14. Ancient Rus and the Great Steppe, Gumilev

XIII. On the steppe border (1036-1061)

[I appreciate Perspectives guest post. I have also read the Mazaheri Yellow Vests book. I agree that the EU is becoming more and more transparent, and what we see is what is in store for all of us. Concentrating only on positive aspects becomes an invitation for the negative attributes that come with it, oligarch rule.] I will take a break after this upload.

77. THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE PECHENEGS

The Pechenegs are a branch of the ancient ethnic group "kang", who inhabited the country of Kangyu - the steppe between the Irtysh and the Aral Sea[1]. Their ancestors are mentioned in history when describing the Hunno-Chinese wars of the II century BC [2]. Consequently, in the XI century. their ethnogenesis was in the last phases, most likely in homeostasis.

Natural conditions, namely climatic conditions, were not merciful to the Kangl. They inhabited the extra-arid zone, and therefore the droughts of the III and X centuries hit their economy very hard.[3]  But they also pushed some of the Kangles to relocate to foreign countries. So, in 889, those of them who bore the name "pazynak" (Pecheneg), at the beginning of the impending drought, moved to the Black Sea region, where they experienced a difficult time. When the steppes turned green again, the sheep gained fat, and the horses gained strength, the Pechenegs revived together with the natural environment, because with homeostasis, the ethnos is inseparable from the biocenosis of the enclosing landscape. And then the Pechenegs began to experience the cultural influence of their neighbors, because in the hungry tenth century the steppe people had no time for culture. But when hunger became a thing of the past in the XI century, it was possible to think of questions about the meaning of life and the choice of friends.

The choice for the Pechenegs was, as for the Rus, limited to three options - Orthodoxy, Latin, Islam, and if all this does not fit, you can remain faithful to the ancient tradition.

In the tenth century, the Pechenegs were "the most cruel and stubborn of all the pagans." This is how they were characterized by the Catholic missionary Bruno, who baptized less than thirty Pechenegs in six months (in 1008-1009).[4] But in the XI century, more precisely, after 1010, the following happened: "D. after 400 AH, they had a Muslim prisoner, a learned theologian, who explained Islam to some of them, as a result of which they accepted it.

And their intentions were sincere, and the propaganda of Islam began to spread among them. The rest, who did not accept Islam, blamed them for this, and the matter ended in war. God gave victory to the Muslims, although there were only 12 thousand of them, and there were twice as many infidels. And they (Muslims) killed them, and the survivors converted to Islam. And they are all Muslims now, and they have scholars, and lawyers, and readers of the Koran."[5]

The Byzantines convey the same situation without a confessional connotation, but simply as a feud between the commander Kegen, who repeatedly defeated the Guzs, and the head of the Pecheneg union, Tyrah. The defeated Kegen fled with his supporters to Byzantium, and they all received baptism.[6] And the fact that most of the Pechenegs became Muslims is confirmed by the author of the XII century. Garnati. [7]

There are no dates of these events in the sources, but we can make the necessary clarifications by indirectly comparing the military history with the history of changes in the humidification regime of the steppe zone. We will preface the analysis with a brief preamble.

Increased moisture for dry steppes is a blessing, because it is associated with an increase in grassy spaces that make up the fodder base for livestock and horses. This immediately affects the growth of military power. Nomads move from protecting their homes and pastures to attacking their neighbors, which is recorded in the annals. Conversely, in wet, agricultural countries, constant rains are a disaster, since cereals do not ripen and rot in the ground.

Consequently, if increased moisture covers the territories lying in the band between 45 and 30 degrees north latitude, then these are optimal conditions for the Black Sea steppes, and pessimal conditions for Western Europe.

In the tenth century, the Atlantic cyclone trough passed through the Volga and Oka rivers, which determined the rise of the Caspian Sea level by 3 m. This means that in Europe, rains irrigated only northern Scotland and southern Scandinavia, and England, France, Italy and Germany enjoyed sunny days when both bread and grapes ripened. But at the beginning of the XI century. cyclones began to pass to the south, which was immediately noted by contemporaries.

"In 1027, famine began to ravage the earth, and the human race was threatened with imminent destruction. The weather became so bad that it was impossible to find minutes either for sowing or for harvesting grain due to the flooding of the fields with water. It seemed that all the elements had collapsed and entered into a struggle with each other, and yet, in fact, they obeyed God's punishment, punishing people for their malice. The whole land was flooded with continuous rains to the point that for three years it was impossible to have an inch of land convenient for sowing. The grain measure on the most fertile lands yielded no more than five or six.

This vengeful scourge began in the east, devastated Greece, then Italy, spread throughout Gaul, and finally overtook England. Its blows fell on everyone without distinction. The strong lands, the average people and the poor alike experienced hunger, and everyone's brow was covered with pallor; the violence and cruelty of the barons were silenced before the general famine. If someone wanted to sell food, they could ask the highest price and get everything without the slightest difficulty. Almost everywhere a measure of grain bread was sold for 60 gold solidi; sometimes a sixth of the measure was bought for 15 solidi. When they had eaten all the cattle and birds, and when this supply was exhausted, hunger became more sensitive, and to tame it they had to devour carrion and similar disgusting food; sometimes, to get rid of death, tree roots were dug out of the ground, herbs were collected along the banks of streams; but everything was in vain, for only God can be a refuge against God’s anger.[8]

What was "anger" for the French, Anglo-Saxons and Italians turned out to be "mercy" for the Cumans, Torcs, "black hoods" and Pechenegs. The summer rains contributed to such an increase in their military potential that the policy of all nomads, and especially the Pechenegs, has changed diametrically since 1027.

In 1036, the Pechenegs attacked Russia without a reason and besieged Kiev. Before that, they had been living in peace with the Russians for 15 years, and the attack was quite unexpected. Nevertheless, Kiev held out until the arrival of Yaroslav from Novgorod, with the Varangians and Slovenes. The battle took place at the place where the Church of St. Nicholas now stands. Sofia, and lasted the whole day. The Pechenegs were defeated and forever moved away from the Russian borders. But three raids on Byzantium in the same year were successful.

The change of faith led to a change in politics. The political balance in Eastern Europe, forged with incredible difficulty, collapsed. Bulgaria, devastated by the defeat of the Komitopul movement (1001-1019), ceased to serve as a buffer between Byzantium and the Pechenegs, emboldened by the feeling that the Seljuks were already approaching Byzantium from the east. Only this popular upsurge can explain the suicidal offensive that the Pechenegs launched on the northern border of Byzantium in 1046. The former energetic emperors - Nikephoros Phokas, John Tzimiskes and Vasily Bolgaroboitsa - would have coped with this invasion easier than with Svyatoslav, but the time was not right, and Konstantin Monomakh, after several heavy defeats, in 1031 could see the advanced detachments of the Pechenegs from the walls of Constantinople.

After that, for 40 years, the Pechenegs who settled on the Balkan Peninsula were a nightmare for Byzantium. Several times the fate of the empire hung in the balance. Death was creeping up on Constantinople from both shores of the Bosphorus, for both there and there were descendants of the ancient Turanians - the Pechenegs and Seljuks. Byzantium was saved only by the Polovtsian khans Tugorkan and Bonyak, who defeated the Pecheneg army at Leburn in 1091. Over the past time, the lands of the Pechenegs were divided by the Guzes and Cumans. These ethnic groups did not resemble the Pechenegs at all, which means that relations with them were different. The threat from the elements of Islam for Orthodox Russia and Byzantium had been postponed for three centuries.

78. THE END OF THE KAGANATES

What is the "end of an era"? Contemporaries are waiting for it, but they do not notice it, since it does not happen in a few days, but over decades. So, Catholics waited with horror for the year 1000, thinking that the end of the world would come. Nothing happened, and everyone forgot about it [9]. But it was after 1000 that the united Christian Church split into two parts, the last relics of the Great Migration of Peoples disappeared, an active war between Islam and the "Christian world" began, and much more that will be discussed. Contemporaries were hindered by the aberration of intimacy, but for us the change of rhythms is obvious.

The epoch that occupies our attention is remarkable in that superethnoses of all the ages we have noted existed and interacted at the same time. The oldest were the superethnoses of Eastern Europe, formed in the II- IV centuries, - Russo-Slavic and Byzantine. Both of them were in the third phase of ethnogenesis, enjoying the fruits of culture cultivated by their ancestors. The superethnoses that emerged in the VI-VII centuries were somewhat younger - the Arabic-speaking world of Islam, Rajput India and China of the Song dynasty. Their development was more intense, and as a result, they also lost a significant share of the ability to resist, which is characteristic of the third phase.

The Western European superethnos was on the rise, which proved itself by breaking the iron hoop of the empire of the early Carolingians and creating convenient forms of existence for itself in the IX century: medieval "nations" and feudal institutions.

For 200 years, it has accumulated so much strength that it had moved from defense to an active offensive in all directions. In Spain in the XI century. the power of the Arabs was broken, whose descendants were forced to invite wild Tuaregs from Africa. In England, at the same time, the relic of the Great Migration of Peoples - the Anglo-Saxon kingdom - was destroyed. In Germany, the offensive against the Slavic tribes of Lyutich and Bodrich began. In Italy, the French Normans drove the Muslims out of Sicily, and the Byzantines out of Apulia. But the passionate tension continued to grow, and the crusades were on the agenda.

In the XI century, all four khaganates disappeared in Eastern Europe. We have seen how the death of Khazaria took place. The fate of Hungary, the heiress of the Avar Khaganate, was somewhat different. Hungary was destroyed not by defeats, but by victories. During the predatory campaigns in Europe, the Magyar heroes recruited many captives: Spaniards, Frenchwomen, Germans, Italians, Slavs and Greek women... all had children. As you know, mothers bring up small children, and then sons receive male military training. So, it was here, and the generally understandable and military language was Hungarian. Only representatives of different ethnic groups who were in the phase of passionate ascent began to speak it. These new Hungarians could not love the old ones - nomads and pagans who offended their mothers and grandmothers. Their number grew with every victory and every raid, and in 1000 their hour came. King Stephen made a monarchical revolution, i.e. he took power from the nobles - the old Magyar heroes, banned the ancient faith and converted to Catholicism. His support was the prisoners and the children of the captives. So, in the XI century the Hungarian khaganate turned into a kingdom where the population consisted of Europeans (raised by their mothers), who changed their native languages to Hungarian.

It was worse in Bulgaria. In 1001-1019, its last war with Byzantium took place, which turned into agony. As a khaganate, Bulgaria was completely destroyed, and when it was revived in 1185, it was a Vlach-Slavic kingdom with a local cultural tradition.

The history of the fourth khaganate - Russia - and the Steppe adjacent to it went differently. And here the triumph of Christianity was associated with important events and social changes that coincided with the change of phases of ethnogenesis.

The traditional orientation of Russia towards Byzantium, which has given such positive results since the time of Olga and Vladimir, was revised under Yaroslav the Wise. Part of the reason lay in the changes within Byzantium itself, where the former firm order was replaced by laxity, but, on the other hand, Russian ties with Catholic Europe strengthened and strengthened, and finally, ethnic processes within Russia pushed the government to search for new solutions. Taken together, this led to policy changes that were significant not only for Russia, but also for the surrounding ethnic groups - Polovtsians, Torks, Khazars and Khazar Jews, and their reaction in turn gave rise to events that reverberated throughout the history of Eastern Europe. To understand the extremely complex situation of the turning point, let's take a look at all the countries that are somehow connected with these events.

After the death of Vasily Bolgaroboitsy (1025), in Byzantium his brother Constantine VIII, a decrepit tyrant, replaced his brother's efficient, capable employees with flatterers and carousers who helped him squander the funds squeezed out of the population as taxes on the army. It's a miracle that the army sometimes won victories.

The heir to the throne was Konstantin's daughter, 50-year-old Zoya, who married handsome, incompetent and unscrupulous three times. The first, Roman III Argir, was drowned in a bath, the second, Mikhail IV, died of stress, the third, Mikhail V Kalafat (Caulker), was blinded, and only the fourth, Konstantin IX Monomakh, survived the terrible old woman Empress (1050) and died in an atmosphere of general discontent and contempt from the plague (1055).

Power passed to Zoya's younger sister, the nun Theodora, who died in 1056. she handed over the throne to the "old man" Mikhail Stratiotik, who was overthrown by the military nobility who rebelled in 1057. However, the leader of the military, Isaac Komnenos, was tonsured a monk, and the throne passed to Konstantin Duka (1059-1067), who returned to the policy of his predecessors: fleecing the people, destroying the best commanders so that they would not become dangerous, awarding the highest officials (synclite) and flirting with the metropolitan crowd in search of popularity.

It goes without saying that the power of Byzantium was falling, but the inertia accumulated over the past hundred and fifty years was so significant that the catastrophe was pushed back to 1081 and turned out to be inconclusive. In the inertial phase of ethnogenesis, regeneration is possible, which was initiated in Byzantium by provincials who did not waste their passion away from the temptations of the capital. Constant war was less ruinous than refined luxury.

Map. The Byzantine Empire at the beginning of the XI century (186 KB)

http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/maps/args06.html

From a brief enumeration of the nonentities on the throne, it is clear why Byzantium already at the beginning of this phase began to lose the respect of its neighbors, primarily Russians. In 1043 Yaroslav the Wise decided to look for other friends and offered Henry III, King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor (1039-1056), the hand of his daughter, which Henry III was not tempted by.[10]

Here it would be necessary to be offended, because there was a clear disregard for the Russian state. Nevertheless, Yaroslav, forgetting that he was "wise", started a war against Byzantium, because a Russian merchant was killed in a fight at the Constantinople bazaar. The campaign was led by Yaroslav's son Vladimir, who suffered a complete defeat: the Russian fleet was burned by Greek fire, the surviving boats were thrown ashore by a storm, where the Byzantine cavalry forced the land army to surrender. The prisoners were blinded and returned home crippled. Byzantium was still too strong for Russia.

Yaroslav continued to look for contacts in Europe. At the same time, in 1043, he married his sister to the Polish king Boleslav, who freed 800 captured Rus for this. Then he married his daughters: Anastasia - to the Hungarian King Andrew I, Elizabeth - to the Norwegian king Harald III Gardrada, Anna - to the French king Henry I, and married his sons: Izyaslav - to the Polish princess, Svyatoslav - to the German countess and only Vsevolod - to the daughter of Konstantin Monomakh. The preponderance in marriage diplomacy was clearly on the side of Catholic Europe.

The ecclesiastical break between Russia and Byzantium took place in 1051, when Yaroslav appointed the Russian priest Hilarion, the author of the "Words about Law and Grace" already mentioned above, as metropolitan in Kiev. In the same year, Monk Anthony founded the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, which later became the citadel of Russian Orthodoxy, while the Greek Metropolis was based on the Church of St. Sofia.

Such a change in princely policy could not simply be a manifestation of the ruler's tyranny. Obviously, there were anti-Byzantine sentiments in Russia, so strong that they pushed the Russian soldiers into a hopeless naval campaign against Constantinople. The Greek dignitary and writer Mikhail Psellus, an eyewitness of the events, considers the reason for the Russian campaign of 1043 to be "old enmity". "This barbaric tribe," he writes, "is always seething with anger and hatred towards the Roman empire and, constantly inventing one thing or another, is looking for a pretext for war with us"[11].

Map. Europe in the XI century (187 KB)

http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/maps/args08.html

Pselle is wrong! The Russian corps of Varangians (Varangians) fought for the Orthodox faith and Byzantium in Syria and Italy from 988 to 1081. Sympathy for the Greeks in Russia was strong, but in this crucial year antipathies took shape. Therefore, it should be concluded that around 1043, the movement of Russian Westernism first took shape, which no, no, and flared up earlier. As already noted, the first Russian Westerner was Svyatopolk the Accursed. But as soon as it became clear that he was supported by Poles and Jews associated with them, and this was discovered in 1018, at his second accession, the Russian soldiers who brought Svyatopolk to the throne in Kiev attacked the Jews living in Kiev and burned their houses [12]. The people of Kiev radically changed their attitude towards the Grand Duke and killed Poles divorced for a stay. Svyatopolk had to flee to the Pechenegs, because the soldiers and the Kievans refused to support him.

Hence, it clearly follows that not all Kievans hated the Greeks and adored Catholics. Subsequently, we will meet with the whole Grecophile party, which elected Basileus' son-in-law Vsevolod Yaroslavich, the future prince of Pereyaslav, as its leader.

But who then formed the party hostile to the Greeks? This party was so influential that it was able to start a war because of the murder of one of its merchant members in a bar fight, whereas usually in such cases it was customary to limit monetary compensation - vira. It must be assumed that the Greeks would prefer to get off with paying vira, if only because the mobilization of the army and navy cost more. This episode attracted the attention of A.A.Shakhmatov [13] and D.S. Likhachev [14], who noted that the initiative of offensive actions did not belong to the Russians, but to the Varangians, who brought the Russian army to defeat.

Ingvar the Traveler is named among the Varangians who provoked a senseless and hopeless war. After the defeat, he left the Rus, who were thrown ashore by the storm, and went to "Serkland"[15], i.e. Serir in the Caucasus, obviously deciding that it was easier to rob there. Around 1043, three thousand Varangians rose from the sea along the Rioni River and were defeated by Georgians - Eristav Liparit and Tsar Bagrat IV [16]. Whether Ingvar the Traveler died there or in another place is immaterial. Another thing is important: from that time on, the Kievan princes stopped believing in the invincibility of the Varangians and began to avoid conflicts with the Greeks.

But there were people in Russia who did not like either the Greeks or the Germans. And there were a lot of them. But since it is impossible to live without friends, they turned their eyes to the east, where there were also Christians, and not only Nestorians. In Merv in 1048 there was the residence of the Orthodox Metropolitan,[17] to whom the Orthodox of Central Asia were subordinate. This party chose Svyatoslav Yaroslavich, later Prince of Chernigov, as its banner.

The Great schism of the churches in 1054 isolated Russian Westerners from Catholic countries, because the transition to Latinism began to be regarded in Kiev as apostasy. But Yaroslav, his son Izyaslav and grandson Svyatopolk II, needing money, patronized the Kiev colony of German Jews who carried out the connection of the Kiev princes with Catholic Europe. The Jews received the money that fell into the princely treasury from the local population, who mourned that the Jews "took away all the crafts of Christians and had great freedom and power under Svyatopolk, through which many merchants and artisans went bankrupt"[18]. The same source reports that the Jews "seduced many into their law"[19], but how to interpret this information is unclear. Most likely this is a lie, but the very fact of the existence of religious disputes and the discrediting of Orthodoxy is confirmed by the ancient author - Theodosius of Pechersk, who used to argue with Jews in private conversations, "because he wanted to be killed for confessing Christ"[20]. That his hopes were not unfounded, we will see later, but his role in supporting Izyaslav and the respect of the people saved Theodosius from the martyr's crown.

This whole split into several parties, under which sub-ethnic differences were hidden, deserves attention, because only under Vladimir Monomakh came the triumph of Orthodoxy in Russia. Orthodoxy united the ethnic groups of Eastern Europe, although this spiritual unity was accompanied by political separation, which will be discussed below.

79. IMPORTANT CHANGES

Yaroslav the Wise died in 1054 as the Kievan kagan - the victor of the Lyakhs, Yatvyags, Chudis and Pechenegs, a legislator, educator and liberator of the Russian Church from Greek domination, but he did not leave the country at peace. On the contrary, both on the borders and inside the Russian land, events flowed along by no means in foreseen channels.

The unexpected thing was that, despite the grandeur of the territory subordinated to Kiev, Yaroslav could not defeat the small principality of Polotsk. On the contrary, he ceded Vitebsk and Usvyat to Prince Bryachislav of Polotsk, Vladimir's grandson, which did not give him the desired peace. Only in 1066, Yaroslav's children - Izyaslav and his brothers - defeated Vseslav Bryachislavich Polotsky on the Nemiga River, and then, inviting him to negotiations in Smolensk, they seized and imprisoned him in a log cabin (a log cabin without a door, i.e. a prison) in Kiev. Released by the rebels of Kiev on September 15, 1068, Vseslav reigned in Kiev for seven months, and then, under pressure from the superior forces of the Polish king Boleslav II [21], he returned to Polotsk and, after several failures, he defended the independence of his hometown.

Equally unexpected was the appearance on the southern border of Russia in 1049 of the Guzs, or Torks, former allies of Svyatoslav, now enemies. The war with the Torcs dragged on until 1060, when they were defeated by a coalition of Russian princes and driven to the Danube. In 1064, the Torks tried to cross the Danube and gain a foothold in Thrace, but the widespread diseases and rivalry of their sworn enemies, the Pechenegs, forced the Torks to return and ask for asylum from the Kiev prince. Settled along the southern border of Russia, on the right bank of the Dnieper, the Torks became loyal allies of the Volyn princes against the third nomadic ethnos that came in their footsteps - the Polovtsians. It is necessary to say more about these, but for now we will consider the internal political situation in Russia.

The government of Olga, Vladimir and Yaroslav, relying on the Slavo-Russ subethnos - descendants of the Glades, gathered together a huge territory - from the Carpathians to the Upper Volga and from Ladoga to the Black Sea, subjugating all the ethnic groups that lived there. With the death of Yaroslav the Wise, it turned out that the Kiev ruling group could no longer rule alone and was forced to switch to the principle of federation, although power remained the privilege of the princes of the Rurik house. The princes-heirs were placed in the cities by seniority: Iziaslav - in Kiev and Novgorod, Svyatoslav - in Chernigov and Seversk land, Vsevolod - in Pereyaslavl with a "surplus" from Rostov-Suzdal land, Vyacheslav - in Smolensk, Igor - in Vladimir-Volynsky. According to the law, called "Yaroslavl Row", the succession to the throne went from the elder brother to the next, and after the death of all the brothers - to the eldest nephew [22].

What is here: an increase in the passion voltage of the system or a decrease in it? We'll figure it out.

Where the level of passionarity is growing, there is a process of original formation of culture and formation, characteristic of this ethnic group. Where passionarity is on the decline, but the inertia of the system is great, borrowing from neighbors is common, and where inertia fades, the usual social institutions remain sufficient to meet the needs of systems with extensive forms of agriculture. This is how Eastern Europe was divided into "urban" - the cultural colony of Byzantium - and "rural", which gradually took over the initiative in political life. Yaroslavichi faced this collision.

The assumption that the number of passionaries in Russia has grown so much that they did not fit into the Kiev Principality and therefore dispersed to distant cities contradicts the geographical distribution of the appanages. All three main cities - Kiev, Chernihiv and Pereyaslavl - are located very close to each other, and the peripheral regions do not seek separation from the metropolis and accept princely posadniks without a murmur. And yet, the three leading princes are associated with the Kiev parties: with Germanophiles - Izyaslav, with the Grecophiles - Vsevolod and with the Russophiles - Svyatoslav, and the younger ones - Vyacheslav and Igor - colorless figures who left the arena of political history early.

As it was shown above, rulers are always limited in their will by the direction of their environment. Rulers have success when their close associates are talented and help them sincerely, without sparing themselves. And this applies to the appanage princes more than to any other crowned princes. The squad, like the prince, was fed by the city. The number of squads was measured by hundreds of people, and the princely armies - tens of thousands. Consequently, the power was on the side of the townspeople, who could dictate the princes' line of conduct. So, the prince's policy was determined by the interests of the group that fed him. The princes did this because it was the only way for them to exist and work "in their specialty". Therefore, often the passivity of a prince was determined not by his personal qualities, but by the disinterest of citizens and vigilantes in enterprises they did not need, although personal qualities during the planned actions, of course, had their own significance.

Now let's consider: if the passionate tension in the country had been growing at least for a short time, then the princes as military specialists would have been in great demand. So, it was in the tenth century, when the Novgorodians begged Vladimir Svyatoslavich with Dobrynya and the squad for themselves.

And 100 years later, unemployed rogue princes appeared. Such were the unfortunate ones whose fathers died without waiting for their turn to sit on the golden table of Kiev. There was no place for these rogues in life, for they could not even be appanage princes in small towns except by the grace of their happy relatives. And if the outcasts did not know how to persuade their brothers to love and goodness, they were threatened with exile to Byzantium or even death. Thus, energetic outcasts willy-nilly became enemies of society, which nurtured them and threw them away with the cold cruelty of an inveterate egoist. Therefore, in the second half of the XI century. Russia became restless.

The literal text of the article of the law on outcasts: "The outcasts of Troy: the priest's son will not learn to read, the merchant will lend, the smerd will break away from the line, and there is a fourth - if the prince is orphaned." The meaning of the law is to keep people in the state of their social stratum with the threat of depriving the inferior of the right to live (go on). However, if the son of a priest is inclined to military service (Alyosha Popovich), or a peasant decided to devote himself to fighting robbers (Ilya Muromets), or a merchant, venturing on a long journey, was shipwrecked (Sadko) and went bankrupt, then he is not a valiant loser, but an outcast who has nothing to live for. So, in order to enjoy the patronage of the law, you have to sit and not climb anywhere. But this is a defense of "golden mediocrity", and here Yaroslav the Wise closes with Octavian Augustus.

But that's right! The transition from phase to phase even in different ethnic groups generates similar phenomena. In the inertial phase of ethnogenesis (in any social system), fatigue and the desire to get rid of the restless elements of society prevail. They are thrown out, but thereby forced to resist and win back the taken place in life. And since gifted passionaries are looking for a different fate, they find it in one way or another, even in heroic death. So, the philistine's desire for peace led him to constant unrest, which could have been avoided with some elasticity of legislation.

But the law has prepared the most cruel fate for the orphan princes. Popovich, the merchant, the peasant had a choice: to accept or fight, and these could not prolong the life of their fathers and thereby change their fate. They could either become sycophants so that they could get something from the benefits, or fight until death or victory. And blood stained the Russian land.

The first outcasts were Yaroslav's grandchildren: Rostislav Vladimirovich, the son of an unsuccessful military commander of the campaign against the Greeks in 1043, who died in Novgorod in 1052, Boris Vyacheslavich, orphaned in Smolensk in 1057, at the age of one year, and David Igorevich, a year younger than Boris, orphaned two years old. They were extremely dissimilar in character, but they were all passionate, and all participated in the events of Darkness, because Darkness was the most convenient city for losers who had no place in life in Russia.

It is easy to imagine how these young princes felt, watching how their cousins live and what they are waiting for: Mstislav and Svyatopolk Izyaslavichi in Kiev; Gleb, Roman, David, Oleg and Yaroslav Svyatoslavichi in Chernigov, Vladimir and Rostislav Vsevolodichi in Pereyaslavl! They had everything: wealth, education, connections, prospects, and the rogue princes were fed while they were children, and even then, only because there were no hungry people in Russia then. And what's next?

And it was these losers who drew the attention of the Dark-Balkan Jews in the 60s of the XI century, because they were ruled by a cool and smart Svyatoslav Yaroslavich through his eldest son Gleb, a strong-willed, courageous and resolute man. The Jews would have been much more suited to Izyaslav, married to a Polish woman, a friend of the Germans, but they were unlucky and had to come up with something. And then the Polovtsy just turned up... and a new period in the history of the western outskirts of the Great Steppe began.

80. THE APPEARANCE OF THE POLOVTSIANS

"Nothing ever ends" - this is the opinion of contemporaries of any historical events, because the "beginnings" and "ends" are always closely intertwined with each other. They can only be distinguished at a great distance. That is why the penetration of the Seljuks into Iran and Asia Minor, and the Polovtsians into the Black Sea region seemed to the chroniclers of the XI century only another variation of the alignment of forces. But an ethnologist, having a retrospective of the ancient history of these ethnic groups and knowing their subsequent fate, can find their place and determine the degree of their significance for neighbors and descendants on the canvas of global cultural genesis and local processes of ethnogenesis.

All Turkic ethnic groups of the XI century were "old men". They appeared together with the Huns and Sarmatians in the III century BC, passed through all phases of ethnogenesis and turned into homeostatic relics. It would seem that they were doomed, but the opposite happened. The Persian historian Ravandi wrote to the Seljuk Sultan Kai-Khusrau in 1192-1196: "... in the lands of the Arabs, Persians, Byzantines and Rus, the word (in the sense of predominance. - L.G.) belongs to the Turks, the fear of whose swords lives firmly in the hearts" [23] of neighboring peoples.

And so it was. Back in the middle of the XI century, the former Ghaznavid official Ibn-Hassul, in his treatise against the Dalemites, lists "the lion-like qualities of the Turks: courage, devotion, endurance, lack of hypocrisy, dislike of intrigue, immunity to flattery, passion for robbery and violence, pride, freedom from unnatural vices, refusal to do household manual work (which has not always been observed - L.G.) and the desire for command posts"[24].

All this was highly appreciated by the settled neighbors of the nomads, because among the listed qualities there were none that were associated with increased passionarity: ambition, sacrificial patriotism, initiative, missionary work, defending identity, creative imagination, striving for the reconstruction of the world. All these qualities remained in the past, among the Hunnic and Turkic ancestors, and the descendants became plastic and therefore desirable in states that were exhausted from the excesses of their own subpassionaries. The moderate passionarity of the Turks seemed to the Arabs, Persians, Georgians, and Greeks to be a panacea.

But the Turkic ethnic groups did not get along with each other at all. The steppe vendetta carried away the heroes without bringing victory, because instead of the dead, grown-up young men stood up. Passionate ethnic groups could win and retain success, but centuries passed, and they were not and were not expected.

Low passionarity by no means excludes wars and conquests. It is not the absolute level that is important, but the difference, the difference between the levels. So, if the Turks were characterized by the search for luck, even at the risk of their lives, then for the lazy descendants of the once passionate dekhans of Transoxiana, there was enough desire for the improvement of the family and their garden, and there could be no question of risk. It was even worse in Iran and Iraq. There were numerically dominated by subpassionaries, accustomed to living on the wealth accumulated by their ancestors and unable not only to defend their country, but also to curb their desires.

Only the Dalemites retained combat capability equal to the Turkic, but there were so few of them! Therefore, in 999, the rich Samanid emirate became the prey of the Turkic tribes of Yagma and Chigil, Khotan and Kashgar were captured by the Karluks who converted to Islam, and the Kangls (Pechenegs) took possession of Khorezm. Arabs and Persians in their country (!) found themselves in the position of a disenfranchised population.

But the situation on the western edge of the Great Steppe was quite different, because the Rusichs in the XI century were in the inertial phase of ethnogenesis, i.e. they were more passionate than the Turkic nomads who sought to the banks of the Don, Dnieper, Bug and Danube, from the steppe which was drying up all the tenth century.

As already noted, the steppe between the Altai and the Caspian Sea was a field of constant clashes between three ethnic groups: Guzs (Torks), Kangls (Pechenegs) and Cumans (Polovtsians) [25]. Until the tenth century, the forces were equal, and all rivals held their territories. When, in the tenth century, a severe age-old drought struck the steppe zone, the Guzes and Kangls, who lived in the Aral dry steppes, suffered from it much more than the Cumans, who lived in the foothills of the Altai and on the shores of the high-water Irtysh. Streams flowing down from the mountains and the Irtysh allowed them to preserve livestock and horses, i.e. the foundation of the military power of a nomadic society. When, at the beginning of the XI century, steppe vegetation (and pine forests) began to spread again to the south and southwest, the Cumans moved after it, easily breaking the resistance of the drought-weary Guzs and Pechenegs. The way to the south was blocked by the Betpak-Dala desert, and in the west, they opened the road to the Don and Dnieper, where the grass steppes are located, just like in their native Baraba. By 1055, the victorious Polovtsy reached the borders of Russia.

At first, the Polovtsians made an alliance with Vsevolod Yaroslavich, since they had a common enemy - Torki (1055). But after the victory over the Torks, the allies quarreled, and in 1061 the Polovtsian Prince Iskal defeated Vsevolod. It must be assumed that both sides considered the conflict as a border skirmish, but nevertheless the steppe roads became unsafe, the communication of the Darkness with Russia became difficult, and this led to a number of important events.

NOTES

[1] See: Grumm-Grzhimailo G.E. Western Mongolia and the Ural Region. Vol. II. L., 1926. P. 119.

[2] See: Gumilev L. N. Hunnu. pp. 131, 170-173.

[3] See Gumilev L.N. Heterochrony of humidification of Eurasia in antiquity//Vesti.LSU. 1966. No. 6.Pp.62-71; he. Heterochronous humidification of Eurasia in the Middle Ages//Ibid., 1966. No. 18. pp. 81-90: the same. The role of climatic fluctuations in the history of the peoples of the steppe zone of Eurasia//History of the USSR. 1967. No. 1. pp. 53-66.

[4] See: Monuments of the history of the Kievan state. IX-XII centuries. M., 1936. pp. 76-77.

[5] Kunik L., Rosen V. News of al-Bekri and other authors about Russia and the Slavs Vol. 1. pp. 58-60.

[6] See: Vasilevsky V.G. Byzantium and the Pechenegs//Trudy. Vol.1. St. Petersburg, 1908. P. II.

[7] See: Bolshakov O.G., Mongayt A.L. Abu Hamid al-Garnati's Journey to Eastern and Central Europe (1131-1153). Moscow, 1971.

[8] Cit. by: Baskin M. "Hammer of Witches" as a classic example of medieval worldview//Sprenger Ya. and Institoris. Hammer of Witches. pp. 61-62.

[9] It should be noted that categorical predictions rarely come true. The Roman emperor Philip the Arab declared his capital an "eternal city", but after 200 years Rome was destroyed by the Goths and vandals, and the Western Roman Empire, named Hesperia in contrast to the Eastern (Byzantium), ceased to exist. The Jews refused to recognize Muhammad as the Messiah, saying that the true Messiah would come in 500 years. The Muslims waited and, when nothing happened, demanded the conversion of Jews to Islam. Those had to flee to Spain and Germany.

[10] See: Pashuto V.T. Foreign Policy... p.123.

[11] Mikhail Psell. Chronography/Translation, introductory article and notes by Y.N. Lyubarsky. M., 1978. p. 95.

[12] The information is preserved in the chronicle of Dlugosh. Cit. by: Berlin I. Decree. op. p. 159.

[13] See: Shakhmatov L.A. Searches... pp.226- 228.

[14] See.: PVL. Ch. II. pp. 378-379.

[15] See: Melnikova E.A. Ingvar the Traveler's expedition to the East and the Russian campaign against Byzantium in 1043//Scandinavian Collection. Vol. 21. 1976. pp. 74-88.

[16] See: Papaskivi 3.V. "Varans" of the Georgian" The Chronicles of Kartli" and some issues of Russian-Georgian contacts in the XI century.//History of the USSR. 1981. No. 3. pp. 164-172.

[17] See: Bartold V.V. About Christianity in Turkestan in the pre-Mongol period. St. Petersburg, 1893. p. II.

[18] Tatishchev V.N. Russian History. Book II. M.; L., 1962. P. 129. Sr.: Kuzmin A.G. Article 1113 in the "History of the Russian" by V.N. Tatishchev//Vestn. MSU. History. 1972. No. 5. pp. 79-89.

[19] Tatishchev V.N. Decree. soc. Vol.11.P. 129.

[20] The translation is re-consecrated. Filaret (Gumilevsky) in the "Notes of II ed. Imp. Academy of Sciences". Book II. Ext. 1. p. 174.

[21] The chronicle, transmitting the public opinion of contemporaries about the capture of Vseslav, condemns Izyaslav for betrayal and considers the alliance with the Poles as treason to the motherland (see: PVL. Ch. II. pp. 399-400).

[22] See: Solovyov S.M. The relationship between the princes of the Rurik house. M., 1847; Presnyakov A.E. Knyazhoe law in ancient Russia: Essays on the history of the X-XIII centuries. St. Petersburg, 1909; Gumilev L.N. The specific system of the Turks in the VI-VIII centuries //Soviet ethnography. 1959. No. 3. pp. 11-25.

[23] Bosworth K.E. Barbarian invasions: the appearance of Turks in the Muslim world//The Muslim world: 950-1150. M., 1981. p. 33.

[24] Ibid. p. 24.

[25] The Polovtsians did not all move to the west. Their main settlements remained in Siberia and Kazakhstan, to the shores of Lakes Zaisan and Tengiz. But as always happens, the most active part of the population has left, which, after defeating the Guzes and Pechenegs, faced Russia.

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