The death of every elder brother brought the younger ones a step nearer to that goal. The order of advance was from Smolensk to Pereiaslavl, from Pereiaslavl to Tchernigov, from Tchernigov to Kiev. But none could attain to the highest dignity, save him whose father had held it before him. Sons of a father who had died before reaching the goal were excluded from Kiev and were confined to the possessions in their hands at the time of their father’s death. The technical Russian term for those members of the Rurik family who were excluded from the highest dignity was Isgoi, and the attempts of the Isgoi to break through the law of exclusion have had no small share in the bloody and desolate history of Russia during the period upon which we now enter. But another factor contributed to the same end. The power of the grand prince was not so predominant as to enable him to enforce his will and put down disobedience. His position was based on the idea of patriarchal power, and was respected by the princes only when it was to their advantage. To maintain himself he had to resort to the expedient of making coalitions with some of the princes against the others, and the sword was the final arbiter between the grand prince and his nominal vassals.[c] Accordingly the whole of Russia was always divided in its support of the claims of this or that candidate. The civil wars which ensued were after all but family quarrels.[a]