The accusations of Tzimisces regarding the involvement of Augusta Theophano in the murder of Nikephoros II were quite enough for the synclite, together with the patriarch, to decide to remove her from the regency and exile her to one of the remote monasteries. Having learned about her fate, the enraged empress in the Church of St. Sophia rushed at John and tried to scratch out his eyes, and when she was dragged away with difficulty, she began to scold him and Vasily Nof in a way that no other man could have done - the youth spent in the tavern had an effect.

Feofano remained in the monastery until the removal of Vasily Nof - only then did Emperor Vasily II dare to return to court a woman with such a gloomy reputation. The tsar settled his mother in the palace, but she, apparently, no longer had much influence on the course of real politics.

The image of Feofano served as a source of inspiration for many novelists. However, in fairness, it should be noted that her characterization as a poisoner and another Messalina is questionable, and much is attributed to Theophano.

Vasily II Bulgarokton (Bulgaro-Slayer) (958 - 1025, resp. from 960, imp. from 963, fact. from 976)

Vasily, the son of Roman II, for the ferocity shown in the wars with Bulgaria, nicknamed Bulgarokton or the Bulgarian Slayer, is the most significant emperor of the Macedonian dynasty. Not under any ruler after him did Byzantium achieve such power - neither economic, nor military, nor territorial.

Formally, Vasily and his younger brother Constantine VIII ascended the throne immediately after the death of their father, in which a group of synclitists led by Patriarch Polyeuctus played a significant role. For thirteen years, until the death of John Tzimiskes, Vasily II did not take any real part in governing the country. Even after 976, Vasily Nof continued to patronize the young sovereign (Constantine VIII, during the life of his elder brother, withdrew from state affairs). In 985, the emperor managed to get rid of a powerful eunuch relative by exiling him.

The reign of Vasily the Bolgaro-Boytsy is characterized not only by the successes achieved under him, but also by the colossal difficulties that the basileus had to overcome. The main danger to imperial power came from within. Two largest in the history of Byzantium in the 10th century. rebellion of the military-landowning nobility - the so-called. apostasies, which followed at intervals of several years, almost destroyed the country.

The first of them broke out almost immediately after the death of Tzimiskes. Vasily Nof, fearing the power of the famous Varda Skler, removed him from the post of Domestic of the Schools of the East and sent him, in fact, into honorable exile - strategist of Mesopotamia. In response, Sklir and another prominent commander of the empire, Mikhail Wurza, rebelled their troops in the summer of 976. The authority of both of them was very great, and a year later almost all of Asia Minor was outside the control of the Constantinople government. In addition, Bulgaria rebelled, and the Romans quickly lost most of the conquests of John Tzimiskes there. The imperial army, sent against the eastern rebels, was defeated in two battles by Skleros. After much deliberation, it was decided to return the disgraced Varda Phokas (son of the Kuropalat Leo) and entrust him with the salvation of the state.

At first he suffered a series of defeats, and Vardas Sklir had already taken Nicaea, Avidos and Attalia. But then fire ships from the capital burned Sklir's fleet in the Avydos bay, and on March 24, 978 Sklir lost the decisive battle to Phocas, was wounded in a duel with the latter and fled far abroad - to Baghdad.

Nine years later, Varda Sklir, by that time already a very old man, again appeared within the Roman Empire. The domestic Bardas Phocas set out to meet his troops, but in August 987 he suddenly proclaimed himself emperor, captured Sklerus by cunning and, uniting both troops, went to Antioch, which he captured by the end of the year.

The situation was critical - the majority of the Roman army fought against the sovereign! Vasily II was forced to turn for help to the “barbarian” - the Grand Duke of Kyiv Vladimir Svyatoslavich. He agreed to allocate part of the squad, but set a counter condition - to marry Vasily and Konstantin’s sister, Anna, to him. The demand was unheard of - Roman princesses were not married to “despicable” foreigners! The exceptions were the granddaughter of Roman I Maria (see “Roman I”) and the niece of John Tzimiskes Theophano, who became the wife of Emperor Otto II, but neither of them was porphyritic, and most importantly, Vladimir was a pagan. However, there was no choice, since the wave of rebellion was rolling towards the capital with terrifying speed - and the emperor agreed. A 6,000-strong detachment of Russian-Varangian mercenaries arrived in Constantinople, and the government army reinforced by it in the winter of 988 defeated part of Phocas’ troops at Chrysopolis. The cunning Greeks at first were not going to fulfill their obligations under the agreement with Vladimir, and he, tired of waiting for the bride, as a warning, besieged and took Tauric Chersonese (Korsun). They were in a hurry in Constantinople, Anna Porphyrogenita was put on a ship and sent to the North. However, the prince also pledged to become a Christian. The marriage of Vladimir and Anna took place, after which Chersonesos was returned to the Romans, and the Grand Duke himself returned to Kyiv, where, according to legend, he baptized his subjects. However, the details of the baptism of Rus' are legendary, and the date (988 or 989) is still controversial.

The war against the rebels was led personally by the emperor. On April 13, 989, the last battle took place at Avidos, on the banks of the Dardanelles. The battle was stubborn, both sides suffered heavy losses. Varda Foka decided to make his way to the emperor and kill him in a duel, but suddenly turned back, got off his horse, lay down on the ground and died. Either the master had a stroke, or he received poison before the battle. Having learned about the death of the chief, the rebels stopped the battle and retreated. Varda Sklir was again at the head of the rebellion, but Vasily was able to convince him to stop wasting the power of the state in civil strife, and Sklir submitted, negotiating honorable terms of surrender for himself and his supporters.

The stormy vicissitudes of his reign changed and strengthened the character of the emperor, who was distinguished by some frivolity in his youth. Mikhail Psell, who was born a little over forty years after the accession of the Bulgarian Slayer and who still found many of his dignitaries alive, wrote about him: “To most of my contemporaries who saw Vasily, the tsar seemed to be a gloomy man, of a rude disposition, quick-tempered and stubborn, and in life modest and completely alien to luxury. But from the works of historians who wrote about him, I learned that at first he was not like that and from licentiousness and effeminacy moved to severity under the influence of external circumstances, which seemed to strengthen his character, made the weak strong, the soft strong, and changed his whole way of life. . If at first he indulged in carousing without embarrassment, often indulged in love pleasures... he considered rest as his destiny... then since the famous Sklerus began to aspire to royal power... Vasily set off with full sails away from the pampered life ..." Having single-handedly headed the state after 985 (the resignation of Vasily Nof), the emperor "...began to abstain from all licentiousness, abandoned jewelry, did not wear necklaces around his neck, a tiara on his head, or luxurious dresses trimmed in purple ..." (Psellus, )

The autocrat had a bright and impressive appearance: “Vasily on foot could still be compared with something, but sitting on a horse, he presented an incomparable spectacle; his chased figure towered in the saddle, like a statue sculpted by a skilled sculptor... in his old age, his cheeks were thickly overgrown with a beard, so that it seemed to be growing everywhere” (Psellus, ).

“He always showed disregard for his subjects and, in truth, asserted his power more through fear than mercy. Having become older and having gained experience in all matters, he completely ceased to need wise people, he made all the decisions himself, he managed the army, civil affairs, he ruled not according to written laws, but according to the unwritten regulations of his unusually gifted soul. That's why he doesn't
The treasury under this emperor accumulated colossal wealth, which even his unlucky successors did not immediately squander.

Vasily II, like his predecessors, directed his domestic policy towards strengthening the decrepit Byzantine absolutism and its basis - the feminine system. It was the Bulgarian Slayer who became the most furious oppressor of the Dinates in favor of the stratiots and small cataphract fiefdoms in the entire history of the Macedonian dynasty. This trend especially intensified after the defeat of Varda Sklir. To begin with, the emperor made allelage a duty for the rich dinats, forcing them to pay taxes for incapable peasants, and so that no one could evade, in the spring of 995 the authorities carried out a general census of the property of landowners. In 996, the novel abolished the forty-year statute of limitations, which was used as a cover for magnates who illegally owned land. Now each owner was obliged to confirm the right to own the plot either with documents or with the testimony of respected witnesses, otherwise the land would be taken away. First of all, the dinats, who once illegally profited from peasant plots, suffered from this measure.

The emperor generously paid officials and troops, built a lot in the cities of the empire and the capital. During the crop failure of 1023 - 1025. throughout Byzantium, taxes on agricultural products were abolished for two years, which, of course, reduced treasury income, but saved thousands of people from starvation.

Popular unrest during the reign of Basil II occurred mainly on the outskirts of the empire (in 992 - 93 - Laodicea, in 1009 - Bari, in 1016 the government fleet pacified the unrest in Tauride Chersonese) and in semi-independent possessions such as Iviria or Aleppo. The internal, Byzantine regions proper remained (after the rebellions of Phocas and Skleros were suppressed) calm.

The discontent of the nobility was openly expressed only at the very end of Bulgarokton’s reign, when in the summer of 1022, during the emperor’s absence to the Caucasus, his longtime comrade Nikephoros Xiphius and the son of Varda Phocas, also Nikephoros, outraged the subordinate troops. The leaders of the rebellion quarreled at the very beginning, Xiphius killed Phocas, but he himself was soon captured, arrested and tonsured as a monk. The court eunuch, who helped Xiphius, ended up as a dinner for the lions of the Constantinople menagerie.

The biggest troubles for the Romans were caused by the revolts in Bulgaria, which over time turned into a long and ruinous war for both sides. They began with the above-mentioned uprising in the territories conquered by John I. At the end of the 970s. Four brothers gained power over western Bulgaria (the Greeks called them komitopuli, “sons of komita,” after the title of their father Nikita). The most efficient among them was Samuel, in the early 980s. took control of Thessaly and South Macedonia. Roman Thrace became the target of Samuel's robberies. On August 17, 986, Vasily II himself, trying to curb his violent neighbors, was defeated and barely escaped the battlefield. In 991, the emperor organized a second campaign, won a victory and even captured Tsar Roman. But the latter was only considered the ruler - the real king of Bulgaria was Samuil. He did not lay down his arms: until 995, a strong Greek army under the command of Gregory Taronite barely held back the frantic attacks of Samuel, but in the summer of 996, the brave Taronite fell in battle near Thessalonica, Samuel broke through the border and reached the middle of the Peloponnese. On the way back, near the Sperkhey River, his army, burdened with gigantic booty, met with a detachment of the West Nicephorus Uranus sent in pursuit. The reluctance to part with the loot on time did the Bulgarians a disservice - the presence of a clumsy convoy in the army limited maneuverability, and Uranus inflicted a terrible defeat on them. Samuel barely managed to cross Sperchei and fled, leaving his dying army to the mercy of fate. Vest drove fifteen thousand prisoners to the capital. Soon, in 997, the empire returned Dyrrhachium.

Due to the transfer of all the Roman forces to Europe, the Egyptian Muslims recaptured Aleppo in 996, and the Byzantines could no longer return it.

After the death of Roman, Samuel easily took the crown for himself and de jure. The war continued, Vasily II vowed to crush the powerful enemy. In 1001, he made peace with the Fatimids, brought the king of the Ivirs, David, to the obedience and began almost annually to carry out military expeditions to Paristrion (beyond the Danube), striking his contemporaries with cruelty. Almost immediately Pliska, Preslava, and Vidin were taken and plundered. Samuel, wanting to distract the emperor, attacked Adrianople and even captured the city, but the Romans continued to move deeper into Bulgaria, leaving the desert behind them.

For thirteen years, with the growing superiority of the Byzantines, this war dragged on. In the summer of 1014, the troops of the Romans and Bulgarians met in Strimonia, near the “zaseks” - wooden fortresses in the Kampulunga gorge, at the foot of Mount Belasitsa. On July 29, the decisive battle took place. Skillfully maneuvering, Vasily II surrounded the Bulgarian army from the flanks, and Nicephorus Xiphius entered their rear, making a desperate rush through the gorges. The Bulgarians were unable to break through the ring of cataphracts clad in steel armor, and when the Roman stone throwers came into play, the battle turned into a beating. To stop the senseless destruction of hundreds of people, Samuel’s commanders (the king was not with the army) decided to lay down their arms. More than fifteen thousand people surrendered. The next day, the most Christian emperor of the Romans ordered every one hundred and first prisoner to gouge out one eye, the rest - both. The execution was completed, and fifteen thousand blind men, in chains of one hundred people each, led by one-eyed guides, stretched, gaping with bloody eye sockets, towards Samuel’s camp. They say that he could not stand such a spectacle and poisoned himself in October. For decades after the Battle of Belasitsa, in the cities and villages of Thrace, unfortunate blind people lived out their lives, a living reminder that it was unsafe to fight the Roman Empire.

After the death of Samuil, Bulgaria was engulfed in unrest, and Vasily II, with the persistence of a hammer, rained down powerful blows on the enemy. At the end of 1018, the formidable Bulgarian Slayer led his cataphracts, heavy infantry and artillery from Adrianople to the enemy capital - Ohrid. But it was not the army that came out to meet the Romans, but Queen Maria with the keys to the capital gates and the treasury. A year later, the military leader Constantine Diogenes captured Sirmium, the last center of Bulgarian resistance. For one hundred and seventy years, Bulgaria fell entirely under the scepter of the Byzantine monarchs.

Vasily fought not only with the Bulgarians. In 990 and 1001 Byzantium was in conflict with Iviria, in 1016 with the Khazars, and in 1021 - 1024. the emperor, already an old man, led his armies to Abkhazia and Armenia.

In Italy, the active king brought all the possessions of Constantinople under a single authority, creating a cathepanate with its center in Bari. In 1018, the Katepan destroyed the invading Normans at Cannes, three years later the Greeks besieged Garigliano, and only the intervention of Emperor Henry II did not allow them to develop their success.

At the end of 1025, Bulgarokton conceived a powerful expedition to Sicily occupied by Muslims. The landing party was already boarding the ships, the emperor was preparing to take direct command, but suddenly he unexpectedly fell ill and died a few days later, on December 15.

The Latins, who captured Constantinople in 1204, removed his corpse from the grave and violated him. The soldiers of Michael VIII Palaiologos (q.v.) in 1261 discovered the remains of the once formidable monarch lying in a dilapidated temple with bagpipes in his hands and a whistle inserted into his withered jaws.

According to the law of Roman Lekapin, after forty years of use by the landowner of the land, even if it was acquired illegally, all claims on it were terminated, and he became, “by statute of limitations,” its owner.

A. VENEDIKTOV: The extraordinary interest in Byzantium over the last 2 weeks has pushed Natalya Ivanovna and I to one of the emperors; however, we have already worked on just one emperor - Justinian, now we have Vasily Macedonian in front of us. By the way, I’ll start with the fact that a question came over the Internet, Sergei asks: “I would like to know, during the existence of the Empire, could representatives of other nationalities come to power in Constantinople and occupy high positions in the state? And how was this perceived in the Greek environment? Just got it!
N. BASOVSKAYA: Good afternoon. And today the answer to this question will certainly be in the life story of that same Vasily the Second Bulgarian fighter. The reason that interests listeners is why you chose him, one of the brightest on the Byzantine throne. And it is considered a generally accepted fact that it was under him that the Byzantine Empire reached its maximum prosperity. He lived from 958 to 1025, reigning from 976 to 1025. Such a flourishing, such a huge territory, which he almost returned all of, has never happened since the times of Ancient Rome, the eastern part of the Roman Empire. And, in fact, this alone attracts attention. And as for his nickname, Bulgar-Akton or Bulgarian-fighter in the Russian version, then, of course, he was distinguished by a ferocity that was somewhat out of place even from those cruel times. But why, how, when this happened - we will talk about this later. But to choose him is to choose a moment of prosperity that has never been repeated in this form.
His biography is very typical for the rulers of Byzantium.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Sergei just says: “He’s not Greek.”
N. BASOVSKAYA: The fact is that, firstly, during the time of Vasily the Second they just stopped calling this Empire the Empire of the Rameans, the Romans. This is a turning point, it has not yet established itself like the Greek Empire. And the expression “Greeks” is also quite figurative. Greeks, Syrians, Copts, Thracians, Illyrians, Armenians, Georgians, Arabs, and Jews lived on the territory of Byzantium. Most of the named peoples could be called Hellenized for that time, because the majority spoke Greek. Latin gradually disappeared. But still this is a huge ethnic diversity and it was also manifested on the imperial throne. This will be voiced by one of the predecessors of Vasily the Second, who seized the throne, was from Armenia. And this could happen because there were no strict rules of succession to the throne, legally formalized, for a very long time. Byzantium is an incredible state, as half-jokingly, but in general, sometimes even historians say seriously, it is a state whose exact date of birth and death is strictly known. This is May 11, 330, so to speak, the opening of Constantinople. Today they would say – the presentation of the new eastern capital. And May 29, 1453, the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks. Arithmetically, 1123, but there were breaks, there were moments when it completely fell apart, it seemed not to be revived, in a conversation about Justinian they seemed to rightly hint to me that why am I looking so critically at the history of this strange medieval, or not quite medieval state.
Moreover, I expressed a critical view long before the sensational film. What died and died, it lived for more than 1 thousand years. I repeat. In a sense, all these thousand years it did not move forward, but as if it was either trying to stop life... I came across an expression in the literature about Basil the Second: “This Macedonian ruler wanted to consolidate the 10th century in Byzantium forever” or disintegrated. Yes, such a long-term, in a sense, dying. Therefore, I am far from idealizing Byzantium and in my view of it I adhere to the meaning of the famous Latin catchphrase “Non progradi est regradi” [lat. Non progredi est regredi] - not to go forward means to go backward. In the traditions of this particular society and state, there were many attempts to stop and consolidate what had been achieved, not allowing new relations to develop, at least in the very important agricultural sphere and in the relationship between parts of the elite.
A. VENEDIKTOV: But it was Vasily the Second who tried to do something there.
N. BASOVSKAYA: He also tried to ensure that there was no large land ownership, so that it would not be sufficiently independent, at least somewhat independent of the central government. This means that there should not be those dangerous, large lords who in France, in Germany, for example, began to behave independently of the central government in Rus', because this is like a disaster, feudal fragmentation, but it also contains a grain of truth that is very important for the future . The temporary isolation of the relative parts of this growing state formation allows, internally, to achieve significant economic success and create military squads that will come to fight. But Byzantium, nevertheless, relied more on mercenaries, among whom were our ancestors, but more on that later.
So, already at the beginning of Byzantine history there were more than 30 million inhabitants, and the population was growing. Numerous. Territories from the 5th century - the Danube region, Macedonia, the north of the Balkan Peninsula, the northern part of Thrace, Asia Minor, the countries of the Middle East, Egypt. Amazing diversity! Ethnic, geographical, geopolitical, in fact, it was difficult to keep such a colossus located in Constantinople under a single strong government. And here is our character today, our hero, seemingly very difficult, very painful, achieved in a painful way what he holds, he is victorious, he wins a lot, he has been on the throne for more than 40 years. And then, immediately after it, such a collapse!
A. VENEDIKTOV: Collapse!
N. BASOVSKAYA: Which, as even narrow specialists say today, is difficult to explain. I will try to express my version, but at the end of the program. So, from the age of two.
A. VENEDIKTOV: He has been on the throne since he was two years old.
N. BASOVSKAYA: Since 960, little Vasily has been called co-ruler of his father, Emperor Roman II. Together with his brother Konstantin. From the age of five, from 963, he was legally emperor, together with his brother Constantine, who after his death would rule for a very short time, a very elderly man, Constantine the Eighth. Under Vasily, he did not interfere in anything. And only from 976 he actually ruled, from the age of 18, spending 49 years on the throne. And at the beginning he very firmly relied on a certain eunuch Vasily Nof, only after 9 years he exiled him, and began to truly, completely independently rule. And, it would seem, with his successes, which were indisputable, in the international arena he expanded and restored the borders of the Empire, much was lost. In his inner life - two, he carried out a strict inventory of property, achieved clearer taxation, enriched the treasury, he left untold treasures in this treasury to his dissolute brother, and dissolute heirs proved how quickly all this can be lost.
His life, first as a human being, as a child, and then as a potential ruler, was very difficult, because he had very difficult preliminary circumstances, one cannot help but mention them. His grandfather was the famous Emperor Constantine the Seventh, Porphyrogenet, Porphyrogenitus. Bagryanitsa was the room where the legitimate heirs to the throne were to be born. His father, Romanus II, was the son of Parthirogenet and emperor since 945, in fact, since 959. Married in 956, his father shocked the Byzantine court with his marriage to the daughter of a tavern owner. There was something here, these Byzantine emperors. It is known that Justinian married Theodora, a woman from the lower classes. And here, Anastasia is the daughter of a tavern owner, who received the throne name Feofano. Again the resemblance to Theodora is amazing. What is preserved about her in the sources? There are a lot of sources. It was a very writing civilization, for all that. Greek was predominantly written and there was a small but very educated elite of this society who wrote it, in extremely detail, although very biased.
A. VENEDIKTOV: In different ways.
N. BASOVSKAYA: Of course, everyone saw it as they saw it and many were afraid. The court was fierce and its morals were fierce. Amazing beauty, combined with cruelty and lust for power. They literally write the same thing about Theodore, so sometimes it seems to me that there may even be an element of some kind of literary cliché present here.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Judging by her life, what she did after the death of Roman II, her husband, confirms the opinion of Byzantine historians.
N. BASOVSKAYA: Didn’t she poison her husband?
A. VENEDIKTOV: It could! Easily!
N. BASOVSKAYA: There were rumors that his sudden and irresistible illness was very reminiscent of poisoning and in fact the rise to power of another person, the commander Nicephorus Phocius, about whom they said that he was burning with an unprecedented passion for this very Empress Feofano, all these circumstances suggest these thoughts. The boy grew up in such an environment. After the sudden death of his father, neither he nor his co-ruler brother, but a certain Nicephorus the Second Phocas, a commander, becomes emperor.
A. VENEDIKTOV: And marries their mother.
N. BASOVSKAYA: This is a normal bloody coup. The mother was sent away, she was offended, Vasily the Second would return her, but would not give her any political role. Bloody coup. Fighting on the streets of Constantinople. Usurper Emperor. There are, of course, people who say that there are legitimate boys. He established himself on the throne by force, became famous for his cruelty, there was such glory behind him that he won through this fear. In particular, the famous story, when he fought in Crete, in the name of the interests of Byzantium, fought with the Arabs, he shocked the pirates there, in fact, i.e. hard-hearted people who have seen a lot of cruelty. He collected the heads of the dead, ordered them to be cut off, some to be displayed in front of his camp, and some of the heads of the killed enemies to be fired at the city, and to throw the heads of the enemies into the city using stone throwers. Even there, in this city of Khandaki, there was an impression that he was somehow cruel beyond measure, although in the spirit of the time all this seemed to be nothing. There were persistent rumors that he wanted to castrate these boys so that they would have no offspring and so that the Macedonian dynasty would not return and establish itself on the Byzantine throne. That is, Vasily the Second lived in cruel conditions.
The end of Nikephoros II was also terrible. A palace coup, narrow, this time, not battles on the streets of the city, a palace coup, a secret murder, not without some tragicomic details described, the conspirators burst into the bedroom and did not find the emperor. They were panicked that he had run away and hid. And suddenly they look - he fell asleep on the floor, near the fireplace. You can guess under what circumstances. As sources say, after short bullying, they killed him. But then the guards were knocking on the doors, then these guards were shown his severed head. That is, there is something bloody in this dawn. They showed their heads - the guards calmed down. So the next one was established on the throne, again not our boy. He waits and waits, he has been waiting for his legal rights for what seems like 13 years. During this time, such legal heirs usually become very angry. This is roughly known from the time of Ancient Egypt, when Queen Hatshepsut [Maatkara Hatshepsut Henemetamon (1490/1489-1468 BC, 1479-1458 BC or 1503-1482 BC) - female pharaoh of the New kingdom of Ancient Egypt from the XVIII dynasty.] pushed aside the rights of her stepson Tutnos the Third, the future great conqueror and pharaoh, for many years. And this also had a very bad effect on his nature. He waits, and the illegal ruler John the First Tzimiskes, from the Armenian nobility, came to power again. And again a major commander. That is, a system of military coups, military regimes, his funny nickname, from the Armenian word shoe, due to his short stature. But a brilliant commander. In domestic policy, he outlined a line that Vasily the Second would take up - to clamp down on large landholdings, subordinate them to a rigid single central authority, exiled the Empress Theophana to a monastery, for several months she was a regent, and then nothing at all. She was so shocked by his brazen capture that the scene in the church of St. Sofia, where Feofana burst out with such abuse that immediately reminded her that she was the daughter of a tavern owner. And she tried to pluck out this John’s eyes.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Here’s the story.
NEWS
A. VENEDIKTOV: Before we go further, I want to name our winners, those who won. Of course, the correct answer was Tsar-Grad, it was not necessary to read the chronicles, you could read “The Song of the Prophetic Oleg.” And here is the one who receives the books - Remal (490), Ekaterina (278), Oleg from St. Petersburg (250), Dmitry (135), Alexander (054), Konstantin (454), Andrey from Volgograd (381), Badri (757), Tatyana (531), Alexey (464). The next 10 winners are Katerina (442), Sasha (911), Andrey (592), Natalya from St. Petersburg (552), Irina from Vladikavkaz (422), Yuri (708), Maria (705), Svetlana (692), Nikolay (078) and Polina (055). Tsar-Grad.
So, Vasily the Second, not yet Vasily the Second, still a boy Vasya, with his brother Kostya, they live in a palace where bloody coups are carried out and before their eyes their teachers are killed, their mother is glorified, their friends are tonsured into monks and all this happens in change of the bloody emperor.
N. BASOVSKAYA: There are rumors that they want to castrate them.
A. VENEDIKTOV: In general, a good childhood.
N. BASOVSKAYA: Childhood, of course, was difficult. Another thing is that not everything can be explained and justified, but you need to know this. It must be said that the next step on the path to the formation of the painful traits of this nature, and he had not only painful traits, he was not stupid, not sophisticatedly educated, but not stupid, everyone emphasizes this. He is simple-minded in behavior, but completely gifted with the ability to lead, but his very first steps, his first minutes on the throne, were overshadowed in the first years by two major internal rebellions. And the suppression of these rebellions, also exquisitely complex and cruel, apparently forever left some kind of imprint on his nature, on his further behavior. The first rebellion immediately after the death of John the First.
A. VENEDIKTOV: They were elevated to the throne with Constantine.
N. BASOVSKAYA: They were recognized. And finally everything is brought into line with reality. They really are emperors. But they are not yet capable of really ruling. And young Vasily does not yet pretend at all and cannot do this himself; in fact, the previously known court figure Vasily Nov, a eunuch, really rules, this was often accepted. And Vasily has not yet seized real power from him; he will show himself personally in the second rebellion, but not in the first. What was the mutiny like? A certain Dominist to the East, Bardas Skleros, was displaced and sent into virtual exile, as in Byzantine history he was considered the strategist of Mesopotamia. In response, this Skler, together with another commander, raised a military rebellion, rebelled almost all of Asia Minor, plus Bulgaria rebelled, which wanted to defend its independence. The imperial army is defeated, everyone is in despair, in reality Vasily is still no one and such a commander Varda Foka was called to defeat this rebellion. Phocas is the nephew of Emperor Nicephorus, who was killed.
And he rebelled back in 970, i.e. he believes that he also has rights to the throne and in a sense this is true. And he was exiled to a monastery. But the situation was so hopeless that they called in this disgraced, suspicious man, and he showed himself again as a commander; Byzantium was not short of talented military leaders. Fire ships, the famous Greek fire, played a very important role, they burned the fleet of this Skler and the rebellion was suppressed. Sklerus himself was the leader of the rebellion; he was wounded in a duel with Phocas; there is something very ancient in these events. Here the Middle Ages and antiquity are absolutely intertwined into a single traditional society. And after that he fled to Baghdad. It would seem that he was forgotten forever. But after 9 years, the already very elderly Vardas Klir reappeared within the borders of the state. Varda Foka again opposes this Clear. Now we will achieve victory! But Foka, this oppositionist, suddenly proclaimed himself emperor. Not so suddenly. We have the year 987, this is the second rebellion, and since 970 he has been fighting for his rights. Not at all suddenly. By cunning he captured Skleros, who was rebelling, united his troops, his army, as if on behalf of the emperor, with the rebellious army, things were bad. All this forced Emperor Vasily II to turn to the Grand Duke of Kyiv Vladimir Svyatoslavovich for help.
A. VENEDIKTOV: To the future Saint Vladimir.
N. BASOVSKAYA: Why there? He will not become a saint entirely voluntarily, because the terms of the agreement were certain. Even before him, Nikifor II used the Prince of Kyiv Svyatoslav Igorevich in the fight against the Bulgarian kingdom. There is rather vague information that Svyatoslav took the money, captured Pliska, but refused to leave there. They fought well, it was a Russian-Varangian army, with excellent Varangian traditions.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Let us remember that the main governor’s name was Svineld.
N. BASOVSKAYA: This is how I wrote under John the First, they also encountered Svyatoslav’s army in Bulgaria. Leo the Deacon, a Byzantine writer, writes in his history: “The dews, guided by their innate rage, rushed in a furious outburst, roaring like those possessed, towards the ramia. And the Rami advanced, using their experience and military art.” That is, they clashed as allies and as opponents, and it was known that these knew how to fight. And then Vasily the Second was forced to ask for help from Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich. He agreed on the condition that Vasily the Second would give him as a wife, his own half-sister Anna, the daughter of that very Empress Theophan, the daughter of a tavern owner, a scolder who almost tore out the eyes of the pretender to the imperial throne. Consent was not given easily. The fact is that the Byzantines at that time looked at Rus' precisely as a barbarian periphery, for sure. And they had no tradition of giving their princesses to barbarians. But the situation is difficult. And he agreed that his sister, Anna, Vasily’s sister, would arrive in Rus' and marry the Kyiv prince.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Under two conditions.
N. BASOVSKAYA: Yes. The prince will accept Christianity. The condition was accepted. Well, there was money involved here. And a detachment of 6 thousand people, Russian-Varangian, powerful, skillful, entered Constantinople in the winter of 988; they defeated a significant part of Phocas’s army, saving Vasily the Second in a very difficult critical military situation. And Vasily the Second, who was not distinguished by the highest moral qualities, was in no hurry to fulfill his promise and send his sister Anna to Russian lands. Then, angry, Vladimir with his army besieged and took Tauride Chersonese.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Crimea.
N. BASOVSKAYA: Which then belonged to Byzantium. She was immediately put on a ship, Anna, and sent north.
A. VENEDIKTOV: By that time she was already very old, for that time she was 25 years old.
N. BASOVSKAYA: And it was assumed that she would not have any dynastic marriage, but these are the special political circumstances. A wedding and the supposed Baptism of Rus' took place, an event of which there are no eyewitnesses and even the date is questionable, either 988 or 989. But, of course, he will be baptized alone, he will be accompanied by his squad. This begins a large, long process of the arrival of Christianity in Russian lands. It, of course, cannot be a one-time thing, it cannot be the act and decision of one person. Everywhere and everywhere, all over the world, the arrival and strengthening of Christianity was a long and difficult process. But this was exactly the starting point.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Wedding of a Byzantine princess.
N. BASOVSKAYA: Yes. And the fulfillment of a contract concluded in exceptional, difficult, critical circumstances, a forced appeal to a barbarian.
A. VENEDIKTOV: By the way, this detachment of 6 thousand people remained the guard of Vasily the Second and accompanied him all his life.
N. BASOVSKAYA: And he served very well.
A. VENEDIKTOV: That is, he actually sold them. He received money for this. These were mercenaries.
N. BASOVSKAYA: The end of the rebellion was associated with the personal intervention of Vasily. Here he begins to become himself, he intervened in the fight personally, on April 13, 989, at Avedos, on the banks of the Dardanelles, he gave the last battle, Varda Foka during this battle desperately made his way to Emperor Vasily himself in order to engage in a duel with him. Again we see the face of time, let the duel decide, as in Ancient Rome, who is the best warrior. And then there is an amazing incident. He suddenly turned his horse back, rushed towards Vasily and turned his horse back, got off his horse, lay down on the ground and died. And now the version...
A. VENEDIKTOV: Poison!
N. BASOVSKAYA: ...that Vasily the Second managed to come to an agreement with his cupbearer. And before the fight, how could I not drink a glass! Thus ended the second rebellion. So, Vasily the Second began - the ruler. Vasily the Second, as a strong figure, who changed dramatically, together all Byzantine writers close to his time, some who saw the end of his era, write how much the emperor changed, how everyone paid attention to the huge changes in his nature. He lived that desperate, difficult life in childhood, in his youth, waiting 13 years for power. And it began so difficult, so bad, with severe riots and rebellions. He suddenly changed. He stopped binge drinking, which he was quite capable of, and gave it its due. He carried out a thorough census of the property of landowners, very carefully stopped the growth of large land holdings of magnates, strengthening, figuratively speaking, Byzantine absolutism. The Byzantine political system is trying, as if continuing the line of late Rome and anticipating what would come at the end of the Middle Ages, absolutism in Western Europe, it is trying to jump through these phases and create an absolutist system right now, in close union with the Christian Church.
In an alliance much stronger than between the Christian Church and secular rulers in the West. And yet, all these measures produced results. Moreover, he constantly proved that he was also a commander and annexed new lands. The riots are not over for good. It must be said that there were always reasons for the gloom that set in his nature, the severity, the harshness that he began to show. Three years before the end of his reign, in 1022 there was again a riot. The emperor was in the Caucasus, and his longtime ally, Nicephorus Xiphius, rebelled, joining forces with the son of Bardas Phocas. Foka handed over his rebel son. They, however, quarreled with each other, Xiphius killed Phocas, he himself was arrested, tonsured as a monk, and the eunuch who helped them was given to the lions. And the lions had a very good dinner that day. This is Vasily II.
He was not only cruel, but he became progressively more and more cruel. And we have come to the point at which he received his amazing and quite unique nickname. There are many nicknames for rulers. Traditionally, the Great, the Saint, there are funny ones - Fat, Stutterer, Birdcatcher. And someone like this – a Bulgarian fighter – is unique. He fought with the Bulgarians for 13 years. And this irritated him. But this was not a record. Charlemagne conquered the Saxons for more than 30 years, although he also showed cruelty. The scale is different. Hundreds of hostages were killed by Charlemagne on his orders, that was all. Here, after the battle, the battle took place at the foot of Mount Belasitsa, 1014. At this point, Tsar Samuil, the Bulgarian king who led the Bulgarians' attempts to maintain their independence, was absent. And his commanders, seeing how poorly the battle was going, how helpless they were in front of the stone-throwing machines of the Byzantines, that the army was simply being exterminated, ordered their troops to surrender. 15 thousand Bulgarian soldiers surrendered. And here Vasily the Second gave an amazing order, which was carried out. He ordered these 15 thousand prisoners to have their eyes gouged out. Every hundred has both eyes, and 101 has one. And just like that, led by one-eyed centurions, they returned to the king of the Bulgarians, Samuel.
A. VENEDIKTOV: That is, he blinded 15 thousand people.
N. BASOVSKAYA: This is incredible, fantastic. I remember the ideas of the ancient Greeks that it was somewhere here, between Bulgaria, Macedonia, in the north of the Balkan Peninsula, that there was an exit from Tartarus. And very often warriors came from there, some dark ideas, this is one of the brightest. He achieved victory, after 4 years, not instantly. This ferocious cruelty did not immediately serve its purpose.
A. VENEDIKTOV: It is very important to say that he did not hide it, he was proud of it, and the Bulgarian fighter was nicknamed the Byzantines, not the Bulgarians. This is an established fact.
N. BASOVSKAYA: He liked it.
A. VENEDIKTOV: There was another story, a little earlier. The fact is that the Egyptian caliph, there was also a war going on there, at that moment tried to destroy the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, this was in 1009. Destroy the Temple of the Lord and the Sepulcher. And he began to destroy it and destroyed most of it. And then the Christians of Jerusalem turned to the great Emperor Basil. And he refused to protect them from the Holy Sepulcher. He fought with the Bulgarians, Christians. They were not pagans, they were baptized. This was a Christian army.
N. BASOVSKAYA: And therefore he is not nicknamed a saint, like Louis the Ninth in France.
A. VENEDIKTOV: He simply refused to defend the Holy Sepulcher. Political calculation.
N. BASOVSKAYA: This is not ideology, these are not heretical thoughts, at that moment it was difficult and difficult for him. So, only after 4 years the Bulgarians finally surrendered completely. And for 170 years Bulgaria found itself under the rule of Byzantium. That is, he achieved his goal, but this was a ferocious, incredibly cruel trick, it did not change the course of events. He probably counted on this, or perhaps that he, with such an aura of open, accepted evil, would become terrible for all his enemies, external and internal. But he still could not know, but in 1022 there would be that same rebellion, and maybe he felt that he had to return from each military campaign not only as a winner, but as a formidable one for his enemies. In this sense, these traditions of the ruler’s formidability, making decisions about blinding, wheeling, here there could be mutual influence between Byzantium and Russia, in the sense of such traditions. It is very tempting to judge them from the standpoint of today's morality, but it is impossible.
A. VENEDIKTOV: This is not a position of morality, but a position of efficiency. With such actions he practically put an end to the dynasty. Less than 5-7 years after his death, the dynasty collapsed and the Arabs came, took Alep, and threw the Byzantines out of there. It was all built on sand; you cannot save or build a state on cruelty and blood alone.
N. BASOVSKAYA: On sand soaked in blood. And he thought it was good. And being afraid of these riots, just knowing his biography, you understand that he always dreamed of these conspiracies, severed heads, poisoned rulers, he always prevented, took very serious measures against the rise of large feudal rulers, with their squads, and laid the foundation that absolutism, in which mercenaries are the main support of the emperor. And how unreliable this support is, he should have understood, but he did not fully understand. The Russian-Varangians came up, showed themselves well, and, probably, there was an idea that it was good that the support of the throne would be just like that, but, of course, could he? Could not! To see through the centuries that when in Constantinople in the 15th century it is necessary to defend this city from the Turks, there will not be those same mercenary squads, there will not be those who will defend their homeland, in some sense, such a natural one, the point is, that from the 10th century, the century of Vasily the Second, Bulgarian fighters in France established the concept of France. In England - England, in the German lands, with all their disunity, the concept of Germany, this German country, is growing stronger. The same thing happens on the Iberian Peninsula, in the Scandinavian Peninsula, but here something is united by the political power of a single ruler, ruling there from God, by the will of the Divine, etc. Surrounded by a close crowd of courtiers, whom he feeds from the palm of his hand, and having a huge treasury, which can hire any army. In fact, this is a big mistake that he did not understand. How did he end his life? Yes, like all these successful rulers and successful conquerors.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Let us emphasize that it was successful from the point of view of photography. He expanded the borders, strengthened the personal power of the emperor, and created a huge treasury. This is true. It would seem that everything is correct! It laid the foundation for stability and, it would seem, restored it. Nothing like this!
N. BASOVSKAYA: He needs to endlessly prove that he is quite fit and capable of the next conquests. Therefore, he died during the preparation of the next conquest expedition to Sicily, against the Arabs who had captured this island, an eternal object of contention. The landing party was already boarding Byzantine ships when the emperor fell ill and died on December 15, 1025. His body did not receive peace. In 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, troops of the Latins, knights from the West, pillaged Constantinople for the sole purpose of booty. And they violated the body of Emperor Vasily II. Many graves were desecrated. And in 1261, the soldiers of Michael the Eighth Poleologus [Michael VIII Palaeologus (Greek: Μιχαήλ Η΄ Παλαιολόγος) (1224/1225 - December 11, 1282) - Byzantine emperor from 1261 (as the Nicene emperor - from 1259), founder of the Palaiologan dynasty.] when The Byzantine state was restored, the body of Vasily the Second was found, as it is believed, I hope that this is so, they believe that this is his body. Based on the attire it was possible. In a dilapidated temple, with bagpipes in his hands, and this is an outrage, and a whistle inserted into withered jaws. Abuse! Mockery! We probably cannot restore the exact thoughts that they had in their heads, but it was some kind of challenge, probably to the highest flowering, a challenge to the idea that the Byzantine emperor, under him, was superior to others and claimed to to be Western rulers.
A. VENEDIKTOV: And the Byzantine historian Michael Psellus summed up his personality in this way: “He always showed neglect towards his subjects. And to tell the truth, he asserted his power more through fear than through mercy. Having grown older and having gained experience in all matters, he completely ceased to need wise people, he made all the decisions himself, he managed the army, civil affairs, he ruled not according to written laws, but according to the unwritten regulations of his unusually gifted soul.” This reminds us of something, right? According to the concepts!
N. BASOVSKAYA: This is really an attempt to establish a super strong central individual power. She is outwardly so seductive, but, as always, the consequences are very sad. After the death of Vasily II, the throne passed to his very brother Constantine, who was considered emperor from infancy. Konstantin was already 68 years old, but he was a slave to his own pleasures. The old man tirelessly caroused, feasted, gave away money and squandered what his brother, who conscientiously tried in this field, had acquired. Troubles began. For 66 years, 14 rulers were on the throne. And it continued, this turmoil, until 1081 and the accession of the Komnenos dynasty.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Therefore, we need to build institutions, and not strengthen our own power and our own treasury.
N. BASOVSKAYA: How right you are, Alexey Alekseevich!
A. VENEDIKTOV: And this is the “That’s So” program.

His co-ruler, as before, was his younger brother Constantine VIII

Although Basil, by the will of his father Romanos II, was crowned while still a child, due to his youth he did not have any real power either during the reign of Nikephoros Phocas or under John Tzimiskes. But despite this, both he and his brother could well consider themselves lucky - they were not only not deprived of their lives, but were not even maimed, castrated or sent to a monastery.

Power passed into the hands of Vasily when he was no more than twenty years old, so his great-uncle, also Vasily, was in charge of state affairs under him. He was the son of Roman I and his Bulgarian concubine, and as a child he was castrated, just in case, by order of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. Eunuch Vasily occupied one of the highest court positions, which gave him the right to a bedroom next to the imperial chambers, and all contacts with the emperor depended only on his will.

As always happens when there is a change of ruler, things escalated into unrest and attempts to usurp power. The commander of the eastern troops, Varda Sklir, whose sister Mary was married to John Tzimiskes, was proclaimed emperor by his own soldiers in 976, and only three years later his rebellion was able to suppress another outstanding commander, Varda Phocas - he, like Sklir, came from an aristocratic background. circles of Asia Minor. Sklir himself escaped by fleeing to the Arabs.

In 985, the emperor, suspecting that the eunuch Vasily and Varda Phocas were preparing a conspiracy against him, organized a kind of coup d'etat: Vasily was arrested and sent into exile, losing his entire fortune.

In 985, Vasily led troops on a campaign against Samuel, who managed to create a strong state on the territory of Macedonia and Bulgaria with its capital in Ohrid, which threatened northern Greece. The campaign, however, ended in the defeat of the Byzantines. Taking advantage of this failure, the Asia Minor aristocracy again kindled a civil war. The rebels were led by Varda Sklir and Varda Foka, who a few years ago had been sworn enemies. This time, at first they acted in complete agreement, but then Phocas removed Skleros and, proclaiming himself emperor, moved to the capital.

The legitimate ruler was literally saved at the last moment by armed reinforcements from the Kyiv prince Vladimir, the grandson of Princess Olga. The Russian detachment in 989 played a decisive role in the battles of Chrysopolis and Avidos.

Vasily vowed to give his sister Anna as a wife to Vladimir if he himself accepted baptism and baptized Rus'. But the marriage of a “purple-born” woman with a barbarian—namely, almost everyone who was not a Byzantine was considered a barbarian in Constantinople—was something completely unheard of. Vasily was afraid of the promise he had given and continued to stall for time. Only when Vladimir began to threaten the Byzantine possessions in Crimea, Anna was finally married to the Kyiv prince.

This event was of great historical significance: Rus' really accepted baptism, although it was not without violent attempts at resistance. Thus, the Eastern Slavs, like the southern Slavs earlier, found themselves in the sphere of religious and cultural influence of Byzantium - with all the ensuing consequences that are felt to this day.

In domestic politics, Vasily, just like Roman I Lekapin before him, tried to restrain the growth of large landownership and church property - this was done both in the interests of the state (the need to preserve small landownership), and out of Vasily’s personal hostility towards the aristocracy, especially Asia Minor, whose representatives constantly threatened his power.

But Vasily paid most of his attention to foreign policy. He constantly fought, and above all with Samuel, the ruler of Macedonia and Bulgaria. This Byzantine emperor was first and foremost a warrior, harsh both to himself and to others. He preferred life in a military camp to court ceremonies.

Beginning in 991, Vasily almost constantly waged wars on the northern borders of the empire. However, he had to interrupt them in order to fight for several years (mostly successful) with the Arabs, first in Syria, where he managed to maintain Byzantine possessions within its former borders, and then in Armenia - with the same result.

In 997, King Samuel, in an aggressive raid, reached the Peloponnese itself, but on the way back he was defeated by the Byzantine army.

In 1001–1004, the emperor won a number of victories in the war with Samuel and occupied most of the lands under his control.

In 1014, the Byzantines defeated Samuel's troops in the Strumitsa River valley and captured more than ten thousand soldiers. The emperor ordered to blind all the prisoners, leaving only one eye for every hundredth, so that he could serve as a guide for the rest, and released them. Two days after King Samuel saw this army of blind men, he died. His successors recognized themselves as subjects of Byzantium, and Vasily II himself received the nickname Bulgarian Slayer.

Thanks to the victorious wars, the borders of Byzantium were established along the Danube and Sava. The entire Balkan Peninsula found itself within the sphere of religious and cultural influence of Byzantium - although in some areas it was more intense and in others less intense. In the east and south, the borders of the empire reached northern Syria, and in the west - southern Italy. And although the empire was no longer as vast as in the times of Justinian I or Heraclius, it still represented one of the largest and best organized states of that time in Europe and the Mediterranean basin. And from the point of view of the level of civilization and culture in this region, he had no equal. Only a few Arab centers could compete with Byzantium in some aspects, while all the countries of Western and Central Europe were semi-barbaric in comparison. Rome lay in ruins, and meanwhile Constantinople, which had never been captured for many centuries, shocked the imagination not only with the splendor of its temples and the architecture of secular buildings, but also with the continuity of the existence of institutions of state power. Although, on a global scale, Byzantium, of course, cannot stand any comparison with what China was able to achieve - in all spheres of public life.

Vasily the Bulgarian-Slayer died of natural causes on December 15, 1025 during preparations for the next campaign against the Sicilian Arabs. He was not married and left no offspring.

In the same year, the first king of Poland, Boleslav the Brave, died, who, like Vasily, was a successful conqueror.

Participation in wars: Civil wars. Bulgarian War. Wars in Italy, Asia Minor, Transcaucasia.
Participation in battles: At Avidos. At Strymon's. Capture of Sirmium

(Basil II) Byzantine Emperor of the Macedonian Dynasty

Already at 2 years old Vasily was proclaimed emperor, but was allowed to govern the state only in 976 after his death Joanna Tzimiskes. His co-ruler was his younger brother Konstantin. Taking the reins of Byzantine Empire, Vasily did not want to share his concerns with any of those close to him or take outside advice. However, at first he also could not rely on himself, since he had no experience either in public administration or in commanding an army. Therefore he brought his relative closer to him Parakimomena Vasily, who stood out for his considerable intelligence, and learned from him the art of management. But as he grew older and gained experience in all matters, he took away his power and sent him into exile. From now on, he made all the decisions himself, commanded the army himself, and conducted all civil affairs himself, governing not according to written laws, but according to the unwritten regulations of his unusually naturally gifted soul. His reign was filled with difficult wars and uprisings. Already in 976, he decided to revolt in Asia Minor Varda Sklir, who mastered all Asian themes in a short time. Having learned that all the heavily armed warriors had flocked to Sklir, the emperor and his entourage at first decided that they had died, but then, gathering their courage, they judged differently and called on the disgraced Sklir Vardu Foku, nephew of the deceased emperor Nikephoros II, entrusted him with the remaining forces and sent him against the rebels. In 978 Skler was defeated, after which he was forced to flee to the Arabs. The winner Phocas was at first given considerable honors, making him one of the persons closest to the emperor, but then they began to show less and less attention to him, and he, realizing that he was in danger of new disgrace, declared himself emperor in 987 and raised an uprising against Vasily . The key battle with Phocas took place in April 988. at Avidos. Noticing Vasily, Foka rushed towards him with all his might, but unexpectedly fell from his horse, lay down on the ground and died. There were rumors that the cupbearer bribed by the emperor poisoned him before the battle. Varda Sklir, who led the rebels, reconciled with the emperor in the same year.

Under the influence of all these events, Vasily changed greatly. In his youth, he was prone to effeminacy and licentiousness, he indulged in carousing without embarrassment, often indulged in love affairs and was overly carried away by friendly parties. But difficult trials and merciless blows of fate forced him, according to Psellus, to set sail in full sail away from a pampered life and, over time, completely change his character. Over the years, he became a gloomy, rude, hot-tempered man and far from any luxury. He gave up jewelry, no longer wore a tiara on his head or necklaces around his neck, took off his extra rings, threw off his colorfully decorated dresses and was only concerned with putting the affairs of his state in order. Having closed all the channels through which incoming finances flowed, he increased his treasury to two hundred thousand talents. He studied military affairs in detail and therefore accurately assigned knowledgeable and skillful assistants to all posts. He carried out campaigns against the barbarians in a completely different way than was the custom of most emperors, who set out in mid-spring and returned at the end of summer. He endured the summer heat and winter cold, languishing with thirst, did not immediately rush to the source and was truly as hard as flint and resistant to all bodily deprivations. He did not like open battles and won more by cunning than by deceit. For 20 years, Vasily waged a stubborn struggle against

Konstantin Porphyrogenitus
and his successors (945-1057)

After the “resignation” of Emperor Roman Lecapinus, which was carried out by his sons in 944 and their subsequent retribution for this coup (they were arrested, tonsured as monks and exiled the very next year), the independent reign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus began (945-959) , although he was considered emperor since 905.

Constantine was the son of Emperor Leo VI the Wise from his fourth marriage. Let us remember that it was this marriage that at one time caused so many problems in the relationship between the emperor and Patriarch Nicholas the Mystic. Thanks to these circumstances, the epithet was assigned to the name of Constantine Porphyrogenitus(i.e. born in the royal chambers), because this gave legal status, if not to the fourth marriage itself, then at least to the heir to the throne born from it.

Constantine's wife, Elena, was the daughter of Roman Lekapin, but she found herself at his side during the removal of her brothers from power. It is possible that her participation, as well as Constantine’s enlightenment, helped prevent bloodshed, which was usual in such a matter. Having removed the Lekapin clan from power, the purple-born emperor decided to rely on the Fok family, who were longtime competitors of the removed family. They bore the brunt of Constantine's wars on the eastern Arab front. Varda Phokas was the domestic of the scholas, and his three sons (of whom the future Emperor Nicephorus was the eldest) were the leaders of the eastern border femes. Thus, in the Middle Byzantine period, aristocratic families gradually took shape and, in parallel with them, the dynastic principle of succession to the throne, unknown in the first centuries of Byzantine history.

Constantine Porphyrogenitus owns the only textbook on Byzantine diplomacy that has come down to us - his book “On the Administration of the Empire” ( Administrando imperio). This imperial work contained not only a theory: Constantine actually did a lot of diplomacy, which affected the formation of the Byzantine Commonwealth. A list of embassies received in the first years of his reign is preserved in his book “On the Ceremonies of the Byzantine Court” ( De cerimoniis). These writings were intended primarily for his son, the future Emperor Roman II.

The beginning of the Christianization of Rus' is associated with the name of Constantine: in 946 (there are other dates for this event; see the next article. - Ed.) Princess Olga of Kiev visited Constantinople, and it was during this embassy that she was baptized, despite the fact that the emperor himself became her successor.

In ancient Russian literature there is a story that the emperor allegedly wanted to marry Olga, and for this reason he persuaded her to be baptized. She, for her part, asked him to become godfather, which excluded the possibility of marriage. So, as if, the Russians outwitted the Greeks. But there is no doubt that the most learned of the Byzantine emperors was better versed in the intricacies of canon law than the newly baptized Olga.

An attempt to involve the Hungarians into the Byzantine orbit is associated with Constantine. In 948, two Hungarian leaders were baptized in Constantinople, and the emperor himself, as in the case of Olga, became their successor. At the same time, a Byzantine bishop was sent to Hungary. But still, the first Hungarian king, Saint Stephen, preferred to receive his crown from Rome in 1001. Thus, the Hungarian Church and country found themselves in the sphere of German influence, although throughout the 11th century. Several dioceses of the Byzantine rite remained in Hungary.

After the death of Constantine, his son Romanus ruled for four years (959-963), who left two minor children and a widow, who soon married the commander Nikephoros Phocas, who became the real ruler of the Empire (963-969). After the death of Nikephoros as a result of a palace coup, the throne ended up in the hands of John Tzimiskes (969-976), a talented Byzantine commander of Armenian origin. The reign of these two military-led emperors proved very successful in terms of military campaigns and expansion of the borders of the state.

View of one of the Byzantine fortresses Nowadays

However, the main flowering of the Middle Byzantine Empire is associated with the name of Vasily II. He inherited the Empire, being the grandson of Constantine Porphyrogenitus and the son of Romanos II. So power again returned to the direct representatives of the Macedonian dynasty. Basil II reigned for about fifty years (976-1025), sharing power with his younger and less energetic brother Constantine VIII (976-1028). The tangible result of his reign was the restoration of the Byzantine border along the Danube and the disappearance of Bulgaria as an independent state. Under him, Ancient Rus' became one of the Christian peoples and members of the so-called Byzantine Commonwealth.

The last decades of the Macedonian dynasty after the death of Basil were deprived of their former greatness. In 1042, for the first and last time in Byzantine history, the state was simultaneously ruled by two sisters - the nieces of Vasily II. 1054 is considered the mournful date of the Great Schism. The state began to emerge from the temporary crisis with the coming to power in 1057 of representatives of the new Komnenos dynasty.

Closest successors
Constantine Porphyrogenitus (945-976)

Emperors Nikephoros Phocas (963-969) and John Tzimiskes (969-976) did not belong to the Macedonian dynasty by origin. Nikephoros became the husband of the widow of Romanus II, and upon his accession the patriarch and the council “obliged Nikephoros with a terrible oath never to reject the power of the child sovereigns and not to plot anything wicked against their rule” ( Leo Deacon. Story. II, 12). Nickname Tzimiskes translated from Armenian it means shoe; That's what they called him because of his short stature. And yet, power did not completely leave the House of Macedon: thus, in Byzantium, the dynastic principle of government was gradually established, although with glitches.

The main focus of these two emperors' activities was the eastern border and their Islamic neighbors. Military successes of the second half of the 10th century. would be repeated in this region only during the time of the Crusaders. Even during the reign of Romanus, Nikephoros Phocas recaptured the island of Crete, which at that time was not so much a maritime strategic point as a base for Arab pirates who kept the entire Aegean Sea with its islands and shipping at bay. Having become emperor, Nikephoros continued to personally participate in campaigns, conquering Cilicia in Asia Minor and the island of Cyprus - the most important place for maritime control over the Eastern Mediterranean. For the Byzantines, the reconquest of lands previously seized by Islamic rulers was perceived as the restoration of trampled legality: on the side of the Romans are those who “desire justice, an impartial trial, the preservation of property, family, their lives, children, good roads, fair laws and good treatment” (from records of the 13th century Arab geographer Yakkut). After such success in the land and sea war, the Byzantines could already move to Syria.

Nikephoros managed to besiege Antioch, the ancient capital of Syria, but the siege dragged on, and he returned to Constantinople. Nevertheless, the city was taken in the last year of the reign of Nicephorus (969), and after the capture of Aleppo (Aleppo) - the second most important city in Syria - its emir became a vassal of the Byzantine emperor. This success not only served to liberate Middle Eastern Christians, but also ensured an influx of new wealth into Constantinople. A contemporary of Nicephorus, the Byzantine historian Leo the Deacon, wrote that “if the fate of [Nicephorus’] death had not reversed the fate of the Romans, then nothing would have prevented them during his lifetime from expanding the boundaries of their rule in the east to India, and in the west to the very limits of the inhabited world "(History. V, 4). The eastern policy of the next emperor, John Tzimisces, became a continuation of the work of his predecessor. He tried to move the border further south, making the liberation of Jerusalem his goal. It seems that John captured Damascus and went to Palestine, taking Nazareth and Caesarea, without, however, reaching Jerusalem. Despite all the apparent success of his eastern campaign, Antioch still remained the stronghold of the Byzantines in the east. So, the result of the eastern policy of Nikephoros Phocas and John Tzimisces was the assertion of the maritime dominance of the Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean and the strengthening of the border with the Arabs in Cilicia and Syria, with Antioch as the base of Byzantine influence.

In the Western Mediterranean, the activities of Phocas and Tzimiskes were not so energetic and not at all so successful. Moreover, Sicily finally (for this era) passed into the hands of the Arabs, who managed to capture the last Byzantine strongholds on the island. Byzantium was able to maintain its influence in Italy after clashes with the German Emperor Otto I the Great only through the marriage of the Byzantine princess Theophano with the heir to the German throne, the future Emperor Otto II.

And yet, one of the most important areas of Byzantine policy under the closest successors of Constantine Porphyrogenitus was the Balkans, primarily Bulgaria. The Balkan policy of the Romans was complicated by the active intervention of the Russian prince Svyatoslav, who repeatedly undertook campaigns in Bulgaria or even on the territory of the Empire, and died while returning home after one of such campaigns. This direction will remain the main one during the long reign of Vasily II. The peace concluded between Byzantium and Bulgaria after the death of Tsar Simeon lasted about forty years, while Bulgaria was under the rule of the peace-loving Tsar Peter or was torn apart by internal turmoil. During the weakening of Bulgaria, the Byzantines had to deal with new nomads - the Hungarians and Pechenegs, who flooded Thrace and even reached Constantinople. Since the 960s Bulgaria's power began to gradually revive, and this immediately made the Byzantines worried.

According to the historian Skylitzes, the break between Byzantium and Bulgaria occurred in 967, when Nikephoros tried to ask the Bulgarian Tsar Peter not to allow Hungarians hostile to Byzantium to pass through his territory. The Bulgarians either could not or did not want to fulfill Nicephorus’ request. Then the emperor, busy on the eastern borders of the Empire, began to look for allies against the Bulgarians and Hungarians. As usual, allies were found behind enemy lines, and in 968 the Kiev prince Svyatoslav (the son of Princess Olga and the father of Prince Vladimir, but a pagan himself) had already crossed the Danube, capturing several coastal Bulgarian fortresses. Then Svyatoslav was forced to return to Kyiv, but a year later he found himself in Bulgaria again, without a Byzantine invitation. In 969 he captured the then capital of Bulgaria, Plovdiv. At the same time, an uprising began in Western Bulgaria with the creation of a separate Western Bulgarian kingdom with its capital in Sofia (Serdika). At the beginning of 970, Tsar Peter died, soon glorified by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as a saint.

In 970, Svyatoslav, again finding himself in Bulgaria, made a campaign in Thrace, but was unsuccessful, and was defeated by the Byzantines near Adrianople. This Thracian campaign was the beginning of Svyatoslav’s failures. The following year he was defeated at Plovdiv and then at Dorostol. During this campaign, only a small part of the Russian army remained, so that the Byzantines, after defeating Svyatoslav at Dorostol, were able to conclude a profitable peace, according to which Svyatoslav had to leave Bulgaria, and also not disturb the Byzantine colonies in Crimea. Byzantium left Eastern Bulgaria in its hands, and Tsar Boris was taken to Constantinople. After the death of John Tzimisces and the accession of Vasily II to the throne in 976, the Western Bulgarian kingdom tried to regain control over the eastern regions of Bulgaria, but this became the next stage of the Byzantine-Bulgarian confrontation.

Byzantine warrior. Mosaic from the Church of Nea Moni in Chios. XI century

There is an opinion that Byzantine diplomacy set the Pechenegs against Svyatoslav when he was returning to his homeland after the concluded peace. But at that time, Byzantium benefited from an alliance with Russia, and the Russian chronicle did not blame the Byzantines for the death of the Kyiv prince. According to the Tale of Bygone Years, the Russians went home with rich booty and prisoners. Svyatoslav released the captured Byzantines, but, according to the terms of the peace, it was not at all necessary to return all the booty that was gained in the war with the Bulgarians. According to the chronicler, it was not the Byzantines, but the Bulgarians who informed the Pechenegs that Svyatoslav’s army was small, but the booty was enormous (PVL. 52). Returning by river and sea, Svyatoslav died in the spring of 972. The Pechenezh Khan Kurya ordered a cup to be made from the skull of the murdered prince.

As for the internal policy of Nikephoros Phocas and John Tzimisces, what is primarily interesting here is their attempt to limit church land ownership in combination with participation in the development of Athonite monasticism and personal piety, at least in relation to Nikephoros.

Before his accession to the throne, Nicephorus combined soldierly severity with an almost monastic lifestyle, since monasticism really attracted him. Among his friends was Saint Athanasius of Athos, founder of the first communal monastery on Athos. At the same time, Nikephoros decided on a measure unprecedented since the time of the iconoclast emperors: with his novel of 964, he prohibited the creation of new monasteries, as well as large donations and bequests in favor of existing ones. He explained this by the desire to expel from the Church the disease of covetousness and love of money, but, in addition, the development of church land ownership affected the dispossession of peasants and a decrease in tax revenues to the treasury. It is unlikely that this law was observed under Nicephorus and John; Vasily II abolished it as “aimed at insulting God Himself.”

At the same time, Nikephoros supported Athanasius of Athos in the creation of the first monastery on the Holy Mountain, although individual hermits and small communities had already been known on Athos for several previous centuries. John Tzimiskes, continuing to support the development of Athonite monasticism, confirmed the ancient diversity of statutes. Under Vasily II, there was not only Greek, but also Georgian and Italian monasticism on Athos, and in the middle of the 11th century. It was also known about the Russian community.

An interesting attempt is made by Nicephorus to proclaim martyrs of all the soldiers who died in battle. Of course, here the emperor had to retreat before the disagreement of the patriarch and the clergy. This very intention indicates either the influence of the Islamic world, or the approach of those times when war with other faiths will be considered (at least in the West) as part of spiritual work.

Emperor Vasily II (976-1025)

The name of Vasily II is associated with an entire era of Byzantine history and the maximum expansion of the Byzantine state in the Middle Byzantine period. History has preserved the nickname for Vasily II Bulgarian fighter, which he received in connection with one of the episodes of the wars with Bulgaria, as a result of which the First Bulgarian Kingdom ceased to exist.

With the accession of Basil to the throne, power returned to the Macedonian dynasty, because Basil was the son of Romanus II and the grandson of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, having been crowned emperor long before his actual accession to the throne. Just as with the accession of Justinian to the throne, the beginning of Vasily’s reign was accompanied by a severe national crisis, and if Vasily had not been capable of “long-distance running,” it is unlikely that he would have been able to retain the throne.

Despite the increasingly established dynastic principle of government in Byzantium, power continued to go to the strongest. The accession of Basil to the throne coincided with the beginning of the rebellion of a significant part of the Asia Minor nobility under the command of Bardas Skler, one of the military commanders on the eastern borders of the Empire. Most of the army went over to his side, primarily units staffed by Armenians. To fight the rebels, Vasily rescued the nephew of the late Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Varda, from disgrace. The allies of Varda Phokas turned out to be the Georgian princes. As a result of the three-year civil war, Skler and his entourage had to seek refuge in the caliph's palace in Baghdad. The funds taken during the plunder of the rebel camp by one of the Georgian princes were used to create one of the most famous monasteries on Mount Athos - the Georgian monastery of Iviron. And Varda, at the head of the Byzantine army stationed in the east of the Empire, headed towards Aleppo, thus forcing the Arabs to resume paying annual tribute to Byzantium.

Nevertheless, Asia Minor separatism was not based simply on personal scores. In 987, Basil II, fearing the influence of Bardas Phocas, tried to remove him from command of the eastern army, but the result of this was the proclamation of Vardas as emperor by his soldiers. A new civil war began, and soon most of Asia Minor came under the control of Vardas, although the emperor managed to keep the treasury in his hands. Vasily's ally in this war turned out to be the Kiev prince Vladimir, who agreed to send significant military forces to help the emperor. It is with this union that the plot of the baptism of Prince Vladimir and then all his people, so important for our history, is connected...

Varda Phokas, as well as Varda Sklir, released by the caliph, continued armed resistance to the army of Vasily and his Russian allies until October 989. It is interesting that if those close to Varda Phokas (he himself unexpectedly died before the decisive battle with Vasily) and the leaders of his Georgian allies were executed, then Varda Sklir's life was saved: yesterday's enemies are more terrible than the day before yesterday.

If Asia Minor was a source of internal unrest, and Vasily had to return to foreign policy in the East more than once, then the Balkans became the main arena of historical events during the time of Vasily II.

Soon after the accession of Vasily to the throne and the beginning of the uprising of Varda Skler, the Western Bulgarian kingdom declared war on Byzantium for the return of previously lost possessions. Let us recall that all the wars between Byzantium and Bulgaria could be considered “fair” for both sides: the Bulgarian rulers tried to bring under their control all the lands inhabited by the Bulgarians, and the Byzantines tried to return to the ancient Roman border along the Danube. As this war progressed, the Byzantines tried to play on the contradictions between Tsar Samuel and his brothers, as well as the sons of the late Tsar Peter, who had been in Constantinople for a long time as honorary hostages. Finally, Basil laid siege to Serdica (Sofia) in 986, but the siege was not successful. Moreover, on the way back, Samuel inflicted such a defeat on the Byzantines that Vasily himself barely escaped. This failure in Bulgaria became one of the reasons for dissatisfaction with the emperor, which led to the already described uprising of Bardas Phocas in Asia Minor.

After the end of the civil war, the emperor had to return to the Balkans, if only to erase from his memory the sad events of the previous Bulgarian war. This new war lasted with varying success from 990 to 1018, and more than once Samuel undertook daring campaigns deep into Byzantine territory - to Greece or to Adrianople. But just during the protracted war, it became clear how incomparable the resources of the Bulgarian kingdom and the Byzantine Empire were. The decisive battle was the Battle of Kleidion on July 29, 1014, where the Bulgarian army was defeated and a significant part of it was captured by the Byzantines. Soon the elderly Bulgarian Tsar Simeon died, but the war continued for several years after his death. The year 1018 was the time of Vasily’s triumph in the fight against the Bulgarians: Ohrid was taken, and the First Bulgarian Kingdom ceased to exist, although many representatives of the Bulgarian elite and members of the royal family received honors and various ranks from the Byzantines. Vasily traveled through the Balkans, celebrated his victory in ancient Athens, and only after that returned to Constantinople. In 1019, Serbia also ceased to exist as a separate state, declaring its complete submission to the Byzantine emperor.

The emperor also tried not to forget about the Byzantine possessions in Italy, although he personally could not take part in Italian events; on his behalf, Byzantine power in Italy was represented by governors called catepans. The Byzantines were threatened by the Lombards and Normans in the north, as well as the Arabs in Sicily. Twice, in 1009 and 1017, the Lombard nobleman Mel rebelled, during his second uprising he first resorted to the help of Norman soldiers in the fight against the Byzantines in Italy. The German Emperor Henry II also tried to pinch off a piece of Byzantine possessions, although he was not particularly successful in this. At the very end of his reign, Vasily planned a large campaign, wanting to recapture Sicily from the Arabs, and in 1025 the first of the Byzantine troops was sent there. However, the death of the emperor in December 1025 put an end to this endeavor.

Vasily also had to return to the East several times, both to pacify the Arabs and to strengthen the power of the Empire in Transcaucasia. In 995 and 999 Basil had to fight the Egyptian Fatimids, who were trying to capture Byzantine Antioch and the Empire's allies in Aleppo. The matter ended with a ten-year truce with the Egyptian Sultan Al-Hakim, who was later known as the destroyer of Christian shrines in the Holy Land. At the same time, Vasily achieved the transfer to him of some possessions in Georgia that belonged to the allies of Varda Phokas. In the early 1020s. Byzantium received Armenian possessions in the area of ​​Lake Van, which the Armenians themselves were unable to protect from the beginning of the Turkic penetration into Asia Minor. A new Byzantine cathepanate (a large military-border district) was organized there. Ed.).

At the same time, the Empire waged a completely successful and not very long war with the Georgian king George, who remained faithful to his allies - the Fatimids. As a result, by the end of Basil’s reign, Byzantium, in fact, subjugated a significant part of the territories of Armenia and Georgia, although as a result of this, buffer states convenient for the Empire disappeared on the eastern periphery.

So, despite the difficulties of the first stage of Vasily’s reign, by the end of his reign, Byzantium strengthened its position in the East in the face of the Fatimids and achieved significant success in subjugating Abkhazia, Armenia and Georgia. The northern border of the Empire began to run along the Danube, which always seemed to the Romans and Byzantines to be their natural Balkan border, but which in reality did not happen often.

The previously hostile Balkan states - the First Bulgarian Kingdom and Serbia - simply ceased to exist for a while, having been included by Basil in the Empire (1018 and 1019, respectively). The wars that preceded this event are associated with Vasily’s nickname, the Bulgarian Slayer: after a successful battle with the Bulgarians near Kleidion for the Byzantine army in July 1014, Vasily ordered the blinding of all Bulgarian soldiers who were captured. Blinding was a very common way in Byzantium to remove political opponents from the game, and it was considered to be quite “humane”, because they were not deprived of their lives. However, such mass blinding did not occur again in Byzantine history. According to the Manasiev Chronicle, the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon I died unable to bear the sight of several thousand blinded soldiers.

In addition to successes in the Balkans, Transcaucasia and Syria, the Byzantine army won victories in the West: in 1018, the Byzantines defeated the Lombards and Normans at Cannes, and just before his death, Basil II was preparing a failed campaign against Sicily.

The era of Vasily II is also associated with such success of the Byzantine Church as the Baptism of Rus'. In 987, Prince Vladimir was baptized in Chersonesos, in 988 mass baptisms took place in Kyiv, and in 989 in Novgorod. These events became the most important factors in the existence of all the so-called Byzantine Commonwealth.

After the death of Basil II (1025), the Empire had to experience a number of difficulties associated both with the frequent change of the last emperors from the Macedonian dynasty, and with natural disasters and, most importantly, with the activation of external enemies of the Empire along all its borders. At the same time, the cultural and religious alienation of the Western and Eastern parts of the Christian world is growing, which led to the so-called Great Schism of the Churches of 1054. The desire of a significant number of Byzantine Jews to accept baptism and, thus, turned out to be a kind of significant for the Byzantine civilization and Byzantine Christianity of the era of Basil II. to full inclusion in the prosperous Byzantine society. This is evidenced by the so-called “Formula of Renunciation,” which was supposed to put an end to insincere conversions to Christianity.

Baptism of Rus'

During the reign of Vasily II, the Baptism of Rus' takes place, one of the most important events not only in Russian history, but also in the history of everything. Byzantine Commonwealth. The Christianization of the Slavic peoples occurs precisely in the Middle Byzantine period and almost coincides with the era of the Macedonian dynasty. During the time of Emperor Heraclius (VII century), the Empire loses the Middle East, then, in the era of iconoclasm, shrinks to the scale of a national Greek state, but still survives, and then begins to grow towards the Balkans, not only expanding the imperial borders, but creating a kind of The Commonwealth is a whole circle of states associated with Byzantium through many religious, cultural and political threads. Here the Christianization of the Slavs played a primary role.

The baptism of Prince Vladimir was associated with Emperor Vasily II's search for allies against the rebellion of Bardas Phocas in Asia Minor. As a reward, Vladimir asked the emperor for the hand of his porphyry sister Anna. The emperor agreed, but on the condition that his ally was baptized: there was no question of giving the porphyry-born princess as a wife to a pagan. Vladimir agreed to this, realizing what an advantage he would receive over all other rulers of the Steppe. In addition, one cannot deny his genuine spiritual attraction to Christianity. The story of the choice of faith has been preserved. Being dissatisfied with other religions, as well as with the Western Christian rite, the ambassadors of Prince Vladimir spoke about the divine service in Sophia of Constantinople, which they witnessed: “We do not know whether we were in heaven or on earth, for on earth one cannot see such a spectacle and such beauty; We don’t know how to tell you, we only know that God is with the people there and that their service surpasses the service of all other countries; we cannot forget such beauty.”

Apparently, Vladimir and his squad were baptized in Chersonesos in 987. There is evidence that the city was taken by Russian force. It is unknown whether this was a way to force the emperor to give his sister to Vladimir as a wife or, most likely, Chersonesus was controlled at that moment by Byzantine rebels, and Vladimir thus began to fulfill his alliance agreement with the emperor. In the 20th century A baptistery of that time was excavated in Chersonesos, in which, most likely, the Kiev prince was baptized...

The following year, Vladimir, together with the Greek clergy, baptized the residents of Kyiv.

In 989 Novgorod was baptized.

Immediately after these events (and especially during the time of Prince Yaroslav the Wise), many churches were built in Rus', and translations of liturgical books into Church Slavonic appeared.

At the beginning of the 11th century. In Kyiv, the St. Sophia Cathedral is being built in the image of St. Sophia in Constantinople. Soon Prince Vladimir was glorified among the saints as equal to the apostles: in this rite, rulers were glorified who contributed to the Christianization of their people, thus participating in the work of the apostolic gospel.

Politically, after its Baptism, Rus' entered the circle of “civilized peoples.” She became part of that world, in the center of which was Constantinople with the emperor and patriarch at its head. The Kiev Metropolis quickly became the largest and most populous metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. At the same time, the remoteness of Rus' from Byzantium contributed to significant both ecclesiastical and political independence of the new Christian people. This same remoteness made it possible to minimize political contradictions and friction between the two countries, which the Empire had so much with its immediate Slavic neighbors - the Bulgarians and Serbs. In spiritual and cultural terms, the Baptism of Rus' was probably the most significant achievement of the reign of Emperor Vasily II.

Heirs of Vasily II (1025-1057)

After the death of Vasily II, who remained single all his life, power passed to his brother Constantine VIII, who was initially his co-ruler and outlived his older brother by only three years.

Konstantin had two daughters - Zoya and Theodora, about whose marriage Vasily did not show due care at one time. At the beginning of the 11th century. Zoe was designated as the bride of the German Emperor Otto III, but he died immediately after her arrival in Bari in 1002. Shortly before his death, in 1028, Emperor Constantine gave Zoe as a wife to his distant relative Roman Argir, although this marriage was destined remain childless. In the next three decades, all, often bloody, disputes around the throne would be in one way or another connected with the two nieces of Vasily II, since no one had any doubts about the legitimacy of their own stay in power.

Roman III Argir attempted to experience military glory on the eastern front by directly annexing the vassal Emirate of Aleppo to the Empire. This expedition of 1030 ended in the defeat of the imperial army, but, thanks to the efforts of the commander George Maniac, the matter was corrected in the next 1031, and the rulers of Aleppo again paid tribute to the Empire. Maniac was also able to keep Edessa from enemy claims. In 1034, the emperor died in a bath: according to popular belief, the empress and her entourage were behind this. One of them soon became her husband and emperor. This was Michael IV of Paphlagon, the nephew of one of the associates of Basil II. During the reign of Michael, an attempt was made to reconquer Sicily - led by the same George Manicak; it was a continuation of where Vasily II left off at the end of his life. The Byzantine army successfully landed in Syracuse in 1040, and everything might have ended successfully if the Lombard contingent of Maniac's army had not joined one of the rebellions and headed to Bari. After this, the commander himself was recalled by the emperor out of fear of the possibility of his participation in the uprising. That same year, the Bulgarians and Serbs rebelled in the Balkans, and although the emperor achieved some success, this was the beginning of a deterioration in relations with his Slavic neighbors. In 1041, Michael IV died, leaving the throne to his nephew Michael V, who had previously been adopted by Zoe.

Michael V began with repressions against his own relatives. On Easter 1042, he even sent his adoptive mother Zoya to the monastery, which further shook the people's trust in his legitimacy. As a result of the uprising in the capital, Michael was overthrown and blinded, and the porphyry-born Theodora was elevated to the throne. After this, for three months, for the only time in Byzantine history, there were two women on the throne - Theodora and her sister Zoe, who left the monastery. In July 1042, Zoya married again - to Constantine XI Monomakh, who would remain at the head of the state until his death in 1055.

The overthrown Michael V still tried to act, releasing George Maniak from prison, who now actually rebelled and headed with an army to the Balkans. But in 1043 he died in battle with the imperial army near Thessalonica. In the same year, the Russian fleet of Prince Yaroslav arrived near Constantinople, but it was defeated by the Byzantines. Was Maniac's uprising and the Russian attack just a coincidence? At least nothing documented confirms the opposite.

During the rather long reign of Constantine IX Monomakh, an attempted invasion of the Pecheneg nomads was stopped, the Armenian kingdom of Ani was annexed to the Empire, which put Byzantium in the face of the Seljuk Turks, and there were a number of clashes with the Normans in Italy, as well as with the papacy. In the winter of 1046-1047. many Pechenegs crossed the Danube, thus finding themselves on the territory of the Empire. They were repulsed by both the imperial army and the recently baptized barbarians settled on the Byzantine side of the Danube. The emperor decided to settle the defeated Pechenegs on the public lands of the sparsely populated Balkans, and to include some of their units in the Byzantine army. This completely traditional policy caused a rebellion of part of the army led by Lev Tornik, which was suppressed only towards the end of 1047.

In 1041, Sambat, the king of the Armenian kingdom of Ani, died, who at one time bequeathed his throne to the Byzantine emperor. In 1045, Emperor Constantine invited the heir Sambat to Constantinople, who was reminded of the will of his predecessor. In return, he received support from the imperial treasury and estates in Asia Minor. As a result of the annexation of Armenia, the Byzantines had to face the Seljuk Turks directly. In 1048, despite the absence of a large army, border units, together with Georgian allies, repelled the attack of the Turks. In 1054, the Seljuk Sultan, having previously conquered Azerbaijan, decided to test the fortress of the Byzantine Manzikert, but this time the Turkish siege was successfully withstood.

In Italy, all the Normans who came here inevitably encountered the Byzantines, and Constantine hoped for an alliance with Pope Leo IX, because. The Normans did not spare papal territories either. However, in 1053, the Normans defeated both the papal troops and the army of the Byzantine governor of Italy, Argyrus. Soon after this, the papal throne was able to find a common language with the Normans, who adopted Latin Christianity in Italy, and this was a crushing blow both to the Byzantine possessions and to the relations between Constantinople and Rome. During the reign of Constantine Monomakh, the so-called Great Schism- the formal date of the division of the Eastern and Western Churches in the summer of 1054, which will be discussed below.

After the death of Monomakh in 1055, power returned for a year and a half (for the umpteenth time!) to Theodora, the porphyry niece of Vasily II. Before her death in 1056, she bequeathed the throne to the Constantinople official Michael Vringa, who was already an elderly man and, as an official, did not show sufficient affection and attention to the commanders of Constantine Monomakh. These commanders proclaimed Isaac Comnenus, a representative of one of the richest families in Asia Minor, emperor. In Constantinople, Isaac was supported by Patriarch Michael Cyrullarius, who crowned him emperor on September 1, 1057. For the next century and a half of Byzantine history, the main decisions would be made not by the capital’s bureaucracy, but by the military and land aristocracy, which nominated emperors from among themselves.

Division of Churches (Great Schism) 1054

The summer of 1054 is the formal date of one of the most sorrowful events in Christian history - the division of the Churches, Western and Eastern, which would soon be called Catholic and Orthodox. The division became both a violation of Christ’s commandment about the unity of those who believe in Him, and the beginning of many strife and even crimes in relations between the two parts of the Christian world.

The division had several important reasons: the mutual repulsion of cultures, theological differences that arose and politics. If mutual anathemas (i.e. excommunication from the Church) were proclaimed simultaneously by representatives of the pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1054 (they were canceled only in the 60s of the 20th century!), then the division itself can be considered a long process. It began with the formation of new theological ideas in the West in the middle of the first millennium of Christian history, which was painfully discovered by the East in the 9th century. under Patriarch Photius. Then unanimity was nevertheless restored at a general council in Constantinople in 879-880. But by this time, the Latin West and the Greek East already had different traditions of theological and philosophical thought, church governance and their own established customs of church life. The completion of the separation process is usually considered to be 1204 - the capture and plunder of Constantinople by the crusaders. This event indicated that for Western people the Orthodox were no longer perceived as fellow Christians, and after this event the Byzantines also began to perceive Catholics as having finally abandoned Christian unity and mutual love.

One of the theological issues that divided the churches was the Western addition to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity beyond what was included in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. This is the so-called - filioque, a Latin addition to the Creed, speaking of the procession of the Holy Spirit not only from the Father, but and from the Son. Patriarch Photius called him “the crown of evil” in his Encyclical Patriarchs from 866. Introduction filioque The Creed most likely dates back to 589, when at one of the Spanish councils - in Toledo - it was included in Afanasievsky(but not in Nikeo-Tsaregradsky) Symbol by Spanish Christians who were in polemics with the Arians-Visigoths. Soon the Spaniards preferred the general Church Symbol, but the insertion made into the old Symbol was preserved. According to them, she only emphasized the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, which was so necessary in the polemic with the Arians. Later, the insertion found adherents in the person of the Carolingian sovereigns, especially Charlemagne himself, who tried to turn it from local into common for the entire Western Church, imposing filioque To the Roman throne.

In 808, the Patriarch of Jerusalem already complained to Pope Leo III about the discrepancy between the Creed of the Frankish monks in Jerusalem and the general Church Symbol. This is apparently the first reaction of the East to the insertion. Interestingly, the pope supported the patriarch in his indignation, and in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome the Creed was inscribed on silver tablets without adding words "and from the Son". However, in the 9th century. filioque continued to spread in the West, and by the end of the century it was proclaimed not only in Spain, but throughout Germany, Lorraine and partly in France. During the time of Patriarch Photius, Latin missionaries in Bulgaria used the interpolated Symbol as a weapon in the fight against Byzantine influence, and the Council of Constantinople 879-880. (considered the VIII Ecumenical for both the East and the West, at least until the 11th century) once again condemned as heresy any addition to the Symbol. It is significant that the papal legates approved such a conciliar decision.

Changing Rome's officially negative attitude towards filioque occurred as German political and theological influence grew towards the end of the 10th century. The addition symbol was first used in Rome in 1014 during the coronation of Emperor Henry II. Pope Sergius IV, who succeeded John XII, who died in 1009, included filioque in your district message. The insertion was unanimously adopted by the Western Church at the Council of Lyon in 1274 and confirmed at the Council of Florence in 1439. For the Orthodox Church, the decision of the Council of Patriarch Photius in 879-880 remained in force.

Question about filioque was perhaps the main theological issue discussed in the 11th century. In addition, numerous ritual differences were discussed.

The political side of the matter consisted of the competition between the popes and the Patriarchs of Constantinople for influence in the territories that were part of the Christian ecumene (the Balkans, Southern Italy), as well as the desire of the Byzantine emperors to take part in this competition. All these circumstances led to a serious deterioration in relations by the middle of the 11th century.

In the summer of 1054, an embassy from Pope Leo IX, headed by Cardinal Humbert, arrived in Constantinople. Since the embassy had not only church, but also political tasks (related to Italian problems and the advance of the Normans in Italy), it was sent not only to Patriarch Michael Cyrullarius, but also to Emperor Constantine IX Monomachus. Later, the patriarch complained that the arriving ambassadors did not even want to greet him with a nod, not to mention a proper bow. At the same time, they were given a ceremonial reception in the imperial palace. Several weeks of the papal legates' stay in Constantinople became an example of the conflict-mindedness of representatives of the Church and the emperor's attempts to avoid conflict between them.

First there was a theological interview about controversial issues. At the request of the emperor, Cardinal Humbert compiled “Proofs of the Origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son.” Nikita Stifat, who at one time was a student of the famous Byzantine saint and mystic Simeon the New Theologian, answered him from the Orthodox side. For theological debate, Humbert was probably the least suitable. He was a man of such limited learning that he sincerely believed that the Greeks had removed from the Symbol what was supposedly always there filioque. At the same time, his ignorance was very aggressive, and he addressed his opponents as “rebellious and infidel buckwheats.” It is clear that it was not difficult for the learned Greeks to participate in such a controversy, and in the end the legates decided to take an extreme step: on the morning of July 16, in the presence of the Constantinople clergy, they placed on the altar of the Church of St. Sophia a letter of excommunication from the Church of Patriarch Michael Cyrullarius and his supporters. The question remains open to what extent the pope's legates had the right to anathematize the patriarch, especially taking into account the fact that Pope Leo had already died by that time, and news of this should have already reached Constantinople (the pope died on April 19). Nevertheless, in the subsequent Latin tradition this document does not seem to have been questioned. The legates immediately prepared to leave the capital, having managed to receive rich gifts from the emperor before leaving: it was important for Constantine Monomachus not only to prevent church division, but also to preserve the papacy as an ally in Italy against the Normans.

The Patriarch tried to return the legates to the council for a general discussion of the situation, but they did not appear, as Humbert later claimed, on the advice of the emperor, so as not to be subject to reprisals from the city mob. Without waiting for the legates, the patriarch and the council subjected them to a retaliatory anathema. Subsequently, the patriarch even suggested that the Roman embassy could have been inspired by the treacherous Byzantine governor in southern Italy, Argyrus, who turned out to be an opponent of the alliance with the papacy against the Normans.

Be that as it may, 1054 is considered the official date of the division of the Churches, and the degree of this division only increased in subsequent centuries, despite sincere attempts to heal this division. The mutual anathemas imposed by Cardinal Humbert and Patriarch Michael Cyrullarius in 1054 were lifted by Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople in the 60s. XX century But after thousands of years of separation, it is not so easy to unite again.