KIEVAN RUS 882–1240 - Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 8

ten language known as Old Church Slavonic. A Kievan literature in the form of
religious documents now appeared using Old Church Slavonic, the language of
church services. A secular literature of poetry and historical chronicles in Old
Church Slavonic developed as well. There are two important early texts from
this period. The 12th-century Primary Russian Chronicle, despite a long and rich
controversy about its origins, stands as the basic document recording the history
of Kievan Rus. A copy of the Chronicle made by the monk Lavrentii in 1377 has
survived to the present. The other text is the Tale of Igor, an epic poem that is
perhaps the most famous literary product of the Kievan era. Written by an
unknown author, it describes the defeat of Kievan forces at the hands of the
Polovtsy nomads of the steppe in 1185.
The population of the Kievan state was divided into a number of social
classes. Though most people were peasants, the population ranged from pow-
erful princes to slaves. The top level of Kievan society consisted of the prince
and his family, supposedly descended from the Varangian Rurik. The growth of
the princely family made this a numerically substantial group. Just below the
prince's family stood members of the druzhina, which made up the prince's aris-
tocratic retinue. They were known as muzhi. Other aristocrats included digni-
taries whose power and prestige were based on their regional prominence. They
stood on the same level as the muzhi. During the Kievan era this difference
between aristocratic groups gradually faded. Both aristocrats by virtue of serv-
ing the prince and aristocrats by virtue of their local power merged into a sin-
gle noble group known as boyars .
In the middle of society, two groups of free citizens existed in the cities and
the countryside. Historians refer to both groups as a social class called the liudi.
In urban centers this middle class consisted of merchants and small entre-
preneurs such as carpenters and tanners. This class of free citizens was a signif-
icant part of the population in a society partly based on commerce. Merchants
engaged in long-distance trade with Europe and Byzantium traveled together
for safety. This cooperation led in turn to the formation of merchant guilds in
Kiev similar to those in western and central Europe. In the countryside, there
was also a group of middle-class landowners, possessing small estates but with-
out the privileges of boyars.
At the bottom of the social scale were laborers with varying degrees of sub-
ordination, who made up the majority of the population. In rural areas, these
laborers were called smerdy; although historians are not certain about their legal
status, it seems that at this early stage of Kievan history most of them were not
yet serfs tied to the land. Beneath the smerdy were two groups tied down by firm
obligations. Slaves, known as kholopy, were usually prisoners of war or formerly
free laborers who had been penalized for violating the law. On the other hand,
zakupy were indentured servants, held in a form of temporary servitude until
they had discharged a debt.
In hindsight the reign of Yaroslav the Wise was probably the peak of Kievan
Rus; Yaroslav's death in 1054 traditionally marks the beginning of its gradual
decline. Kiev was also divided by internal conflicts that often resulted from the
lack of an accepted principle of succession and the practice of giving lands to