Background

Following the death of Yaroslav the Wise in 1054, Kievan Rus' experienced a period of civil strife between his sons Iziaslav, Sviatoslav and Vsevolod.^[11] The following century, this was followed by a period of political fragmentation and decentralization.^[11] The proliferation of many smaller principalities weakened political unity, and by the mid-12th century, the capital Kiev was in decline.^[11] The lack of political unity in part facilitated the Mongol conquest.^[12] The traditional view has been that Kiev was in economic decline from the mid-12th century; however, some recent historians have instead adopted the view that there was economic expansion in the late Kievan period as the creation of new appanages represented the division of labor and delegation of authority among the Rurikids.^[13]

13th–15th centuries

Following the Christianization of Kievan Rus' in 988, spiritual leadership belonged to the Byzantine Empire.^[14] However, from the mid-13th century, the Russian principalities were dominated by the Golden Horde following their conquest by Batu Khan.^[15] Previously, princes and grand princes governed themselves and only had to acknowledge the spiritual ascendancy of the Byzantine emperor, but during Mongol rule, they had to be confirmed by the Mongol khan in order to have any power, and the Russians later began referring to the khan as tsar – a title that had previously been reserved for the universal Christian ruler.^[16] The only Russian district that was not governed by a prince was Novgorod, although it still depended on an extraneous prince and his army to defend its borders.^[17]

Güyük Khan appointed his own governors to oversee the Russian principalities.^[18] The tribute was known as the dan by the Russians; its main purpose was not only to tax subjects but also to conscript young men into the Mongol armies.^[18] Although the Russian princes did not unanimously support Mongol supervision at first, Mengu-Timur was able to strengthen his ties with the Russian principalities by making the Russian Church cooperate with the Mongol administrators.^[19] In 1267, he made Russian clergy exempt from taxation and military service, which was in line with the Mongol policy of religious tolerance.^[19][20] From the 1260s, local nobles collected taxes on the khan's behalf, and in an attempt to gain the support of the nobility, the Mongols allowed them to keep their land.^[21] Until 1380, the khans of the Golden Horde exercised political control over the Russian principalities, and from 1380 to 1480, they continued to demand tribute from the Russian princes, although they did not always receive this.^[22] The period until 1480 is known as the "Tatar yoke".^[20] Extrapolating from 1549 data, George Vernadsky estimated the annual tribute to be approximately 145,000 rubles, plus an additional 25,000 rubles from Novgorod under a special tax, equivalent to 15.6 tons of silver.^[23]

The leading Russian figure was the grand prince of Vladimir, which led to a struggle among the princes for the title.^[24] The grand prince had the right to collect the taxes from all the princes on behalf of the khan of the Golden Horde.^[24][20] However, this role was a heavy burden on the prince.^[25] Aleksandr Nevsky became grand prince in 1251, and when the Mongol census-takers and tax collectors came to Novgorod, there was resistance against what the Chronicle of Novgorod describes as "accursed, raw-eating Tartars" until Aleksandr was forced to lead an army into the city.^[26]

By the early 14th century, two dynastic houses, those of Tver and Moscow, competed for the title.^[24] Due to conflict among the princes, political life in the Russian principalities was highly unstable, with at least 10 Russian princes being executed during the reign of Özbeg Khan.^[27] He later gave his support to Ivan I of Moscow, which allowed the house of Moscow to eventually dominate the other principalities, and later challenge the Golden Horde itself.^[28][29] The seat of the Russian metropolitan was also moved to Moscow in 1325, establishing it as the spiritual center of Russian Orthodoxy.^[30][31][32] Jani Beg (r. 1342–1357) continued to support the house of Moscow and relations between the Russian principalities became stable.^[33] He was also able to maintain the balance of power between Moscow, Tver and Nizhny Novgorod.^[34]

By 1371, Dmitry Donskoy was recognized as the grand prince of Moscow and Vladimir by both the Tatars and his cousins, and thus, the grand principality became his patrimony (otchina).^[35] In his 1389 will, he was able to bequeath his "patrimony, the grand principality" to his eldest son.^[36] Despite this, in the late 14th century, the grand prince of Moscow had little effective control over the other major political centers: Novgorod, Tver, Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal and Ryazan.^[37] Although the other Russian principalities rarely challenged Moscow's hegemony directly, they grew increasingly independent in their relations with the Golden Horde and Lithuania, with some princes styling themselves as grand princes.^[37] However, this has been a point of contention among historians, with Anton Gorsky [ru] arguing that Nizhny Novgorod and Tver were only able to claim the status of grand principality in the 1360s.^[38]

Vasily I of Moscow was able to take advantage of the political strife within the Golden Horde.^[39] In 1392, he visited the court of Tokhtamysh, whose forces had recently been defeated by Timur, and was given permission to take the throne of Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal.^[39] However, the principality was not fully incorporated until the mid-15th century.^[23] After Tokhtamysh's forces were destroyed in 1395, Vasily stopped paying tribute.^[40] However, after Edigu launched a devastating invasion in 1408 and Tatar raids continued in the following years, Vasily was forced to resume paying tribute and visit the khan to renew his patent to the throne.^[40] Once the Golden Horde fragmented into several smaller khanates, the grand princes of Moscow were able to eventually assert their authority over other Russian princes without Tatar approval; once the grand prince adopted the title of sovereign of all Russia, this marked the beginning of a new period.^[41]

End of the appanage period

Between the accessions of Ivan III in 1462 and Ivan IV in 1533, there was not only the "gathering of the Russian lands" that took place but also the development of an autocratic power structure.^[42] Although Ivan III did not completely end the practice of creating appanages, he saw appanages as a source of disunity and was able to bring the appanages inherited by his younger brothers under his effective control.^[43] He bequeathed two-thirds of his lands to his son Vasily, while the remaining third was divided among his four younger sons, but their authority was strictly limited.^[43] The last person to be granted an appanage principality was Ivan IV's son, Dmitry, who was given Uglich, in 1584.^[44]

This "gathering of power" over the other principalities involved the extension of patrimonial power by applying the principle of the votchina to them.^[42] The Russian Church supported this process, thereby implying that the Muscovite rulers "had an explicitly religious referent that did not include a discourse on natural law".^[45] As a result, the concept of popular sovereignty did not develop, and to integrate new territories, local elites were absorbed into the court of the grand prince.^[45] Around the same time, the system of mestnichestvo was also developed.^[45]

The Russian Church not only preserved the idea of unity amidst political fragmentation but also influenced attitudes toward service, with nobles expected to serve the Muscovite ruler without the right to depart.^[46] The monk Joseph of Volokolamsk, for instance, said the grand prince "was the master of all masters of the Russian land".^[46] The dependence of the metropolitan also changed when the Russian Church became de facto autocephalous in 1448; the metropolitan was no longer confirmed by the patriarch of Constantinople, and thus became even more dependent on the grand prince, although the roots of this dependence go back to the Byzantine idea of symphonia.^[47]

The relative swiftness of the strengthening of grand princely power, when compared to contemporary composite monarchies, meant that regional identities remained weak.^[48] Not only were local elites absorbed, but the policy of gathering Russian lands meant that local self-government was also not tolerated, leading to the termination of the autonomies of Novgorod and Pskov in 1478 and 1510, respectively.^[48] Moscow's absorption of Ryazan, the last remaining independent Russian principality, was little more than a formality;^[49] it was dependent on Moscow until Oleg Ivanovich was deposed in 1520 and the principality was formally annexed the following year.^[50] However, according to the historian Andreas Kappeler, in the territories acquired through expansion—such as the southern steppe and Siberia—the Russian government, "centralist and autocratic, was confronted with the task of integrating societies which possessed a corporate organization, different estates and regional traditions".^[48] As a result, the government treated the oaths given by nomadic peoples and the indigenous Siberians as an act of eternal submission, which allowed them to remain largely undisturbed.^[48] The image of the Russian Orthodox community playing a unifying role helped ensure that Russia did not become a composite state.^[51][52]