The most ancient Russian city. The most ancient city of Russia, the most ancient city of Russia

Usually, the history of Eastern Europe, which was inhabited by the Slavs, begins to be studied from the founding of Kievan Rus. According to the official theory, this is the first state in these lands that the world knew about, reckoned with, and respected the rulers. One after another, ancient cities appear in Ancient Russia, and this process stopped only with the invasion of the Mongols. With the invasion of the horde, the state itself, fragmented among the numerous descendants of the princes, goes into oblivion. But we will talk about its heyday, we will tell you what the ancient cities of Russia were like.

A little about the country

The term "Ancient Russia" usually refers to the state united around Kyiv, which existed from the ninth to the middle of the thirteenth centuries. In fact, it was a union of principalities, the population of which was the Eastern Slavs, who were subordinate to the Grand Duke. This union occupied vast territories, had its own army (team), established rules of law.

When the ancient cities in Ancient Russia adopted Christianity, the active construction of stone temples began. The new religion further strengthened the power of the Kyiv prince and contributed to foreign policy relations with European states, the development of cultural ties with Byzantium and other highly developed countries.

Gardarika

The emergence of cities in Ancient Russia was stormy. It is not for nothing that in the Western European chronicles it is called Gardarika, that is, the country of cities. From written sources dating back to the 9th-10th centuries, 24 large settlements are known, but it can be assumed that there were many more. The names of these settlements, as a rule, were Slavic. For example, Novgorod, Vyshgorod, Beloozero, Przemysl. By the end of the twelfth century, the role of cities in Ancient Russia was truly invaluable: there were already 238 of them, they were well fortified, they were centers of politics, trade, education and culture.

The structure and characteristics of the settlement in the old days

A city in Ancient Russia is a settlement for which a place was carefully chosen. The territory should be convenient in terms of defense. On the hill, as a rule, in the separation from the river, a fortified part (Kremlin) was built. Dwelling houses were located closer to the river, in the lowland or, as they said, on the hem. Thus, the first cities of Ancient Russia consisted of a central part - a well-protected citadel, and a more convenient, but less safe trade and craft part. A little later, settlements, or foothills, appear in the settlements.

Ancient cities in Ancient Russia were not built of stone, like most settlements in Western Europe at that time, but of wood. From here came the verb "cut down" the city, and not build. The fortifications formed a protective ring of wooden log cabins filled with earth. The only way to get inside was through the gate.

It is worth noting that in Ancient Russia, not only a settlement was called a city, but also a fence, a fortress wall, a fortress. In addition to the citadel, which housed the main buildings (the cathedral, the square, the treasury, the library), and the trade and handicraft quarter, there was always a market square and a school.

Mother of Russian cities

It was with this epithet that historians awarded the main city of the state. was the city of Kyiv - beautiful and very convenient in terms of geographical location. People lived in this area already 15-20 thousand years ago. The legendary founder of the settlement probably lived during the period of the Chernyakhov culture. The Book of Veles claims that he was a native of the Southern Baltic and lived around the middle of the second century. But this source dates the foundation of the city itself to Scythian times, which echoes the message of Herodotus about the chips. Possibly, the Polyana prince did not lay the foundation of the city, but only fortified it and made it a stronghold. believes that Kyiv was founded later, in the 5th-6th century, when the Slavs actively settled the territories above the Dnieper and Danube, advancing to the Balkan Peninsula.

The emergence of cities in Ancient Russia after Kyiv was natural, since people felt safe behind the fortified walls. But at the dawn of the development of the state, the capital city of glades was part of the Khazar Khaganate. In addition, Kiy met with the Byzantine emperor, presumably with Anastasius. It is not known who ruled the city after the death of its founder. History calls only the names of the last two rulers before the arrival of the Varangians. The prophetic Oleg captured Kyiv without bloodshed, made it his capital, pushed back the nomads, crushed the Khazar Khaganate and went on the offensive against Constantinople.

Golden time of Kyiv

The campaigns of Oleg and his successor Igor, and also did not contribute to the development of the city. Its borders have not expanded since the time of Kiy, but a palace already towered in it, pagan and Christian temples were built. Prince Vladimir already took up the arrangement of the settlement, and after the baptism of Russia, stone shrines grow in it, the mounds of the former gods are compared to the ground. Under Yaroslav, the St. Sophia Cathedral and the Golden Gate were built, and the territory of Kyiv and its population increased several times. Crafts, printing, and education are rapidly developing. There are more and more cities in Ancient Russia, but the city of Kiya still remains the main one. Today, in the central part of the Ukrainian capital, you can see buildings erected during the heyday of the state.

Sights of the Ukrainian capital

Ancient cities in Ancient Russia were very beautiful. And of course, the capital is no exception. Today, architectural monuments of that time provide an opportunity to imagine the magnificence of Kyiv. The most outstanding attraction is the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, founded by the monk Anthony in 1051. The complex includes stone temples decorated with paintings, cells, underground caves, fortress towers. The Golden Gate, built under Yaroslav the Wise, is a unique reminder of defensive architecture. Today, there is a museum inside, and around the building there is a square, in which there is a monument to the prince. It is worth visiting the famous St. Sophia Cathedral (1037), St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral (XI - XII centuries), St. Cyril, Trinity Gate Church, the Church of the Savior-on-Berestovo (all XII centuries).

Velikiy Novgorod

Large cities of Ancient Russia are not only capital Kyiv. The most beautiful is Novgorod, which has survived to this day, because it was not touched by the Mongols. Subsequently, in order to emphasize the important role of the settlement in history, the prefix "Great" was added to the official name of the authorities.

The amazing city, divided by the Volkhov River, was founded in 859. But this is the date when the settlement was first mentioned in written sources. The chronicle mentions that in 859 the Novgorod governor Gostomysl died, and, therefore, Novgorod arose earlier, long before Rurik was called to the principality. Archaeological excavations have shown that people have settled in these lands since the fifth century. In the eastern chronicles of the tenth century, as-Slaviya (Glory, Salau), one of the cultural centers of the Rus, is mentioned. This city refers to Novgorod or its predecessor - the old city of the Ilmen Slavs. It is also identified with the Scandinavian Holmgard, the capital of Gardariki.

Features of the capital of the Novgorod Republic

Like all large cities of Ancient Russia, Novgorod was divided into parts. It had quarters for crafts and workshops, residential areas without streets, and fortifications. Detinets was formed already in 1044. In addition to it, the shaft and the White (Alekseevskaya) tower have survived to this day. In 1045-1050, St. Sophia Cathedral was built in the city, a little later - Nikolo-Dvorishchensky, St. George's and the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin.

When a veche republic is formed, architecture flourishes in the city (the Novgorod architectural school arises). The princes lost the right to build churches, but the townspeople, merchants and patrons were actively involved in this. The dwellings of people, as a rule, were wooden, and only places of worship were built of stone. It is noteworthy that already at that time a wooden water supply system was functioning in Novgorod, and the streets were paved with paving stones.

Glorious Chernihiv

Studying the major cities of Ancient Russia, it is impossible not to mention Chernigov. In the vicinity of the modern settlement, people lived already in the 4th millennium BC. But as a city, it was first mentioned in written sources in 907. After the Battle of Listven in 1024, Mstislav Vladimirovich, brother of Yaroslav the Wise, makes Chernigov his capital. Since then, it has been actively developing, growing and building up. Ilyinsky and Yelets monasteries are being built here, which for a long time become the spiritual centers of the principality, the territory of which stretched to Murom, Kolomna and Tmutarakan.

The invasion of the Mongol-Tatars stopped the peaceful development of the city, which was burned by the troops of Genghisid Mongke in October 1239. From princely times to the present, several architectural masterpieces have come down, from which tourists begin their acquaintance with the city. These are the Cathedral of the Savior (XI century), the Elias Church, the Borisoglebsky and Assumption Cathedrals, the Yelets Assumption Monastery (all of them are from the 12th century), the Pyatnitskaya Church of St. Paraskeva (XIII century). Noteworthy are the Anthony Caves (XI-XIX centuries) and the mounds of the Black Grave, Gulbishche and Bezymyanny.

Old Ryazan

There was another city that played an exceptional role. There were many cities in Ancient Russia, but not every one of them was the center of a principality. Ryazan, completely destroyed by Khan Batu, has not revived. In 1778, Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky, which is 50 km away from the old princely settlement, was given a new name - Ryazan, but it is used together with the prefix "New". The ruins of the ancient Russian city today are of great interest to historians and archaeologists. Only the remains of the fortifications cover more than sixty hectares. The archaeological reserve also includes the ruins of guard outposts, the Novy Olgov fortress, near which the All-Russian Rodnoverie Sanctuary was sheltered.

Amazing Smolensk

In the upper reaches of the Dnieper there is an ancient and very beautiful city. The toponym Smolensk goes back to the name of the river Smolnya or to the name of the Smolyan tribe. It is also likely that the city was named in honor of the fact that it lay on the way from the Varangians to the Greeks and was the place where travelers pitched boats. It was first mentioned in The Tale of Bygone Years under the year 862 and is called the center of the tribal union of the Krivichi. In the campaign against Tsargrad, Askold and Dir bypassed Smolensk, since it was heavily fortified. In 882, the city was captured by Oleg the Prophet and became part of his state.

In 1127, the city became the inheritance of Rostislav Mstislavich, who in 1146 ordered the construction of the Church of Peter and Paul on Gorodyanka, the Church of St. John the Evangelist. Before the Mongol invasion, Smolensk reaches its highest peak. It occupied about 115 hectares, and 40 thousand people permanently lived there in eight thousand houses. The Horde invasion did not touch the city, which allowed it to preserve many architectural monuments. But over time, it lost its significance and fell under the dependence of other principalities.

Other cities

As you can see, the high development of the cities of Ancient Russia allowed them to be not only the political center of the regions, but also to establish external relations with other countries. For example, Smolensk had close relations with Riga, and there are legends about Novgorod's trade relations. And what other settlements existed in Russia?

• Polotsk, located on a tributary of the Western Dvina. Today it is located on the territory of Belarus and is loved by tourists. Sophia Cathedral (11th century, destroyed and rebuilt in the 18th century) and the oldest stone building in the country - the Transfiguration Church (12th century) remind of the princely era.
• Pskov (903).
• Rostov (862).
• Suzdal (862).
• Vladimir (990). The city is part of the Golden Ring of Russia, famous for the Assumption and Demetrius Cathedral, the Golden Gate.
• Murom (862), burned to the ground during the Mongol invasion, restored in the fourteenth century.
• Yaroslavl is a city on the Volga, founded by Yaroslav the Wise at the beginning of the tenth century.
• Terebovlya (Galicia-Volyn principality), the first mention of the city dates back to 1097.
• Galich (Galicia-Volyn principality), the first written mention of it is dated 1140. However, the epics about Duke Stepanovich say that he was better than Kyiv during the life of Ilya Muromets, and was baptized long before 988.
• Vyshgorod (946). The castle was the lot of Princess Olga and her favorite place. It was here that three hundred concubines of Prince Vladimir lived before his baptism. Not a single building has been preserved from the Old Russian era.
• Pereyaslavl (modern Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky). In 907, it was first mentioned in written sources. Today in the city you can see the remains of fortifications of 10-11 centuries.

Instead of an afterword

Of course, we have not listed all the cities of that glorious era in the history of the Eastern Slavs. And even more so, they could not describe them in full as they deserve, due to the limited size of our article. But we hope that we have awakened interest in the study of the past.

Cities appeared in ancient times. These were fortified settlements of farmers and pastoralists. The Russian word "city" comes from the words "fence", "fence". The settlement was surrounded by a defensive fence - an earthen rampart, a palisade or a wall.

In Ancient Russia, any residential place surrounded by such a protective fence was called a city. Over time, the inhabitants of the cities began to engage in crafts and trade, markets and fairs appeared everywhere. The area for trade was called trade. Shops of merchants and public buildings were located here. Guest yards were built for visiting merchants. Cities often arose along the shores of seas and rivers or at crossroads: it was easier for merchants to bring goods on ships or horses. The proximity of the crossing - a bridge or a ford - also mattered. Sometimes a city arose next to a portage - a dry path along which shipbuilders "dragged" ships with goods from one river to another (this is how Volokolamsk appeared). Sometimes the city grew up around a large monastery (like Sergiev Posad).

The city consisted of a fortress (Kremlin) and a suburb. Posad was divided into settlements. In each of them lived artisans of the same profession - potters, tanners, blacksmiths. The city could appear at the behest of the prince or king. So, Vladimir-on-Klyazma was founded by Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich. And preparing a trip to Kazan, Tsar Ivan the Terrible ordered to build a fortress Sviyazhsk on the Sviyaga River - a tributary of the Volga.

The city survived if there was a well-established agriculture in its district. Urban life had the imprint of rural life. Often the enemies burned the ancient cities to the ground, but the inhabitants rebuilt them from the ashes and ruins. The city could “disappear” if the petty principality to which it belonged ceased to exist or the district was depleted of valuable raw materials for the extraction of which the city was built. People also left the "restless" cities, tired of the constant raids of the steppe nomads.

There were many artisans among the inhabitants. The townspeople were served by masters of “costume” (weavers, tailors, tanners), masters of “cooking” (pancake makers, butchers, fermenters), masters of “construction” (boilermakers, masons, locksmiths). The life of merchants passed on the market. There were service people in the city, headed by the governor, as well as the military - archers, gunners, collars.

What is an ancient Russian city like? The city was wooden. Temples and rarely chambers were built of stone. Residential buildings were most often one-story. Often, a city surrounded by a wooden (and later stone) wall and a moat was additionally protected by an earthen rampart or another wooden wall. People lived between the Kremlin and these fortifications. So, in the center of Moscow there was the Kremlin and Kitay-gorod. At a distance from them was another defensive wall - the White City. And then came the next fortification - an earthen rampart.

Introduction.

The question of when the Slavs appeared on the territory where the Old Russian state later developed has not yet been finally resolved. Some researchers believe that the Slavs are the original population of this territory, others believe that non-Slavic tribes lived here, and the Slavs moved here much later, only in the middle of the 1st millennium AD. In any case, the Slavic settlements of the VI - VII centuries. on the territory of modern Ukraine are already well known. They are located in the southern part of the forest-steppe, almost on the border of the steppes. Apparently, the situation here at that time was quite calm and one could not be afraid of enemy attacks - Slavic settlements were built unfortified. Later, the situation changed dramatically: hostile nomadic tribes appeared in the steppes, and construction began here near the city.

Apparently, the appearance of cities was the result of the success of the eastern trade of the Slavs, which began in the 8th century, and there was the emergence of the most ancient trading cities in Russia. The story of the beginning of the Russian land does not remember when these cities arose: Kyiv, Pereslavl. Chernigov, Smolensk, Lyubech, Novgorod, Rostov, Polotsk. At the moment from which she begins her story about Russia, most of these cities, if not all of them, apparently, were already significant settlements. A cursory glance at the geographical distribution of these cities is enough to see that they were created by the success of Russia's foreign trade. Most of them stretched out in a long chain along the main river route "from the Varangians to the Greeks", along the line of the Dnieper - Volkhov; only a few, Pereslavl on the Trubezh, Chernigov on the Desna. Rostov in the region of the Upper Volga, advanced to the east from this, how to say, operational basis of Russian trade as its eastern outposts, indicating its flank direction to the Azov and Caspian Seas. The emergence of these large trading cities was the completion of a complex economic process that began among the Slavs in new places of residence. We saw that the Eastern Slavs settled along the Dnieper and its tributaries in lonely fortified courtyards. With the development of trade, prefabricated trading posts arose among these one-yards, places of industrial exchange, where trappers and beekeepers converged for trade, for guests, as they used to say in the old days. Such collection points are called graveyards. Subsequently, with the adoption of Christianity, in these local rural markets, as habitual gatherings of people, first of all, Christian churches were erected: then the graveyard received the significance of the place where the rural parish church stands. The dead were buried at the churches: this is where the significance of the churchyard as a cemetery came from. The rural administrative division coincided with or coincided with the parishes: this informed the graveyard of the importance of a rural volost. But all these are the later meanings of the term: originally, prefabricated trading, "living" places were called so. Small rural markets were drawn to the larger ones that arose along particularly busy trade routes. From these large markets, which served as intermediaries between native industrialists and foreign markets, our oldest trading cities grew along the Greek-Varangian trade route. These cities served as trading centers and the main storage points for the industrial districts that formed around them. These are two important economic consequences that accompanied the settlement of the Slavs along the Dnieper and its tributaries:

1) the development of the external southern and eastern, Black Sea-Caspian trade of the Slavs and the forestry industries caused by it,

2) the emergence of the most ancient cities in Russia with commercial and industrial districts stretching towards them. Both of these facts can be attributed to the VIII century.

The word city in the Old Russian language meant a fortified settlement, in contrast to a vesi or village - an unfortified village. Therefore, any fortified place was called a city, both a city in the socio-economic sense of the word, and a fortress proper or a feudal castle, a fortified boyar or princely estate. Everything that was surrounded by a fortress wall was considered a city. Moreover, until the XVII century. this word was often called the defensive walls themselves.

In ancient Russian written sources, especially in chronicles, there are a huge number of references to the siege and defense of fortified points and the construction of fortifications - cities.

The fortifications of the early Slavic castles were not very strong; their task was only to delay the enemy, to prevent him from suddenly bursting into the village and, in addition, to provide the defenders with cover from where they could hit the enemies with arrows. Yes, the Slavs in the VIII-IX, and partly even in the X century, still did not have the opportunity to build powerful fortifications - after all, at that time the early feudal state was just being formed here. Most of the settlements belonged to free, relatively sparsely populated territorial communities; they, of course, could not build powerful fortress walls around the settlement on their own or count on someone else's help in their construction. Therefore, they tried to build fortifications in such a way that their main part: part of them were natural barriers.

The most suitable for this purpose were islands in the middle of the river or in the middle of an impenetrable swamp. A wooden fence or palisade was built along the edge of the site, and this was limited. True, such fortifications had very significant flaws. First of all, in everyday life, the connection of such a settlement with the surrounding area was very inconvenient. In addition, the size of the settlement here depended entirely on the natural size of the islet; it was impossible to increase its area. And most importantly, it is far from always and not everywhere you can find such an island with a platform protected by natural barriers from all sides. Therefore, island-type fortifications were used, as a rule, only in swampy areas. Typical examples of such a system are some settlements of the Smolensk and Polotsk lands.

Where there were few swamps, but on the other hand, moraine hills were found in abundance, fortified settlements were arranged on the remnant hills. This technique was widespread in the northwestern regions of Russia. However, this type of defense system is associated with certain geographical conditions; separate hills with steep slopes on all sides are also far from everywhere. Therefore, the cape type of fortified settlement became the most common. For their device, a cape was chosen, bounded by ravines or at the confluence of two rivers. The settlement turned out to be well protected by water or steep slopes from the sides, but had no natural protection from the floor side. It was here that they had to build artificial earthen obstacles - to tear off the moat. This increased the labor costs for the construction of fortifications, but it also gave huge advantages: in almost any geographical conditions it was very easy to find a convenient place, to choose in advance the desired size of the territory to be strengthened. In addition, the earth obtained by tearing off the ditch was usually poured along the edge of the site, thus creating an artificial earthen rampart, which made it even more difficult for the enemy to gain access to the settlement.

By the beginning of the IX century. in Russia there were about 24 large cities. The Varangians (Normans), who traveled through this territory along the paths from the Varangians to the Greeks or from the Varangians to the Persians, called Russia Gardarika - the country of Cities. In the center of the ancient Russian city, fortified in a natural and (or) artificial way, there was a citadel (krom-kremlin), which was surrounded by artisans' settlements, and on the outskirts there were settlements (sloboda).

This is how the Eastern Slavs built their fortifications until the second half of the 10th century, when the ancient Russian early feudal state, Kievan Rus, finally took shape.

The role of cities in the economic political and spiritual life of Russia

The formation of the Old Russian state was closely connected with the process of transformation, development of the world of impenetrable thickets, swamps and endless steppes that surrounded man in Eastern Europe. The core of the new world was the city - "humanized", "cultivated", a territory reclaimed from nature. An ordered, urbanized space was turning into a pillar of a new social organization.

"In the cities," writes V.P. of the former organic collectives, in which each individual was included, society is rebuilt on a new basis.In the cities, under the shadow of princely power, people flock, the most diverse in social status and ethnicity.Solidarity and mutual assistance are an indispensable condition for survival in the extreme conditions of hunger strikes, epidemics and enemy invasions. But socio-psychological integration processes are already taking place in completely different conditions. "

Cities, undoubtedly, were the centers of economic, political and spiritual life of Ancient Russia.

"It was the cities that protected Russia from disastrous isolationism. They played a leading role in the development of political, economic and cultural ties with Byzantium and Danube Bulgaria, the Muslim countries of Western Asia, the Turkic nomads of the Black Sea steppes and the Volga Bulgars, with the Catholic states of Western Europe. In an urban environment, especially in the largest centers, they assimilated, fused, processed and comprehended in their own way, heterogeneous cultural elements, which, combined with local characteristics, gave the ancient Russian civilization a unique originality.

In the study of the cities of pre-Mongol Rus, domestic historians and archaeologists have achieved serious success.

What is an ancient Russian city?

At the same time, a significant number of problems have accumulated that need to be resolved. The first question to be answered is: what is an ancient Russian city? For all its "obviousness", the answer to it is not at all as simple as it might seem at first glance. Based on the etymology of the word "city" (cognate "pole"), it should be recognized that this is primarily a fenced (fortified) settlement. However, the etymological approach cannot always satisfy the historian. He fixes only the earliest stage of the history of the word, but cannot say anything about what actually was called the city at a later time. Indeed, the "city" in ancient Russian sources until the 16th century. fenced settlements and fortresses were called, regardless of their economic significance. At a later time, craft and trading settlements and large settlements (for all the vagueness of the definition "large") began to be called that, regardless of whether they had fortifications or not. In addition, when it comes to historical research, the term "city" does not mean exactly (and sometimes not at all) what this word meant in Ancient Russia.

The urban population in ancient Russia formed the main basis of state life and decisively prevailed over the rural population. Chronicles mention up to three hundred cities in the pre-Tatar era. But, without a doubt, this number is far from corresponding to their actual number, if by city we mean what was understood in antiquity, that is, any fortified or fenced settlement.

Before the unification of Russia under one princely family, and in general in the pagan era, when each tribe lived separately and was divided into many communities and principalities, not only external enemies, but also frequent mutual quarrels forced the population to fence themselves off from enemy attacks. Cities inevitably and gradually multiplied along with the transition of the Slavic-Russian tribes from a nomadic and wandering life to a settled one. As early as the 6th century, according to Iornand, forests and swamps replaced cities for the Slavs, i.e. served them instead of fortifications against enemies. But this message cannot be taken literally. Already in those days, in all likelihood, there were fortified settlements and even significant trading cities. With the great development of settlement and agriculture, their number greatly increased in subsequent centuries. About three centuries after Iornand, another Latin writer (unknown, by the name of the Bavarian geographer) enumerates the Slavic and non-Slavic tribes that inhabited Eastern Europe, and counts their cities in tens and hundreds, so that the complexity is several thousand cities. Even if his news were exaggerated, it nevertheless points to a huge number of cities in ancient Russia. But from such a number it is still impossible to conclude about the density and large number of the country's population itself. These cities were actually towns or small settlements, dug in with a rampart and a moat with the addition of a tyn, or palisade, and only partly had walls made of wicker and log cabins filled with earth and stones with towers and gates. In peacetime, their population was engaged in agriculture, cattle breeding, fish and animal trade in the surrounding fields, forests and waters. The chronicle directly points to these rural occupations of the townspeople, putting into Olga’s mouth the following words addressed to the besieged inhabitants of Korosten: “What do you want to sit out; all your cities have already been handed over to me and have pledged to pay tribute and cultivate their fields and their land; and you want better by hunger kill yourself than pay tribute." But at the first military alarm, the population took refuge in their towns, ready to withstand the siege and repulse the enemy. In accordance with the needs of protection, the very place for the city was usually chosen somewhere on the coastal elevation of a river or lake; on at least one side it adjoined the wilds and swamps, which not only prevented an enemy attack from this side, but also served as a shelter in case the town was taken. Of course, the more open the country was, the more it was subjected to enemy attacks, the greater the need for settlements dug in with ramparts, as was the case in the southern strip of Ancient Russia. In places wooded, swampy and generally protected by nature itself, fortified in this way, there were, of course, fewer villages.

When the Russian tribe, through its own squads, spread its dominance in Eastern Europe and when these squads united the Eastern Slavs under the rule of one princely family, naturally, both the danger from neighbors and mutual fights between Slavic tribes should have decreased. Russia, on the one hand, curbed external enemies, whom it often smashed in their own land; and on the other hand, the princely power forbade fights in their possessions that arose because of the possession of a field, forest, pasture, fishing or because of kidnapped women, as well as attacks for the purpose of robbery, extraction of slaves, etc. Imposing tribute on the native population, the princes in return, in addition to external protection, gave them court and punishment, i.e. they were obliged to more or less protect the weak from the insults of the strongest, in other words, laid the foundation for the state system. Therefore, due to greater security than before, the inhabitants of many towns could gradually settle in the surrounding areas in unfortified farms and settlements in order to more conveniently engage in agriculture; the towns themselves often acquired a more peaceful character, gradually turning into open villages. From here, the rural population, devoted to agriculture and other economic activities, more and more multiplied. This was predominantly the case in the interior; but along the outskirts and where there was more danger, as well as in the lands of conquered foreigners, the princes themselves took care of maintaining and building well-fortified cities in which they placed their warriors. In general, in this Russian-princely era, a distinction was gradually developed between the urban and rural populations.

If the number of fortified settlements was not as numerous as before, then the cities themselves became more significant and began to accommodate a population more diverse in their division into classes and estates. They are gradually becoming the focus for the surrounding area, both in military and governmental terms, and in industrial and commercial terms; at least this must be said of the most significant cities. Such cities usually consisted of two main parts: "detinets" and "fort". Detinets, otherwise the Kremlin, was considered the inner part, although it was rarely inside, and usually on one or two sides it was located above the very coastline. It housed the cathedral church and the courtyard of the prince or his mayor, as well as the courtyards of some boyars and clergy. There was also a part of the younger squad, or children's, who made up the city defense (from them the name "detinets"). Ostrog was the name of the outer, or roundabout, city adjacent to the citadel. It was also surrounded by a shaft, walls and towers, and from the outside - by a moat filled with water; such a moat was usually called rowing. The walls and towers in Ancient Russia were wooden; only in a few cities there were stone ones. It is clear that with an abundance of forests and a lack of mountains and stone, fortifications in Eastern Europe were of a different nature than in Western Europe, where castles and cities were fortified even after the model of Roman colonies. Subsequently, the roundabout city became better known under the name "posada"; it was predominantly inhabited by a merchant population and various kinds of artisans. Its necessary affiliation was a "merchant" or "torzhok", where on certain days people from the surrounding villages came to exchange their works. In large cities, with the multiplication of the population around the prison, new settlements appeared, bearing the names "suburbs", "zasteny", and later - "settlements", the inhabitants of which were engaged in either agriculture, or gardening, fishing and other crafts. These suburbs, in turn, were surrounded by a rampart. In addition, ramparts were piled up near large cities at a more or less significant distance from them so that in the event of an enemy invasion, the surrounding villagers could hide behind them not only with their families and with grain supplies, but also with their herds. Especially in South Russia, where there was a constant danger from nomads, and until now you can see the remains of numerous ramparts in the neighborhood of the most important ancient cities.

In those days when there was no strict division according to classes and occupations, when there was such a strong need to protect themselves, their families, their property and homes, the entire free population had to have the habit of weapons in order to join the ranks of the army if necessary. . The townspeople, for the most part, retained their warlike character; in the defense of cities, as well as in large campaigns, the prince's combatants constituted only the core of the military force; but, of course, they were better armed, and more accustomed to military affairs, more skillful in the use of weapons. The zemstvo army, apparently, had its own special chiefs in the person of "thousand" and "sotsky". These names are reminiscent of those times when the entire free population was divided into thousands and hundreds, and with such a division went to war. And then the sotskys and tenths turned into zemstvo officials who ran some current affairs, a special layout and collection of tributes and duties.

Benefits for public relations and institutions of Ancient Russia are Ploshinsky's "Urban state of the Russian people in its historical development." SPb. 1852. Pogodin "Research and lectures". T. VII. Solovyov "History of relations between the princes of Rurik's house". M. 1847. V. Passeka "Princely and pre-princely Russia" (Thurs. Common I. and Others 1870, book 3). Sergeevich "Veche and the Prince". M. 1867. (For a detailed review of Gradovsky on this work, see J. M. N. Pr. 1868. October.) Belyaeva "Lectures on the history of Russian legislation." M. 1879. Limbert "Objects of the department of the veche in the princely period." Warsaw. 1877. Samokvasova "Notes on the history of the Russian state system and management" (J. M. N. Pr. 1869. November and December). His "Ancient cities of Russia". SPb. 1870. His own "The Beginnings of the Political Life of the Old Russian Slavs". Issue. I. Warsaw. 1878. In the last two works of prof. Samokvasov proves the inconsistency of the previously prevailing opinion about the small number of cities in ancient Russia - an opinion based on several fortune-telling phrases of the chronicler about the life of the Russian Slavs before the so-called. vocations of the Varangians. (Some writers, due to lack of criticism, relied on these phrases to such an extent that the very construction of cities in Russia was considered the work of the called Varangians.) The best review on the theory of cities by prof. Samokvasov belongs to prof. Leontovich (Collection of State. Knowledge. T. II. St. Petersburg. 1875).

In the last work of Mr. Samokvasov ("The Beginning of Political Life"), an overview of various theories of the political life of the Russian Slavs in the era of vocation is presented; such are the theories: tribal, communal, out-of-community and mixed. Representatives of the patriarchal and tribal way of life are Solovyov and Kavelin, the communal way of life is Belyaev, Aksakov and Leshkov, the out-of-community way of life is Leontovich (see his article in Zh. ("On the influence of the struggle between cities and estates on the formation of the system of the Russian state in the pre-Mongol period." Reading Ob. I. and Others 1874). Criticism of Prof. Sergeevich in Zh. M. N. Pr. 1876. No. 1. Prof. Nikitsky ("Theory of tribal life in ancient Russia." "Bulletin of Europe". 1870. August) develops the theory of a fictitious or political kind. The aforementioned prof. Samokvasov "The most important moments in the state development of ancient Russia". Warsaw. 1886. (Adjacent to the tribal theory of inter-princely relations.) Prof. Khlebnikov "The Russian state and the development of the Russian personality (Kyiv. University. Izvestia. 1879. No. 4). We do not enter into the analysis of all these theories; since they more or less take as their starting point the imaginary calling of the Varangian princes, considering it a historical fact and considering it the beginning of Russian state life. Even Mr. Zatyrkevich, recognizing the more ancient origin of Russian state life, at the same time somehow intertwines it with the vocation of the Varangians and considers Russia to come from Scandinavia. For our part, we erect the beginning of our state life with the native Russian princes, headed by a time much earlier than the era of the alleged calling of the Varangians.In internal relations, we see in Ancient Russia the existence of a community and a veche next to the retinue-princely beginning, but with obvious subordination to this latter.(A few of my thoughts on the origin of state life in general see Izvestia of the Moscow Society of Natural Sciences, Anthropology and Ethnography for 1879: "On some ethnographies ical observations.") As for the local Slavic princes who existed before their submission to the Kievan Russian princely house, the chronicle has preserved several names for us. These are: in the X century, the Drevlyansky Mal and the Polotsk Rogvolod, and later we meet Khodota among the Vyatichi, a contemporary of Vladimir Monomakh. Vyatichi later than other tribal princes submitted to the Kyiv princely family. This clan, in place of the defeated princes, planted its members, or its posadniks.

OriginanddevelopmentcitiesancientRussia

Introduction.

The question of when the Slavs appeared on the territory where the Old Russian state later developed has not yet been finally resolved. Some researchers believe that the Slavs are the original population of this territory, others believe that non-Slavic tribes lived here, and the Slavs did not move here much later, only in the middle of the 1st millennium AD. In any case, the Slavic settlements of the VI - VII centuries. on the territory of modern Ukraine are already well known. They are located in the southern part of the forest-steppe, almost on the border of the steppes. Apparently, the situation here at that time was quite calm and one could not be afraid of enemy attacks - the Slavic settlements were built unfortified. Later, the situation changed dramatically: hostile nomadic tribes appeared in the steppes, and here they began to build near the city.

Apparently, the appearance of cities was the result of the success of the eastern trade of the Slavs, which began in the 8th century, and there was the emergence of the most ancient trading cities in Russia. The story of the beginning of the Russian land does not remember when these cities arose: Kyiv, Pereslavl. Chernigov, Smolensk, Lyubech, Novgorod, Rostov, Polotsk. At the moment from which she begins her story about Russia, most of these cities, if not all of them, apparently, were already significant settlements. A cursory glance at the geographical distribution of these cities is enough to see that they were created by the success of Russia's foreign trade. Most of them stretched out in a long chain along the main river route "from the Varangians to the Greeks", along the line of the Dnieper - Volkhov; only a few, Pereslavl on the Trubezh, Chernigov on the Desna. Rostov in the region of the Upper Volga, moved to the east from this, how to say, the operational basis of Russian trade as its eastern outposts, indicating its flank direction to the Azov and Caspian Seas. The emergence of these large trading cities was the completion of a complex economic process that began among the Slavs in new places of residence. We saw that the Eastern Slavs settled along the Dnieper and its tributaries in lonely fortified courtyards. With the development of trade, prefabricated trading posts arose among these one-yards, places of industrial exchange, where trappers and beekeepers converged for trade, for guests, as they used to say in the old days. Such collection points are called pogosts. Subsequently, with the adoption of Christianity, in these local rural markets, as habitual gatherings of people, first of all, Christian churches were erected: then the graveyard received the significance of the place where the rural parish church stands. The dead were buried at the churches: this is where the significance of the churchyard as a cemetery came from. The rural administrative division coincided with or coincided with the parishes: this informed the graveyard of the importance of a rural volost. But all these are the latest meanings of the term: initially, prefabricated trading, “living room” places were called so. Small rural markets were drawn to the larger ones that arose along particularly lively trade routes. From these large markets, which served as intermediaries between native industrialists and foreign markets, our oldest trading cities grew along the Greek-Varangian trade route. These cities served as trading centers and the main storage points for the industrial districts that formed around them. These are two important economic consequences that accompanied the settlement of the Slavs along the Dnieper and its tributaries:

1) the development of the external southern and eastern, Black Sea-Caspian trade of the Slavs and the forestry industries caused by it,

2) the emergence of the most ancient cities in Russia with commercial and industrial districts stretching towards them. Both of these facts can be attributed to the VIII century.

The word city in the Old Russian language meant a fortified settlement, in contrast to a village or village - an unfortified village. Therefore, any fortified place was called a city, both a city in the socio-economic sense of the word, and a fortress proper or a feudal castle, a fortified boyar or princely estate. Everything that was surrounded by a fortress wall was considered a city. Moreover, until the XVII century. this word was often called the defensive walls themselves.

In ancient Russian written sources, especially in chronicles, there are a huge number of references to the siege and defense of fortified points and the construction of fortifications - cities.

The fortifications of the early Slavic cities were not very strong; their task was only to delay the enemy, to prevent him from suddenly bursting into the village and, in addition, to provide the defenders with cover from where they could hit the enemies with arrows. Yes, the Slavs in the VIII-IX, and partly even in the tenth century, still did not have the opportunity to build powerful fortifications - after all, at that time an early feudal state was just being formed here. Most of the settlements belonged to free, relatively sparsely populated territorial communities; they, of course, could not build powerful fortress walls around the settlement on their own or count on someone else's help in their construction. Therefore, they tried to build fortifications in such a way that their main part: part of them were natural barriers.

The most suitable for this purpose were islands in the middle of the river or in the middle of a difficult-to-pass swamp. A wooden fence or a palisade was built along the edge of the site, and this was limited. True, such fortifications also had very significant flaws. First of all, in everyday life, the connection of such a settlement with the surrounding area was very inconvenient. In addition, the size of the settlement here depended entirely on the natural size of the islet; it was impossible to increase its area. And most importantly, it is far from always and not everywhere you can find such an island with a platform protected by natural barriers from all sides. Therefore, island-type fortifications were used, as a rule, only in swampy areas. Typical examples of such a system are some settlements of the Smolensk and Polotsk lands.

Where there were few swamps, but moraine hills were found in abundance, fortified settlements were arranged on the remnant hills. This technique was widespread in the northwestern regions of Russia. However, this type of defense system is associated with certain geographical conditions; separate hills with steep slopes on all sides are also far from everywhere. Therefore, the cape type of fortified settlement became the most common. For their device, they chose a cape bounded by ravines or at the confluence of two rivers. The settlement turned out to be well protected by water or steep slopes from the sides, but had no natural protection from the floor side. It was here that artificial earthen obstacles had to be built - to tear off a moat. This increased the labor costs for the construction of fortifications, but also gave huge advantages: in almost any geographical conditions it was very easy to find a convenient place, to choose in advance the desired size of the territory to be strengthened. In addition, the earth obtained by tearing off the moat was usually poured along the edge of the site, thus creating an artificial earthen rampart, which made it even more difficult for the enemy to access the settlement.

Early IX century. in Russia there were about 24 large cities. The Varangians (Normans), who traveled through this territory along the paths from the Varangians to the Greeks or from the Varangians to the Persians, called Russia Gardarika - the country of Cities. In the center of the ancient Russian city, fortified in a natural and (or) artificial way, there was a citadel (Krom-Kremlin), which was surrounded by artisans' settlements, and on the outskirts there were settlements (sloboda).

This is how the Eastern Slavs built their fortifications until the second half of the 10th century, when the ancient Russian early feudal state, Kievan Rus, was finally formed.

The role of cities in the economic political and spiritual life of Russia

The formation of the Old Russian state was closely connected with the process of transformation, the development of the world of impenetrable thickets, swamps and endless steppes that surrounded man in Eastern Europe. The city became the core of the new world - a “humanized”, “cultivated”, territory reclaimed from nature. An ordered, urbanized space turned into a supportive social organization.

“In the cities,” writes V.P. Darkevich, “the preoccupation of the individual with the clan disappears, its status does not dissolve in the status of a group to the extent that it does in a barbarian society. Already in the early cities of Novgorod-Kievan Rus, society is experiencing a state of disintegration. But with the destruction of the former organic collectives, in which each individual was included, society is rebuilt on a new basis. In the cities, under the princely power, people flock, the most diverse in social status and ethnicity. Solidarity and mutual assistance are an indispensable condition for survival in extreme conditions of hunger strikes, epidemics and enemy invasions. But socio-psychological integration processes are already taking place in completely different conditions.”

Cities, no doubt, were the centers of the economic, political and spiritual life of Ancient Russia.

“It was precisely the cities that protected Russia from disastrous isolationism. They played a leading role in the development of political, economic and cultural ties with Byzantium and Danubian Bulgaria, the Muslim countries of Western Asia, the Turkic nomads of the Black Sea steppes and the Volga Bulgars, with the Catholic states of Western Europe. In the urban environment, especially in the largest centers, diverse cultural elements were assimilated, fused, processed and comprehended in their own way, which, combined with local characteristics, gave the ancient Russian civilization a unique originality.

The study of the cities of pre-Mongol Rus by domestic historians and archaeologists has made serious progress.

What is an ancient Russian city?

At the same time, a significant number of problems have accumulated that need to be resolved. The first question that needs to be answered is: what is an ancient Russian city? For all its “obviousness”, the answer to it is not at all as simple as it might seem at first glance. If we proceed from the etymology of the word "city" (related to "pole"), then it should be recognized that this is, first of all, a fenced (fortified) settlement. However, the etymological approach cannot always satisfy the historian. He fixes only the earliest stage of the history of the word, but cannot say anything about what was actually called the city at a later time. Indeed, the "city" in ancient Russian sources until the 16th century. fenced settlements and fortresses were called, regardless of their economic significance. At a later time, craft and trading settlements and large settlements (for all the vagueness of the definition of “large”) began to be called that, regardless of whether they had fortifications or not. In addition, when it comes to historical research, the term “city” does not mean exactly (and sometimes not at all) what was meant by this word in Ancient Russia.

What do modern researchers call an ancient Russian city? Here are some typical definitions:

"A city is a settlement in which the industrial and commercial population is concentrated, to some extent divorced from agriculture."

Let us note how much such representations correspond with what was called a city in Ancient Russia - it is not known exactly. The solution to this problem, as already noted, is hampered by the ambiguity of the concept of a city in Ancient Russia.

The term "city" in Ancient Russia generally denoted a fortified, fenced settlement, regardless of its economic nature - whether it was a city in the proper sense of the word - a significant craft and trade center, or a small fortress with a military garrison, or an old fortified settlement of the pre-feudal period.

Such a discrepancy in definitions seriously complicates the use of information about gardens gleaned from ancient Russian sources, since it requires preliminary proof whether in this particular case we are talking about a garden in “our” sense of the word (more precisely, in the sense that is put into this sense by this researcher). At the same time, the fundamental possibility of developing a universal definition of an ancient Russian city becomes a sub-question.

In Soviet historiography, based on Marxist theory, the appearance of cities was associated with the separation of craft from agriculture, i.e. with the so-called secondmajor division of labor (F. Engels). Other factors, if taken into account, were placed in a subordinate position. Much less attention has been paid to them in explaining the formation of this type of settlements. As an example, I will cite the statement of M.N. Tikhomirov, which is very typical for such an approach:

The real force that brought Russian cities to life was the development of agriculture and handicrafts in the field of economics, the development of feudalism in the field of social relations. True, at the same time, researchers often emphasized that “the very emergence of Russian cities had a different history >>.

Recently, more and more attention has been paid to the fact that the origin and features of the life of the ancient Russian city cannot be explained by purely economic reasons. In particular, V.P. Darkevich believes that:

the explanation of the emergence of early medieval cities in Russia as a result of the social division of labor is an example of a clear modernization in the understanding of the economy of that time when subsistence farming dominated. Products of labor are produced here to meet the needs of the producers themselves. Commodity production is in its infancy. Domestic local markets in the era of the formation of cities in Russia have not yet received development. Long-distance international trade dominates. Affecting only the tops of society>>.

The rigid opposition between the city and the village in Ancient Russia is also questioned. At the same time, the role of agriculture in the city is emphasized, the inhabitants of which (as well as Western European townspeople) “led a semi-peasant existence and were engaged in various crafts, as evidenced by archaeological materials: hunting, fishing, beekeeping.

The townspeople were alien to us in agriculture and cattle breeding (this is evidenced by numerous finds in the territory of ancient Russian cities of agricultural tools: plowshares, hoes, scythes, sickles, hand millstones, shears for shearing sheep, a huge number of bones of domestic animals). In addition, the rural population was engaged in the production of most "handicraft" products to meet their own needs: they wove fabrics and sewed clothes, produced pottery, etc. Perhaps the only exception were metal tools and ornaments, the manufacture of which required special training and sophisticated equipment. Let us add to this that, according to archaeologists, large urban settlements sometimes arose earlier than the surrounding rural settlements. In addition, like the cities of Western Europe, the population of the urban settlements of Ancient Russia was constantly replenished with rural residents.

All this forces us to agree with the opinion of V.P. Darkevich about the high degree of agrarianization of ancient Russian cities and the absence of strict differences between urban and rural settlements. He's writing:

Both in the West and in the East of Europe, the city was a complex model, a kind of microcosm with concentric circles around the main core. The first circle is horticultural and horticultural crops (gardens are closely adjacent to urban space and penetrate into its free spaces), as well as dairy farming; in the second and third circles - crops and pastures. During excavations on the territory of city courtyards, estates, a huge number of bones of domestic animals are found. Places for keeping livestock were found both within the fortifications and outside them >>.

The main distinguishing external sign of an urban settlement, apparently, was only the presence of a fortification, a fortification, around which the “urban life” actually concentrated. At the same time, in the minds of the inhabitants of Ancient Russia, the city differed from the suburbs, also surrounded by “urban” fortifications. In the cities - "suburbs" there was no very important, although almost invisible for us, element of a real city - a veche.

A look at the origin and development of cities from an archaeological point of view

Archeology of the forest zone of Eastern Europe in the second half of the I-beginning of the II millennium AD. is the archeology of the historical period. This implies that, based on numerous written sources (Byzantine, Eastern, Western European, Old Russian), toponymy, hydronymy, ethnographic and linguistic data, we represent, with varying degrees of completeness, the general historical background against which events unfolded in the era of interest to us. who were their members. We know that the history of the territories under consideration is the history of four peoples and their interaction, namely, Finns, Balts, Slavs and Scandinavians, we also know that by the turn of the 10th-11th centuries. completed the formation of ancient Russian statehood. When starting to analyze archaeological materials and trying to answer certain questions, we always keep this general historical background in mind.

In the first half of the 1st millennium AD vast expanses of the forest zone of Eastern Europe were occupied by the Eastern Baltic and Finnish tribes. A sparse scattered population, small tribal settlements, fortified in the regions of the Upper Dnieper, Volga and Dvina regions and more often not fortified at all to the north, integrated forestry with cattle breeding in the first place, slash-and-burn agriculture in the second, and a large role of hunting, fishing and forestry, unhurried, a measured life - these are the characteristic features of the life of this population.

The second half of this millennium is very different. There are new archaeological cultures, new types of archaeological sites, the first settlements with central functions, craft centers, long-distance trade, international forms of material culture. These tendencies are clearly seen in the materials of archaeology.

For centuries, they were determined by two main historical processes. The main one was that a broad movement of Slavic tribes began from the more western and southwestern regions to the East European Plain. This is a movement towards the middle of the 1st millennium AD. undoubtedly covered the Middle Dnieper, and in the VI, VII, VIII centuries. continued north. The Slavs, as a Central European agricultural people, possessed stable skills in agricultural production based on arable farming and, in comparison with local tribes, had more developed forms of social organization of society. The northernmost Slavic group reached the lake. Ilmen and r. Volkhov and, finding herself in a different ethnic environment, she began to be called a generic Slavic name - Slovene. In addition, in the last centuries of the 1st millennium AD. The territory of Eastern Europe was crossed by two major trade and military routes of the Middle Ages - the Baltic-Volga route and the route "from the Varangians to the Greeks". The first of them played a particularly significant role in the history of the region.

The addition of the path between the Baltic and the East had a strong impact on the economy of the surrounding areas. Its centers began to play a decisive role as administrative-military, trade and craft centers of the territories. Along the way, deep into Eastern Europe, closer to the sources of silver and local markets, the Scandinavians began to penetrate.

It was the combination of two historical processes: Slavic settlement and the formation of the Baltic-East route that determined many features of the formation of the Old Russian state and cities.

The formation of the state territory in the south and north of Russia, as well as the formation of cities as the supporting centers of new social and economic relations and ties, undoubtedly, on the one hand, obeyed the general laws of development of East Slavic society, but, on the other hand, had many specific features. It is traditionally believed that the city is the product of its county and cities arise in areas with the highest concentration of the rural population. So it was with most of the cities of South Russia in the Middle Dnieper, where the appearance of the first cities was preceded by a certain period of stability in the development of Slavic society, which followed the resettlement of Slavic tribes from the more western and southwestern regions of Europe.

In Northern Russia, it was by no means the needs of the agricultural population that created cities. The latter grew in key places in vast river systems that blocked the communications of vast territories. This location gave the city the ability to collect tribute from the population of large areas and control trade routes. It was a long-distance trade, military-administrative control of river systems and a craft that served the highest social stratum of the cities themselves and trade routes.

Bibliography

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2) Nosov E.N. Problems of studying the funerary monuments of the Novgorod land (on the question of Slavic settlement) // Novgorod Historical Collection. Issue 1 (11). L., 1982.

3) Nosov E.N. Novgorod (Rurikovo) settlement. L., 1990.

4) Nosov E.N. The problem of the origin of the first cities of Northern Russia // Antiquities of the North-West. SPb., 1993.

5) Nosov E.N. Primitive communal system: The emergence of a productive economy // History of the peasantry of the North-West of Russia. SPb., 1994.

6) Nosov E.N. The river network of Eastern Europe and its role in the formation of urban centers of northern Russia // Veliky Novgorod in the history of the medieval Ea?iiu. Moscow, 1999.

7) Tikhomirov M.N. Ancient Russian cities. 2nd ed. M., 1956.

8) Tolochko P.P. Old Russian feudal city. Kyiv, 1989