A history of Russia

emphasizing agriculture has more recently risen into prominence. Grekov was the ablest exponent of this view, and his work was continued by other Soviet historians. These scholars carefully delineated the early origin of agriculture in Russia and its great complexity and extent prior to as well as after the establishment of the Kievan state. In point of time, as mentioned earlier, agriculture in southern Russia goes back to the Scythian ploughmen and even to a neolithic civilization of the fourth millennium before Christ. The past of the East Slavs also testifies to their ancient and fundamental link with agriculture. For example,

linguistic data indicate that from deep antiquity they were acquainted with various kinds of grains, vegetables, and agricultural tools and implements. Their pagan religion contained the cults of mother earth and the sun, and their different beliefs and rites connected with the agricultural cycle survived in certain aspects of the worship of the Virgin and of Saints Elijah, George, and Nicholas, among others. The East Slavic calendar had its months named after the tasks which an agricultural society liying in a forest found it necessary to perform: the month when trees are cut down, the month when they dry, the month when burned trees turn to ashes, and so on. Archaeological finds similarly demonstrate the great antiquity and pervasiveness of agriculture among the East Slavs; in particular they include metallic agricultural implements and an enormous amount of various grains, often preserved in separate buildings.

Written sources offer further support of the case. 'Products of the earth' were mentioned as early as the sixth century in a reference to the Antes. Slavic flax was reported on Central Asiatic markets in the ninth century, where it came to be known as 'Russian silk.' Kievan writings illustrate the central position of agriculture in Kievan life. Bread emerges as the principal food of people, oats of horses. Bread and water represent the basic ration, much bread is associated with abundance, while a drought means a calamity. It should be noted that the Kievan Russians knew the difference between winter grain and spring grain. The Russian Justice, for all its concern with trade, also laid extremely heavy penalties for moving field boundaries. Tribute and taxes too, while sometimes paid in furs, were more generally connected to the 'plough' as the basic unit, which probably referred to a certain amount of cultivated land.

Grekov and other Soviet historians argued further that this fundamental role of agriculture in Kievan economy determined the social character of the prince and his druzhina and indeed the class structure of Kievan society. They emphasized the connections of the prince and his retainers with the land, as shown in references to elaborate princely households, the spread of princely and druzhina estates throughout Kievan territory, and nicknames associated with the land. They considered that Kievan Russia was developing into a fully feudal society, in the definition of which they stressed the prevalence of manorial economy.

It can readily be seen that the evidence supporting the significance of trade in Kievan Russia and the evidence urging the importance of agriculture supplement, rather than cancel, each other. Both occupations, then, must be recognized as highly characteristic of the country. But the interrelationship of the two does present certain difficulties. One view holds that the bulk of population supported itself by agriculture, whereas the prince and the upper class were mainly interested in trade. Other specialists stress

the evolution in time, suggesting that, while Constantine Porphyrogenitus' account may be a valid guide for the middle of the tenth century, subsequent Kievan development tipped the scales increasingly in favor of agriculture. Furthermore, there is no consensus on the social structure of Kievan Russia which is intimately related to this complicated economic picture.

Kievan exports, as has already been mentioned in the case of Byzantium, consisted primarily of raw materials, in particular furs, wax, and honey, and also, during the earlier part of Kievan history, of slaves. Other items for sale included flax, hemp, tow, burlap, hops, sheepskin, and hides. In return the Kievan Russians purchased such luxury goods as wines, silk fabrics, and objects of art from Byzantium, and spices, precious stones, and various fine fabrics from the Orient. Byzantium also supplied naval stores, while Damask blades and superior horses came from the east. From the west the Kievan Russians imported certain manufactured goods, for instance textiles and glassware, as well as some metals and other items, such as Hungarian horses. Russian merchants went abroad in many directions and foreign traders came in large numbers to Russia, where they established themselves, sometimes as separate communities, in Kiev, Novgorod, Smolensk, Suzdal, and other centers. The newcomers included Germans, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Volga Bulgars, merchants from the Caucasus, and representatives of still other nationalities. Russian traders themselves were often organized in associations similar to Western guilds, not to mention less formal groupings. Financial transactions and commercial activity in general enjoyed a high development. It should be added that, in addition to exchange for direct consumption, the Kievan Russians engaged in transit trade on a large scale.

Internal trade, although less spectacular than foreign commerce, likewise dated from time immemorial and satisfied important needs. Kiev, Novgorod, and other leading towns served as its main centers, but it also spread widely throughout the land. Some of this domestic trade stemmed from the division of the country into the steppe and the forest, the grain-producing south and the grain-consuming north - a fact of profound significance throughout Russian history - and the resulting prerequisites for exchange.

Commerce led to a wide circulation of money. Originally furs were used as currency in the north and cattle in the south. But, beginning with the reign of St. Vladimir, Kievan minting began with, in particular, silver bars and coins. Foreign money too accumulated in considerable quantities in Kievan Russia.

Agriculture developed both in the steppe and in the forest. In the steppe it acquired an extensive, rather than intensive, character, the peasant cultivating new, good, and easily available land as his old field became less productive. In the forest a more complex process evolved. The trees had to

be cut down - a process called podseka - and the ground prepared for sowing. Moreover, when the soil became exhausted, a new field could be obtained only after further hard work. Therefore, the perelog practice emerged: the cultivator utilized one part of his land and left the other fallow, alternating the two after a number of years. Eventually a regular two-field system grew out of the perelog, with the land divided into annually rotated halves. Toward the end of the Kievan period the three-field system appeared, marking a further important improvement in agriculture and a major increase in the intensity of cultivation: the holding came to be divided into three parts, one of which was sown under a spring grain crop, harvested in the autumn, another under a so-called winter grain crop, sown in the autumn and harvested in the summer, while the third was left fallow; the three parts were rotated in sequence each year. Agricultural implements improved with time; the East Slavs used a wooden plough as early as the eighth and even the seventh century a.D. Wheat formed the bulk of the produce in the south; rye, also barley and oats, in the north. With the evolution of the Kievan state, princes, boyars, and monasteries developed large-scale agriculture. It may be noted in this connection that, in the opinion of some scholars, private ownership of land in Kievan Russia should be dated from the eleventh century at the earliest, while, on indirect evidence, other specialists ascribe the origins of this institution to the tenth or the ninth centuries, and even to a still more distant past.

The East Slavs and later the Kievan Russians engaged in many other occupations as well. Cattle raising has existed since very ancient times in the steppe of southern Russia, and a Byzantine author of the sixth century a.D. wrote about the great number and variety of cattle possessed by the Antes. Forest environment on the other hand led to the acquisition of such skills as carpentry and woodworking in general, as well as apiculture, and the forests also served as enormous game preserves. Hunting for furs, hides, and meat, together with fishing in the many rivers and lakes, developed long before the formation of the state on the Dnieper and continued to be important in Kievan Russia. The Kievan people mined metal, primarily iron, and extracted salt. Their other industries included pottery, metalwork, furriery, tanning, preparation of textiles, and building in stone, not to mention many less widespread arts and crafts practiced at times with a consummate artistry. Rybakov and some other investigators have recently shed much light on this interesting aspect of Kievan life.

Kievan Society

Vernadsky's well-known and perhaps high estimate has placed the population of Kievan Russia in the twelfth century at seven or eight million.

At the top stood the prince and the ever-increasing princely family with its numerous branches, followed by the retainers of the prince, the druzhina. The latter, divided according to their importance and function into the senior and the junior druzhina, together with the local aristocracy formed the upper class of the country, known in