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Monument to Alexander Nevsky in Pskov

But the name of Alexander is exalted high. M.D. Karateev writes about him like this: “As a commander, he can rightfully be considered great, because in his entire life he has not lost a single battle, with small forces he defeated the strongest and in his actions he combined military genius with personal courage. But there is something that makes him a special honor: in that gloomy era of incessant internecine wars, his sword was never stained with Russian blood, and his name was not tarnished by participation in any strife. But not all the princes acted so wisely: in 1281, the son of Alexander Nevsky, Andrei Gorodetsky, led the Tatar army to Russia in order to overthrow his brother Demetrius from the throne of Vladimir. A bad example is contagious. Together with him, another khan’s henchman, Prince Fyodor Rostislavich Chermny, who had lived for many years at the headquarters of the Golden Horde khans, the destroyers of Russia, went to rob Russia. This has happened and will happen more than once in Russian history. The sons of those who won a great victory in the battle against a formidable and mortal enemy will in some cases become defeatists or even traitors to their homeland. They will follow the lead of the "world hegemon", serving him with all possible ways although, of course, they do not reflect the thoughts and aspirations of our great people. Thank God, behind the bitter era - we have other leaders and leaders, hence - a different attitude of the world! Russia seems to have risen from the ashes!

V.M. Siberian. Alexander Nevskiy. 1993

Novgorod is lucky. The hordes of Batyeva did not burn it, like other cities of Russia. Maybe that's why the Novgorod heroes did not stand out in the epics for performing feats of arms. Nevertheless, Novgorod, in the person of Alexander Nevsky, showed Russia one of the companions of our land, but for everything, and even for feats for the glory of the Russian land, the heroes had to pay a big price. The brave Suzdalians expelled the Besermen Tatars from the cities, and now Alexander, as the “master of the land”, had to go to the Horde to pray for trouble. This visit was not sweet - to inform on their own and call regiments of filthy ones to the land of their homeland. The prince fell ill and died on the way home, on the banks of the Volga (1263). But if he really called the Tatars to Russia, then how to explain the fact that after his death the people “grew deeply” ... Then there was crying all over Great Russia, and everywhere the words sounded: “The sun of the fatherland has set!” And was it so? We will not paint the image of the prince with gold leaf, but the result of his policy is generally positive. “With his cautious, prudent policy, he saved Russia from the final ruin of the armies of nomads. Armed struggle, trade policy, selective diplomacy, he avoided new wars in the North and West, a disastrous alliance with the papacy for Russia and the rapprochement of the curia and the crusaders with the Horde. He bought time, allowing Russia to get stronger and recover from the terrible ruin. He is the founder of the policy of the Moscow princes, the policy of the revival of Russia ”(V. Pashuto). He managed to ensure a truce with the formidable Horde, and this “alliance” performed its role quite successfully. Perhaps it can be said that it was from the era of Alexander Nevsky that something like an alliance began to take shape, even a military brotherhood of Russia with the East - in the face of the formidable Tatar-Mongol army. Of course, there have been separate cases of joint military-political actions of Russia and Asia before, but a sufficiently clear and well-thought-out course for the rapprochement of Russia with the eastern giant has not yet been observed. Alexander's wisdom lies in the fact that he soberly assessed the potentials of the parties, the West and the East, and made the right choice. Who knows, perhaps Russia, at a new turn in history, will again face the need to make such a choice if the West, with persistence worthy of a better use, provokes us and pushes us into the abyss. After the battle of Rakovor won from the Germans (1268), the army of Novgorod had to face the larger German army (1269). But we called the Tatars for help, being afraid of them, the Germans fled (“The Germans, reconciled according to the will of Novgorod, are terribly afraid of the name of the Tatar”).

Holy Blessed Prince Alexander

Speaking about the reason for including Alexander Nevsky in the host of saints, L. Gumilyov writes: “There is interest Ask: Why did the Orthodox Church declare Alexander Nevsky a saint? Winning two battles is fairly easy, many princes have won battles. Alexander Nevsky was not very kind person- he severely cracked down on his opponents, - so this is not a reason to make him a saint and still honor him. Obviously, the main thing was the correct political choice made by Alexander, which was of tremendous importance. In his person, the Russians understood: we must look not for enemies, who are always enough, but for friends. The Russian Church proved to be a skilful and subtle diplomat. Most of all she benefited from the power of the Horde. In the decree of Khan Mengu-Timur it is said (1270): “Let no one in Russia dare to shame the churches and offend the metropolitans and archimandrites subordinate to him, archpriests, priests and other clergy. May their cities, regions, villages, lands, hunting, beehives, meadows, forests, vegetable gardens, gardens, mills and dairy farms be free from all taxes. Received the church and one-time donations. Khan Berke released an annual quitrent to Metropolitan Kirill in the Rostov land (in gratitude for the organized mass prayers for the recovery of the Khan's son). It is worth recalling that this happened a few years after the Batu invasion. As a result, the church began to grow rich quickly and become a strong political player, and politics is always based on financial resources. In the capital of the Golden Horde, Sarai, an episcopate was even organized. Can we agree that the Horde and the Russian elite have agreed? M. Krugov writes: “Not only the merchants, but also the Russian Orthodox Church made a bet on the Moscow Ruriks - they chose them as their strategic ally. The Church through its activities carried out the unification of the Russian people into a single nation - it developed the intellectual sphere of society, the basis of which is a common worldview. And I understood that for united nation a unified secular authority is required. Moscow princes and the Russian Orthodox Church did not accidentally become allies. Whatever our historians say about the patriotism of the Moscow princes, in fact they were the administrative backbone of the Horde in Russia. Because it was impossible to be her deputy and not be at the same time her support. Exactly the same pillars of the Horde in Russia were the Russian Orthodox Church and the merchant class. The first acted as an intellectual, and the second - as an economic pillar. Needless to say: there is in the church this servile and obviously disinterested readiness to serve strong of the world this, which cannot but revolt the patriots. If we fast forward to our time, then a contemporary writer M. Nazarov says about the same in the article “The Russian Church and non-Russian authorities”, expressing similar thoughts: “In conclusion, I emphasize that the Russian Orthodox Church is the only remaining structure of the Third Rome, which today still unites almost all of our former geopolitical space, including Little Russia, Belarus, Central Asia, even the Baltics. Moreover, only the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church how the spiritual authorities will be able to create a real patriotic opposition, uniting the most diverse circles, the most diverse groups, already by putting in their place their ambitious leaders who will not share the first places in any way. The first is the church, not them. And it is the church that must become today the collector the best forces people, its spiritual leader, should clearly analyze the course of events, calling good good and evil evil in order to prevent this evil from disguising itself as good and hiding behind deceitful slogans. Main trouble modern Russia that the church does not take on this role, since it is sick with all those diseases and reveals the same weaknesses as the entire post-Soviet society and its ruling stratum. This loses the authority of the church in the eyes of the people and especially its active part - the patriotic opposition. In the form of justification, many clergy have approved a number of certain conformist "truths", without delving into their meaning. For example: "The Church welcomes the separation of church and state, because it gives freedom to the Church." But this means that the forces of evil also receive greater freedom of influence on a soulless state. Or: "The Church has no political sympathies and preferences for any social system." Does this mean that both the God-fighting power and the power of the Antichrist himself are just as good for fulfilling the mission of the church as the Orthodox monarchy? Bitter truth, but true. Wahreit gegen Feind und Freund (German - The truth in relation to the enemy and friend).

Assessing the events of 750 years ago, one cannot fail to see the exceptional complexity of the situation. We were "in the ring of fronts". It is necessary to understand how this or that decision will turn out for Russia. We agree with the historian G. Artamonov: “Any emotional reaction to the establishment of Tatar domination, calling for a fight, turned into punitive expeditions that swept away pockets of resistance and innocent people on their way. The main condition for the revival of the country was peace, the possibility of restoration, the gradual gathering of forces for the decisive battle. It seems that in the middle of the 13th century only two people understood this at the state level - Prince Alexander Nevsky and Metropolitan Kirill.

Alexander Nevskiy

That is why in the same 1252, Alexander, who received a label for the great reign of Vladimir, was met at the golden gates with crosses and banners by the metropolitan himself with the clergy and townspeople. Let's put forward a hypothesis: the half-conscious Eurasian orientation of Russia began with Alexander. This prince is “the first Eurasian”. Although our ruling elite was still far from realizing the deep roots and ties with great Asia. Not one century will pass. The contribution of Novgorod, Pskov and Kyiv to the all-Russian cause is significant and significant, the cities helped colonization, the development of culture and trade, but, alas, not the protection of all Russian lands. Novgorod, Pskov tried to maintain independence, but at the expense of the rest of Russia. And back in the 17th century, under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the Pskovites did not let the troops of Moscow come to them (1650) and even requisitioned the Muscovy's grain and money convoys that passed to the Swedes. The final fall of the Novgorod Republic will be connected with the accession of Metropolitan Nikon (1649); he brutally suppressed the Novgorod freemen and anarchy, the mission of a single center finally fell on the shoulders of Moscow.

VLADIMIR-SUZDAL RUSSIA AND MOSCOW - THE HEART OF RUSSIA

Moscow, like a brave hero, rushes onto the stage at the last moment, when everything seemed to have already died - and holy Russia is about to be torn apart by cruel and ruthless predators. "Moscow. How much has merged in this sound for the Russian heart! How much it resonated!” This phrase A.S. Pushkin from "Eugene Onegin", perhaps, reflects our attitude to the capital in the best possible way. But before talking about the role of Moscow, let's take a look at the state of the all-Russian lands. And it was unenviable. People close in blood, language, spirit and faith found themselves in the position of bitter enemies. Death and devastation were carried by their own, who sometimes acted with greater cruelty, ferocity, heartlessness than the Polovtsy, Pechenegs, Tatar-Mongols, Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Lithuanians. It seems that that period of civil strife gave rise in the minds of the idea of ​​​​our people as born "anti-statists." In addition to everything, the church was also declared guilty of sins, giving it an unflattering characterization (“the manifestation of a stateless spirit”). Hence, they say, our hostility and blind obedience “in state affairs,” although it is precisely for Russia that a surprisingly integral symbiosis of state power and the church is characteristic. Many of them, ministers of the church, faithfully served our Lord and Fatherland. In their writings and sermons, they defended the interests of the grand-ducal, and then the royal power, and thus, as it were, elevated the state over the church, putting it in the first place. All Russian thinkers did not separate the state from the church and the church from the state, did not separate their functions, as the Byzantine-Western European ideologists did, assigning secular affairs to the state, and religious ones to the church. This is both the strength and weakness of the Russian Church, for with a strong and intelligent sovereign, its power and energy increase a hundredfold, and with a weak, insignificant tsar or prince, its role becomes simply unenviable.

ON THE. Berdyaev

However, is it really that we really only wanted to destroy the state or do without its participation?! Is the Russian people really submissive and passive?! For example, the philosopher N. Berdyaev declared: “Russia is a submissive, feminine land. Passive, receptive femininity in relation to state power is so characteristic of the Russian people and of Russian history. There are no limits to the humble patience of the long-suffering Russian people.” History has repeatedly refuted such erroneous ideas, and above all in relation to our great people. Is it the Russian people “does not want to be a courageous builder”?! Yes, there is nothing that would stand further from this "truth". The Russians are a builder people like no other! The patience of our great people may indeed seem endless, but woe to those who abuse it. Berdyaev will return to the idea again, stubbornly repeating: “The Russian people cannot create a middle humanistic kingdom, they do not want to rule of law in the European sense of the word. This is an apolitical people in the structure of its spirit, it is striving towards the end of history, towards the realization of the Kingdom of God. He wants either the Kingdom of God, brotherhood in Christ, or fellowship in Antichrist, the kingdom of the prince of this world.” The point is different: Christ can become an instrument of the wrath of the people.

M.V. Dovnar-Zapolsky

Or maybe both? After all, it was the Russian people who created the "middle kingdom", although the issues of humanism and legal culture could not be fully realized in those conditions. It would be as strange as reading morality to a pack of predators. It should be taken into account that the geographical position of Moscow and Vladimir-Suzdal Rus was much less favorable than, say, the same

Kyiv or Novgorod: it is no coincidence that these cities became the first capitals Ancient Russia, and not at all Moscow, Rostov, Vladimir, Tver and Suzdal. The advantage of the position of Kyiv, which stood on the full-flowing Dnieper, or Novgorod, lying on the Volkhov, in comparison with Moscow, which did not have such clearly expressed blessed conditions for trade and existence, was noted by the historian M.V. Dovnar-Zapolsky. A follower of S.M. Solovyov and V.O. Klyuchevsky, lecturing at the University of St. Vladimir and the Kiev Commercial Institute (1911-1914), he emphasized that leading role in the history of peoples, the geographical factor plays, and he made special emphasis on geo-sociological moments. Speaking about the similarities and differences between Russia and Western Europe, he specifically noted (for those who are used to always and in everything following in the wake of Europe, this can become a kind of revelation): “I had to emphasize several times,” wrote M.V. Dovnar-Zapolsky, - the difference between the economic state of Ancient Russia and those forms of economic life that can be observed in the same period in Western Europe. This difference is not a difference of laws economic development, which should be the same for all peoples. This development is chronological: Western Europe later entered those forms of economic life that developed much earlier in Russia. The economic structure of Ancient Russia should not therefore be compare (italics ours) with medieval Europe in this regard. Our antiquity, perhaps, or rather, could be compared with the development of ancient antiquity. The conclusions of the scientist are also very significant. Characterizing ancient Russia in the spirit of V.O. Klyuchevsky as “commercial capitalism”, he emphasized the fact that this “capitalism” had to develop in different conditions: firstly, on much larger geo-ethnic spaces, and secondly, in extremely difficult combinations (“our country is great, but not plentiful") and, thirdly, in a situation of continuous and expanding colonization, with the solution of the problems of arranging colossal lands and the evolutionary assimilation of tens and even hundreds of completely different peoples who are at different stages of development, who are adherents of different cultural habits, customs and religious beliefs.

Jerusalem on Moscow land

To erect a “new Jerusalem” on such a vast territory is an extremely difficult task. Hence the “psychic structure of the Great Russian tribe”, and its vital attitudes and habits, and even the nature of its socio-political structure (which is read between the lines). Tracing the directions of colonization, Dovnar-Zapolsky asked important issue: why did the ancient Slav go from the fertile lands of the south to the barren lands of the north and northeast? He believed: “It is only by trading purposes that one can understand the reason for the colonization of a country that is not at all endowed with nature or poorly endowed for agricultural purposes, the movement from black soil and a favorable climate to a harsh climate, with loam, sandy loam and podzol, into the swamp jungle. Obviously, the colonist was not interested in agriculture, but in crafts and trade. To this was added the fact that the colonist had to conduct an extensive economy, having neither the strength, nor the time, nor the knowledge for intensive forms of management. But it's not just about that, and not so much about that. After all, trading conditions were better on the Dnieper and Volkhov than in Muscovy. Being a Pole, the author, presumably, expressed his attitude towards the “Russian type”, stating: “The colonialists lost their unproductive strength in the struggle against nature and people, which retarded their mental and moral development” (i.e., the development of Russians). To survive in those conditions, feeling like an ethnic group, it took a feat, which became the moment of the birth of the state, and nationality, and culture, and the military spirit, which allowed our ancestors to live and win, focusing, first of all, on themselves. “The Russian people had enough strength, because they were new forces, a new supply of energy.”

Moscow is under construction...

That is why history went in this direction and not in another direction. It can be said that it was the shift to the north, to more severe conditions, “with wretched nature”, where not only the city, but the peasant and the village became the main person, and served great service Russia. The movement was prepared for economic reasons. Figuratively speaking, at that time the village, that is, the peasant, defeated the city. M.N. Pokrovsky wrote that "the fall of urban law and the triumph of rural law" determined "the political face of the future Northern Monarchy" for centuries. These changes are based on material reasons: the depletion of the land by predatory methods of management, the ruthless attitude of the prince towards the people, the movement of world trade routes from well-trodden old roads. All this led to the rise of Moscow. And, besides, Moscow has learned and consolidated the main idea - "the answer for the whole Russian land." Having inherited the idea of ​​the “Russian land”, moreover, in a clearer and more mature form than that of Kyiv and Novgorod, Moscow assumed the responsibility for implementing the functions of “translatio imperii” (Latin – “transfer of the empire”, i.e., supreme power). In the depths of the Central Russian Upland, a state began to take shape that could soon stand in the way of the aggressors - Mongolotatars, Germans, Poles, sometimes acting with the most severe methods, because others were simply ineffective. This does not mean that Moscow acted only by force, money, and deceit. Not at all. The main thing is an appeal to the mind and heart of Russia! For example, when in 1452 Metropolitan Jonah sends a message to the Bishop of Tver Ilya, asking the Prince of Tver for assistance in the planned campaign against the Tatars by Moscow, the thought is clearly traced: what is good for order, tranquility among Christians, will also be “great for both rulers and everything.” Orthodox Christianity is the common good. At the end of the 14th century, already after the Battle of Kulikovo, when it was necessary to gather all forces into a fist for the sake of liberation from the yoke, Muscovites turn to Tver, which played the role of a “third force”, and ask them to act together against the opponents of Russia: “And be us, brother, against the Tatars, and against Lithuania, and against the Germans, and against the Poles one at a time." But Tver stubbornly refused to heed the voice of reason and unity, cherishing dreams of a grand prince's crown.

N.I. Belov. Bortenevskaya battle. The victory of the Tver squad of Mikhail Yaroslavich over the Tatar-Moscow army of the temnik Kavdagy and Prince Yuri Danilovich

It's time to turn to the history of the emergence of Moscow. The beginning of the process of settlement of this territory is attributed to the Neolithic era. The first chronicle record about Moscow as a city with this name dates back to 1147. The researcher of Moscow antiquity I.E. Zabelin we read: “Come to me, brother, to Moscow! ..” “Be, brother, to me in Moscow!” This is the first annalistic word about Moscow. Citing the news of 1147, he paints before the reader a picture of a rich princely patrimony, to which many villages and villages served this newly emerged princely economy. The first organizer of the ancient Suzdal land, the Suzdal prince Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruky, decides to invite his dear guest and ally, Seversk prince Svyatoslav Olgovich, to an honest feast. The dinner arranged by the host prince in honor of Svyatoslav and his squad, which the chronicle reports, was "strong". All this does not at all fit in with the idea of ​​a small provincial place where there is nothing to treat and meet honored guests. I.E. Zabelin writes: “In these few words, the whole history of Moscow, the true meaning and essential nature of its historical merit, were, as it were, prophetically indicated. Moscow became strong and ahead of others by constantly and steadily calling the scattered Russian lands to an honest feast of national unity and a strong state union.

Historian-archaeologist I.E. Zabelin (1820–1908)

The world is red with a feast. Whether Moscow was already a city at that time or not, one cannot say quite definitely, but everything, rather, inclines us to the idea that it had already become a city in the ancient Russian sense of the word, that is, it was surrounded by fortifications. There is no hint that the action is taking place in some remote or deaf country, where dangers lie in wait for travelers at every turn. This is also hinted at by the story of a plentiful feast, which the host-prince treats to guests who gave him a pardus - a live leopard or just a leopard skin. However, that record does not quite accurately reflect the main content of the subsequent history, when the princes of Moscow, Ryazan, Tver, Novgorod, Pskov, Yaroslavl and so on had to conduct not so much feasts as military battles. and even with hard labor of the whole people to equip themselves. According to archaeological excavations, a fortified settlement on the site of the modern Moscow Kremlin has existed since the end of the 11th - beginning of the 12th centuries. During the reign of Yuri Dolgoruky, around 1156, a new, larger fortress was built, devastated by the Mongols in 1237. But Moscow was being rebuilt again, and finally, in the second half of the 13th century. the city becomes the capital city of the Moscow Principality ... Importance geographical location Moscow, which arose along three main routes, the presence of a river that connected the area with the region, and an active influx of people from the end of the 13th century. predetermined that Muscovy becomes "the ethnographic center of Great Russia". And here the rivers played their role, which, according to L. Mechnikov, are the main reason for the birth and development of civilization, “an expression of a living synthesis, the whole set of physical and geographical conditions: climate, and soil, and the relief of the earth's surface, and geological structure. ". Alas, the author did not find a place in his work for the great Russian rivers, just as other “interpreters” of modern culture and history of the pro-Western sense do not find a place for the great Russian people today.

V. Limarev. hard labor of the people

As you know, one of the signs of Rome and Constantinople was the foundation of cities on the hills (Rome - 12, Constantinople - 7). The presence in the landscape of Constantinople of 7 hills, similar to Roman ones, was perceived as such an important feature that it turned out to be included in all the legends about the foundation of the new city and even became the reason for one of its names - Seven Hills. The main hills in the capitals were considered the places of ancient citadels: in Rome - the Palatine Hill, in Constantinople - the Acropolis of Byzantium. On these hills the complexes of imperial palaces were located. In Moscow, Borovitsky (Kremlin) Hill became such a hill. In the town-planning comprehension of Moscow as the Third Rome in the XVI-XVII centuries. and began to identify in the first place "seven hills." True, there are no documents listing them. M. Lomonosov noted: “Moscow stands on many mountains and valleys, along which many cities represent the elevated and humiliated sides and buildings, which are united into one city ... If we take three mountains for one hill, split into three, then it, along with other main will be seven hills, according to which Moscow is compared with the seven-hilled Rome and Constantinople. The subsequent authors also speak about the same "hills". So, M.P. Kudryavtsev wrote: “Like the First and Second Rome, Moscow stood “on seven hills”. There are no direct documents listing these hills; there are no clearly expressed hills in the Moscow relief. emphasizes the purely symbolic likening of the capital of Russia to the capitals of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. All these likenings to Rome, as well as the attempts of the Russian princes, and then the tsars, to elevate the genealogy to the family of Emperor Augustus should be taken rather as an apocryphal. They served one purpose: to substantiate and secure for this or that center, the prince, the supreme authority of the difficultly developing Russian national state.

Vasnetsov A.M. Monastery in Muscovite Russia

It is for these purposes that the literary geniuses of Ancient Russia evoke from the depths of history the legendary heroes of the past. In outstanding literary monument“The Word of Daniel the Sharpener” says: “Lord, give our prince Samson’s strength and Alexander’s courage, Joseph’s mind, Solomon’s wisdom.” The Moscow princes managed better than anyone to combine all these qualities, along with courage and courage, if we take, of course, all their combined activities. This is how the Moscow principality first took place, and then Russian empire. A prominent place in the history of Russia is occupied by Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruky (1090–1157), the son of Vladimir Monomakh, the founder of the capital of our homeland, Moscow. Yuri's mother was a Russian princess of humble origin, and not an Englishwoman at all (as they sometimes said). In 1096, his father gave him the Rostov-Suzdal land (when his son was only 6 years old). To help the heir, Monomakh sent his educated servant - Georgy Simanovich, who would become the prince not only an educator, but true friend and assistant, being a thousandth and actually being the ruler of the Rostov-Suzdal land. Yuri calmly left him on the "shore" of the principality in his absence. The prince grew up and went on campaigns together with the formidable Vladimir Monomakh. After victories over the Polovtsians, Monomakh decided to strengthen ties with them and married 18-year-old Yuri to a Polovtsian princess ("Aepina's daughter"). So the "Polovtsian", whose name was lost in history, became his wife and mother of Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, which is easily guessed in his appearance. Yuri Dolgoruky is considered the founder of Moscow (1147). In the Tver Chronicle we read: "... the great prince Yuri Volodimerich lay Moscow at the mouth of the Neglinna, above the Yauza River." The fact that Yuri Dolgoruky settled in Moscow was only part of his extensive activity in the development of the western outskirts of the Suzdal principality. "... The city of Pereyaslavl endured from Kleshchin and created a larger old one, and put the church in it with the stone of the Holy Savior." In 1154, the city of Dmitrov was built, named after Dmitry Vsevolod, one of his sons, who later became known in history as Vsevolod the Big Nest. The purpose of Dolgoruky's construction activity is to secure important strategic trading points. As for the nickname "Long Hand", various explanations are found for him. It is generally accepted that the nickname was given to him because he was reaching out from distant Suzdal to Kyiv, wanting to get the throne of Kyiv.

Ivanov SV. Court in Moscow State

Some say that the matter is in the peculiarities of anatomy (he has Long hands). Often this name is derived from the warehouse of his character. Historian M. Shcherbatov believed that Prince Dolgoruky could get his nickname for his inherent "greed for acquisition." This version seems to be supported by the story of the boyar Kuchka, who owned a family nest located on the site of the future Moscow, where there were beautiful and rich villages on both sides of the river. Yuri Vladimirovich, for some reason, ordered "that boyar to be seized and put to death." The reason, apparently, is the most trivial - the prince wished to seize the estates he loved ("Love the villages thereof"). He took the life of the owner of the estate, and sent the children to his son Andrei. Then he will advise his son to marry the "daughter of Kuchkova." It is no wonder that the history of the birth of Moscow, which began with such a tragic, bloody, malicious and criminal act as the murder of the boyar Kuchka and the seizure of his lawful land, led some to ominous analogies. Later, when Moscow will be considered as an analogue of the Third Rome, they will remember the history of the emergence of Rome the First - with the murder of Romulus' half-brother Rem. In "The Tale of the Beginning of the Reigning Great City of Moscow" (XVII century), the bloody massacre with Kuchka is considered in the outline of "Roman history" as a "sign" of the future bloody history"Last Rome" Like the "first" - "old" Rome, and the "second" Rome - Constantinople, it is also true "our this, the third Rome, the Muscovite state, was not conceived without blood, but after the shedding and slaughter of the blood of many." It is unlikely that “mythological details” played a significant role in the process of separating Moscow from other equal-sized and even more prominent places, although there is also a mystery why the city and the region, far away, at first not at all prestigious, often simply called Zalesye, suddenly moved forward among others, far more glorious lands and cities. As if in famous fairy tale A.S. Pushkin about the princess: Muscovy - like a young princess "everything is in the forest, she is not bored with the seven heroes." There really is some mystery here.

Suzdal land

It was the central part of the great Russian land, for the Rostov-Suzdal principality occupied the lands of a number of regions - Moscow, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Kostroma, partly Vologda, Tver, Nizhny Novgorod. The edge was all permeated waterways (80 large tributaries of the Oka and Volga connected all these regions). In other words, the location of Moscow was exceptionally convenient, firstly, from the point of view of gaining freedom from the all-seeing eye of all kinds of townspeople, usurers, tiuns, who in new places were at first few in number and not so ferocious, and secondly, it was more convenient to defend themselves from enemies (foreign or friendly) and, thirdly, from the point of view of location, these places were favorable for conducting trade in all directions - to Western Europe, to the Russian North, East and South. The main aspect of Yury Dolgoruky's multifaceted activities, as already noted, was construction. V.N. Tatishchev called him the "urban planner" of 10 cities. The prince is credited with the construction of Moscow, Yuryev-Polsky, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Dmitrov, Kostroma. Construction under him acquired an unprecedented scale, having a specific, definite - economic, political, cultural or defense - meaning, and often several. Efforts in this direction became a stone chronicle of his struggle against the boyars (N.N. Voronin). His son Andrei created the princely palace in Bogolyubovo, which had stone walls and resembled a fortress. The researcher of the activities of Prince A. Yanovsky wrote: “Yuri Dolgoruky had three most important tasks: first, the unification of Russian lands, as far as possible under the conditions of the described time; secondly, the protection of the Suzdal land from the corrupting forces of feudal separatism; thirdly, the salvation of central Russia from a direct armed attack by Kyiv. In the current situation, these tasks could be satisfactorily solved only if the central power passed to the Suzdal ruling house, to the house of Dolgoruky - strong, stable, the only one close to the broad circles of the people in terms of political aspirations. And I must say that Yuri managed to realize these tasks in general, which not many people managed to do. Among other qualities, we will name his perseverance, which distinguishes Muscovites. He had to fight three times for the Grand Duke's throne in Kyiv, until he took it for the third time - and this time for good. The battle for Kyiv was a kind of conditio sine qua pop (lat. - a necessary condition without which nothing can exist). After all, then the generally recognized political formula was the formula: "Moscow is the second Kyiv, the Moscow princes are the descendants of the Kyiv princes, the heirs of their valor and lands." In such words, the idea of ​​the historical continuity of the Muscovite state from Kievan Rus was embodied, which was also expressed in Russian literature of the XIV-XVI centuries. “... And now the rise of the capital and Orthodox city of Moscow, like the second Kyiv,” is said in the History of the Kazan Khanate (mid-16th century).