home Economy Books History of the world economy - Polyak GB

History of the world economy - Polyak GB

13. The economy of Kievan Rus (IX-XII centuries).

The formation of the state among the Eastern Slavs became a natural result of the decomposition of the primitive system and the emergence of new feudal relations. Widespread distribution in the VIII-IX centuries. Territorial community, the existence of private property and individual labor based on it, the separation of the property elite from the community, the concentration in the hands of the tribal nobility of power are such prerequisites for the formation of an early feudal state and the emergence of classes.

Headed by tribal alliances, the military leaders (princes) aspired to subordinate free community members, imposing on them a certain tribute necessary for the maintenance of the squad. At the same time, the norms of traditional law were rejected and neglected. At the same time, the foundations of the future state apparatus were laid. However, the vestiges of the clan system were not destroyed in the VIII-IX centuries. Elements of military democracy (veche, blood vengeance, etc.) persisted in the life of Old Russian society.

The formation of the ancient Russian state of Kievan Rus occurred in 882, when the Novgorod prince Oleg united the Novgorod, Smolensk and Kiev princedoms. He transferred the capital to Kiev and proclaimed himself the great prince of Kiev.

13.1. Formation of the Old Russian State

Population and Territory

The centers of education of the ancient Russian state were the cities of Kiev and Novgorod. Favorably located on the trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks", they united around themselves two groups of East Slavic tribes - the northern and southern.

In the sources there is no information on the number of people in Ancient Rus. The famous demographer B. Ts. Urlanis, using indirect data, believes that by the beginning of the second millennium AD, the territory of Kievan Rus was 1.1 million square meters. The population is 4.5 million people.

The territory of the ancient Russian state was formed from the lands occupied by the tribal unions mentioned in the "Tale of Bygone Years" (glade, Volhynians, Drevlyane, Northerners, Radimichi, Dregovichi, Krivichi, Vyatichi, Slovene, etc.). The original, the oldest was the state territory of the Middle Dnieper, in fact the Russian land , led by Kiev.

At the end of IX - the second half of XI centuries. The power of the Kiev princes extends to Novgorod the Great, Pskov, Smolensk, Rostov, Polotsk, Murom, Ryazan - the centers of vast lands located in the north, north-east and north-west of the East European Plain. In the south, too, continued expansion of the territory, primarily the Kiev proper, then the Chernigov and Pereyaslav princedoms. Included in the composition of the ancient Russian state, foreign languages, foreign languages ​​(muro, meria, goliad, etc.) became its constituent part. Kievan Rus has become one of the largest and most powerful states of medieval Europe.

The formation of the early feudal Old Russian state was of great progressive significance for the further independent political, economic and cultural development of the East Slavic tribes and other tribal associations that were included in its composition.

Tax system

With the formation of the state, the system of its relations with the population is developing, including the production of goods, the collection of taxes, the performance of military service.

Druzhina Russian prince

The very first form of domination and submission was the collection of tribute in favor of the state, which was called polyude . This tribute was collected from the entire population (people). Polyudye was an expression of the prince's supreme right to land and the establishment of the concept of citizenship.

To collect this tribute, the prince and his squad traveled every year from November to April, the huge territories under their control or sent their governors there. Food, furs, honey, wax, etc. were collected.

The size of the tribute, the place and time of collection were not determined in advance. Senior soldiers with their troops could collect more tribute than the prince. Such aggressive methods provoked a protest of the population. So, in 945 in the Drevlyan land there was an uprising against Prince Igor, he was killed. His wife, Princess Olga, conducted a tax reform, setting "lessons" - the norms of tribute, as well as the time and place of her collection - "graveyards". These were the points where the trade took place. The reform of Princess Olga was in Kievan Rus the first attempt to streamline the collection of tribute. A unit of taxation was introduced: in some places it was "smoke" (family), in others - "plow" or "ralo", when a separate farm was taxed. Several "smoke" were "court yard". Less often, the unit of taxation was a person.

With the development of large landownership and the strengthening of the state, the forms of exploitation changed and differentiated - in some cases the tribute turned into a tribute levied in favor of the prince, the state; In others - in feudal rent , paid to the feudal lord.

Monuments of law

Legal norms played an important role in strengthening the feudal system. The earliest, surviving to us monuments of Old Russian feudal law are the contracts of the Kiev princes with the Byzantine Empire (911, 944, 971), in which there is information about the "Russian Law". These contracts contain a number of articles on the right of ownership and inheritance, prisoners and "servants", etc.

But the first Old Russian code of laws was "Russian Truth", which operated from the 11th to the 15th centuries. The first part of the short version of the "Russian Truth", the so-called "Ancient Pravda", in all 18 articles gives a very limited range of punishable crimes: from murder, beatings to harboring a disguised servant, spoiling other people's weapons and clothing. Although it speaks of such a vestige as the right of relatives to commit blood feud for murder, the blood feud is already dying out and replaced by monetary fines for murder (by the Wyrs) on the verdict of the court.

"Russian Pravda" defined the privileges of the feudal lord, the position of the peasants and other groups of the peasants dependent on him, normatively enshrined the right of ownership of the feudal lord to the land. A whole series of articles provided for punishment for attempting to encroach on this property. Special articles established a punishment for plowing up the boundary, for robbing a boyar estate, for killing servants of the feudal lord (tiunov, ognists, etc.).

"Russian Pravda" reflected the origin of the feudal dependence of the population through both economic and non-economic coercion. Economic coercion was that the ruined smerd itself had to go into bondage to a secular or ecclesiastical feudal lord. In Russkaya Pravda, it is the orderlies and the purchases.

* Rajdovici - people who were hired for work on a number (contract). At default of obligations could become slaves. Prohibitions - community members who took a loan (coupe) for a certain period.

The "Pravda of Yaroslavichi" reflected the structure of the patrimony as a form of land ownership and organization of production. Its center was the mansion of the prince or boyar, the houses of his confidants, stables, cattle.

The process of feudalization

Initially, the Slavic tribes had no estates and all residents had equal rights. However, as the productive forces developed, certain groups of the population differed in terms of welfare and social status. Appeared to know, which included the "best", "lepshie", "big", "oldest", "deliberate" men. The highest status was occupied by "zemstvo boyars". These included representatives of the tribal aristocracy, descendants of clan elders, as well as traders who lived on the road "from the Varangians to the Greeks." The highest social strata were the supreme militia, the "prince's men".

In the X-XI centuries. In the Kiev Rus intensified the process of feudalization. This was manifested in the offensive of tribal chiefs and elders on communal lands. The intensification of the seizure of communal lands was due in part to the fact that by this time tilled farming and a two-field crop rotation system are being strengthened. Compared with the shifting and slash-and-burn systems in the two-field crop rotation, interest in securing land in permanent possession is greatly increased. Therefore, in Kievan Rus, private ownership of land is being intensively formed, a process is under way which has become known as the "oboyarivanie" of lands. Private ownership of the land was called patrimonial estate (paternoster). The estate belongs to the land, which can be bought, sold, handed over by inheritance. As a rule, it appeared through the accession by noble people of the land plots of other community members, in particular, impoverished. The lands of ordinary community members were often joined not by debt, but by force. Thus in Russia votchinniki turned into large landowners.

The ancestral lands could be princely, boyar, monastic, ecclesiastical. From this period, smerds not only pay tribute to the state, but also become dependent on the feudal lord (boyar) and pay him for the use of land obrok (natural) or work for corvee, although during this period still a significant number of residents remained independent of the boyars.