Sviatopolk’s reign began with a violation of the law of nations by imprisoning ambassadors of the Polovtsi, who had come to negotiate a treaty with him. In retaliation the nomads invaded the country, and with so great a force that Vladimir and Rostislav, who had come to the aid of the grand prince, advised him to purchase peace from the enemy. He paid no heed to them, but the event soon justified the prudence of their counsel. In the battle of Tripole, fought on May 23rd, 1093, the Russians sustained a disastrous defeat. Rostislav was drowned, while Sviatopolk and Vladimir saved themselves by flight. The next year’s campaign against the Polovtsi was equally disastrous, and Sviatopolk returned to Kiev with but two companions. Tortchesk was compelled to capitulate, and the nomads returned to the steppe rich with booty and prisoners. Sviatopolk now bought peace and took to wife a daughter of the Polovtsian khan. They returned, however, the same year under the leadership of Oleg, son of Sviatoslav, who had stayed till now in Tmoutorakan and thought the moment opportune for enforcing his undoubted rights upon Tchernigov, which had been the original seat of his father as the second son of Iaroslav, and which was held by Monomakh, who was the son of Iaroslav’s third son.
Oleg, was therefore, no Isgoi and would not be treated as such. When he appeared before Tchernigov, Monomakh had only a small band with him, and after a siege of eight days was compelled to evacuate the city and retire to Pereiaslavl, where he had to defend himself during the next three years against continual irruptions of the Polovtsi. The refusal of Oleg to join in a combined campaign of the princes against the Polovtsi, and the sudden capture of Smolensk by his brother David, gave the occasion for a general war that lasted two years and covered the whole territory of Russia, from Novgorod to Murom and thence to the steppe, and in course of which one son of Monomakh fell in battle, while two other sons suffered a decisive reverse at the hands of Oleg. Finally, a congress of princes was held at Lubetz, in the territory of Tchernigov, for the settlement of all existing disputes. The result of its deliberations was that the grand prince was to retain Kiev and Turov, while to Vladimir were assigned Pereiaslavl, Smolensk, and Rostov; Novgorod to his son Mstislav, and Tchernigov with all its dependencies to the sons of Sviatoslav—Oleg, David, and Iaroslav. The latter thus gained possession of the greater part of Russia. There still remained to be satisfied the three Isgoi, Volodar, and Vassilko, sons of Rostislav, and David, son of Igor. Of the former two, Volodar received Peremishl, Vassilko received Terebovl, while Vladimir in Volhinia was given to David. Polotsk remained in the hands of Vseslav.
[1097-1110 A.D.]
The congress of Lubetz (1097) brought a respite to the sorely tried Russian north, but the south was soon subjected to new calamities. Vassilko, son of Rostislav, was revolving in his mind extensive plans of conquest in Poland, among the Danubian Bulgarians, and finally against the Polovtsi. He had begun making extensive preparations, and had taken into his pay several nomad hordes. David of Volhinia, who was ignorant of Vassilko’s plans, became alarmed at these warlike preparations, began to suspect a conspiracy between Monomakh and Vassilko, and succeeded in inoculating the grand prince with his own alarms and suspicions. Vassilko was allured to Kiev to attend a religious festival, and there he was captured, thrown into chains, dragged to Bielgorod, and blinded in an unspeakably cruel manner. The horror of the bloody deed resounded throughout Russia. Monomakh united his forces with those of his old enemies, the sons of Sviatoslav, and marched upon Kiev. The grand prince tried to clear himself of blame and throw the guilt upon David, and peace was arranged through the mediation of the metropolitan of Kiev and of Monomakh’s mother.
The grand prince took upon himself the obligation to revenge the outrage on Vassilko, who was surrendered to Volodar; and David was obliged to flee to Poland (1099). The grand prince annexed David’s territory, and then turned, most unjustifiably, against the sons of Rostislav. Defeated by Volodar, he formed an alliance with Koloman, king of Hungary. The alliances now assumed a most unexpected and distorted character. David united with the Rostislavitchi and with Buiak, khan of the Polovtsi; and at Peremishl defeated the grand prince and his allies. The war, the horrors of which were increased by repeated raids of the Polovtsi, seemed to draw out without end or aim, when finally Monomakh convoked a second congress of the princes, which met in August, 1100, at Uvetitchi, on Kievan territory. The result of its deliberations was that only a few towns of Volhinia were left to David, the greater part of the principality being transferred to Iaroslav, son of Sviatopolk; while the Rostislavitchi were to remain in the undiminished possession of their territories.
[1111-1116 A.D.]
Thus order was restored for some time, but the direction of affairs really passed out of the hands of the grand prince into those of Monomakh. Under his leadership the Russian princes were now united against the Polovtsi, and there ensued a series of campaigns of which no clear account has come down to us. The Russians generally had the upper hand, but for a long time the balance wavered, and the enemy seemed so dangerous to the princes that, following the example of Sviatopolk, they entered into matrimonial alliances with him. Thus Monomakh, as well as the two sons of Sviatoslav, David and Oleg, took Polovtsian wives for their sons. But the year 1111 witnessed a decisive campaign, in which Monomakh is again seen at the head of the Russian princes. After crossing the Dnieper and the Vorskla, the Russians pressed on into the enemy’s country as far as the Don. Two Polovtsian cities were taken, and one was reduced to ashes; the Don was crossed, and on March 24th and 26th a great battle was fought. The Russians were on the Sula, the last tributary of the Don before reaching the sea of Azov, in a most unfavourable position and surrounded from all sides by the Polovtsi. But the scales were turned when the drujinas of David and Monomakh, which had been kept all the time in the rear, made a terrific onset on the exhausted enemy, who fled in panic. According to tradition, angels preceded the Russians and smote the Polovtsi with blindness.
Vladimir Monomakh (1113-1125 A.D.)
After a reign filled with civil war and misfortune Sviatopolk died (April 16th, 1113), and all eyes turned toward Monomakh. Legally, however, the throne belonged to his cousin Oleg, son of Sviatoslav, and Monomakh seemed at first resolved to recognise his superior right. But the Kievans were determined to accept no one but Monomakh, and an uprising of theirs, which was directed primarily against the Jews, whom Sviatopolk had employed for fiscal purposes, but which threatened to assume larger dimensions, induced him to yield to the universal demand. Thus the race of Sviatoslav—otherwise called the Olgovitchi—was excluded, and Monomakh succeeded in bringing a large part of Russia under his house. During his reign he continued the wars against the Polovtsi, as well as against the Finns in the north and east, and the Poles in the west. The steppe was cleared so thoroughly that tradition, with its customary exaggeration, says that he forced the Polovtsi back into the Caucasus.
His relations with the Byzantine Empire have not yet been sufficiently cleared up. He himself was the son of a Byzantine princess, and his daughter Maria was married to Leo, son of the unfortunate emperor Romanus Diogenes, who was blinded in 1071 and banished to an island. Leo then made an attempt at revolt against Alexius Comnenus, but was poisoned in 1116. Vladimir now espoused the cause of Leo’s son Basil and sent an army to the Danube, which returned without accomplishing its purpose. According to a later tradition, which arose under the influence of Moscow, the emperor Alexius Comnenus, in order to put an end to the devastation of Thrace by the Russian troops, sent to Vladimir a diadem and other imperial insignia through Neophyte, metropolitan of Ephesus, who put the diadem on Vladimir’s head and called him czar. But contemporary accounts tell us nothing of all this, and it is inherently improbable that Byzantium would bestow upon the Russian grand prince, who was no longer formidable, a title whose exclusive possession it so jealously guarded. On the other hand, it is known that in 1122, or six years after the supposed campaign to Thrace, a granddaughter of Monomakh was married to a prince of the house of Romanus.