SECTION 3.

Rus' IN THE XIII-XV

CENTURIES.
TOPIC 3.1. RUSSIAN LANDS, EUROPE AND
THE WORLD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE XIII -
XV CENTURIES.
 Plan
■ 1. Russian lands in the middle of
the XIII - XIV centuries.
■ 2. Europe and the world in the
era of the Late Middle Ages.
■ 3. Formation of a unified Russian
state in the 15th century.
■ 4. Old Russian culture.
Question 1. Russian lands in the
middle of the XIII - XIV centuries.
■ At the beginning of the 13th century. the scattered
nomadic tribes of Mongol herders were united by
Temujin. In 1206, the general congress of Mongolian
leaders (kurultai) proclaimed him the great khan of
all Mongols - Genghis Khan. The centralized Mongol
empire stretched from Lake Baikal and the
headwaters of the Yenisei in the north to the
southern borders of the Gobi Desert and the Great
Wall of China.
■ The Mongol army was highly organized and formed
on the basis of family ties.
10 thousand warriors united in tumen (“darkness”).
Cavalry detachments, distinguished by a high level
of combat training, in a short time conquered vast
territories in Siberia, Northern China (they took
Beijing in 1215), the Far East, Korea (1218),
Central Asia, Iran and Transcaucasia. By the
1220s, detachments of the Mongols, having
ousted the Polovtsians, approached the southern
borders of Rus'.
■ Mongol conquest of Rus'.
■ In 1222, Mongol troops from the North Caucasus
entered the Polovtsian steppes.
■ Battle on the river Kalke(now the Kalmius river, along
the border of the Donetsk and Rostov regions) - a
battle in which Russian-Polovtsian forces (about 60
thousand) opposed the Mongol corps under the
command of the generals of Genghis Khan (25
thousand).
■ On May 31, 1223, the Russian-Polovtsian army was
defeated due to lack of coordination of actions.
■ The beginning of the second wave of invasion
occurred in 1237, when the Mongol army led by Khan
Batu, having captured Volga Bulgaria, invaded
Russian lands.
■ The first victim of the invaders from the east was
the lands of the Ryazan principality.
The defense of Ryazan was led by the Ryazan boyar,
voivode, and national hero Evpatiy Kolovrat (1200-
1238). Despite desperate resistance, the Horde
managed to take Ryazan and thoroughly ruin the
principality.
■ A similar fate befell the Vladimir-Suzdal (1238),
Pereyaslavl and Chernigov (1239) principalities. On
December 6, 1240, after a month-long siege, Kyiv
fell.
The Mongol state was divided into four parts (uluses).
Batu received the western ulus of Jochi, where in
1243 the state of the Golden Horde arose with its
capital in the city of Saray. This formation covered
significant territories from the Danube to the Irtysh.
On Russian lands, a system of dependence of
Russian lands on the Mongol khans was
established - the Golden Horde yoke, which lasted
about 250 years.
■ Rus' and the Horde
■ The Russian lands were vassals of the Horde,
retaining their statehood. The Horde yoke
manifested itself in three areas:
■ political(receipt of letters of government by
the princes in the Horde - labels. The first, in
1243, to receive a label was the Vladimir-
Suzdal prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich);
■ economic(the entire population of Russian
lands was subject to various types of tribute).
The key role belonged tobaskakam- governors
of khans;
■ military(princes had to provide their
squads at the request of the Mongol
khans).
■ Consequences.
■ The Mongol invasion slowed down the
development of Rus' for many years. Cities
and villages lay in ruins. Many centers of
craft, trade, and culture ceased to exist.
The border of the agricultural zone moved
to the north, and the name “Wild Field”
was assigned to the southern fertile lands
for several centuries.
The khans carried out a policy aimed at
deepening and maintaining the state of
fragmentation of Rus', provoking princely
civil strife. Being pagans, the Mongols were
tolerant of Christianity, even exempting the
clergy from paying taxes. In turn, the
Orthodox metropolitans never entered into
open confrontation with the Horde, which
also slowed down the liberation of Russian
lands from the Mongol yoke.
■ Southern and Western Russian lands
■ Since 1238, Daniil Galitsky reigned in the
Galicia-Volyn land. In 1246, at the request of
Khan Batu, he visited the Golden Horde,
where he received a label for reign and
recognized himself as a vassal of the Golden
Horde khan.
■ Prince Yuri II (1301-1308) became the sole
ruler of Galicia and Volyn. In 1303, he
founded the Galician Metropolis, established
peaceful relations with neighbors, and took
care of the development of culture.
■ In the 1st half of the 14th century. The
Galicia-Volyn principality failed to maintain
its integrity. Its lands were divided between
Lithuania (Volyn) and Poland (Galicia).
■ The Grand Duchy of Lithuania arose in the
middle of the 13th century. At its origins
stood Prince Mindovg (1230-1263). Initially,
Black Rus', the lands of modern Belarus,
came under the influence of Lithuania.
■ In the XIV century. The attack on the lands of
Southwestern Rus' was continued by Prince
Gediminas (1316-1341).
After the victory of the Russian-Lithuanian army
over the Horde in the Battle of the Blue
Waters River (1362), all of Southwestern Rus'
became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
(GDL).
The threat from the Teutonic Order, as well as
dynastic interests, led to a rapprochement
between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and
the Kingdom of Poland, which was reflected in
the terms of the Union of Krevo in 1385,
concluded through the marriage of the Polish
Queen Jadwiga and the Lithuanian Prince
Jogaila. This union opened the way for the
penetration of Catholicism into Russian lands
■ Northwestern Rus'
■ Among the lands of Northwestern Rus', the
key role belonged to the Novgorod and
Pskov republics.
■ Novgorod occupied an important place in
the system of Baltic connections, becoming
a real “window to Europe”.
■ In the XII-XIII centuries. Pskov was part of
the Novgorod Republic. They were brought
together with Novgorod by the presence of
common military-political interests - the
defense of their lands from the aggression
of the crusading knights.
■ After the decrease in the level of the Western
threat in the 2nd half of the 13th century. ties
between Pskov and Novgorod weakened. At
that time, Pskov already had its own boyars.
We can talk about the actual independence of
Pskov in relation to the end of the 13th
century.
■ De jure, Novgorod recognized the
independence of the Pskov Republic in 1348,
concluding the Bolotov Treaty with it. In 1397,
the Pskov People's Council adopted the first
edition of the Pskov Judicial Charter - a
codified collection of laws.
■ Expansion from the West
■ In the 13th century A serious threat to Rus'
was posed by the expansion of Swedish
and German knights - crusaders, who
sought to seize territories and spread
Catholicism. Prince Alexander Nevsky
played a key role in repelling the
aggressors.
■ Battle of Neva- a major battle on July 15,
1240 on the river. Neva, in which 1.4
thousand Russian soldiers led by Prince
Alexander Yaroslavich were opposed by
approximately five thousand Swedish
troops, led by Ulf Fasi.
■ The Swedes were defeated. The victory
allowed the Russians to maintain access to
the Baltic Sea. Prince Alexander received
the nickname Nevsky. The prince managed
to stop the advance of the knights of the
German Catholic Teutonic Order.
At the beginning of the 13th century. The Order
of the Swordsmen operated in the Baltic
states. In 1202, his knights founded the
fortress city of Riga at the mouth of the
Western Dvina. In 1224, the crusaders took
Yuryev, and two years later knights of the
Teutonic Order appeared in the Baltic states,
targeting the lands of Lithuania and North-
Western Rus'.
■ After the swordsmen in the mid-30s of the
13th century. suffered a series of defeats
from the Russian princes and Baltic tribes, it
was decided to unite the aspirations of the
two knightly orders. This is how the Livonian
Order arose in 1237.
■ Battle on the Ice, or the Battle of Lake Peipsi,
was a major battle that took place on April 5,
1242. Alexander Nevsky gathered a 15,000-
strong militia. They were opposed by more
than 10 thousand crusaders, led by the
master of the order Andreas von Velven.
■ The total losses of the Teutons amounted to
about 400 people. The Order was forced to
make peace, according to which the
crusaders abandoned the captured Russian
lands (Izborsk, Pskov, Koporye).
■ Alexander Nevsky was not only able to
protect the northwestern Russian lands, but
also prevented Rus' from subjugating to
Catholicism, contributing to the growth of the
liberation struggle in the Baltic states.
In 1247, Alexander Nevsky went to Batu, and
then to the capital of Mongolia, Karakorum,
to the Great Khan, receiving a label to reign
in Kiev and Novgorod, and in 1252 the
Mongols responded favorably to his receiving
the Vladimir reign. Subsequently, the prince
repeatedly rejected proposals from the papal
throne for an anti-Mongol alliance with the
German knights and conversion to
Catholicism, while at the same time
maintaining mutually beneficial relations with
the Golden Horde.
Despite the negative consequences of the yoke and
the aggressive aspirations of Western Catholic
orders, by the end of the 13th century. In Rus',
economic and political prerequisites for the
centralization (unification) of the Russian
principalities, scattered due to feudal
fragmentation, had developed. Economic
prerequisites include: accelerated development of
crafts and trade; urban growth; the beginning of
the process of forming a single market. Political
prerequisites: the need to overthrow the Mongol
yoke; formation of a strong supreme power;
strengthening the positions of the nobles and
emerging bureaucratic structures.
■ Moscow as a center for the unification of
Russian lands
■ After the fall of the role of Kyiv as the center of
ancient Russian statehood, the Novgorod
Republic and the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
acquired the greatest importance in Russian
political life. The khans of the Golden Horde
considered the Vladimir prince the head of all
North-Eastern Rus'. However, soon the
appanage princes began to challenge this
prerogative, entering into the struggle for reign
in Vladimir. The Tver and Moscow princes
turned out to be the most active in this
struggle.
■ The Moscow principality gained independence in
1276. Its importance increased in the 14th
century, when it began to play the role of the
main unifying center of the Russian lands. The
following factors contributed to this:
■ personal qualities of the first Moscow princes
(Ivan I Kalita, Dmitry Donskoy), their political
activities;
■ favorable geographical position and security
favored an increase in population;
■ support for the church and the transfer of the
center of Russian Orthodoxy from Vladimir to
Moscow;
■ assistance of the Horde, which transferred the
labels for reign to the Moscow princes.
■ Politics of Moscow princes
■ At the origins of the Moscow princely dynasty
was one of the sons of Alexander Nevsky -
Daniil Alexandrovich (1276-1303).
■ From the 2nd half of the 13th century. the
population moved to the northeast. At the
same time, Metropolitan Maxim moved from
Kyiv to Vladimir-on-Klyazma (1299). These
processes were due to the smaller scale of
devastation and faster pace of restoration of
North-Eastern Rus'.
■ Beginning of the 14th century was marked by
an intensification of the struggle between
Tver and Moscow for leadership among the
principalities of the Northeast. The fact that
the wife of the Moscow prince Yuri
Danilovich, who was the sister of the Mongol
Khan Uzbek, was killed by the Tver prince
Mikhail Yaroslavich, played into the hands of
Moscow. The angry Khan Uzbek in 1319 for
the first time handed over the label for the
great reign to the Moscow prince, executing
Mikhail.
Moscow's leadership was finally consolidated by
his successor Ivan Danilovich. Ivan I
Danilovich Kalita (12831340) - Grand Duke
of Moscow (1325-1340), Vladimir and
Novgorod. He laid the foundations for
establishing the economic and political union
of the Moscow Principality and the Golden
Horde, for which he collected tribute from the
Russian principalities. In 1327, together with
the Mongols, he suppressed the anti-Horde
uprising of the population of Tver.
■ Ivan Kalita achieved the transfer of the
metropolitan see from Vladimir to Moscow
(1328), after which it acquired the status of
the religious and ideological center of Rus'.
■ The Moscow principality was considered the
most prosperous, which explains the origin of
Ivan Danilovich’s nickname - Kalita (money
bag).
■ The sons of Ivan Kalita, Semyon the Proud
(1340-1353) and Ivan the Red (1353-1359),
expanded the territory of the Moscow
principality at the expense of the Dmitrov,
Starodub, Kaluga and Kostroma lands.
■ Dmitry Donskoy(1350-1389) being a Moscow
prince, he became the recognized leader of the
anti-Horde coalition and collector of Russian
lands. He received the label for the great reign of
Vladimir in 1371. He soon conquered Tver.
■ In 1374, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich stopped paying
tribute to the Horde and thereby broke off
relations with it. In 1378, the Moscow army led by
Prince Dmitry Ivanovich defeated the Horde on
the Vozha River, which became the prologue to
the Battle of Kulikovo Field.
■ In his declining years, the prince independently,
without the consent of the Golden Horde,
transferred the great reign of Vladimir to his son
Vasily (1389-1425), which led to the merger of
the Vladimir and Moscow principalities.
■ The relationship between the processes of
unification of Russian lands and liberation
from Horde rule
■ The strengthening of Moscow's position
coincided with the beginning of a period of
internal conflicts and civil strife in the Golden
Horde. A significant defeat was inflicted on
the Horde led by Temnik Mamai in the Battle
of Kulikovo (1380), which took place at the
confluence of the Nepryadva River with the
Don. The start of the battle was preceded by
the legendary duel between the Russian hero
Peresvet and Chelubey from the Mongols.
The convincing victory of the army of the Moscow
prince Dmitry Donskoy did not yet lead to the
complete liberation of Rus' from the yoke;
moreover, in 1382 Moscow was burned by
Khan Tokhtamysh, who replaced Mamai. Rus'
resumed paying tribute, but in a smaller
amount. Dmitry Donskoy did this in order to
gain time for the final unification of Rus'.
However, it was after the battle on the Kulikovo
Field that the role of Moscow as an all-Russian
center for rallying all forces against the Horde
was finally established, and residents of
different Russian cities for the first time felt like
one people.
Question2.Europe and the world in the era of
the Late Middle Ages.
■ Period XIV-XV centuries. in modern historical
science it is called the late Middle Ages.
Previously, this was the name for the era of the
16th - mid-17th centuries, which is now called the
early modern period. The watershed between
these two periods is such events as the discovery
of America by Columbus (1492) and the beginning
of the Reformation (1517).
■ The event that separates the era of the late
Middle Ages from the previous developed
(classical) Middle Ages is a large-scale plague
epidemic known as the Black Death. The
demographic losses of European and Asian
countries were terrible: they lost between a third
and half of their inhabitants.
This demographic catastrophe, according to
many historians, had important
consequences for the further socio-economic
development of Europe. There was an acute
labor shortage. Labor became more
expensive. In agriculture by that time,
commutation of rent had occurred on a large
scale: corvée and quitrent in kind were
replaced by fixed cash payments. The
missing labor could only be found by offering
those who wanted attractive conditions, in
particular, with a lower quitrent.
As a result, the conditions of exploitation were
softened, and the most severe forms of feudal
dependence became a thing of the past. Partly, the
shortage and high cost of labor were compensated
by some technical and technological innovations in
crafts and agriculture. However, the main result of
the crisis caused by the Black Death was that the
feudal lords ceased to consider the exploitation of
their peasants as a sufficient source of income.
They flocked en masse to military service with the
rulers of their states and became active participants
in trade, both local and international.
Thus, the demographic collapse of the 14th
century created the preconditions, firstly, for
the emergence of absolutism, secondly, for the
Great Geographical Discoveries, since it was
the nobles who were more eager than others to
improve their affairs by plundering the newly
discovered lands, and thirdly, for the
development of manufacturing production ,
because the same nobles became organizers
of industrial enterprises or suppliers of raw
materials for them.
Another important event of the 14th century,
which determined the historical destinies of a
large part of Europe and Asia, was the
emergence of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1453, Sultan Mehmed II captured
Constantinople, and then the possessions of the
Crusaders and Venice, and made the Crimean
Khanate his vassal. In 1514-1517 The Ottomans
conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Mecca,
allowing Sultan Selim to take the title of caliph. In
1526, his successor Suleiman the Magnificent,
having destroyed the Hungarian army along with
the king at the Battle of Mohács, conquered this
country. In 1529, the Turkish army besieged
Vienna for the first time, but failed. From this
time until the end of the 18th century. the
confrontation between Austria and the Ottoman
Empire becomes the leitmotif of the entire
history of Central and Eastern Europe.
The most important feature of the late Middle
Ages was the functioning of class-
representative institutions in European
countries, which contributed to the political
centralization of European states. By
including representatives of lands and cities
in such institutions or establishing them
locally, kings sought to eliminate feudal
fragmentation.
The development of the spiritual life of Europe
during the late Middle Ages and early modern
times was marked by contradictions. One of
its aspects was the deepening of religious
feeling, which was expressed in mass
religious movements, which the church
usually declared heresies, the persecution of
Jews, and a passion for alchemy, astrology
and other occult practices. Not only the
common people, but also prominent people
of the era were subject to them.
Another feature of the spiritual life of these
eras, manifested mainly in art, literature and
philosophy, was Renaissance. It began in
Italy in the 14th century, and the most
significant figures of this period were the
artist Giotto and the poet Petrarch. The 15th
century was glorified by the names of
Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Botticelli,
Lorenzo Valla, Leonardo Bruni. In the 16th
century, Renaissance culture flourished and
spread beyond Italy: to France, Spain and
Germany.
■ Its distinctive characteristics were naturalism in
art (when depicting man and the surrounding
world, artists tried to be closer to nature, to be as
realistic as possible) and humanism in philosophy
and literature (writers and philosophers set as
their goal the study of studia humanitatis - the
sciences about man, his meaning life, goodness
and virtues - in contrast to the scholastics who
studied nature and studia divinitatis - the science
of the divine).
■ The figures of the Renaissance drew their
inspiration from the works of ancient artists and
writers and considered them role models, which is
why this era is also calledRenaissance.
■ Another manifestation of this process was
Reformation. The Catholic Church has
experienced many church reform movements
throughout its history. But only in the 16th
century. this movement led to the emergence of a
new branch of Christianity known as
Protestantism.
■ The most important factor in the success of the
Reformation of the 16th century. was that it
happened, unlike its predecessors, in the era of
printing. It is believed that the first printed book in
Europe was made by the German John
Guttenberg in 1448. Thanks to this technology,
books became cheap. Many were able to have a
copy of the Bible in their home.
The Reformation began in 1517, when the German
monk Martin Luther (1483-1546) published the “95
Theses”, where he substantiated the basic principle
of Protestantism: salvation by faith, but not by merit,
money or the power of the clergy. Luther argued that
the head of the Church is the ruler of the state. He
affirms pastors who are not priests, but men called
to preach the Word of God. Each person is called by
God to a specific task, to which he must devote
himself diligently. This is proof of his faith, through
which he saves his soul. Luther recognized the Bible
as the source of his doctrine, thus denying the
decrees of popes and decrees of church councils.
Luther received support from a number of
German princes, who were attracted by the
opportunity to lay hands on the wealth of the
Catholic Church and no longer pay taxes to
Rome. In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg was
signed, which established the principle of
“whose power, so is the faith,” giving the
princes the right to determine the religion of
their subjects. By the end of the 16th
century. Lutheranism established itself as
the state religion in the lands of northern and
eastern Germany, in Prussia, Livonia and
Scandinavia.
■ Another influential movement in
Protestantism was founded by the Genevan
preacher John Calvin (1509-1564). Calvin
believed that the church should consist of
completely independent, self-governing
communities. There should be no ritual in
worship, not even music. Man is
predetermined to salvation or destruction,
and this divine providence cannot be
changed in any way.
■ Calvinists were active participants in the
religious wars in France, Switzerland and
Hungary. They played a key role in the English
Revolution (1640-1660).
■ The Reformation in England was unique. By
and large, it consisted only in the fact that the
Anglican Church was removed from the
subordination of the pope, and the king
became its head. The church hierarchy was
preserved (only monasticism was eliminated),
magnificent worship and religious art.
■ In order to prevent the spread of Protestantism
and return Protestants to the fold of the
Catholic Church, Rome and the Spanish and
Austrian Habsburgs who supported it
beganCounter-Reformation.
The practice of selling indulgences, which caused
so much hatred, was stopped, the contents of
the Bible were clarified, and measures were
taken to improve the level of education and
moral character of the clergy. The Jesuit Order
was established (1534), the goals of which
were to promote Catholicism and improve
Catholic education. The work of the inquisitorial
tribunals was streamlined. As a result of both
peaceful and violent actions in a number of
regions of Europe, the Reformation was
reversed: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic,
and France were cleared of Protestants.
■ Historical results of the Reformation:
■ 1) She pushed the development of the process of
secularization (transfer of church and monastic
property to the state) of consciousness and culture;
■ 2) it caused long-term religious wars that changed
the map of Europe: the Holy Roman Empire virtually
disappeared, the political fragmentation of Germany
was consolidated, Holland gained independence;
■ 3) As a result of the secularization of church
property carried out by the Protestant rulers, a huge
amount of land and precious metals were
introduced into market circulation, which
contributed to the accelerated development of
bourgeois relations there;
■ 4) During the Reformation, secondary
education reached a qualitatively new level.
Both Catholics and Protestants needed
educated clergy, as well as to educate the
social elite in adherence to their respective
religion. As a result, Europe was covered with a
whole network of gymnasiums, colleges,
boarding schools and academies;
■ 5) Religious persecution to which
representatives of a number of Protestant
denominations and sects were subjected in
their homeland forced them to leave the
borders of their countries, leaving, among
other things, for the colonies, and this
contributed to the expansion of overseas
European expansion.