Personality of Ivan Kalita. Historians' opinions. Purse on the kingdom On the great reign

Ivan I Danilovich (Kalita). historical portrait

GENERAL INFORMATION

• years of life - 1283 - 1340 (41)

• second son of Moscow Prince Daniel Alexandrovich

• years of government in Moscow - 1325 - 1340

ACTIVITIES (major events)

1. expansion of the boundaries of the Moscow principality

• purchase of territories - Galich, Uglich, Beloozero (1328)

quote

“... Kalita bought from the impoverished local princes (descendants of Konstantin Vsevolodovich of Rostov) not only Uglich, but also Galich Mersky and Belozersk; however, while he left them in the possession of hereditary princes, content with the complete obedience of the latter ... "

quote

* Spiritual letter (second) of Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich of 1389:

“And I bless my son, Prince Yury, I will buy my grandfather, Galich, with all the volosts, and from the village, and with all the duties, and with those villages that gravitated to Kostroma, Mikulskoe and Borisovskoye.

And I bless my son, Prince Andrei, with the purchase of my grandfather, Belymozero, with all the volosts, and Volsky with Shagot, and Milolyubsky ez, and with the settlements that were my children.

And I bless my son, Prince Peter, with the purchase of my grandfather, Coal the field, and what attracted him, but Nausea and Syamoyu.

Note

Revised edition: Spiritual and contractual letters of the great and appanage princes of the XIV-XVI centuries. Prepared for publication by L.V. Cherepnin. M.-L.: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1950.

Dating basis: the letter was written after April 13, 1389, when Metropolitan Pimen left Moscow, and before May 16, 1389, when Dmitry Ivanovich's son Konstantin was born (PSRL, vol. VIII, p. 32).

• annexation of part of the Rostov principality (1331)

quote

* Ilovaisky D.I. "Russian history. v. 2. Muscovite-Lithuanian period, or Collectors of Russia»:

“To subjugate the specific Rostov princes, he also used family ties. So he gave his two daughters to Vasily Davydovich Yaroslavsky (grandson of Fyodor Cherny) and Konstantin Vasilyevich Rostovsky. The last one, i.e. Konstantin Rostovsky, was in perfect obedience to his father-in-law: the Moscow boyars disposed of in his capital city.

2.participation together with the Horde army in the suppression of the Tver uprising (1327)

3. transfer of the center of Russian Orthodoxy from Vladimir to Moscow(since 1328)

quote

*Kostomarov N.I. Russian history in the biographies of its main figures. T.1"

“In the very first years of his reign, Ivan gave Moscow a moral significance by transferring the metropolitan see from Vladimir to Moscow.”

4.construction of white-stone cathedrals in the Moscow Kremlin: Assumption, Cathedral of the Savior on Bor, Arkhangelsk, Church of St. John of the Ladder; oak Moscow Kremlin

quote

“In addition to the Cathedral of the Assumption, he also built the stone Arkhangelsk Cathedral (where his tomb stood, and where all the Princes of Moscow were buried from that time), the Church of St. John of the Ladder (on Kremlin Square) and the Holy Transfiguration, the oldest of those that exist now and was then the Archimandrite, which he founded also Father Ioannov on the banks of the Moskva River at the wooden church of St. Daniel created by him; John transferred this monastery to his palace, loved more than all others, enriched it with income; fed, clothed the poor there, and in it he was tonsured before his death. Decorating the capital with stone churches, he surrounded it (in 1339) with oak walls and renewed Kremnik, or the Kremlin, which had burned down in his time, which was an internal fortress or, according to the old name, a citadel.

VALUE OF ACTIVITY

1. the rise of Moscow and the strengthening of grand ducal power

quote

“The most important thing was that the Moscow prince acquired for his capital city the significance of the church capital of Russia ...”

quote

*Klyuchevsky V.O. "Course of Russian History":

“The acquisition of the grand-ducal table by the Moscow prince was accompanied by important consequences for Russia. The Moscow appanage owner, having become the Grand Duke, was the first to begin to lead the Russian population out of the despondency into which external misfortunes plunged them.

quote

*Klyuchevsky V.O. "Course of Russian History":

“So Moscow became the ecclesiastical capital of Russia long before it became the state capital. The rich material resources that the Russian Church then had at its disposal began to flow to Moscow, contributing to its enrichment. Even more important was the moral impression made by this transfer of the metropolitan see on the population of northern Russia. This population began to treat the Moscow prince with great confidence, assuming that all his actions are carried out with the blessing of the senior hierarch of the Russian church ... As a result, the Russian church society began to sympathize with the prince, who acted hand in hand with the supreme pastor of the Russian Church. This sympathy of church society, perhaps, helped the Moscow prince most of all to strengthen his national importance in Northern Russia. The political successes of the Moscow prince were consecrated in the popular imagination by the assistance and blessing of the highest spiritual power of Russia.

quote

*Kostomarov N.I. Russian history in the biographies of its main figures. T.2":

“Ivan’s desire to understand the ecclesiastical significance of Moscow was facilitated by the fact that Peter’s successor, Theognost, settled in Moscow, and after him, subsequently, all the metropolitans, one after another, stayed in this city and thus informed him of the significance of the capital of the entire Russian church.”

quote

“Under him, Moscow became a city of glorious “meekness”, free from the continuous threat of Tatar invasions, and this should have been extremely conducive to the growth and wealth of the city.”

“Kalita laid the foundations for the might of Moscow. He was the first to unite the Russian lands around her. After a long period of time, he was the first authoritative prince, whose influence extended to the entire North-Eastern Russia.

2. expansion of the boundaries of the Moscow principality

quote

* Ilovaisky D.I. "Russian history. v. 2. Muscovite-Lithuanian period, or Collectors of Russia»:

“As a true master and hoarder, although Ivan Danilovich Kalita significantly increased his own Moscow reign, he accomplished this increase not with weapons and bloodshed, but with a money purchase. He "invented" from neighboring principalities several cities and volosts with a large number of villages and settlements, which he bought from impoverished princes, boyars and monasteries. Under him, Moscow land, firstly, contained the entire course of the Moscow River with the cities: Mozhaisk, Zvenigorod, Moscow and Kolomna; further south-west it stretched from Kolomna up the Oka, with the cities of Kashira and Serpukhov; and to the northeast, the possessions of Moscow already covered part of the Volga region, containing the Volga cities of Uglich and Kostroma. They crossed far to the northern side of the Volga: Kalita bought from the impoverished local princes (descendants of Konstantin Vsevolodovich of Rostov) not only Uglich, but also Galich Mersky and Belozersk; however, for the time being he left them in the possession of hereditary princes, content with the complete obedience of the latter ...

3.maintaining good relations with the Horde

• abolition of Basques - obtaining the right to independently collect tribute from Russian lands and deliver it to the Horde

quote

*Tutorial, ed. I.O. Knyazkoy “History of Russia. Rulers of Muscovite Russia":

“Therefore, the main consequence of the uprising in Tver was the abolition of Basque culture in Russia by Khan Uzbek and the cessation of the constant Horde raids. The Tverites, who died in fierce battles with the Horde, obtained with their blood “great silence” for Russia, but the glory of the deliverer of Russia from the Baskaks went to the one who helped the Tatars smash the rebellious Tver.

quote

*Platonov S.F. "A complete course of lectures on Russian history":

“It is to this prince that the important merit is attributed that he obtained permission to deliver the “exit” to the Horde with his own means, without the participation of the Tatar tribute collectors. Thus, the main reason for the entry of the Tatars into the Russian lands was destroyed and internal peace and security was achieved in Russia.

• good relations with the khans of the Golden Horde

quote

*Tikhomirov M.N. "Ancient Moscow. XII-XV centuries":

“And the most remarkable thing is that the assessment of Kalita's activities by his contemporaries converges with what such an astute historian as K. Marx says. According to him, Kalita turned the Khan of the Golden Horde "into an obedient tool in his hands, through which he frees himself from the most dangerous rivals and overcomes any obstacle that arises on his victorious march towards the usurpation of power"

4. the beginning of the formation of the specific patrimonial system and the approval of the hereditary right of the princely dynasty in North-Eastern Russia.

quote

*From a textbook for educational institutions. 2012.

Danilevsky I.N. History of Russia from ancient times to the 16th century. 6th grade".

“Ivan Kalita owned the first spiritual charter - the Grand Duke's testament. Striking in its pettiness (it apparently mentions everything that the prince owned - up to 12 gold chains, 9 belts, a dozen pieces of dishes, 14 hoops, one necklace, 4 casings, etc.), it has long attracted the attention of historians. The main thing, however, is that for the first time in it the foundations of the appanage-patrimonial system that was then emerging in Russia are guessed. Apparently, the hereditary rights of the princely dynasty of North-Eastern Russia were recognized in 1339, when the spiritual charter of Ivan Danilovich Kalita was approved in the Horde.

FAMILY (wife and children)

1. Princess Elena (Olena) (? -1331), monastic - Solomonida - the first wife of the Prince of Moscow and Grand Duke of Vladimir Ivan I Danilovich (Kalita).

2. Princess Ulyana (? - mid-1360s) - the second wife of Prince of Moscow and Grand Duke of Vladimir Ivan I Danilovich (Kalita).

Sons: Semyon Proud, Ivan II Krasny, Daniil Ivanovich, Andrey

Daughters: Maria, Feodosia

CHARACTER

1. D.I. Ilovaisky notes:

• on the one hand, character traits are cruelty and sneakiness

• on the other hand - mind, diligence, frugality, a tendency to hoarding, thriftiness

quote

* Ilovaisky D.I. "Moscow-Lithuanian period, or Collectors of Russia":

“... on the one hand, it appears in the face of history with the unsightly features of a cruel and sly man who servilely in the Horde in order to win the favor of the khan, and resorted to all sorts of intrigues to destroy his rival. On the other hand, we see a smart, caring owner of his land, who has established peace and security in it from Tatar devastation.

2. Karamzin N.M. notes:

• on the one hand, character traits are deceit and cunning

• on the other hand - justice, piety, zeal for the construction of temples and mercy

quote

*Karamzin N.M. "History of Russian Goverment":

“Despite the deceit used by John to the death of a dangerous collaborator, the Muscovites praised his goodness and, saying goodbye to him in a coffin irrigated with the tears of the people, unanimously gave him the name of Collector of the Russian Land and Sovereign Father: for this Prince did not like to shed blood in useless wars , freed the Grand Duchy from the robbers of external and internal, restored his own and personal security, severely executed the tatey and was generally just.

Excellent piety, zeal for the construction of temples and mercy for the poor no less than other virtues helped John in gaining common love. He always carried with him a sack, or kalita, filled with money for the poor: that is why he was nicknamed Kalita. In addition to the Assumption Cathedral, he also built the stone Arkhangelsk Cathedral (where his tomb stood, and where since that time all the Princes of Moscow were buried), the Church of St. John of the Ladder (on Kremlin Square) and the Holy Transfiguration, the oldest of those that exist today and was then the Archimandrite, which he founded Father Ioannov on the banks of the Moskva River at the wooden church of St. Daniel, which he created; John transferred this monastery to his palace, loved more than all others, enriched it with income; fed, clothed the poor there, and in it he was tonsured before his death. Decorating the capital with stone churches, he surrounded it (in 1339) with oak walls and renewed Kremnik, or the Kremlin, which had burned down in his time, which was an internal fortress or, according to the old name, a citadel. ≤…≥"

CONTEMPORARY

• Metropolitan Peter - Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Russia. It is called Ratensky.

• Metropolitan Theognost (?-1353) - Saint, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia from 1328, successor of the Holy Metropolitan Peter.

• Alexander Mikhailovich of Tverskoy (1301-1339) - Prince of Tver from 1326

• Vasily Davydovich Terrible Eyes (Terrible) - Prince of Yaroslavl from 1321 to 1345, was married to the daughter of Ivan Kalita Evdokia (Feodosia)

• Konstantin Vasilievich Rostovsky (1312-1365) - Prince of Rostov-Borisoglebsky (1320-1365), was married to the daughter of Ivan Kalita Maria.

• Uzbek Khan - Khan of the Golden Horde (1313-1341)

• Shevkal (Chol Khan, Shchelkan) - cousin of the Golden Horde Uzbek Khan

• Gediminas - Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1316 to 1341.

Balashov D.M. "The burden of power" - a book about the reign of Ivan Kalita.

Balashov Dmitry Mikhailovich (1927-2000) - Russian writer.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ilovaisky Dmitry Ivanovich (1832-1920) - Russian historian.

Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich (1766-1826) - Russian historian and writer.

Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich (1841-1911) - Russian historian.

Kostomarov Nikolay Ivanovich (1817-1885) Russian historian, publicist and poet.

Tikhomirov Mikhail Nikolaevich (1893-1965) - Soviet historian.

Platonov Sergei Fedorovich (1860-1933) - Russian historian.

Danilevsky Igor Nikolaevich (1953) - Russian historian, specialist in Ancient Russia (until the end of the 16th century).

It was Ivan Kalita who understood how to make Moscow the most influential principality of Russia.
He adhered to four unwritten rules:

1. live in peace with the Horde;
2. to control the "exit", i.e. tribute;
3. collect land;
4. make friends with the Church.

Skillfully turning the punitive expeditions of the Horde against his enemies, Kalita quickly achieved the grand prince's table, which then mainly went to the Moscow princes. In 1327, when an uprising began in Tver against the Horde Baskak (tax collector) Chol Khan (Shchelkan), Kalita participated in its suppression, and then achieved the return and execution of the fled Tver prince Alexander. Kalita tried to achieve his goals without war. Under him, the Moscow principality rested from the invasions, so the chronicler wrote: “There was a great silence throughout the Russian land for forty years, and the Tatars stopped fighting the Russian land.” Tired of strife and raids, people rushed to the Moscow principality, which grew rapidly and grew rich.

The Moscow Principality became a “quiet place” where people aspired to

Kalita, as a reliable ally, was entrusted by the Horde with the collection of tribute from the Russian lands. He performed this duty cruelly and even went to war against the arrears. Moscow could now support the allies and punish the enemies, in her hands whistled " financial whip».

Kalita strengthened his friendship with the head of the Church in Russia, Metropolitan Peter. Often coming to Moscow from Vladimir, where his predecessor had moved from the devastated Kyiv, Peter finally moved here at the end of his life and died here. Before his death, he began the construction of the first stone Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin (1326). Kalita insisted that the Church immediately declare Peter a saint. So Moscow got its miracle worker, that in the Middle Ages was vital. Now the metropolitans lived mainly in Moscow, and the city acquired the significance of the church center of Russia.

Moscow has acquired the significance of the church center of Russia

The Moscow princes were obsessed with a passion for "collecting lands." They seized, bought, received lands from the princes who needed patronage - in a word, they mined them by any means. These lands-inventions became the private property of the prince, his fatherland, and he could completely dispose of them and bequeath them. They could "place" their devoted servants, and this increased the military forces of the prince. Imaginations lay in different parts of Russia, often inside principalities hostile to Moscow and gradually covered the country with a kind of net. In his spiritual charter (testament) Kalita included all his possessions: 5 cities, 54 volosts and 32 villages - it was a whole state. By this time, the Galician, Belozersky and Uglitsky principalities fell into dependence on Moscow.

The sons of Kalita were worthy of their father, but they were not lucky. In the 1350s, the whole of Europe was struck by an epidemic of pneumonic plague, which wiped out a whole generation of Moscow princes.. The eldest son, Prince Simeon the Proud, and the younger Andrei died in 1353. Their middle brother, Ivan the Red, did not rule for long. Dmitry Ivanovich, who was only 8 years old, remained the eldest man in the family. At the head of the principality stood Metropolitan Alexei, respected in the Horde, the prince’s mother, his tutor, the Moscow thousand (a position approximately corresponding to the Minister of War) Vasily Velyaminov, and others. But over the past half century, two generations of Moscow boyars have grown up, who firmly connected their fate with the prosperity of the dynasty . They returned to Moscow the Vladimir grand prince's table, which was lost, and kept peace with the Horde. But life already demanded other solutions.

Ivan Kalita invites Metropolitan Peter to Moscow. Smolin A
The 13th and 14th centuries - the first centuries of the Tatar yoke - were perhaps the most difficult in Russian history. The Tatar invasion was accompanied by a terrible devastation of the country. The ancient Dnieper regions of Russia, once so densely populated, for a long time turned into a desert with meager remnants of the former population. Most of the people were either killed or taken prisoner by the Tatars, and travelers passing through the Kiev region saw only countless human bones and skulls scattered across the fields. Kyiv itself, after the defeat of 1240, turned into an insignificant town, in which there were barely 200 houses. This land remained in such desolation until the middle of the 15th century.

North-Eastern Russia, although it suffered no less from the attack, managed to recover from it much faster. Even in the darkest hard times, life did not stop here for a moment. One of the important consequences of the Tatar invasion was the rapid fragmentation of the previously unified Vladimir-Suzdal volost. Even after the death of Vsevolod the Big Nest (the younger brother of Andrei Bogolyubsky), it broke up into five separate principalities. Vladimir, Rostov, Pereyaslav, Yuriev-Pol and Starodub. Under the grandchildren of Vsevolod, this fragmentation continued, and we already see twelve specific principalities, so Suzdal, Kostroma and Moscow stood out from the Vladimir region; from Rostov - Yaroslavl and Uglitskaya, from Pereyaslavskaya - Tver and Galician. Further, this fragmentation continued in an ever-increasing progression. For example, Nizhny Novgorod separated from the Suzdal principality, Belozersk from Rostov, etc. As a result, by the beginning of the 14th century, several dozen small destinies already existed in each of which its own princely dynasty was established. The constant enmity between them did not allow any successful struggle against the Tatars, who felt themselves to be full masters here. The capital city of Vladimir in these circumstances almost lost the signs of superiority. Receiving from the khan a label for a great reign, the princes were not obliged to stay in Vladimir; they could be great princes and live in their former destinies. However, the title of Grand Duke was far from being an empty phrase - it ultimately depended on which of the princely branches held it for their offspring, which of the northern Russian cities could become the center around which the country would unite. And just as before in the south the entire political struggle revolved around the right to have the Kiev table, so now it unfolded for the right to receive the khan's label and be called the Grand Duke of Vladimir. The struggle became especially fierce at the beginning of the 14th century, when a long-term war broke out between two lines of descendants of Vsevolod the Big Nest - the princes of Tver and Moscow. The town of Moscow arose among a wooded and swampy area on Borovitsky Hill, rising high above the confluence of the Moscow and Neglinnaya rivers. In the annals, it was first mentioned in 1147. At that time, it was apparently not yet a city, but a rural princely estate of the Suzdal prince Yuri Dolgoruky. The chronicler speaks about the fortification of Moscow with walls in 1156. The Kremlin hill, covered with a dense coniferous forest, at that time stood out quite noticeably among the surrounding landscape (the water level in the Moscow River was 2–3 m lower than the modern one, the foot of the hill was not hidden by embankment filling, the top was not cut, and there were no large structures around).


Vasnetsov A.M. Moscow Kremlin under Ivan Kalita.
This place was crowded, there was a brisk trade along the Moscow River, so the settlement began to develop very early near the walls of the Kremlin. At first, he occupied the narrow "hem" of the hill along the Moskva River, and then, turning up the mountain, occupied the interfluve of the Moskva River and the Neglinnaya.

As a new town and far from the Suzdal centers - Rostov and Vladimir - Moscow later than others could become the capital city of a special principality. And indeed, for a long time there was imperceptibly constant reigning. Only under the great-grandchildren of Vsevolod the Big Nest, after the death of Alexander Nevsky, did his own prince appear in Moscow in 1263 - Nevsky's young son Daniel. This was the beginning of the Moscow principality and the dynasty of Moscow princes. Daniil took the first step towards the rise of his family: in 1301, by cunning and deceit, he took Kolomna from Ryazan, and the following year he inherited his father's main inheritance - the Principality of Pereyaslav. The descendants continued his policy, slowly taking over the neighboring lands and rounding off their possessions. A natural question arises: how should we explain their continued and solid success? Alas, even with a very strong desire, one cannot see great personal merits in these figures. The first Moscow princes, according to Klyuchevsky, had no brilliance, no signs of heroic or moral greatness. They never shone with either great talents or bright valor. In terms of their personal qualities, they were more than average politicians, distinguished, however, by great dexterity and skillful obsequiousness. But just such figures were demanded by the era!:

“Each time,” wrote Klyuchevsky, “has its own heroes suitable for it, and the XIII and XIV centuries were sometimes a general decline in Russia, a time of narrow feelings and petty interests, petty, insignificant characters ... In the annals of this time we will not hear the previous speeches about Russian land, about the need to protect it from the filthy, about what did not leave the language of the South Russian princes and chroniclers of the XI-XII centuries. People closed themselves in the circle of their private interests and left there only to take advantage at the expense of others. And when common interests fall in society ... the state of affairs is usually taken over by those who act more energetically than others in the name of personal interests ..

The Moscow princes were in just such a position. Therefore, they were better than others able to adapt to the nature and conditions of their time and began to act more resolutely for the sake of personal interest. princes of Moscow, have to make big ones.

The irony of history lies in the fact that personal valor, high virtues and civic feeling, which we do not find either in Daniel, or in his children, or in grandchildren, were much more characteristic of their opponents - the first princes of Tver. On the side of the Tver princes, in addition, there was law, that is, all legal and moral means. On the side of the Moscow princes there was no right, neither moral nor legal, but they had money and the ability to take advantage of circumstances, that is, material and practical means.

In vain, the unfortunate prince of Tver, Alexander, called on his brethren, the Russian princes, "to stand for each other and brother for brother, but not to extradite the Tatars and resist them all together, to defend the Russian land and all Orthodox Christians." Such feelings at that time did not find any response in the Moscow princes. They did not think at all about the fight against the Tatars and believed that it was much more profitable to act on the Horde with servility and money than with weapons and force. For several generations, they diligently looked after the Tatar khans and eventually managed to make them an instrument of their plans. No one went to bow to the khans more often than they did, no one was a more welcome guest in the Horde than a wealthy Moscow prince, and no one knew how to slander and slander his compatriots of Russian princes before the Tatars better than him. This was the reason that laid the foundation for the rise and prosperity of Moscow. And yet, which of the two opponents - Tver or Moscow - should we recognize as more right in this historical dispute? The conclusion, alas, is quite unambiguous: the inevitable course of events ultimately confirmed the correctness of Moscow. While the obstinate Tver experienced all the horrors of the Tatar invasions over and over again, the Moscow volost, freed from raids, grew rich and gained strength. And when these forces turned out to be enough, then among the Moscow princes there was a valiant hero who managed to lead the Russian army to the Kulikovo field. Therefore, not the brave Mikhail of Tverskoy and not his son Alexander, but the treacherous Yuri Moskovsky and his crafty brother Ivan Kalita deserved in our history the glory of "gatherers" of Russian lands. Clashes between Moscow and Tver began in 1304 after the death of the Grand Duke of Vladimir Andrei Alexandrovich. According to the old custom, the seniority between the northern princes belonged to Mikhail Yaroslavich of Tverskoy. However, the place of tribal disputes between the princes was now replaced by rivalry on the right of power. In Moscow, then the eldest son of Daniil Alexandrovich, Yuri Danilovich, ruled. He was as strong as Mikhail Tverskoy, if not stronger than him, and therefore considered himself entitled to be his rival. When Mikhail went to the Horde for a label, then Yuri went there to compete with the Khan. But the label still went to the prince of Tver.

However, Yuri did not calm down. In 1315 he left for the Horde and lived there for two years.

During this time, he managed to get close to the family of Khan Uzbek and married his sister Konchaka, who was named Agafya at baptism. In 1317 he returned to Russia with strong Tatar ambassadors. Chief among them was Kavgady.

Yuri's troops went to the Tver volost and devastated it greatly. A fierce battle took place 40 versts from Tver near the village of Bortenev, in which Mikhail won a complete victory. Yuri with a small retinue managed to escape to Novgorod, but his wife, brother Boris, many princes and boyars remained prisoners in the hands of the winner. Konchaka-Agafya never returned to Moscow after that: she died in Tver, and a rumor spread that she had been poisoned. This rumor was beneficial to Yuri and dangerous to Mikhail. Appearing to Uzbek, Kavgady and Yuri slandered Mikhail and presented his behavior in the most unfavorable light. Khan was angry and ordered to call Michael to the Horde. In September 1318, Mikhail reached the mouth of the Don, where the Horde was roaming at that time. For a month and a half he lived quietly, then Uzbek ordered to judge him. The Horde princes, based mainly on the testimony of Kavgady, found Michael guilty. At the end of November he was executed.

In 1320, Yuri returned to Moscow as a winner. He was carrying a label for a great reign and the body of his enemy. Both sons of Mikhail and his boyars returned to Russia as captives. In an effort to fully use the benefits of his position, Yuri returned the body of Mikhail to his relatives only after the conclusion of a favorable peace with Tver. In 1324, the son of the executed Dmitry went to Uzbek and, apparently, managed to show the untruth of Yuri and the innocence of Mikhail. Khan gave him a label for a great reign. At the same time, the Khan's ambassador came to Yuri to call him for trial. Dmitry did not want to let his opponent go to the khan alone, knowing his resourcefulness, and he hurried after him.

The details of the meeting of the two enemies are unknown. The chronicler only reports that Dmitry killed Yuri and was later executed on the orders of Uzbek.

Under such circumstances, the reign of Yuri's younger brother, Ivan Danilovich Kalita, began. (Ivan probably got his nickname from the habit of constantly carrying a wallet with money for distributing alms.) He remained in the shadows for a long time with his older brother, but when the latter was gone, he successfully continued his policy. The eighteen years of Kalita's reign were an era of unprecedented strengthening of Moscow and its rise above other Russian cities. The main means to this, again, was Ivan's special ability to get along with the khan. He often traveled to the Horde and gained the full favor and confidence of the Uzbek. While other Russian lands suffered from Tatar invasions and camps, and were also subject to other disasters, the possessions of the Prince of Moscow remained calm, filled with inhabitants and, compared with others, were in a flourishing state.

“The filthy people stopped fighting the Russian land,” says the chronicler, “they stopped killing Christians; rested and rested the Christians from the great languor and much burden, and from the violence of the Tatars; and from that time on there was silence over the whole earth.

The city of Moscow expanded and strengthened. This can be seen from the fact that under Ivan a new oak Kremlin was built. Villages sprang up one after another around the capital. The limits of the principality itself also increased. At the beginning of Kalita's reign, his possessions consisted of only five or seven cities with counties. They were: Moscow, Kolomna, Mozhaisk, Zvenigorod, Serpukhov, Ruza, Radonezh and Pereyaslavl. However, having significant material resources in his hands, Ivan bought up a huge amount of land in different places, near Kostroma, Vladimir, Rostov, on the Meta River, Kirzhach and even in Novgorod land, contrary to Novgorod laws that forbade princes to buy land there. He started settlements in the Novgorod land, populated them with his people and thus had the opportunity to implement his power in this way as well. In addition to many villages, he even managed to acquire three specific cities with their districts: Belozero, Galich and Uglich. The rumor about the wealth of the Moscow prince dispersed in neighboring volosts. The boyars left their princes, transferred to the service of Kalita and received lands from him with the duty of service; the boyars were followed by free men fit for arms. Ivan took care of internal security, strictly pursued and executed robbers and thieves, and thus made it possible for merchants to travel along the roads. He also managed to give Moscow a special moral significance by transferring the metropolitan see from Vladimir to it. Ivan gained such favor with Metropolitan Peter that this saint lived more in Moscow than in other places. Here he died and was pofeben. The coffin of the holy husband was as precious for Moscow as the stay of a living saint: Peter's choice seemed to be God's inspiration, and the new Metropolitan Theognost no longer wanted to leave the coffin and the miracle worker's house. Other princes clearly saw the important consequences of this phenomenon and were angry, but they could no longer improve things in their favor. Throughout his reign, Kalita deftly used the circumstances to, on the one hand, increase his possessions, and on the other, to have a dominant influence on the princes in other Russian lands. In this, the ensuing hostility between Tver and the Horde helped him most of all. Prince Alexander Mikhailovich, who reigned in Tver after the death of Dmitry, took part in a popular uprising in 1327, during which the Tverites killed the Tatar ambassador Cholkan and his entire retinue.

The Uzbek, having learned about the fate of Cholkan, was very angry. According to some reports, he himself sent for the Moscow prince, and according to others, Kalita went to the Horde without a call, in a hurry to take advantage of the Tver incident. Uzbek gave him a label for a great reign and 50,000 troops. Having attached to himself the prince of Suzdal, Kalita went to the Tver volost; Tatars burned cities and villages, took people into captivity and, in the words of the chronicler, "laid the whole Russian land empty." Only Moscow and Novgorod were saved, which gave the Tatar governors 2,000 hryvnias of silver and many gifts. Alexander fled to Pskov. His brother Konstantin, ruling the devastated Tver land, was forced to please the Moscow prince, the Khan's favorite, in everything. The princes of other Russian lands were placed in the same position. Ivan gave one of his Daughters for Vasily Davydovich Yaroslavsky, and the other for Konstantin Vasilyevich Rostovsky and autocratically disposed of the inheritances of his sons-in-law.

In 1337, Alexander of Tverskoy reconciled with the khan and received back his principality. It was a strong blow to the power of Moscow. But two years later, Ivan went to the Horde with a denunciation of his enemy. As it happened more than once, the slander of the Moscow prince was believed unconditionally. The prince of Tver received an order to appear in the Horde. Alexander went, already realizing that his fate was sealed. And indeed - both he and his son Fedor were executed. Kalita returned to Moscow in great joy, sent to Tver, ordered to remove and bring to Moscow the bell from the church of the Holy Savior there. According to the concepts of that time, this was a very sensitive humiliation, unambiguously indicating that in the rivalry between the two cities, Moscow received complete triumph over its opponent. Prince Ivan Kalita died on March 31, 1340

K.V. Ryzhov.

After many years, something happened that the great Russian historian N.M. Karamzin spoke quite clearly in Notes on Ancient and New Russia in its Political and Civil Relations. He writes: “A miracle happened. The town, barely known until the 14th century, raised its head and saved the fatherland. And it all started with the fact that Prince Ivan Danilovich Kalita, “The Collector of the Russian Land,” sat on the Moscow table.

Against the background of the glorious deeds of the grandfather Alexander Nevsky and the grandson of Dmitry Donskoy, the deeds of Ivan Kalita seem very insignificant, and the personality is inexpressive. According to some historians, Ivan Danilovich is a mediocrity, seeking, with the help of the Tatars and his own thrift, only to increase his possessions at the expense of his arrogant and imprudent neighbors. Other scientists point to the results of the activities of Ivan and his descendants - the creation of a powerful Russian state with a center in Moscow. In their works, Kalita turns into a talented politician, diplomat, economist and psychologist, who worked tirelessly for the future, laying the foundations for the future power of Moscow. Who is right is hard to say. Much depends on the point of view of the researcher. Here are some opinions of famous historians:

Solovyov S.M.: “Since then, says the chronicler, when the Moscow prince Ioann Danilovich became the Grand Duke, there was a great silence throughout the Russian land and the Tatars stopped fighting it. Such was the direct consequence of the strengthening of one principality, Moscow, at the expense of all others; in one ancient monument, the activity of Kalita is indicated by the fact that he saved the Russian land from thieves (tats) - it is clear that our ancestors imagined Kalita as the establisher of silence, security, internal dress, which until then was constantly violated, first by princely family strife, then by strife princes, or, rather, individual principalities to strengthen themselves at the expense of others, which led to autocracy.

Kalita knew how to take advantage of the circumstances, end the struggle with complete triumph for his principality, and made his contemporaries feel the first good consequences of this triumph, gave them a foretaste of the benefits of autocracy, which is why he passed into posterity with the name of the collector of the Russian land "

Klyuchevsky V.O.: “Obviously, the political successes of the Moscow prince were illuminated in the popular imagination by the assistance and blessing of the highest church authority in Russia. Thanks to this, these successes, achieved not always by pure means, became the lasting property of the Moscow prince. Klyuchevsky believed that all the Moscow princes, starting with Ivan Kalita, "diligently looked after the khan and made him an instrument of their plans."

Borisov N .: “Between two giant fighters - Alexander Nevsky and Dmitry Donskoy - Ivan Kalita stands like a gloomy shadow.

The grandson of one hero and the grandfather of another, Ivan became the embodiment of cunning, treachery and other far from heroic qualities. This myth about Kalita was born about a hundred years ago. The raznochinets historian Vasily Klyuchevsky, who did not like the aristocracy in general and the old Moscow princes in particular, made a sarcastic assumption that Prince Ivan received his original nickname ... for stinginess. Meanwhile, ancient historical sources (in particular, the Volokolamsk Patericon) report that the prince was nicknamed Kalita because he always wore a purse on his belt - “Kalita”, from which he was ready to give alms to the poor at any moment ...

... As a true founder, Ivan was a man of ideas. And how could it be otherwise? After all, only faith in the holiness of the goal could at least partially soothe his wounded conscience. And the more evil Ivan had to do, the more significant and lofty was his goal ...

... And for his sins he gave an answer before God. But the people of that era, weighing his good and his evil on the invisible scales of their memory, gave him a name even more accurate than Kalita. According to sources, they called him Ivan the Good ... "

Cherepnin L.V .: “Ivan Kalita acted as an imperious prince-patrimony, steadily striving to expand the territory of his principality and to subordinate other Russian princes to his authority. There are no motives of the national liberation struggle in his activity. He did not fight against the oppression of the Golden Horde, but paid off the khan with the regular payment of the “exit”, giving Russia some respite from the Tatar raids. His policy of stealing money from the population of the Russian lands was steady and cruel, accompanied by drastic measures...

... But, having secured for himself, if not patronage, then, in any case, the recognition of the Horde Khan, Kalita used it to strengthen his power in Russia, which the Moscow princes later used against the Horde. Cruelly cracking down on his opponents from among other Russian princes, not disdaining Tatar help for this, Kalita achieved a significant increase in the power of the Moscow principality, and this contributed to the process of state centralization.

Grekov I.B., Shakhmagonov F.F.: “In historiography, the view on the actions of Ivan Danilovich is by no means the same. More than once accusations were made against him that the Tverians had rebelled, and out of anger at the Tver princes, in the struggle for the grand prince's table, he brought the Horde army to Russia. There are regrets that Tver was not supported by other Russian cities. Regrets, of course, have the right to exist. But one cannot ignore the fact that Russia was not yet ready to overthrow the Horde yoke, did not have the strength to do so, while the Horde under Uzbek Khan was experiencing the apogee of its power.

The Horde army would have come to Russia even without Ivan Kalita, moving to Tver, it would have devastated both the Ryazan and Vladimir-Suzdal lands. Ivan Danilovich had no choice: either go along with the Tatar army to punish Tver and thereby save Moscow, Vladimir, Suzdal, or lose everything.

It would seem that historians should have glorified such a man-ruler for his state deeds. But it was not there. The image of the Moscow prince, who left such a deep mark in Russian chronicle writing, was portrayed by researchers and writers with less rosy colors. The reason lies primarily in the personality of Ivan Kalita, according to whose precepts the descendants gradually “gathered Russia”. Karamzin defined the power of Moscow as "a force brought up by cunning."

According to Karamzin, the Moscow Prince Ivan Danilovich was, first of all, an exceptionally cunning specific owner. By cunning, he managed to win the favor of the rulers of the Golden Horde, convinced Khan Uzbek not to send more Baskaks to Russia to collect tribute, but to entrust it to the Russian princes, and also convinced him to close his eyes to territorial redistributions in the area of ​​​​the great reign of Vladimir, that is, to increment foreign lands to Moscow.

In old Russia, the gymnasium history textbook D.I. Ilovaisky, who, calling Kalita "the collector of Russia", at the same time gives him a very unflattering characterization: "Unusually prudent and cautious, he used all means to achieve the main goal, that is, the rise of Moscow at the expense of its neighbors." The Moscow prince “often traveled to the Horde with gifts and slavishly bowed to the khan; he received help from the khan in the fight against rivals, and thus made the Tatars themselves an instrument for strengthening Moscow ... Assuming the right to collect tribute from the specific princes and deliver it to the Horde, Kalita skillfully used this right to increase his own treasury.

Perhaps only the historian N.I. Kostomarov is quite benevolent towards the personality of Prince Ivan Kalita: "The eighteen years of his reign were the era of the first lasting strengthening of Moscow and its rise above the Russian lands." According to Kostomarov, the Moscow appanage prince was a typical person of his time - he, like all other Russian princes, collected land and power as best he could. Only a few succeeded in this, and the “bag of money” Ivan Danilovich succeeded most of all.

The study of the history of early Moscow is further hampered by the fact that almost all of its book wealth perished during the invasion of Tokhtamysh in 1382. Trying to save the books, the metropolitan ordered to collect them in one of the Kremlin stone churches. There were so many books that they reached the vaults. But the Tatars managed to capture and burn down the Kremlin. Only ashes remained from the books.

Ancient Moscow books perished in subsequent centuries. It is known, for example, that the famous figure of the time of Peter I, V. N. Tatishchev (1686 - 1750), used for his work “Russian History” a number of chronicles that have not survived to this day. The historian N. M. Karamzin (1766 - 1826) had at his disposal the Trinity Chronicle, which died in the fire of Moscow in 1812.

Summing up the losses and problems, we note the main thing: our knowledge about Ivan Kalita and his time is fragmentary and fragmentary. His portrait is like an ancient fresco, wounded by time and hidden under a thick layer of late oil painting. The path of knowing Ivan Kalita is the path of painstaking restoration. But at the same time it is also a way of self-knowledge. After all, we are dealing with the builder of the Moscow state, whose hand has forever left its mark on its facade.

The opinion of historians about Ivan Kalita.

Read in the sources, Karamzin, first of all, defined Prince Ivan with the words that one ancient Russian author found for him - "The Collector of the Russian Land." However, this was clearly not enough to explain. Why did Prince Ivan become this “Collector”? In the end, all the Russian princes of that time collected land and power as best they could, in other words, they rowed for themselves ...

Then Karamzin offered additional explanations. It turns out that Kalita was "cunning". By this cunning, he "earned the special mercy of Uzbek and, along with it, the dignity of the Grand Duke." With the help of the same “cunning”, Ivan “lulled into caresses” the vigilance of the khan and convinced him, firstly, not to send his Baskaks to Russia anymore, but to transfer the collection of tribute to the Russian princes, and secondly, to turn a blind eye to the annexation of many new territories to area of ​​the great princedom of Vladimir.

Following the precepts of Kalita, his descendants gradually "gathered Russia." As a result, the power of Moscow, which allowed it to gain independence from the Tatars at the end of the 15th century, is “a force brought up by cunning.”

Another classic of Russian historiography, S. M. Solovyov, in contrast to Karamzin, was very restrained in his descriptions of historical figures in general and Ivan Kalita in particular. He only repeated the definition of Prince Ivan found by Karamzin as "the Collector of the Russian land" and noted, following the annals, that Kalita "delivered the Russian land from the thieves."

Some new thoughts about Kalita were expressed by N. I. Kostomarov in his well-known work "Russian history in the biographies of its main figures." He noted the unusually strong friendship between Yuri and Ivan Danilovich for the princes of that time, and said about Kalita himself: “The eighteen years of his reign were the era of the first lasting strengthening of Moscow and its rise above the Russian lands.” At the same time, Kostomarov could not resist repeating the stereotype created by Karamzin: Kalita was "a man of non-belligerent character, although cunning."

The famous student of Solovyov, V. O. Klyuchevsky, was a great lover of historical paradoxes. In essence, the entire history of Russia was presented to them as a long chain of large and small paradoxes that fascinate the listener or reader, but do not lead to beacons of guiding truths. The princes of Moscow also fell victim to one of the minor paradoxes. “Conditions of life,” said Klyuchevsky, “often develop so capriciously that big people are exchanged for small things, like Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, and medium-sized people have to do big things, like the princes of Moscow.” This premise about "medium-sized people" predetermined his characterization of Kalita. According to Klyuchevsky, all Moscow princes, starting with Kalita, are cunning pragmatists who "zealously looked after the khan and made him an instrument of their plans."

Fascinated by the creation of an artistic image of the Moscow prince, Klyuchevsky claimed, although without any reference to sources, that Kalita had “abundant material resources” in his hands, there were “free money”. The logic of the image conceived by Klyuchevsky required the following judgment: rich means mean. From here came the well-known characterization of Kalita as a “prince-hoarder”, which stuck to our hero for a long time. The historian was not even stopped by the complete opposite of the image he painted to the nickname of Prince Ivan, indicating his generosity and kindness. He only slightly covered this stretch with a cursory remark: “Perhaps the ironic nickname that contemporaries gave to the hoarder prince, later generations began to assimilate a moral interpretation.”

So, to the portrait of the flatterer and cunning created by Karamzin, Klyuchevsky added a couple more dark strokes - hoarding and mediocrity. The resulting unattractive image, due to its artistic expressiveness and psychological authenticity, became widely known. It was imprinted in the memory of several generations of Russian people who studied according to the gymnasium history textbook of D. I. Ilovaisky. Here Kalita is the "collector of Russia". However, his moral qualities are disgusting. "Unusually prudent and cautious, he used all means to achieve the main goal, that is, the rise of Moscow at the expense of its neighbors." The Moscow prince “often traveled to the Horde with gifts and slavishly bowed to the khan; he received help from the khan in the fight against rivals, and thus made the Tatars themselves an instrument for strengthening Moscow. To all the previous vices of Kalita, Ilovaisky adds a new one - swindle. "Having arrogated to himself the right to collect tribute from the specific princes and deliver it to the Horde, Kalita skillfully used this right to increase his own treasury." The nickname of Prince Ivan Ilovaisky decisively translates as "a bag of money."

Consciously or unconsciously, but in this historical caricature of the founder of the Muscovite state, the attitude of the liberal Russian intelligentsia to this state itself, more precisely, to its historical successor, the Russian Empire, was manifested. Reluctantly recognizing the historical necessity of this state, the intelligentsia at the same time passionately hated its attributes - autocratic power and bureaucratic administrative apparatus.

The debunking and blasphemy of Ivan Kalita finally raised a legitimate question: could such a base person fulfill such a great historical task as the founding of the Muscovite state? The answer was twofold: either he was not the founder, or the image of Kalita created by historians is unreliable. The first answer was given by the historian of Russian law V. I. Sergeevich. He resolutely took away from Kalita his last dignity of the "collector of Russia" and called him "devoid of the qualities of a sovereign and politician." The well-known researcher of the political history of Russia A.E. Presnyakov came to the second answer. “A review of factual information about the activities of Grand Duke Ivan Danilovich,” he wrote, “does not give grounds for characterizing him as a “hoarder” prince, a representative of the “specific” narrowness and isolation of patrimonial interests. This characterization of him, so common in our historical literature, is based on the impression of his spiritual letters, which, however, relate only to the Moscow fatherland and its family and patrimonial routines.

After 1917, the dissonance of opinions in Russian historical science quickly disappears, giving way to the dominance of "highly approved" ideas. The founder of new, frankly ideological and politicized approaches to national history, M. N. Pokrovsky, advised to stop arguing about historical figures and move on to the study of socio-economic processes. “Let’s leave the exploits of the “gatherers” to the old official textbooks and will not go into a discussion of the question of whether they were politically mediocre or politically talented people,” wrote Pokrovsky.

Following the advice of Pokrovsky, historians for many decades abandoned the genre of historical portraits, excluding only custom-made icon-painting images. The general critical attitude towards the old rulers also affected Kalita. Little was written about him in school textbooks and historical writings, and mostly critically. A good fly in the ointment was added by Karl Marx's "Secret Diplomacy" - a sharp political pamphlet full of sarcasm about Russian history and its leaders. Relying on Marx, the historian A. N. Nasonov in his famous book “Mongols and Russia” (M., 1940) wrote: “Kalita was not and could not be either a unifier of Russia, or a pacifier. The popular movement for the unification of Russia began when the possibilities of fighting the Tatars opened up; and this movement, supported by the church, ensured the victory of the Moscow prince inside the country and success in the fight against the Tatars, which ended with the Battle of Kulikovo. About Kalita, Marx correctly said that he combined "the features of a Tatar executioner and a low worshiper and a chief slave."
Ten years later, another well-known historian, V. V. Mavrodin, followed the same method in evaluating Ivan Kalita. “Extortions from the population, from trade operations, appropriation of the Tatar tribute made the Moscow prince the richest of all Russian princes. “With a bag, and not with a sword, he paved his way,” says K. Marx about Kalita. However, Marx had different opinions on this matter. Mavrodin also agrees with this: "Under him, the foundation of Moscow's power was laid."