Why did Rus’ become divided?

The last section named the problem: too many princes, and only one Kyiv. Here is how that political system actually worked — and why it pulled the lands apart.

For a while, the state of Rus’ seemed to be growing stronger. Under Vladimir and Yaroslav, Kyiv had become a great city, Christianity had spread through the land, and the princes of the Rurikid family had established themselves as the rulers of a large territory. But the same family that had brought the lands of Rus’ together would also become one of the main reasons why they began to separate.

The problem was not simply that the princes were greedy or that they could not get along. The political system itself was difficult to manage. A prince did not inherit the whole country from his father in the way a king in some western kingdoms might inherit a single crown. The lands of Rus’ were divided among members of the ruling family, and the right to rule Kyiv depended partly on a complicated order of seniority.

When a prince died, his place could pass to his brother rather than directly to his son. The other princes would then move from one city to another according to their position in the family. In theory, this system allowed the whole dynasty to share power. In practice, it could become extremely confusing. A prince who had spent years ruling one city might suddenly have a claim to a larger one, while another prince might be forced to leave the land where he had already built his own circle of supporters.

The system had worked better when the dynasty was small. By the twelfth century, however, there were many princes, and each generation added more. Every prince had sons of his own, and each son expected land, wealth and a place in the political order. The question was no longer simply who should rule Kyiv. There were now many important cities to govern, and many men who believed they had a right to govern them.

The princes tried to control this problem through agreements. In 1097, several of them met at the town of Lyubech. They agreed on an important principle: each prince should keep the land that belonged to his family. Instead of constantly fighting over who should move from one city to another, the princes were supposed to recognise their hereditary territories.

The agreement was sensible, but it did not bring an end to the fighting. The princes had already become too independent, and their lands had developed their own interests. A powerful ruler in Novgorod or Vladimir did not always need Kyiv to support his position. He had his own army, his own income and his own relationships with the local population.

This is why it is better not to imagine the political map of Rus’ as a country that simply broke into pieces. It was more like a large family whose branches gradually became separate households.

This is why it is better not to imagine the political map of Rus’ as a country that simply broke into pieces. It was more like a large family whose branches gradually became separate households. They still remembered that they belonged to the same family, but each household had its own property, its own interests and, sometimes, its own ambitions.

Kyiv remained the most prestigious city, and ruling there still gave a prince great honour. But prestige was not the same thing as control. A prince could take Kyiv and still have little power over the lands of another prince far to the north or east. As time passed, the other centres of Rus’ became stronger, and the old idea of one city standing above all the others became harder to maintain.

There was also a simple geographical problem. Rus’ covered a huge territory, and travelling between its major cities was slow. Rivers helped, but journeys could still take weeks or months. A prince in Kyiv could not easily control events in Novgorod, while a ruler in the north could make decisions without waiting for instructions from the south.

By the middle of the twelfth century, the old political unity had therefore changed. There was still a common dynasty, a common Christian faith and a shared cultural tradition, but there was no longer one ruler whose authority was accepted everywhere.

This did not mean that Rus’ had ceased to exist. It meant that Rus’ had become a world of principalities. Some would become rich and powerful, some would remain smaller, and some would disappear or be absorbed by their neighbours. Their rulers would fight each other, marry each other’s daughters, make peace and fight again.

The age of one great Kyiv-centred state was coming to an end. In its place was appearing something more complicated: a collection of lands that shared a common past but were beginning to develop their own lives.