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Russian Eastward Expansion before the Mongol Invasion1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2017

George V. Lantzeff
George V. Lantzeff*
Affiliation:
University of California
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Extract

Russian Eastward expansion, which played a major role in shaping the destinies of the Russian people and in creating the largest contiguous land empire in the world, began at the dawn of Russian history. The great Asiatic expansion of the Muscovite period which brought the Russians to the shore of the Pacific Ocean was preceded by centuries of eastward advance in European Russia. In the beginning of Russian history, two Russian principalities, Novgorod and Rostov-Suzdal, were engaged in exploring, conquering, exploiting, and colonizing the area west of the Ural Mountains. A study of their colonial activities not only furnishes some of the background of later spectacular Asiatic expansion, but also throws light on the relations between these two early states within the framework of medieval Russia.

The Novgorodian colonial expansion was directed toward the northeastern corner of European Russia, into the vast region stretching from Lake Onega to the Ural Mountains and from the northern tributaries of the Volga to the Arctic Ocean. Among the Russians, the Novgorodians were the first to penetrate this region. Anxious to obtain commodities which they could use in their trade with Western Europe, they were aided in their quest by the northern system of rivers and portages.

Type
Articles
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 6 , Issue 3-4 , December 1947 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1947

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Footnotes

1

Based on a paper read at the meeting of the Pacific Coast branch of the American Historical Association at Claremont, California, January 4, 1947.

References

2 Kerner, R. J., The Urge to the Sea (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1942), pp. 138–144 Google Scholar.

3 Kommissiia, Arkheograficheskaia, Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (St. Petersburg, 1841–1914), IX, 49 Google Scholar; cited hereafter as P.S.R.L.

4 Ogorodnikov, E. K., “Pribrezh'ia Ledovitago i Belago morei s ikh pritokami po Knige Bolshogo Chertezha,” Zapiski Imperatorskago Russkago Obshchestva (St. Petersburg, 1877), VII, 32–34 Google Scholar.

5 P.S.R.L., III, 3. “The Country beyond the Portage (Zavoloch'e)” extended east of the lakes Onego and Beloozero and embraced the valley of the Northern Dvina. See Kerner, op. cit., p. 26.

6 P.S.R.L., I, 107; M.D. Priselkov, in his Istoriia russkago letopisaniia (Leningrad, 1940), p. 44, suggests that the story was inserted into the chronicle in 1118.

7 Karamzin, N. M.. Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskago (St. Petersburg, 1816–1829), II, 180 Google Scholar; II, 148, notes.

8 P.S.R.L., I, 107; III, 5. Ogorodnikov, op. cit., p. 10.

9 Karamzin, op. cit., II, 155–156, notes.

10 Ogorodnikov, op. cit., pp. 15, 52, 119, 139, 163, 166.

11 The charter mentions the amount of salt to be delivered to the bishop from the seacoast. The Novgorodian salt works were situated near the mouth of the Northern Dvina. Karamzin, op. cit., II, 156, notes. ,

12 Quoted by Ogorodnikov, op. cit., p. 107.

13 “The Dvina Chronicle (Letopisets Dvinskii),” Drevniia Rossiiskaia Vivliofika (Moscow, 1791), XVIII, 3.

14 Kerner, op. cit., pp. 31–32, 118–124.

15 Rurik assigned them as fiefs to his warriors (P.S.R.L., I, 9). Ikonnikov, V.S., Opyt russkoi istoriografii (Kiev, 1891–1908), II: I Google Scholar, 614–615, 855–856.

16 Presniakov, A. E., Obrazovanie velikorusskago gosudarstva (Petrograd, 1918), pp. 32, 36Google Scholar.

17 S. M. Solov'ev, Istoriia Rossii s drevneishikh vremen (St. Petersburg, 1890–95), I, 374–375. 412–413.

18 Novyi Torg is situated on the Tvertsa River, along which the grain was imported to Novgorod.

19 Presniakov, op. cit., p. 36.

20 P.S.R.L., II, 39.

21 Presniakov, op. cit., p. 37.

22 P.S.R.L., II, 88.

23 P.S.R.L., III, 13–14. Presniakov, op. cit., p. 37.

24 P.S.R.L., III, 14–15; IV, 12; V, 9–10. Solov'ev, op. cit., I, 568–569. Ilovaiskii, D., Istoriia Rossii (Moscow, 1876–84), I, Part I, 254–255 Google Scholar.

25 Kerner, op. cit., pp. 124–125.

26 Bakhrushin, S. V., “Istoricheskii ocherk zaseleniia Sibiri do poloviny XIX veka,” Ocherki po istorii kolonizatsii Severn i Sibiri, No. 2 (Petrograd, 1922), p. 23 Google Scholar.

27 P.S.R.L., I, 128; VII, 24.

28 Ibid., I, 150–151, 155; II, 115.

29 Ibid., I, 164–165,169; II, 125–126.

30 Ibid., III, 19,23,31.

31 Presniakov, op. cit., pp. 37–38.

32 P.S.R.L., III, 19, esp. note (a)v; IV, 17.

33 Ibid., III, 169–170. Ilovaiskii, op. cit., Vol. I, Part II, pp. 196–197.

34 Bakhrushin, S. V., Ocherki po istorii kolonizatsii Sibiri v XVI i XVII v.v. (Moscow, 1927), p. 65 Google Scholar.

35 P.S.R.L., V, 169.

36 Ibid., III, 23.

37 Ibid., I, 211–215.

38 Presniakov, op. cit., p. 40.

39 A frontier town, on the junction of the Sukhona and Yug, forming jointly the Northern Dvina, of doubtful origin but generally, during the struggle between Novgorod and Rostov-Suzdal, leaning toward the latter and accepting the ecclesiastic jurisdiction of Rostov bishops.

40 P.S.R.L., I, 215; IV, 26; V, 172; VII, 126.

41 Ibid., VII, 126–127.

42 Ibid., VII, 128.

43 In its subsequent history Nizhnii Novgorod justified these expectations and even superseded Novgorod the Great.

44 P.S.R.L., III, 133–135; VII, 138.