January & February

For today’s Russians, January and February are mostly a time to rest up after the hectic New Year’s holidays, although for schoolchildren, the first two months of the year represent the beginning of the long, seemingly endless third quarter; for sanitation workers in large cities, it is all about the torturous and for some reason perpetually losing battle with snowdrifts and icicles; for lovers of collective celebrations, focus is on preparations for the day that used to be called Soviet Army Day, later officially renamed Defenders of the Fatherland Day, but thought of by most people simply as “Men’s Day,” when in offices and schools, daycare centers and factories, boys and men of all ages are given presents.

But what did Russians experience during these months in bygone days? Let’s start with the fact that January 1 only became a major holiday under Peter the Great. New Year’s may not have been observed in January before Peter, but for centuries Russians had been celebrating the post-Christmas period, Svyatki: a fun-filled time from Christmas to Kreshcheniye,* when people dressed up in costumes (mostly animal skins) and went caroling from house to house, expecting tasty treats, and young women would engage in after-dark fortune telling. Also on Kreshcheniye, despite it usually being one of the coldest days of the year, people plunged into ice holes, believing that the Holy Spirit permeates the water on that frigid day.

Of course, Rus adopted Christianity only in the late tenth century (988 is the date cited). So what went on in January and February before that?

Looking back a thousand years, our best source is the Primary Chronicle, which in Russian is referred to as a “letopis,” a record of events by year (let). However this ancient account of the history of the Eastern Slavs does not actually cover every year, so we are not sure what was going on in 918, to say nothing of January and February of that year.

We do know that, not long before that, the legendary “Prophetic Oleg” (Veshchy Oleg, also known as Oleg of Novgorod) had died, supposedly bitten by a snake, as foretold by a soothsayer. Rus was being ruled by Prince Igor, who had recently begun to confront a new problem: the Pechenegs, a nomadic people who had appeared in his domain’s eastern steppe. In 915 a treaty was concluded between Igor and the Pechenegs, but in 920 the prince went to war with them.

What was Igor doing in January and February 918? Probably he was feasting in Kiev. If anyone was celebrating Christmas in Kiev back then, it would only have been merchants who had traveled there from Christendom. But even if the people of Rus did not have specifically Christmas traditions, the accoutrements of modern Christian celebrations were already largely in place: the costumes, the fortune-telling, and the ritual gluttony. For, as is well known, many major Christian traditions and holidays were superimposed on already existing pagan seasonal holidays.

Moving ahead a hundred years, to 1018, we see a very different Rus. Christianity had been “adopted” twenty years before, and the first churches were being built. Now January made its entrance to the ringing of church bells. Were the people of Rus crowding into churches over the Christmas holidays? Probably not: in 988 Prince Vladimir had had to force the people of Kiev into the Dnieper to be baptized, and they had to be ordered to attend church. According to the Primary Chronicle, when the prince commanded that children be sent to school, where they would be taught to read Christian texts and pray, “their mothers cried for them as if they had died.” Of course carols were being sung in Kiev and in Novgorod, and, especially in rural areas, people paraded the streets in costumes, and girls used various fortune-telling tricks to divine their intended one.

The year 1018 was a turbulent time. Prince Vladimir had died three years earlier and his sons were fighting among themselves to take his place. Yaroslav (the future “Yaroslav the Wise”) was fighting with Svyatopolk, who had seized power in Kiev and whom the author of the Primary Chronicle accused of murdering the brothers Boris and Gleb, assigning him the moniker “the Accursed.” However, not all historians believe the chronicler; some believe that it was actually Yaroslav, not Svyatopolk, who killed the brothers. Whatever the truth, it was certainly a cut-throat time.

In early 1018, Yaroslav was in Kiev, having managed to expel Svyatopolk  – but at what price? In 1017, as the chronicler laconically writes, “Yaroslav went to Kiev, and the churches burned.” What does that mean? That the new ruler took the city by force? Or did there just happen to be a fire? In any event, Yaroslav had no plans to relinquish the city, indeed many years later he would build Saint Sophia’s Cathedral there. But back in 1018 he was awaiting a new attack by Svyatopolk and his father-in-law, the Polish king, Bolesław the Brave – when it would be his turn to be expelled from the city.

Moving ahead another hundred years, by 1118 it was now the descendants of Yaroslav who held power across Rus, including the famous Prince Vladimir Monomakh in Kiev. By then he had achieved much, and he had also repeatedly called on the other princes to live in peace. Still, he had waged many campaigns against the steppe nomads: although the Pechenegs were a thing of the past, now the main threat from the southeast was the Polovtsians, and the Chronicle extols Monomakh as Rus’s main defender.

Incidentally, it was during Monomakh’s reign that the monk Nestor (possibly together with other monks) began the written record of past events, as well as those of his time, that would become the Primary Chronicle. It was then that the Chronicle established the version of events whereby Svyatopolk the Accursed killed Boris and Gleb, while tales in which Yaroslav was the villain figured in Scandinavian sagas.

But in 1118, Monomakh had more important matters to deal with than chronicles: he was preparing to go to war with Bulgaria. In Byzantium, there were several pretenders to the throne, and the Kievan prince was supporting one of them, which is what led him to send troops to occupy cities along the Danube. What is interesting is that Monomakh’s troops were accompanied by some unusual allies – the very same Polovtsians who had previously been Monomakh’s “irreconcilable foe.” This casts doubt on the popular idea that Russian history was one long battle between Christian princes and the “Asian” steppe.

By 1218 we suddenly begin to be able to discern not only in what year events took place, but in what month or season. It was in February of 1218 that Grand Prince Konstantin Vsevolodovich died in the city of Vladimir. He was succeeded by his brother, Yury. How much had changed! It was Vladimir rather than Kiev that was now the main seat of power. The Polovtsians had long since become allies and relatives, but the internecine wars among princes continued and were even bloodier than in the time of Yaroslav or Monomakh.

Konstantin was the son of the strong prince Vsevolod, whom the Chronicle assigned the sobriquet “Vsevolod the Big Nest.” After his death, Vsevolod’s children immediately began fighting one another, including in the famous Battle of Lipitsa, where Konstantin fought his brothers Yury and Yaroslav on the banks of the Lipitsa River. He so soundly defeated them that, if the Chronicle is to be believed, Yaroslav fled with no more than the shirt on his back. Many centuries after the battle, an ornate helmet was found in the woods not far from the Lipitsa battleground, presumably lost by the fleeing Yaroslav.

Konstantin proved to be a peace-loving ruler who was well respected. He occupied Vladimir and became grand prince, but he took care of his brothers and gave them their own lands to rule. Konstantin built churches and collected a vast library, with more than a thousand Greek manuscripts alone. He also invited scholars from other countries to Vladimir and knew several languages. However, he did not live long, and, sensing his approaching death, he decided to secure his children’s future. The throne was supposed to go to his brother, not his son. In early 1218 Konstantin summoned his brother Yury and appointed him heir to the throne, after making him take an oath that he would protect his nephews.

According to chroniclers, in February 1218 the city of Vladimir was plunged into profound grief. The city “wept great tears” and the boyars mourned Konstantin as a “defender of the earth.” Servants grieved for their “lord and provider,” while the poor and monks lamented the loss of “their consolation and the clothing of their nakedness.”

They were mourning one of the last Russian princes who ended his days in peace, did not see his cities destroyed, and was able to rule independently. Twenty years later, Yury would die fighting the Mongol Horde.

At that point, a totally new life began for Rus.