Dmytro Vitovsky ( Ukrainian : Дмитро Вітовський ; 8 November 1887 – 2 or 4 August 1919) was a Ukrainian politician and military leader.
139-680: Vitovsky was born into a family of gentry in the village of Medukha in Galicia (today in Ivano-Frankivsk Raion ). He graduated from the Stanislau gymnasium and later was a student activist at the law school of Lviv University . Later Vitovsky joined the Ukrainian Radical Party and was an active organizer of a number of Ukrainian educational and scouting Sich groups near Stanislau , which later became part of
278-451: A noble class of Ruthenians in what is now Western Ukraine that enjoyed certain legal and social privileges. Estimates of their numbers vary. According to one estimate, by the mid-19th century, there were approximately 32,000 Ukrainian nobles in the western Ukrainian territory of Galicia , over 25% of whom lived in 21 villages near the town of Sambir . They comprised less than 2% of the ethnic Ukrainian population. Other estimates place
417-474: A barrier to assimilation with the wealthy Polish landowners and helped them to retain their East Slavic identity. Nobles usually lived in compact groups occupying entire villages or parts of villages. Although Ukrainian nobles were scattered throughout western Ukraine, two regions had particularly large concentrations of them: southern Galicia, north of the Carpathian Mountains and south-west of
556-458: A class played a marginal role in western Ukrainian society, which came to be dominated by Eastern Catholic clergy families , who formed a tight-knit hereditary caste that constituted the wealthiest and most highly educated group within the Ukrainian population. There was considerable overlap between priests and nobles, however, with many priestly families also belonging to the nobility. During
695-560: A cloak; rather the men among them wear garments that only cover half of his body and leaves one of his hands free." Liutprand of Cremona , who was twice an envoy to the Byzantine court (949 and 968), identifies the "Russi" with the Norse ("the Russi, whom we call Norsemen by another name") but explains the name as a Greek term referring to their physical traits ("A certain people made up of
834-437: A damn for Ukraine and have returned to the historical road. From now on we are Russians." In general, however, the nobles adopted a Ukrainian national orientation. By the beginning of the 20th century, noble gatherings often concluded with the singing of the Ukrainian national anthem, Shche ne vmerla Ukraina ("Ukraine has not yet Died"). The 1912 commemoration of the 17th century Cossack leader Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny ,
973-428: A loss in social status and standing. The Ukrainian nobles lost all of their privileges, they were placed under the same legal authority and given the same obligations as the peasants. In 1860, noble self-government was abolished and noble and peasant elected bodies were integrated. The nobility attempted to continue to unofficially elect their own leaders, traditionally known as prefects , despite official integration with
1112-502: A member of the petty gentry from Galicia, in 1912 served to underscore the new affiliation of the Ukrainian gentry towards the Ukrainian national movement. During these celebrations, the Cossacks were represented not only as peasant runaways but also as nobles defending the Ukrainian nation. In this way, the nobles found a place for themselves within the Ukrainian national narrative. On the eve of World War I, many Ukrainian nobles joined
1251-462: A mythic tale of Oleg's death. A sorcerer prophesies that the death of the prince would be associated with a certain horse. Oleg has the horse sequestered, and it later dies. Oleg goes to visit the horse and stands over the carcass, gloating that he had outlived the threat, when a snake strikes him from among the bones, and he soon becomes ill and dies. The Chronicle reports that Prince Igor succeeded Oleg in 913, and after some brief conflicts with
1390-473: A navy to attack the city in 863–66, catching the Byzantines by surprise and ravaging the surrounding area, though other accounts date the attack in 860. Patriarch Photius vividly describes the "universal" devastation of the suburbs and nearby islands, and another account further details the destruction and slaughter of the invasion. The Rus' turned back before attacking the city itself, due either to
1529-710: A number of states. This was seen in the Stalinist period, when Soviet historiography sought to distance the Rus' from any connection to Germanic tribes, in an effort to dispel Nazi propaganda claiming the Russian state owed its existence and origins to the supposedly racially superior Norse tribes. More recently, in the context of resurgent nationalism in post-Soviet states, Anglophone scholarship has analyzed renewed efforts to use this debate to create ethno-nationalist foundation stories, with governments sometimes directly involved in
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#17327907394671668-696: A part of the Norse, whom the Greeks call [...] the Russi on account of their physical features, we designate as Norsemen because of the location of their origin."). Leo the Deacon , a 10th-century Byzantine historian and chronicler, refers to the Rus' as " Scythians " and notes that they tended to adopt Greek rituals and customs. According to the Primary Chronicle , the territories of the East Slavs in
1807-537: A process of poor Rus boyars and druzhina changing their allegiance from the defunct Galicia-Volhynia and its princes to that of the Polish state and becoming legally integrated into the Polish system as nobles. In the 1930s the Polish government attempted to assimilate western Ukrainian nobles into Polish culture. At that time, Polish researchers claimed that the Ukrainian nobles were descended from poor Polish nobles who became assimilated into Ukrainian culture by adopting
1946-410: A scholarly consensus (at least outside of nationalist historiography), was summarized by the historian, F. Donald Logan, "in 839, the Rus were Swedes ; in 1043 the Rus were Slavs ". Ahmad ibn Fadlan , an Arab traveler during the 10th century, provided one of the earliest written descriptions of the Rus': "They are as tall as a date palm , blond and ruddy, so that they do not need to wear a tunic nor
2085-400: A similar lifestyle to the peasants, members of the nobility were noted for the proud way in which they distinguished themselves from them. The fact that their ancestors, unlike those of their peasant neighbours, had never been serfs was a source of pride for noble families. The nobles were fond of the Polish saying, " Szlachcic na zagrodzie równy wojewodzie " ("The noble behind his garden wall
2224-411: A staunch pagan . Due to his abrupt death in an ambush in 972, Sviatoslav's conquests, for the most part, were not consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to establish a stable succession led to a fratricidal feud among his sons, which resulted in two of his three sons being killed. It is not clearly documented when the title of grand prince was first introduced, but the importance of
2363-730: A storm dispersing their boats, the return of the Emperor, or in a later account, due to a miracle after a ceremonial appeal by the Patriarch and the Emperor to the Virgin. The attack was the first encounter between the Rus' and Byzantines and led the Patriarch to send missionaries north to engage and attempt to convert the Rus' and the Slavs. Rurik led the Rus' until his death in about 879 or 882, bequeathing his kingdom to his kinsman, Prince Oleg , as regent for his young son, Igor . According to
2502-555: A survey given to members of the Ukrainian National Council, the legislative body of the West Ukrainian People's Republic , although 2.4% listed their primary social origin as nobility several of those who listed their origin as clergy also came from noble families. During the period of Polish rule over Western Ukraine between the world wars, efforts by the Polish government in the 1930s to split
2641-499: A very important function for the nobles because after they lost their legal privileges in the early 19th century, manner of dressing was one of the few ways they could demonstrate that they were different from the peasants. The Ukrainian nobility retained particular forms of clothing that differentiated them from both Ukrainian peasants and Polish nobility, although it was generally of the Ukrainian type. Nobles tended to decorate their clothes with black rather than red embroidery because
2780-502: Is due largely to a paucity of contemporary sources. Attempts to address this question instead rely on archaeological evidence, the accounts of foreign observers, and legends and literature from centuries later. To some extent the controversy is related to the foundation myths of modern states in the region. This often unfruitful debate over origins has periodically devolved into competing nationalist narratives of dubious scholarly value being promoted directly by various government bodies in
2919-542: Is more likely that he adopted Byzantine Christianity in order to strengthen his diplomatic relations with Constantinople. Vladimir's choice of Eastern Christianity may have reflected his close personal ties with Constantinople, which dominated the Black Sea and hence trade on Kiev's most vital commercial route, the Dnieper River . According to the Primary Chronicle , Vladimir was baptised in c. 987, and ordered
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#17327907394673058-427: Is said to have founded a school system. Yaroslav's sons developed the great Kiev Pechersk Lavra ( monastery ). In the centuries that followed the state's foundation, Rurik's descendants shared power over Kievan Rus'. The means by which royal power was transferred from one Rurikid ruler to the next is unclear, however, historian Paul Magocsi mentioned that 'Scholars have debated what the actual system of succession
3197-481: Is the province governor's equal"). They typically added "nobilis" or "nobilis agrikola" (denoted their work as farmers) when signing their names, and it was said that even when herding livestock or trading in the markets they carried documents confirming their noble rank in their pockets. Members of the nobility, regardless of level of education, typically knew the distant history and exploits of their families and would pass these stories on to their children. As late as
3336-576: The Primary Chronicle , the first ruler to unite East Slavic lands into what would become Kievan Rus' was Oleg the Wise ( r. 879–912 ). He extended his control from Novgorod south along the Dnieper river valley to protect trade from Khazar incursions from the east, and took control of the city. Sviatoslav I ( r. 943–972 ) achieved the first major territorial expansion of
3475-647: The Finnish designation for Sweden or Ros , a tribe from the middle Dnieper valley region. According to the prevalent theory, the name Rus ' , like the Proto-Finnic name for Sweden ( *rootsi ), is derived from an Old Norse term for 'men who row' ( rods- ) because rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roslagen ( Rus-law ) or Roden . The name Rus ' would then have
3614-575: The Hunnic invasion of the 370s halted Christianisation for several centuries. Some of the earliest Kievan princes and princesses such as Askold and Dir and Olga of Kiev reportedly converted to Christianity, but Oleg , Igor and Sviatoslav remained pagans. The Primary Chronicle records the legend that when Vladimir had decided to accept a new faith instead of traditional Slavic paganism , he sent out some of his most valued advisors and warriors as emissaries to different parts of Europe. They visited
3753-639: The Orthodox Church . Due to their shared Orthodox faith, when the Moldavian prince Bogdan III the One-Eyed invaded Polish-controlled Galicia in 1509, the local Ukrainian nobles joined this invasion en masse. After the Polish victory over Moldavian forces in 1510, many of the Ukrainian nobles' lands were confiscated by the Polish authorities, although they were returned to them after the Ukrainian nobles claimed that they had been coerced into joining
3892-582: The Polotsk Princes . The position of the grand prince of Kiev was weakened by the growing influence of regional clans. The rival Principality of Polotsk was contesting the power of the Grand Prince by occupying Novgorod, while Rostislav Vladimirovich was fighting for the Black Sea port of Tmutarakan belonging to Chernigov. Three of Yaroslav's sons that first allied together found themselves fighting each other especially after their defeat to
4031-525: The Primary Chronicle , Vladimir assembled a host of Varangian warriors, first subdued the Principality of Polotsk and then defeated and killed Yaropolk, thus establishing his reign over the entire Kievan Rus' realm. Although sometimes solely attributed to Vladimir, the Christianization of Kievan Rus' was a long and complicated process that began before the state's formation. As early as
4170-472: The Primary Chronicle , in 880–82, Oleg led a military force south along the Dnieper river, capturing Smolensk and Lyubech before reaching Kiev, where he deposed and killed Askold and Dir: "Oleg set himself up as prince in Kiev, and declared that it should be the "mother of Rus' cities". Oleg set about consolidating his power over the surrounding region and the riverways north to Novgorod, imposing tribute on
4309-728: The Slavic peoples . This literature facilitated the conversion to Christianity of the Eastern Slavs and introduced them to rudimentary Greek philosophy , science, and historiography without the necessity of learning Greek (there were some merchants who did business with Greeks and likely had an understanding of contemporary business Greek). Following the Great Schism of 1054, the Kievan church maintained communion with both Rome and Constantinople for some time, but along with most of
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4448-785: The Ukrainian Sich Riflemen , Shliakhy ('The Pathways'). He became a company commander of the Legion of Sich Riflemen and carried out special assignments (guerrilla warfare). Towards the end of World War I Vitovsky was appointed the chairman of Ukrainian Military Committee that organized the November Uprising in Lemberg. He became the first commander of the Ukrainian Galician Army (1–5 November 1918). A week later after being commissioned as
4587-518: The Ukrainian Sich Riflemen , a patriotic Ukrainian unit within the Austro-Hungarian Army. Dmytro Vitovsky and Myron Tarnavsky , two of the supreme commanders of the Ukrainian Galician Army which fought against Poland for Ukrainian independence after World War I, were noblemen. Yevhen Petrushevych , president of the West Ukrainian People's Republic was from a family of noble priests who traced their origins to Galician boyars. In
4726-535: The Ukrainian language and Orthodox religion of the peasants among whom they lived. They noted that the period of Polish rule involved the settlement of newly acquired Ukrainian territories by Poles and that the Ukrainian nobility's speech frequently used Polish words and expressions. The Polish historians also pointed out that the early 19th-century western Ukrainian nobles tended to ally themselves with Polish rather than East Slavic or Ukrainian causes politically. This
4865-773: The Varangian prince Rurik . The name was coined by Russian historians in the 19th century to describe the period when Kiev was at the center. At its greatest extent in the mid-11th century, Kievan Rus' stretched from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south and from the headwaters of the Vistula in the west to the Taman Peninsula in the east, uniting the East Slavic tribes. According to
5004-611: The steppe region, leading to military conflict, disruption of trade, and instability within the Khazar Khaganate. The Rus' and Slavs had earlier allied with the Khazars against Arab raids on the Caucasus, but they increasingly worked against them to secure control of the trade routes . The Byzantine Empire was able to take advantage of the turmoil to expand its political influence and commercial relationships, first with
5143-683: The 12th-century Orthodox priests who authored the Chronicle as an explanation how the Vikings managed to conquer the lands along the Varangian route so easily, as well as to support the legitimacy of the Rurikid dynasty. The three brothers— Rurik , Sineus and Truvor —supposedly established themselves in Novgorod, Beloozero and Izborsk , respectively. Two of the brothers died, and Rurik became
5282-466: The 19th century in Russian historiography to refer to the period when the centre was in Kiev. In the 19th century it also appeared in Ukrainian as Kyivska Rus' ( Ukrainian : Ки́ївська Русь ). Later, the Russian term was rendered into Belarusian as Kiyewskaya Rus' or Kijeŭskaja Ruś ( Belarusian : Кіеўская Русь ) and into Rusyn as Kyïvska Rus' ( Rusyn : Київска Русь ). In English,
5421-473: The 19th century the Ukrainian nobles in western Ukraine differed from the peasants by expressing loyalty to the defunct Polish state. When collecting folklore in western Ukraine, author Ivan Franko recorded the following saying spoken by Ukrainian nobles: "When Poland is restored again, Maria Teresa will then come out of hell," meaning that Austrian Empress Maria Theresa committed a great sin by partitioning Poland. The Ukrainian nobles also tended to side with
5560-511: The 19th century, the nobility's loyalty was exclusively political in nature and focused on the retention of their traditional privileges; there was little movement to adopt the Polish language or Roman Catholic religion by the Ukrainian nobles despite their political cooperation with the Poles. Western Ukrainian nobles enjoyed the legal rights and privileges of other nobles. They had their own court system and unlike Ukrainian peasants were not under
5699-420: The 19th-century political activists seeking to alleviate the plight of Ukrainian peasants, or to spread literacy, or to encourage Ukrainization, or to limit economic exploitation, were nobles. The nobles' consistent indifference or opposition towards Ukrainian causes resulted in some rural Ukrainian activists claiming that the nobles were not even part of the Ukrainian nation. Until the mid-19th century, because
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5838-615: The 1st century AD, Greeks in the Black Sea Colonies converted to Christianity, and the Primary Chronicle even records the legend of Andrew the Apostle 's mission to these coastal settlements, as well as blessing the site of present-day Kyiv. The Goths migrated to through the region in the 3rd century, adopting Arian Christianity in the 4th century, leaving behind 4th- and 5th-century churches excavated in Crimea, although
5977-501: The 20th century. Because the Western Ukrainian nobles had not owned estates or serfs, unlike the Polish nobility they were not hated by the peasants. Conversely, because they had never been enserfed, the Ukrainian nobility did not share the peasants' animosity towards the Polish nobility and indeed felt a class solidarity with them. Despite sharing the language and religion of their Ukrainian peasant neighbours, throughout
6116-475: The 9th century were divided between the Varangians and the Khazars. The Varangians are first mentioned imposing tribute from Slavic and Finnic tribes in 859. In 862, various tribes rebelled against the Varangians, driving them "back beyond the sea and, refusing them further tribute, set out to govern themselves". They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to
6255-551: The Balkans to drive the Rus' back, and a naval contingent reportedly destroyed much of the Rus' fleet on its return voyage (possibly an exaggeration since the Rus' soon mounted another attack). The outcome indicates increased military might by Byzantium since 911, suggesting a shift in the balance of power. Igor returned to Kiev keen for revenge. He assembled a large force of warriors from among neighboring Slavs and Pecheneg allies, and sent for reinforcements of Varangians from "beyond
6394-520: The Byzantines deteriorated, as Byzantium increasingly allied with the Pechenegs against them. The Pechenegs were thus secure to raid the lands of the Khazars from their base between the Volga and Don rivers, allowing them to expand to the west. Relations between the Rus' and Pechenegs were complex, as the groups alternately formed alliances with and against one another. The Pechenegs were nomads roaming
6533-806: The Christians of the Latin Church , the Jews , and the Muslims before finally arriving in Constantinople. They rejected Islam because, among other things, it prohibited the consumption of alcohol, and Judaism because the god of the Jews had permitted his chosen people to be deprived of their country. They found the ceremonies in the Roman church to be dull. But at Constantinople, they were so astounded by
6672-648: The Cuman forces in 1068 at the Battle of the Alta River . The ruling Grand Prince Iziaslav fled to Poland asking for support and in a couple of years returned to establish the order. The affairs became even more complicated by the end of the 11th century driving the state into chaos and constant warfare. On the initiative of Vladimir II Monomakh in 1097 the Council of Liubech of Kievan Rus' took place near Chernigov with
6811-571: The Don river, and into the lower Volga region. The Rus' were raiding and plundering into the Caspian Sea region from 864, with the first large-scale expedition in 913, when they extensively raided Baku, Gilan, Mazandaran and penetrated into the Caucasus. As the 10th century progressed, the Khazars were no longer able to command tribute from the Volga Bulgars, and their relationship with
6950-682: The Drevlians and the Pechenegs, a period of peace ensued for over twenty years. In 941, Igor led another major Rus' attack on Constantinople, probably over trading rights again. A navy of 10,000 vessels, including Pecheneg allies, landed on the Bithynian coast and devastated the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus. The attack was well timed, perhaps due to intelligence, as the Byzantine fleet
7089-736: The East Slav tribes. In 883, he conquered the Drevlians , imposing a fur tribute on them. By 885 he had subjugated the Poliane, Severiane, Vyatichi, and Radimichs , forbidding them to pay further tribute to the Khazars. Oleg continued to develop and expand a network of Rus' forts in Slavic lands, begun by Rurik in the north. The new Kievan state prospered due to its abundant supply of furs, beeswax, honey and slaves for export, and because it controlled three main trade routes of Eastern Europe . In
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#17327907394677228-521: The Eastern churches it eventually split to follow the Eastern Orthodox. That being said, unlike other parts of the Greek world, Kievan Rus' did not have a strong hostility to the Western world. Yaroslav , known as "the Wise", struggled for power with his brothers. A son of Vladimir the Great , he was prince of Novgorod at the time of his father's death in 1015. Although he first established his rule over Kiev in 1019, he did not have uncontested rule of all of Kievan Rus' until 1036. Like Vladimir, Yaroslav
7367-597: The Finnic Chud tribe. In the south, in the area around Kiev, were the Poliane , the Drevliane to the west of the Dnieper, and the Severiane to the east. To their north and east were the Vyatichi , and to their south was forested land settled by Slav farmers, giving way to steppelands populated by nomadic herdsmen. There was once controversy over whether the Rus' were Varangians or Slavs (see anti-Normanism ), however, more recently scholarly attention has focused more on debating how quickly an ancestrally Norse people assimilated into Slavic culture. This uncertainty
7506-431: The Khazars and later with the Rus' and other steppe groups. The Byzantines established the Theme of Cherson , formally known as Klimata, in the Crimea in the 830s to defend against raids by the Rus' and to protect vital grain shipments supplying Constantinople. Cherson also served as a key diplomatic link with the Khazars and others on the steppe, and it became the centre of Black Sea commerce. The Byzantines also helped
7645-423: The Khazars build a fortress at Sarkel on the Don river to protect their northwest frontier against incursions by the Turkic migrants and the Rus', and to control caravan trade routes and the portage between the Don and Volga rivers. The expansion of the Rus' put further military and economic pressure on the Khazars, depriving them of territory, tributaries and trade. In around 890, Oleg waged an indecisive war in
7784-410: The Kiev principality was recognized after the death of Sviatoslav I in 972 and the ensuing struggle between Vladimir and Yaropolk . The region of Kiev dominated the region for the next two centuries. The grand prince (or grand duke) of Kiev controlled the lands around the city, and his formally subordinate relatives ruled the other cities and paid him tribute. The zenith of the state's power came during
7923-464: The Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia was absorbed by Jagiellonian Poland in the 14th century as the Ruthenian Voivodeship , the noble status of these poor boyars and druzhina was confirmed in exchange for military service to the Polish Crown ; those poor boyars who failed to confirm their noble status were reduced to the level of serfs or, more frequently, town servants and assimilated into those social groups. The Ukrainian nobility's development thus involved
8062-406: The Law." They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Rus'. ... The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Ves then said to the Rus', "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us". They thus selected three brothers with their kinfolk, who took with them all the Rus' and migrated. Modern scholars find this an unlikely series of events, probably made up by
8201-424: The Moldavians. In 1511, the Polish king declared that Ukrainian nobles were banned from participating in religious ceremonies in Moldavia. Opposition from the western Ukrainian nobles delayed the implementation of the Union of Brest , the recognition by the Orthodox Church in Ukraine of the Pope , by several decades in Galicia. Noble resistance resulted in Galicia being the last part of Polish-ruled Ukraine to accept
8340-409: The Patriarch announced that the Rus' had accepted a bishop, and in 874 he speaks of an "Archbishop of the Rus'." Relations between the Rus' and Byzantines became more complex after Oleg took control over Kiev, reflecting commercial, cultural, and military concerns. The wealth and income of the Rus' depended heavily upon trade with Byzantium. Constantine Porphyrogenitus described the annual course of
8479-403: The Pechenegs to attack the Magyars from their rear. Boxed in, the Magyars were forced to migrate further west across the Carpathian Mountains into the Hungarian plain, depriving the Khazars of an important ally and a buffer from the Rus'. The migration of the Magyars allowed access for the Rus' to the Black Sea, and they soon launched excursions into Khazar territory along the sea coast, up
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#17327907394678618-589: The Polish nobility during conflicts between the Polish and Ukrainian communities. In 1848, Ukrainian nobles volunteered for the Polish National Guard and in 1863 they took up donations in support of Polish–Lithuanian rebels in the Russian Empire . Villages populated mostly by the Ukrainian nobility tended to vote for Polish candidates and to oppose efforts to spread literacy among the peasants. The nobles were so politically preoccupied with trying to retain or win back their special rights as nobles that they did not engage in other forms of political activism. The alienation of
8757-437: The Polish nobility. They enjoyed their own court system and were not under the authority of local Polish-dominated courts. Unlike serfs, Ukrainian nobles were also not obligated to perform communal duty such as working on roads, which they considered to be humiliating. In contrast to the Polish nobles who had owned serfs, the Ukrainian nobles did not experience economic losses when serfdom was abolished. Instead, they experienced
8896-402: The Polonization of wealthy landowning boyars (nobles), completely ignore the documented existence of poor boyars and druzhina who inhabited western Ukraine before Polish rule and failed to account for what happened to this large group of people after western Ukrainian lands were absorbed by Poland. Furthermore, given that the Polish culture was dominant and that for centuries Poles controlled
9035-517: The Rus' attacked Constantinople again in 907, probably to secure trade access. The Chronicle glorifies the military prowess and shrewdness of Oleg, an account imbued with legendary detail. Byzantine sources do not mention the attack, but a pair of treaties in 907 and 911 set forth a trade agreement with the Rus', the terms suggesting pressure on the Byzantines, who granted the Rus' quarters and supplies for their merchants and tax-free trading privileges in Constantinople. The Chronicle provides
9174-483: The Rus' in later campaigns against the Byzantines, yet allied with the Byzantines against the Rus' at other times. After the Rus' attack on Constantinople in 860, the Byzantine Patriarch Photius sent missionaries north to convert the Rus' and the Slavs to Christianity. Prince Rastislav of Moravia had requested the Emperor to provide teachers to interpret the holy scriptures, so in 863 the brothers Cyril and Methodius were sent as missionaries, due to their knowledge of
9313-555: The Rus', including stringent regulations on the conduct of Rus' merchants in Cherson and Constantinople and specific punishments for violations of the law. The Byzantines may have been motivated to enter the treaty out of concern of a prolonged alliance of the Rus', Pechenegs, and Bulgarians against them, though the more favorable terms further suggest a shift in power. Following the death of Igor in 945, his wife Olga ruled as regent in Kiev until their son Sviatoslav reached maturity (c. 963). His decade-long reign over Kievan Rus'
9452-627: The Slavonic language. The Slavs had no written language, so the brothers devised the Glagolitic alphabet , later replaced by Cyrillic (developed in the First Bulgarian Empire ) and standardized the language of the Slavs, later known as Old Church Slavonic . They translated portions of the Bible and drafted the first Slavic civil code and other documents, and the language and texts spread throughout Slavic territories, including Kievan Rus'. The mission of Cyril and Methodius served both evangelical and diplomatic purposes, spreading Byzantine cultural influence in support of imperial foreign policy. In 867
9591-511: The Ukrainian national movement. The nobility was represented by the Association of the Ruthenian Gentry, which allied itself with the conservative and religious elements within the Ukrainian national movement. Despite their allegiance to the Ukrainian national cause, these nobles maintained their separation from the peasants. For example, rather than joining the peasants in reading clubs for cultural activities, nobles participated in their own "gentry casinos." This aroused some negative feelings among
9730-424: The Ukrainian nobility from other Ukrainians (through the formation of Kola Szlacheckie ) were unsuccessful. Such efforts backfired, resulting in many nobles rejecting and even concealing their status as nobles in order to avoid possible association with the Polish nation and to emphasize their solidarity with the Ukrainian people, most of whom were the descendants of peasants. In the early 21st century, an attempt
9869-416: The Ukrainian nobility was evident in the fact that few owned armour, very few could afford to come on horseback, and they were typically armed only with sabres, muskets or even small calibre bird-hunting rifles. In 1772, western Ukraine was annexed by Austria during the First Partition of Poland–Lithuania . The Western Ukrainian nobility, whose self-image was centred on their function of militarily defending
10008-436: The Ukrainian nobles were oriented towards their class standing, they were opposed to the interests of the Ukrainian peasants. By the end of that century, however, the idea of the old multinational Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth gave way to competing modern Ukrainian and Polish nationalisms . This meant that national ideas eclipsed class loyalties. At that time, most of the Ukrainian nobility in western Ukraine linked itself to
10147-714: The Union with Catholicism. Several western Ukrainian nobles travelled east and joined the Zaporozhian Cossacks . One of them, Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny , became the leader of the Cossacks in the early 17th century. He remained loyal to Poland. During the times when western Ukraine was part of the Kingdom of Poland, the nobles had a duty to defend the state they were in. Accordingly, they were obligated to participate in regular military reviews where they presented themselves and their weapons. The relative poverty of
10286-564: The Varangians to the Greeks ," continuing to the Black Sea and on to Constantinople. Kiev was a central outpost along the Dnieper route and a hub with the east–west overland trade route between the Khazars and the Germanic lands of Central Europe. and may have been a staging post for Radhanite Jewish traders between Western Europe, Itil and China. These commercial connections enriched Rus' merchants and princes, funding military forces and
10425-704: The Volga-Don steppes to eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus during the 8th century, an era historians call the ' Pax Khazarica ', trading and frequently allying with the Byzantine Empire against Persians and Arabs. In the late 8th century, the collapse of the Göktürk Khaganate led the Magyars and the Pechenegs , Ugrians and Turkic peoples from Central Asia, to migrate west into
10564-457: The Wise tried to associate the name with all of the extended princely domains. Both meanings persisted in sources until the Mongol conquest: the narrower one, referring to the triangular territory east of the middle Dnieper, and the broader one, encompassing all the lands under the hegemony of Kiev's grand princes. The Russian term Kiyevskaya Rus' ( Russian : Ки́евская Русь ) was coined in
10703-435: The air as a way of saluting the new pair and wishing them a long life. Beer, wine and food were provided for an entire week of celebrations. The first three days of festivities were spent at the bride's house. Afterwards, the dowry (which could consist of items such as a cow, horse, cart, plough or land) was presented to the groom's family and the party shifted to the groom's house for the remaining four days. Clothing served
10842-636: The authority of the Polish landlords. Villages populated exclusively by nobles were typically self-governing, and nobles living in mixed towns were under the authority of their own governing bodies. The elected heads of self-governing Ukrainian noble communities were called prefects . Noble villages tended to be older than other villages and typically carried the names of the noble families associated with them, such as Kulchytsi (Kulchytsky family), Mokhnate (Mokhnatsky family), etc. Unlike many Polish nobles, western Ukrainian nobles did not own serfs and instead worked their own lands. Their relative poverty served as
10981-504: The beauty of the cathedral of Hagia Sophia and the liturgical service held there that they made up their minds there and then about the faith they would like to follow. Upon their arrival home, they convinced Vladimir that the faith of the Byzantine Rite was the best choice of all, upon which Vladimir made a journey to Constantinople and arranged to marry Princess Anna , the sister of Byzantine emperor Basil II . Historically, it
11120-526: The city of Lviv ; and in the western parts of Podolia , to the east of Galicia in what is now the Ternopil Oblast . The most commonly used coats of arms by western Ukrainian nobles were Sas and Korczak . Despite their obligation to serve the Polish crown, during the 15th through the 17th centuries, western Ukrainian nobles sometimes took part in anti-Polish uprisings. At this time, the Ukrainian nobles considered themselves honour-bound to defend
11259-521: The close connection between the Rus' and the Norse is confirmed both by extensive Scandinavian settlement in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine and by Slavic influences in the Swedish language. Though the debate over the origin of the Rus' remains politically charged, there is broad agreement that if the proto-Rus' were indeed originally Norse, they were quickly nativized , adopting Slavic languages and other cultural practices. This position, roughly representing
11398-555: The construction of churches, palaces, fortifications, and further towns. Demand for luxury goods fostered production of expensive jewelry and religious wares, allowing their export, and an advanced credit and money-lending system may have also been in place. The rapid expansion of the Rus' to the south led to conflict and volatile relationships with the Khazars and other neighbors on the Pontic steppe . The Khazars dominated trade from
11537-471: The coveted throne of Kiev. Whatever the case, according to professor Ivan Katchanovski 'no adequate system of succession to the Kievan throne was developed' after the death of Yaroslav the Wise ( r. 1019–1054 ), commencing a process of gradual disintegration. The unconventional power succession system fomented constant hatred and rivalry within the royal family. Familicide was frequently deployed to obtain power and can be traced particularly during
11676-435: The death of Feodor I of Russia in 1598. The modern nations of Belarus , Russia , and Ukraine all claim Kievan Rus' as their cultural ancestor, with Belarus and Russia deriving their names from it, and the name Kievan Rus' derived from what is now the capital of Ukraine. During its existence, Kievan Rus' was known as the " Rus' land" ( Old East Slavic : ро́усьскаѧ землѧ́ , romanized: rusĭskaę zemlę , from
11815-572: The descendants of nobles. In some regions on Easter, nobles typically blessed their Easter baskets within the churches while peasants' baskets were blessed outside. In other regions, the nobles were granted the right to cut folding collars from shirts worn by peasants because the peasants were deemed unworthy of wearing them. As late as the 1950s, on some collective farms in Soviet-ruled western Ukraine, nobles and peasants were assigned to separate work-groups. The peasants had mixed feelings about
11954-473: The earliest written source for the East Slavs , the Primary Chronicle , which was produced in the 12th century. Nationalist accounts on the other hand have suggested that the Rus' were present before the arrival of the Varangians, noting that only a handful of Scandinavian words can be found in Russian and that Scandinavian names in the early chronicles were soon replaced by Slavic names. Nevertheless,
12093-568: The emergence of Kievan Rus' in the 9th century, most of the area north of the Black Sea was primarily populated by eastern Slavic tribes. In the northern region around Novgorod were the Ilmen Slavs and neighboring Krivichi , who occupied territories surrounding the headwaters of the West Dvina , Dnieper and Volga rivers. To their north, in the Ladoga and Karelia regions, were
12232-456: The end of the 14th century, this territory had become part of the Kingdom of Poland . Over the following centuries, most of the wealthy native landowning nobility were eventually Polonized by adopting the dominant Polish nationality and also converting to Roman Catholicism , thus completely assimilating into Polish society. The nobility in western Ukraine that retained its non-Polish identity
12371-616: The ethnonym Роусь , Rusĭ ; Medieval Greek : Ῥῶς , romanized : Rhos ; Arabic : الروس , romanized : ar-Rūs ), in Greek as Ῥωσία , Rhosia , in Old French as Russie, Rossie , in Latin as Rusia or Russia (with local German spelling variants Ruscia and Ruzzia ), and from the 12th century also as Ruthenia or Rutenia . Various etymologies have been proposed, including Ruotsi ,
12510-889: The first commander of the Galician Army Vitovsky was appointed as the State Secretary of Armed Forces in Levytsky's government. On 1 January 1919 he was promoted from major to colonel . As a deputy of the Ukrainian National Rada (February–April 1919), Vitovsky was chosen to attend the Paris Peace Conference as a member of the Western Ukrainian delegation in May 1919. Vitovsky was killed in an aircraft crash during
12649-410: The flames, jumped overboard, preferring water to fire. Some sank, weighed down by the weight of their breastplates and helmets; others caught fire." Those captured were beheaded. The ploy dispelled the Rus' fleet, but their attacks continued into the hinterland as far as Nicomedia , with many atrocities reported as victims were crucified and set up for use as targets. At last a Byzantine army arrived from
12788-556: The flight from Paris to Kamyanets-Podilsky on 2 August 1919 (according to older sources, Vitovsky died on 4 August 1919) and was buried in Berlin . On 1 November 2002, the remains of Dmytro Vitovsky were reburied at the Lviv Lychakiv Cemetery on the initiative of Yuriy Ferentsevych. [ uk ] Western Ukrainian Nobility The shlyakhta ( Ukrainian : шля́хта , Polish : szlachta ) were
12927-485: The informal "you" ( ty, ) while even older and wealthier peasants addressed all nobles with the formal pronoun vy. In villages with noble populations, taverns had separate areas set aside for the nobles, whose tables were covered in tablecloths and who used chairs rather than the crude benches used by the peasants; in such towns nobles and peasants also had separate areas in the churches. The latter practice continues to survive in some western Ukrainian villages populated by
13066-479: The kingdom, found themselves without a social role within the new political circumstances and from this point defined themselves largely by their differences from and superiority to the peasants. In 1848, serfdom was abolished. Before the abolishment of serfdom in 1848, the Ukrainian nobility enjoyed a lifestyle that was quite different from that of the Ukrainian peasants. Unlike Ukrainian peasants, Ukrainian nobles worked on their own lands and were not forced to work for
13205-637: The lands of the lower Dniester and Dnieper rivers with the Tivertsi and the Ulichs , who were likely acting as vassals of the Magyars, blocking Rus' access to the Black Sea. In 894, the Magyars and Pechenegs were drawn into the wars between the Byzantines and the Bulgarian Empire . The Byzantines arranged for the Magyars to attack Bulgarian territory from the north, and Bulgaria in turn persuaded
13344-598: The late 11th century, gradually disintegrating into various rival regional powers throughout the 12th century. It was further weakened by external factors, such as the decline of the Byzantine Empire , its major economic partner, and the accompanying diminution of trade routes through its territory. It finally fell to the Mongol invasion in the mid-13th century, though the Rurik dynasty would continue to rule until
13483-406: The late 19th century until the 1930s, more than half of the Ukrainian priestly families in western Ukraine had noble origins. Such families tended to identify themselves primarily as priests rather than as nobles. The territory of western Ukraine was part of the medieval state of Kievan Rus' . After its collapse, that state's westernmost part formed the independent Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia . By
13622-517: The late 19th century, long after the legal distinctions between western Ukrainian nobles and peasants disappeared, certain customs maintaining noble social superiority over their peasant neighbours were retained. The nobility denigrated the peasants by referring to them as "nine-skinned" ( дев’ятьшкірними ) in reference to their supposed greater weight and referred to peasant clothes as rags. Nobles of any age, even youths, typically addressed all peasants, even those older or wealthier than themselves, with
13761-413: The latter colour was considered peasant-like. Indeed, they tended to avoid colours in general and mostly dressed in shades of black and grey. In some regions, it was customary for men to wear blue cloaks with grey edges similar to Cossack zupans . Women wore coats with fox-fur collars. Nobles also wore vests with two rows instead of one row of buttons. The village nobility were often interested in wearing
13900-429: The literary Ukrainian language rather than local village dialects. Reflecting some exposure to education, the noble speech was also differentiated from that of the peasants by the frequent use of Polish and Latin words and expressions. The Western Ukrainian nobility often used as surnames the names of the villages where they lived. For example, the nobles of Terlo adopted the name Terletsky, and those of Kulchytsi adopted
14039-735: The local administration, it seems unrealistic that large numbers of Poles would assimilate to the subservient Ukrainian culture and to adopt the Ukrainian Orthodox or Greek Catholic faiths, which were at a disadvantage relative to the Polish Roman Catholic religion. Moreover, some western Ukrainian nobles lived in villages populated exclusively by nobles. Such nobles had little contact with Ukrainian peasants and thus no means to be assimilated by them. In terms of political allegiance, although Western Ukrainian nobles did side with Poles against Ukrainian peasants during much of
14178-655: The main intention to find an understanding among the fighting sides. By 1130, all descendants of Vseslav the Seer had been exiled to the Byzantine Empire by Mstislav the Great . The most fierce resistance to the Monomakhs was posed by the Olegovichi when the izgoi Vsevolod II managed to become the Grand Prince of Kiev. The Rostislavichi , who had initially established in the lands of Galicia by 1189, were defeated by
14317-413: The members of the nobility avoided marrying commoners. The few cases of marriage between nobles and commoners typically involved particularly poor nobles marrying prosperous non-nobles. The writer Ivan Franko was the product of such a marriage. The nobility was renowned for their elaborate wedding ceremonies, which by custom lasted from Saturday until Saturday and which attempted to recreate or maintain
14456-494: The name Kulchytsky. Surnames ending in -ich (-ич) or -ik (-ик) were also used. They usually gave their children Ukrainian names but on occasion gave them Polonized Ukrainian names. Villages populated primarily by nobles generally had no central planning, with the nobles building their homes wherever they liked on their properties. Western Ukrainian nobles typically lived in small one or two-room houses with straw roofs whose interiors were in most ways indistinguishable from those of
14595-460: The nobility. On the one hand, peasant songs mentioned noble laziness and shoddy workmanship. Despite nobles' feelings of superiority, during the late 19th century the western Ukrainian nobility had a reputation among the peasants of being poorer than peasants because they did not work as hard. Due to the nobility's material poverty, the peasants sometimes viewed the nobles' proclamations of their status and expressions of superiority as ridiculous. On
14734-408: The nobles from the Ukrainian national movement was not one-sided. The Ukrainian national movement was very peasant-focused and rejected the nobility, whose social background did not fit the nationalist narrative. The nobility were often treated as scapegoats and blamed for electoral failures; the press of the national movement accused them of greed and of selling their votes to the Poles. Almost none of
14873-749: The north, Novgorod served as a commercial link between the Baltic Sea and the Volga trade route to the lands of the Volga Bulgars , the Khazars, and across the Caspian Sea as far as Baghdad , providing access to markets and products from Central Asia and the Middle East. Trade from the Baltic also moved south on a network of rivers and short portages along the Dnieper known as the " route from
15012-472: The number of nobles at 67,000 people at the end of the 18th century and 260,000 by the end of the 19th century, or approximately 6% of the ethnic Ukrainian population. The nobles tended to live in compact settlements either in villages populated mostly by nobles or in particular areas of larger villages. Unlike in the case of their Polish ethnic counterparts, the szlachta, the Ukrainian nobility in Galicia as
15151-436: The old traditional grand celebrations of distant ancestors. Noble brides wore white for the wedding ceremony, unlike peasant brides who would wear embroidered costumes. Large numbers of noble guests were invited, including nobles from neighbouring villages. The groom would arrive for the ceremony on horseback, while the bride would arrive in a carriage. Following the wedding ceremony, young noblemen would fire their pistols into
15290-481: The other hand, it was considered a great honour in a peasant household if someone married a noble. The Western Ukrainian poet Ivan Franko , whose mother was a noblewoman, supported the peasants and in his writings frequently mocked the Ukrainian nobility's feelings of superiority. A western Ukrainian nobleman serves as a protagonist in the story Der Don Juan von Kolomea (The Don Juan of Kolomiya ) written by Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch , whose mother
15429-457: The peasant community. Multiple appeals to the Austrian government in the 1860s seeking to obtain separate legal standings for themselves failed, with rare exceptions such as sometimes being able to avoid having to perform compulsory roadwork. Thus, in the mid-19th century, the political and socioeconomic differences between the Ukrainian nobles and the Ukrainian peasants disappeared. In one of
15568-473: The peasants. Russophiles attempted to exploit the differences between nobles and peasants, and there was a stronger tendency to support ideological Russophilia among the nobility than among the general Galician population. Indeed, the noble candidate from Sambir county in the elections of 1911, Ivan Kulchytsky, even declared "now we have recovered our sight and shall not allow the bastards to trick us with Ukraine…. You should know that from now on we do not give
15707-526: The peasants. Noble homes differed from those of peasants primarily by their outward appearance. Noble homes had front porches, with columns, and larger windows than did peasant homes. Those nobles who were not also priests usually worked as farmers and, after the abolition of serfdom in 1848, had lifestyles very similar to those of the Ukrainian peasants. When possible, the nobility sought to use common fields and forests that were different from those used by peasants. A minor difference between peasants and nobles
15846-577: The population of Kiev to be baptised in August 988. The greatest resistance against Christianisation appears to have occurred in northern towns including Novgorod, Suzdal, and Belozersk. Adherence to the Eastern Church had long-range political, cultural, and religious consequences. The church had a liturgy written in Cyrillic and a corpus of translations from Greek that had been produced for
15985-574: The princes of Kiev, collecting tribute from client tribes, assembling the product into a flotilla of hundreds of boats, conducting them down the Dnieper to the Black Sea, and sailing to the estuary of the Dniester, the Danube delta, and on to Constantinople. On their return trip they would carry silk fabrics, spices, wine, and fruit. The importance of this trade relationship led to military action when disputes arose. The Primary Chronicle reports that
16124-467: The project. Conferences and publications questioning the Norse origins of the Rus' have been supported directly by state policy in some cases, and the resultant foundation myths have been included in some school textbooks in Russia. While Varangians were Norse traders and Vikings , many Russian and Ukrainian nationalist historians argue that the Rus' were themselves Slavs. Normanist theories focus on
16263-581: The regular Galician Army . Vitovsky started his active military career in 1914 participating in mountain battles in the Carpathians , and was an ideologist of Ukrainian military political thought. In 1916–1917 he was a Ukrainian military commissar in Volhynia , and organized Ukrainian schools there. Vitovsky also was co-founder of the Striletsky Found, and published the official newspaper of
16402-401: The reigns of Vladimir the Great ( r. 980–1015 ) and Prince Yaroslav I the Wise ( r. 1019–1054 ). Both rulers continued the steady expansion of Kievan Rus' that had begun under Oleg. Vladimir had been prince of Novgorod when his father Sviatoslav I died in 972, but fled to Scandinavia in 977 after his half-brother Yaropolk killed his other half-brother Oleg. According to
16541-470: The same clothes that townsfolk wore. The men often wore collared shirts and even ties. Because many of the nobles were unable to afford to buy such clothes, they sewed approximations of them using the same materials that peasants used for their clothing. If a noble married a peasant, the noble was forbidden by other nobles from wearing clothes identifying themselves as a noble and if caught doing so, his or her "noble" clothes would be torn off. Despite having
16680-630: The same ones beloved by non-noble Ukrainians, such as the Kolomyika and the Kozak . The Mazurka , popular among Poles, was shunned by Ukrainian nobles. The nobility avoided marriage with non-nobles despite a similar lifestyle to those of peasants. For example, in one village between 1785 and 1855 out of 216 marriages, 183 were between peasants, 19 were between nobles and only 3 were mixed marriages between nobles and peasants (although some unrecorded marriages could have been mixed). The status of nobility
16819-465: The same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden: Ruotsi and Rootsi . When the Varangian princes arrived, the name Rus' was associated with them and came to be associated with the territories they controlled. Initially the cities of Kiev, Chernigov , and Pereyaslavl and their surroundings came under Varangian control. From the late tenth century, Vladimir the Great and Yaroslav
16958-463: The sea". In 944, the Rus' force advanced again on the Greeks, by land and sea, and a Byzantine force from Cherson responded. The Emperor sent gifts and offered tribute in lieu of war, and the Rus' accepted. Envoys were sent between the Rus', the Byzantines, and the Bulgarians in 945, and a peace treaty was completed. The agreement again focused on trade, but this time with terms less favorable to
17097-541: The sole ruler of the territory and progenitor of the Rurik dynasty . A short time later, two of Rurik's men, Askold and Dir , asked him for permission to go to Tsargrad ( Constantinople ). On their way south, they came upon "a small city on a hill", Kiev, which was a tributary of the Khazars at the time, stayed there and "established their dominion over the country of the Polyanians ." The Primary Chronicle reports that Askold and Dir continued to Constantinople with
17236-515: The state, fighting a war of conquest against the Khazars . Vladimir the Great ( r. 980–1015 ) spread Christianity with his own baptism and, by decree, extended it to all inhabitants of Kiev and beyond. Kievan Rus' reached its greatest extent under Yaroslav the Wise ( r. 1019–1054 ); his sons assembled and issued its first written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda , shortly after his death. The state began to decline in
17375-476: The steppe raising livestock which they traded with the Rus' for agricultural goods and other products. The lucrative Rus' trade with the Byzantine Empire had to pass through Pecheneg-controlled territory, so the need for generally peaceful relations was essential. Nevertheless, while the Primary Chronicle reports the Pechenegs entering Rus' territory in 915 and then making peace, they were waging war with one another again in 920. Pechenegs are reported assisting
17514-460: The term was introduced in the early 20th century, when it was found in the 1913 English translation of Vasily Klyuchevsky 's A History of Russia , to distinguish the early polity from successor states, which were also named Rus ' . The Varangian Rus' from Scandinavia used the Old Norse name Garðaríki , which, according to a common interpretation , means "land of towns". Prior to
17653-644: The time of the Yaroslavichi (sons of Yaroslav), when the established succession system was skipped in the establishment of Vladimir II Monomakh as the Grand Prince of Kiev ( r. 1113–1125 ), in turn creating major squabbles between the Olegovichi (sons of Oleg I ) from Chernigov, the Monomakhovichi from Pereyaslavl, the Izyaslavichi (sons of Iziaslav ) from Turov – Volhynia , and
17792-582: The times of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia. During the 12th and 13th centuries, fortified villages were built by Kievan Rus' and Galician princes to defend the local lucrative salt trade and the borders with the Kingdoms of Poland and Hungary . These villages were located southwest of Lviv and Przemyśl in areas such as those surrounding Sambir , which in modern times have been the heartland for Ukrainian noble settlement. These villages were populated and defended by poor or minor boyars and druzhina. After
17931-409: The two regions with a large concentration of Ukrainian nobles, western Podolia , the loss of special noble legal privileges and elimination of peasant serfdom led to the assimilation of most of the western Ukrainian nobility into the Ukrainian peasantry and to the disappearance of the nobility as a social group. In contrast, nobles from southern Galicia would retain their distinct self-identity well into
18070-447: Was conferred through the male line, so the children of noblewomen who married commoners were no longer considered to be nobles. To ensure noble spouses, if there were few nobles in the immediate area marriages were sometimes arranged with noble families from distant villages, and as late as the 19th century there were recorded cases of people being married against their will. Even into the 1980s in some villages populated by noble families,
18209-543: Was eager to improve relations with the rest of Europe, especially the Byzantine Empire. Yaroslav's granddaughter, Eupraxia , the daughter of his son Vsevolod I , was married to Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor . Yaroslav also arranged marriages for his sister and three daughters to the kings of Poland, France, Hungary and Norway. Yaroslav promulgated the first law code of Kievan Rus', the Russkaya Pravda ; built Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod ; patronized local clergy and monasticism ; and
18348-470: Was from the western Ukrainian nobility. Kievan Rus%27 Kievan Rus' , also known as Kyivan Rus ' , was the first East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century. Encompassing a variety of polities and peoples, including East Slavic , Norse , and Finnic , it was ruled by the Rurik dynasty , founded by
18487-420: Was generally poorer and developed as a social class in the 14th century. According to mainstream Ukrainian historiography , the western Ukrainian nobility developed out of a mixture of three groups of people: poor Rus' boyars (East Slavic aristocrats from the medieval era), descendants of princely retainers or druzhina (free soldiers in the service of the Rus' princes), and peasants who had been free during
18626-687: Was made to revive the Association of Ruthenian Gentry. Based in the traditional heartland of western Ukrainian nobility, the town of Sambir , its first head was the priest Petro Sas -Pohoretsky. The earliest recorded observations noted that western Ukrainian nobles spoke the East Slavic Ukrainian (or Ruthenian) language, rather than Polish. Although they spoke the same language as the Ukrainian peasants, they maintained their own particular traditions. Nobles tended to be more likely to be literate than peasants. The nobility tended to use
18765-509: Was marked by rapid expansion through the conquest of the Khazars of the Pontic steppe and the invasion of the Balkans . By the end of his short life, Sviatoslav carved out for himself the largest state in Europe, eventually moving his capital from Kiev to Pereyaslavets on the Danube in 969. In contrast with his mother's conversion to Christianity , Sviatoslav, like his druzhina , remained
18904-575: Was occupied with the Arabs in the Mediterranean, and the bulk of its army was stationed in the east. The Rus' burned towns, churches and monasteries, butchering the people and amassing booty. The emperor arranged for a small group of retired ships to be outfitted with Greek fire throwers and sent them out to meet the Rus', luring them into surrounding the contingent before unleashing the Greek fire. Liutprand of Cremona wrote that "the Rus', seeing
19043-399: Was or whether there was any system at all.' According to historian Nancy Kollmann, the rota system was used with the princely succession moving from elder to younger brother and from uncle to nephew, as well as from father to son. Junior members of the dynasty usually began their official careers as rulers of a minor district, progressed to more lucrative principalities, and then competed for
19182-408: Was seen as a vestige of their originally Polish roots. Contemporary Ukrainian historians write that while it is likely that some poor Polish nobles may have assimilated into Ukrainian culture in isolated instances, the number of Ukrainian nobles was simply too large to be accounted for by assimilated Polish nobles. They also point out that those arguing in favour the Polish origins, while writing about
19321-456: Was the peasants tended to use oxen for ploughing, while the nobility favoured the use of horses for such work. This tradition was likely a vestige of earlier times when the nobles' ancestors were obligated to occasionally use horses for military activities and as scouts. The nobles amused themselves by dancing and visiting each other in their homes; they tended to segregate themselves from peasants when doing so. Among their favourite dances were
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