| Kievan Rus' Русь |
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a coin struck by Yaroslav the Wise |
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| Kievan Rus, 11th century | ||||
| Capital | Kiev (Novgorod until 882) | |||
| Language(s) | Old East Slavic | |||
| Religion | Slavic Paganism Orthodox Christianity |
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| Government | Monarchy (Rurik Dynasty) | |||
| Grand Prince of Kiev | ||||
| - 882–912 | Oleg | |||
| Legislature | Veche, Prince Council | |||
| History | ||||
| - Established | 882 | |||
| - Disestablished | 13th century | |||
| Currency | grivna | |||
Kievan Rus' (also Kyivan Rus') was a medieval polity in Eastern Europe, from the late 9th to the mid 13th century, when it disintegrated under the pressure of the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240.
Contemporarily, the state was known as "land of the Rus'" (Old East Slavic русьскаꙗ землꙗ, from the ethnonym Рѹ́сь, Greek Ῥώς, Arabic الروس ar-Rūs), in Greek as Ῥωσία, later also Ruthenia.[1][2] The name "Kievan Rus'" (Ки́евская Русь Kievskaya Rus’) was coined in the 19th century in Russian historiography.[3] In English usage, the term was introduced in the early 20th century, where it is found in the 1913 English translation of Vasily Klyuchevsky's A History of Russia,[4] to distinguish the early polity from successor states, which were also called Rus in their title. Also in the 20th century, the Russian term was rendered in Belarusian and Ukrainian as Кіеўская Русь and Ки́ївська Русь Kyivs'ka Rus’, respectively.[5]
The early phase of the state is sometimes known as the "Rus Khaganate", while the history of Rus' proper begins in 882, when the capital was moved from Novgorod to Kiev, after Varangians (Vikings), who were called Rus, liberated this slavic city from the Khazars' tribute.[6] The state reached its zenith in the mid 11th century, when it encompassed territories stretching south to the Black Sea, east to Volga, and west to the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.[7] The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980–1015) and his son Yaroslav I the Wise (1019–1054) constituted the "Golden Age" of Kiev, which saw the introduction of Christianity and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda ("Justice of Rus").
Coinciding with the end of the Viking age, the state declined beginning in the later 11th and during the 12th century, disintegrating into various rival regional powers. [8] It was further weakened by economic factors such as the collapse of Rus' commercial ties to Byzantium due to the decline of Constantinople[9] and the falling off of trade routes, and it finally fell to the Mongol invasion of the 1230s.
The various East Slavic principalities were united within the Russian Empire in the 18th century. The modern East Slavic states of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia all derive their identity from the early medieval state.[10]
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In the early 9th century, the Rus, a group of Swedish Vikings,[11][12] became loosely organized under the Rus' Khaganate.[13] The ruler of the Rus during their Anatolian expedition in 839 was called chaganus (i.e. khaqan).[14][15][16] In 860, the Rus invaded the Byzantine Empire, and subsequently launched several wars with the Byzantine Empire and expeditions to the Caspian Sea. The early leaders of Rus' were most likely a Norse elite that ruled a majority of Slavic subjects.[17][18]
According to the Primary Chronicle, the earliest chronicle of Rus', the territory of the future Kievan state was divided between Varangians and Khazars. The Laurentian Codex says:
In the year 6367 (859): Varangians from over the sea imposed tribute upon the Chuds, the Slavs, the Merias, the Veses and Krivichs, but the Khazars imposed it upon the Polians, the Sieverians and Vyatichs.
However, in 6368-6370 (860-862)
The tributaries of the Varangians drove them back beyond the sea and, refusing them further tribute, set out to govern themselves. There was no law among them, but tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other. They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to the Law." They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Russes. These particular Varangians were known as Russes, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans, English and Gotlanders, for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Ves then said to the Rus, "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us". They thus selected three brothers with their kinfolk, who took with them all the Rus and migrated.[19]
The three brothers—Rurik (the oldest), Sineus, and Truvor—established themselves in Novgorod, Beloozero and Izborsk, respectively. After two years, two of Rurik's brothers died leaving Rurik the sole ruler. He in turn installed his nakhodniks to assist him in governing the land. The principals' cities became Novgorod (capital) ruling over Ilmen Slavs, Polotsk – Krivichi, Rostov – Merya, Beloozero – Veps, and Murom – Muroma. The chronicle names him as the progenitor of the Rurik Dynasty. The Primary Chronicle says:[20]
Two of Riurik's boyars, Askold and Dir who were not blood-related to Riurik, asked him to go with their families to Tsargrad. Going down the Dnieper River they noticed settlement named Kiev which they liberated from the Khazars' tribute and settled there, eventually conquering the rest of the Polians' land.
The kingdom of the Kievan Rus' was officially founded by Prince Oleg (Helgu in Khazarian records) about 880. The territory of his state was much smaller than the later state of Yaroslav the Wise. During the next 35 years, Oleg and his warriors subdued the various Eastern Slavic (Smolensk and Liubech) and Finnic tribes. In 882, Oleg deposed Askold and Dir subordinating Kiev directly to himself and choosing it as the capital city.[21] In 883, Oleg conquered the Drevlians imposing a fur tribute on them. By 884 he managed to subjugate the Polians, Drevlians, Severians, Vyatichs, and Radimichs while at war with the Tivertsi and the Ulichs. The latter were located in the area known among the Greek historians as the Great Scythia (lands of lower Dniester and Dnieper rivers). In 907, Oleg led an attack against Constantinople with 80,000 warriors transported by 2,000 ships, leaving Igor, son of Rurik in Kiev. Through a treaty, Oleg managed to impose a tribute upon Greeks of no less than one million grivna. In 911, he signed a commercial treaty with the Byzantine Empire as an equal partner. After the death of Oleg later in 912, the Drevlians managed to break away, but were conquered again by Igor. In 914, Igor concluded a peace treaty with the Pechenegs, a nomadic tribe that was passing through Rus' towards the Danube River in order to attack the Byzantine Empire.
The new Kievan state prospered because it had an abundant supply of furs, beeswax and honey for export and because it controlled three main trade routes of Eastern Europe: the Volga trade route from the Baltic Sea to the Orient, the Dnieper trade route from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and the trade route from the Khazars to the Germans (see Raffelstetten Customs Regulations).
Liutprand of Cremona, who was twice (949 and 968) an envoy to the Byzantine court, identifies the "Russi" with the Norse (Rusios, quos alio nos nomine Nordmannos apellamus, "the Russi, whom we call Norsemen by another name"),[22] but explains the name as a Greek term referring to their physical traits (Gens quaedam est sub aquilonis parte constituta, quam a qualitate corporis Graeci vocant [...] Rusios, nos vero a positione loci nominamus Nordmannos, "A certain people made up of a part of the Norse, whom the Greeks call [...] the Russi on account of their physical features, we designate as Norsemen because of the location of their origin.").[23]
Following the death of Grand Prince Igor in 945, his wife Olga ruled as regent in Kiev until their son Sviatoslav reached maturity (ca. 963).[24] His decade-long reign over Rus' was marked by rapid expansion through the conquest of the Khazars of the Pontic steppe, and Invasion of the Balkans. By the end of his short life, Sviatoslav carved out for himself the largest state in Europe, eventually moving his capital from Kiev to Pereyaslavets on the Danube in 969. In contrast with his mother's conversion to Christianity, Sviatoslav, like his druzhina remained a staunch pagan. Due to his abrupt death in ambush, Sviatoslav's conquests, for the most part, were not consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to establish a stable succession led to fratricidal feud among his sons, resulted in two of his three sons being killed.
It is not clearly documented when the title of the Grand Duke was first introduced, but the importance of the Kiev principality was recognized after the death of Sviatoslav I (Sviatoslav the Brave; r. 945–972) and the struggle between Vladimir the Great and Yaropolk I. The region of Kiev dominated the state of Kievan Rus' for the next two centuries. The Grand Prince (velikiy kniaz') of Kiev controlled the lands around the city, and his formally subordinate relatives ruled the other cities and paid him tribute. The zenith of the state's power came during the reigns of Prince Vladimir (Vladimir the Great, r. 980–1015) and Prince Yaroslav (the Wise; r. 1019–1054). Both rulers continued the steady expansion of Kievan Rus' that had begun under Oleg.
Vladimir rose to power in Kiev after the death of his father Sviatoslav I in 972. After the death of his father in 972, Vladimir, who was then prince of Novgorod, was forced to flee to Scandinavia in 976 after his half-brother Yaropolk had murdered his other brother Oleg and taken control Rus. In Scandinavia with the help from his relative Earl Håkon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, Vladimir assembled a viking army and reconquered Novgorod and Kiev from Yaropolk.[25] As Prince of Kiev, Vladimir's most notable achievement was the Christianization of Kievan Rus', a process that began in 988. The Primary Chronicle states that when Vladimir had decided to accept a new faith instead of the traditional idol-worship (paganism) of the Slavs, he sent out some of his most valued advisors and warriors as emissaries to different parts of Europe. The emissaries visited the Christians of the Latin Rite, the Jews and the Muslims, they finally arrived in Constantinople. They rejected Islam because, among other things, it prohibited the consumption of alcohol, and Judaism because the god of the Jews had permitted his chosen people to be deprived of their country. They found the ceremonies in the Roman church to be dull. But, at Constantinople, they were so astounded by the beauty of the cathedral of Hagia Sophia and the liturgical service held there, that they made up their minds there and then about the faith they would like to follow. Upon their arrival home, they convinced Vladimir that the faith of the Byzantine Rite was the best choice of all, upon which Vladimir made a journey to Constantinople and arranged to marry with Princess Anna, the sister of the Byzantine emperor, Basil II.[26]
Vladimir's choice of Eastern Christianity may also have reflected his close personal ties with Constantinople, which dominated the Black Sea and hence trade on Kiev's most vital commercial route, the River Dnieper. Adherence to the Eastern Church had long-range political, cultural, and religious consequences. The church had a liturgy written in Cyrillic and a corpus of translations from Greek that had been produced for the Slavic peoples. The existence of this literature facilitated the conversion to Christianity of the Eastern Slavs and introduced them to rudimentary Greek philosophy, science, and historiography without the necessity of learning Greek. In contrast, educated people in medieval Western and Central Europe learned Latin. Enjoying independence from the Roman authority and free from tenets of Latin learning, the East Slavs developed their own literature and fine arts, quite distinct from those of other Eastern Orthodox countries. See Old East Slavic language and Architecture of Kievan Rus for details. Following the Great Schism of 1054, the Rus' church maintained communion with both Rome and Constantinople for some time, but along with most of the Eastern churches eventually split to go with the Eastern Orthodox.
Yaroslav, known as "the Wise", struggled for power with his brothers. A son of Vladimir the Great, he was vice-regent of Novgorod at the time of his father's death in 1015. Subsequently, his eldest surviving brother, Svyatopolk the Accursed, killed three of his other brothers and seized power in Kiev. Yaroslav, with the active support of the Novgorodians and the help of Viking mercenaries, defeated Svyatopolk and became the grand prince of Kiev in 1019.[27] Although he first established his rule over Kiev in 1019, although he did not have uncontested rule of all of Kievan Rus' until 1036. Like Vladimir, Yaroslav was eager to improve relations with the rest of Europe, especially the Byzantine Empire. Yaroslav's granddaughter, Eupraxia the daughter of his son Vsevolod I, Prince of Kiev, was married to Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor. Yaroslav also arranged marriages for his sister and three daughters to the kings of Poland, France, Hungary and Norway. Yaroslav promulgated the first East Slavic law code, Russkaya Pravda; built Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod; patronized local clergy and monasticism; and is said to have founded a school system. Yaroslav's sons developed the great Kiev Pechersk Lavra (monastery), which functioned in Kievan Rus' as an ecclesiastical academy.
In the centuries that followed the state's foundation, Rurik's descendants shared power over Kievan Rus'. Princely succession moved from elder to younger brother and from uncle to nephew, as well as from father to son. Junior members of the dynasty usually began their official careers as rulers of a minor district, progressed to more lucrative principalities, and then competed for the coveted throne of Kiev. In the 11th century and the 12th century, the princes and their retinues, which were a mixture of Slavic and Scandinavian elites, dominated the society of Kievan Rus'. Leading soldiers and officials received income and land from the princes in return for their political and military services. Kievan society lacked the class institutions and autonomous towns that were typical of Western European feudalism. Nevertheless, urban merchants, artisans and labourers sometimes exercised political influence through a city assembly, the veche (council), which included all the adult males in the population. In some cases, the veche either made agreements with their rulers or expelled them and invited others to take their place. At the bottom of society was a stratum of slaves. More important was a class of tribute-paying peasants, who owed labour duty to the princes. The widespread personal serfdom characteristic of Western Europe did not exist in Kievan Rus'.
The gradual disintegration of the Kievan Rus' began in the 11th century, after the death of Yaroslav the Wise. The position of the Grand Prince of Kiev was weakened by the growing influence of regional clans.
Unconventional power succession system where the power was transferred not from father to son, but to the eldest member of the ruling dynasty, i.e. in most cases to the eldest brother of the ruler, bred constant hatred and rivalry within the royal family. Familicide was a rather common way to obtain power. That particularly could be traced during the time of Yaroslavichi rule (sons of Yaroslav the Wise) when the established rota system was skipped with establishing of Vladimir II Monomakh as the Grand Prince of Kiev in turn creating big squabbles between Olegovichi from Chernihiv, Monomakhs from Pereyaslav, Izyaslavichi from Turov/Volhynia, and Polotsk Princes.
By 1130 all descendants of Vseslav the Seer were exiled to the Byzantine Empire by Vladimir Monomakh. The most fierce resistance to Monomakhs posed Olegovichi when the izgoi Vsevolod II managed to become the Grand Prince of Kiev. Rostislavichi who have initially established in Halych lands by 1189 were defeated by the Monomakh-Piast descendant Roman the Great.
The decline of Constantinople — a main trading partner of Kievan Rus', played a significant role in the decline of the Kievan Rus'. The trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks, along which the goods were moving from the Black Sea (mainly Byzantine) through Eastern Europe to the Baltic, was a cornerstone of Kiev wealth and prosperity. Kiev was the main power and initiator in this relationship, once the Byzantine Empire fell into turmoil and the supplies became erratic, profits dried out, and Kiev lost its appeal.
The most prominent struggle for power was the conflict that erupted after the death of Yaroslav the Wise. The rivaling Principality of Polotsk was contesting the power of the Grand Prince by occupying Novgorod, while Rostislav Vladimirovich was fighting for the Black Sea port of Tmutarakan belonging to Chernigov. Three of Yaroslav's sons that first allied together found themselves fighting each other especially after their defeat to the Cuman forces in 1068 at the Battle of the Alta River. At the same time an uprising took place in Kiev, bringing to power Vseslav of Polotsk who supported the traditional Slavic paganism. The ruling Grand Prince Iziaslav fled to Poland asking for support and in couple of years returned to establish the order. The affairs became even more complicated by the end of the 11th century driving the state into chaos and constant warfare. On the initiative of Vladimir II Monomakh in 1097 the first federal council of Kievan Rus took place near Chernigov in the city of Liubech with the main intention to find an understanding among the fighting sides. However even though that did not really stopped the fighting, it certainly cooled things off.
The last ruler to maintain some sort of united state was Mstislav the Great. After his death in 1132, the Kievan Rus fell into recession and a rapid decline, and Mstislav's successor Yaropolk II of Kiev instead of focussing on the external threat of the Cumans was embroiled in conflicts with the growing power of the Novgorod Republic.
The Crusades brought a shift in European trade routes that accelerated the decline of Kievan Rus'. In 1204 the forces of the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople, making the Dnieper trade route marginal.[9] At the same time the Teutonic Knights of Northern Crusades were conquering the Baltic region and threatening the Lands of Novgorod. Concurrently with it the Ruthenian Federation of Kievan Rus started to disintegrate into smaller principalities[8] as the Rurik dynasty grew. The local Orthodox Christianity of Kievan Rus', while struggling to establish itself in the predominantly pagan state and losing its main base in Constantinopol was on the brink of extinction. Some of the main regional centers that later have developed were Novgorod, Chernigov, Galich, Kiev, Ryazan, Vladimir-upon-Klyazma, Vladimir of Volyn, Polotsk, and others.
In the north, the Republic of Novgorod prospered because it controlled trade routes from the River Volga to the Baltic Sea. As Kievan Rus' declined, Novgorod became more independent. A local oligarchy ruled Novgorod; major government decisions were made by a town assembly, which also elected a prince as the city's military leader. In the 12th century, Novgorod acquired its own archbishop Ilya in 1169, a sign of increased importance and political independence, while about 30 years prior to that in 1136 in Novgorod was established a republican form of government - elective monarchy. Since then Novgorod enjoyed a wide degree of autonomy although being closely associated with the Kievan Rus.
In the northeast, Slavs from the Kievan region colonized the territory that eventually became the Grand Duchy of Moscow by subjugating and merging with the Finnic tribes already occupying the area. The city of Rostov the oldest centre of the northeast, was supplanted first by Suzdal and then by the city of Vladimir, which become the capital of Vladimir-Suzdal'. The combined principality of Vladimir-Suzdal asserted itself as a major power in Kievan Rus' in the late 12th century. In 1169 Prince Andrey Bogolyubskiy of Vladimir-Suzdal sacked the city of Kiev. Prince Andrey then installed his younger brother, who ruled briefly in Kiev while Andrey continued to rule his realm from Suzdal. Roman of Halych (1160–1205) also claimed primacy in Rus at the time. In 1299, in the wake of the Mongol invasion, the metropolitan moved from Kiev to the city of Vladimir and Vladimir-Suzdal.
To the southwest, the principality of Halych had developed trade relations with its Polish, Hungarian and Lithuanian neighbours and emerged as the local successor to Kievan Rus'. In the early 13th century, Prince Roman Mstislavich united the two previously separate principalities, conquered Kiev, and assumed the title of Grand Duke of Kievan Rus'. His son, Prince Daniil (r. 1238–1264) was the first ruler of Kievan Rus' to accept a crown from the Roman papacy, apparently doing so without breaking with Constantinople. Early in the 14th century, the patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Constantinople granted the rulers of Galicia-Volhynia a metropolitan to compensate for the move of the Kievan metropolitan to Vladimir. Lithuanian rulers also requested and received a metropolitan for Novagrudok shortly afterwards. Early in the 15th century, these Metropolia were ruled again from Kiev by the "Metropolitan of Kiev, Galich and all Rus'".
However, a long and unsuccessful struggle against the Mongols combined with internal opposition to the prince and foreign intervention weakened Galicia-Volhynia. With the end of the Mstislavich branch of the Rurikids in the mid-14th century, Galicia-Volhynia ceased to exist; Poland conquered Galich; Lithuania took Volhynia, including Kiev, conquered by Gediminas in 1321 ending the rule of Rurikids in the city. Lithuanian rulers then assumed the title over Ruthenia.
The state finally disintegrated under the pressure of the Mongol invasion of Rus'. The state fragmented into successor principalities, tributary to the Golden Horde (the so-called Tatar Yoke). In the late 15th century Muscovite Grand Dukes began taking over former Kievan territories and claimed themselves to be the sole legal successors of the Kievan principality according to the logic of the medieval theory of translatio imperii.
In the western periphery, the Kievan Rus' was succeeded by the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia. Later, as these lands along with the territories of modern central Ukraine and Belarus fell to the Gediminids, the powerful, largely Ruthenized Grand Duchy of Lithuania, drew heavily on Rus' cultural and legal traditions. Due to the fact that the economical and cultural core of Rus' was located on the territory of modern Ukraine some Ukrainian historians and scholars consider Kievan Rus' to be a founding Ukrainian state.[10]
On the northeastern periphery of Kievan Rus' traditions were adapted in the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality that gradually gravitated towards Moscow. In the very north, the Novgorod and Pskov Feudal Republics carried on a separate and less autocratic version of Rus' legacy into the 16th century until they were absorbed by the Grand Duchy of Moscow.
During this Kievian period the Rus' experienced a period of great economic expansion. The people began to open trade routes with the Vikings to the north and west and the Byzantine Greeks to the south and west; traders also began to travel south and east eventually making contact with Persia and the peoples of Central Asia.
Due to the expansion of trade and its geographical proximity, Kiev became the most important trade center and chief among the communes; therefore the leader of Kiev gained political "control" over the surrounding areas. This princedom emerged from a coalition of traditional patriarchic family communes banded together in an effort to increase the applicable workforce and expand the productivity of the land. This union developed the first major cities in the Rus' and was the first notable form of self government. As these communes became larger, the emphasis was taken off the family holdings and placed on the territory that surrounded. This shift in ideology became known as the verv'.
The change in political structure led to the inevitable development of the peasant class or smerdy. The smerdy were free un-landed peoples that found work by laboring for wages on the manors which began to develop around 1031 as the verv' began to dominate socio-political structure. The smerdy were initially given equality in the Kievian law code, they were theoretically equal to the prince, so they enjoyed as much freedom as can be expected of manual laborers. However in the 13th century they began to slowly lose their rights and became less equal in the eyes of the law.
Kievan Rus', although sparsely populated compared to Western Europe,[28] was not only the largest contemporary European state in terms of area but also culturally advanced.[29] Literacy in Kiev, Novgorod and other large cities was high.[30][31] As birch bark documents attest, they exchanged love letters and prepared cheat sheets for schools. Novgorod had a sewage system[32] and wood paving not often found in other cities at the time. The Russkaya Pravda confined punishments to fines and generally did not use capital punishment.[33] Certain inalienable rights were accorded to women, such as property and inheritance rights.[34][35][36]
The economic development of Kievan Rus may be translated into demographic statistics. Around 1200, Kiev had a population of 50,000, Novgorod and Chernigov both had around 30,000.[37] Constantinople had population of about 400,000 around 1180.[38] The Soviet scholar Mikhail Tikhomirov calculated that Kievan Rus' on the eve of the Mongol invasion had around 300 urban centers.[39]
Kievan Rus' also played an important genealogical role in European politics. Yaroslav I the Wise, whose stepmother belonged to the greatest dynasty to rule Byzantium, married the only legitimate daughter of the king who Christianized Sweden. His daughters became queens of Hungary, France and Norway, his sons married the daughters of a Polish king and a Byzantine emperor (not to mention a niece of the Pope), while his granddaughters were a German Empress and (according to one theory) the queen of Scotland. A grandson married the only daughter of the last Anglo-Saxon king of England. Thus the Rurikids were the most well-connected royal family of the time.[40][41] The Rurik Dynasty were the ruling the Kievan Rus' successor principalities of Galicia-Volhynia (after 1199), Chernigov, Vladimir-Suzdal, and the Grand Duchy of Moscow, as well as the early Tsardom of Russia (after 1168).
From the 9th century, the Pecheneg nomads began an uneasy relationship with Kievan Rus. For more than two centuries they launched random raids into the lands of Rus, which sometimes escalated into full-scale wars (such as the 920 war on the Pechenegs by Igor of Kiev reported in the Primary Chronicle), but there were also temporary military alliances (e.g. the 943 Byzantine campaign by Igor).[42] In 968, the Pechenegs attacked and then besieged the city of Kiev.[43] There exist some speculations that the Pechenegs drove away the Tivertsi and the Ulichs to the regions of the upper Dniester river in Bukovina. The Byzantine Empire was known to support the Pechenegs in their military campaigns against the Eastern Slavic states.
Boniak was a Cuman khan who led an invasions on Kievan Rus'. In 1096 Boniak attacked Kiev, plundered the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, and burned down the prince's palace in Berestovo. He was defeated in 1107 by Vladimir Monomakh, Oleg, Sviatopolk and other Rus princes.
Between 850 and 1100, the Empire developed a mixed relationship with a new state that emerged to the north across the Black Sea, that of the Rus'. This relationship would have long-lasting repercussions in the history of East Slavs. Byzantium quickly became the main trading and cultural partner for Kiev, but relations were not always friendly. The most serious conflict between the two powers was the war of 968–971 in Bulgaria, but several Rus' raiding expeditions against the Byzantine cities of the Black Sea coast and Constantinople itself are also recorded. Although most were repulsed, they were concluded by trade treaties that were generally favourable to the Rus'.
Rus'-Byzantine relations became closer following the marriage of the porphyrogenita Anna to Vladimir the Great, and the subsequent Christianization of the Rus': Byzantine priests, architects and artists were invited to work on numerous cathedrals and churches around Rus', expanding Byzantine cultural influence even further. Numerous Rus' served in the Byzantine army as mercenaries, most notably as the famous Varangian Guard.
In 988 the Christian Church in Rus' territorially fell under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople after it was officially adopted as the state religion. According to several chronicles after that date the predominant cult of Slavic paganism was persecuted.
It is uncertain the exact date of creation the Kiev Metropolitan as well as who was the first leader of the church. Predominantly it is considered that the first head was Michael I of Kiev, however some sources also claim Leontiy who is often placed after Michael or Anastas Chersonesos, became the first bishop of the Church of the Tithes. The first metropolitan to be confirmed by historical sources is Theopemp, who was appointed by Patriarch Alexius of Constantinople in 1038. Before 1015 there were five dioceses: Kiev, Chernihiv, Bilhorod, Volodymyr, Novgorod, and soon thereafter Yuriy-upon-Ros. The Kiev Metropolitan sent its own delegation to the Council of Bari in 1089.
After the sacking of Kiev in 1169, part of the Kiev metropolitan started to move to Vladimir-upon-Klyazma, concluding the move sometime after 1240 when Kiev was taken by Batu Khan. Metropolitan Maxim was the first metropolitan who chose Vladimir-upon-Klyazma as his official residence in 1299. As a result, in 1303 Lev I of Galicia petitioned Patriarch Athanasius I of Constantinople for the creation of a new Halych metropolitan, however it only existed until 1347.
The first Cathedral Temple was chosen the Church of the Tithes. In 1037 the cathedral was transferred to the newly built Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev. Upon the transferring of the metropolitan seat in 1299, the new cathedral was chosen the Dormition Cathedral, Vladimir.
By the mid 13th century there were following dioceses of Kiev Metropolitan (988): Kiev (988), Pereyaslav, Chernihiv (991), Volodymyr-Volynsky (992), Turov (1005), Polotsk (1104), Novgorod (~990s), Smolensk (1137), Murom (1198), Peremyshl (1120), Halych (1134), Vladimir-upon-Klyazma (1215), Rostov (991), Bilhorod, Yuriy (1032), Chełm (1235), Tver (1271). There also were dioceses in Zakarpattia and Tmutarakan. In 1261 there was established Sarai-Batu diocese.
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