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152-570: Ratne is mentioned in old Ruthenian documents at the end of 12th - beginning of 13th centuries. It served as a border town where Great Prince kept his garrison ( rat ). The town was devastated during the Mongol invasion. In the 13th century the town housed the Ratne monastery whose hegumen was Peter of Moscow . After the Galicia-Volhynia Wars , in 14th century the territory around Ratne was annexed by

304-547: A cloak; rather the men among them wear garments that only cover half of his body and leaves one of his hands free." Liutprand of Cremona , who was twice an envoy to the Byzantine court (949 and 968), identifies the "Russi" with the Norse ("the Russi, whom we call Norsemen by another name") but explains the name as a Greek term referring to their physical traits ("A certain people made up of

456-570: A defenseless Asia Minor. Turks raided at will, ever further to the west.” Though the Crusades assisted Byzantium in driving back some of the Turks, they went far beyond the military assistance envisaged by Alexios I. Instead of following the strategic necessities of the war against the Turks, the Crusaders were focussed on the quest of re-conquering Jerusalem , and instead of returning territory to Byzantium,

608-757: A domain in north-western Asia Minor. Attempts by the Byzantine Emperors to drive back the Ottomans were unsuccessful, and ceased in 1329 with the Battle of Pelekanon . Following a number of civil disputes in the Byzantine Empire, the Ottomans subjugated the Byzantines as vassals in the late 14th century and attempts to relieve this vassal status culminated in the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Apostolos Vakalopoulos Describes

760-608: A foothold in the Balkans under the leadership of Orhan Gazi and his son Murad I . They rapidly conquered the Byzantine heartland over the course of the 14th century leading to the Fall of Trebizond and the Fall of Constantinople by the army of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror in the 15th century. While internal struggles continued between the Ottomans and other Turkish rulers in Anatolia, with

912-607: A heresy. The Persecution of Armenians had enormous consequences for the eastern defenses of the Byzantine empire. The Conquests of the Seljuk turks was made much easier than it otherwise would have been due to the Christian peoples fighting among themselves. Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos was frustrated with the continued resistance of the Armenians and so secretly contacted the Seljuk sultan Tugrul Beg in 1044 and urged him to attack

1064-462: A mythic tale of Oleg's death. A sorcerer prophesies that the death of the prince would be associated with a certain horse. Oleg has the horse sequestered, and it later dies. Oleg goes to visit the horse and stands over the carcass, gloating that he had outlived the threat, when a snake strikes him from among the bones, and he soon becomes ill and dies. The Chronicle reports that Prince Igor succeeded Oleg in 913, and after some brief conflicts with

1216-414: A navy to attack the city in 863–66, catching the Byzantines by surprise and ravaging the surrounding area, though other accounts date the attack in 860. Patriarch Photius vividly describes the "universal" devastation of the suburbs and nearby islands, and another account further details the destruction and slaughter of the invasion. The Rus' turned back before attacking the city itself, due either to

1368-697: A number of states. This was seen in the Stalinist period, when Soviet historiography sought to distance the Rus' from any connection to Germanic tribes, in an effort to dispel Nazi propaganda claiming the Russian state owed its existence and origins to the supposedly racially superior Norse tribes. More recently, in the context of resurgent nationalism in post-Soviet states, Anglophone scholarship has analyzed renewed efforts to use this debate to create ethno-nationalist foundation stories, with governments sometimes directly involved in

1520-670: A part of the Norse, whom the Greeks call [...] the Russi on account of their physical features, we designate as Norsemen because of the location of their origin."). Leo the Deacon , a 10th-century Byzantine historian and chronicler, refers to the Rus' as " Scythians " and notes that they tended to adopt Greek rituals and customs. According to the Primary Chronicle , the territories of the East Slavs in

1672-410: A scholarly consensus (at least outside of nationalist historiography), was summarized by the historian, F. Donald Logan, "in 839, the Rus were Swedes ; in 1043 the Rus were Slavs ". Ahmad ibn Fadlan , an Arab traveler during the 10th century, provided one of the earliest written descriptions of the Rus': "They are as tall as a date palm , blond and ruddy, so that they do not need to wear a tunic nor

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1824-574: A series of disastrous trade deals with the Italian states; drying up one of the empire's final sources of revenue. This further led to competition between Venice, and Genoa to get emperors on the throne who supported their respective trade agenda to the detriment of the other, adding another level of instability to the Byzantine political process. By the time of the Byzantine–Genoese War (1348–49) , only thirteen percent of custom dues passing through

1976-453: A sort of camp. During the next three months nearly all of them were slaughtered. A handful from Ratne and the surrounding villages joined various Soviet partisan units. Until 26 January 2024, Ratne was designated urban-type settlement . On this day, a new law entered into force which abolished this status, and Ratne became a rural settlement. This article about a location in Volyn Oblast

2128-411: A staunch pagan . Due to his abrupt death in an ambush in 972, Sviatoslav's conquests, for the most part, were not consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to establish a stable succession led to a fratricidal feud among his sons, which resulted in two of his three sons being killed. It is not clearly documented when the title of grand prince was first introduced, but the importance of

2280-712: A storm dispersing their boats, the return of the Emperor, or in a later account, due to a miracle after a ceremonial appeal by the Patriarch and the Emperor to the Virgin. The attack was the first encounter between the Rus' and Byzantines and led the Patriarch to send missionaries north to engage and attempt to convert the Rus' and the Slavs. Rurik led the Rus' until his death in about 879 or 882, bequeathing his kingdom to his kinsman, Prince Oleg , as regent for his young son, Igor . According to

2432-592: A synod was convoked at the Hagia Sophia on 16 July where both Nikephoros and John were anathematized in return. John called a final synod at Neopatras in December 1277, where an anti-unionist council of eight bishops, a few abbots, and one hundred monks, again anathematized the Emperor, Patriarch, and Pope. The Armenians were persecuted due to their belief in Monophysite Christianity which the Byzantines saw as

2584-548: A viable long-term alternative, and the result was an empire that depended more than ever before on the strengths of each individual emperor or dynasty. The collapse of imperial power and authority after 1185 revealed the inadequacy of this approach. After the deposition of Andronikos I Komnenos in 1185, the dynasty of the Angeloi oversaw a period of military decline. From 1185 onwards, Byzantine emperors found it increasingly difficult to muster and pay for sufficient military forces, while

2736-429: A wide border with a large and powerful empire of Nomadic horse archers whose style of fighting they were not used to, and they could no longer rely on the Armenians (who they had disarmed and persecuted) for assistance. After a century of successful expansions due to the competent warrior Emperors Basil I and Basil II, a false sense of security seemed to have prevailed among the new Byzantine leadership. Rule “passed into

2888-521: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Kyivan Rus Kievan Rus' , also known as Kyivan Rus ' , was the first East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century. Encompassing a variety of polities and peoples, including East Slavic , Norse , and Finnic , it was ruled by the Rurik dynasty , founded by

3040-556: Is a bitter narration, worthy of copious tears. The persecution that the Armenians suffered at the hands of the Byzantine government became so bad that many Armenian troops upon which the Byzantines were relying to man the border defenses deserted their posts, leading Lastivertsi to lament: “The cavalry wanders about lordlessly, some in Persia, some in Greece, some in Georgia.” Some Armenians even joined

3192-502: Is due largely to a paucity of contemporary sources. Attempts to address this question instead rely on archaeological evidence, the accounts of foreign observers, and legends and literature from centuries later. To some extent the controversy is related to the foundation myths of modern states in the region. This often unfruitful debate over origins has periodically devolved into competing nationalist narratives of dubious scholarly value being promoted directly by various government bodies in

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3344-530: Is more likely that he adopted Byzantine Christianity in order to strengthen his diplomatic relations with Constantinople. Vladimir's choice of Eastern Christianity may have reflected his close personal ties with Constantinople, which dominated the Black Sea and hence trade on Kiev's most vital commercial route, the Dnieper River . According to the Primary Chronicle , Vladimir was baptised in c. 987, and ordered

3496-404: Is no hope of escaping the murderous blade." Historian Warren Treadgold gives a summary on the historical background highlighting the cumulative effects of the relentless Turkish Muslim depredations against the Byzantine Empire in its Anatolian heartland by the late 14th century: As the Turks raided and conquered, they enslaved many Christians, selling some in other Muslim regions and hindering

3648-427: Is said to have founded a school system. Yaroslav's sons developed the great Kiev Pechersk Lavra ( monastery ). In the centuries that followed the state's foundation, Rurik's descendants shared power over Kievan Rus'. The means by which royal power was transferred from one Rurikid ruler to the next is unclear, however, historian Paul Magocsi mentioned that 'Scholars have debated what the actual system of succession

3800-453: Is said, 100,000 people perished, and at Touch 120,000 were massacred and 150,000 sold into slavery—thus the destruction went on. Whole districts were depopulated. ‘When the Turks had passed by, such as were left alive feared to return...trusting in neither the walls of their cities, nor the crags of the mountains, they crowded into Constantinople where they were decimated by plague. In a few years Cappadocia, Phrygia, Bithynia, and Paphlagonia lost

3952-464: Is what happened to the district of Sangarius, for example, which Michael VIII Palaeologus had known formerly as a prosperous, cultivated land, but whose utter desolation he afterwards surveyed in utmost despair…. The mountainous region between Nicaea and Nicomedia, opposite Constantinople, once clustered with castles, cities, and villages, was depopulated. A few towns escaped total destruction—Laodicea, Iconium, Bursa (then Prusa), and Sinope, for example—but

4104-559: The Primary Chronicle , the first ruler to unite East Slavic lands into what would become Kievan Rus' was Oleg the Wise ( r.  879–912 ). He extended his control from Novgorod south along the Dnieper river valley to protect trade from Khazar incursions from the east, and took control of the city. Sviatoslav I ( r.  943–972 ) achieved the first major territorial expansion of

4256-648: The Byzantine Empire by the Serbs, whose ruler took advantage of the chaos to proclaim himself emperor of the Serbs and Greeks. The Serbian king Stefan Uroš IV Dušan made significant territorial gains in Byzantine Macedonia in 1345 and conquered large swathes of Thessaly and Epirus in 1348. In order to secure his authority during the civil war, Kantakouzenos hired Turkish mercenaries. Although these mercenaries were of some use, in 1352 they seized Gallipoli from

4408-489: The Empire of Nicaea , the damage was never reversed and the empire never returned to anywhere near its former territorial extent, wealth and military power. The third period of civil war took place in the 14th century. Two separate periods of civil war, again making extensive use of Turkish, Serbian and even Catalan troops, often operating independently under their own commanders, and often raiding and destroying Byzantine lands in

4560-631: The Finnish designation for Sweden or Ros , a tribe from the middle Dnieper valley region. According to the prevalent theory, the name Rus ' , like the Proto-Finnic name for Sweden ( *rootsi ), is derived from an Old Norse term for 'men who row' ( rods- ) because rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roslagen ( Rus-law ) or Roden . The name Rus ' would then have

4712-571: The Hunnic invasion of the 370s halted Christianisation for several centuries. Some of the earliest Kievan princes and princesses such as Askold and Dir and Olga of Kiev reportedly converted to Christianity, but Oleg , Igor and Sviatoslav remained pagans. The Primary Chronicle records the legend that when Vladimir had decided to accept a new faith instead of traditional Slavic paganism , he sent out some of his most valued advisors and warriors as emissaries to different parts of Europe. They visited

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4864-669: The Kingdom of Poland . Ratne was granted Magdeburg city rights by Polish King Władysław III in the 15th century. From 1366 until the partitions of Poland it was part of the Chełm Land . It was a royal city of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland . From 1921 to 1939 it was part of the Volhynian Voivodeship of Poland . The city had a significant Jewish population before World War II. During

5016-569: The Polotsk Princes . The position of the grand prince of Kiev was weakened by the growing influence of regional clans. The rival Principality of Polotsk was contesting the power of the Grand Prince by occupying Novgorod, while Rostislav Vladimirovich was fighting for the Black Sea port of Tmutarakan belonging to Chernigov. Three of Yaroslav's sons that first allied together found themselves fighting each other especially after their defeat to

5168-511: The Primary Chronicle , Vladimir assembled a host of Varangian warriors, first subdued the Principality of Polotsk and then defeated and killed Yaropolk, thus establishing his reign over the entire Kievan Rus' realm. Although sometimes solely attributed to Vladimir, the Christianization of Kievan Rus' was a long and complicated process that began before the state's formation. As early as

5320-468: The Primary Chronicle , in 880–82, Oleg led a military force south along the Dnieper river, capturing Smolensk and Lyubech before reaching Kiev, where he deposed and killed Askold and Dir: "Oleg set himself up as prince in Kiev, and declared that it should be the "mother of Rus' cities". Oleg set about consolidating his power over the surrounding region and the riverways north to Novgorod, imposing tribute on

5472-787: The Sack of Constantinople in 1204. Constantinople was now itself a Crusader state , known as the Latin Empire in historiography, but from the Greek perspective as Frankokratia or "rule of the Franks". Vestiges of imperial power were preserved in regional realms, the Nicaean Empire , Trebizond and Epirus . Much of the Nicaean Emperors' efforts now went into combating the Latins, and even after Constantinople

5624-412: The Sack of Constantinople ; Constantinople was burned, pillaged and destroyed, thousands of its citizens were killed, many of the surviving inhabitants fled, and much of the city became a depopulated ruin. The damage to Byzantium was incalculable; many historians point to this moment as a fatal blow in the empire's history. Although the empire was reformed in 1261 by the recapture of the city by forces from

5776-707: The Slavic peoples . This literature facilitated the conversion to Christianity of the Eastern Slavs and introduced them to rudimentary Greek philosophy , science, and historiography without the necessity of learning Greek (there were some merchants who did business with Greeks and likely had an understanding of contemporary business Greek). Following the Great Schism of 1054, the Kievan church maintained communion with both Rome and Constantinople for some time, but along with most of

5928-740: The Varangian prince Rurik . The name was coined by Russian historians in the 19th century to describe the period when Kiev was at the center. At its greatest extent in the mid-11th century, Kievan Rus' stretched from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south and from the headwaters of the Vistula in the west to the Taman Peninsula in the east, uniting the East Slavic tribes. According to

6080-593: The steppe region, leading to military conflict, disruption of trade, and instability within the Khazar Khaganate. The Rus' and Slavs had earlier allied with the Khazars against Arab raids on the Caucasus, but they increasingly worked against them to secure control of the trade routes . The Byzantine Empire was able to take advantage of the turmoil to expand its political influence and commercial relationships, first with

6232-448: The theme system , played a role in its decline. Under this arrangement, which was in its heyday from about 650 to 1025, the empire was divided into several regions which contributed locally raised troops to the imperial armies. The system provided an effective means of cheaply mobilizing large numbers of men, and the result was a comparatively large and powerful force – the army of the theme of Thrakesion alone had provided about 9,600 men in

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6384-619: The 10th century the Byzantine Empire had followed a policy of removing prominent nakharars (Armenian lords) from their native lands, absorbing those lands in the structure of the empire, and giving the nakharars in exchange lands and titles elsewhere. The Byzantine policy of removing important lords from their Armenian lands and settling them elsewhere (principally on imperial territory, in Cappadocia and northern Mesopotamia) proved to be extremely shortsighted in two ways. First, it left eastern Asia Minor devoid of its native defenders. Second, it worsened

6536-434: The 11th, 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. The 11th century saw increasing tensions between Courtly, and Military factions. Until the 11th century, the empire had long been under the control of the military factions with leaders such as Basil II , and John I Tzimiskes , however, the crisis of Basil II's succession led to increasing uncertainty in the future of politics. The army demanded Constantine VIII's daughters ascend to

6688-658: The 12th-century Orthodox priests who authored the Chronicle as an explanation how the Vikings managed to conquer the lands along the Varangian route so easily, as well as to support the legitimacy of the Rurikid dynasty. The three brothers— Rurik , Sineus and Truvor —supposedly established themselves in Novgorod, Beloozero and Izborsk , respectively. Two of the brothers died, and Rurik became

6840-605: The 15th century. In the 11th century the empire experienced a major catastrophe in which most of its distant territories in Anatolia were lost to the Seljuks following the Battle of Manzikert and ensuing civil war. At the same time, the empire lost its last territory in Italy to the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and faced repeated attacks on its territory in the Balkans. These events created

6992-513: The 19th century in Russian historiography to refer to the period when the centre was in Kiev. In the 19th century it also appeared in Ukrainian as Kyivska Rus' ( Ukrainian : Ки́ївська Русь ). Later, the Russian term was rendered into Belarusian as Kiyewskaya Rus' or Kijeŭskaja Ruś ( Belarusian : Кіеўская Русь ) and into Rusyn as Kyïvska Rus' ( Rusyn : Київска Русь ). In English,

7144-438: The 1st century AD, Greeks in the Black Sea Colonies converted to Christianity, and the Primary Chronicle even records the legend of Andrew the Apostle 's mission to these coastal settlements, as well as blessing the site of present-day Kyiv. The Goths migrated to through the region in the 3rd century, adopting Arian Christianity in the 4th century, leaving behind 4th- and 5th-century churches excavated in Crimea, although

7296-416: The 9th century were divided between the Varangians and the Khazars. The Varangians are first mentioned imposing tribute from Slavic and Finnic tribes in 859. In 862, various tribes rebelled against the Varangians, driving them "back beyond the sea and, refusing them further tribute, set out to govern themselves". They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to

7448-423: The Anatolian peasants whom the Byzantines relied on for many centuries drastically fell; “indifferent foreigners were enlisted, arms, artillery and warlike stores neglected, and castles and fortresses allowed to fall in ruin.” In short, “the legacy of the civilian bureaucrats and of the emperors who were their nominees and puppets—profligate spenders on their own ostentations and miserly providers for their armies—was

7600-546: The Armenian capital of Ani, in an effort to destabilise them. When the Turks invaded their land, the Armenians doggedly resisted and likely would have continued to defend themselves, but in 1045 Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos , (believing that this mountainous region would serve as an effective barrier against any eastern powers) annexed and disarmed significant areas of their kingdom, and took much of its wealth back to Constantinople. An Armenian Chronicler explains that in this manner, “the sterile, effeminate and ignoble nation

7752-496: The Balkans to drive the Rus' back, and a naval contingent reportedly destroyed much of the Rus' fleet on its return voyage (possibly an exaggeration since the Rus' soon mounted another attack). The outcome indicates increased military might by Byzantium since 911, suggesting a shift in the balance of power. Igor returned to Kiev keen for revenge. He assembled a large force of warriors from among neighboring Slavs and Pecheneg allies, and sent for reinforcements of Varangians from "beyond

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7904-506: The Bosporus strait were going to the Empire. The remaining 87 percent was collected by the Genoese from their colony of Galata . Genoa collected 200,000 hyperpyra from annual custom revenues from Galata, while Constantinople collected a mere 30,000. The loss of control over its revenue sources drastically weakened the Byzantine Empire, hastening its decline. At the same time, the system of Pronoia (land grants in exchange for military service), became increasingly corrupt and dysfunctional by

8056-423: The Byzantine Empire, noting how the Greek Christian inhabitants of Anatolia "have fled to the clefts in the rocks, to the forests, and to the mountain heights in an effort to escape a death from which there is no escape, a very cruel and inhuman death without any semblance of justice…. Nobody is spared, neither very young children nor defenseless women. For those whom old age or illness prevents from running away there

8208-417: The Byzantine state, the demise of the theme system left the empire lacking in underlying structural strengths. As far back as the invasion of Africa by the general Belisarius , foreign soldiers were used in war. While the foreign military intervention was not an altogether new occurrence, the reliance on it, and its ability to damage political, social, and economic institutions were dramatically increased in

8360-411: The Byzantines deteriorated, as Byzantium increasingly allied with the Pechenegs against them. The Pechenegs were thus secure to raid the lands of the Khazars from their base between the Volga and Don rivers, allowing them to expand to the west. Relations between the Rus' and Pechenegs were complex, as the groups alternately formed alliances with and against one another. The Pechenegs were nomads roaming

8512-439: The Byzantines. By 1354, the empire's territory consisted of Constantinople and Thrace , the city of Thessalonica , and some territory in the Morea . “At that time,” writes Nicephorus Gregoras, “the inhabitants of Constaninople, as well as the population of most of the Byzantine towns of Thrace, suffered from a lack of victuals. While civil war was exhausting Byzantium, the Turks conducted frequent [naval] incursions from Asia with

8664-416: The Christians of the Latin Church , the Jews , and the Muslims before finally arriving in Constantinople. They rejected Islam because, among other things, it prohibited the consumption of alcohol, and Judaism because the god of the Jews had permitted his chosen people to be deprived of their country. They found the ceremonies in the Roman church to be dull. But at Constantinople, they were so astounded by

8816-406: The Crusaders established their own principalities , becoming a territorial rival to Byzantine interests in their own right. This was true already during the Third Crusade , which induced emperor Isaac II Angelos to make a secret alliance with Saladin to impede the progress of Frederick Barbarossa , but open conflict between Crusaders and Byzantium erupted in the Fourth Crusade , resulting in

8968-431: The Cuman forces in 1068 at the Battle of the Alta River . The ruling Grand Prince Iziaslav fled to Poland asking for support and in a couple of years returned to establish the order. The affairs became even more complicated by the end of the 11th century driving the state into chaos and constant warfare. On the initiative of Vladimir II Monomakh in 1097 the Council of Liubech of Kievan Rus' took place near Chernigov with

9120-434: The Devastation the seljuk raids had on Anatolia: At the beginning of the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks forced their way into Armenia and there crushed the armies of several petty Armenian states. No fewer than forty thousand souls fled before the organized pillage of the Seljuk host to the western part of Asia Minor…. From the middle of the eleventh century, and especially after the battle of Malazgirt [Manzikurt] (1071),

9272-399: The Don river, and into the lower Volga region. The Rus' were raiding and plundering into the Caspian Sea region from 864, with the first large-scale expedition in 913, when they extensively raided Baku, Gilan, Mazandaran and penetrated into the Caucasus. As the 10th century progressed, the Khazars were no longer able to command tribute from the Volga Bulgars, and their relationship with

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9424-400: The Drevlians and the Pechenegs, a period of peace ensued for over twenty years. In 941, Igor led another major Rus' attack on Constantinople, probably over trading rights again. A navy of 10,000 vessels, including Pecheneg allies, landed on the Bithynian coast and devastated the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus. The attack was well timed, perhaps due to intelligence, as the Byzantine fleet

9576-515: The East Slav tribes. In 883, he conquered the Drevlians , imposing a fur tribute on them. By 885 he had subjugated the Poliane, Severiane, Vyatichi, and Radimichs , forbidding them to pay further tribute to the Khazars. Oleg continued to develop and expand a network of Rus' forts in Slavic lands, begun by Rurik in the north. The new Kievan state prospered due to its abundant supply of furs, beeswax, honey and slaves for export, and because it controlled three main trade routes of Eastern Europe . In

9728-521: The Eastern churches it eventually split to follow the Eastern Orthodox. That being said, unlike other parts of the Greek world, Kievan Rus' did not have a strong hostility to the Western world. Yaroslav , known as "the Wise", struggled for power with his brothers. A son of Vladimir the Great , he was prince of Novgorod at the time of his father's death in 1015. Although he first established his rule over Kiev in 1019, he did not have uncontested rule of all of Kievan Rus' until 1036. Like Vladimir, Yaroslav

9880-456: The Emperor. "From the intensity of these disorders, tantamount almost to civil wars," concludes Geanakoplos, "it might appear that too great a price had been paid for the sake of union." The religious situation only worsened for Michael. The Arsenite party found widespread support amongst the discontented in the Anatolian provinces, and Michael responded there with similar viciousness: according to Vryonis, "These elements were either removed from

10032-597: The Finnic Chud tribe. In the south, in the area around Kiev, were the Poliane , the Drevliane to the west of the Dnieper, and the Severiane to the east. To their north and east were the Vyatichi , and to their south was forested land settled by Slav farmers, giving way to steppelands populated by nomadic herdsmen. There was once controversy over whether the Rus' were Varangians or Slavs (see anti-Normanism ), however, more recently scholarly attention has focused more on debating how quickly an ancestrally Norse people assimilated into Slavic culture. This uncertainty

10184-536: The Greeks, delivered up [Armenia] to the Turks,” In the middle of the eleventh century, The Armenian historian Aristakes Lastivertsi recounts the Byzantine campaigns in Armenia: In these days Byzantine armies entered the land of Armenia four times in succession until they had rendered the whole country uninhabited through sword, fire, and captive-taking. When I think about these calamities my senses take leave of me, my brain becomes befuddled, and terror makes my hands tremble so that I cannot continue my composition. For it

10336-431: The Khazars and later with the Rus' and other steppe groups. The Byzantines established the Theme of Cherson , formally known as Klimata, in the Crimea in the 830s to defend against raids by the Rus' and to protect vital grain shipments supplying Constantinople. Cherson also served as a key diplomatic link with the Khazars and others on the steppe, and it became the centre of Black Sea commerce. The Byzantines also helped

10488-423: The Khazars build a fortress at Sarkel on the Don river to protect their northwest frontier against incursions by the Turkic migrants and the Rus', and to control caravan trade routes and the portage between the Don and Volga rivers. The expansion of the Rus' put further military and economic pressure on the Khazars, depriving them of territory, tributaries and trade. In around 890, Oleg waged an indecisive war in

10640-410: The Kiev principality was recognized after the death of Sviatoslav I in 972 and the ensuing struggle between Vladimir and Yaropolk . The region of Kiev dominated the region for the next two centuries. The grand prince (or grand duke) of Kiev controlled the lands around the city, and his formally subordinate relatives ruled the other cities and paid him tribute. The zenith of the state's power came during

10792-406: The Law." They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Rus'. ... The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Ves then said to the Rus', "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us". They thus selected three brothers with their kinfolk, who took with them all the Rus' and migrated. Modern scholars find this an unlikely series of events, probably made up by

10944-638: The Monomakh-Piast descendant Roman the Great . Decline of the Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire experienced cycles of growth and decay over the course of nearly a thousand years, including major losses during the early Muslim conquests of the 7th century. But the Empire's final decline started in the 11th century, and ended 400 years later in the Byzantine Empire's destruction in

11096-565: The Muslim slave markets. Byzantine princess Anna Komnene says: And since the succession of Diogenes the barbarians tread upon the boundaries of the empire of the Rhomaioi…the barbarian hand was not restricted until the reign of my father. Swords and spears were whetted against the Christians, and also battles, wars, and massacres. Cities were obliterated, lands were plundered, and the whole land of

11248-409: The Patriarch announced that the Rus' had accepted a bishop, and in 874 he speaks of an "Archbishop of the Rus'." Relations between the Rus' and Byzantines became more complex after Oleg took control over Kiev, reflecting commercial, cultural, and military concerns. The wealth and income of the Rus' depended heavily upon trade with Byzantium. Constantine Porphyrogenitus described the annual course of

11400-619: The Pechenegs to attack the Magyars from their rear. Boxed in, the Magyars were forced to migrate further west across the Carpathian Mountains into the Hungarian plain, depriving the Khazars of an important ally and a buffer from the Rus'. The migration of the Magyars allowed access for the Rus' to the Black Sea, and they soon launched excursions into Khazar territory along the sea coast, up

11552-511: The Rhomaic boundaries), lamenting, cried, the one for his son, the other for his daughter. One bewailed his brother, another his cousin who had died previously, and like women shed hot tears. And there was at that time not one relationship which was without tears and without sadness. A Letter written by Manuel II Palaiologos in 1391 to Demetrios Kydones makes specific reference to the Turkish threat to

11704-496: The Rhomaioi was stained by blood of Christians. Some fell piteously [the victims] of arrows and spears, other being driven away from their homes were carried off captive to the cities of Persia. Terror reigned over all and they hastened to hide in the caves, forests, mountains, and hills. Among them some cried aloud in horror at those things which they suffered, being led off to Persia; and others who yet survived (if some did remain within

11856-574: The Rus' attacked Constantinople again in 907, probably to secure trade access. The Chronicle glorifies the military prowess and shrewdness of Oleg, an account imbued with legendary detail. Byzantine sources do not mention the attack, but a pair of treaties in 907 and 911 set forth a trade agreement with the Rus', the terms suggesting pressure on the Byzantines, who granted the Rus' quarters and supplies for their merchants and tax-free trading privileges in Constantinople. The Chronicle provides

12008-553: The Rus' in later campaigns against the Byzantines, yet allied with the Byzantines against the Rus' at other times. After the Rus' attack on Constantinople in 860, the Byzantine Patriarch Photius sent missionaries north to convert the Rus' and the Slavs to Christianity. Prince Rastislav of Moravia had requested the Emperor to provide teachers to interpret the holy scriptures, so in 863 the brothers Cyril and Methodius were sent as missionaries, due to their knowledge of

12160-605: The Rus', including stringent regulations on the conduct of Rus' merchants in Cherson and Constantinople and specific punishments for violations of the law. The Byzantines may have been motivated to enter the treaty out of concern of a prolonged alliance of the Rus', Pechenegs, and Bulgarians against them, though the more favorable terms further suggest a shift in power. Following the death of Igor in 945, his wife Olga ruled as regent in Kiev until their son Sviatoslav reached maturity (c. 963). His decade-long reign over Kievan Rus'

12312-598: The Seljuks in their jihad raids into Byzantine territory. While all of this was happening, a portion of the Byzantine army rebelled against the emperor Michael VI. The Turks were well aware of the infighting among the Christians and took full advantage of the situation. Lastivertsi says: “As soon as the Persians [Turks] realized that [the Byzantine nobles] were fighting and opposing one another, they boldly arose and came against us, ceaselessly raiding, destructively ravaging.” Since

12464-568: The Seljuks spread throughout the whole Asia Minor peninsula, leaving terror, panic and destruction in their wake. Byzantine, Turkish and other contemporary sources are unanimous in their agreement on the extent of havoc wrought and the protracted anguish of the local population…evidence as we have proves that the Hellenic population of Asia Minor, whose very vigor had so long sustained the Empire and might indeed be said to have constituted its greatest strength, succumbed so rapidly to Turkish pressure that by

12616-842: The Slavonic language. The Slavs had no written language, so the brothers devised the Glagolitic alphabet , later replaced by Cyrillic (developed in the First Bulgarian Empire ) and standardized the language of the Slavs, later known as Old Church Slavonic . They translated portions of the Bible and drafted the first Slavic civil code and other documents, and the language and texts spread throughout Slavic territories, including Kievan Rus'. The mission of Cyril and Methodius served both evangelical and diplomatic purposes, spreading Byzantine cultural influence in support of imperial foreign policy. In 867

12768-568: The Turks with their tents and their flocks wandered over them contentedly, as they had done in the deserts out of which they had come" Demetrios Cydones on the Turkish depredations in Anatolia: They took from us all the lands which we enjoyed from the Hellespont eastward to the mountains of Armenia. The cities they razed to the ground, pillaged the religious sanctuaries, broke open the graves, and filled all with blood and corpses. They outraged

12920-607: The Varangians to the Greeks ," continuing to the Black Sea and on to Constantinople. Kiev was a central outpost along the Dnieper route and a hub with the east–west overland trade route between the Khazars and the Germanic lands of Central Europe. and may have been a staging post for Radhanite Jewish traders between Western Europe, Itil and China. These commercial connections enriched Rus' merchants and princes, funding military forces and

13072-615: The Volga-Don steppes to eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus during the 8th century, an era historians call the ' Pax Khazarica ', trading and frequently allying with the Byzantine Empire against Persians and Arabs. In the late 8th century, the collapse of the Göktürk Khaganate led the Magyars and the Pechenegs , Ugrians and Turkic peoples from Central Asia, to migrate west into

13224-622: The Western attack, but the policy had mixed results. The empire's Western enemies attempted to reclaim the Latin Empire in spite of the union, while the social divisions the deeply unpopular union created inside the empire were damaging to Byzantine society. Byzantine envoys presented themselves at the Second Council of Lyons on 24 June 1274. On the fourth session of the Council the formal act of union

13376-404: The Wise tried to associate the name with all of the extended princely domains. Both meanings persisted in sources until the Mongol conquest: the narrower one, referring to the triangular territory east of the middle Dnieper, and the broader one, encompassing all the lands under the hegemony of Kiev's grand princes. The Russian term Kiyevskaya Rus' ( Russian : Ки́евская Русь ) was coined in

13528-422: The anti-unionists through persuasion, but eventually, the virulence of the protests led him to resort to force. Many anti-unionists were blinded or exiled. Two prominent monks, Meletios and Ignatios, were punished: the first had his tongue cut out, and the second was blinded. Even imperial officials were harshly treated, and the death penalty was decreed even for simply reading or possessing pamphlets directed against

13680-566: The armies or else, alienated, they deserted to the Turks". Another attempt to clear the encroaching Turkmen from the Meaender valley in 1278 found limited success, but Antioch on the Maeander was irretrievably lost as were Tralles and Nyssa four years later. On 1 May 1277, John the Bastard convoked a synod at Neopatras that anathematized the Emperor, Patriarch, and Pope as heretics. In response,

13832-497: The beauty of the cathedral of Hagia Sophia and the liturgical service held there that they made up their minds there and then about the faith they would like to follow. Upon their arrival home, they convinced Vladimir that the faith of the Byzantine Rite was the best choice of all, upon which Vladimir made a journey to Constantinople and arranged to marry Princess Anna , the sister of Byzantine emperor Basil II . Historically, it

13984-516: The close connection between the Rus' and the Norse is confirmed both by extensive Scandinavian settlement in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine and by Slavic influences in the Swedish language. Though the debate over the origin of the Rus' remains politically charged, there is broad agreement that if the proto-Rus' were indeed originally Norse, they were quickly nativized , adopting Slavic languages and other cultural practices. This position, roughly representing

14136-511: The conquests of Asia Minor were in operation over a period of four centuries. Thus the Christian societies of Asia Minor were submitted to extensive periods of intense warfare, incursions, and destructions which undermined the existence of the Christian church. In the first century of Turkish conquests and invasions from the mid-eleventh to the late twelfth century, the sources reveal that some 63 towns and villages were destroyed. The inhabitants of other towns and villages were enslaved and taken off to

14288-546: The construction of churches, palaces, fortifications, and further towns. Demand for luxury goods fostered production of expensive jewelry and religious wares, allowing their export, and an advanced credit and money-lending system may have also been in place. The rapid expansion of the Rus' to the south led to conflict and volatile relationships with the Khazars and other neighbors on the Pontic steppe . The Khazars dominated trade from

14440-637: The context for Emperor Alexios I Komnenos to call to the West for help, which led to the First Crusade . However, economic concessions to the Italian Republics of Venice and Genoa weakened the empire's control over its own finances, especially from the 13th century onward, while tensions with the West led to the Sack of Constantinople by the forces of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and the dismemberment of

14592-501: The court of her daughter Maria Palaiologina Kantakouzene , Tsarina of the Bulgars, from where she intrigued unsuccessfully against Michael. More serious was the opposition of the sons of Michael of Epirus, Nikephoros I Komnenos Doukas and his half-brother John the Bastard : they posed as the defenders of Orthodoxy and gave support to the anti-unionists fleeing Constantinople. Michael at first responded with comparative leniency, hoping to win

14744-471: The coveted throne of Kiev. Whatever the case, according to professor Ivan Katchanovski 'no adequate system of succession to the Kievan throne was developed' after the death of Yaroslav the Wise ( r.  1019–1054 ), commencing a process of gradual disintegration. The unconventional power succession system fomented constant hatred and rivalry within the royal family. Familicide was frequently deployed to obtain power and can be traced particularly during

14896-435: The death of Feodor I of Russia in 1598. The modern nations of Belarus , Russia , and Ukraine all claim Kievan Rus' as their cultural ancestor, with Belarus and Russia deriving their names from it, and the name Kievan Rus' derived from what is now the capital of Ukraine. During its existence, Kievan Rus' was known as the " Rus' land" ( Old East Slavic : ро́усьскаѧ землѧ́ , romanized:  rusĭskaę zemlę , from

15048-467: The earliest written source for the East Slavs , the Primary Chronicle , which was produced in the 12th century. Nationalist accounts on the other hand have suggested that the Rus' were present before the arrival of the Varangians, noting that only a handful of Scandinavian words can be found in Russian and that Scandinavian names in the early chronicles were soon replaced by Slavic names. Nevertheless,

15200-552: The emergence of Kievan Rus' in the 9th century, most of the area north of the Black Sea was primarily populated by eastern Slavic tribes. In the northern region around Novgorod were the Ilmen Slavs and neighboring Krivichi , who occupied territories surrounding the headwaters of the West Dvina , Dnieper and Volga rivers. To their north, in the Ladoga and Karelia regions, were

15352-482: The empire. Although a number of small Byzantine successor states survived, one of which eventually reclaimed Constantinople in 1261, the empire had been severely weakened. The Byzantines had withdrawn to Bithynia relocating their capital to Nicaea (present-day Iznik) during the Fourth Crusade. It would be nearly 60 years before they returned to the capital, leaving Bithynia weak and vulnerable. The early history of

15504-424: The ethnic tensions between the Greeks and the Armenians due to the introduction of thousands of Armenian newcomers into Cappadocia. The Byzantine empire worsened this error by disbanding a 50,000-man local Armenian army, ostensibly to save money. As a result, the land was left defenseless as well as leaderless in the face of the Turkish invasions that came soon after. The second wave of Armenians that moved westwards

15656-554: The ethnonym Роусь , Rusĭ ; Medieval Greek : Ῥῶς , romanized :  Rhos ; Arabic : الروس , romanized :  ar-Rūs ), in Greek as Ῥωσία , Rhosia , in Old French as Russie, Rossie , in Latin as Rusia or Russia (with local German spelling variants Ruscia and Ruzzia ), and from the 12th century also as Ruthenia or Rutenia . Various etymologies have been proposed, including Ruotsi ,

15808-567: The eventual rise of Ottoman power remains shrouded in obscurity. One Byzantine chronicle refers to a skirmish between "Othman" and Byzantine forces in 1302 in the Marmara region near present day Yalova . What historians can agree on is that by the early 1330s Ottomans had taken Byzantine towns in Prusa (Bursa), Nicaea (Iznik) and Nicomedia (Izmit). Constantinople was left isolated as the Islamic empire gained

15960-412: The extent of devastation elsewhere was such as to make a profound impression on visitors for may years to come. The fate of Antioch provides a graphic illustration of the kind of havoc wrought by the Turkish invaders: in 1432, only three hundred dwellings could be counted inside its walls, and its predominantly Turkish or Arab inhabitants subsisted by raising camels, goats, cattle, and sheep. Other cities in

16112-461: The failure of their efforts to sustain their empire exposed the limitations of the entire Byzantine military system, dependent as it was on competent personal direction from the emperor. Despite the restoration under the Palaiologoi , Byzantium never reached the heights of its pre-1204 past. By the 13th century, the imperial army numbered a mere 6,000 men. As one of the main institutional strengths of

16264-468: The fall of Trebizond the last truly Byzantine outpost in Anatolia was lost. While conflict continued between the Ottomans and other Muslims in Anatolia, the Ottomans mostly ignored them to focus on westward expansion into the Christian lands of southeastern Europe. The most significant events generally agreed by historians to have played a role in the decline of the Byzantine Empire are summarised below: The period from 1071 to 1081 saw eight revolts: This

16416-578: The fifteenth…. With the extermination of local populations or their precipitate flight, entire villages, cities, and sometimes whole provinces fell into decay. There were some fertile districts like the valley of the Maeander River, once stocked with thousands of sheep and cattle, which were laid waste and thereafter ceased to be in any way productive. Other districts were literally transformed into wildernesses. Impenetrable thickets sprang up in places where once there had been luxuriant fields and pastures. This

16568-410: The flames, jumped overboard, preferring water to fire. Some sank, weighed down by the weight of their breastplates and helmets; others caught fire." Those captured were beheaded. The ploy dispelled the Rus' fleet, but their attacks continued into the hinterland as far as Nicomedia , with many atrocities reported as victims were crucified and set up for use as targets. At last a Byzantine army arrived from

16720-426: The fourteenth century, it was confined to a few limited areas. By that time, Asia Minor was already being called Turkey…one after another, bishoprics and metropolitan sees which once throbbed with Christian vitality became vacant and ecclesiastical buildings fell into ruins. The metropolitan see of Chalcedon, for example, disappeared in the fourteenth century, and the sees of Laodicea, Kotyaeon (now Kutahya) and Synada in

16872-426: The greater part of their Greek population.” J. Laurent writes further:“In brief, the population of Asia Minor vanished before the Turks. The people fled far away, or shut themselves up in their Cities, or sought refuge in the mountains which border the central plateau of the peninsula. The valleys and the plains which stretch from Caesarea and Sebaste to Nicaea and Sardes remained all but empty. And as they fell fallow,

17024-449: The hands of a series of dotards, sensualists and courtesans—female rule once again predominated.” During her 29-year reign Empress Zoe Porphyrogenita married and divorced (often by blinding or murdering) several men. Concern for the frontier and its defence was largely dropped; the empire’s resources were spent on the luxuries of the civil bureaucracy, which came to dominate the byzantine government and ruled in all but name. While Armenia

17176-447: The help of monemes and triremes [galley ships], making their way with impunity into Thrace, especially during harvest season, seizing livestock, carrying off women and children into slavery, and causing such evils that these regions afterward remained depopulated and uncultivated. That was one of the reasons for the famine that the Byzantines had to endure.” The disintegration of the Byzantine Empire's traditional military organization,

17328-551: The interior of the empire, and by giving the Turks an increasing presence in Byzantine politics. These interventions also led to further destabilization of the political system. Reliance on foreign military intervention, and sponsorship for political motives, continued even during the Komnenian Restoration, Alexius I used Turkish mercenaries in the civil wars he participated in with Nikephoros III Botaneiates . In 1204, Alexios IV Angelos relied on Latin soldiers to claim

17480-565: The lands of the lower Dniester and Dnieper rivers with the Tivertsi and the Ulichs , who were likely acting as vassals of the Magyars, blocking Rus' access to the Black Sea. In 894, the Magyars and Pechenegs were drawn into the wars between the Byzantines and the Bulgarian Empire . The Byzantines arranged for the Magyars to attack Bulgarian territory from the north, and Bulgaria in turn persuaded

17632-476: The late 11th century, gradually disintegrating into various rival regional powers throughout the 12th century. It was further weakened by external factors, such as the decline of the Byzantine Empire , its major economic partner, and the accompanying diminution of trade routes through its territory. It finally fell to the Mongol invasion in the mid-13th century, though the Rurik dynasty would continue to rule until

17784-467: The later empire, and by the 14th century many of the empire's nobles were not paying any tax, nor were they serving in the empire's armies. This further undermined the financial basis of the state and placed further reliance on unreliable mercenaries, which only hasted the empire's demise. Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos signed a union with the Catholic church in the 13th century in the hope of staving off

17936-588: The main intention to find an understanding among the fighting sides. By 1130, all descendants of Vseslav the Seer had been exiled to the Byzantine Empire by Mstislav the Great . The most fierce resistance to the Monomakhs was posed by the Olegovichi when the izgoi Vsevolod II managed to become the Grand Prince of Kiev. The Rostislavichi , who had initially established in the lands of Galicia by 1189, were defeated by

18088-716: The north, Novgorod served as a commercial link between the Baltic Sea and the Volga trade route to the lands of the Volga Bulgars , the Khazars, and across the Caspian Sea as far as Baghdad , providing access to markets and products from Central Asia and the Middle East. Trade from the Baltic also moved south on a network of rivers and short portages along the Dnieper known as the " route from

18240-468: The period 902–936, for example. But from the 11th century onwards, the theme system was allowed to decay. This played a major role in the loss of Anatolia to the Turks at the end of that century. In the 12th century, the Komnenian dynasty re-established an effective military force . Manuel I Komnenos , for example, was able to muster an army of over 40,000 men. However, the theme system was never replaced by

18392-456: The pillage of wealthy estates and the torture and assassination of the Orthodox metropolitan of Ceasarea . Gagik was eventually killed by the local Greek landowners. The Annexation of Armenia ultimately proved to be a strategic disaster for the Byzantines. The Armenian Princes provided a secure buffer zone on the Byzantines eastern border. The overextended Byzantines had found themselves sharing

18544-561: The population of Kiev to be baptised in August 988. The greatest resistance against Christianisation appears to have occurred in northern towns including Novgorod, Suzdal, and Belozersk. Adherence to the Eastern Church had long-range political, cultural, and religious consequences. The church had a liturgy written in Cyrillic and a corpus of translations from Greek that had been produced for

18696-565: The princes of Kiev, collecting tribute from client tribes, assembling the product into a flotilla of hundreds of boats, conducting them down the Dnieper to the Black Sea, and sailing to the estuary of the Dniester, the Danube delta, and on to Constantinople. On their return trip they would carry silk fabrics, spices, wine, and fruit. The importance of this trade relationship led to military action when disputes arose. The Primary Chronicle reports that

18848-482: The process, ruined the domestic economy and left the state virtually powerless and overrun by its enemies. Conflicts between Andronikos II and Andronikos III , and then later between John VI Kantakouzenos and John V Palaiologos , marked the final ruin of Byzantium. The Byzantine civil war of 1321–1328 allowed the Turks to make notable gains in Anatolia and set up their capital in Prusa 100 kilometers from Constantinople . The civil war of 1341–1347 saw exploitation of

19000-463: The project. Conferences and publications questioning the Norse origins of the Rus' have been supported directly by state policy in some cases, and the resultant foundation myths have been included in some school textbooks in Russia. While Varangians were Norse traders and Vikings , many Russian and Ukrainian nationalist historians argue that the Rus' were themselves Slavs. Normanist theories focus on

19152-401: The reigns of Vladimir the Great ( r.  980–1015 ) and Prince Yaroslav I the Wise ( r.  1019–1054 ). Both rulers continued the steady expansion of Kievan Rus' that had begun under Oleg. Vladimir had been prince of Novgorod when his father Sviatoslav I died in 972, but fled to Scandinavia in 977 after his half-brother Yaropolk killed his other half-brother Oleg. According to

19304-487: The rest from practicing their faith. Conversions [to islam], Turkish migration, and Greek outmigration increasingly endangered the Greek minority in central Asia Minor. When the Turks overran Western Anatolia, they occupied the countryside first, driving the Greeks into the cities, or away to Europe, or the islands. By the time the Anatolian cities fell, the land around them was already largely Turkish [and Islamic]. In contrast,

19456-460: The same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden: Ruotsi and Rootsi . When the Varangian princes arrived, the name Rus' was associated with them and came to be associated with the territories they controlled. Initially the cities of Kiev, Chernigov , and Pereyaslavl and their surroundings came under Varangian control. From the late tenth century, Vladimir the Great and Yaroslav

19608-457: The sea". In 944, the Rus' force advanced again on the Greeks, by land and sea, and a Byzantine force from Cherson responded. The Emperor sent gifts and offered tribute in lieu of war, and the Rus' accepted. Envoys were sent between the Rus', the Byzantines, and the Bulgarians in 945, and a peace treaty was completed. The agreement again focused on trade, but this time with terms less favorable to

19760-535: The sole ruler of the territory and progenitor of the Rurik dynasty . A short time later, two of Rurik's men, Askold and Dir , asked him for permission to go to Tsargrad ( Constantinople ). On their way south, they came upon "a small city on a hill", Kiev, which was a tributary of the Khazars at the time, stayed there and "established their dominion over the country of the Polyanians ." The Primary Chronicle reports that Askold and Dir continued to Constantinople with

19912-416: The souls of the inhabitants, forcing them to deny God and giving to them their own defiled mysteries. They abused their [Christians’] souls, alas, with wanton outrage! Denuding them of all property and their freedom, they left the [Christians as] weak images of slaves, exploiting the remaining strength of the wretched ones for their own prosperity. According to Speros Vryonis : The conquest, or should I say

20064-516: The southeastern part of Asia Minor fell into similar decay. Quoting contemporary authorities, J. Laurent writes: “It is difficult even to imagine the complete ruin the Turks left behind them. Whatever they could reach, men or crops, nothing remained alive; and a week was sufficient under dread of famine to force them to abandon the most prosperous areas. On their departure all that was left were devastated fields, trees cut down, mutilated corpses and towns driven mad by fear or in flames.’”’ At Armorium, it

20216-508: The state, fighting a war of conquest against the Khazars . Vladimir the Great ( r.  980–1015 ) spread Christianity with his own baptism and, by decree, extended it to all inhabitants of Kiev and beyond. Kievan Rus' reached its greatest extent under Yaroslav the Wise ( r.  1019–1054 ); his sons assembled and issued its first written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda , shortly after his death. The state began to decline in

20368-476: The steppe raising livestock which they traded with the Rus' for agricultural goods and other products. The lucrative Rus' trade with the Byzantine Empire had to pass through Pecheneg-controlled territory, so the need for generally peaceful relations was essential. Nevertheless, while the Primary Chronicle reports the Pechenegs entering Rus' territory in 915 and then making peace, they were waging war with one another again in 920. Pechenegs are reported assisting

20520-455: The term was introduced in the early 20th century, when it was found in the 1913 English translation of Vasily Klyuchevsky 's A History of Russia , to distinguish the early polity from successor states, which were also named Rus ' . The Varangian Rus' from Scandinavia used the Old Norse name Garðaríki , which, according to a common interpretation , means "land of towns". Prior to

20672-421: The throne of Byzantium, leading to the sack of Constantinople, and the creation of the successor states. Economic concessions to the Italian Republics of Venice and Genoa weakened the empire's control over its finances, especially from the ascension of Michael VIII Palaiologos in the 13th century onward. At this time it was common for emperors to seek sponsorship from Venice , Genoa , and the Turks. This led to

20824-426: The throne of their relation to Basil II, leading several marriages, and increasing power for the courtly faction. This culminated after the failed Battle of Manzikert. As civil wars broke out, and tensions between courtly and military factions reached a zenith, the demand for soldiers led to the hiring of Turkish mercenaries. These mercenaries aided in the Byzantine loss of Anatolia by drawing more Turkish soldiers into

20976-619: The time of the Yaroslavichi (sons of Yaroslav), when the established succession system was skipped in the establishment of Vladimir II Monomakh as the Grand Prince of Kiev ( r.  1113–1125 ), in turn creating major squabbles between the Olegovichi (sons of Oleg I ) from Chernigov, the Monomakhovichi from Pereyaslavl, the Izyaslavichi (sons of Iziaslav ) from Turov – Volhynia , and

21128-485: The time the danger of the Seljuk raids, mounting in frequency, extent and success during his reign.” The most they did was make treaties with Sultan Tughril ; and when roaming bands of Turks broke the treaty by raiding and pillaging Byzantine territory, and Constantinople objected, Sultan Tughril feigned innocence by claiming he was unable to control these “lone wolves,” even as they continued raiding deeper and deeper into western Anatolia. During this time, recruitment of

21280-459: The war, the Jewish community suffered many attacks. The biggest massacre was on August 25, 1942. Some 1,300 persons were taken to the quarry outside the town and there fire was opened on them. A few dozen artisans remained in the town but by March 1943 these had been gradually killed off. Of those who had fled some 30 families gathered in the forest. They succeeded in obtaining a few arms and they set up

21432-522: The west. The result was a weakening of the Byzantine defenses in the region, which, when combined with insufficient resources and incompetent leadership, led to the complete loss of all the empire's Asian territory to the Turks by 1338. The disintegration of the Seljuk Turks led to the rise of the Ottoman Turks . Their first important leader was Osman I Bey, who attracted Ghazi warriors and carved out

21584-452: Was after the battle of Manzikert (to flee the brutal Turkic raids). After severe persecutions of the Armenian and Syrian Monophysite non-Calcedonian communities, several Armenian royal families, which included Adom and Abucahl of Vaspuracan and Gagik of Ani, used the opportunity provided by the invasion of the Seljuk Turks to seek vengeance upon the local Greek Orthodox population. This included

21736-485: Was being ravaged by the Seljuks, Byzantine rulers showed little interest in what was happening along its eastern borders. The indifferent and “squanderous” lifestyle of Empress Zoe Porphyrogenita was the beginning of the "utter decline in our national affairs and the cause of our subsequent humiliation,” says Michael Psellus . Her successors were not much better. Alfred Friendly reports that "Neither Constantine IX nor his advisers gave any evidence that they appreciated at

21888-543: Was eager to improve relations with the rest of Europe, especially the Byzantine Empire. Yaroslav's granddaughter, Eupraxia , the daughter of his son Vsevolod I , was married to Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor . Yaroslav also arranged marriages for his sister and three daughters to the kings of Poland, France, Hungary and Norway. Yaroslav promulgated the first law code of Kievan Rus', the Russkaya Pravda ; built Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod ; patronized local clergy and monasticism ; and

22040-591: Was followed by a period of secure dynastic rule by the Komnenos dynasty, under Alexios I (1081–1118), John II Komnenos (1118–43) and Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180). Cumulatively, these three emperors were able to partially restore the empire's fortunes , but they never were able to fully undo the damage caused by the instability at the end of the 11th century, nor return the empire's frontiers to those of 1071. The second period of civil war and collapse took place after Manuel's death in 1180. Manuel's son Alexios II Komnenos

22192-455: Was lost to the Seljuk Turks. In 1203, the imprisoned former emperor Alexios IV Angelos escaped jail and fled to the west, where he promised the leaders of the Fourth Crusade generous payment if they would help him regain the throne. These promises later proved to be impossible to keep; in the event, the dynastic squabbling between the weak and ineffectual members of the Angelid dynasty brought about

22344-404: Was marked by rapid expansion through the conquest of the Khazars of the Pontic steppe and the invasion of the Balkans . By the end of his short life, Sviatoslav carved out for himself the largest state in Europe, eventually moving his capital from Kiev to Pereyaslavets on the Danube in 969. In contrast with his mother's conversion to Christianity , Sviatoslav, like his druzhina , remained

22496-460: Was occupied with the Arabs in the Mediterranean, and the bulk of its army was stationed in the east. The Rus' burned towns, churches and monasteries, butchering the people and amassing booty. The emperor arranged for a small group of retired ships to be outfitted with Greek fire throwers and sent them out to meet the Rus', luring them into surrounding the contingent before unleashing the Greek fire. Liutprand of Cremona wrote that "the Rus', seeing

22648-399: Was or whether there was any system at all.' According to historian Nancy Kollmann, the rota system was used with the princely succession moving from elder to younger brother and from uncle to nephew, as well as from father to son. Junior members of the dynasty usually began their official careers as rulers of a minor district, progressed to more lucrative principalities, and then competed for

22800-418: Was overthrown in 1183 by Andronikos I Komnenos , whose reign of terror destabilised the empire internally and led to his overthrow and death in Constantinople in 1185. The Angelos dynasty which ruled Byzantium from 1185 to 1204 has been considered one of the most unsuccessful and ineffectual administrations in the empire's history. During this period, Bulgaria and Serbia broke away from the empire, further land

22952-401: Was performed, However with Pope Gregory's death (January 1276), the hoped-for gains did not materialize. While the union was opposed at all levels of society, it was especially opposed by the greater populace, led by the monks and the adherents of the deposed Patriarch Arsenios, known as the Arsenites. One of the chief anti-unionist leaders was Michael's sister Eulogia (aka Irene), who fled to

23104-451: Was returned to Greek rule under the Palaiologoi in 1261, the Empire exerted much of its efforts into defeating its Latin neighbours, contributing to the eventual failure of the Crusades by 1291. No emperor after the Komnenian period was in a position to expel the Turks from Asia Minor, while the preoccupation of the Nicaean emperors with the attempt to recover Constantinople meant that resources were diverted away from Asia Minor and towards

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