Ivan I Danilovich Kalita (born about 1283 or 1288 - death on March 31, 1340) - the son of the Moscow prince Daniel Alexandrovich, the grandson of Alexander Nevsky, the prince of Moscow, the prince of Novgorod and the Grand Duke of Vladimir.
What is known about Ivan Kalita
Ivan Kalita spent most of his time in the capital city of a small Moscow estate, was busy with household affairs and his family. According to the chronicle, his wife's name was Elena. Some historians believe that she was the daughter of the Smolensk prince Alexander Glebovich.
It is believed that Ivan lived with his first wife as a happy married couple. 1317, September - they had their firstborn - Simeon. 1319, December - the second son Daniel was born. Kalita remained in the memory of Muscovites as a builder who expanded and strengthened Moscow.
Ivan Danilovich was known as a Christ-loving person, seeking friendship and support from church hierarchs. He showed special respect to Metropolitan Peter, who increasingly visited Moscow. One of the most authoritative and popular people in Russia, Peter settled in Moscow in his courtyard in 1322, a new vast "courtyard" was built for him in the eastern part of the Moscow Kremlin. Peter and Ivan Kalita spent a lot of time talking. It was here that the Moscow appanage prince began to turn into the "gatherer of Russia" Ivan Kalita. After the death of Yuri in 1325, Ivan, as the heir to his brother, began to reign alone in the Moscow volost.
The path to the throne
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Kalita sat on the Moscow throne from 1325 to 1340. His nickname is Kalita, that is, a money bag, purse. Ivan Kalita was one of the strongest and richest princes in Russia. For a long time, he remained in the shadow of his older brother, Prince Yuri. At the turn of the XIII-XIV centuries, according to the chronicle, Ivan was the governor in Novgorod, reigned in Pereyaslavl-Zalessky and repeatedly replaced his brother in the Moscow reign during his stay in the Golden Horde.
It should not be considered that the strengthening of Moscow began only after Prince Ivan Danilovich came to power. Back in 1304, Ivan's elder brother, Prince Yuri of Moscow, made an aggressive campaign against Mozhaisk, in which his younger brothers, including Ivan, took part. As a result of this campaign against a weak neighbor, the Mozhaisky inheritance was annexed to Moscow. Mozhaisk was an important territorial acquisition of Moscow. It was a rather big city by those standards, located at the source of the Moskva River. It enabled Moscow merchants to trade successfully, replenishing the princely treasury.
Moscow Kremlin under Ivan Danilovich Kalita
Governing body
In the very first year of his reign, wishing to put a good start to his reign, he called Metropolitan Peter from Vladimir to Moscow for permanent residence. This immediately made Moscow the spiritual center of Russia and provided the Moscow prince with the support of the church. Moscow became the residence of the Metropolitan of "All Russia", and Peter helped Ivan to pursue a policy of centralizing Russian lands.
Kalita was a cruel ruler, at the same time smart and persistent in achieving his goals. He got along with the Tatar-Mongol Khan Uzbek, repeatedly traveled to the Horde, where he earned the Khan's favor and trust. 1327 - Ivan took part in the campaign against Tver of the Golden Horde troops. As a reward in 1328, he received from the Khan the Kostroma principality, as well as the title of Prince of Novgorod.
The first, long trip to the Golden Horde, which lasted about one and a half years, gave the prince a lot. He thoroughly got acquainted with the khan's court, made numerous useful acquaintances, learned the customs and way of life of the Tatars and their rulers. Most likely, the younger brother of the Russian Grand Duke made a good impression on Khan Uzbek. For a year and a half of his residence in the Horde, Khan Uzbek managed to take a good look at the young Russian prince and come to the conclusion that he ideally corresponds to the political views of the Horde on the state of Russia, the richest tributary and the most dangerous because of his rebirth.
Ivan Kalita giving alms
Great Silence
1332 - Kalita obtained from Uzbek a label for the Vladimir Grand Duchy and recognition of himself as the Grand Duke of All Russia. For peaceful relations with the Golden Horde, Kalita collected a huge tribute from the population for it, and Ivan mercilessly suppressed all popular discontent caused by heavy extortions. Also, with the help of the Tatars, he eliminated many of his political rivals - other princes. The basis of this "great silence" in the Muscovite state was the serviceable collection of the Horde tribute.
After that, according to the chronicle, silence fell for many years in the whole of North-Eastern Russia. Fearing the khan's wrath, the Tatars stopped raiding Russia. Uzbek did not even begin to send his people to the lands of the prince, entrusting the collection of taxes from the population to Ivan. Kalita amassed great wealth.
IN. Klyuchevsky highly appreciated the “great silence” that Ivan Kalita was able to create: “… numerous Russian princes servile the Tatars and fought with each other. But the grandchildren, peers of Ivan Kalita, grew up, and began to look closely and listen to unusual affairs in the Russian land. While all the Russian outskirts suffered from external enemies, the small middle Moscow principality remained safe, and ordinary people from all the edges of the Russian land were drawn there.
At the same time, the Moscow princes, the brothers Yuri and Ivan Kalita, without looking back or thinking, using all available means against the enemies, putting everything they could put into play, entered into a struggle with the older and strongest princes for primacy, for the senior Vladimir reign, and with the assistance of the Horde itself were able to recapture it from rivals. Then it turned out that the Russian metropolitan, who lived in Vladimir, began to live in Moscow, giving this town the significance of the church capital of the Russian land.
And as soon as all this happened, everyone felt that the Tatar devastation had stopped and that a long-untested silence came in the Russian lands. After Kalita's death, Rus long remembered his reign, when for the first time in 100 years of slavery she managed to breathe freely, and loved to adorn the memory of this prince with a grateful legend. So in the first half of the XIV century, a generation grew up that grew up under the impression of this silence, which began to grow out of the Horde's fear, from the nervous trembling of the fathers at the thought of the Tatars. No wonder the representative of this generation, the son of Grand Duke Ivan Kalita, Simeon was nicknamed Proud by his contemporaries. This generation felt the encouragement that the light would soon dawn."
Activity of Ivan Kalita
The Horde Khan thanked Ivan for collecting the tribute - the Sretensky half of the Rostov principality became part of his possessions.
Ivan was given the right to collect arrears from the Rostov land. Having perpetrated a real pogrom in the city of Rostov, the princely governors Vasily Kocheva and Mina were able to collect arrears.
Even earlier, the Moscow princes, having free money, bought land from individuals and from church institutions, from the metropolitan, from monasteries, from other princes. Kalita constantly strived to expand the territory of his principality and to gather Russian lands around Moscow. He used the accumulated funds to acquire the territories of his neighbors. The influence of the prince spread to a number of lands of North-Eastern Russia (Novgorod land, Rostov, Tver, Uglich, Galich, Pskov, Beloozero). And although local princes were the rulers in these cities, they, in fact, were only the governors of the Moscow prince.
An oak Kremlin was erected in Moscow, which defended not only the city center, but also the townships outside it. Also in Moscow, he built the Assumption and Archangel Cathedrals, the Church of John Climacus, the Transfiguration Church, and opened a monastery with it. In Pereyaslavl-Zalessky Ivan founded the Goritsky (Assumption) Monastery.
Assumption Cathedral under Grand Duke Ivan Kalita
The beginning of autocracy. Board results
The years of Kalita's rule were the era of strengthening Moscow and its rise above the rest of the Russian cities.
According to the chronicle, the prince cared about the safety of the inhabitants, strictly persecuted and executed robbers and thieves, always repaired the "right court", helped the poor and the poor. For this he received his second nickname - Good.
Kalita was a major political figure of his era. Although his activities were ambiguously assessed by historians, they nevertheless contributed to the laying of the foundations of the political and economic power of Moscow, and the beginning of the economic rise of Russia. He introduced an agricultural law and established a new order of inheritance. After the death of the prince, the grand prince's throne more or less constantly passed to his direct descendants. Since the reign of Kalita, it has been customary to talk about the beginning of autocracy.
Under the prince, a new principle of the structure of the state was finally embodied - the principle of ethnic tolerance. The selection for the service was carried out according to business qualities, regardless of ethnicity, but subject to voluntary baptism. The Tatars, who fled from the Horde, and the Orthodox Lithuanians, who left Lithuania due to Catholic pressure, and ordinary Russian people, were taken to the service. Orthodoxy became the force that binds everyone who came to the service of the Moscow prince. Fleeing from the Tatars, the Russian people were going to Moscow, which could protect them.
During the reign of Ivan Danilovich, the principality of Lithuania and Russia, which united Smolensk, Podolsk, Vitebsk, Minsk, Lithuania, and later the Middle Dnieper region, gained international political weight and began to lay claim to the entire Old Russian heritage. The Horde encouraged and further inflamed contradictions between the two great principalities, alternately taking the side of one of the parties, following the policy still developed under Genghis Khan. All these achievements of the Horde policy in Eastern Europe turned out to be possible, apparently, because important changes were taking place in the Horde itself.
Heritage
Ivan Danilovich laid the foundations for the might of the Moscow principality. Metropolitan Alexei, who became the actual head of state after the death of Ivan Kalita, was able to achieve from the Golden Horde that the great reign was assigned to the dynasty of Moscow princes. This contributed to the strengthening of Moscow, the prevention of internecine wars for the right to receive the khan's label for the great reign.
By the will of Ivan Kalita, the Moscow principality was divided between his sons Semyon, Ivan and Andrey; Kalita's heir was his eldest son Semyon Proud.
The Grand Duke of All Russia Ivan I Danilovich Kalita died on March 31, 1341 in Moscow. He was buried in the Kremlin's Archangel Cathedral.
V. Artemov