Recently, Voennoye Obozreniye published an article by a respected author on a similar topic, however, it seems to me, it formed a somewhat distorted idea among readers of how members of the ruling dynasty of the ancient Russian state settled political scores with each other. Many readers have, in my opinion, the impression that the Russian princes were engaged only in taking each other's lives at every opportunity, and that the entire political history of Russia consists of a series of political assassinations.
Of course, the struggle for power was and remains to this day one of the most exciting and dangerous occupations, and its participants still, although to a much lesser extent, risk their heads trying to reach the heights of this very power, but even then, in the ancient Russian state, certain rules of political struggle were formulated, the observance of which was monitored by all its participants and strictly punished violators.
How these rules were formed, how they were violated and what punishments were applied to violators will be discussed in this article.
It seemed to me expedient to take for research the period from 978 - the year of the first political assassination of a member of the Rurik dynasty in Russia, before the start of the Mongol invasion, since later, from 1245 after the establishment of the vassal dependence of Russia on the Mongol Empire, the center of political struggle between the Russian princes shifted to the rate of the Mongol (Horde) khans, who became the main arbiters and arbiters of the fate of the Russian princes, thereby limiting their freedom in making decisions about the choice of methods of political struggle and methods of settling political scores. Although there were incidents here that fell outside the general rules, such as the murder in 1306 of Prince Konstantin Romanovich Ryazansky in Moscow, the murder of Yuri Danilovich of Moscow by Dmitry Mikhailovich Groznye Ochi at the headquarters of Khan Uzbek in 1325, or the murder of his cousin by Prince Ivan Ivanovich Korotopol brother of Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Pronsky in 1340, these murders were more likely the exception than the rule.
The article will not consider the cases of the death of the princes-Rurik on the battlefield. Such cases, although they were a consequence of the clarification of relations between the princes, were considered by them rather as an accident or the will of providence than as someone's malicious intent. Therefore, the cases of the death of princes in battle or immediately after it, for example, when retreating from the battlefield, were mourned by all participants in the conflict, no one expressed public joy at the death of a clan member, and such death should not have served as a reason for aggravating the princely enmity. Clarification of the relationship between the princes on the battlefield was considered a kind of "divine judgment", in which higher powers give victory to the right and determine the fate of the loser.
The first political assassination of the prince-Rurikovich took place in Russia on June 11, 978, when the Grand Duke Yaropolk Svyatoslavich, who had arrived for negotiations with his brother Vladimir, was "raised with swords in his bosom" by the Varangians who were in the service of Vladimir.
The assassination of Yaropolk Svyatoslavich. The Radziwill Chronicle.
The assassination of Yaropolk was, of course, planned and prepared by Vladimir in advance, however, it should be understood that this event took place before the official adoption of Christianity as a state religion in Russia, all its participants were pagans and were guided in their actions and, more importantly, in their assessments. actions exclusively pagan ideas about good, evil and expediency, therefore the murder of Vladimir's older brother did not cause any rejection in society, and given the fact that after the death of Yaropolk, Vladimir remained the only living descendant of the founder of the dynasty, at least in a straight line ascending male line, condemnation from close relatives could not follow either.
However, already in the generation of the sons of Vladimir, the attitude of the Rurikites to the murder of blood relatives changed significantly.
At the time of Vladimir's death in 1015, seven of his sons (Svyatopolk, Yaroslav, Mstislav, Sudislav, Boris, Gleb and Pozvizd) and one grandson, Bryachislav Izyaslavich, Prince of Polotsk, were still alive. During the princely strife that followed the death of Vladimir, Boris and Gleb died at the hands of assassins, Svyatopolk died in exile, the fate of Pozvizd is not reflected in the annals. Attention is drawn to the sharp change in the attitude of society in general and members of the princely family in particular to the murder of princes Boris and Gleb. Svyatopolk Vladimirovich, to whom this murder was attributed (some researchers, on the basis of the Scandinavian sagas, are trying to justify Svyatopolk and accuse Yaroslav of these murders), was nicknamed "The Damned" in the annals, that is, who committed the sin of the biblical Cain - fratricide, a nickname that has a clearly negative connotation.
Such a change in the attitude of the princes to the methods of fighting political opponents from among the Rurikites is, of course, due, of course, first of all, to the assertion and spread of Christianity in Russia with its morality and concepts of good and evil. However, of course, Christian morality itself would not have been accepted by society and, most importantly, by the ruling dynasty, if it did not meet their interests. It has been said more than once that one of the main functions of religion is the sacralization of state power. It was with this function that Christianity coped better than other confessions, and with its introduction in Russia, among the newly converted Christians, the idea of the divine origin of power, the inviolability of those in power, their exclusivity began to be introduced and vigorously promoted, which fully corresponded to the interests of the ruling dynasty.
Svyatopolk, who lost in the struggle for power and died in a foreign land, was precisely for this reason that he was loudly and publicly accused of fratricide, and the murdered princes Boris and Gleb were quickly recognized as the first Russian saints, that on the one hand, the Russian Church, to strengthen its position and popularization of Christianity needed its own saints, and the current government needed to speed up the process of its own sacralization.
The strife after the death of Vladimir Svyatoslavich ended in 1026 with a princely congress in Gorodets, during which the surviving Rurikovichs divided Russia among themselves: Yaroslav and Mstislav Vladimirovich divided the main part of the ancient Russian state, approving Dnieper as the border of their possessions, they left the Polotsk principality Bchis to their nephew Izyaslavich, and the Pskov one - to his brother Sudislav. In 1036, after the death of Mstislav, who left no offspring, Yaroslav took his lands for himself. At the same time, he dealt with the last of the remaining brothers - Sudislav, however, this reprisal was no longer associated with the murder, Sudislav was imprisoned in a log cabin (a wooden blockhouse without windows and doors, a prototype of a prison cell) in Kiev, where he spent 23 years, outlived his brother Yaroslav and was released from him only by his children. The Pskov principality itself, as an administrative-territorial unit, was liquidated by Yaroslav. I would like to draw attention to the fact that Yaroslav, despite the fact that Sudislav was completely in his power, and the power of Yaroslav himself was not contested by anyone, nevertheless refused to liquidate his brother, although he certainly understood that, according to the norms of Russian inheritance law, he was his closest heir and potential rival in the power struggle for his children. This suggests that by 1036 the Russian princes and their entourage clearly and unequivocally realized the idea of the "sinfulness" of fratricide, and this awareness clearly prevailed over considerations of expediency.
It was in the mouth of Yaroslav that the chronicler first put words that tell us that already in the middle of the 11th century. Russian princes began to perceive themselves, their family as a single whole, a kind of community that stood apart from the rest and had the exclusive right to control the Russian lands:
At the time of the death of Yaroslav Vladimirovich in 1053, the Rurik family had already grown significantly. In addition to Sudislav Vladimirovich, Yaroslav's brother, five of his sons (Izyaslav, Svyatoslav, Vsevolod, Vyacheslav and Igor) survived, at least six grandchildren, including Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh and Oleg Svyatoslavich, nicknamed by the unknown author of "The Lay of Igor's Regiment" Gorislavich, as well as the son of Bryachislav of Polotsk Vseslav, who received the nickname Prophetic or Wizard. In the next twenty years after the death of Yaroslav, the number of family members has almost doubled.
Having received supreme power over Russia (the only exception was the Polotsk principality), the sons of Yaroslav no longer began to arrange strife, organizing a kind of triumvirate. Their only internal enemy was the Polotsk prince Vseslav Bryachislavich, who led a very active policy in the north-west of Russia and tried to bring Novgorod and Pskov under his control. In the battle on the river. Nemige in 1067 Vseslav's army was defeated, and he himself managed to hide in Polotsk. After a while, the Yaroslavichs summoned Vseslav to negotiations, guaranteeing security, but during the negotiations they seized him, took him to Kiev, and put him in a hack, just as their father had put their uncle Sudislav in a hack thirty-three years earlier. This is the second time that the princes, having the opportunity to deal with their political enemy, the prince, in the most radical way, refused it, despite considerations of expediency. And if in relation to Sudislav we can hardly judge the degree of his danger to the power of his brother Yaroslav, since we do not know anything about his personal qualities or political abilities, then his opponents had no doubts about the political and military leadership talents of Vseslav Polotsk. Nevertheless, the murder of Vseslav was rejected as a way of solving the "Polotsk problem".
Later, during the popular uprising in Kiev in 1068, Vseslav was liberated by the rebellious Kievites, occupied the Kiev table for some time, after which he returned to Polotsk, where he died in 1101, leaving behind six sons and having outlived all his Yaroslavich enemies. …
Probably in the second half of the 11th century. In Russia, the principle finally takes shape, formulated later in the Ipatiev Chronicle as follows: that is, if the prince is guilty, then he is punished by taking away the land (volost), and if an ordinary person, then he must be executed. This principle excluded the forcible deprivation of the prince's life, punishment for him was provided only in the form of lowering his princely status by forcibly placing him in a less prestigious volost and (or) depriving him of seniority in the princely hierarchy. In the overwhelming majority of cases, from the second half of the XII century. this principle was strictly observed, and any violations of it caused rejection of the violator among the members of the princely family, sometimes even turning him into an outcast. However, the prince could become an outcast in Russia at that time without any guilt, simply due to the prevailing circumstances, when the older princes cleared places for their sons, expelling their nephews from the reigns.
In 1087, during a campaign against Przemysl, Volyn prince Yaropolk Izyaslavich was killed by his warrior named Neradets. The killer watched the prince when he lay down to rest on a cart and with a saber blow from a horse seriously wounded him, after which he fled to Przemysl to the enemy of Yaropolk, prince Rurik Rostislavich Przemyslskiy (not to be confused with Rurik Rostislavich prince of Kiev, who acted a century later). It is difficult to say whether this murder was political or was caused by other reasons, for example, Neradtsa's personal hatred for the prince, so we will not consider it in detail. Let's just note that, perhaps, this was the first case of a "contract" political murder in Russia. Nevertheless, the lack of a sharp reaction of the princely "fraternity" to this case, which, as we will see later, always took place in such situations, rather indicates that Rurik Rostislavich had nothing to do with the murder of Yaropolk Izyaslavich, but simply sheltered a fugitive criminal who did him a great service. The further fate of Neradets himself is not reflected in the chronicle, but it was hardly enviable.
