The nature and causes of the fragmentation of Russia

The reasons for the fragmentation of Russia (as well as all other European countries Medieval) had objective prerequisites. This very phenomenon was the natural result of the development of social, economic and political relations in the early barbarian states. Actually, modern scholars call feudal fragmentation the weakening of central power with the parallel strengthening of regional elites in the country. The monarch was still the highest link in the hierarchical ladder, but he was not able to fully control all the territories of his state. And in a number of cases he was not even able to protect his throne from the military power of his own vassals or their alliances. It is interesting that the term itself can only be applied to the European world. This definition is sometimes used to refer to the disintegration, for example, of the Golden Horde or the Arab Caliphate. However, such a comparison can be made only in a figurative sense, since one can not seriously talk about suzerain-vassal relations in non-European societies.

The causes of the fragmentation of ancient Russia

The medieval state of the Russians was not something sharply different from the all-European countries. And there and there was a lot of similar processes. The reasons for the fragmentation of Russia were also covered in the fact that vassals in their own patrimonies were able to gain considerable independence from the central city and, as a result, to strengthen in all respects. The nominal prince of Rus was the prince of Kiev, and his vassals were various princes (Chernigov, Volhynia, Suzdal and others). However, during the 12th and 13th centuries, the size of the landed boyar plots increased intensively, as did the number of peasants dependent on the boyars. In a natural way, this made them more powerful, deprived of any need to hold onto the patronage of the prince of Kiev. At the same time, friendship with the local prince was considered very useful.

Such a pattern was in no small measure accompanied by a weak economic connection between different regions of the country and the absence of particularly significant and necessary trade ties. The feudal disintegration was also conditioned by the considerable size of the state. The country was extremely difficult to keep in one power. In this period, cities are growing, which are increasingly advocating the expansion of self-government and the reduction of dependence on princely structures. Thus, the reasons for the fragmentation of Russia lay mainly in the weak economic connection between the regions, as well as in the natural striving of the provincial forces towards independence. The last prince of Kiev, who still managed to keep the Russian lands in unity, was the son of Vladimir Monomakh - Mstislav. However, after his death, which happened in 1132, the country finally disintegrates into a number of virtually independent principalities.

Kiev for a long time remained the most prestigious for the Russian princes center, but its role was no longer decisive. Together with the general European tendencies, the reasons for the fragmentation of Russia and the very nature of this phenomenon lay also in the peculiarities of the local succession system. The fact is that in the West there was a so-called Salic law, dictating that only the king's son (usually the elder of the living) could become the heir. At the same time, the younger brothers of the monarch and their children did not have legal rights to the throne. In Russia, according to tradition, the eldest son occupied the main throne, and his younger brothers sat in peripheral lands, but after the death of the Kiev prince had the right to claim their claim to the deserted throne. After only a few generations, the tangle was completely entangled, giving rise to numerous quarrels between relatives, cousins, nephews and uncles of the Rurik dynasty. Thus, for the political disintegration of the state, there are obvious prerequisites and reasons.

And the consequences of the fragmentation of Russia

The lands of the Eastern Slavs during this period began to represent a number of large independent principalities. Strengthening of local ruling courts and noble families gave the Russian land the Novgorod Republic, Galicia-Volyn and Vladimir-Suzdal principalities, the rise and rise of Moscow. As in the rest of Europe, feudal fragmentation in Russia after a few centuries was replaced by centralization, and later also by the absolutization of the tsarist power.