Great Russians or Great Russians or Great Russians are the main ethnic group that is part of the Russian people-nation, which originally lived within the boundaries of the historical formation of Russians:. Distinctive feature Great Russians is the use in everyday everyday speech of a non-dialect literary Russian language with a relatively clear pronunciation of the letters "h" and "g": for example, in the words "what, to, when, where." In the northern part of the area of residence of the Great Russians, bordering northern dialects are acceptable, in the central part - Moscow shakish pronunciation. In general, there is a very large number and, accordingly, pronunciations.
Note
Great Russians - which, together with and made up the concept of "". After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, this ethnicity was abolished for political reasons, and the Little Russians and Belarusians were brought into separate nations.
Great Russians are the creators of our state, Russia.
The area of original residence of the Great Russians
- central part- territories where the proportion of Great Russians among the population is at least 90% - on the map it is marked in a darker color
- main range- territories in which the percentage of Great Russians in relation to the population as a whole is 70-90% - on the map it is marked in a lighter color
Great Russians are the main ethnic group in the composition of the Russian people
Cities in the area of original residence of the Great Russians
- central part, "the heart of the Great Russians" - Veliky Novgorod, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Vladimir, Moscow, Kaluga, Tula, Ryazan, Bryansk, Orel, Lipetsk, Tambov, Suzdal, Rostov the Great, etc.
- main range- Arkhangelsk, Kirov, Vologda, Pskov, Nizhny Novgorod, Tver, Smolensk, Belgorod, Kursk, Saratov, Penza, Izhevsk, Perm, etc.
Historical background on the Great Russians
historical the beginning of the formation of the Great Russians as an ethnic group can be attributed to the times of the formation of the ancient Russian state within the borders, that is, the concepts of Primordial Russia and the Great Russians are very strongly interconnected. The Rostov land, the Rostov-Suzdal principality, the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, the Grand Vladimir principality are the origins of the Great Russian ethnic group. Further rallying of the Great Russians and securing for them a kind of spiritual and political leadership in the Russian people takes place already during the time of the Moscow principality: it was marked by a victory in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, for which St. Sergius of Radonezh gave a blessing to Dmitry Donskoy.
One of the first Great Russians was th - it was he who laid the foundation for the formation of Russian statehood within the limits that can be safely called. And if the question ever arises: which city is the capital of the Great Russians, then, of course, you will have to choose from three cities: Suzdal or Vladimir.
The concepts of Russia Primordial and Great Russians are very strongly interconnected
The idea of the people's state of the Great Russians was formed at the end of the 15th century - the beginning of the formation of the Great Russian state laid, who, having headed the Moscow principality, managed to unite under his rule the Russian lands of Central and North-Eastern Russia. The creation of the Great Russian state by Ivan III on the basis of the changed external position of the strong Moscow principality and against the backdrop of more complicated foreign policy tasks laid the foundation for the further development of Russia as a national state of Russians. His son Vasily continued his father's work - the expansion and unification of Russia.
On the national pride of the Great Russians
The existence of such a concept as the national pride of the Great Russians is quite justified, and it is connected primarily with the fact that it is also a historically significant part in terms of the formation of Great Russia and Great Russia. All historical threads of Russia's development as a huge and influential state lead to Russian principalities and Russian figures (princes and priests) who existed and lived in Central Russia and in the Russian North. The development of Russia has always proceeded from the area of residence of the Great Russians. We can safely say that the Russian gene pool is the most stable in the original.
Great Russian range map
This map of the modern residence of the Great Russians was compiled on the basis of data from the census of the Russian people in 1897 and modern cartographic data. In this map, small errors are possible, which are not essential for understanding the patterns of settlement of the Great Russians on the territory of modern Russia.
, Russian historical dictionary , Terms ,
GREAT RUSSIAN(Great Russians), the most numerous of the three branches of the Russian people (Great Russians, Little Russians, Belarusians), usually called simply Russians. Great Russians, like Little Russians and Belarusians, descended from a single
Old Russian nationality, formed in the VI-XIII centuries. According to many historians, the names "Russians", "Great Russians", "Rus", "Russian Land" go back to the name of one of the Slavic tribes - Rhodi, Ross, or Russ. From their land in the Middle Dnieper, the name "Rus" spread to the entire Old Russian state, which included, in addition to the Slavic, and some non-Slavic tribes. Already in those days, there were differences in the culture of the population of the wooded northern and steppe and forest-steppe southern regions of Russia: for example, in the south they plowed with ral, in the north - with a plow; the northern dwelling was log-built, high, with a wooden roof, the southern dwelling was a semi-dugout with frame walls, earth floor and thatched roof. In numerous cities, handicrafts and trade, as well as ancient Russian culture, reached a high level of development. In the X century. writing appeared, then historical works (chronicles) and literature in the Old Russian language, one of the brightest monuments of which is the Tale of Igor's Campaign (XII century). For a long time there was a rich folklore - fairy tales, songs, epics. In the conditions of economic development of individual regions and specific fragmentation, as early as the 12th century. prerequisites were created for the formation of the Great Russian, Little Russian and Belarusian branches of the Russian people. The formation of the Russian people is connected with the struggle against Tatar-Mongol yoke and the creation of a centralized Russian state around Moscow in the XIV-XV centuries. This state included the northern and northeastern Old Russian lands, where, in addition to the descendants of the Slavs - Vyatichi, Krivichi and Slovenes, there were many settlers from other regions. In the XIV-XV centuries. these lands began to be called Rus, in the 16th century. - Russia. Neighbors called the country Muscovy. The names "Great Russia" as applied to the lands inhabited by the Great Russians, "Little Russia" - by the Little Russians, "Belaya Rus" - by the Belarusians, appeared from the 15th century. The colonization by the Slavs of the northern lands (Baltic, Zavolochye), the Upper Volga and Kama regions, which began in antiquity, continued in the XIV-XV centuries, and in the XVI-XVII centuries. The Russian population appeared in the Middle and Lower Volga regions and in Siberia. The Great Russians here came into close contact with other peoples, exerted economic and cultural influence on them, and themselves perceived the best achievements of their economy and culture. In the XVIII-XIX centuries. the territory of the state has expanded significantly. The accession of a number of lands in the Baltic States, Eastern Europe, the Black Sea region, and Central Asia was accompanied by the settlement of Great Russians in these territories.
The main ethnographic groups of Great Russians, differing in dialects (“okaying” and “okaying”) and ethnographic features (buildings, clothing, etc.), are northern and southern Great Russians. The connecting link between them is the Middle Great Russian group, which occupies the central region - part of the Volga-Oka interfluve (with Moscow) and the Volga region, and has both northern and southern features in dialect and culture. Smaller groups of Great Russians - Pomors (on the White Sea), Meshchera (in the northern part of the Ryazan region), various groups of Cossacks and their descendants (on the Don, Ural and Kuban rivers, as well as in Siberia), Old Believer groups - Bukhtarma (on the river . Bukhtarma in Kazakhstan), Semey (in Transbaikalia).
It is generally accepted that the East Slavic peoples who inhabited the Russian Empire are divided into three different peoples - Great Russians, Little Russians and Belorussians (Belarusians). In accordance with this division, the lands on which these peoples live are also called differently - Great Russia, Little Russia and Belarus. However, Great Russians is the name of the Russians, which became widespread in literature only from the middle of the 19th century.
The appearance of this name was preceded by the appearance of the name Great Russia, which was created by the clergy and began to enter the royal title even earlier - in the 16th century. In this connection, the Russian people who lived in Great Russia began to be called by a second name - Great Russians, and the Russian people - the Great Russian people. It is obvious that, starting from the naming of part of the Russian people as Great Russians, the Russian people who lived in the southwestern lands were also artificially called Little Russians.
And the Russians living to the northwest retained their name Belarusians, which originated from the name Belaya Rus, which all North-Eastern Russia had. Abroad, White Russia (White Russia) was also called the northeastern Russian lands. So, on the map of the world, compiled in 1459 by the Venetian monk Fra Mauro, Novgorod-Moscow Russia is called White Russia.
So the Russian people living on different lands developed second, parallel names that divided them according to nationalities, which, strictly speaking, contains a contradiction to logic and common sense. Because one people (Russian) cannot be three peoples at the same time, and three peoples (Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian - Little Russian) can be simultaneously one people.
To overcome this contradiction, which has arisen historically, it is enough to return the name of the Great Russians to its correct meaning and meaning. Namely, all three parts of the great Russian people, who made up a historically united and great whole, now called Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, should return the name of the Great Russian people that historically belongs to them by right.
Thanks to this, historical justice is restored, which consists in the fact that not only people who are now called Russians are Russians, but also Ukrainians and Belarusians. In addition, artificial national strife between parts of the triune people, which is actively nurtured and kindled by our enemies, is automatically eliminated in this way. At the same time, the currently used names of individual parts of the people - Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians - can continue to be used without changes, but with only one caveat: that together they form a single Great Russian people.
And now let's give a few quotes from the "Book of Veles", which has preserved for us the great testaments of our ancestors, which are especially important in the fateful trials now taking place.
“Get together and flow, our brothers, tribe after tribe, clan after clan!
And fight your enemies on our land, as it behooves us and never otherwise. Here and die, but do not turn back! And nothing will frighten you, and nothing will become of you.”
“From Orey - this is our common father with the Boruses - from the Ra-river (Volga) to the Nepr (Dnieper), the clans were ruled by relatives (elders) and veche. Every clan appointed itself a kinsman, who was the essence of the ruling. And when we went to the mountain, then (chosen) the prince, the governor over the people, so that he fought with the enemies for the glory of Perun "
“And when they began to count (the votes), some recited to be united, others recited otherwise. And then Father Ouray led his flocks and people away from them. And he took them far away, and there he said: “Here we will raise a hail. From now on, Golun will be here, which used to be bare steppe and forest.
“And Kitty went away. And he also took his people to other places so that they would not mix with the people of Father Orey.
“And the ides (other peoples) came to his land, and began to take away the cattle. And then Kisek attacked them. I fought with them first for a day, then for a second, and people fought. And sin came into those places, and many ate the remains, and people were killed with swords. And it became disgusting in Oriev's heart, and he cried out to his relatives:
“Support Kisek and his people! Saddle all the horses! And then they all rushed to the Yaz and fought with them until they were defeated. And then they began to know the truth that we had strength only when we were together - then no one could defeat us. The same is true that both of us were not defeated, for we are Russians and have received glory for ourselves from enemies who curse us.
“From morning to morning we saw the evil that was happening in Russia and waited for the good to come. And it will never come if we do not rally our forces, and one (this) thought does not reach us, which the voice of the forefathers tells us. Listen to him - and therefore do nothing else!
“Let us remember how our fathers fought the enemies, who now look at us from the blue sky and smile well at us. And so we are not alone, but with our fathers!
“And it was like this - the descendant, feeling his glory, kept in his heart Russia, which is and will remain our land. And we defended it from enemies, and died for it, as the day dies without the Sun, and as the Sun goes out.
Historical truth and Ukrainophile propaganda Alexander Volkonsky
6. Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians
We saw that before the invasion of the Tatars, a single nationality, the Russian, acted and dominated the entire space of what was then Russia. But we also saw that a hundred years after this invasion, from the XIV century, there is (for Galicia) the official name "Little Russia", a name from which in time the name of a part of our southern population will come from Little Russians. This population will develop a special dialect, its own customs, and in the 17th century there will appear some, albeit rudimentary, semblance of state independence. Such historical phenomena are not improvised; their roots must go back centuries - and are we not entitled to assume that already during the pre-Mongol period under consideration, some changes took place in the thickness of the people, preparing from afar the bifurcation of a single Russian people?
In 1911, the venerable professor Klyuchevsky, the newest of the luminaries of Russian historiography, a man gifted with an exceptional gift of penetrating the secrets of the past life of the people, died in Petrograd. From the touch of his critical chisel, historical figures fall off conventional outlines superimposed on their appearance by traditional, superficially repeated superficial judgments. You will not find either the embodiment of state virtues, or bearers of unparalleled villainy on the pages of his book, living people pass before you - a combination of selfishness and kindness, statesmanship and reckless personal desires. But not only Andrei Bogolyubsky or Ivan the Terrible are resurrected under his creative touch; the nameless, almost silent builder of his history also comes to life - an ordinary Russian person: he fights for life in the grip of harsh nature, fights off strong enemies and absorbs the weakest; he plows, trades, cunning, humbly endures and violently rebels; he longs for power over himself and overthrows it, destroys himself in strife, goes into dense forests to prayerfully bury the rest of his years in a skete, or runs away to the unrestrained expanse of the Cossack steppes; he lives a daily gray life of petty personal interests - those importunate engines, from whose uninterrupted work the skeleton of the people's building is built; and in the years of severe trials, it rises to high impulses of active love for the perishing homeland. This simple Russian man lives on the pages of Klyuchevsky as he was, without embellishment, in all the diversity of his aspirations and deeds. Major personalities, bright events - these are only milestones in Klyuchevsky's historical presentation: thousands of threads stretch to them and from them depart to those unknown units that, with their daily life, without knowing it, weave the fabric of folk history. The idea of Klyuchevsky, born in high area love for truth, for decades of scientific work has penetrated a powerful layer of historical raw material, transformed it and flows calmly, as a stream of exceptional specific gravity, impassive and free. Nowhere is there a phrase, nowhere does he stoop to a one-sided passion, everywhere he has, as in life itself, a combination of light and shadow, everywhere about faces, classes, nationalities, about epochs, an impartial, balanced judgment. In our age of slavish party thought and deceitful words, this book is mental delight and peace of mind. We can trust her. She tells about the branching of the Russian people as follows.
Kievan Russia reached its peak in the middle of the 11th century. With the death of Yaroslav I (1054), a gradual decline begins; its main reason was the continuous struggle with the Asian tribes, who put pressure on Southern Russia from the east and south. Russia fought back and went on the offensive herself; often united princely squads went deep into the steppe and inflicted severe defeats on the Polovtsy and other nomads; but some enemies were replaced by others from the east. The forces of Russia were exhausted in an unequal struggle, and finally she could not stand it, she began to surrender. Life in the border lands (in the east along the Vorskla, in the south along the Ros) became excessively dangerous, and from the end of the 11th century, the population began to leave them. From the XII century we have a number of irrefutable evidence of the desolation of the Principality of Pereyaslav, that is, the space between the Dnieper and Vorskla. In 1159 two men argued with each other. cousins: Prince Izyaslav, who had just taken the Kiev throne, and Svyatoslav, who replaced him on the Chernigov table. To the reproaches of the first, Svyatoslav replies that, “not wanting to shed Christian blood,” he humbly contented himself with “the city of Chernigov with seven other cities, and even then empty: houndsmen and Polovtsians live in them.” This means that in these cities there were only princely courtyards and peaceful Polovtsians who had gone over to Russia. Among these seven desolate cities, to our surprise, we also meet one of the oldest and richest cities of Kievan Rus - Lyubech, lying on the Dnieper. If the cities were deserted even in the very center of the country, then what happened to the defenseless villages? Simultaneously with the signs of the ebb of the population from Kievan Rus, we also notice traces of the decline of its economic well-being. Its external trade turnover was more and more embarrassed by the triumphant nomads. “... But the filthy ones are already taking away the (trading) ways from us,” says Prince Mstislav Volynsky in 1167, trying to move his brethren of princes on a campaign against the steppe barbarians.
So, the desolation of the southern part of the Kiev region in the second half of the XII century is beyond doubt. It remains to solve the question of where the population of the empty Kievan Rus disappeared.
The ebb of the population from the Dnieper region went in the XII-XIV centuries in two directions: to the northeast and to the west. The first of these movements led to the birth of the Great Russian branch of the Russian people, the second - to the birth of its Little Russian branch.
Great Russians
The resettlement to the northeast was directed to the space lying between the upper Volga and the Oka, to the Rostov-Suzdal lands. This country was separated from the south of Kiev by the dense forests of the upper reaches of the Oka, which filled the space of the current Oryol and Kaluga provinces. There were almost no direct communications between Kiev and Suzdal. Vladimir Monomakh (? 1125), an indefatigable rider, who in his lifetime traveled the length and breadth of the Russian land, says in his teaching to children with a touch of boastfulness that once he traveled from Kiev to Rostov through these forests - it was such a difficult thing then. But in the middle of the XII century, the Rostov-Suzdal prince Yuri I, fighting for the Kiev table, led entire regiments this way against his rival, Volyn Izyaslav, from Rostov to Kiev. This means that during this period there was some kind of movement in the population, clearing the way in this direction. At the very time when they began to complain about the desolation of Southern Russia, in the remote Suzdal Territory we notice intensified construction work. Under Yuri 1 and his son Andrei of Suzdal, new cities appeared here one after another. Since 1147, the town of Moscow has become known. Yuri gives loans to settlers; they fill its limits with "many thousands". Where did the bulk of the settlers come from - this is evidenced by the names of the new cities: their names are the same as the names of the cities of Southern Russia (Pereyaslavl, Zvenigorod, Starodub, Vyshgorod, Galich); the most curious cases are the transfer of a pair of names, that is, the repetition of the name of the city and the river on which it stands.
The fate of our ancient epics also testifies to the resettlement from the Dnieper region. They developed in the south, in the pre-Tatar period, they speak of the struggle against the Polovtsy, sing the exploits of the heroes who stood for the Russian land. The people in the south do not remember these epics now - they were replaced there by Cossack dumas singing about the struggle of the Little Russian Cossacks with the Poles in the 16th and 17th centuries. But the Kiev epics have been preserved with amazing freshness in the north - in the Urals, in the Olonets and Arkhangelsk provinces. Obviously, epic tales passed to the distant north along with the very population that composed and sang them. The resettlement took place even before the XIV century, that is, before the appearance of Lithuania and the Poles in the south of Russia, because in the epics there is no mention of these later enemies of Russia.
Who did the new inhabitants find in the Suzdal land? History finds North-Eastern Russia as a Finnish country, and then we see it as a Slavic one. This indicates a strong Slavic colonization; it took place already at the dawn of Russian history: Rostov exists before the calling of the princes; under St. Vladimir, his son Gleb already reigns in Murom. This first settlement of the country by Russians came from the north, from the Novgorod land and from the west. Thus, the Dnieper settlers entered the Russian land. But there were also remnants of ancient natives - the Finns. The Finnish tribes were still at a low level of culture, did not leave the period of tribal life, remained in pagan primitive darkness and easily yielded to the peaceful onslaught of the Russians. The pressure was indeed peaceful; there are no traces of a struggle. The Eastern Finns were of a meek disposition, the newcomer was also not possessed by the spirit of conquest, he was looking only for a safe corner, and most importantly, everyone had plenty of space here. At present, settlements with Russian names are interspersed with settlements whose names can be guessed of their Finnish origin; this indicates that the Russians occupied empty places between the Finnish sections. From the meeting of the two races did not come out of a stubborn struggle, neither tribal, nor social, nor even religious. The cohabitation of Russians with Finns led to an almost universal Russification of the latter and to some change in the anthropological type of northern Russians: wide cheekbones, a wide nose - this is a legacy of Finnish blood. Weak Finnish culture could not change the Russian language - there are only 60 Finnish words in it; some change in pronunciation.
So, in the Rostov-Suzdal land, the streams of the resettlement of the Russian element crossed and merged from the north-west, from Novgorod, and the south-west, from Kiev; in this sea of Russian nationality, the Finnish tribes drowned without a trace, only slightly coloring its water. The presence of Finnish influence is noticed by the research of specialists; it practically does not exist: not a single Great Russian of Finnish blood in himself feels and is not aware, and ordinary people do not even suspect its existence. Such is the ethnographic factor in the formation of the Great Russian tribe. The influence of nature on a mixed population is another factor. Klyuchevsky devotes several excellent pages to how harsh nature - frosts, downpours, forests, swamps - affected the economic life of the Great Russian, how it scattered him into small villages and made social life difficult, how it accustomed to loneliness and isolation, and how it developed the habit of patient struggle with adversity and hardship. “In Europe there is no people less spoiled and pretentious, accustomed to expect less from nature and more enduring.” A short summer forces an excessive short-term exertion of forces, autumn and winter - an involuntary long idleness, and “not a single people in Europe is capable of such short-term strain of labor that a Great Russian can develop; but nowhere in Europe, it seems, you will find such unaccustomed to even, constant work, as in the same Great Russia ”; "The Great Russian struggled with nature alone, in the wilderness of the forest, with an ax in his hand." Life in secluded villages could not teach him to act in large alliances, friendly masses, and "Great Russian is better than Great Russian society." You need to know the local nature and the local people in order to appreciate the mind that shines on these pages of Klyuchevsky, filled with that real love for the motherland, which does not want to speak out, but involuntarily sees through between the lines.
Let us take a look at the political conditions in which the process of formation of the Great Russian tribe took place. The Russians entered the Rostov-Suzdal land and settled in it freely, but the exit from it, further resettlement, met with obstacles. There were no strong foreign neighbors in the north, but there, along the rivers of the White Sea basin, Novgorod freemen have long walked; to go deep into the endless forest jungle, not owning the rivers, was useless. From the east, near the mouths of the Kama and Oka, in addition to the Finnish tribes, lived the Volga Bulgars, who represented a state force hostile to the Russians. From the south, nomadic Asian tribes obscured the space, and in the west, from the 13th century, the state of Lithuania began to take shape. Of course, the possibility of spread was not completely ruled out, but we will be close to the truth if we say that history took care to put the population of the Rostov-Suzdal lands for two centuries (1150-1350) in a separate position; it seemed to wish that the population, left to itself, would be reborn, merge, solder and form a certain tribal unity. And so it happened - and it happened to a large extent contrary to the understanding of the then numerous bearers of state power.
The population of the central part of European Russia, enclosed within the indicated limits, was part of a whole conglomerate of principalities. Tver, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Rostov, Suzdal, Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod - these are the capital cities of the most important of them. The Monomakhovichi, the descendants of Andrei's brother of Suzdal, the already mentioned Vsevolod III the Big Nest, reigned here. The order of succession to the throne in the Grand Duchy of Vladimir was the same as in Kievan Rus, that is, "the tribal order with frequent restrictions and violations."
Among the factors that led to the violation of the tribal order of succession to the throne, a new one appeared from the middle of the 13th century - the consent of the Tatar Khan. The multiplication of princes leads to the formation of local princely lines and to the establishment of dynastic interests of local grand principalities (Tver, Ryazan, etc.). With the weakening of the blood connection, the consciousness of the unity of the earth also weakens in the princely environment. The combination of these conditions leads to the fact that the more dexterous and strong of the local princes takes possession of the great reign of Vladimir; at the same time, he is limited only by the title of Grand Duke of Vladimir (and sometimes of Kiev), while he sits in his family capital city (for example, in Tver, in Kostroma). In 1328, John I Kalita, the prince of an insignificant inheritance of Moscow, turned out to be such a strongest of the local princes. Since this year, the picture has changed: the great reign forever remains in the tenacious hands of Kalita and his descendants.
The Moscow destiny was quite young: a continuous series of princes began here only from 1283; the inheritance was small in size (Kalita inherited only lands along the Moscow River and Pereyaslavl-Zalessky); the princes of Moscow were from the junior line of the Monomakhoviches.
What are the reasons for their initial success over their rivals, which laid the foundation for the future might of the Moscow principality? We list these reasons as they are established in the historical literature.
1. Moscow lay in the ethnographic center of the Great Russian tribe, here both streams of resettlement crossed - from Klev and from Novgorod; it lay at the junction of several major roads and on the trade route from Novgorod through Ryazan to the then Far East - to the lower Volga.
2. The Moscow inheritance was covered from foreign invasions or influences by neighboring principalities: the first blows of the Tatars were taken over by the principalities of Ryazan and Chernigov, the pressure of Lithuania was absorbed to a large extent by the principality of Smolensk.
3. The first Moscow princes were exemplary masters: they knew how to “invent” a neighboring inheritance to their inheritance by purchase or marriage, they knew how to attract and save money.
4. In relations with the Tatars, they showed exceptional resourcefulness: traveling to Golden Horde, deftly got themselves a khan's label for a great reign. They themselves collect tribute for the Tatars, send it to the Horde, and the Tatar "tributors" do not bother the Moscow population with their raids.
5. In other principalities - civil strife due to the seniority of the princes, and in a small Moscow family - the correct succession to the throne. In the Moscow principality it is calmer than in others, both Kiev and Novgorod settlers willingly settle in it, and the population from the eastern parts of the Suzdal land, suffering from Tatar pogroms and attacks from eastern foreigners, also flows to it. Silence and order attract prominent service people to the Moscow prince.
6. The higher clergy, brought up in the Byzantine concept of power, sensitively guessed in Moscow a possible state center and began to promote it. The metropolitans who moved (since 1299) from the decayed Kiev to the north of Russia preferred Moscow to the capital city of Vladimir. At the same time, Moscow formed the center of both political and church authority, and recently the small city of Moscow became the center of "All Russia".
The specific princes lived in petty interests, brought discord and confusion to the people, and the exhausted people wanted peace and quiet. Moscow gave him peace. “Before (from the day of the reign of John Kalita) silence is great throughout the Russian land for forty years,” the chronicle recorded. The people followed the path of ethnographic unification; “By the middle of the 15th century, a new national formation had taken shape in the midst of political fragmentation.” And Moscow created a political unification: by the middle of the 14th century, it had already absorbed quite a few destinies and was so strong that, according to the chronicler, the son of Kalita Simeon the Proud (1341–1353), “all the Russian princes were given under the arm.” Another thirty years will pass, and the Moscow prince will unite the Russian forces against the Tatars and boldly lead them away from Moscow, to the Kulikovo field, for he will enlist them not only to protect his inheritance, but to shield the entire Russian land with them. There, on the Kulikovo field, the national Moscow state will be born. A century later, a strengthened Moscow would take on another lofty national task - the liberation from foreign domination of the under-yarren parts of the Russian land: in 1503, the Lithuanian ambassadors would reproach John III, why he accepted the Chernigov (Prioksky) Rurikoviches who had passed to him from Lithuania with their inheritances. “Am I not sorry,” John will answer them, “for my patrimony, the Russian land, which is beyond Lithuania; - Kiev, Smolensk and other cities!
This is how the Great Russian tribe formed and united around Moscow. The private property traits of a petty appanage prince fell from the Moscow prince: he recognized himself as the head of a national state, and the people sensed their state unity. What national idea lived in these people? The aspirations of what nation did this sovereign embody? Great Russian? Anyone who knows Russian life will smile at this assumption. The Great Russian idea, the feeling of the Great Russian - there are no such goals and objectives and never existed. It would be ridiculous to speak, for example, of Great Russian patriotism. The national feeling that inspired Moscow Rus was not Great Russian, but Russian, and its sovereign was a Russian sovereign. The official Moscow language knew the expression "Great Russia", but as a contrast to other Russian regions - White and Small Russia; he understood this Great Russia (Great Russia) only as a part of a single, whole Russia: "By God's grace, the Great Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke of all Great, Small and White Russia Autocrat" - this is how this idea is formulated in the title of Moscow tsars. But Moscow hardly knew the term "Great Russian": this artificial, bookish word probably originated after the annexation of Little Russia - as a counterbalance to the name of its population. It has penetrated into wide use only in our days, after the revolution. The Kostroma peasant still had little suspicion that he was a Great Russian, just as the Yekaterinoslav peasant that he was a Ukrainian, and when asked who he was, he answered: “I am a Kostroma” or: “I am Russian.”
Little Russians
Let us return to the presentation of the conclusions of Professor Klyuchevsky. Another stream of ebb of the Russian population from the Dnieper region headed, as we said, westward, beyond the Western Bug, into the region of the upper Dniester and upper Vistula, deep into Galicia and Poland. Traces of this ebb are found in the fate of two peripheral principalities - Galicia and Volyn. In the hierarchy of Russian regions, these principalities belonged to the younger ones. In the second half of the 12th century, the Galician principality suddenly became one of the most powerful and influential in the southwest. From the end of the 12th century, under the princes Roman Mstislavich, who annexed Galicia to his Volhynia, and under his son Daniel, the united principality grew noticeably, densely populated, its princes quickly grew rich, despite internal unrest, disposed of the affairs of South-Western Russia and Kiev itself; The chronicle (1205) calls Roman "the autocrat of the whole Russian land."
The desolation of Dnieper Rus, which began in the 12th century, was completed in the 13th century by the Tatar pogrom of 1229-1240. Since that time, the ancient regions of this Russia, once so densely populated, for a long time turned into a desert with a meager remnant of the former population. Even more important was the fact that the political and economic system of the entire region collapsed. In Kiev itself, after the pogrom of 1240, there were only two hundred houses, the inhabitants of which suffered terrible oppression. On the deserted steppe borders of Kievan Rus, the remnants of its ancient neighbors - Pechenegs, Polovtsy, Torks and other foreigners roamed. The southern regions - Kiev, Pereyaslav and part of Chernigov - remained in such desolation almost until the middle of the 15th century. After South-Western Russia with Galicia was captured by Poland and Lithuania in the XIV century, the Dnieper deserts became the southern outskirts of Lithuania, and later - the southeastern outskirts of the united Polish-Lithuanian state. In documents from the 14th century, a new name appears for Southwestern Russia, but the name is not “Ukraine”, but “Little Russia”.
“In connection with this outflow of the population to the west,” says Klyuchevsky, “one important phenomenon in Russian ethnography is explained, namely the formation of a Little Russian tribe.” The Dnieper population, which found a safe shelter from the Polovtsy and other nomads in the depths of Galicia and Poland in the 13th century, remained here throughout the entire Tatar period. Remoteness from the center of Tatar power, stronger Western statehood, the presence of stone castles, swamps and forests in Poland, the mountainous terrain in Galicia protected the southerners from complete enslavement by the Mongols. This stay in the sole-begotten Galicia and visiting the Poles lasted two or three centuries. Since the 15th century, the secondary settlement of the middle Dnieper region has become noticeable. It is a consequence of the return ebb of the peasant population, which was “facilitated by two circumstances: 1) the southern steppe outskirts of Russia became safer due to the disintegration of the Horde and the strengthening of Muscovite Russia; 2) within the Polish state, the former quitrent peasant economy in the 15th century began to be replaced by corvée, and serfdom received accelerated development, intensifying the desire in the enslaved rural population to leave the lord's yoke for more free places.
In the next chapter we give some chronological data characterizing this return of the Russian population to their native places, but here we adhere as closely as possible to our author.
“When the Dnieper Ukraine began to be populated in this way, it turned out that the mass of the population who came here was of purely Russian origin. From this we can conclude that most of the colonists who came here from the depths of Poland, from Galicia and Lithuania, were descendants of that Rus that left the Dnieper to the west in the XII and XIII centuries and for two or three centuries, living among Lithuania and the Poles, preserved their nationality. This Rus, now returning to its old ashes, met with the remnants of ancient nomads wandering here - Torks, Berendeys, Pechenegs, etc. a tribe, because I myself do not have, and in the historical literature I do not find sufficient grounds to either accept or reject such an assumption; I still cannot say whether it is sufficiently clarified when and under what influences the dialectical features that distinguish the Little Russian dialect from both the ancient Kievan and Great Russian dialects were formed. I only say that in the formation of the Little Russian tribe as a branch of the Russian people (our italics. - A.V.), the reverse movement to the Dnieper of the Russian population, which moved from there to the west, to the Carpathians and the Vistula, in the XII -XIII centuries.
Everything that we have said so far about the Little Russians is a verbatim or almost verbatim extract from the course of Professor Klyuchevsky (T. 1. P. 351-354). We deliberately resorted to such a simplified way of presentation. The Ukrainophile Party does not hesitate to accuse its opponents of lies and fraud. Let her reckon not with me, but with Professor Klyuchevsky. There are the dead who are more difficult to slander than the living.
The last phrase of this excerpt contains a complete denial of all the current absurd allegations of Ukrainophile propaganda that there is some kind of “Ukrainian people”, and, moreover, of a different origin than Russian.
Klyuchevsky did not consider himself entitled to speak "decisively" when the Little Russian branch was formed and when the Little Russian dialect began to take shape. He knew what price his conclusions acquired, and did not dare to draw them finally, not being able to undeniably back up every word in them. For us, however, there is not the slightest doubt that the matter was exactly as he says. The population that came to Poland from the Dnieper in the 12th and 13th centuries came there as refugees, unhappy and devastated; in search of daily bread, it could not but disperse over foreign territory, could not occupy a different position in a foreign country, as a belittled one; religious strife protected, to a certain extent, the purity of Russian and Polish blood, but the language of Russian settlers could not help but succumb to the influence of the surrounding people: it absorbed many Polish words, and its pronunciation, of course, then began to change; this is how the Little Russian dialect was born. Staying on a visit to the western neighbors also brought a lot of Hungarian and Moldavian words into the Little Russian vocabulary. Returning to their homeland, the descendants of this Rus found here the descendants of the former nomads and Tatars: their blood sometimes shows through in the guise of a Little Russian, in the swarthyness of his skin and in his character. Beautiful country, where in the XIV and XV centuries the Little Russian tribe finally took shape, beautiful
... a land where everything breathes in abundance,
Where rivers flow purer than silver
Where the breeze of the steppe feather grass sways,
Farms are drowning in cherry groves...
Here the sun shines brightly, the snow lies only three months; there are neither the swamps of Polesie, nor the sands of the Don, nor the shallow expanses of the Black Sea steppes. Once upon a time, thick grass covered the head of the Ukrainian horseman here from the predatory gaze of the Crimean Tatar; now a heavy ear of wheat is swaying in quiet waves in the boundless fields, or a wide leaf of beet plantations is spreading. Magnificent are the oaks in the Ukraine, its pyramidal poplars, and the orchards are rich. Nature did everything to surround his happier southern brother with contentment and joy. And he appreciates the gifts of nature: his song is usually composed in joyful, major tones, and she sings about love and happiness; he loves the beauty and comfort of life; his white huts, surrounded by flowers, are poetic; cheerful and frequent parties in crowded villages; beautiful clothes, longer than in other parts of Russia, withstood the pressure of factory depersonalization. Charming humor is inherent in the very nature of the Little Russian and does not leave him either in the story, or in unexpected remarks thrown to the wind, or in a joke on himself. And with all this gaiety, some imprint of slowness and oriental immobility lies on his thinking; when a Little Russian comes to a decision, even an absurd one, you can’t convince him with any arguments of logic, and it’s not for nothing that other Russians say: “Stubborn as a Ukrainian.” But this stubbornness, perseverance, along with good physical data, makes him one of the best soldiers in the Russian army. He is an excellent, intelligent worker in the field, sparing no fertilizer even for his richest black land. His agricultural qualities developed not only thanks to his generous nature, but also due to economic and legal reasons: the Little Russian peasant is the full owner of his land, while the Great Russian mass of the peasantry until recent years (before the Stolypin reform of 1907) languished under the socialist yoke of the rural community, already many centuries ago almost realized the ideal of socialism - forced equalization according to the weakest.
Perhaps our characterization is somewhat artificial; it is understandable - we tried to emphasize the difference between the two branches of the Russian people. In life, the difference is less noticeable; in the cultural class it has completely disappeared. The Little Russians, who moved beyond the Volga and to Siberia or settled the Black Sea steppes together with the Great Russians, having become with them in the same natural conditions, are gradually losing, albeit slowly, their distinctive features; their speech, having enriched the speech of the Great Russian, gradually gives way to the common Russian language, and to the question: “Who will you be?” - such a migrant will answer either “Russian”, or “Little Russian”. But no one has yet heard in this case the answer: "I am Ukrainian."
The Little Russian tribe was formed in difficult political conditions. With the capture of Kiev by the Tatars (1240), the Kiev principality lost even external signs independence: for over a hundred years there is no mention of the Kievan princes. Mr. Grushevsky and he was forced to express doubts about their existence. In 1363, the deserted region became easy prey for Lithuania; in Kiev and other capital southern cities, members of the Gediminas family reigned. When Russia returned to the Dnieper region, it found foreign statehood here, and its fate since then (until the middle of the 17th century) remained in foreign hands. From the middle of the 16th century, the benevolent Lithuanian power was replaced by the callous power of Poland; under the influence of economic and religious oppression in the passively vegetating population, popular self-consciousness is awakening: the struggle against the Poles and against Catholicism, which appeared to them in the form of the “Polish faith”, fills the life of the Little Russian population for more than a hundred years. The reader will find the main facts of this struggle in the following presentation, but for now let us remember one undoubted historical fact: from the beginning of its inception to the day when it politically merged with the Muscovite state, the Little Russian tribe was never independent. History has pointed out to the three branches of the Russian people to lovingly intertwine in friendly unity: otherwise, a foreigner will tear them apart and trample on them with a ruthless heel for centuries.
Belarusians
Among the Slavic tribes mentioned on the first pages of the Nestor Chronicle, there are tribes of Krivichi and Dregovichi. Both names indicate the nature of the area in which these tribes settled.
The connection between the tribal name and the locality - a phenomenon characteristic of other Nesterov tribes - can serve as an indication of the close affinity of these tribes: one must think that before settling along the Russian Plain they did not have separate names; No wonder the chronicler testifies that they all had a single language - Slavic. The Krivichi lived along the upper reaches of the Volga, the Western Dvina and the Dnieper; their old cities were Izborsk, Polotsk and Smolensk. Dregovichi settled the space between the Dvina and Pripyat; the most important city here was Minsk. These tribes quickly merged with the rest that formed the Russian people, and their names soon disappeared from the pages of chronicles. Solovyov, having analyzed those two or three texts where Nestor names these tribes, no longer talks about them. They are, as it were, archaeological antiquities, interesting only in a museum, and who could have thought three years ago that the enemies of Russia would remember them for the practical purposes of modern life and take them out of there for speculation on the political exchange.
Belarusians occupy approximately the same area occupied by the Krivichi and Dregovichi tribes, and since there are no traces of any mass migrations in these areas, it can be assumed that the Belarusians are their descendants. We will not go into the differences between this branch of the Russian people and its dialect from the branches and dialects of the Great Russians and Little Russians, but we want to establish here with complete clarity that the Belarusians have always been and have always been considered part of the Russian people and that their land is, in essence, inalienable part of the Russian land. And in the Belarusian, as well as in the Ukrainian, issue, the enemies of Russian unity have a powerful ally - I mean little awareness of foreign public opinion in Russian geography, history and ethnography. To enumerate the elementary data will therefore be useful.
It is difficult to establish the exact boundaries of the settlement of Belarusians (and even more so the Nesterov Krivichi and Dregovichi), and it will be shorter and easier to trace the fate of the principalities into which the entire western strip of Russia was divided in antiquity - from Pskov in the north to the Kiev principality in the south.
Pskov existed even before the calling of the princes (862); St. Olga, the grandmother of St. Vladimir, was, according to legend, a native of Pskov. His area was part of the Novgorod land. The border position, the struggle with the Estonians, and then with the German Order, gave this Novgorod suburb a special significance, and it is gradually achieving independence from Novgorod; for this purpose, he sometimes invites (from the 13th century) Lithuanian princes to his place. This circumstance did not give rise to dependence on Lithuania: princely power was of little importance in the veche Pskov. It is known that the Pskov political structure is a typical example of the republican system in Russia; he succeeded here better than on the vast Novgorod land. The struggle with the Germans and quarrels with Novgorod forced Pskov to turn to Moscow, and from 1401 he received princes - henchmen of the Grand Duke, a hundred years later he was finally absorbed by Moscow: in 1509 Grand Duke Vasily III ordered the veche not to take place and the veche bell to be removed. Ethnographically, the Pskov region has been a Russian land since ancient times, and with the formation of a Great Russian tribe, it entered the Great Russian orbit.
Polotsk is considered a colony of Novgorod. Even Rurik, distributing cities to his "husbands", gave it to one of them. The Polotsk land was isolated early in a separate principality: Vladimir the Holy gave Polotsk to his son Izyaslav (? 1001), who became the ancestor of the most ancient of the local lines of Rurikovich. Initially, the principality embraced the lands inhabited by the Krivichi, who here took the name Polotsk; they lived along the middle reaches of the Western Dvina, along the Polot River and in the upper reaches of the Berezina. In the 11th century, the Principality of Polotsk spread to the sundown to the neighboring non-Slavic lands - to the Lithuanian, Latvian and Finnish tribes. XI and XII centuries - the time of the greatest strength of the principality: the princes are waging internecine wars with Novgorod and the Kiev princes. One of the grandsons - Izyaslav was for a short time the Grand Duke of Kiev. The Kievan Mstislav, the son of the Monomakhs, devastated the Polotsk land around 1127, exiled the local princes and placed his son in Polotsk. The veche beginning had a significant development in Polotsk. In the middle of the 12th century, the princes of Polotsk dominated the entire course of the Western Dvina, but in the same century the Germans settled at its mouth. In the 13th century, with the creation of the German Order of the Swordsmen and the emergence of Lithuanian statehood, the western border of the Polotsk land was moved to the east, and by the time the Tatars appeared, it coincided with the ethnographic Russian border. With the collapse of Russian statehood, the Polotsk land gradually passes into the power of Lithuania, and under Vitovt (1392–1430) it finally becomes part of the Lithuanian state. Polotsk land was divided into many principalities, of which the most important were Vitebsk and Minsk.
Vitebsk mentioned already in the tenth century. Since 1101, the Vitebsk inheritance stood out from the Polotsk principality; it lasted without interruption until the last years of the 12th century, when, due to internal strife, it came under the rule of the princes of Smolensk. In the 13th century it is again mentioned as independent. In the first half of the 13th century, it was attacked by Lithuanian princes; upon the death of the last Vitebsk prince - Rurikovich - the inheritance passes by kinship to Olgerd and is absorbed by Lithuania.
Minsk has been mentioned since 1066 as belonging to the Principality of Polotsk; the great princes of Kiev, including Vladimir Monomakh, take it more than once during the struggle with the Polotsk princes (for example, in 1087 and 1129). Minsk became the capital city since 1101; three generations of one of the Polotsk branches ruled here. In the second half of the 12th century, Lithuanian power was established in the principality. At the end of the XII century and the beginning of the XIII century, the principality was divided into many destinies (up to fourteen); among them are Pinsk, Turov and Mozyr, they lie in the basin of the Pripyat River. Thus, we reached the borders of the Kiev principality.
The Polotsk and Minsk principalities were the border strip of Russian land; in their rear lay the principality of Smolensk; when Lithuania moved to the east, it became a frontier.
Smolensk land has been known since the 10th century. It lay to the east of Polotsk and went far to the east, so that the place where Moscow later grew up was within its borders. Posadniks ruled it Kiev prince, but in the middle of the XII century it separated into a separate principality: in 1054 Yaroslav I planted his son Vsevolod in Smolensk. Then the son of Vsevolod Vladimir Monomakh and his descendants reigned here. They fought against the Polotsk relatives who wanted to annex Smolensk to their possessions. The waterway between Novgorod and Kiev and between Kiev and Suzdal land passed through Smolensk land; trade with the West was another reason for the prosperity of the principality. It reached its greatest power under the grandson of Vladimir Monomakh, Rostislav Mstislavich (1128–1161). Since 1180, the principality has been divided into appanages. There comes an internecine struggle for the possession of the Smolensk grand-ducal table; of the destinies, the more prominent ones are Toropetsky and Vyazemsky (both from the beginning of the 13th century). In the second quarter of the 13th century, Lithuanian attacks began. In 1242 the Tatar invasion was repulsed. Nevertheless, the glory of the principality fades: influence on Polotsk and Novgorod is gradually lost, communication with Kiev is terminated. In 1274 Smolensk submits to the Tatar Khan. Around 1320, a noticeable influence of Lithuania begins; the principality becomes a subject of contention between Moscow and Lithuania and fights first with one, then with the other. In 1395, Vitovt captured all the princes of Smolensk with "flattery" and installed a governor; Ryazanians stand up for this part of the Russian land, but in 1404 Vitovt takes Smolensk, and his independence ceases. The limits of the principality by this time were reduced to the size of the current Smolensk province.
On these lands, which became White Russia in a few centuries, the Slavic element has long since spread. They spoke Slavic here, “and the Slovenian language and Russian are the same,” Nestor wrote down; here, before the conquest of the country by foreign power, the Rurikovichs reigned everywhere; life was formed into forms common to specific Russia. The principalities fought among themselves, but it was a struggle with their own - not with a born enemy, but with a political rival. When danger for all of Russia was approaching from the east, the local Rurikovichs led their squads and local militias against a common enemy and died for a united Russia both in the Polovtsian campaigns and under the blows of the Tatars. So, in the first unfortunate meeting of the Russians with the Tatars on the distant southern Kalka River (1224), the Smolensk militia also fought. The famous Mstislavs - Brave (? 1180) and Udaloy (? 1228), - who fought in military affairs in all parts of Russia, were from here, from the Smolensk princes.
But the closest enemy of this part of Russia - Estonians, Letts, Lithuanians and Germans - lived in the west, and here, to the west, its main front was turned here in all ages. Initially, the power of Russia did not go beyond ethnographic limits; with the strengthening of Russian statehood, it passes them: Yaroslav the Wise in 1030 founds the city of Yuryev (Derpt) in the land of Estonians; in the 11th century, Polotsk began to subjugate the Livs; in the middle of the next century, all the lands along the lower reaches of the Western Dvina are dependent on the Polotsk principality; the Polotsk people own here the fortresses of Kukonoys and Gertsik; to the south, Lithuanian tribes pass under the rule of Polotsk, and Grodno is included in the Russian borders.
Since the 13th century, the picture has changed. In 1201, the Germans founded Riga, the next year the Livonian Order (Order of the Sword) was born - an instrument of bloody Germanization. Gradually moving eastward, in half a century the Germans ousted Russian power from the lands of the Latvians and Estonians; they settled here as the ruling class and went no further. On the other hand, Lithuanian power spread far into the depths of the Russian land.
Lithuanians in the ethnographic sense are an independent tribe, different from both the Slavs and the Germans. Their country is the Neman basin; they have lived here since ancient times with their separate lives. In the XIII century, they were captured by "international" life: the Teutonic Order was advancing from the west, Russians from the east and south. Mindovg (? 1263), who defeated the Teutonic Order and held Vilna, Grodno and even Russian Volkovysk and Russian Pinsk under his rule, is considered the founder of the Lithuanian state. Christianity and with it culture came to the Lithuanians from the east, from the Russians. Mindovg was the first Lithuanian prince to be baptized. After his death in Lithuania there is a struggle between the Lithuanian (pagan) and Russian (Christian) parties. Around 1290, the Lithuanian dynasty was established, later known as the Gediminids. Under Gediminas (1316–1341), the principality grew stronger: the new onslaught of the Livonian Order was stopped; the principalities of Minsk, Pinsk and some parts of neighboring lands come under the authority of Gediminas. Two-thirds of the territory of Lithuania consists of Russian lands; Russians play with him in Vilna leading role; he is titled "Grand Duke of Lithuania, Zhmudsky and Russian." After the death of Gediminas, the Germans, taking advantage of the division of Lithuania between several (eight) heirs, resume the onslaught, this time in alliance with Poland; but Olgerd (? 1377), the son of Gediminas, overcomes the order. All the thoughts of Olgerd, a Christian, twice married to a Russian (first to the princess of Vitebsk, then to Tver), are directed towards the Russian lands: he seeks to influence the affairs of Novgorod, Pskov, wants to own Tver, for which he makes trips to Moscow, but unsuccessfully. Around 1360, he annexes the Russian principalities of Bryansk, Chernigov, Seversk, takes possession of Podolia and, finally, in 1363 - Kiev.
Thus, within one century (from the middle of the 13th to the middle of the 14th century), the Lithuanian-Russian state, stretching in a wide strip from the north of the Dvina to the south beyond Kiev, united all the western Russian principalities, the entire basin of the right tributaries of the Dnieper; half a century later it swallowed up Smolensk. The beginning of this process coincided with the weakening of Russia from the Tatar pogrom; its rapid development was facilitated by a number of reasons. Let us recall that the power of the Galician Principality had faded a hundred years earlier (since the death of Prince-King Daniel in 1264), that the Muscovite State during the life of Olgerd was still a weak principality, whose borders to the west were a semicircle, separated from Moscow by only a hundred miles, that the process of the formation of the Great Russian tribe was far from being completed, finally, that subordination to Lithuania freed the princes of the devastated principalities of Western and Southern Russia from Tatar oppression - and we will understand the success of Olgerd.
There was another reason why Lithuania met with such weak resistance: the Lithuanian state from its very inception was under political and cultural Russian influence; Russian was his official language; the Gediminovich family, who were related to the Rurikovichs, became Russified - they were Russian princes, only of a new, Lithuanian dynasty; church life received direction from Moscow; in the principalities subordinated to Lithuania, the Lithuanian authorities did not violate either the political system or the people's way of life. By the end of the 14th century, Lithuania, both in terms of the composition of the population and the way of life, was a more Russian than Lithuanian principality; in science it is known under the name of the Russian-Lithuanian state. It seemed that the center of gravity of Russian state life did not know where to stop - in Moscow or in Vilna; a long duel began for this dominance; it lasted two centuries. Strong Muscovite sovereigns Ivan III (1462-1505) and Vasily III (1505-1533) begin to take away Russian regions from Lithuania and claim everything Russian that belonged to Lithuania. In the middle of the XIV century, in the 60s, the troops of Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584) took Polotsk and ruled in Lithuania. But here Poland also stood against Moscow: Moscow, united by their forces, had to yield.
We have traced the political fate of the Belarusian part of the Russian population to the end of the 13th century, but have not yet met with the influence of Poland on it. It is understandable: in the northern part of Belarus between the western border of the Russian nationality and the eastern ethnographic border of Poland lay a third nationality - Lithuanian, different from both Russian and Polish; she moved them apart by 150–400 versts. The Polish nationality spread to the east approximately to the meridian of Lublin. To the south of the parallel of Minsk and Mogilev, the borders of both peoples, Russian and Polish, touched; but even here, in the Belarusian south, their meeting could take place only after the Lithuanian statehood was absorbed by the Polish one.
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Previously, they arose outside the borders of our fatherland. Well, in fact, which of the Russians in their right mind will divide the Motherland and appoint the All Prince for a separate part. However, after Little and Great Russia in history, as it were, logically, there are also inhabitants - Little and Great Russia.
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And even in Soviet times, photocopies of various profiles of the young Volodya Ulyanov of the future Lenin were available. There, in the column, nationality was listed - Great Russian. Later, in 1914, in his work “On the National Pride of the Great Russians,” Vladimir Ilyich already speaks exclusively of Great Russians and Great Russians, repeating this word 28 times in the article, and only once mentions the word “Russians”. Source: Sotsial-Demokrat No. 35, December 12, 1914,
http://libelli.ru/works/26-3.htmFirst, let's fix a rooted error. It is generally accepted that "Russian" is a nationality. Someone sees an adjective here. And who was attached to whom? But they really applied it in every sense and not only in grammatical terms.
In fact, the "Russians" is an ethnocultural community, consisting of many genera. Geneticists in the concept of "Russians" see a whole bunch of descendants of the Slovenes of Ilmen, Krivichi, Vyatichi, Ulichi, Merya, Murom, .... Today, the concept of "Russian" is derived from North-Eastern Russia.
The science of genetics did not yet exist, and in tsarist Russia they perfectly understood who these “Russians” were. Curious words are attributed to the Emperor of Russia:
At a court ball, Emperor Nicholas I addressed the Marquis de Custine, the author of a Russophobic book about Russia popular in the West:
— Do you think all these people around us are Russians?
“Of course, Your Majesty.
- And here it is not. This is a Tatar. This is German. This is a Pole. This is a Georgian, and over there are a Jew and a Moldavian.
“But then who are the Russians here, Your Majesty?”
— But all together they are Russian!
Now they think so also abroad, calling the population of the country, repatriates or tourists from Russia exactly Russian, without distinguishing between Jews, Georgians, Ukrainians .... From Russia means Russian.
I. Stalin also adhered to this view, declaring - I am a Russian of Georgian nationality.
It looks like a paradox. Maybe a trick?
Another Ulyanov, who Nikolai Ivanovich is a historian and writer (1904-1985), gives such an explanation.
“The word "Great Russian" means an ethnographic group that stands at a low cultural level. The concept was created by Ukrainian separatism (Galicia), the revolutionary movement before 1917 and Russian liberals.
"Russian" is a historical category, an active creative layer of the people - the bearer of the soul and flame of our history ...
These are Russians, - says N.I. Ulyanov, - developed an educated stratum of the population, it was they who created the literary language, literature, music, theater, science ... ".
When did “Russian” appear in circulation as a mono-nationality? From the point of view of ethnography, two stages should be distinguished in this concept: before the 17th century and after 1917.
The concept of "Russians" after 1917 appeared through the efforts of the Bolsheviks, since before that they wrote in the accounting papers of Tsarist Russia: " so many Russians including so many Great Russians, so many Little Russians, so many Belarusians and so many Cossacks". And then Great Russians turned into Russians, and the Little Russians and Belarusians ceased to be Russian, clouded the origin of the Cossacks. The reason is shown in the very work of Lenin, mentioned at the beginning of the article, it says: "economic prosperity, and the rapid development of Great Russia requires the liberation of the country from the violence of the Great Russians over other peoples." “The slogan of national culture is a bourgeois deceit... Can a Great Russian Marxist accept the slogan of a national, Great Russian, culture? Not... Our job is to fight the dominant, Black Hundred and bourgeois national culture of the Great Russians». In other words, Great Russia must be liberated from the Great Russians, and most importantly, the population must be limited to the study of the revolutionary process and the history of the VKPb, later the CPSU. Which they did when they came to power.
Lenin considered Great Russian chauvinism a great evil and called Stalin "a rude Great Russian bullshit." .
Turning to archival materials, one can notice that in the passports of tsarist Russia, the count's nationality was not the main one. In other forms, it was generally absent. The name and surname were followed by “rank”, “religion”, “occupation”.
This view of nationality, at first divided and IN AND. Lenin. Developing the theory of the right of nations to self-determination, he was convinced that the unity of the proletariat was of paramount importance, and national feelings should eventually die out. The basic Leninist principles on this issue are contained in the materials of the VII All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b) in April 1917. But real life has made adjustments, and.
December 12, 1917 before the famous IV th Universal of 1918 created a state entity called the Ukrainian SSR, in addition, on the territory of the former Russian Empire other national republics and autonomies are also created. More about Ukraine. Ukraine as a republic was created even before the adoption of the Constitution of the RSFSR of July 10, 1918. And only later (December 30, 1922) was the union of the republics of the USSR formed.
Now in Ukraine, in gratitude for the beginning of its modern statehood, monuments to the founding father are being demolished. What did they teach at school instead of native history? And that's what they taught.
After 1917 there was a conscious sorting with national concepts. " The name of Russia has been removed from the facade of the country and replaced with the letters USSR. Each of the Russian branches is declared an independent people. Little Russia was called Ukraine, Belarus remained Belarus, but that part of Russia that ethnographers considered inhabited by Great Russians did not receive the name "Great Russia", it became the RSFSR. That is why in the shown work of Lenin there is no talk of "Russians". The leader avoided such a notion. In the USSR, this continued until the mid-1930s. The Soviet authorities only in December 1932 issued a decree "On the establishment of a passport system." But even in this case, the bulk of the population, the peasants, were deprived of their passports until the 1960s. By the way, in this regard, when the proletarian poet Mayakovsky wrote: "I get out of the wide trousers ...", then the PASSPORT was meant, because the ordinary population had to get other documents out of the trousers. Since 1918 it has been a work book and since 1923 - an identity card. In these documents, the count's nationality was absent. Lenin, a Marxist, did not recognize nationality as a count.
After Stalin came to power, the word "Russian" slowly comes out of oblivion. It was Stalin who proclaimed a toast to the Russian people at the celebration of the Victory. This, as we see, is not only a tribute to the people for the Victory. This is the return of the Russians to their rightful place in history. But Lenin's ideas in the field of national policy will rule the Chancellery for a long time to come. Until the second half of the last century, the nationality of the parents was not indicated in the birth certificate of the child, and in the modern Russian passport the nationality column again disappeared. Once again, they began to form Ivans, who do not remember kinship.
Only in late Soviet times did the TSB automatically put an equal sign between the concepts of "Russian" (from the depths of history) and "Great Russian" (from the 17th century).
Now the Slavic part of the inhabitants of modern Russia is called Russian, leaving behind its Ukrainian and Belarusian branches. The result is the strengthening of nationalist sentiments within and between the historical branches of the Russian people. It is impossible to solve the national question through the knee, because it is a question of national culture.
“The concepts of Russian and Russian language are the same age as the Russian state and Russian history. It has always meant something wider than the territory with which it is now associated.
“According to Prosper Merimee, “Russian is the richest language in Europe. It is designed to express the subtlest shades. Endowed with amazing power and conciseness, which is combined with clarity, he combines in one word several thoughts that in another language would require a whole phrase. It was created by all three branches of the Russian people, and not by one Moscow part of it, and calling it the “Great Russian” language of Muscovites is unscientific and unfair.”
Source: (link open from the search engine window).
CM. Solovyov and V.O. Klyuchevsky believed: in the old days there was Russia, and the Great Russians as a people appeared only in the 17th century. According to modern research, this happened even later. No sooner had the next people formed in stationery papers, as already in the 20th century, the Bolsheviks liquidated it.
But let us return from the theories of the Marxists to the depths of history.
The Great Russians did not just appear out of nowhere. They appear in the middle of the 17th century as a term that formed part of the pair Little Russian + Great Russian, of course, with a beautiful justification from court historians. But the couple was born again not within Russia, but as a consequence of "the flight of Prince Daniel of Galicia from Byzantium to the West" (I. Paslavsky). Initially, this pair of terms did not sound in Russian, but in Greek and Latin: according to cf. Greek Micro and Macro Russia that did not take root. But Latin is a different matter. When translated from Latin, through the efforts of translators, Rutenia minorum was turned into Little Russia.
After the translation of foreign terms into Russian, we got the now known Little Russia and Great Russia, with which Lenin and his associates will begin to fight in due time, but of course from the standpoint of Marxism. The mystery of the concept of "Russian" is overgrown with many layers.
Looking for origins.
History-centered thinking processes a kaleidoscope of information.
Rurik, Prince Svyatoslav, Vladimir ... and here is Daniel of Galicia, 1253. Daniel's mother is from Byzantium, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angel. As you can see, the dynastic marriages of Russian princes and Byzantine princesses were concluded more than once and not twice.
Mother asked her son to accept the papal crown, and he obeyed, for behind her stood a powerful clan Kamatirov, who supported the political line of the Nicene emperor for an alliance with the pope. Perhaps Daniil Galitsky decided to unite Russia with the help of the authority of the pope and reliance on his relative (son-in-law) Grand Duke of Vladimir Andrei, brother of Alexander Nevsky.
Daniel received from Pope Innocent IV not only the Latin crown, but also the Latin title Rex Russiae, King of Russia. The coronation took place with a claim to all of Russia. Only here what? It is more about borrowing an ethnonym here. Carpathian Rusyns, recognized by the UN as a national minority, considered themselves and still continue to refer to Russia. Hence the word "Rus" on the maps that are so fond of showing on Ukrainian forums. But Carpathian Rus is not Galicia, although someone really wants it to connect with the so-called. Kievan Rus. Here are the details on the map, http://otvet.mail.ru/question/81036739
Carpathian Rus, which refers itself to Russian culture, as well as the east of present-day Ukraine, is deprived of its native culture, the right to consider itself Russian and the right to speak its native Russian language. It is on this basis that the Svidomo are trying to prove that modern Ukraine is Russia, but of course with Ukrainian. Elderberry in the garden, uncle in Kiev. The statement is clearly not on friendly terms with logic.
Probably, for this reason, the events of the centuries-old past have already begun to be called Kievan Rus by modern researchers, although, firstly, the coronation of Daniel is Latin, and secondly, the jurisdiction of the prince was limited to the reality of Galicia and Volhynia. Which clearly does not correlate with the Carpathian Rusyns. In addition, the debate around the Carpathian Rus in science is far from over.
The union, which Prince Daniel agreed to when accepting the Roman crown, meant, in fact, the severance of church ties with Byzantium.
Another Russian prince, Alexander Nevsky, actively intervened in those events. He refused the papal crown offered to him as well, accepted twinning with Batu's son Sartak, and received Nevryu's army from his named father (Batu).
A bit of subjunctive fantasy.
And imagine for a moment that Alexander agreed to the crown of the pope, not noticing the catch. So what? In Russia, two kings in one state. The collision would give rise not only to sparks, but also to a fire that could destroy all of Russia, both small and great. But God did not allow this nightmare. Today, that project was taken out of naphthalene and they are again trying to push Russia against Ukraine. The result must be the same. Figuratively speaking, the omophorion (veil) of Boroditsa is spread over Russia, which is realized by the policy of the country.
According to historian S.M. Solovyov: "at that time there were no politicians in Russia more different in geopolitical vision than Daniil Galitsky and Alexander Nevsky." As a result of the confrontation between Alexander and Daniel, the established status quo was preserved in Russia, the Russian Church headed for autocephaly and the unification of Russian principalities under its patronage, and Alexander became her saint.
The clash of Russian giants, conceived in Rome, failed. In the words of the egeshniks: The fog with the crowns dissipated, and Daniil and Andrey saw the “Yoke” in the form of the Tatar cavalry Nevruy under the command of Prince Alexander Nevsky.
After Daniel title
Rex Russiae, the King of Russia is replaced by a more modest one. The next Galician Prince Yuri II Boleslav in Latin letters called himself only "prince of all Little Russia" (dux totius Rutenia minorum), which was reflected in the letter to the Grand Master of the German Order Dietrich in 1335.Thus, in the XIII century, the opposition of Galicia, “offended” by Alexander Nevsky, was born, devoid of claims to all of Russia, which modern Ukrainian historians stubbornly do not notice.
This is how the “incomprehensible” Little and Great Russia and the equally obscure Little Russians and Great Russians who inhabited them arose. And there is only one reason - to hide Russians origins, Russian culture and its history.
Recommended literature: RUSSIAN AND GREAT RUSSIAN, Nikolai Ulyanov, http://www.rus-sky.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7627#top , open the link from the search engine window.
To be continued.
