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The history of the world economy - Polyak GB

14.3. Completing the unification of Russian lands around Moscow.

Restoring the ruined economy of the Mongols

At the end of XIII - beginning of XIV centuries. Russian land, subjected to invasion, began to recover from the devastation. Master more productive two- and three-field system. It began manuring the fields of organic fertilizers. Increased livestock value.

Restored town again settled artisans and merchants. Based new cities often become the capitals of principalities, the large craft and shopping centers. There is a significant increase in material production, the development of commodity-money relations. Consist manorial system of land tenure and the new class - service nobility, which was formed from the former feudal princes, the patrimonial nobility, passed into the service of the Grand Duke, the representatives of the lower strata - the palace servants, fugitive people, as well as immigrants from Lithuania, Poland, the Golden Horde. It was the class that stood for the unification of Russian lands into a single state.

In the XV century. in the North-Eastern Russia, "black" land still predominated over ancestral lands. Those who lived on these lands chernososhnye peasants paid tribute and taxes to the state. Another category of the peasantry were vladelchiskie farmers who were farming their land in a separate patrimony and were personally dependent on the feudal lord, the benefit of which perform a variety of works. This personal dependence (serfdom) peasants from feudal or feudal state in property, legal and otherwise, based on the attachment of peasants to the land lord, evolved gradually. In the feudal period the formation of serfdom system was reflected in the increase of duties and restrictions on the right leaving the peasants from the landlord (St. George's Day, XV c.).

Moscow Rise

In the second half of the XIII century. Moscow has become a major trading and artisan town, and by the middle of the XIV century. in the territory to the north of Moscow there are many villages. Moscow put forward as a collector of Russian lands. This is conducive to objective factors: the geographical environment, the influx of population, the presence of trade routes, the formation of the Russian national signs and subjective factor: active and skillful policy of the Moscow princes. Ivan I Kalita received from the Horde shortcut to the Grand Principality in 1328 and not released until the end of his life. He greatly expanded the territory of the Moscow principality. From the Horde, he also received the right to collect tribute from all the great and fiefdoms. The main positive result of this was the establishment of the rights of financial and economic dependence on the Russian principalities of Moscow and formation on this basis of economic and foreign policy Union of Russian princes. Personally leading the calculations of the Horde, Ivan I put myself at the mercy of other princes. Streamlining the economic relations with the Golden Horde contributed to the cessation of attacks on Russian land with 1328 by 1368. Ivan Kalita laid the foundations of the power of the Moscow principality in his reign there were 97 towns and villages, which developed crafts and trades. During his Moscow principality was the largest, economically and politically the strongest in the North-Eastern Russia, turned into the center of the future of Russian centralized state. To challenge this right from Moscow was difficult.

Coins of Ivan III with the Tatar inscriptions

Progress in economic and political development of the Moscow Principality were used Dmitri Donskoi future. He came into open conflict with the Golden Horde. In 1378 the Mongol-Tatars were defeated by the united Russian troops on Vozha River (a tributary of the Oka). Since that time, the struggle against the Horde took on the character of organized military battles. Another brilliant victory of Russian troops led by Dmitry was won September 8, 1380 at the Kulikovo field, which resulted in the Moscow of the main town of the North-Eastern Russia has become a recognized national capital, unites Russian land.

In 1478, Ivan III stopped paying tribute to the Golden Horde. He correctly identified the forces of Russia, she was able to defend its full independence. "Great standing on the Ugra" in the autumn of 1480 ended with the defeat of the Tatars. Takes place in parallel with the fight against the Tartar yoke conversion process is a set of independent Russian principalities to the end in a single state.

In general, for many Western European countries in the social, economic and political process of folding a single state Russia had a number of features: a feudal fragmentation, the grave consequences of the Mongol-Tatar invasion, slow economic development Russian land; accelerate the unification process need to fight against external enemies and the Mongol yoke; initial overcoming of political rather than economic fragmentation of the country.

Review Questions

1. Explain the reasons for the transition to a Kievan Rus feudal fragmentation.

2. Describe the economic activities of Russian lands in the pre-Mongol period.

3. What are the forms of land tenure that existed in Russia in the XI- XIII centuries.

4. Tell us about the social and economic consequences of the Mongol invasion of Russia.

5. How is the restoration and further development of the economy in the XIV-XV centuries.?

6. What reasons have contributed to the rise of Moscow?

7. Describe the process of enslavement of peasants took place in the XI-XV centuries.