For centuries, Chernihiv, the chief town of the Siveriane Slavic tribe and the largest historical center of Northern Left Bank Ukraine, was capital of a state or a major territorial and administrative unit, such as principality, regiment, voyevodstvo, province, or region. But this was not always so. No one knows what the city’s destiny would have been like had Prince Mstyslav Volodymyrovych not taken an active part in it. It is to him that Chernihiv owes its golden age and the pride of a princely city.
Mstyslav was the second of the ten sons of Kyiv Grand Prince Volodymyr Sviatoslavovych, who brought to an end the long process of forming Kyivan Rus’. To achieve political cohesion, St. Volodymyr the Great, also known as the Baptist (and Radiant Sun in folk epics), carried out an administrative reform. The essence of the latter was that the lands and principalities ruled by local princes in vassalage to Volodymyr were put under the authority of his sons: he sent Yaroslav to Novgorod, Iziaslav to Polotsk, Sviatopolk to Turov, Borys to Rostov, Hlib to Murom, Stanislav to Smolensk, Sviatoslav to the Drevliane tribe, Vsevolod to Volyn, and Sudislav to Pskov. Mstyslav had to content himself, however, with the far-away principality of Tmutarakan, now the peninsulas of Kerch and Taman. As we see, Chernihiv was not a princely city at the time. Apparently, it had lost its erstwhile status of a tribal center, and the local princely dynasty had gone into a decline. Whatever the case, Chernihiv had turned, to quote Petro Tolochko, into kind of a political continuation of Kyiv by the period under discussion.
The young and resolute prince who went down in history as Mstyslav the Brave, began to pursue an active policy of enlarging his possessions. For example, in 1022 he launched a military expedition against the Kasogs (ancestors of the present-day Circassians). A chronicle evidences that when the two armies confronted each other, Kasogian Prince Rededia said to Mstyslav, “Why should we kill each other’s warriors? Let us have a joust, and if you beat me, you’ll take hold of my property, my wife, and my land. If I win, I will take all yours.”
“So be it,” Mstyslav answered.
When they came face to face, Rededia said, “Let us not resort to arms but wrestle instead!”
They had wrestled long enough, and Mstyslav began to give up because Rededia was big and strong. Then Mstyslav said, “Oh, Holy Virgin, help me! Should I win, I will have a church built in Your honor.” Saying this, he threw Rededia down to the ground, whipped out a knife and thrust it into his rival’s throat. Having killed Rededia, Mstyslav seized his land, took all his property, wife, children, and levied a tribute on the Kasogs. On returning to Tmutarakan he had the Church of the Holy Virgin erected.
While strengthening his positions in the remote Sea of Azov basin, Mstyslav closely followed developments in Rus’. When Volodymyr the Great died in 1015, Kyiv was seized by Sviatopolk who, stationed at the suburb Vyshhorod, was the first to learn about his father’s death. He killed his potential rivals, brothers Borys and Hlib. This is why Sviatoslav went down in history with the sobriquet of the Accursed. However, perfidy and cruelty did not help him hold on to the Kyiv grand prince’s throne because Volodymyr’s elder son, Novgorod Prince Yaroslav the Wise, chose to join the fray. Having gained the support of Novgorod’s viche (people’s assembly), Yaroslav marched into Kyiv at the head of 3,000 men. In the fall of 1015, Yaroslav overwhelmingly defeated Sviatopolk in the Battle of Liubech, forcing him to flee to the Pechenegs. Although Yaroslav made a triumphant entry into Kyiv, he had not achieved complete success. Soon after, relying on Polish King Boleslaw the Brave, his son- in-law, Sviatopolk again captured Kyiv. It was not until 1019 that Yaroslav finally established himself on the Kyiv throne after routing Sviatopolk on the Alta River. Yet, he refused to move to Kyiv and continued to rule the country from Novgorod, the place he loved best.
By then, most of Volodymyr’s sons had either been killed in internecine clashes or sat on less important thrones. Mstyslav of Tmutarakan thus became Yaroslav’s only real rival. In 1019 he requested him in a letter to hand over a part of his brothers’ holdings that he now possessed. Yaroslav offered him Murom, but this could not satisfy Mstyslav, and he began to mount an expedition. Having alerted his army and allies, the Khazars and Kasogs, he was waiting for the right moment. The opportunity came in 1024, when Yaroslav was quelling an uprising in Suzdal. Mstyslav brought a large army to Kyiv’s walls and proclaimed himself grand prince, but, as a chronicle noted, the Kyivans refused him. Such a decision of town residents was not unusual under the then system, when power in Rus’ was divided between the prince and the viche. Fearful of laying siege to this well-fortified city, Mstyslav retreated to Chernihiv, dead set on making it the center of his appanage. Notified of the developments in Rus’, Yaroslav promptly returned to Novgorod and sent for the Vikings (Varangians). A Viking detachment headed by Prince Jakun arrived soon in Novgorod. Although chroniclers say nothing about the number of the Scandinavians, there may have been a thousand of them at most. Interestingly, the chronicle, usually very accurate in describing the composition of princely troops, does not say a word in this case about the Novgorod or Kyiv warriors.
Time worked against Yaroslav whose main goal was to oust Mstyslav from his territory and prevent him from reinforcing his positions in Chernihiv. Yaroslav took a shortcut from Novgorod to Rus’ — by boat down the Dnipro, as he had done nine years before in his campaign against Sviatopolk. On his way was Liubech, an important strategic point on the Dnipro. There were two options for Yaroslav to move from Liubech on: either down the Dnipro as far as the Desna mouth and then up the Desna to Chernihiv (about 500 kilometers) or down small rivers and across lakes directly to Chernihiv (about sixty kilometers), dragging the boats 500-800 meters on the ground. In the former case, Mstyslav could have had another two weeks to get ready for the battle. Knowing this, Yaroslav chose the latter option.
Afraid of leaving his possessions unprotected and losing the trail of his enemy, Mstyslav remained in Chernihiv until the last possible moment. He marched against his brother only after receiving a report that the latter was approaching from the west. Mstyslav’s calculation was unmistakable: his troops were braced for engaging the enemy forces near the town of Lystven on the Bilous River approximately between Liubech and Chernihiv (now it is Maly Lystven village in Repkino district, Chernihiv oblast). Lystven was in the narrowest part of the watershed between the Rivers Bilous and Stryzhen, and was surrounded by marshy lowlands and swamps. Occupying a key place in that part of the waterway, Lystven allowed one to completely control the latter. So Mstyslav chose this very place for a decisive battle against his brother as Lystven was virtually impossible to bypass.
Mstyslav gained a great advantage by saving time and choosing a right place for the battle. He deployed the troops in the evening. He put the Siverians in the middle, with himself and his force occupying the flanks. Mstyslav’s troops must have attacked the Vikings right after they disembarked, without letting them form a battle array. The Tale of Bygone Years describes that battle quite in detail. “There was darkness, and thunder, and lightning, and rain. And Mstyslav said to his warriors, ‘Let us attack them!’ And the Siverians clashed with the Varangians head-on. The Varangians tried hard and laid into the Severians. And then Mstyslav joined his men in the foray and mowed down many Varangians. And was that massacre vigorous and horrible, as swords flashed in the lightning.” Yaroslav and Jakun fled. Jakun even lost his famous gold-embroidered cloak. The Lystven victory was not only of military and political but also of moral importance, for it was a victory over the Vikings, professional militaries hitherto considered invincible.
Yet, in spite of winning a victory, Mstyslav honored his elder brother’s leadership and immediately sent an envoy to Yaroslav with a proposal to ascend the Kyiv throne, leaving him (Mstyslav) Rus’ on the left bank. Yaroslav hesitated for a long time whether to accept Mstyslav’s proposal. It was not until two years later that the brothers made peace and divided the country along the Dnipro. Since then they carried out several joint campaigns against their common enemies.
Thus Chernihiv became the capital of a huge and powerful principality that stretched as far as the Oka, the Don and the Sea of Azov. The prince’s treasury collected taxes on a territory as large as today’s France. The reign of Mstyslav the Brave was marked by the burgeoning cultural and economic growth of Chernihiv, thus ushering in the city’s Golden Age. Art and craftsmanship flourished, chronicles were written, a special Chernihiv style emerged in architecture, and wonderful buildings were erected, some of which still stand. In its prime, Chernihiv was one of Europe’s biggest cities. Its fortified area was more than two square kilometers, and the population was about 25,000. Chernihiv merchants traveled all over Europe and could even be seen in London.
Mstyslav left his descendants a magnificent Cathedral of Salvation and Transfiguration founded in 1030 as the main building of worship in the principality. However, Mstyslav did not manage to see the construction finished, for he died in 1036 from a cold he had caught while hunting. By that time the cathedral’s walls had just been high enough for a rider standing on a horseback to reach the top with an outstretched hand. Mstyslav Volodymyrovych was married to Princess Anastasia. She bore him a son, Yevstafy, who had died three years before his father. From 1054 on the Chernihiv throne was occupied by the Sviatoslavych dynasty consisting of Yaroslav the Wise’s descendants, who ruled there for more than a century. Their rights were legitimized at the 1097 Liubech Assembly of princes, which proclaimed the division of Rus’ according to the dynastic principle and thus formally set in motion the process of feudal fragmentation, when the principalities grew smaller and weaker militarily and politically. This fact made it easier to Batu Khan’s hordes to capture the Rus’ lands. On October 19, 1239, Chernihiv was seized, looted, and so devastated by Mengu Khan that only four centuries later did it manage to redeem the territory it had occupied in the early thirteenth century. Chernihiv was never to regain its former glory.
