CONTINUATION OF THE POLICY OF LOYALTY
|
| After the death of Ivan Kalita the Grand Duke of Moscow became his son, Semeon the Proud (1340-1353). Every nickname has it that it reflects the character of the personality, and one can judge from the nickname about its bearer - perhaps only partially, but at least correctly. As soon as Semeon had consolidated his power in the Grand Duchy, he declared the superiority of his princedom over the other fiefdoms started using the title of the Grand Duke of All Russia. In this sense he continued the policy of Michael of
Tver. Indeed, his supremacy met almost unanimous recognition; when Novgorod tried to challenge Semeon, the Grand Duke sent against Novgorod substantial forces and achieved all he wanted: Novgorod had to accept Grand Duke's governor, pay a huge one-time tribute, and on top of that oblige itself to pay regular annual tributes to the Grand Duke's treasury. Semeon also firmly grasped the domestic affairs - without a trouble he enforced obedience on rebellious boyars and managed to achieve agreements with his brothers in the way that they recognized his supremacy without resistance. One needs to keep in mind that at that time the political situation became critical again - Ivan Kalita repeated |
|
the mistake of many of his predecessors and divided the country among his
sons. In his policy Semeon followed the wake of his father, whose policy's cornerstone was absolute loyalty to the Golden Horde. During his short reign he travelled to The Horde four times, more and more certainly winning its trust and support. Semeon also fought with Lithuania and added to his fiefdom Yuriev Polskiy, which since 1212 was the seat of a small principality. In principle Semeon managed to achieve all he wanted, but in 1353 he suddenly died during an outbreak of the bubonic plague. After his death in Moscow ruled his brother, Ivan II Fair (1353-1358), the former duke of Zvenigorod and Ruza. He also held the Vladimir throne.
At that time the right to reign in Vladimir was contested by the duke of Suzdal and Nizhny Novgorod, Constantine. The beginnings of the principality of Nizhny Novgorod are going back to 1328, when Ivan Kalita took the reign in Vladimir. Then the Tartar khan decided to perpetrate a new division of the Russian fiefdoms. Among others Alexander of Suzdal received Nizhny Novgorod and some other fiefdoms. But Alexander died prematurely and Suzdal went to his brother, Constantine; other lands were taken by Ivan Kalita. During the reign of Semeon the Proud the duke of Suzdal once again got his fiefdom in Nizhny Novgorod and moved there his seat; since then his fiefdom had been more and more often called the principality of Nizhny Novgorod. That was a short but remarkable period of the growth of Nizhny Novgorod; occasionally it even enjoyed protection of The Horde. All those factors conditioned Constantine's desire to enter the contest for the Grand Duke's throne, and he succeeded, although his success did not last. The real success came to Constantine's son, Dimitri, who after the death of Ivan Kalita received a Tartar yarlik for the Grand Duchy.
Ivan the Fair also maintained as good relations with the Tartars as possible. He jealously guarded his supremacy in Rus, and in his own domain he suppressed a renewed attempt of the boyar rebellion. But he reigned only six years and did not achieve greater successes. He left after him his son Dimitri, who formally took the Grand Duchy's throne as a child, but remained known in the History as Dimitri of the Don (Donskoy, 1359-1389). The beginning of his reign was not the luckiest one for the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which was going through one of its periods of weakness. Among others boyars, who did not feel a strong hand of the ruler, rose again. In 1360 The Horde gave Vladimir to Dimitri of Suzdal - it seemed as if Moscow was ultimately losing its political importance. But the events developed in a completely different way. Within some twenty years Rus saw a really cardinal break-through, because it is hard to find another word for the defeat that the Tartar yoke suffered after a hundred-some years of its rule.
And it could not be different. The Golden Horde had presented a real power very long, but individual khans, especially after the death of Uzbek, were not the best politicians. The terror could subdue Rus for several decates after the Tartaro-Mongolian invasion, but with time one needed to adopt diplomacy. Uzbek, who used to grant yarliks for the Grand Duchy once to the dukes of Moscow and another time to the dukes of Tver, managed to exercise his power, but it was his policy that eventually helped the dukes of Moscow to grow in power and mount enough of resources to conduct an independent policy. It used to emerge in the times of The Horde's weakness, for example when Dimitri of Suzdal became the duke of Vladimir. Not all the Muscovite boyars pursued purely egoistic goals; there were many supporters of a strong princely power, and those were they, who induced the Tartar khan to give yarlik to Dimitri of Moscow. That became a pivotal point in the Russian history, because since that time, after some temporary hesitations, the title of Grand Dukes remained in Moscow. There were, of course, attempts to change this situation, but without lasting consequences.
Eventually even Dimitri of Suzdal reconciled with Dimitri of Moscow, he let his daughter to marry Dimitri, and he supported Dimitri in his military expeditions. After all he needed an alliance with Moscow very badly, since at that time he waged a tough struggle for Nizhny Novgorod with his own brother Boris. It was the alliance with Moscow that decided that struggle for him, and since 1365 till his death in 1383 Dimitri also ruled in Nizhny Novgorod.
There were also efforts to grasp the Grand Duchy throne in Moscow on the part of the duke of Tver, Michael (1368-1399), the fourth son of Alexander executed in The Horde. His sister Ulyana (Julia), the second wife of the grand duke of Lithuania, Olgierd (Algirdas) Gedyminovich, was the mother of Ladislas Jogaila. Michael, an ally of Olgierd and an enemy of Moscow, most probably pulled the strings of the Lithuanian-Muscovite conflict, but it would be a mistake to attribute the exceptional role in this question to him. At any rate he would not stop harassing Moscow, and Dimitri of Moscow paid him with the same coin, while his warriors, in pursuit after the retreating Lithuanian armies, would ravage the lands of Tver. Three times, in 1370, 1371 and 1375, Mikhail received from the Tartars a yarlik for the Grand Duchy of Vladimir, but it did not help him in any way. Not only he did not consolidate his rule in Vladimir, but he failed to take over the city, where he simply was not let to enter. Those were already different times and nobody was impressed by Tartar decrees if there was no real military power to support them. Is it necessary to mention that the History was already going towards the crucial confrontation between the two powers?
As Michael saw all the futility of his struggle with Dimitri, he reconciled with the duke of Moscow, and promised to break up with the Lithuanians and not to claim Vladimir. After all he had no choice. Right at that time Mikhail started to have problems with his own domain - several fiefdoms had split from it, and the dukes of Tver had to wage a long struggle to subdue them
back.
|
