Primary Chronicle for the year 1054 states: “Yaroslav, Great Prince of Rus’, passed away. While he was yet alive, he admonished his sons with these words: “… Wherefore remain rather at peace, brother heeding brother. The throne of Kyiv I bequeath to my eldest son, your brother Izyaslav. Heed him as ye have heeded me, that he may take my place among you. To Svyatoslav, I give Chernihiv, to Vsevolod Pereyaslavl, to Igor the city of Vladimir, and to Vyacheslav Smolensk.”
Vsevolod I was the fifth son of Yaroslav I the Wise by Ingigerd Olafsdottir. He was born around 1030. Volodymyr Monomakh was the son of Vsevolod and grandson of Yaroslav and Swedish Princess Ingigerd.
In his Autobiography/Instruction, Monomakh wrote about his father: “Forget not what useful knowledge you possess, and acquire that with which you are not acquainted, even as my father, though he remained at home in his own country, still understood five languages. For by this means, honor is acquired in other lands. Laziness is the mother of all evil.”
Volodymyr took after his father and was an intelligent and hardworking ruler. In the same Instruction, Voldymyr described himself: “In war and at the hunt, by night and by day, in heat and in cold, I did whatever my servant had to do, and gave myself no rest. Without relying on lieutenants or messengers, I did whatever was necessary; I looked to every disposition in my household. At the hunt, I posted the hunters, and I looked after the stables, the falcons, and the hawks. I did not allow the mighty to distress the common peasant or the poverty-stricken widow, and interested myself in the church administration and service.”
Academician B. Rybakov:
“Volodymyr [Monomakh] spent his childhood in the border town of Pereyaslavl, where the famous “Serpent’s Walls” began, ancient fortifications that for many centuries separated the lands of the ploughmen from the “unknown land”, from the steppe that stretched for many hundreds of kilometres…
Volodymyr had witnessed wars with the Torks and the first Polovtsian raids since childhood. No other city in all of Rus’ was as frequently attacked by the steppe dwellers as Pereyaslavl. The most painful impressions were probably those of Khan Sharukan’s campaign in 1068. The bylinas composed about this invasion poetically describe herds of bay aurochs running across the steppe from the blue sea, frightened by the clatter of the Polovtsian army’s horses…
The 40-year-old Monomakh, his wife, and children were forced to leave Chernihiv… He found himself once again in the city of his childhood—Pereyaslavl, on the edge of the Polovtsian steppe, where his father had begun his life and where his younger brother later reigned…
The 20-year Pereyaslav period of Monomakh’s life (1094-1113) is characterized by two features: firstly, it is an active, offensive struggle against the Polovtsians, who were rushing to Rus’ through the Pereyaslav principality, and secondly, attempts to win over the Kyiv boyars, who, to a certain extent, controlled the grand duchy [of Pereyaslavl], to his side.
The first victory was won at the Sula [River] immediately after his accession to the throne in Pereyaslavl in 1094. Then in 1095, Vladimir, having broken the peace with the Polovtsians, killed the Polovtsian ambassador Itlar in Pereyaslavl and took part in a large campaign against the Polovtsian “towers”, where he took many prisoners, horses, and camels.
The following year, at the Zarubinsky ford on the Dnieper, Monomakh’s troops defeated the Polovtsians and killed Khan Tugortkan. The people composed epics about this event, where Tugarin Zmeevich [Snake] is easily recognized as Tugortkan, and Idolishche Pogany [Pagan Idol] as Itlar.
Three difficult years in Pereyaslavl proved to be a turning point in Rus-Polovtsian relations. Soon, the struggle was moved far into the steppes, and Monomakh was credited with this.
Monomakh managed to organize joint campaigns in 1103, 1109, 1110, and 1111. Rus’ troops sometimes reached the Sea of Azov, sometimes recaptured Polovtsian cities on the Siversky Donets [River], and sometimes instilled such fear in the Polovtsians that they migrated beyond the Don and Volga to the steppes of the Northern Caucasus and Southern Urals. In some battles, the Rus captured as many as 20 Polovtsian khans.
And a hundred years later, singing the praises of Monomakh’s great-great-grandson, Prince Roman Mstislavich, the chronicler wrote about how Vladimir drove Khan Otrak Sharukanovich beyond the “Iron Gates” in the Caucasus…
During the Pereyaslavl period (1094–1113), Monomakh emerged as the leader of the active defense against the Polovtsians among the Rus princes. During this time, he sought to establish himself among the Kyivan boyars as a more acceptable candidate for Grand Prince than Svyatopolk Izyaslavich.
In his declining years, Monomakh recalled his 83 great campaigns across Rus‘, the steppes, and Europe…
On April 17, 1113, Kyiv was divided in two. The Kyivan nobility, those whom the chronicler usually called “the wise,” gathered in St. Sophia Cathedral to decide on a new prince. The choice was wide, and there were many princes, but the boyars quite wisely chose the candidacy of Volodymyr Monomakh, Prince of Pereyaslav.” (B. Rybakov, ’Kyiv Rus and Its Principalities’ and other works)
Battle of 1111
The Battle of the Salnitsa became the main battle in the final phase of the great campaign of a coalition of Kyiv Rus‘ princes against the Polovtsians in March 1111 on the Salnica River in the area of what is now the Donetsk region of Ukraine. In this battle, the Polovtsian army was completely defeated by Rus’ princes led by Grand Duke Svyatopolk Izyaslavich of Kyiv, Prince Davyd Sviatoslavich of Chernihiv, and Prince Vladimir Monomakh of Pereyaslavl.
It is still hard to believe how the Muscovites-‘russians’ (Moscow did not even exist at the time) have the nerve to claim Volodymyr Monomakh as their legacy!
Kyiv’s Historic Lands as of 1185: Donets River in the Tale of Igor’s Campaign poem >
The book “Kyiv Rus in Heimskringla Sagas and Byzantine Texts” has more little-known but important facts about the realm.
