Vladimir I (Vladimir the Great)

Vladimir I (Vladimir the Great)

Vladimir was a descendant of the ninth century Scandinavian chieftain Rurik, whose successors established control along the Dnieper and other river routes that connected Scandinavia to the Black Sea.

Kiev became the political and cultural center of the new principality that was ruled by the descendants of Rurik, known as the Rus, through the 16th century. This land eventually became known as Russia. Vladimir’s father, Sviatoslav, appointed him prince of the northern city of Novgorod in 970.

Upon his death in 972, civil strife emerged and Vladimir fled to Scandinavia. Returning in 980, he defeated his brother and gained control of the Kievan state. Vladimir expanded the kingdom’s power by waging wars with neighboring peoples, including the Poles and Volga Bulgars.

Vladimir is remembered as the Constantine the Great of Russia because his reign marked the transition of Kiev from a pagan to a Christian state. Christianity had already made inroads from Byzantium and the Slavs of southeastern Europe.


After a Rus attack on Constantinople in 860, the Byzantines had sent missionaries to draw its neighbor into the Eastern Christian orbit. At the same time, Christianity gained strength from the work of missionaries among the Slavs like Cyril and Methodios and their disciples.

They invented a script for Slavonic (the ancestor of modern Slavic languages) called Cyrillic, which is still in use today among Russians, Bulgarians, and Serbs. They also translated Christian literature into Slavonic. This work was extremely useful to Vladimir. Vladimir’s grandmother, Olga, had accepted baptism at Constantinople in the 950s, but this was only a personal conversion.

According to one story in The Russian Primary Chronicle, Vladimir sent emissaries to examine the religions of neighboring peoples. He was unimpressed by the Christianity practiced by the Latin West, and he could not accept the Islam of the Volga Bulgars (since alcohol was prohibited), and the Judaism of the Khazars failed to convince him.

When his emissaries reached Constantinople, however, they were mesmerized by the experience of worship in the great Church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), which was so magnificent that they were not sure whether they were in heaven or on earth.

Vladimir I statue

The lure of Byzantine culture drew Vladimir south. Fortuitously, the eyes of the Emperor Basil II turned north when he was in need of help during the Civil War of 987–989. Vladimir sent several thousand soldiers with whom the emperor triumphed. The price of Vladimir’s help was an imperial bride. For this, Vladimir agreed to be baptized.

When the emperor delayed, Vladimir attacked the Byzantine city of Cherson to force the emperor’s hand. Vladimir was baptized in 988 and married Anna, the emperor’s sister. Vladimir then oversaw the Christianization of his land. Kiev received an archbishop, appointed from Constantinople, to which the Russian church remained dependent until the 15th century.

Vladimir began a campaign of church building, training of clergy (using the Cyrillic script and translated Slavonic books), philanthropic activity and social service, and the destruction of pagan temples. Today, Vladimir is recognized as a saint in both the Western and Eastern Churches.

Vikings in Russia

Vikings in Russia

Vikings (Rus in the Arabic and Varangians in the Greek sources), primarily from central Sweden and the Isle of Gotland, first entered northwestern Russia by way of the Gulf of Finland, the Neva River, and Lake Ladoga, in small exploratory groups in the mid-eighth century.

By c. 850 the Vikings had established a complex commercial network stretching from Lake Ladoga to the Islamic caliphate and, by the early 10th century, had already extended their reach southward to the Byzantine Empire via Kiev, and east through intermediaries along the middle Volga in Bulgaria.

From this tribute-taking merchant diaspora emerged a core group that settled permanently in places such as Novgorod and Kiev, gradually became acculturated with the Slavs, and helped found the first East Slavic kingdom, Kievan Rus, in the 10th century.


The main source for the Vikings in Russia, The Russian Primary Chronicle, tells that in 862 the Viking Riurik and his kin were invited by Slavic and Finnic tribes to come and rule over them, developing a tributary tax system stretching from northwestern Russia to the upper and middle Dnieper River regions.

The chronicle’s account is substantiated by finds of Scandinavian-style artifacts (tortoiseshell brooches, Thor’s hammer pendants, wooden idols, weapons) and, in some cases graves, located at the tribal centers and riverside way stations of Staraia Ladoga, Riurikovo Gorodishche, Siaskoe Gorodishche, Timerevo, and Gnezdovo. The Volkhov-IlmenDnieper river route, which linked the eastern Baltic with the Byzantine Empire, is known as “the Route from the Varangians to the Greeks.”

In contrast to Viking activity in the west, which was characterized primarily by raiding and large-scale colonization, the Rus town network and subsequent tribal organization were designed for trade. Subject tribes living along river systems supplied the Rus with the furs, wax, honey, and slaves that they would further exchange for Islamic silver coins (dirhams), glass beads, silks, and spices in southern markets.

The Rus expansion into Byzantine markets began in earnest in the early 10th century, with Rus attacks on Constantinople in 907, 911, and 944, resulting in trade agreements.

By the end of the century, c. 988, Vladimir I (Vladimir the Great) (980–1015), a quarter Viking through his father Sviatoslav, had married into the Byzantine royal family and converted to Byzantine Christianity, thereby laying the foundation for the Eastern Slavic relationship with the Greek world.

The 10th century marked the high point of Viking involvement in the east. Much of the Scandinavian-style jewelry found in European Russia and a majority of the Scandinavian-style graves date to the second and third quarters of the 10th century. Vladimir I and his son Yaroslav the Wise (1019–54) enlisted Viking mercenary soldiers such as Harald Hardrada in internecine dynastic wars.

In the 11th century, however, the Viking footsoldier armies had become obsolete as the Rus princes were forced to adapt to another enemy in the south, the Turkic nomads who fought on horseback. A nomadic army on horseback defeated Yaroslav’s Viking mercenaries at the Battle of Listven (1024).

Sviatoslav - King of Russia

Sviatoslav - King of Russia

Sviatoslav ruled over the Rus with the capital in Kiev c. 969–972. He was the son of Kiev’s Prince Igor (r. 912–945) and Princess Olga (who ruled as Sviatoslav’s regent in 945–969 after Igor’s death), known in history as the fi rst Christian princess of Rus.

In historical literature Sviatoslav is often called the last Viking, the main goal of whose rule was the permanent and sometimes senseless war campaigns against the neighbors of Rus.

Olga’s 25-year rule resulted in Sviatoslav’s disinterest in internal state affairs, so he found a new field of activity—war campaigns in remote territories. The formal beginning of Sviatoslav’s rule is dated at 964 (his first war campaign), but in fact he only minimally influenced Kievan life until Olga’s death in 969.


In spite of the influence of his tutor Asmoud and the military governor (voyevoda) Sveneld, he neglected Kiev and felt himself free from any obligations toward its population. He even announced his desire to live in another city, founded by him in Pereyaslav-on-Danube.

As prominent Ukrainian historians Olexiy and Petro Tolochko state, Sviatoslav’s mode of life was motivated exclusively by searches for battle and by mercantile gains from the campaigns often financed by Byzantine diplomacy. Sviatoslav’s campaigns reached into the east. In 964–966 Sviatoslav was at war with the Khazars for power of the Vyatichi Slavonic tribe.

Sviatoslav campaign

This campaign resulted in the crushing defeat of the Khazar kaganat (princedom) and destruction of its capital Itil and the fortresses of Sarkel and Semender. At the same time he defeated the Volga Bolgars and took their capital Bolgar.

In the northern Caucasus he displayed himself in his victory over tribes of Yasy and Kasogi. Soon Volyn and the Carpathian regions had entered into the sphere of Sviatoslav’s attention, and his first squads were sent there, marking the beginnings of this region’s exploration, finished by his sons.

The most striking demam isu of Sviatoslav’s wars is connected with the Danubian or Balkan region. In 967 Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II promised Sviatoslav 455 kilos of gold for his campaign.

Most researchers believe that Sviatoslav also had his own interests there, so in August 968, his fleet with 60,000 troops gained victory over Bulgarian king Peter and gained control over 80 settlements on the Danube.

This campaign was interrupted by the Pecheneg siege of Kiev (968). Destruction of the Khazar princedom by Sviatoslav eliminated obstacles for their penetration into the inner Rus lands. The consequences of his war campaign caused the deep dissatisfaction of the local population.

This did not worry the prince, since he was planning to transfer his capital to Bulgarian lands, and soon after Olga’s death Sviatoslav started the second Balkan campaign (autumn 969), having sectioned control over major Rus lands among his three sons.

Sviatoslav statue

His successes in 970 and tendency to conduct independent policy in the Danubian region forced the Byzantine emperor to start his expulsion, and the spring of 971 was marked by the taking of the Bulgarian capital of Preslav (the contemporary location is unknown).

Sviatoslav was in a two-month siege in Dorostol (modern Silistra), which resulted in a bloody battle and subsequent treaty with Byzantium (972), which Sviatoslav refused because of his claims on Crimea.

He went home with his army. On his way near the Dnipro Rapids he was met by Pechenegs, informed by the Byzantines about his trip, which weakened his forces in numerous battles. Trying to break through the nomads, Sviatoslav died in the early spring of 972.

Rus

Kievan Rus

Kievan Rus (860s–1238), the first state of the Eastern Slavs, received its name from its capital city Kiev, located along the middle Dniepr River (modern Ukraine).

Founded and ruled by the Riurikid princes, during its height in the 11th and 12th centuries Kievan Rus spanned most of modern Belarus and Ukraine, extending northward to the Republic of Novgorod, which controlled lands extending from the Baltic to the White Seas and the northern Ural Mountains.

The medieval state stretched across four latitudinal landscape zones, each favorable for different forms of economic exploitation: tundra (hunting-gathering), boreal forest and intermediate forest-steppe (hunting-gathering and agriculture), and the steppe (pastoral nomadism).


The Western Dvina, Volkhov-Lovat, Dniepr, and Volga river systems linked these diverse resource zones. It was the economic and political unification of these territories that made Kievan Rus one of the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan kingdoms in medieval Europe during the 11th and 12th centuries.

The history of Kievan Rus is best divided into three developmental periods: foundation period (750s–988), the golden age (988–1050s), and fragmentation into principalities (1050s–1238). Mongol armies under Batu Khan brought the period to its end with the destruction of Kiev, Riazan, Vladimir, and many other towns from 1237 to 1239.

Foundation Period

The main written account for the foundation period is the Russian Primary Chronicle, compiled by monks at the Kievan Caves Monastery in the early 12th century. Archaeological and numismatic evidence serves as a supplement and corrective to this problematic account.

These sources trace the early formation of the Rus lands to the Volkhov-Il’men river basin of northwestern Russia. Finno-Baltic hunter-gatherers inhabited this densely forested marshy region.

In the mid-eighth century Slavic agriculturalists began migrating to the area from the south. At the same time Scandinavians began small-scale raiding/trading expeditions to the region. The convergence of these groups served as the initial catalyst for the development of a new political-commercial community.

Forces at play in both northwestern Europe and the Middle East explain Scandinavian movement into Russia. Lacking locally exploitable sources of silver, which was needed for northwestern European political and commercial expansion, the early medieval kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons and Franks looked to the Near and Middle East, where, from the mid-eighth century, the Abbasid Caliphate centered in Baghdad minted millions of silver coins (dirhams) annually.

The Vikings acted as the middlemen for this trade. Beginning sometime in the mid- to late-eighth century, small groups of Vikings set up way stations in the Volkhov-Il’men and Upper Volga basins.

They collected furs from the Finno-Balts and Slavs in northwestern Russia and sailed south to trading ports on the Volga River and Caspian Sea, where they would exchange furs, Frankish swords, and walrus ivory for eastern luxury items, especially silver.

confederation of Slavs and Finns invited the Viking Riurik

According to the Chronicle, in 859 the Vikings were expelled from Russia by the local tribes, probably for taking excessive tribute, but three years later in 862 a confederation of Slavs and Finns invited the Viking Riurik and his clan “to come and rule over them.”

Establishing a base first at Staraia Ladoga and then Riurikovo Gorodishche, Riurik proceeded to create tributaries of the Slavic tribes to the west, in Pskov, and to the northeast in Beloozero.

After his death in 879 his kinsman Oleg seized Kiev, thereby assuming control over the tributary relationships with nearby tribes previously exploited by the Khazar empire. By the late 10th century the Riurikid clan, which had become increasingly Slavicized through marriage, had subjected all of the Slavic and Finnic tribes to their rule.

The foreign policy of the Riurikids was directed toward creating stable commercial relations with one of the largest markets in the known world, the Byzantine Empire.

From 860 to 1043 the Vikings (and later Slavicized Riurikids) attacked the Byzantine Empire six times (860, 907, 941, 944, 971, and 1043). Most of the campaigns resulted in commercial treaties regularizing trade between Kievan Rus and Constantinople.

Each year the Riurikids spent the winter collecting tribute from subject tribes, and in the spring the commercial delegation sailed to Constantinople, where it spent the summer trading their furs, honey, wax, and slaves for Byzantine finery (glass, jewelry, hazelnuts, spices).

Commercial contact with the Greek empire via the so-called road from the Varangians to the Greeks helped introduce the Eastern Slavs to Greek culture, diplomacy, and religion.

In 955 Grand Princess Olga converted to Byzantine Christianity. Her son, Sviatoslav (d. 972), a committed pagan who was more interested in war than diplomacy, waged an unsuccessful campaign to capture Byzantine Bulgaria and was killed by nomadic Pechenegs in the Byzantine hire.

His son, Vladimir I (Vladimir the Great) (d. 1015), was a champion of Slavic paganism as well, but he recognized the problems inherent in Kiev’s increasing religious isolation from its neighbors.

While the Rus considered converting to Islam, they chose instead Byzantine Christianity. Vladimir was baptized in 988 and married the sister to the Byzantine emperor, Anna, an incredible honor for a “barbarian” from the north.

This move forged an enduring relationship between the Eastern Slavs and Byzantines, with Rus princes providing goods of the north and military assistance to Constantinople in exchange for Greek cultural and religious knowledge, including a written script (Cyrillic), church architects, clergy, and craftsmen (mosaicists, glassmakers, icon painters, manuscript copyists).

Golden Age

Kievan Rus map in 11th century

Vladimir’s son, Yaroslav the Wise (c. 980–1054), is credited with the golden age of Kievan Rus. He created foreign alliances by marrying Ingegerd, the daughter of the Swedish king, and marrying his daughters to German and French kings.

Under his reign Kiev’s buffer zone separating it from the Pechenegs expanded from a one- to a two-day march. Yaroslav sponsored major building campaigns in Kiev, which imitated the architecture of Constantinople. He imported Byzantine master builders who constructed the Church of St.

Sophia of Kiev (which was decorated by Byzantine mosaicists), the Golden Gates, a palace, and a massive defense works surrounding the capital. In order to support Kiev’s new religion, Yaroslav founded monasteries and invited Greek clergy to Kiev, who taught Byzantine religious practices to the native and often illiterate clergy.

In 1051 Yaroslav appointed the first native metropolitan, which helped establish the Russian church’s autonomy from Constantinople. He also commissioned the first Church Statute and the first Russian law code, the Russkaia Pravda.

In a testament left to his sons, Yaroslav tried to establish an order of succession, with the oldest son, Iziaslav, ruling Kiev, and the younger sons appointed to cities of importance commensurate to their place in the line of succession.

When an older prince died, the younger moved up the line of succession and to larger and more lucrative towns. The inheritance tradition of Kievan Rus was one of lateral succession, with brother succeeding brother.

The system, however, promoted acrimony during the lifetimes of Yaroslav’s sons, and the duduk perkara increased as family lines multiplied. Vladimir Monomakh (1053–1125), the grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, was the last Kievan monarch to exercise any real authority over much of Kievan Rus.

Vladimir derived much of his authority from his ability to lead his cousins in several successful campaigns against the Polovtsian nomads, who had terrorized the kingdom’s southern frontier, including Kiev itself, from the second quarter of the 11th century.

Fragmentation Into Principalities

Evidence suggests that during the 12th century, Kiev entered a period of decline, a theory that is contradicted by archaeological evidence of burgeoning industrial production and continued commercial relations with Constantinople. However Kiev’s political sway over the kingdom dissipated with the growth of other Rus towns.

The towns of Vladimir-Suzdal, Polotsk, Pskov, Smolensk, Pereiaslavl, Turov, and Chernigov were ruled by branches of the Riurikid family who had come to view these towns and their hinterlands as their patrimonies absolutely independent from Kiev.

To promote their legitimacy, the rulers of these towns built stone churches and palaces modeled after those in Kiev. They sponsored the foundation of monasteries and commissioned the monks to write detailed chronicles of their family’s branch of the Riurikid dynasty and the history of their town.

In addition to master builders they imported master craftsmen from Kiev, who established workshops in their new towns specializing in the manufacture of glass bracelets, jewelry, textiles, and other Kievan-Byzantine luxuries.

In this way Kievan-Byzantine culture came to dominate throughout much of the Rus principalities, homogenizing the Eastern Slavic lands by spreading an elite culture through its cities. Local cultural forms developed as well during this period, with icon painting schools emerging in Pskov, Novgorod, and Vladimir-Suzdal.

An alternative to the pattern of centralized princely rule established in Kiev and followed by the independent principalities was the city-state of Novgorod. Founded in the mid-10th century, Novgorod was the second largest city of Kievan Rus, and possibly wealthier, because of its importance as medieval Europe’s key source of furs. Because of its wealth and status, the Kievan princes treated Novgorod in a special manner, appointing their eldest sons or close associates to rule the town.

In 1136 Novgorod’s population expelled their prince and claimed the right to choose from any branch of the Riurikid clan. The prince protected the town and received revenues from its trade but had to reside beyond the town walls.

The town assembly (veche), governor (posadnik), and archbishop became major determinants in Novgorod’s administration. These principal actors in Novgorodian politics had the power to remove the prince. Because it was located so far to the northwest, Novgorod was one of the few towns not touched by the Mongol invasion.

In the 14th and 15th centuries Novgorod became one of the most powerful states in Europe, serving as one of the Hanseatic kontor. In 1478 the grand prince of Moscow annexed Novgorod and cut one of the main sources of its revenue when, in 1494, he closed Peterhof.

Although Kievan Rus comes to its official close in 1237–39 with the Mongol invasion, there were signs of weakening beforehand. Already in the early 12th century, the Swedish kingdom began militarily driven efforts to convert the Eastern Slavs in the Novgorod lands to Latin Christianity.

Crusading campaigns fought by German knights gained momentum during the 13th century under the organization of the Teutonic Order in Livonia. Although not in danger from the northern crusades, Kiev became the victim of the southern crusades when, in 1204, an army of crusaders seized and sacked Constantinople, holding the Byzantine capital until 1261.

Heavily dependent on trade with Constantinople, Kiev entered upon a long period of economic depression, which contributed to its weakened defenses, which were ill equipped to organize a resistance the Mongol army in 1238. In 1223 several Rus princes fought a small Mongol army, which turned out to be a scouting party, on the river Kalka.

While the Russian sources attribute the Rus princes’ inability to defend Rus in the late 1230s to political infighting and lack of Christian brotherhood, it is doubtful that even an army united under all of the surviving Riurikids could have defeated Batu Khan’s army of more than 150,000 horsemen.

Alexander Nevsky - Russian King

Alexander Nevsky - Russian King

Alexander Nevsky, a Russian prince named after his victory over the Swedes on the Neva in 1240, was the son of Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise (Vsevolodovich), who was apparently poisoned by the Mongols. During Alexander’s early life, independent Russia had three major enemies—encroaching Swedes, Teutonic Knights, and the Mongols.

Alexander chose to tolerate, and even collaborate, with the latter but took seriously the threat from the north and west and became a leader in the struggle against both western enemies. He defeated a large Swedish invasion when just 20 years old, and on April 5, 1242, he stopped an even larger invasion by the Teutonic Knights.

The Teutonic Knights were an order first formed during the Third Crusade, similar to the better-known Knights Hospitallers of Saint John, but unlike the latter order, it quickly shifted its attentions to eastern Europe.


Initially in connection with privileges granted by King Andrew the II of Hungary (1211), the Teutonic Knights fought against that king’s enemies, the Turkic Quman of the south Russian steppe and nearby areas.

Later (from 1230) it took the lead in fighting against the pagan Russians and then, after the order had absorbed the Livonian Sword Brothers, the Teutonic Knights began to get involved in Russian affairs, acting against the city of Novgorod.

It was in this connection that Alexander, a proven military leader, was recruited by Novgorod to become its prince and fight against the Teutonic enemy. The result was the famous defeat on the ice of Lake Peipus of 1242 in which the invading army was all but destroyed by cleverly positioned and deployed Russians who knew the landscape better than their rivals.

Possibly Alexander had Mongol allies, since archery played an unusual role in the battle. The Teutonic Knights remained a power in eastern Europe but were never a direct threat to Russia in the way that the order was in 1242, so the results of the victory lasted.

Alexander’s young adulthood was disrupted by the reappearance of the Mongols and their conquest of virtually all of Russia. The Mongols had first come into contact with Russian forces on June 16, 1223, during a clash on the Kalka River.

Alexander Nevsky Statue

In 1237 an even larger Mongol army launched an invasion of Russia. Among the first Russian city-states to fall was Ryazan, in December 1237, followed by Vladimir, in February 1238, and in March 1238, Torzhok, which offered fierce resistance.

By then spring came and the ground was too wet for effective campaigning, but the Mongols returned again, after some campaigning in the steppe against the Turkic peoples during the winter of 1240. Their advance seemed unstoppable and Kiev, the leader of the coalition of princes that was then Russia, was taken on December 6, 1240, ending an masa of Russian history.

Pausing to regroup, the Mongols launched a massive and well-coordinated invasion of eastern Europe, masterminded by the Mongolian general Subotai. Only the sudden death of Ogotai Khan (r. 1229–41) stopped the advance, as the interested parties prepared for the power struggle that would accompany the election of a new supreme khan.

The election of Mongke Khan (r. 1251–59) quieted things for a while. After his death the Mongols of Russia, known as the Golden Horde, split off permanently from Russia as various parties dueled for supremacy.

At the point that Alexander defeated the invading Teutonic Knights and thereby established, again, his reputation in Russia, the Mongols appeared to be more and more disunified. Alexander was both a mediator and a mitigator, where he could, of the worst abuses of Mongol control.

During the 1240s and early 1250s Alexander, who took his father’s oath of submission seriously, made efforts to appear a loyal vassal of the Mongols and formally acknowledged their power. He continued to enjoy influence with the Mongols and within Russia, one of the reasons he was appointed grand prince in 1252, after the Mongols had deposed his predecessor.

At that time Russia was divided into territories where there was a direct Mongol presence, usually located on the fringes of the Russian cultural area and close to the steppe zone, and territories controlled indirectly by the conquerors. This included Novgorod controlled by Alexander.

It was the Mongol custom to send out tax collectors and other emissaries to canvass the wealth of their territories. First came a census, then generally the appointment of a direct Mongol representative, a basqaq, “the one pressing down,” and finally tax collectors.

It was the presence of these Mongol officers, more than attacks by Mongol armies, that plagued Mongol subordinates in Russia and provoked continued unrest and even outright opposition and rebellion, which always provoked a powerful military response.

During the late 1250s it was Novgorod, still proud from its 1242 victory led by Alexander against the Teutonic Knights, and until then left unassaulted by the Mongols, that was the source of discontent.

Alexander’s actions in quieting it make clear the role he had chosen in Mongol Russia. He made sure that opposition to the Mongols was suppressed, and then Alexander personally sponsored the census taking in Novgorod.

Novgorod paid, and had its pride humbled, but it survived intact (1259). Alexander is also said to have intervened on behalf of the Orthodox Church, to secure its privileges and help prevent Mongol attacks on other cities.

At the time of his death, in 1263, he was still actively engaged in such activities. He was rewarded with sainthood. After Alexander’s death a considerable legend formed, fueled by a vita that presents Alexander as a saintly protector of Russia against the Mongols. He was also associated with some popular uprisings.

Mongol Rule of Russia

Mongol invasion

The almost 250-year Mongol rule over Russia was precipitated by two separate invasions. Following a successful invasion of the Caucasus in 1221, the Mongols invaded a small part of Russia in 1222.

Although a small contingent of the Mongol army succeeded against the ruling princes, they did not establish control over Russia and instead disappeared into the steppe. It was not until 1237 that a sizable Mongol army commenced its invasion of Russia proper, to which all of Russia fell and came under the dominion of the Golden Horde.

Having conquered the Muslim empire of the shah of Khwarazm, Jalal-ad-Din Mengubirdi, otherwise known as Sultan Muhammad II, Genghis Khan charged his capable generals Jebe and Subotai to march through the hazardous Caucasus Mountains in the direction of Russia.


The Caucasian tribes, the Alans (Ossetians), the Circassians, and the Lezgians, together with the Polovsti, formed an alliance and put up a fierce resistance to the Mongol invaders on the southern Russian steppe in 1221. The first battle between the Mongols and Caucasian alliance proved indecisive, but Jebe and Subotai had no intentions of withdrawing from the engagement.

Instead the Mongol generals resorted to using the strategy of divide and conquer. Jebe and Subotai persuaded their nomadic brethren, the Polovsti, to remain neutral by reminding them of their common Turkic-Mongol fellowship and also by promising to share with them the spoils of victory over the Caucasian tribes.

With the success of the subtle diplomacy, the generals returned to battle the Caucasian tribes with greater ferocity and overwhelmingly crushed the stubborn resistance.

The Mongol generals then turned against the Polovsti, who, in defeat, fled in the direction of Galacia and Kiev and appealed to the Russian princes—Mstislav Staryi of Kiev, Mstislav Udaloi of Galacia, and Vladimir of Suzdal—for intervention.

Two sets of crucial factors persuaded the Russian princes to join forces to help the Polovsti. First Prince Mstislav Udaloi was obliged to help because Kotian, the khan of the Polovsti, was his father-in-law.

And second according to the Novgorodian First Chronicle, the Mongols were unknown to the Russians—they did not know where they came from, what religion they practiced, or what language they spoke.

Mongol vs Russia

Fearing that the Mongols would grow stronger if they did not intervene, the princes Mstislav and Vladimir I (Vladimir the Great), together with the Polovsti, forged the Russo-Polovsti alliance.

In early 1222 the Mongols received news of the Russo-Polovsti alliance and sent a 10-member diplomatic envoy to negotiate with Princes Mstislav and Vladimir. The Mongols claimed to have no desire to war with the princes and did not harbor any intentions to conquer their lands or cities.

In the manner similar to the way they isolated the Polovsti from the Caucasian tribes, the Mongol diplomats urged the princes to defeat the Polovsti and take the spoils of victory for themselves and offered to enter into a peace treaty with the Russians. The princes, suspecting a Mongol trick, executed the diplomatic envoy, an act that was considered by the Mongols to be unforgivable.

A strong Russian-Polovsti army of 30,000 soldiers amassed on the Dnieper. Outnumbered by more than 10,000, Jebe and Subotai ordered the Mongol army to retreat. They dispatched a second diplomatic envoy to meet with the Russians and reproached the Russians for the murder of the first delegation.

The second envoy returned unharmed and carried a message for the Mongol army—the Russians feared that, after conquering the Polovsti, the Mongol army would attack them. Hence, they would only be happy if the Mongol army returned to the steppe.

As the main Mongol army retreated from the forest, its rearguard kept a watchful eye on the Russian mobilization. War-hardened and accustomed to being outnumbered, Jebe and Subotai managed to evade the Russians for more than nine days.

This contrasted sharply with the attitudes of the Russian princes. The Russian army lacked strategic coordination because Mstislav of Galacia and Mstislav of Kiev disputed over the ways to engage the Mongol army.

In pursuit of the Mongol army, the Russians were led farther and farther into the steppe and away from their supply lines. Prince Mstislav of Galacia, accompanied by Daniil of Volhynia, commanded the first Russian battle with the Mongol army, defeating the Mongol rearguard at the east of the bend in the Dnieper.

Wanting to claim the glory all for himself, Prince Mstislav Udaloi decided to pursue the main Mongol army. Without informing the rest of the Russian army or waiting for reinforcements to arrive, the prince took his army, the Volynian and Polovsti soldiers, across the river Kalka.

Overconfident from his victory over the Mongol rearguard, Prince Mstislav failed to consolidate his defenses after crossing the Kalka and fell into a Mongol trap.

The Mongol retreat was a strategy aimed at isolating the army commanded by Prince Mstislav of Galacia from those commanded by Prince Mstislav Staryi of Kiev, which was concentrated some distance away from the river Kalka.

In mid-June 1222 Jebe and Subotai seized the advantage and ordered an all-out assault on the Russian front and flanks. Prince Mstislav of Kiev watched from the western banks of the Kalka as the Mongols launched a ferocious attack against the forces of Mstislav of Galacia.

As the Polovsti fled and confusion set in within the Russian ranks, the army of Prince Mstislav of Galacia, unable to maneuver effectively in the marshy terrain, was cut into pieces. The prince, along with the wounded Prince Daniil of Volhynia, a small remnant of his troops, and what remained of the Polovsti, managed to escape.

Realizing that a hasty retreat from a swift army is guaranteed to be fatal, Prince Mstislav of Kiev ordered his forces to fortify themselves on a commanding hilltop. But before the prince could securely establish his defenses, Jebe and Subotai attacked.

After three days of ferocious Mongol assault, Prince Mstislav of Kiev surrendered on the condition that he and his army would be permitted to return to Kiev unharmed. The Mongol army accepted, but, as soon as the Russian army disarmed, Prince Mstislav of Kiev was executed and his forces slaughtered.

Fearing that the Mongols would cross the Dnieper, Prince Mstislav of Galacia and his remaining forces destroyed all the ships. The forces of Jebe and Subotai never crossed the Dnieper and, instead, returned to join the main Mongolian army stationed in the steppes east of the Syr Darya River. Thus by the end of 1222 the first invasion of Russia ended as swiftly as it had begun.

In the winter of 1237, well after the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, the Mongol army returned. In the context of a greater invasion of Europe, the Mongol army, headed by the veteran Subotai, amassed some 150,000 to 200,000 warriors.

The large army crossed the frozen Volga and attacked the Russian eastern principality of Riazan because it was considered the weakest. As the Mongol army advanced, Prince Roman rushed to Suzdal to ask Prince Yuri for help, which was denied.

Instead Grand Prince Yuri suggested that the four princes of the vassal state, Princes Yuri, Oleg, Roman, and Yaroslav, end their squabbling and join forces against the Mongols. After defeating the Russian army at Riazan, the Mongol army constructed a wooden palisade that encircled the town capital of Riazan.

After five days of bitter fighting, Riazan was finally captured. The trapped princes and their families were executed, the young women and nuns were systematically raped, and the entire population was massacred.

In the winter of 1237–38 Batu Khan and his army sacking Suzdal

In the winter of 1237–38, under the command of Batu Khan, the Mongol army attacked Suzdal and its capital Vladimir. Although his territory and its city came under siege, Grand Prince Yuri did not intervene.

Batu Khan targeted Novgorod while Subotai attempted to draw Grand Prince Yuri into battle. Novgorod, particularly the fortress of Torzhok, fought and resisted the forces of Batu Khan.

The ensuing battle lasted two weeks, enough time for an early spring to arrive. The spring thaw flooded most of the southern terrain and made it impossible for Batu Khan to advance. Batu Khan was forced to abandon his siege on Novgorod and retreat to the southern steppe.

Batu Khan stabbed Prince Michael of Chernigov to death for his refusal
to do obeisance to Genghis Khan's shrine in the pagan ritual.

In March 1238 Grand Prince Yuri and the Suzdalian army perished at the decisive battle against Subotai on the river Sit. With the strongest section of Russia conquered within several months, the Mongolian army sacked the state of Chernigov.

Through the summer of 1239 and for one and a half years, the Mongol army rested and sought comfort in the lush steppeland of western Ukraine, in preparation for another campaign.

In summer 1240 the Mongol army resumed their offensive against Russia. The cities of Chernigov and Pereyaslav were captured. On December 6, 1240, Batu Khan arrived with his army at Kiev to reinforce the Mongol vanguard commanded by Mongke Khan.

After Dimitri, the governor of Kiev, had executed the Mongol ambassadors, the Mongol army stormed the city. Apart from the cathedral of Saint Sophia, the entire city was leveled and its population exterminated.

By 1242 the Mongol army had captured all of Russia. Batu Khan chose Old Sarai, in the lower Volga, to establish the headquarters of the Mongol dominion over Russia, which became known as the Golden Horde.

The Golden Horde, as a center for the Mongol administration of Russia, endured for almost 250 years. A daruga handled Russian political affairs and the collection of an annual tribute.

Invasion of Russia by the Golden Horde

To become eligible to take office, Russian princes had to journey to the Golden Horde to pay obeisance to Mongol overlords. Contented with being overlords, the Mongols never established a dynasty in Russia.

Occasionally, Russian military units had to serve alongside the Mongol army. Despite an attempt by Prince Dimitri of Moscow to wrestle Russia from Mongol control in 1330, they managed to rule and exact tribute for a further century.

Ivan III of Moscow finally broke Mongol rule over Russia in 1480. Failing to check the emergence and rise of the Muscovite state, the seed of modern Russia, the Mongols ceded control.

Moscow: Third Rome

Moscow: Third Rome

The civilization and culture of the Byzantine Empire with its capital of “New Rome” (Constantinople) greatly influenced the development of Russia. Christian missionaries were sent from the Christian empire to Russia in the ninth century.

Their work bore fruit when, in 988, Prince Vladimir I (Vladimir the Great) of Kiev looked to “New Rome” for spiritual direction and was baptized into Christianity. Vladimir converted Russia to the Christian world. The patriarch of Constantinople appointed a bishop for Kiev and continued to appoint the highest-ranking pre late in the land until the 15th century.

In 1054 the religious division of “Old Rome” and “New Rome” became permanent as Catholic and Orthodox Christianity parted company. Russian Christianity was firmly rooted in the Orthodox sphere in theology, ecclesiology, literature, and liturgy.


In the 13th century Western crusaders conquered Constantinople and much of the Byzantine Empire in the Fourth Crusade and sought to impose Catholic Christianity on the Orthodox empire, while Orthodoxy in Russia suffered a blow as the Mongols destroyed Kiev and established their hegemony that lasted into the late 15th century.

With the destruction of Kiev and the Mongol dominance of the Slavic southern region, the northern city of Moscow began to rise in prominence in the 14th century. In the first quarter of the 14th century the metropolitan of Russia (the highest ranking Orthodox bishop, formerly at Kiev) chose to settle in the city of Moscow.

With the support of the church, Dimitri Donkoi, grand duke of Moscow, defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. Though their hegemony lasted another century, the Mongol hold on northern Russia was weakened and the prestige of Moscow greatly enhanced.

Moscow viewed itself as upholding the mantle of Orthodoxy against the hostile forces of Catholic Christianity, which had been attacking Orthodox Russia via Teutonic, Knights, Swedes, Poles, and Lithuanians in the 13th and 14th centuries as well as non-Christian forces, such as the Mongols.

Up to this time, the metropolitan of Russia was selected by the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople. This changed however after the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438–39, when the Byzantine Empire, faced with the overwhelming threat of the Muslim Ottoman Turks, submitted the Orthodox Church to the papacy.

Battle of Kulikovo

Moscow and Russian Orthodoxy rejected this church council and its submission as antithetical to true Christianity. Henceforth, the Russian church was independent from Constantinopolitan control.

In 1453 Constantinople or “New Rome” fell to the Ottoman Turks. Russian czar Ivan III “the Great” (reigned 1462–1505) married the niece of the last Byzantine emperor and inherited the mantle of the Christian empire that had been established by Constantine I (d. 337), the founder of “New Rome.”

The Russians understood that God had allowed “Old Rome” to be sacked by Germans in the fifth century and shifted the imperial and religious center of Christendom to Constantinople. Now God had decreed that Second Rome should fall.

With the other Eastern Patriarchates (Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem) also in Muslim hands, it appeared to the Russian church that it clearly stood as the champion of Orthodoxy and the heir apparent to Orthodox Christian leadership: It was the Third Rome.

Russian monk Philotheus of Pskov articulated this most clearly in his letter to Czar Basil III in 1510: “Two Romes have fallen, but the third stands and a fourth there shall not be.” The czar of Moscow became the new protector of Orthodoxy and in the later 16th century the metropolitan of Moscow was promoted to the rank of patriarch.