Martin Dimnik MIKHAIL, PRINCE OF CHERNIGOV AND GRAND PRINCE OF KIEV 1224-1246 In 1224 Mikhail Vsevolodovich, now the senior prince in the family of Orgovichi, became prince of Chernigov. During his reign he weakened the influence of the Vsevolodivichi, princes of Rostov-Suzdal', over Novgorod; he captured Galich from Daniil Romanovich, prince of Galicia-Volyn'; and in 1235 he effectively terminated the supremacy of the Rostislavichi, princes of Smolensk, over southern Rus'. Although Daniil and the Vsevolodovichi formed an alliance against Mikhail, they failed to defeat him and in 1236 Mikhail also became grand prince of Kiev. It was the Tatars who, after invading the lands of the Rus' in 1237, eventually drove him from Kiev. Mikhail continued to oppose the Tatars and was the last prince to capitulate to their demands. In 1246 he finally agreed to visit Saray to acknowledge the overlordship of Khan Baty. Whereas the princes who had gone before him were given patents by the khan to rule in their principalities, Mikhail was executed by the Tatars for his faith. Later he was canonized by the Orthodox Church. Historians are of the opinion that by the first half of the thirteenth century the Orgovichi had become ineffectual as a political force and that the most powerful princes were the Romanovichi in Galicia-Volyn' and the Vsevolodovichi in Rostov-Suzdal'. The accuracy of the accepted view is now questioned. By 1235 when Mikhail defeated the Rostislavichi and the Romanovichi and established his control over southern and southwest Rus', the Ol'govichi were in fact the strongest family. After his martyr- dom Mikhail became a model for the faithful in Rus' in their struggle against their pagan oppressors. The epilogue examines the devotion to Mikhail, how it developed in popular tradition and how it was promulgated officially by the Orthodox Church and by the rulers of Russia. This page intentionally left blank This page intentionally left blank A contemporary icon of Saints Mikhail and Fedor, "The Martyrs of Chernigov." STUDIES AND TEXTS 52 MIKHAIL, PRINCE OF CHERNIGOV AND GRAND PRINCE OF KIEV 1224-1246 BY MARTIN DIMNIK PONTIFICAL INSTITUTE OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES TORONTO 1981 ACKNOWLEDGMENT This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Social Science Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada CANADIAN CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA Dimnik, Martin, 1941- Mikhail, Prince of Chernigov and Grand Prince of Kiev, 1224-1246 (Studies and texts - Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies ; 52 ISSN 0082-5328) Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-88844-052-9 I. Mikhail Vsevolodovich, Grand Duke of Kiev, d. 1245. 2. Christian saints - Russia - Biography. 3. Orthodox Eastern Church, Russian - Biography. I. Title. II. Series: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Studies and texts - Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies ; 52. BX597.M55D55 281.9'092'4 C80-094636-7 © 1981 by Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies 59 Queen's Park Crescent East Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 2C4 PRINTED BY UNI VERSA, WETTEREN, BELGIUM Contents Acknowledgments vi Abbreviations vii Preface viii Introduction 1 1 Mikhail's Policy in Novgorod 15 2 Mikhail's Policy in Kiev 52 3 Mikhail's Policy in Galich 95 4 Mikhail's Death 130 Conclusion 136 Epilogue 140 Tables 157 Glossary 162 Chronological Table of Events 163 Maps 168 Selected Bibliography 172 Author Index 184 Source Index 186 General Index 188 Illustrations 1-4 following 144 Acknowledgments This book had its origin in a doctoral thesis which was submitted in July 1976 to the Board of the Faculty of Mediaeval and Modern Languages of the University of Oxford. During the years of research and writing I received much needed assistance and encouragement. My greatest debt of gratitude is to my supervisor Prof. J. L.I. Fennell for the patience with which he assisted me through all the stages of my work. His advice was invaluable and his dogged endurance in reading and rereading the manuscript went far beyond the call of duty. My thanks go also to Prof. Dimitri Obolensky who helped during an important stage of the investigations. I benefited greatly from the counsel given to me by Rev. James K. McConica CSB who, at times, assumed the role of mentor Rev. J. Reginald O'Donnell CSB gave me valuable advice for revising th thesis into book form. Jane Card kindly translated Latin texts and Irina Sergeevna Tidmarsh gave warm encouragement and valuable instruction in the Russian language. A generous post-doctoral grant from the Canada Council enabled me to visit Oxford in the summer of 1978 to complete my work on the book. As well as these, there are many other professors, librarians and friends who helped in various ways. I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to all of them. Toronto Martin Dimnik CSB December, 1978 Abbreviations Chteniya Chteniya v Obshchestve istorii i drevnostey rossiyskikh pri Moskov- skom universitete. NPL Novgorodskaya pervaya letopis' starshego i mladshego izvodov, ed. A. N. Nasonov (Moscow-Leningrad, 1950). Pskov Pskovskie letopisi, ed. A. N. Nasonov, 2 vols. (A.N. SSSR, 1941, 1955). PSRL Polnoe sobranie ntsskikh letopisey, vols. 1-33 (Saint Petersburg, Leningrad, Moscow, 1841-1977). RIB Russkaya istoricheskaya biblioteka, vols. 1-39 (Saint Petersburg, 1872-1927). s.a. sub anno/under the year. XL Troitskaya letopis', rekonstruktsiya teksta, M. D. Priselkov (Moscow- Leningrad, 1950). TODRL Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoy literatury (A.N. SSSR, Institut russkoy literatury, Pushkinskogo Doma). VOIDR Vremennik Obshchestva istorii i drevnostey rossiyskikh pri Moskov- skom universitete. Preface This work is based on an analysis of the primary sources. The chronicles of medieval Rus' published in the series PSRL l have served as the chief materials for the reconstruction of the events of the first half of the thirteenth century. The problems facing an investigator using the chronicles are many and at times insurmountable. There is, for example, the problem of contemporaneity. No chronicle has survived which was written in the first half of the thirteenth century. Information for this period is preserved in various later chronicle compilations, the oldest being the Hypatian Chronicle, the Novgorod First Chronicle and the Laurentian Chronicle. The chief source of information concerning southern Rus' for the first half of the thirteenth century is the Hypatian Chronicle.2 It is named after its oldest manuscript from the beginning of the fifteenth century. The chronicle is also known as the "South Rus'sian chronicle svod" (Yuzhno- russkiy letopisnyy svod\ the svod was probably compiled at the end of the thirteenth century. It can be divided into three parts, the last of which, from 1200 to 1292, is based mainly on information derived from the no longer extant "Galician-Volynian svod" compiled in Volyn1 at the end of the thirteenth century.3 The Novgorod First Chronicle is primarily a record of local Novgorod information. Two if its manuscripts have been published - the "older redaction" (starshiy izvod) called the Sinodal'nyy spisok and the "younger 1 Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisey, izdannoe po Vysochayshemu poveleniyu Arkheograficheskoyu kommissieyu, 24 vols. (Saint Petersburg, 1841-1921). After 1921 the series continued to be published as: Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisey, Izdavaemoe Postoyannoyu Istoriko-arkheograficheskoy komissieyu Akademii nauk SSSR. Izd. 2, vols. 25-33 (Leningrad, 1925-1977). It is important to note that vol. 2, which was first published in 1843 contained the "Gustinskaya letopis'." The latter source was omitted when vol. 2 was reprinted in 1908. Akademiia nauk SSSR also republished some of the early volumes in new editions, namely, volumes 1, 4 and 5. 2 "Ipat'evskaya letopis'," PSRL vol. 2, 2nd edition (Saint Petersburg, 1908). 3 See L. V. Cherepnin, "Letopisets Daniila Galitskogo," Istoricheskie zapiski, vol. 12 (1941), pp. 228-53 and V. T. Pashuto, "Ocherk istorii letopisaniya yugo-zapadnoy Rusi," Ocherki po istorii Galitsko-Volynskoy Rusi (Moscow, 1950). PREFACE IX redaction" (mladshiy izvod) called the Komissionnyy spisok.4 The Sinodal'nyy spisok was compiled in the fourteenth century at the court of the archbishop and can be considered to be the official Novgorod chronicle. It brings its consecutive yearly information up to 1330 after which date it records sporadic entries up to 1352. The Komissionnyy spisok, written in the fifteenth century, brings its information up to 1446. For the period of the first half of the thirteenth century it is much the same as the "older redaction/'5 When quoting from the Novgorod First Chronicle in this work two references are usually given: the first reference is to the Sinodal'nyy spisok and the second is to the Komissionnyy spisok. The Laurentian Chronicle6 is named after the monk Lavrenty who copied the manuscript in 1377 from an "old chronicler" (vetkhiy letopisets) which goes as far as 1305. This source is of special value to the investigation of the first half of the thirteenth century - mainly for events which occurred in northeast Rus' - as it incorporates the "svod of 1239" of Yaroslav Vsevolodovich as well as information from the chronicles kept at the court of Konstantin Vsevolodovich and his sons in Rostov (viz. the "svod of 1263").7 All remaining chronicles are compilations dating from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries which, for the most part, repeat the information given by the three chronicles mentioned above. On occasion they contain unique items of information concerning southern Rus'. It is difficult to establish what sources, now lost, were available to the compilers of the later chronicles. Two chronicles, the Sofiyskiy First and the Novgorod Fourth,8 appear to have derived their information from the hypothetical "svod of 1448."9 It contained information from southern Rus' different from that found in those chronicles (viz. the Moscow svod of 1479 and the Ermolinskiy, L'vov and Nikon Chronicles),10 which used the common 4 Novgorodskaya pervaya letopis' starshego i mladshego izvodov (NPL), ed.