Alexander Vasiliev history of the Byzantine Empire. T.2. Relations of Byzantium to Italy and Western Europe

Alexander Alexandrovich Vasiliev

History of the Byzantine Empire. T.2
History of the Byzantine Empire –
A.A. Vasiliev

History of the Byzantine Empire.

Time from the Crusades to the fall of Constantinople (1081–1453)
Chapter 1

Byzantium and the Crusaders. Age of Comneni (1081–1185) and Angels (1185–1204)

Komnene and their foreign policy. Alexei I and foreign policy before the First Crusade. The struggle of the empire with the Turks and Pechenegs. The First Crusade and Byzantium. Foreign policy under John II. Foreign policy of Manuel I and the second Crusade. Foreign policy under Alexei II and Andronikos I. Foreign policy of the time of the Angels. Attitude towards the Normans and Turks. Formation of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom. The Third Crusade and Byzantium. Henry VI and his eastern plans. The Fourth Crusade and Byzantium. The internal state of the empire in the era of the Comneni and Angels. Internal management. Education, science, literature and art.

Komneni and their foreign policy
The revolution of 1081 brought to the throne Alexius Comnenus, whose uncle, Isaac, had already been emperor for a short time in the late fifties (1057–1059).

The Greek surname Komnenov, mentioned in sources for the first time under Vasily II, came from a village in the vicinity of Adrianople. Later, having acquired large estates in Asia Minor, the Komnenos became representatives of large Asia Minor landownership. Both Isaac and his nephew Alexei rose to prominence thanks to their military talents. In the person of the latter, the military party and provincial large landownership triumphed on the Byzantine throne, and at the same time the troubled time of the empire ended. The first three Comnenus managed to hold on to the throne for a long time and peacefully passed it on from father to son.

The energetic and skillful reign of Alexei I (1081–1118) honorably led the state out of a number of severe external dangers that sometimes threatened the very existence of the empire. Long before his death, Alexei appointed his son John as heir, which caused great displeasure to his eldest daughter Anna, the famous author of the Alexiad, who, being married to Caesar Nicephorus Bryennius, also a historian, drew up a complex plan on how to get the emperor to remove John and appoint her husband's heir. However, the elderly Alexei remained firm in his decision, and after his death, John was proclaimed emperor.

Having ascended the throne, John II (1118–1143) had to immediately go through difficult moments: a conspiracy against him was discovered, headed by his sister Anna and in which his mother was involved. The plot failed. John treated the culprits very mercifully, most of whom lost only their property. With his high moral qualities, John Komnenos earned universal respect and received the nickname Kaloioanna (Kaloyan), i.e. Good John. It's interesting that in highly appreciated Both Greek and Latin writers agree on the moral personality of John. He was, according to Niketas Choniates, “the crown of all the kings (???????) who sat on the Roman throne from the family of Comneni.” Gibbon, stern in his assessment of Byzantine figures, wrote about this “best and greatest of the Komnenos” that “the philosopher Marcus Aurelius himself would not have disdained his unsophisticated virtues, which stemmed from the heart, and not borrowed from schools.”

An opponent of unnecessary luxury and excessive extravagance, John left a corresponding imprint on his court, which under him lived an economical and austere life; the former entertainments, fun and enormous expenses were not with him. The reign of this merciful, quiet and highly moral sovereign was, as we will see below, almost one continuous military campaign.

The complete opposite of John was his son and successor Manuel I (1143–1180). A convinced admirer of the West, a Latinophile, who set himself as an ideal type of Western knight, striving to comprehend the secrets of astrology, the new emperor immediately completely changed the harsh court environment of his father. Fun, love, receptions, luxurious celebrations, hunting, tournaments organized according to Western standards - all this spread in a wide wave throughout Constantinople. Visits to the capital by foreign sovereigns, Conrad III of Germany, Louis VII French, Kilych-Arslan, the Sultan of Iconium, and various Latin princes of the East, cost extraordinary money.

A huge number of Western Europeans appeared at the Byzantine court, and the most profitable and responsible places in the empire began to pass into their hands. Both times, Manuel was married to Western princesses: his first wife was the sister of the wife of the German sovereign Conrad III, Bertha of Sulzbach, renamed Irina in Byzantium; Manuel's second wife was the daughter of the Prince of Antioch, Maria, a Frenchwoman by birth, a remarkable beauty. Manuel's entire reign was determined by his passion for Western ideals, his pipe dream of restoring a unified Roman Empire through the seizure of the imperial crown from the German sovereign through the pope, and his readiness to enter into a union with the Western Church. Latin dominance and neglect of native interests aroused general displeasure among the people; there was an urgent need to change the system. However, Manuel died without seeing the collapse of his policy.

Manuel's son and heir, Alexei II (1180–1183), was barely twelve years old. His mother Mary of Antioch was declared regent. The main power passed into the hands of Manuel's nephew, Protosevast Alexei Komnenos, the ruler's favorite. The new government sought support in the hated Latin element. Popular irritation therefore grew. Empress Maria, who had been so popular before, began to be looked at as a “foreigner.” The French historian Diehl compares Mary’s position with the situation during the era of the great French Revolution of Marie Antoinette, whom the people called “Austrian.”

A strong party was formed against the powerful protosevast Alexei, led by Andronikos Komnenos, one of the most interesting personalities in the annals of Byzantine history, an interesting type for both a historian and a novelist. Andronicus, nephew of John II and cousin of Manuel I, belonged to the younger, dethroned line of Comnenos, whose distinguishing feature was extraordinary energy, sometimes misdirected. This line of Komnenos, in its third generation, produced the sovereigns of the Empire of Trebizond, who are known in history as the dynasty of the Great Komnenos. “The rogue prince” of the 12th century, “the future Richard III of Byzantine history,” in whose soul there was “something similar to the soul of Caesar Borgia,” “Alcibiades of the Middle Byzantine Empire,” Andronicus was “the complete type of Byzantine of the 12th century with all his virtues and vices " Handsome and graceful, an athlete and a warrior, well-educated and charming in communication, especially with women who adored him, frivolous and passionate, a skeptic and, if necessary, a deceiver and perjurer, an ambitious conspirator and intriguer, terrible in his old age with his cruelty, Andronikos , in Diehl’s opinion, was the kind of genius that could create from him a savior and revivalist of the exhausted Byzantine Empire, for which he, perhaps, lacked a little moral sense.

A source contemporary to Andronicus (Nicetas Choniates) wrote about him: “Who was born from such a strong rock as to be able not to succumb to the streams of Andronicus’ tears and not to be fascinated by the insinuating speeches that he poured out like a dark source.” The same historian in another place compares Andronicus with the “manifold Proteus,” the old soothsayer ancient mythology, famous for his transformations.

Being, despite his outward friendship with Manuel, under his suspicion and not finding any activity for himself in Byzantium, Andronicus spent most of Manuel’s reign wandering around various countries of Europe and Asia. Having been sent first by the emperor to Cilicia, and then to the borders of Hungary, Andronicus, accused of political treason and an attempt on the life of Manuel, was imprisoned in a Constantinople prison, where he spent several years and from where, after a series of extraordinary adventures, he managed to escape only to be caught again and imprisoned for several more years. Having again escaped from prison to the north, Andronik found refuge in Rus', with Prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich of Galicia. The Russian chronicle notes in 1165: “The brother of the Tsar’s priest (i.e., Cyrus - lord) Andronik came running from Tsaryagorod to Yaroslav in Galich and received Yaroslav with great love, and Yaroslav gave him several cities for consolation.” According to Byzantine sources, Andronik received a warm welcome from Yaroslav, lived in his house, ate and hunted with him, and even participated in his councils with the boyars. However, Andronik’s stay at the court of the Galician prince seemed dangerous to Manuel, since the latter’s restless relative was already entering into relations with Hungary, with which Byzantium was beginning a war. In such circumstances, Manuel decided to forgive Andronicus, who, “with great honor,” according to the Russian chronicle, was released by Yaroslav from Galicia to Constantinople.

Having received control of Cilicia, Andronicus did not stay long in his new place. Through Antioch he arrived in Palestine, where he began a serious affair with Theodora, a relative of Manuel and the widow of the King of Jerusalem. The angry emperor gave the order to blind Andronicus, who, having been warned in time about the danger, fled with Theodora abroad and for several years wandered around Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, spending some time even in distant Iberia (Georgia).

Finally, Manuel's envoys managed to capture Theodora, passionately loved by Andronicus, with their children, after which he himself, not being able to bear this loss, turned to the emperor for forgiveness. Forgiveness was given, and Andronik brought Manuel complete repentance for the actions of his past, stormy life. The appointment of Andronicus as ruler of the Asia Minor region of Pontus, on the Black Sea coast, was, as it were, an honorable expulsion of a dangerous relative. At this time, namely in 1180, Manuel, as we know, died, after which his young son Alexei II became emperor. Andronik was then already sixty years old.

This was, in general terms, the biography of the person on whom the population of the capital, irritated by the Latinophile policies of the ruler Mary of Antioch and her favorite Alexei Komnenos, pinned all their hopes. Very skillfully presenting himself as a defender of the violated rights of the young Alexei II, who fell into the hands of evil rulers, and a friend of the Romans (???????????), ?ndronik managed to attract the hearts of the tormented population who idolized him. According to one contemporary (Eustathius of Thessalonica), Andronicus “for the majority was dearer than God himself,” or at least “immediately followed Him.”

Having prepared the proper situation in the capital, Andronicus moved towards Constantinople. At the news of Andronicus's movement, a large crowd in the capital gave vent to their hatred towards the Latins: they furiously attacked the Latin dwellings and began beating the Latins, without distinguishing between gender and age; the intoxicated crowd destroyed not only private houses, but also Latin churches and charitable institutions; in one hospital the patients lying in their beds were killed; the papal ambassador was beheaded after being humiliated; many Latins were sold into slavery in Turkish markets. With this massacre of the Latins in 1182, according to F.I. Uspensky, “indeed, if not sown, then watered the seed of fanatical enmity of the West towards the East.” The all-powerful ruler Alexei Komnenos was imprisoned and blinded. After this, Andronik made a ceremonial entry into the capital. To strengthen his position, he began to gradually destroy Manuel's relatives and ordered the Empress Mother Mary of Antioch to be strangled. Then, forcing him to proclaim himself co-emperor and giving, with the rejoicing of the people, a solemn promise to protect the life of Emperor Alexei, a few days later he gave the order to secretly strangle him. After this, in 1183, Andronicus, sixty-three years old, became the sovereign emperor of the Romans.

Appearing on the throne with tasks that will be discussed below, Andronicus could maintain his power only through terror and unheard-of cruelty, to which all the attention of the emperor was directed. In external affairs he showed neither strength nor initiative. The mood of the people changed not in favor of Andronicus; discontent grew. In 1185, a revolution broke out, placing Isaac Angelus on the throne. Andronik's attempt to escape failed. He was subjected to terrible torture and insults, which he endured with extraordinary fortitude. During his inhuman suffering, he only repeated: “Lord, have mercy! Why are you crushing broken reeds?” The new emperor did not allow the torn remains of Andronicus to receive any kind of burial. The last glorious dynasty of the Komnenos on the Byzantine throne ended its existence with such a tragedy.
Alexei I and foreign policy before the First Crusade
According to Anna Komnena, the educated and literary gifted daughter of the new Emperor Alexei, the latter, in the first time after his accession to the throne, in view of the Turkish danger from the east and the Norman danger from the west, “noticed that his kingdom was in its death throes.” Really, external position empire was very difficult and became even more difficult and complex over the years.

Norman War
The Duke of Apulia, Robert Guiscard, having completed the conquest of the Byzantine southern Italian possessions, had much broader plans. Wanting to strike at the very heart of Byzantium, he moved military operations to the Adriatic coast of the Balkan Peninsula. Leaving the control of Apulia to his eldest son Roger, Robert and his younger son Bohemund, later a famous leader of the first Crusade, already having a significant fleet, set out on a campaign against Alexei, with the immediate goal of the seaside city in Illyria Dyrrachium (formerly Epidamnus; in Slavic Drach; now Durazzo ). Dyrrachium, the main city of the ducat theme formed under Vasily II the Bulgarian Slayer, i.e. a region with a duca at the head of administration, perfectly fortified, was rightly considered the key to the empire in the west. From Dyrrhachium, the famous military road of Egnatia (via Egnatia), built in Roman times, began, going to Thessaloniki and further east to Constantinople. It is therefore quite natural that Robert's main attention was directed to this point. This expedition was "a prelude to the Crusades and preparation for Frankish domination of Greece." "Robert Guiscard's Pre-Crusade was his greatest war against Alexius Comnenus."

Alexei Komnenos, feeling the impossibility of coping with the Norman danger on his own, turned to the West for help, among other things to the German sovereign Henry IV. But the latter, experiencing difficulties within the state at that time and not yet finishing his struggle with Pope Gregory VII, could not be useful to the Byzantine emperor. Venice responded to Alexei’s call, pursuing, of course, its own goals and interests. The Emperor promised the Republic of St. Mark for the assistance provided by the fleet, of which Byzantium had few, extensive trading privileges, which will be discussed below. It was in the interests of Venice to help the Eastern Emperor against the Normans, who, if successful, could seize trade routes with Byzantium and the East, i.e. to capture what the Venetians hoped to eventually get their hands on. In addition, there was an immediate danger for Venice: the Normans, who had taken possession of the Ionian Islands, especially Corfu and Cephalonia, and the western coast of the Balkan Peninsula, would have closed the Adriatic Sea to Venetian ships.

The Normans, having conquered the island of Corfu, besieged Dyrrachium from land and sea. Although the approaching Venetian ships liberated the besieged city from the sea, the land army that arrived led by Alexei, which included Macedonian Slavs, Turks, a Varangian-English squad and some other nationalities, suffered a severe defeat. At the beginning of 1082, Dyrrachium opened the gates to Robert. However, this time the outbreak of an uprising in southern Italy forced Robert to retire from the Balkan Peninsula, where the remaining Bohemond, after several successes, was eventually defeated. Robert's new campaign against Byzantium also ended in failure. Some kind of epidemic broke out among his army, the victim of which was Robert Guiscard himself, who died in 1085 on the island of Cephalonia, which is still reminded by its name of a small bay and village at the northern tip of the island of Fiscardo (Guiscardo, from Robert’s nickname “ Guiscard" - Guiscard). With the death of Robert, the Norman invasion of the Byzantine borders ceased, and Dyrrhachium again passed to the Greeks.

From this it is clear that Robert Guiscard's offensive policy on the Balkan Peninsula failed. But the question of the southern Italian possessions of Byzantium was finally resolved under him. Robert founded the Italian state of the Normans, since he was the first to unite into one the various counties founded by his fellow tribesmen and form the Duchy of Apulia, which experienced its brilliant period under him. The decline of the duchy that followed Robert's death continued for about fifty years, when the founding of the Kingdom of Sicily opened a new era in the history of the Italian Normans. However, Robert Guiscard, according to Chalandon, “opened a new path for the ambition of his descendants: from then on, the Italian Normans would turn their gaze to the east: at the expense of the Greek empire, Bohemund, twelve years later, would plan to create a principality for himself.”

Venice, which assisted Alexei Comnenus with its fleet, received from the emperor enormous trade privileges, which created St. The brand is in an absolutely exceptional position. In addition to magnificent gifts to the Venetian churches and honorary titles with a certain content to the Doge and the Venetian Patriarch with their successors, the imperial charter of Alexius, or chrisovul, as charters with the golden imperial seal were called in Byzantium, granted Venetian merchants the right to buy and sell throughout the entire empire and freed them from all customs, port and other trade-related fees; Byzantine officials could not inspect their goods. In the capital itself, the Venetians received a whole quarter with numerous shops and barns and three sea piers, which in the East were called rocks (maritimas tres scalas), where Venetian ships could freely load and unload. Chrysovul Alexei gives an interesting list of the most important commercial Byzantine points, coastal and inland, open to Venice, in northern Syria, Asia Minor, on the Balkan Peninsula and Greece, on the islands, ending with Constantinople, which in the document is called Megalopolis, i.e. Great city. In turn, the Venetians promised to be loyal subjects of the empire.

The benefits granted to Venetian merchants put them in a more favorable position than the Byzantines themselves. Chrysobulus of Alexei Komnenos laid a solid foundation for the colonial power of Venice in the East and created such conditions for its economic dominance in Byzantium, which, it seemed, should have made it impossible for a long time for the emergence of other competitors in this area. However, these same exceptional economic privileges granted to Venice later served, under changed circumstances, as one of the reasons for the political clashes of the Eastern Empire with the Republic of St. Brand.
The empire's struggle with the Turks and Pechenegs
Turkish danger from the east and north, i.e. on the part of the Seljuks and Pechenegs, so formidable under the predecessors of Alexei Komnenos, became even more intensified and aggravated under him. If the victory over the Normans and the death of Guiscard allowed Alexei to return Byzantine territory in the west to the Adriatic coast, then on other borders, thanks to the attacks of the Turks and Pechenegs, the empire was significantly reduced in size. Anna Comnena writes that “at the time in question, the eastern border of Roman rule was formed by the neighboring Bosphorus, and the western by Adrianople.”

It seemed that in Asia Minor, almost entirely conquered by the Seljuks, circumstances were favorable for the empire, since there was an internecine struggle for power among the Turkish rulers (emirs) of Asia Minor, which weakened the Turkish forces and brought the country into a state of anarchy. But Alexey could not direct all his attention to the fight against the Turks due to the attacks on the empire from the north by the Pechenegs.

The latter, in their actions against Byzantium, found allies within the empire in the person of the Paulicians who lived on the Balkan Peninsula. The Paulicians were an Eastern dualistic religious sect, one of the main branches of Manichaeism, founded in the 3rd century by Paul of Samosata and reformed in the 7th century. Living in Asia Minor, on the eastern border of the empire, and firmly defending their faith, they were at the same time excellent warriors who caused a lot of trouble for the Byzantine government. As you know, one of the favorite methods of the Byzantine government was the resettlement of various nationalities from one region to another, for example, the Slavs to Asia Minor, and the Armenians to the Balkan Peninsula. A similar fate befell the Paulicians, who were resettled in large numbers from the eastern border to Thrace in the 8th century by Constantine V Copronymus and in the 10th century by John Tzimiskes. The city of Philippopolis became the center of Paulicianism on the Balkan Peninsula. Having settled an eastern colony in the vicinity of this city, Tzimiskes, on the one hand, achieved the removal of stubborn sectarians from their fortified cities and castles on the eastern border, where they were difficult to cope with; and on the other hand, he hoped that at the site of the new settlement the Paulicians would serve as a strong bulwark against the frequent attacks on Thrace by the northern “Scythian” barbarians. In the 10th century, Paulicianism spread throughout Bulgaria thanks to the converter of this teaching, priest Bogomil, after whom Byzantine writers call his followers Bogomils. From Bulgaria, Bogomilism later moved to Serbia and Bosnia, and then to Western Europe, where the followers of the eastern dualistic teaching bore various names: Patarens in Italy, Cathars in Germany and Italy, Poblicans (i.e. Paulicians) and Albigensians in France, etc. .d.

The Byzantine government, however, made a mistake in its calculations about the role of the eastern sectarians settled on the Balkan Peninsula. Firstly, it did not assume the possibility of the rapid and widespread spread of heresy, which actually happened. Secondly, Bogomilism became a spokesman for the national Slavic and political opposition against the heavy Byzantine rule in the ecclesiastical and secular areas, especially within Bulgaria, conquered under Vasily II. Therefore, instead of defending the Byzantine borders from the northern barbarians, the Bogomils called upon the Pechenegs to fight against Byzantium. The Cumans (Cumans) joined the Pechenegs.

The fight against the Pechenegs, despite temporary successes, was very difficult for Byzantium. At the end of the eighties, Alexei Komnenos suffered a terrible defeat at Dristra (Silistria), on the lower Danube, and he himself barely escaped captivity. Only the discord over the division of booty that arose between the Pechenegs and Cumans did not allow the former to fully exploit their victory this time.

After a short rest, bought from the Pechenegs, Byzantium had to go through the terrible time of 1090–1091. The invading Pechenegs, after a stubborn struggle, reached the walls of Constantinople. Anna Komnena says that on the day of the celebration of the memory of the martyr Theodore Tyrone, residents of the capital, who usually visited the martyr’s temple located on the outskirts outside the city wall in huge numbers, could not do this in 1091, since it was impossible to open the city gates because of those standing under the walls Pechenegs.

The position of the empire became even more critical when the Turkish pirate Chakha, who spent his youth in Constantinople at the court of Nicephorus Botaniates, began to threaten the capital from the south, was granted a Byzantine rank and fled to Asia Minor upon the accession of Alexei Komnenos to the throne. Having captured Smyrna and some other cities on the western coast of Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean Sea with the help of the fleet he created, Chakha planned to strike Constantinople from the sea, thus cutting off its path to food. But wanting the blow he had planned to be more effective, he entered into relations with the Pechenegs in the north and with the Asia Minor Seljuks in the east. Confident of the success of his enterprise, Chakha had already called himself emperor (basileus), decorated himself with signs of imperial dignity and dreamed of making Constantinople the center of his state. We should not lose sight of the fact that both the Pechenegs and the Seljuks were Turks, who, thanks to intercourse, came to realize their kinship. In the person of Chakha, an enemy appeared for Byzantium, who, according to V. G. Vasilievsky, “with the enterprising courage of a barbarian combined the subtlety of Byzantine education and excellent knowledge of all political relations of the then Eastern Europe, who planned to become the soul of the common Turkish movement, who wanted and could give senseless Pecheneg wanderings and robberies have a reasonable and definite purpose and general plan.” It seemed that the Turkish Seljuk-Pecheneg kingdom was to be founded on the ruins of the Eastern Empire. The Byzantine Empire, in the words of the same V. G. Vasilievsky, “was drowning in the Turkish attack.” Another Russian Byzantinist, F. I. Uspensky, writes about this moment: “The situation of Alexei Komnenos in the winter of 1090–1091 can only be compared with the last years of the empire, when the Ottoman Turks surrounded Constantinople on all sides and cut it off from external relations.” .

Alexey understood the horror of the empire’s situation and, following the usual Byzantine diplomatic tactics of pitting some barbarians against others, he turned to the Polovtsian khans, these “allies of despair,” whom he asked to help him against the Pechenegs. The wild and harsh Polovtsian khans, Tugorkan and Bonyak, well known to the Russian chronicles, were invited to Constantinople, where they met the most flattering reception and received a sumptuous meal. The Byzantine emperor humiliatedly asked for help from the barbarians, who behaved familiarly with the emperor. Having given Alexei his word, the Polovtsians kept it. On April 29, 1091, a bloody battle took place, in which the Russians probably also participated along with the Polovtsians. The Pechenegs were defeated and mercilessly exterminated. On this occasion, Anna Comnena notes: “One could see an extraordinary sight: an entire people, counted not in tens of thousands, but exceeding any number, with their wives and children, perished entirely on that day.” The battle just mentioned was reflected in the Byzantine song composed at that time: “Because of one day, the Scythians (as Anna Komnena calls the Pechenegs) did not see May.”

By their intervention in favor of Byzantium, the Cumans rendered an enormous service to the Christian world. “Their leaders,” according to the historian, “Bonyak and Tugorkan, should rightly be called the saviors of the Byzantine Empire.”

Alexey returned to the capital in triumph. Only a small part of the captured Pechenegs were not killed, and these remnants of such a terrible horde were settled east of the Vardara River and later entered the ranks of the Byzantine army, where they formed a special branch of the army. The Pechenegs, who managed to escape extermination in the Balkans, were so weakened that for thirty years they did nothing in Byzantium.

Chakha, terrible for Byzantium, did not have time to help the Pechenegs with his fleet, and lost part of his conquests in a clash with Greek naval forces. And then the emperor managed to incite the Nicene Sultan against him, who, having invited Chakha to a feast, killed him with his own hands, after which he entered into a peace agreement with Alexei. Thus, the critical situation of 1091 was resolved happily for Byzantium, and the next year, 1092, passed for the empire in a completely changed situation.

In the terrible days of 1091, Alexei looked for allies not only among the barbarian Polovtsians, but also among the people of the Latin West. Anna Comnena writes: “He made every effort to summon mercenary troops from everywhere by letters.” The fact that such messages were sent to the West is also evident from another passage by the same author, who writes that Alexei soon received “a mercenary army from Rome.”

In connection with the events described, historians are examining the usually well-known letter from Alexei Komnenos in literature to his old acquaintance, Count Robert of Flanders, who was traveling from the Holy Land through Constantinople several years earlier. In this message, the emperor depicts the desperate situation of “the most holy empire of Greek Christians, severely oppressed by the Pechenegs and Turks,” speaks of the murders and desecrations of Christians, children, young men, wives and virgins, and that almost the entire territory of the empire is already occupied by enemies; “there is almost only Constantinople left, which our enemies threaten to take away from us in the near future if the quick help of God and the faithful Latin Christians does not come to us”; the emperor “runs in the face of the Turks and Pechenegs” from one city to another and prefers to give Constantinople into the hands of the Latins than the pagans. The letter, to arouse the jealousy of the Latins, lists a long series of shrines kept in the capital, and recalls the countless riches and treasures accumulated in it. “So, hurry up with all your people, strain all your strength so that such treasures do not fall into the hands of the Turks and Pechenegs... Act while you have time, so that the Christian kingdom and, more importantly, the Holy Sepulcher are not lost to you and that you may receive not condemnation, but reward in heaven. Amen!"

V. G. Vasilievsky, who attributed this message to 1091, wrote: “In 1091, from the shores of the Bosphorus, a direct cry of despair reached Western Europe, a real cry of a drowning man who could no longer distinguish whether a friendly or hostile hand would stretch out to save him. The Byzantine emperor now did not hesitate to reveal before the eyes of strangers the entire abyss of shame, disgrace and humiliation into which the empire of Greek Christians had been cast.”

This document, depicting in such vivid colors the critical situation of Byzantium around 1090, sparked a whole literature. The fact is that it came to us only in the Latin edition. The opinions of scientists are divided: while some scientists, and among them the Russian scientists V. G. Vasilievsky and F. I. Uspensky, consider the message to be genuine, others (of the newer ones - the Frenchman Ryan) consider it to be forged. The newest historians who have dealt with this issue are inclined, with some restrictions, to the authenticity of the message, i.e. recognize the existence of an original message addressed to Robert of Flanders by Alexei Comnenus that has not reached us. The French historian Chalandon admits that the middle part of the message was composed using an original letter; The Latin message that has come down to us as a whole was compiled by someone in the West to excite the crusaders shortly before the first campaign (in the form of an excitatorium, i.e. an encouraging message). In essential terms, the later publisher and researcher of the latter, the German scientist Hagenmeyer, agrees with the opinion of V. G. Vasilievsky regarding the authenticity of the message. In 1924, B. Leib wrote that this letter was nothing more than an exaggeration (amplification), made shortly after the Council of Clermont on the basis of an indisputably genuine message sent by the Emperor to Robert in order to remind him of the promised reinforcements. Finally, in 1928, L. Breuer wrote: “It is possible, if we follow Chalandon’s hypothesis, that upon arriving in Flanders, Robert forgot about his promises. Alexei then sent him an embassy and a letter with a text, of course, completely different from the one that has reached us. As for this apocryphal letter, it could have been composed using the original one, at the time of the siege of Antioch, in 1098, to ask for support in the West. Alexei’s letter, therefore, has nothing to do with the prehistory of the Crusade.” In his history of the first Crusade, X. Siebel considered Alexei's letter to Robert of Flanders as an official documentary source related to the Crusade.

I dwelled in some detail on the question of the message of Alexei Comnenus to Robert of Flanders, since it is partly connected with the important question of whether the Emperor of the West called for a Crusade or not, which will be discussed below. In any case, based on the exact indication of contemporary Anna Comnena that Alexei sent messages to the West, we can also recognize the fact that he sent a message to Robert of Flanders, which formed the basis of the embellished Latin text that has come down to us. It is very likely that this message from Alexei was sent precisely in the critical year for Byzantium, 1091. It is also very possible that in 1088–1089. The emperor's message was sent to the Croatian king Zvonimir with a request to take part in Alexei's fight “against the pagans and infidels.”

Success against external enemies was accompanied by the same success against internal enemies. Conspirators and pretenders who wanted to take advantage of the state's predicament were exposed and punished.

Even before the time of the first Crusade, in addition to the above-mentioned peoples, under Alexei Komnenos, the Serbs and Magyars began to play some role. In the second half of the 11th century, Serbia achieved independence, which was formalized by the adoption by the Serbian prince of the title of king (kral). It was the first Serbian kingdom with its capital in Shkodra (Shkoder, Skadar, Scutari). The Serbs took part in Alexei's army during the war with the Normans, already known to us, but abandoned the emperor at a dangerous moment. After Byzantium returned Dyrrhachium from the Normans, hostile actions began between Alexius and Serbia, which, in view of the already described difficult conditions for the empire, could not be particularly successful for the emperor. However, shortly before the Crusade, peace was concluded between the Serbs and the empire.

Relations with Hungary (Ugria), which had previously taken an active part in the Bulgarian-Byzantine struggle of the 10th century under Simeon, also became somewhat complicated during the time of Alexei Komnenos due to the fact that at the end of the 11th century, continental Hungary, under the rulers of the Arpad dynasty, began to strive south towards sea, namely to the Dalmatian coast, which caused discontent from both Venice and Byzantium.

So, by the time of the First Crusade, the international policy of the empire had grown greatly and become more complex and posed new tasks for the state.

However, by the mid-nineties of the 11th century, Alexei Komnenos, freed from numerous dangers that threatened the empire and seemingly creating conditions for a peaceful life for the state, could gradually gather the strength to fight the eastern Seljuks. For this purpose, the emperor undertook a series of defensive works.

But at this time, Alexei Komnenos heard about the approach of the first crusader detachments to the borders of his state. The First Crusade began, which changed Alexei’s plans and sent him and the empire along a new path that later became fatal for Byzantium.
First Crusade and Byzantium
The era of the Crusades is one of the most important in world history, especially in terms of economic history and culture in general. For a long time, religious problems overshadowed other aspects of this complex and heterogeneous movement. The first country where the significance of the Crusades was fully realized was France, where in 1806 the French Academy and then the National Institute established a special prize for the best work on the topic: “On the influence of the Crusades on the civil liberty of European peoples, their civilization and the progress of science, trade and industry." Of course, at the beginning of the 19th century it was still premature to discuss this problem comprehensively. It has not yet been resolved. However, it is important to note that from this point on the Crusades were no longer talked about solely from a religious point of view. Two works were awarded by the French Academy in 1808. One of them is a study by the German scientist A. Heeren, published simultaneously in German and French under the title “A Study on the Impact of the Crusades on Europe,” and the work of the French author Choiseul-Delcourt – “On the Impact of the Crusades on the State of European peoples." Although both are outdated from a modern point of view, these books are interesting, especially the first.

The Crusades were, of course, the most important era in the history of the struggle between the two world religions - Christianity and Islam - a struggle that stretched back to the seventh century. In that historical process Not only religious motives played a role. Already in the first Crusade, which most strongly reflected the idea of ​​the crusader movement for the liberation of holy places from the hands of infidels, worldly goals and earthly interests can be noted. "Among the knights there were two parties - the party of the religious-minded and the party of politicians." Quoting these words of the German scientist B. Kugler, the French scientist F. Chalandon adds: “This statement of Kugler is absolutely correct.” However, the more carefully historians study the internal conditions of life in Western Europe in the 11th century, especially the economic development of Italian cities of this time, the more convinced they are that economic phenomena also played a very significant role in the preparation and conduct of the first Crusade. With each new Crusade, this worldly current made its way into them more and more, until it finally achieved a final victory over the original idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe movement during the Fourth Crusade, when the crusaders took Constantinople and founded the Latin Empire.

Byzantium played such an important role in this era that the study of the Eastern Empire is absolutely necessary for a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of both the genesis and the very course of development of the Crusades. Moreover, most scholars who have studied the Crusades have viewed the issue from an overly "Western" point of view, with a tendency to make the Greek Empire the "scapegoat for all the crusaders' mistakes."

Since their first appearance on the arena of world history in the thirties of the 7th century, the Arabs, as is known, with amazing speed conquered Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, the eastern regions of Asia Minor, the Caucasian countries, Egypt, the northern coast of Africa, and Spain. In the second half of the 7th century and at the beginning of the 8th, they twice besieged Constantinople, from which they were repulsed both times, not without difficulty, thanks to the energy and talents of the emperors Constantine IV Pogonatus and Leo III the Isaurian. In 732, the Arabs invading Gaul from beyond the Pyrenees were stopped by Charles Martell at Poitiers. In the 9th century, the Arabs conquered the island of Crete, and by the beginning of the 10th century, the island of Sicily and most of the southern Italian possessions of Byzantium passed into their hands.

These Arab conquests were very important for the political and economic situation in Europe. As A. Pirenne said, “the lightning-fast advance of the Arabs changed the face of the world. Their sudden invasion destroyed ancient Europe. It put an end to the Mediterranean alliance, which was her strength... The Mediterranean was a Roman lake. It has largely become a Muslim lake.” This statement of the Belgian historian must be accepted with some reservations. Economic ties between Western Europe and Eastern countries were limited by Muslims, but not interrupted. Traders and pilgrims continued to travel in both directions and exotic oriental products were available in Europe, for example in Gaul.

Initially, Islam was tolerant. There were isolated cases of attacks on Christian churches, which for the most part had no religious basis, in the 10th century; but such unfortunate facts were only accidental and transitory. In the areas conquered from Christians, they, for the most part, preserved churches, Christian worship, and did not create obstacles to Christian charity. In the era of Charlemagne, at the beginning of the 9th century, new churches and monasteries were restored and built in Palestine, for which Charlemagne sent abundant “alms”; libraries were established at churches. Pilgrims traveled freely to holy places. This relationship between the Frankish empire of Charlemagne and Palestine, in connection with the exchange of several embassies between the Western monarch and the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, led to the conclusion, supported by some scholars, that a kind of Frankish protectorate was established in Palestine under Charlemagne - insofar as Christian interests in the Holy Land were affected; the political power of the caliph in this country remained unchanged. On the other hand, another group of historians, denying the importance of this relationship, says that the protectorate never existed and that "it is a myth similar to the legend of Charles' crusade in Palestine." The title of one of the latest articles on this issue is “The Legend of Charles’s Protectorate in the Holy Land.” The term “Frankish protectorate,” like many others, is conventional and rather vague. What is important here is that from the beginning of the 9th century the Frankish empire had very extensive interests in Palestine. This was a very important fact for the subsequent development of international relations that preceded the Crusades.

In the second half of the 10th century, the brilliant victories of Byzantine arms under Nikephoros Phocas and John Tzimiskes over the eastern Arabs made Aleppo and Antioch vassal states of the empire, and after this the Byzantine army may have entered Palestine. These military successes of Byzantium had their repercussion in Jerusalem, so that as a result, the French historian L. Breuer considered it possible to talk about a Byzantine protectorate in the Holy Land, which put an end to the Frankish protectorate.

The transition of Palestine in the second half of the tenth century (969) to the rule of the Egyptian Fatimid dynasty does not seem to have at first introduced any significant change in the favorable position of the Eastern Christians and in the safety of the visiting pilgrims. However, in the 11th century, circumstances changed. There are two important facts to note from this time for our question. The crazy Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, this “Egyptian Nero,” opened a cruel persecution of Christians and Jews throughout his domain. At his command, in 1009 the Church of the Resurrection and Golgotha ​​in Jerusalem were destroyed. He stopped in his fury of destroying churches only because he feared a similar fate for mosques in Christian areas.

When L. Breuer wrote about the Byzantine protectorate in the Holy Land, he had in mind the statement of the eleventh-century Arab historian Yahya of Antioch. The latter says that in 1012, one leader of the nomads rebelled against the caliph, captured Syria and obliged Christians to rebuild the Church of the Nativity in Jerusalem and named one bishop of his choice as Patriarch of Jerusalem. Then this Bedouin “helped this patriarch rebuild the Church of the Nativity and restored many places, to the best of his ability.” Analyzing this text, V. R. Rosen noted that the Bedouin acted this way “perhaps with the aim of winning the favor of the Greek emperor.” L. Breuer attributed Rosen's hypothesis to Yahya's text. Under these conditions, it is impossible to assert with such confidence, as L. Breuer does, the truth of the theory of the Byzantine protectorate over Palestine.

However, in any case, it was only at the beginning of the restoration in the Holy Land, after the death of al-Hakim in 1021, that a time of tolerance began for Christians. Peace was concluded between Byzantium and the Fatimids, and the Byzantine emperors were able to begin restoring the Church of the Resurrection, the construction of which was completed in the middle of the 11th century under Emperor Constantine Monomakh. The Christian quarter was surrounded by a strong wall. Pilgrims, after the death of al-Hakim, again received free access to the Holy Land, and sources during this time note among other persons one of the most famous pilgrims, namely Robert the Devil, Duke of Normandy, who died at Nicaea in 1035, on the way from Jerusalem . Perhaps at the same time, that is, in the thirties of the 11th century, the famous Varangian of that era, Harald Gardrad, who fought against the Muslims in Syria and Asia Minor, came to Jerusalem with the Scandinavian squad that came with him from the north. The persecution of Christians soon resumed. In 1056, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was closed and more than three hundred Christians were expelled from Jerusalem. The Church of the Resurrection was obviously restored after destruction with due splendor, as evidenced, for example, by the Russian pilgrim Abbot Daniel, who visited Palestine in the early years of the 12th century, i.e. during the early days of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded in 1099, after the First Crusade. Daniel lists the columns of the temple, talks about the marble floor and six doors, and gives interesting information about the mosaics. In him we find messages about many churches, shrines and places in Palestine associated with New Testament memories. According to Daniel and the contemporary Anglo-Saxon pilgrim Zewulf, the “filthy Saracens” (i.e. Arabs) were unpleasant because they hid in the mountains and caves and sometimes attacked pilgrims passing along the roads for the purpose of robbery. “The Saracens always laid traps for Christians, hiding in mountain valleys and caves of rocks, guarding day and night for those whom they might attack.”

Muslim tolerance towards Christians was also evident in the West. When, for example, at the end of the 11th century, the Spaniards took the city of Toledo from the Arabs, they, to their surprise, found Christian churches in the city untouched and learned that worship was being held in them without hindrance. At the same time, when at the end of the same 11th century the Normans conquered Sicily from the Muslims, they, despite the latter’s more than two centuries of domination on the island, found on it a huge number of Christians who freely practiced their faith. So, the first event of the 11th century, which had a painful impact on the Christian West, was the destruction of the Church of the Resurrection and Golgotha ​​in 1009. Another event related to the Holy Land occurred in the second half of the 11th century.

The Seljuk Turks, after they defeated the Byzantine troops at Manzikert in 1071, founded the Rumian, otherwise Iconian, Sultanate in Asia Minor and then began to successfully advance in all directions. Their military successes had an echo in Jerusalem: in 1070, the Turkish commander Atzig headed to Palestine and captured Jerusalem. Soon after this, the city rebelled, so Atzig was forced to begin the siege of the city again. Jerusalem was taken a second time and subjected to terrible plunder. The Turks then captured Antioch in Syria, settled in Nicaea, Cyzicus and Smyrna in Asia Minor and occupied the islands of Chios, Lesbos, Samos and Rhodes. Conditions for European pilgrims in Jerusalem worsened. Even if the persecution and oppression attributed to the Turks by many researchers are exaggerated, it is very difficult to agree with the opinion of W. Ramsay about the softness of the Turks towards Christians: “The Seljuk sultans ruled their Christian subjects in a very gentle and tolerant manner, and Even with prejudice, Byzantine historians allowed themselves only a few hints about Christians, who in many cases preferred the power of the sultans to the power of the emperors... Christians under the rule of the Seljuks were happier than in the heart of the Byzantine Empire. The most unfortunate of all were the Byzantine border regions, which were subject to constant attacks. As for religious persecution, there is not a single trace of it in the Seljuk period.”

Thus, the destruction of the Temple of the Resurrection in 1009 and the passing of Jerusalem into the hands of the Turks in 1078 were the two facts that deeply affected the religiously minded masses of Western Europe and aroused in them a strong outburst of religious inspiration. It finally became clear to many that if Byzantium collapsed under the onslaught of the Turks, the entire Christian West would be in dire danger. “After so many centuries of horror and devastation,” wrote the French historian, “will the Mediterranean again fall to the onslaught of the barbarians? This is the vexed question that arose in 1075. Western Europe, slowly rebuilding itself in the 11th century, will bear the brunt of responding to it: it is preparing to respond to the massive Turkish offensive with a crusade.”

The immediate danger from the ever-increasing strengthening of the Turks was experienced by the Byzantine emperors, who, after the Manzikert defeat, as it seemed to them, could no longer cope with the Turks on their own. Their gaze was directed to the West, mainly to the pope, who, as the spiritual head of the Western European world, could, with his influence, induce the Western European peoples to provide all possible assistance to Byzantium. Sometimes, as we have already seen in the example of Alexei Comnenus’ appeal to Count Robert of Flanders, emperors also addressed individual secular rulers in the West. Alexei, however, had in mind a number of auxiliary forces rather than powerful and well-organized armies.

The popes reacted very sympathetically to the calls of the eastern basileus. In addition to the purely ideological side of the matter, namely assistance to Byzantium, and with it the entire Christian world, and the liberation of holy places from the hands of infidels, the popes, of course, also had in mind the interests catholic church in the sense of further strengthening, if the enterprise is successful, papal power and the possibility of returning the Eastern Church to the fold of the Catholic Church. The popes could not forget the church break of 1054. The initial idea of ​​the Byzantine sovereigns to receive only auxiliary mercenary troops from the West later turned, gradually, mainly under the influence of papal preaching, into the idea of ​​​​a crusade of Western Europe to the East, i.e. about the mass movement of Western European peoples with their sovereigns and the most prominent military leaders.

Even in the second half of the 19th century, scientists believed that the first idea about the Crusades and the first call for them came at the end of the 10th century from the pen of the famous Herbert, who was pope under the name of Sylvester II. But at present, in this message “From the face of the ruined Jerusalem Church to the Universal Church,” found in the collection of Herbert’s letters, where the Jerusalem Church turns to the Universal Church with a request to come to its aid with its bounty, the best experts on the question of Herbert see, firstly, Herbert’s original work, written before his papacy, contrary to the opinion of some about the later falsification of the message, and, secondly, they see in it not a project for a crusade, but a simple circular message to the believers to encourage them to send alms to support the Christian institutions of Jerusalem . We must not forget that at the end of the 10th century the situation of Christians in Palestine did not yet provide any grounds for a crusade.

Even before the Komnenos, under the threat of the Seljuk and Uzo-Pechenezh danger, Emperor Michael VII Ducas Parapinac sent a message to Pope Gregory VII, asking him for help and promising a unification of churches for the latter. The Pope sent a number of messages with exhortations to help the dying empire. In a letter to the Count of Burgundy, he wrote: “We hope... that, after the subjugation of the Normans, we will cross to Constantinople to help the Christians, who, being greatly depressed by the frequent attacks of the Saracens, eagerly ask us to lend them a helping hand.” In another letter, Gregory VII mentions "the pitiful fate of such a great empire." In a letter to the German sovereign Henry IV, the pope wrote that “most of the overseas Christians are exterminated by the pagans in an unprecedented defeat and, like cattle, are beaten daily, and that the Christian race is destroyed”; they humbly beg us for help “so that the Christian faith in our time, which God forbid, does not completely perish”; obedient to the papal conviction, the Italians and other Europeans (ultramontani) are already preparing an army of over 50,000 people and, putting, if possible, the pope at the head of the expedition, they want to rise up against the enemies of God and reach the Holy Sepulcher. “I am especially motivated to this matter,” the pope further writes, “by the fact that the Church of Constantinople, which does not agree with us regarding the Holy Spirit, strives for agreement with the Apostolic See.”

As you can see, these letters are not only about a crusade to liberate the Holy Land. Gregory VII drew up a plan for an expedition to Constantinople to save Byzantium, the main defender of Christianity in the East. The help brought by the pope was conditioned by the reunification of churches, the return of the “schismatic” Eastern Church to the bosom of the Catholic Church. It seems that the above letters are more about the defense of Constantinople than about the reconquest of holy places, especially since all these letters were written before 1078, when Jerusalem fell into the hands of the Turks and the situation of Palestinian Christians worsened. Therefore, it is possible to assume that in the plans of Gregory VII the holy war against Islam was in second place, and that the pope, arming Western Christianity to fight the Muslim east, had in mind the “schismatic” east. The latter was more terrible for Gregory VII than Islam. In one message about the lands occupied by the Spanish Moors, the pope openly stated that he would prefer to leave these lands in the hands of infidels, i.e. Muslims rather than see them fall into the hands of the rebellious sons of the church. Considering the letters of Gregory VII as the first plan for the crusades, it is necessary to note the connection between this plan and the division of the churches of 1054.

Like Michael VII Parapinak, Alexius Komnenos, especially experiencing the horrors of 1091, also turned to the West, asking for the sending of mercenary auxiliary units. But, thanks to the intervention of the Cumans and the violent death of the Turkish pirate Chakha, the danger to the capital passed without Western help, so that in the next 1092, from the point of view of Alexei, auxiliary Western troops seemed unnecessary for the empire. Meanwhile, the work begun in the West by Gregory VII assumed wide dimensions, mainly thanks to the convinced and active Pope Urban P. The modest requests of Alexei Komnenos for auxiliary troops were forgotten. We were now talking about a massive invasion.

Historical science, since the first critical study of the first Crusade by the German historian Siebel (the first edition of his book was published in 1841), has noted the following main - from a Western point of view - reasons for the Crusades: 1) The general religious mood of the Middle Ages, which intensified in the 11th century century thanks to the Cluny movement; in a society suppressed by the consciousness of sinfulness, there is a desire for asceticism, hermitage, spiritual achievements, and pilgrimage; The theology and philosophy of that time were under the same influence. This mood was the first common reason that raised the masses of the population to the feat of liberating the Holy Sepulcher. 2) The rise of the papacy in the 11th century, especially under Gregory VII. For the papacy, the crusades seemed highly desirable, since they opened up broad horizons for the further development of their power: if the enterprise, the initiators and spiritual leaders of which they were to be the initiators and spiritual leaders, was successful, the popes would extend their influence to a number of new countries and return them to the fold of the Catholic Church " schismatic" Byzantium. The ideal aspirations of the popes to help Eastern Christians and liberate the Holy Land, especially characteristic of the personality of Urban II, were thus mixed with their aspirations to increase papal power and power. 3) Worldly, secular interests also played a significant role among various social classes. The feudal nobility, barons and knights, participating in the general religious impulse, saw in the crusading enterprise an excellent opportunity to satisfy their love of fame, belligerence and increase their funds. Depressed by the weight of feudal lawlessness, the peasants, carried away by religious feelings, saw in the crusade at least temporary liberation from the harsh conditions of feudal oppression, a deferment in the payment of debts, confidence in the protection of abandoned families and meager property from the church, and deliverance from sins. Later, other phenomena were emphasized by historians in connection with the origins of the first Crusade.

In the 11th century, Western pilgrimages to the Holy Land were especially numerous. Some pilgrimages were organized in very large groups. In addition to individual pilgrimages, entire expeditions were undertaken. So, in 1026–1027. seven hundred pilgrims, among whom was a French abbot and a large number of Norman knights, visited Palestine. In the same year William, Count of Angoulême, accompanied by a certain number of abbots of the west of France and a large number of nobles, made a journey to Jerusalem. In 1033 there were such numbers of pilgrims as there had ever been before. However, the most famous pilgrimage took place in 1064–1065, when more than 7,000 people (usually said more than 12,000) under the leadership of Gunther, bishop of the German city of Bamberg, went to worship the holy places. They passed through Constantinople and Asia Minor and, after many adventures and losses, reached Jerusalem. A source regarding this great pilgrimage states that “of the seven thousand who went, less than two thousand returned,” and those who did return were “considerably poorer.” Gunther himself, the head of the pilgrimage, died early. "One of the many lives lost in this adventure" (adventure).

In connection with these peaceful pre-crusader pilgrimages, the question arose whether the 11th century could be seen, as has often been done, as a period of transition from peaceful pilgrimages to the military expeditions of the crusader era. Many researchers have sought to justify this in view of the fact that, due to the new situation in Palestine after the Turkish conquest, groups of pilgrims began to travel armed in order to protect themselves from possible attacks. Now that, thanks to E. Joranson, it has been precisely established that the largest pilgrimage of the 11th century was carried out exclusively by unarmed people, the question inevitably arises: “Was any of the pilgrimages of the time before the Crusades an expedition with weapons?” Of course, sometimes the pilgrim knights were armed, however, “although some of them wore chain mail, they were still peaceful pilgrims” and were not crusaders. They played a significant role in the prehistory of the Crusades due to the information they brought to Western Europe about the situation in the Holy Land, awakening and maintaining interest in it. All these pilgrim expeditions took place before the Turks conquered Palestine. One of the newest studies of pilgrimages in the 11th century before the Turkish conquest has revealed the oppression of pilgrims by the Arabs long before the Seljuk conquest, so that the statement “as long as the Arabs held Jerusalem, Christian pilgrims from Europe could travel unhindered” is too optimistic.

There is no information about pilgrimages in the 11th century from Byzantium to the Holy Land. The Byzantine monk Epiphanius, author of the first Greek itinerary to the Holy Land, compiled a description of Palestine before the Crusades, but his time of life cannot be determined with precision. The opinions of researchers differ: from the end of the 8th century to the 11th.

Before the First Crusade, Europe had already experienced three real crusades - the Spanish war against the Moors, the Norman conquest of Apulia and Sicily, and the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Moreover, in Italy in the 11th century a special economic and political movement arose - with its center in Venice. Peace on the shores of the Adriatic provided a solid basis for the economic power of Venice, and the famous document of 1082, given to Venice by Alexius Comnenos, opened the Byzantine markets to the Republic of St. Mark. “From this day began the world trade of Venice.” At that time, Venice, like many other southern Italian cities that still remained under Byzantine rule, traded with Muslim ports. At the same time, Genoa and Pisa, which were repeatedly attacked by Muslim pirates in North Africa in the 10th and early 11th centuries, undertook an expedition to Sardinia, which was in Muslim hands, in 1015–1016. They managed to recapture Sardinia and Corsica. Ships from both cities filled the ports of the North African coast, and in 1087, with the blessing of the pope, they successfully attacked the city of Mehdia on the North African coast. All these expeditions against the infidels were explained not only by religious enthusiasm or the spirit of adventure, but also by economic reasons.

Another factor in the history of Western Europe that is associated with the beginning of the Crusades is the increase in population in some countries, which began around 1100. It is absolutely certain that the population has increased in Flanders and France. One aspect of the movement of masses of people in the late 11th century was medieval colonial expansion from some Western European countries, especially France. The eleventh century in France was a time of constant famine, crop failures, severe epidemics and harsh winters. These harsh living conditions led to a decrease in population in areas previously full of abundance and prosperity. Taking all these factors into account, we can come to the conclusion that by the end of the 11th century, Europe was spiritually and economically ready for a crusading enterprise in the broad sense of the word.

The general situation before the first Crusade was completely different from the situation before the second. These fifty-one years, 1096–1147, were among the most important eras in history. During these years, economic, religious and all cultural aspects of European life changed radically. New world was opened to Western Europe. The subsequent Crusades did not add much to the life of this period. They were only a development of the processes that took place in these years between the first and second Crusades. And it’s strange to read from one Italian historian that the first Crusades were “fruitless madness" (sterili insanie).

The First Crusade is the first organized offensive of Christendom against the infidels, and this offensive was not limited to central Europe, Italy and Byzantium. It began in the southwestern corner of Europe, in Spain, and ended in the endless steppes of Russia.

As for Spain, Pope Urban II, in his letter of 1089 to the Spanish counts, bishops, vice comites and other noble and powerful persons, urged them to remain in their own country instead of going to Jerusalem, and to devote their energies to restoration Christian churches destroyed by the Moors. This was the right flank of the crusader movement against the infidels.

In the northeast, Rus' fought desperately against the wild hordes of Cumans, who appeared in the southern steppes around the middle of the 11th century, ravaged the country and disrupted trade, occupying all the roads leading from Rus' to the east and south. V. O. Klyuchevsky wrote in this regard: “This almost two-century struggle between Rus' and the Polovtsians has its significance in European history. While Western Europe launched an offensive struggle against the Asian East with crusades, when the same movement against the Moors began on the Iberian Peninsula, Rus' covered the left flank of the European offensive with its steppe struggle. But this historical merit of Rus' cost her very dearly: the struggle moved her from her native places on the Dnieper and abruptly changed the direction of her future life.” Thus, Rus' participated in the general Western European crusading movement, defending itself and at the same time Europe from pagan barbarians (infidels). “If the Russians had thought of accepting the cross,” wrote B. Leib, “they could have been told that their first duty to serve Christianity was to defend their own country, as the pope wrote to the Spaniards.”

The Scandinavian kingdoms also participated in the first Crusade, but they joined the main army in small formations. In 1097, the Danish nobleman Svein led a detachment of crusaders to Palestine. In the northern countries, excessive religious enthusiasm was not manifested and, as far as is known, most of the Scandinavian knights were driven less by Christian aspirations than by a love of war and adventure, the hope of booty and glory.

At this time there were two Christian countries in the Caucasus - Armenia and Georgia. However, after the defeat of the Byzantine army at Manzikert in 1071, Armenia fell under Turkish rule, so there was no question of the participation of Caucasian Armenians in the first Crusade. As for Georgia, the Seljuks captured the country in the 11th century, and only after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 did David the Builder expel the Turks. This happened around the year 1100, or, as the Georgian chronicle states, when "the Frankish army advanced and, with God's help, took Jerusalem and Antioch, Georgia became free, and David became powerful."

When in 1095, in connection with all Western European complications and projected reforms, the victorious Pope Urban II convened a council in Piacenza, an embassy from Alexios Komnenos arrived there asking for help. This fact was denied by some scientists, but modern researchers of this problem have come to the conclusion that Alexey really turned to Piacenza for help. Of course, this event was not yet the “decisive factor” leading to the Crusade, as Siebel claimed. As before, if Alexei asked for help in Piacenza, then he did not think about crusading armies, he did not want a crusade, but mercenaries against the Turks, who over the past three years 1 began to pose a great danger in their successful advance in Asia Minor. Around 1095, Kılıç Arslan was elected sultan in Nicaea. “He summoned to Nicaea the wives and children of those soldiers who were there at that time, settled them in the city and again made Nicaea the residence of the sultans.” In other words, Kilych Arslan made Nicaea his capital. In connection with these Turkish successes, Alexey could turn to Piacenza for help, however, a crusade to the Holy Land was not part of his intentions. He was interested in helping against the Turks. Unfortunately, there is little information about this episode in the sources. One modern scholar has observed: “From the Council of Piacenza to the arrival of the Crusaders in the Byzantine Empire, the relationship between East and West is shrouded in darkness.”

In November 1095, a famous cathedral was held in Clermont (in Auvergne, in central France), which was attended by so many people that there was not enough housing in the city for all those who arrived and many were accommodated in the open air. At the end of the council, at which a number of the most important current affairs were considered, Urban II addressed the audience with a fiery speech, the original text of which has not reached us. Some eyewitnesses of the meeting who recorded the speech from memory tell us texts that are very different from each other. The Pope, depicting in vivid colors the persecution of Christians in the Holy Land, convinced the crowd to take up arms to liberate the Holy Sepulcher and Eastern Christians. With shouts of “Dieu le veut”! (“Deus lo volt” in the chronicle) the crowd rushed to the pope. At his suggestion, future participants in the campaign had red crosses sewn onto their clothes (hence the name “crusaders”). They were granted remission of sins, forgiveness of debts, and protection of their property by the church during their absence. The crusader vow was considered immutable, and its violation entailed excommunication from the church. From Auvergne the enthusiasm spread throughout France and to other countries. An extensive movement to the East was being created, the true extent of which could not have been foreseen at the Council of Clermont.

Therefore, the movement caused by the Council of Clermont and which resulted in the form of a crusade the following year is the personal work of Urban II, who found extremely favorable conditions for the implementation of this enterprise in the living conditions of the Western European Middle Ages in the second half of the 11th century.

Due to the fact that the [Turkish] danger in Asia Minor was becoming more and more threatening, the issue of the first Crusade was practically resolved in Clermont. News of this decision reached Alexei as an unexpected and disconcerting surprise. The news was disconcerting, for he did not expect or want help in the form of a crusade. When Alexei called for mercenaries from the West, he invited them to defend Constantinople, that is, in other words, his own state. The idea of ​​liberating the Holy Land, which had not belonged to the empire for more than four centuries, was of secondary importance to him.

For Byzantium, the problem of a crusade did not exist in the 11th century. Religious enthusiasm did not flourish either among the masses or among the emperor, and there were no preachers of the crusade. For Byzantium, the political problem of saving the empire from its eastern and northern enemies had nothing to do with a distant expedition to the Holy Land. Byzantium had its own "crusades". There were the brilliant and victorious expeditions of Heraclius against Persia in the 7th century, when the Holy Land and the Life-Giving Cross were returned to the empire. There were victorious campaigns under Nikephoros Phocas, John Tzimisces and Basil II against the Arabs in Syria, when the emperors planned to finally regain control of Jerusalem. This plan did not materialize, and Byzantium, under the threatening pressure of stunning Turkish successes in Asia Minor in the 11th century, abandoned all hope of returning the Holy Land. For Byzantium, the Palestinian problem at this time was redundant. In 1090–1091 she was two steps away from death, and when Alexei turned for Western help, and in response received news of the approach of the crusaders, his first thought was to save the empire. In the “Muses” written by Alexei in iambic verse, a poem that is, as one might think, a kind of political testament to his son and heir John, there are the following interesting lines about the first Crusade:

“Do you remember what happened to me? The movement of the West towards this country should result in a decrease in the high dignity of New Rome and the imperial throne. That is why, my son, it is necessary to think about accumulating enough to fill the open mouths of the barbarians who breathe hatred against us, in case a numerous army rises up against us and rushes at us, which in its anger would throw lightning bolts against us, while a large number of enemies would surround our city.”

With this fragment from the “Muses” of Alexei, one can compare the following passage from the “Alexiad” of Anna Comnena, also about the first Crusade: “And so, a desire arose among men and women, the like of which no one’s memory has known. Simple people sincerely wanted to venerate the Holy Sepulcher and visit holy places. But some, especially those like Bohemund and his like-minded people, harbored a different intention: would they not be able to capture the royal city itself in addition to the rest of their profits?

These two statements - of the emperor and his learned daughter - clearly show the attitude of Byzantium towards the crusades. In Alexei's assessment, the Crusaders are placed in the same category as the barbarians threatening the empire, the Turks and the Pechenegs. As for Anna Comnena, she only makes passing mention of the “ordinary” people among the crusaders who sincerely intended to visit the Holy Land. The idea of ​​a crusade was completely alien to the Byzantine mentality of the late 11th century. The ruling circles of Byzantium had one desire - to turn away the formidable Turkish danger that threatened from the east and north. That is why the First Crusade was an exclusively Western enterprise, politically only slightly connected with Byzantium. In truth, the Byzantine Empire provided the crusaders with a certain number of military units, which, however, did not extend beyond Asia Minor. Byzantium did not take any part in the conquest of Syria and Palestine.

In the spring of 1096, thanks to the sermon of Peter of Amiens, sometimes called the “Hermit”, to whom the now rejected historical legend attributes the incitement of the crusading movement, a crowd gathered in France, mostly from poor people, petty knights, homeless vagabonds with wives and children, almost without weapons , and moved through Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria to Constantinople. This undisciplined militia, led by Peter of Amiens and another preacher, Walter the Poor, not realizing where it was passing, and not accustomed to obedience and order, plundered and ruined the country along the way. Alexei Komnenos learned with displeasure about the approach of the crusaders, and this displeasure turned into some fear when news reached him about the robberies and devastation committed by the crusaders along the way. Having approached Constantinople and settled in its environs, the crusaders began to engage in robbery as usual. The concerned emperor hastened to transport them to Asia Minor, where they were almost all easily killed by the Turks near Nicaea. Peter the Hermit returned to Constantinople even before the last catastrophe.

The story of the unsuccessful militia of Peter and Walter was like an introduction to the first Crusade. The unfavorable impression left by these crusaders in Byzantium extended to subsequent crusaders. The Turks, having easily finished off the unprepared crowds of Peter, gained confidence in an equally easy victory over other crusader militias.

In the summer of 1096, a crusading movement of counts, dukes and princes began in the West, i.e. a real army has already gathered.

None of the Western European sovereigns took part in the campaign. The German sovereign Henry IV was entirely occupied with the struggle with the popes for investiture. The French king Philip I was under ecclesiastical excommunication for his divorce from his lawful wife and marriage to another woman. William the Red of England, thanks to his tyrannical rule, was in constant struggle with the feudal lords, the church and the masses and had difficulty maintaining power in his hands.

Among the leaders of the knightly militias were the following most famous persons: Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, to whom later rumor gave such ecclesiastical character that it is difficult to distinguish its actual features; in fact, he was not devoid of religiosity, but far from being an idealistic feudal lord who wanted to reward himself in the campaign for the losses he had suffered in his state. Two brothers went with him, among whom was Baldwin, the future king of Jerusalem. The Lorraine militia acted under the leadership of Gottfried. Robert, Duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror and brother of the English sovereign William the Red, took part in the campaign due to dissatisfaction with the insignificant power in his duchy, which he pledged to the English king for a certain sum before setting off on the campaign. Hugh of Vermandois, the brother of the French king, filled with vanity, sought fame and new possessions and was highly respected among the crusaders. The rude and hot-tempered Robert Freeze, son of Robert of Flanders, also took part in the campaign. For his crusading exploits he was nicknamed Jerusalem. The last three persons became the head of three militias: Hugo Vermandois, the head of the Central French, Robert of Normandy and Robert Frieze, the head of two Northern French militias. At the head of the southern French, or Provençal, militia stood Raymond, Count of Toulouse, a famous fighter with the Spanish Arabs, a talented commander and a sincerely religious person. Finally, Bohemund of Tarentum, the son of Robert Guiscard, and his nephew Tancred, who became the head of the South Italian Norman militia, took part in the campaign without any religious grounds, and in the hope, at an opportunity, to settle their political scores with Byzantium, according to in relation to which they were convinced and stubborn enemies and, obviously, Bohemund aimed his desires at taking possession of Antioch. The Normans introduced a purely worldly, political stream into the crusader enterprise, which ran counter to the main tenor of the crusader cause. Bohemond's army was perhaps the best prepared of all the other crusading troops, "for it had many men who had dealt with the Saracens in Sicily and with the Greeks in southern Italy." All crusader armies pursued independent objectives; there was no overall plan, no commander in chief. As you can see, the main role in the first Crusade belonged to the French.

One part of the crusader militia headed to Constantinople by land, the other part by sea. Along the way, the crusaders, like the previous militia of Peter of Amiens, plundered passable areas and carried out all sorts of violence. A contemporary of this passage of the crusaders, Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria, in a letter to one bishop, explaining the reason for his long silence, blames the crusaders for this; he writes: “My lips are compressed; firstly, the passage of the Franks, or the attack, or, I don’t know what to call it, has so captured and occupied us all that we don’t even feel ourselves. We have drunk enough of the bitter cup of attack... Since we are accustomed to Frankish insults, we endure misfortunes more easily than before, for time is a convenient teacher of everything.”

Alexei Comnenus should have distrusted such defenders of God's cause. Not needing any foreign help at the moment, the emperor looked with displeasure and fear at the crusader militias approaching his capital from different directions, which in their numbers had nothing in common with those modest auxiliary detachments for which the emperor appealed to the West. The accusations previously made by historians of Alexei and the Greeks of treachery and deceit in relation to the crusaders should now fall away, especially after due attention was paid to the robberies, robberies and fires committed by the crusaders during the campaign. The harsh and ahistorical characterization of Alexei given by Gibbon also disappears, who wrote: “In a style less important than the style of history, I would perhaps compare the Emperor Alexei with a jackal, who, as they say, follows the tracks of a lion and devours his scraps.” . Of course, Alexei was not the type of person who humbly picked up what the crusaders left for him. Alexei Komnenos showed himself to be a statesman who understood the terrible danger the crusaders posed to the existence of his empire; That's why main idea His goal was to transport, as soon as possible, the restless and dangerous newcomers to Asia Minor, where they were supposed to do the job for which they came to the East, i.e. fight the infidels. In view of this, an atmosphere of mutual distrust and hostility was immediately created between the arriving Latins and Greeks; in their person not only schismatics met, but also political opponents, who would subsequently have to resolve the dispute among themselves with weapons. One enlightened Greek patriot and learned writer of the 19th century, Vikelas, wrote: “For the West, the crusade is a noble consequence of religious feeling; this is the beginning of revival and civilization, and the European nobility can now rightfully be proud of the fact that it is the granddaughter of the crusaders. But the Eastern Christians, when they saw how these barbarian hordes plundered and devastated the Byzantine provinces, when they saw that those who called themselves defenders of the faith were killing priests under the pretext that the latter were schismatics - the Eastern Christians forgot that these expeditions had originally a religious purpose and a Christian character.” According to the same author, "the appearance of the Crusaders marks the beginning of the decline of the empire and foreshadows its end." The newest historian of Alexei Komnenos, the Frenchman Chalandon, considers it possible to apply in part to all the crusaders the characteristic given by Gibbon to the companions of Peter of Amiens, namely: “The robbers who followed Peter the Hermit were wild beasts, without reason and humanity.”

So, in 1096, the era of the Crusades began, so fraught with diverse and important consequences both for Byzantium and the East in general, and for Western Europe.

The first account of the impression that the beginning of the crusading movement made on the peoples of the East comes from the Arab historian of the twelfth century Ibn al-Qalanisi: “In this year (490th year of the Hijri - from December 19, 1096 to December 8, 1097 ) a whole series of reports began to arrive that the armies of the Franks had appeared from the sea in Constantinople with forces that could not be counted due to their multitude. When these messages began to follow one after another and were passed from mouth to mouth everywhere, people were seized with fear and confusion.”

After the crusaders gradually gathered in Constantinople, Alexei Komnenos, considering their militias as hired auxiliary squads, expressed a desire that he be recognized as the head of the campaign and that the crusaders take him a vassal oath and promise to transfer to him, as their overlord, the regions conquered by the crusaders on East. The crusaders fulfilled this wish of the emperor: the oath was taken and the promise was made. Unfortunately, the text of the vassal oath that the leaders of the crusader movement took has not been preserved in its original form. In all likelihood, Alexei's demands for different lands were different. He sought direct acquisitions in those areas of Asia Minor, which had recently been lost to the empire after the defeat at Manzikert (1071) and which were a necessary condition for the strength and lasting existence of the Byzantine state and the Greek people. As for Syria and Palestine, which had long been lost to Byzantium, the emperor did not make such demands, but limited himself to the claims of supreme fief rule.

Having crossed to Asia Minor, the crusaders began military operations. In June 1097, after a siege, Nicaea surrendered to the crusaders, which, despite their reluctance, they had to transfer to the Byzantines by virtue of an agreement concluded with the emperor. The next victory of the crusaders at Dorylaeum (now Eski Şehir) forced the Turks to clear the western part of Asia Minor and retreat inland, after which Byzantium had the full opportunity to restore its power on the Asia Minor coast. Despite natural difficulties, climatic conditions and Muslim resistance, the crusaders advanced far to the east and southeast. Baldwin of Flanders took possession of the city of Edessa in Upper Mesopotamia and formed his principality from its region, which was the first Latin possession in East and a stronghold of Christians against Turkish attacks from Asia. But Baldwin’s example had its dangerous, negative side: other barons could follow his example and found their own principalities, which, of course, should have served to great damage to the very purpose of the campaign. This fear was later justified.

After a long, grueling siege, the main city of Syria, the beautifully fortified Antioch, surrendered to the crusaders, after which the road to Jerusalem was clear. However, because of Antioch, a fierce feud broke out between the leaders, which ended with Bohemund of Tarentum, following the example of Baldwin, becoming the sovereign prince of Antioch. Neither in Edessa nor in Antioch did the crusaders take the vassal oath to Alexei Komnenos.

Since the majority of their militia remained with the leaders who founded their principalities, only the pitiful remnants of the crusaders, numbering 20,000 - 25,000 people, approached Jerusalem; They arrived exhausted and completely weakened.

At this very time, Jerusalem passed from the Seljuks into the hands of a strong Egyptian caliph from the Fatimid dynasty. After a fierce siege of fortified Jerusalem, on July 15, 1099, the crusaders stormed the Holy City, the final goal of their campaign, caused terrible bloodshed in it and plundered it; many treasures were carried away by the leaders; the famous Mosque of Omar was looted. The conquered country, which occupied a narrow coastal strip in the region of Syria and Palestine, received the name of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, of which Godfrey of Bouillon was elected king, who agreed to accept the title of “Defender of the Holy Sepulcher.” The new state was structured according to the Western feudal model.

The Crusade, which resulted in the formation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and several separate Latin principalities in the East, created a complex political situation. Byzantium, pleased with the weakening of the Turks in Asia Minor and the return of a significant part of the latter to the rule of the empire, was at the same time alarmed by the appearance of crusader principalities in Antioch, Edessa, Tripoli, which began to represent a new political enemy for Byzantium. The suspicion of the empire gradually intensified so much that Byzantium in the 12th century, opening hostile actions against its former allies - the crusaders, did not stop at concluding alliances with its former enemies - the Turks. In turn, the crusaders, who settled in their new possessions, fearing the dangerous strengthening of the empire from Asia Minor, similarly entered into alliances with the Turks against Byzantium. This alone already implies the complete degeneration of the very idea of ​​crusader enterprises in the 12th century.

It is impossible to talk about a complete break between Alexei Komnenos and the crusaders. The emperor, even if he was particularly dissatisfied with the formation of the above-mentioned independent principalities by the Latins, who did not take a vassal oath to Alexei, nevertheless did not refuse the crusaders all possible assistance, for example, when transporting them from the East home to the West. The gap took place between the emperor and Bohemund of Tarentum, who, from the point of view of the interests of Byzantium, became excessively stronger in Antioch at the expense of its neighbors, weak Turkish emirs, and Byzantine territory. Antioch became the main center of Alexei’s aspirations, with whom the head of the Provençal militia, Raymond of Toulouse, became close, dissatisfied with his position in the East and also saw Bohemund as his main rival. The fate of Jerusalem was of secondary interest to Alexei at the moment.

The struggle between the emperor and Bohemund was inevitable. An opportune moment for Byzantium seemed to have come when Bohemund was unexpectedly captured by the Turks, namely by the emir from the Danishmend dynasty, who conquered Cappadocia at the very end of the 11th century and formed an independent possession, which, however, was destroyed by the Seljuks in the second half of the 12th century . Negotiations between Alexei and the emir about giving him Bohemund’s money for a certain amount of money failed. Ransomed by others, the latter returned to Antioch and in response to the emperor’s demand, citing the conditions concluded with the crusaders, to transfer Antioch to him, Alexei responded with a decisive refusal.

At this time, namely in 1104, the Muslims won a great victory over Bohemund and other Latin princes at Harran, south of Edessa. This defeat of the crusaders almost entailed the destruction of Christian possessions in Syria, but on the other hand it inspired the hopes of both Alexei and the Muslims; Both of them looked with pleasure at the inevitable weakening of Bohemund. Indeed, the Battle of Harran destroyed his plans to found a strong Norman state in the East; he realized that he did not have enough strength to again fight the Muslims and his sworn enemy, the Byzantine emperor. Bohemund had no further purpose in staying in the East. In order to break Byzantine power, it must be struck in Constantinople with new forces recruited in Europe. In view of all these circumstances, Bohemond boarded a ship and headed for Apulia, leaving his nephew Tancred in his place in Antioch. Anna Komnena tells a curious story, written not without humor, about how Bohemund, for greater safety during a sea voyage from the attack of the Greeks, pretended to be dead, was laid in a coffin, and in the coffin made his way to Italy.

Bohemund's return to Italy was greeted with great enthusiasm. People gathered in crowds to look at him, as a medieval author says, “as if they were going to see Christ himself.” Having gathered an army, Bohemund began hostile actions against Byzantium. The pope himself blessed Bohemund's intentions. His expedition against Alexei, explains the American historian, “ceased to be simply a political movement. It has now received the approval of the Church and acquired the dignity of a crusade."

Bohemond's troops were most likely recruited from France and Italy, but in all likelihood there were also British, Germans and Spaniards in his army. His plan was to repeat the campaign of his father, Robert Guiscard, in 1081 - that is, to take Dyrrachium (Durazzo) and then go through Thessaloniki to Constantinople. But the campaign turned out to be unsuccessful for Bohemund. He was defeated at Dyrrachium and was forced to make peace with Alexei on humiliating terms. Here are the main points of the agreement: Bohemund declared himself a slave of Alexei and his son John, pledging to help the empire against all its enemies, whether they be Christians or Muslims; promised to transfer to Alexei all the conquered lands that previously belonged to Byzantium; as for the lands that did not belong to Byzantium and which in the future may be taken away from the Turks or Armenians, Bohemund should consider them as lands ceded to him by the emperor; he will consider his nephew Tancred an enemy if he does not agree to submit to the emperor; The Patriarch of Antioch will be appointed by the emperor from among persons belonging to the Eastern Church, so that there would be no Latin Patriarch of Antioch. The cities and regions guaranteed to Bohemund are listed in the agreement. The document ends with Bohemund's solemn oath on the cross, crown of thorns, nails and spear of Christ that the points of the agreement will be observed by him.

This collapse of all Bohemund’s plans, in fact, ends his stormy and, perhaps, fatal activity for the Crusades. In the last three years of his life he no longer played any role. He died in 1111 in Apulia.

The death of Bohemund complicated the position of Alexei, since Tancred of Antioch did not agree to fulfill his uncle's agreement and transfer Antioch to the emperor. For the latter, everything had to start again. A plan for a campaign against Antioch was discussed, but was not carried out. Obviously, the empire did not have the opportunity at this time to undertake this difficult expedition. The march to Antioch was not even helped by the death of Tancred, who died shortly after Bohemund. The last years of Alexei's reign were occupied mainly by almost annual and often successful wars with the Turks in Asia Minor for the empire.

In the external life of the empire, Alexei accomplished a difficult task. Very often Alexei was judged from the point of view of his attitude towards the crusaders, losing sight of the totality of his external activities, which is completely wrong. In one of his letters, Alexei’s contemporary, Archbishop Theophylact of Bulgaria, using the expression of the psalm (79; 13), compares the Bulgarian theme with a grapevine, which “is plucked by all those passing along the way.” This comparison, according to the fair remark of the French historian Chalandon, can be applied to the Eastern Empire of the time of Alexei. All his neighbors tried to use the weakness of the empire to wrest certain areas from him. The Normans, Pechenegs, Seljuks and Crusaders threatened Byzantium. Alexei, who received the state in a state of weakness and turmoil, managed to give them all a proper rebuff and thereby stopped the process of the disintegration of Byzantium for quite a long time. State borders under Alexei, both in Europe and Asia, expanded. Everywhere the enemies of the empire had to retreat, so that from the territorial side his reign marks unconditional progress. Accusations against Alexei, especially often expressed earlier, for his relationship with the crusaders should fall away, since we look at Alexei as a sovereign who defended the interests of his state, to which Western aliens, seized by a thirst for robbery and booty, posed a serious danger. Thus, in the area foreign policy Alexey, having successfully overcome all difficulties, improved the international position of the state, expanded its borders and for some time stopped the successes of the enemies who were pressing on the empire from all sides.
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Enjoy reading!
Alexander Alexandrovich Vasiliev

History of the Byzantine Empire. T.2
History of the Byzantine Empire –
A.A. Vasiliev

History of the Byzantine Empire.

Time from the Crusades to the fall of Constantinople (1081–1453)
Chapter 1

Byzantium and the Crusaders. Age of Comneni (1081–1185) and Angels (1185–1204)

Komnene and their foreign policy. Alexei I and foreign policy before the First Crusade. The struggle of the empire with the Turks and Pechenegs. The First Crusade and Byzantium. Foreign policy under John II. Foreign policy of Manuel I and the second Crusade. Foreign policy under Alexei II and Andronikos I. Foreign policy of the time of the Angels. Attitude towards the Normans and Turks. Formation of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom. The Third Crusade and Byzantium. Henry VI and his eastern plans. The Fourth Crusade and Byzantium. The internal state of the empire in the era of the Comneni and Angels. Internal management. Education, science, literature and art.

Komneni and their foreign policy
The revolution of 1081 brought to the throne Alexius Comnenus, whose uncle, Isaac, had already been emperor for a short time in the late fifties (1057–1059).

The Greek surname Komnenov, mentioned in sources for the first time under Vasily II, came from a village in the vicinity of Adrianople. Later, having acquired large estates in Asia Minor, the Komnenos became representatives of large Asia Minor landownership. Both Isaac and his nephew Alexei rose to prominence thanks to their military talents. In the person of the latter, the military party and provincial large landownership triumphed on the Byzantine throne, and at the same time the troubled time of the empire ended. The first three Comnenus managed to hold on to the throne for a long time and peacefully passed it on from father to son.

The energetic and skillful reign of Alexei I (1081–1118) honorably led the state out of a number of severe external dangers that sometimes threatened the very existence of the empire. Long before his death, Alexei appointed his son John as heir, which caused great displeasure to his eldest daughter Anna, the famous author of the Alexiad, who, being married to Caesar Nicephorus Bryennius, also a historian, drew up a complex plan on how to get the emperor to remove John and appoint her husband's heir. However, the elderly Alexei remained firm in his decision, and after his death, John was proclaimed emperor.

Having ascended the throne, John II (1118–1143) had to immediately go through difficult moments: a conspiracy against him was discovered, headed by his sister Anna and in which his mother was involved. The plot failed. John treated the culprits very mercifully, most of whom lost only their property. With his high moral qualities, John Komnenos earned universal respect and received the nickname Kaloioanna (Kaloyan), i.e. Good John. It is interesting that both Greek and Latin writers agree in their high assessment of John’s moral personality. He was, according to Niketas Choniates, “the crown of all the kings (???????) who sat on the Roman throne from the family of Comneni.” Gibbon, stern in his assessment of Byzantine figures, wrote about this “best and greatest of the Komnenos” that “the philosopher Marcus Aurelius himself would not have disdained his unsophisticated virtues, which stemmed from the heart, and not borrowed from schools.”

An opponent of unnecessary luxury and excessive extravagance, John left a corresponding imprint on his court, which under him lived an economical and austere life; the former entertainments, fun and enormous expenses were not with him. The reign of this merciful, quiet and highly moral sovereign was, as we will see below, almost one continuous military campaign.

The complete opposite of John was his son and successor Manuel I (1143–1180). A convinced admirer of the West, a Latinophile, who set himself as an ideal type of Western knight, striving to comprehend the secrets of astrology, the new emperor immediately completely changed the harsh court environment of his father. Fun, love, receptions, luxurious celebrations, hunting, tournaments organized according to Western standards - all this spread in a wide wave throughout Constantinople. Visits to the capital by foreign sovereigns, Conrad III of Germany, Louis VII of France, Kilych Arslan, the Sultan of Iconium, and various Latin princes of the East, cost extraordinary amounts of money.

A huge number of Western Europeans appeared at the Byzantine court, and the most profitable and responsible places in the empire began to pass into their hands. Both times, Manuel was married to Western princesses: his first wife was the sister of the wife of the German sovereign Conrad III, Bertha of Sulzbach, renamed Irina in Byzantium; Manuel's second wife was the daughter of the Prince of Antioch, Maria, a Frenchwoman by birth, a remarkable beauty. Manuel's entire reign was determined by his passion for Western ideals, his pipe dream of restoring a unified Roman Empire through the seizure of the imperial crown from the German sovereign through the pope, and his readiness to enter into a union with the Western Church. Latin dominance and neglect of native interests aroused general displeasure among the people; there was an urgent need to change the system. However, Manuel died without seeing the collapse of his policy.

Manuel's son and heir, Alexei II (1180–1183), was barely twelve years old. His mother Mary of Antioch was declared regent. The main power passed into the hands of Manuel's nephew, Protosevast Alexei Komnenos, the ruler's favorite. The new government sought support in the hated Latin element. Popular irritation therefore grew. Empress Maria, who had been so popular before, began to be looked at as a “foreigner.” The French historian Diehl compares Mary’s position with the situation during the era of the great French Revolution of Marie Antoinette, whom the people called “Austrian.”

A strong party was formed against the powerful protosevast Alexei, led by Andronikos Komnenos, one of the most interesting personalities in the annals of Byzantine history, an interesting type for both a historian and a novelist. Andronicus, nephew of John II and cousin of Manuel I, belonged to the younger, dethroned line of Comnenos, whose distinguishing feature was extraordinary energy, sometimes misdirected. This line of Komnenos, in its third generation, produced the sovereigns of the Empire of Trebizond, who are known in history as the dynasty of the Great Komnenos. “The rogue prince” of the 12th century, “the future Richard III of Byzantine history,” in whose soul there was “something similar to the soul of Caesar Borgia,” “Alcibiades of the Middle Byzantine Empire,” Andronicus was “the complete type of Byzantine of the 12th century with all his virtues and vices " Handsome and graceful, an athlete and a warrior, well-educated and charming in communication, especially with women who adored him, frivolous and passionate, a skeptic and, if necessary, a deceiver and perjurer, an ambitious conspirator and intriguer, terrible in his old age with his cruelty, Andronikos , in Diehl’s opinion, was the kind of genius that could create from him a savior and revivalist of the exhausted Byzantine Empire, for which he, perhaps, lacked a little moral sense.

A source contemporary to Andronicus (Nicetas Choniates) wrote about him: “Who was born from such a strong rock as to be able not to succumb to the streams of Andronicus’ tears and not to be fascinated by the insinuating speeches that he poured out like a dark source.” The same historian in another place compares Andronicus with the “manifold Proteus,” the old soothsayer of ancient mythology, famous for his transformations.

Being, despite his outward friendship with Manuel, under his suspicion and not finding any activity for himself in Byzantium, Andronicus spent most of Manuel’s reign wandering around various countries of Europe and Asia. Having been sent first by the emperor to Cilicia, and then to the borders of Hungary, Andronicus, accused of political treason and an attempt on the life of Manuel, was imprisoned in a Constantinople prison, where he spent several years and from where, after a series of extraordinary adventures, he managed to escape only to be caught again and imprisoned for several more years. Having again escaped from prison to the north, Andronik found refuge in Rus', with Prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich of Galicia. The Russian chronicle notes in 1165: “The brother of the Tsar’s priest (i.e., Cyrus - lord) Andronik came running from Tsaryagorod to Yaroslav in Galich and received Yaroslav with great love, and Yaroslav gave him several cities for consolation.” According to Byzantine sources, Andronik received a warm welcome from Yaroslav, lived in his house, ate and hunted with him, and even participated in his councils with the boyars. However, Andronik’s stay at the court of the Galician prince seemed dangerous to Manuel, since the latter’s restless relative was already entering into relations with Hungary, with which Byzantium was beginning a war. In such circumstances, Manuel decided to forgive Andronicus, who, “with great honor,” according to the Russian chronicle, was released by Yaroslav from Galicia to Constantinople.

Having received control of Cilicia, Andronicus did not stay long in his new place. Through Antioch he arrived in Palestine, where he began a serious affair with Theodora, a relative of Manuel and the widow of the King of Jerusalem. The angry emperor gave the order to blind Andronicus, who, having been warned in time about the danger, fled with Theodora abroad and for several years wandered around Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, spending some time even in distant Iberia (Georgia).

Finally, Manuel's envoys managed to capture Theodora, passionately loved by Andronicus, with their children, after which he himself, not being able to bear this loss, turned to the emperor for forgiveness. Forgiveness was given, and Andronik brought Manuel complete repentance for the actions of his past, stormy life. The appointment of Andronicus as ruler of the Asia Minor region of Pontus, on the Black Sea coast, was, as it were, an honorable expulsion of a dangerous relative. At this time, namely in 1180, Manuel, as we know, died, after which his young son Alexei II became emperor. Andronik was then already sixty years old.

This was, in general terms, the biography of the person on whom the population of the capital, irritated by the Latinophile policies of the ruler Mary of Antioch and her favorite Alexei Komnenos, pinned all their hopes. Very skillfully presenting himself as a defender of the violated rights of the young Alexei II, who fell into the hands of evil rulers, and a friend of the Romans (???????????), ?ndronik managed to attract the hearts of the tormented population who idolized him. According to one contemporary (Eustathius of Thessalonica), Andronicus “for the majority was dearer than God himself,” or at least “immediately followed Him.”

Having prepared the proper situation in the capital, Andronicus moved towards Constantinople. At the news of Andronicus's movement, a large crowd in the capital gave vent to their hatred towards the Latins: they furiously attacked the Latin dwellings and began beating the Latins, without distinguishing between gender and age; the intoxicated crowd destroyed not only private houses, but also Latin churches and charitable institutions; in one hospital the patients lying in their beds were killed; the papal ambassador was beheaded after being humiliated; many Latins were sold into slavery in Turkish markets. With this massacre of the Latins in 1182, according to F.I. Uspensky, “indeed, if not sown, then watered the seed of fanatical enmity of the West towards the East.” The all-powerful ruler Alexei Komnenos was imprisoned and blinded. After this, Andronik made a ceremonial entry into the capital. To strengthen his position, he began to gradually destroy Manuel's relatives and ordered the Empress Mother Mary of Antioch to be strangled. Then, forcing him to proclaim himself co-emperor and giving, with the rejoicing of the people, a solemn promise to protect the life of Emperor Alexei, a few days later he gave the order to secretly strangle him. After this, in 1183, Andronicus, sixty-three years old, became the sovereign emperor of the Romans.

Appearing on the throne with tasks that will be discussed below, Andronicus could maintain his power only through terror and unheard-of cruelty, to which all the attention of the emperor was directed. In external affairs he showed neither strength nor initiative. The mood of the people changed not in favor of Andronicus; discontent grew. In 1185, a revolution broke out, placing Isaac Angelus on the throne. Andronik's attempt to escape failed. He was subjected to terrible torture and insults, which he endured with extraordinary fortitude. During his inhuman suffering, he only repeated: “Lord, have mercy! Why are you crushing broken reeds?” The new emperor did not allow the torn remains of Andronicus to receive any kind of burial. The last glorious dynasty of the Komnenos on the Byzantine throne ended its existence with such a tragedy.
Alexei I and foreign policy before the First Crusade
According to Anna Komnena, the educated and literary gifted daughter of the new Emperor Alexei, the latter, in the first time after his accession to the throne, in view of the Turkish danger from the east and the Norman danger from the west, “noticed that his kingdom was in its death throes.” Indeed, the external situation of the empire was very difficult and became even more difficult and complex over the years.

Norman War
The Duke of Apulia, Robert Guiscard, having completed the conquest of the Byzantine southern Italian possessions, had much broader plans. Wanting to strike at the very heart of Byzantium, he moved military operations to the Adriatic coast of the Balkan Peninsula. Leaving the control of Apulia to his eldest son Roger, Robert and his younger son Bohemund, later a famous leader of the first Crusade, already having a significant fleet, set out on a campaign against Alexei, with the immediate goal of the seaside city in Illyria Dyrrachium (formerly Epidamnus; in Slavic Drach; now Durazzo ). Dyrrachium, the main city of the ducat theme formed under Vasily II the Bulgarian Slayer, i.e. a region with a duca at the head of administration, perfectly fortified, was rightly considered the key to the empire in the west. From Dyrrhachium, the famous military road of Egnatia (via Egnatia), built in Roman times, began, going to Thessaloniki and further east to Constantinople. It is therefore quite natural that Robert's main attention was directed to this point. This expedition was "a prelude to the Crusades and preparation for Frankish domination of Greece." "Robert Guiscard's Pre-Crusade was his greatest war against Alexius Comnenus."

Alexei Komnenos, feeling the impossibility of coping with the Norman danger on his own, turned to the West for help, among other things to the German sovereign Henry IV. But the latter, experiencing difficulties within the state at that time and not yet finishing his struggle with Pope Gregory VII, could not be useful to the Byzantine emperor. Venice responded to Alexei’s call, pursuing, of course, its own goals and interests. The Emperor promised the Republic of St. Mark for the assistance provided by the fleet, of which Byzantium had few, extensive trading privileges, which will be discussed below. It was in the interests of Venice to help the Eastern Emperor against the Normans, who, if successful, could seize trade routes with Byzantium and the East, i.e. to capture what the Venetians hoped to eventually get their hands on. In addition, there was an immediate danger for Venice: the Normans, who had taken possession of the Ionian Islands, especially Corfu and Cephalonia, and the western coast of the Balkan Peninsula, would have closed the Adriatic Sea to Venetian ships.

The Normans, having conquered the island of Corfu, besieged Dyrrachium from land and sea. Although the approaching Venetian ships liberated the besieged city from the sea, the land army that arrived led by Alexei, which included Macedonian Slavs, Turks, a Varangian-English squad and some other nationalities, suffered a severe defeat. At the beginning of 1082, Dyrrachium opened the gates to Robert. However, this time the outbreak of an uprising in southern Italy forced Robert to retire from the Balkan Peninsula, where the remaining Bohemond, after several successes, was eventually defeated. Robert's new campaign against Byzantium also ended in failure. Some kind of epidemic broke out among his army, the victim of which was Robert Guiscard himself, who died in 1085 on the island of Cephalonia, which is still reminded by its name of a small bay and village at the northern tip of the island of Fiscardo (Guiscardo, from Robert’s nickname “ Guiscard" - Guiscard). With the death of Robert, the Norman invasion of the Byzantine borders ceased, and Dyrrhachium again passed to the Greeks.

From this it is clear that Robert Guiscard's offensive policy on the Balkan Peninsula failed. But the question of the southern Italian possessions of Byzantium was finally resolved under him. Robert founded the Italian state of the Normans, since he was the first to unite into one the various counties founded by his fellow tribesmen and form the Duchy of Apulia, which experienced its brilliant period under him. The decline of the duchy that followed Robert's death continued for about fifty years, when the founding of the Kingdom of Sicily opened a new era in the history of the Italian Normans. However, Robert Guiscard, according to Chalandon, “opened a new path for the ambition of his descendants: from then on, the Italian Normans would turn their gaze to the east: at the expense of the Greek empire, Bohemund, twelve years later, would plan to create a principality for himself.”

Venice, which assisted Alexei Comnenus with its fleet, received from the emperor enormous trade privileges, which created St. The brand is in an absolutely exceptional position. In addition to magnificent gifts to the Venetian churches and honorary titles with a certain content to the Doge and the Venetian Patriarch with their successors, the imperial charter of Alexius, or chrisovul, as charters with the golden imperial seal were called in Byzantium, granted Venetian merchants the right to buy and sell throughout the entire empire and freed them from all customs, port and other trade-related fees; Byzantine officials could not inspect their goods. In the capital itself, the Venetians received a whole quarter with numerous shops and barns and three sea piers, which in the East were called rocks (maritimas tres scalas), where Venetian ships could freely load and unload. Chrysovul Alexei gives an interesting list of the most important commercial Byzantine points, coastal and inland, open to Venice, in northern Syria, Asia Minor, on the Balkan Peninsula and Greece, on the islands, ending with Constantinople, which in the document is called Megalopolis, i.e. Great city. In turn, the Venetians promised to be loyal subjects of the empire.

The benefits granted to Venetian merchants put them in a more favorable position than the Byzantines themselves. Chrysobulus of Alexei Komnenos laid a solid foundation for the colonial power of Venice in the East and created such conditions for its economic dominance in Byzantium, which, it seemed, should have made it impossible for a long time for the emergence of other competitors in this area. However, these same exceptional economic privileges granted to Venice later served, under changed circumstances, as one of the reasons for the political clashes of the Eastern Empire with the Republic of St. Brand.

HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE
(Time before the Crusades: before 1081)

A. G. Grusheva. “Toward the re-release of a series of general works by A. A. Vasiliev on the history of Byzantium”

2. List of works by A. A. Vasiliev

3. Prefaces

Chapter 1. Essay on the development of the history of Byzantium

1. Brief outline of the development of the history of Byzantium in the West

2. General popular reviews of the history of Byzantium

3. Essay on the development of the history of Byzantium in Russia

4. Periodicals, reference books, papyrology

Chapter 2. Empire from the time of Constantine to Justinian the Great

1. Constantine the Great and Christianity

2. “Conversion” of Constantine

3. Arianism and the first Ecumenical Council

4. Founding of Constantinople

5. Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine

6. Emperors and society from Constantine the Great to the beginning of the sixth century

7. Constantius (337–361)

8. Julian the Apostate (361–363)

9. Church and state at the end of the 4th century

10. Germanic (Gothic) question in the 4th century

11. National and religious interests of the era

12. Arkady (395–408)

13. John Chrysostom

14. Theodosius II Small, or Younger (408–450)

15. Theological disputes and the third Ecumenical Council

16. Walls of Constantinople

17. Marcian (450–457) and Leo I (457–474). Aspar

18. Fourth Ecumenical Council

19. Zeno (474–491), Odoacer and Theodoric of Ostrogoth

20. Act of Unity

21. Anastasius I (491–518)

22. General conclusions

23. Literature, education and art

Chapter 3. Justinian the Great and his immediate successors (518–610)

1. The reign of Justinian and Theodora

2. Wars with the Vandals, Ostrogoths and Visigoths; their results. Persia. Slavs

3. The significance of Justinian's foreign policy

4. Legislative activity of Justinian. Tribonian

6. Domestic policy Justinian. The Nika Rebellion

7. Taxation and financial problems

8. Trade during the reign of Justinian

9. Cosma Indicoplov

10. Protection of Byzantine trade

11. Immediate successors of Justinian

12. War with the Persians

13. Slavs and Avars

14. Religious Affairs

15. Formation of exarchates and coup of 610

16. Question about the Slavs in Greece

17. Literature, education and art

Chapter 4. The era of the dynasty of Heraclius (610–717)

1. Foreign policy problems. Persian Wars and campaigns against Avars and Slavs

2. The significance of Heraclius's Persian campaigns

4. Muhammad and Islam

5. Reasons for the Arab conquests of the 7th century

6. Conquests of the Arabs until the beginning of the 8th century. Constantine IV and the Arab siege of Constantinople

7. Slavic advance on the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor. Foundation of the Bulgarian Kingdom

9. Religious policy of the dynasty. Monothelitism and the Statement of Faith (ekphesis)

10. "Pattern of Faith" Constant II

11. Sixth Ecumenical Council and Church Peace

12. The emergence and development of the feminine system

13. Troubles of 711–717

14. Literature, education and art

Chapter 5. Iconoclastic era (717–867)

1. Isaurian, or Syrian, dynasty (717–802)

2. Relations with Arabs, Bulgarians and Slavs

3. The internal activities of the emperors of the Isaurian, or Syrian, dynasty

4. Religious contradictions of the first period of iconoclasm

5. Coronation of Charlemagne and the significance of this event for the Byzantine Empire

6. Results of the activities of the Isaurian dynasty

7. Successors of the Isaurian house and the time of the Amorian, or Phrygian, dynasty (820–867)

9. First Russian attack on Constantinople

10. Fight against Western Arabs

11. Byzantium and the Bulgarians during the era of the Amorian dynasty

12. The second period of iconoclasm and the Restoration of Orthodoxy. Division of churches in the 9th century

13. Literature, education and art

Chapter 6. The era of the Macedonian dynasty (867–1081)

1. The question of the origin of the Macedonian dynasty

2. External activities of the rulers of the Macedonian dynasty. Relations of Byzantium to the Arabs and to Armenia

3. Relations between the Byzantine Empire and the Bulgarians and Magyars

4. Byzantine Empire and Rus'

5. Pecheneg problem

6. Relations of Byzantium to Italy and Western Europe

7. Social and political development. Church affairs

8. Legislative activity of the Macedonian emperors. Social and economic relations in the empire. Prochiron and Epanagoge

9. Provincial government

10. Time of Troubles (1056–1081)

11. Seljuk Turks

12. Pechenegs

13. Normans

14. Enlightenment, science, literature and art

Index of names

To the re-release of a series of general works by A. A. Vasiliev on the history of Byzantium ( A. G. Grushevoy )

1. The main milestones in the life of A. A. Vasiliev

In the next volumes of the “Byzantine Library” series, the publishing house “Aletheia” begins to publish a series of general works by A. A. Vasilyev on Byzantine studies. In this regard, it seems necessary to say a few words about the author, his works on the history of Byzantium and the principles underlying the proposed publication.

It is quite difficult to write about the biography of A. A. Vasilyev (1867–1953), because there is almost no literature about him 1 , there is also no archive of the scientist in Russia, and therefore the systematized information about his life presented below, taken from various sources, cannot claim to be a comprehensive picture of his life 2.

Alexander Alexandrovich Vasiliev was born in St. Petersburg in 1867. He studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University and received a broad education both in the field of oriental languages ​​(Arabic and Turkish) and history, as well as in classical languages ​​and history, not counting the obligatory modern languages. According to A. A. Vasiliev himself, his scientific fate was determined by chance. He was advised to study Byzantine studies by his teacher of Arabic, the famous Baron V. R. Rosen, who sent him to the no less famous Byzantinist V. G. Vasilievsky. The subsequent favorable reception of V. G. Vasilievsky 3 and the first acquaintance with Byzantine history as presented by Gibbon helped him choose the direction of specialization. Let us note, however, that good training in oriental studies allowed A. A. Vasiliev not only to combine Byzantine studies and Arabic studies 4 in his work, but also to prove himself an Arabist in the proper sense of the word. A. A. Vasiliev prepared critical editions with translations into French of two Arab Christian historians - Agafia and Yahya ibn Said [Yahya ibn Said] 5. Apparently, A. A. Vasiliev had another opportunity to prove himself as a professional orientalist. Judging by one letter to M.I. Rostovtsev dated August 14, 1942 6, A.A. Vasiliev taught Arabic at St. Petersburg University for some time. The mentioned letter refers, among other things, to the fact that A. A. Vasiliev taught the literary critic G. L. Lozinsky the basics of the Arabic language at the university.

For the scientific fate of A. A. Vasiliev, the three years he spent abroad as a scholarship holder at the Faculty of History and Philology were of great importance. Thanks to the support of V. G. Vasilievsky, P. V. Nikitin and I. V. Pomyalovsky, A. A. Vasiliev spent 1897–1900. in Paris with a scholarship of first 600 rubles per year, then 1500 rubles. In France, he continued his study of oriental languages ​​(Arabic, Turkish and Ethiopian). During these same years, he prepared master's and doctoral dissertations on the relationship between Byzantium and the Arabs. Soon these works took the form of a two-volume monograph, translated - although much later - into French(see list of works by A. A. Vasiliev below).

In the spring of 1902, together with N. Ya. Marr, A. A. Vasiliev undertook a trip to Sinai, to the monastery of St. Catherine. He was interested in the manuscripts of Agathius stored there. In the same year, A. A. Vasiliev spent several months in Florence, also working on the manuscripts of Agathius. The edition of the text prepared by him was quickly published in the famous French publication Patrologia Orientalis 7. The publication of the text of the second Arab Christian historian - Yahya ibn Said - was prepared by A. A. Vasiliev and I. Yu. Krachkovsky later, in the twenties and thirties.

The scientific career of A. A. Vasiliev was successful. In 1904–1912 he was a professor at Dorpat (Yuryev) University 8. A. A. Vasiliev also took part in the work of the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople, which existed before the First World War. In 1912–1922 he was a professor and dean of the historical and philological faculty of the St. Petersburg (then Petrograd) Pedagogical Institute. From the same 1912 to 1925, A. A. Vasiliev was a professor at Petrograd (then Leningrad) University. In addition, A. A. Vasiliev worked at RAIMK (GAIMK) 9, where from 1919 he held the position of head. category of archeology and ancient Christian and Byzantine art. In 1920–1925 he was already the chairman of RAIMK.

It should also be noted that since 1919 A. A. Vasiliev was a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Without reference to sources, the authors of the publication of letters from M. I. Rostovtsev to A. A. Vasiliev report that by a resolution of the General Meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences dated June 2, 195, A. A. Vasiliev was expelled from the USSR Academy of Sciences and reinstated only posthumously, on March 22, 1990 g. 10.

In 1934 he was elected a member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences. In subsequent years, A. A. Vasiliev was also president of the Institute. N.P. Kondakova in Prague, a member of the American Academy of the Middle Ages and - in the last years of his life - chairman of the International Association of Byzantinists.

The turning point in the life of A. A. Vasiliev was 1925, when he went on an official foreign business trip, without any special thought of emigrating from Russia. However, several meetings in Paris with M.I. Rostovtsev, a famous Russian scholar of antiquity, who left Russia quite deliberately, decided the fate of A.A. Vasiliev. M.I. Rostovtsev back in 1924 offered A.A. Vasiliev assistance in obtaining a place at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) due to the fact that M.I. Rostovtsev himself was moving from Madison to New Haven 11 .

A. A. Vasiliev agreed and, having left for Berlin and Paris in the summer of 1925, in France he boarded a ship to New York, having an official invitation for a year from the University of Wisconsin. In the autumn of the same 1925, he already had a job in America. The letters of A. A. Vasiliev preserved in the Archive of S. A. Zhebelev and other scientists show at the same time that A. A. Vasiliev himself regularly continued to make requests through S. A. Zhebelev to give his status an official character - he asked about the official extension of his business trip. His requests were satisfied by the People's Commissariat for Education and confirmed by the Academy of Sciences. However, in the end, July 1, 1928 was recognized as the deadline for extending his assignment. A. A. Vasiliev did not return either by this date or at any time later. The letter to S.A. Zhebelev, in which he explained the reasons for this, looks very diplomatic, soft, but most likely does not reveal the main thing 12, because the words of A.A. Vasiliev about the concluded contracts, the improved work, the lack of income in Leningrad have , undoubtedly, an attitude towards the current situation 13 , but something is left in the shadows.

Due to the fact that A. A. Vasiliev’s archive is located in the USA, here we unwittingly enter the realm of speculation. However, to characterize him as a person, it is extremely important to at least try to answer why A. A. Vasiliev accepted M. I. Rostovtsev’s invitation to work in Madison and why he ultimately remained in the USA. There are few opportunities to judge this, and yet several subtle, maliciously ironic remarks in the text of his “History of the Byzantine Empire” (for example, about Slavophilism in the USSR after the Second World War) allow us to assert that the entire ideological and political situation in the USSR was A.A. .Vasiliev is deeply alien. The ease with which A. A. Vasiliev decided to move to America is also largely explained by the fact that he was not held back by family ties. Judging by the available documents, he had a brother and a sister, but he remained single all his life 14 .

A comparison of some facts makes it possible, it seems, to identify another important reason for A. A. Vasilyev’s determination to leave. It was already mentioned above that at the turn of the century, for about five years in total, A. A. Vasiliev worked very fruitfully abroad, being a scholarship holder and while on official business trips. If we take into account all the features of the development of the USSR in the twenties and thirties, then one cannot help but admit that the opportunity to work in foreign scientific centers for A. A. Vasiliev became increasingly problematic - scientific trips abroad became over time not the norm, but the exception to the rule, especially for scientists of the old formation. The materials cited by I. V. Kuklina show that after moving to America, A. A. Vasiliev spent most of his free time on the road, traveling sometimes for the purpose of scientific work, sometimes just as a tourist.

The presented material allows us to come to a somewhat unexpected, but according to the logic of events, a completely logical conclusion. One of the subjectively important reasons for A. A. Vasiliev’s departure should have been the desire to retain the opportunity to freely move around the world for both scientific and tourist purposes. He could not help but understand that in the conditions of the USSR in the twenties and thirties, no one could guarantee him this.

In other words, in 1925–1928. A. A. Vasiliev faced a choice - either Soviet Russia, in which the political regime and living conditions became alien to him 15, or another country, but a much more understandable ideological and political situation and familiar lifestyle.

Not without hesitation, A. A. Vasiliev chose the second. What is the reason for the hesitation? The point here, apparently, is the character traits of A. A. Vasiliev, who was, apparently, not a very decisive person, who always preferred compromises and the absence of conflicts 16. Probably, we can also say that A. A. Vasiliev did not feel comfortable and cozy in America in everything. There is almost no information in the surviving letters about A. A. Vasilyev’s perception of America. However, it is no coincidence, of course, that A. A. Vasiliev wrote to M. I. Rostovtsev in August 1942: “Do I have it, this joy of life? Isn’t this a long-standing habit of appearing to be something other than who I am? After all, in essence, you have more reasons to love life. Don’t forget that I always have to try to fill my loneliness - to fill it artificially, of course, externally” 17. It is quite possible that these words - an involuntary recognition of forced pretense and carefully hidden escape from loneliness - are key to understanding the inner world, psychology and activity of A. A. Vasiliev as a person in the second period of his life. Only new publications of archival documents can confirm or not confirm this 18. Be that as it may, it seems important to emphasize the following fact from his biography.

The scientific biography of Alexander Alexandrovich was brilliant, however, working until his last days, spending his life on numerous trips, on a personal level he remained lonely and died in a nursing home.

In America, most of his life was connected with Madison and the University of Wisconsin. A. A. Vasiliev spent the last ten years in Washington, in the famous Byzantine center Dumbarton Oaks, where in 1944–1948. he was a Senior Scholar, and from 1949-1953. - Scholar Emeritus.

2. “History of the Byzantine Empire”

In the scientific heritage of A. A. Vasilyev, two subjects occupy a special place, which became the most important in his entire long career. scientific life. These are Byzantine-Arab relations 19 and a series of general works on the history of Byzantium, which is now being republished, covering the entire period of the existence of the empire. Unlike his older contemporary, Yu. A. Kulakovsky, for whom writing a general plan on the history of Byzantium 20 became the main scientific work, the role of the “History of the Byzantine Empire” in the scientific heritage of Alexander Alexandrovich is different.

The original Russian text of the work was published in four volumes between 1917 and 1925. The most processed is the first volume of the original Russian version of the publication - “Lectures on the history of Byzantium. Volume 1: Time before the Crusades (before 1081)" (Pg., 1917). The book is a summary of the events of the period under review, without notes, with minimal literature on the issue at the end of the chapters, with chronological and genealogical tables. There are almost no conclusions in the book, as well as many sections that A. A. Vasiliev added later. In a purely technical (typographical) sense, the book was published poorly. Noteworthy is the very low-grade paper and fuzzy printing in places 21 .

Three small volumes, which are a continuation of the 1917 edition 22 and published in 1923–1925, look fundamentally different in all respects. publishing house "Academia":

A. A. Vasiliev. History of Byzantium. Byzantium and the Crusaders. The era of the Comneni (1081–1185) and Angels (1185–1204). Petersburg, 1923;

A. A. Vasiliev. History of Byzantium. Latin rule in the East. Pg., 1923;

A. A. Vasiliev. History of Byzantium. Fall of Byzantium. Age of Palaiologos (1261–1453). L., 1925.

Lectures by A. A. Vasiliev and the above three monographs constituted that cycle of general works on Byzantine history, which the author revised and republished throughout his life. As can be seen from the list of references, the general history of Byzantium by A. A. Vasiliev exists in publications in many languages, but the main ones are the following three: the first American - History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1–2. Madison, 1928–1929; French - Histoire de l’Empire Byzantin, vol. 1–2. Paris, 1932; second American edition - History of the Byzantine Empire, 324–1453. Madison, 1952. The latest edition is in one volume, achieved by printing on thinner paper.

The second American edition is the most scientifically advanced. It is important, however, to note that, despite numerous insertions and additions, despite the abundance of notes, the second American edition and the original Russian versions turn out to be strikingly close. It is enough to put them side by side to discover with considerable amazement that at least 50% of the text of the latest American edition is a direct translation from the original Russian versions 23 . The number of insertions and additions is indeed large 24, and yet the original Russian versions of 1917–1925 continue to form the basis, the backbone of even the latest American edition of the work 25. That is why this edition is based on the method of textual analysis, and not a direct translation of the entire text from the 1952 edition.

In all those cases when a Russian prototext was identified for the English text of the work, the editor reproduced the corresponding passages of the original Russian versions based on the fact that it makes no sense to translate into Russian what already exists in Russian. This reproduction, however, was never mechanical, because the processing of the text of the original Russian versions by A. A. Vasiliev was multifaceted - individual words and phrases were most often removed for stylistic reasons, in some cases phrases were rearranged. Quite often, A. A. Vasiliev resorted to a different organization of text on the page - as a rule, in the second American edition, the paragraphs, compared to the original Russian versions, are larger. In all such controversial cases, preference was given to the latest American edition.

Thus, the text of A. A. Vasiliev’s work given in these volumes is dual in its composition. In approximately 50–60% of cases this is a reproduction of the corresponding passages of the original Russian versions, in approximately 40–50% it is a translation from English.

All inserts and additions, as well as most of the notes, have been translated from English. The last reservation is due to the fact that a number of notes not specifically noted were translated from the French edition. This is explained by the following circumstance. A. A. Vasiliev, shortening the text of the notes when preparing the second American edition, sometimes shortened them so much that some information essential to the characteristics of the book or journal was lost 26 .

The consolidated bibliographic list at the end of the work is reproduced almost unchanged, with the exception of the separation of Russian and foreign works accepted in Russia. The appearance in the bibliography of a certain number of works published after the death of A. A. Vasiliev is explained by the following two points. A. A. Vasiliev quotes some well-known Russian authors in English translations (A. I. Herzen, P. Ya. Chaadaev), with reference to English translations A. A. Vasiliev also gives quotes from some authors or works that are world famous (Hegel, Montesquieu, the Koran). In all these cases, A. A. Vasiliev’s references were replaced with the latest Russian publications. According to the 1996 edition (Aletheia publishing house), the famous Russian Byzantinist of the early century, Yu. A. Kulakovsky, is also quoted.

The index for the work has been compiled anew, but taking into account the index of the latest American edition.

In conclusion, a few words about the characteristics of the work as a whole and its place in the history of science. “The History of the Byzantine Empire” by A. A. Vasiliev is one of the unique phenomena in the history of historical thought. Indeed, there are very few general histories of Byzantium written by one researcher. One can recall two German works, written and published somewhat earlier than the works of A. A. Vasiliev. This - G. F. Hertzberg. Geschichte der Byzantiner und des Osmanischen Reiches bis gegen Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts. Berlin, 1883 27; H. Gelzer. Abriss der byzantinischen Kaisergeschichte. Munich, 1897. All other general works on Byzantine history, written by one author, were written by Russian researchers, mainly students of Academician V. G. Vasilievsky 28 .These are Yu. A. Kulakovsky, F. I. Uspensky, A. A. Vasiliev, G. A. Ostrogorsky. Of the works written by these authors, only the work of F. I. Uspensky 29 and the published series of works by D. A. Vasiliev truly cover all aspects of the life of the empire. Comprehensive in its coverage of material, “History of Byzantium” by Yu. A. Kulakovsky was brought only to the beginning of the Isaurian dynasty. The repeatedly republished work of G. A. Ostrogorsky “Geschichte des byzantinischen Staates” describes the history of Byzantium primarily as the history of the state and state institutions.

Thus, the work of A. A. Vasiliev is in many respects comparable to the “History of the Byzantine Empire” by F. I. Uspensky, however, as will be shown below, there are also significant differences between them.

“History of the Byzantine Empire” by A. A. Vasiliev is an excellent example of a general work, where all periods of the history of Byzantium are briefly, clearly, with a large number of references to the main sources and research. Foreign policy history is presented in full by A. A. Vasiliev. The problems of internal history are treated unevenly, although the main problems of the internal life of each period are touched upon or mentioned. Each chapter, that is, each period, respectively, ends with A. A. Vasiliev with a characteristic of literature and art 30. The problems of trade and trade relations are considered only in connection with Cosmas Indicopleus and the time of Justinian. A. A. Vasiliev almost does not touch upon the peculiarities of life in the provinces. For some reason, the problems of social and economic relations in the empire are considered in detail only for the time of the Macedonian dynasty.

The uniqueness of A. A. Vasiliev’s work lies, among other things, in a fairly successful attempt to synthesize the achievements of Western European, American and Russian historical science. The work is replete with references to the works of Russian and Soviet historians, which in general is not very typical for Western European and American science.

The peculiarities of the work include the manner of presenting the material. The author presents events in a narrative style without primarily providing explanations or interpretations. The exception is some particularly important events, such as the Arab conquests, iconoclasm or the Crusades. The explanation of A. A. Vasiliev in this case consists in a systematic presentation of all available points of view on this issue 31 .

A significant difference between the work of A. A. Vasiliev and the “History of the Byzantine Empire” by F. I. Uspensky, as well as in general from studies of Russian Byzantine studies, should be called inattention to problems of a socio-economic nature 32 . Behind this, it seems, was partly the lack of interest of A. A. Vasilyev 33 in this issue, and partly - one objective factor.

All reprints of A. A. Vasiliev’s work refer to the American period of his life. In the USA, it is no coincidence that Alexander Alexandrovich is considered the founder of American Byzantine studies. In the mid-twenties, A. A. Vasiliev began his activities almost from scratch 34. That is why it is clear that what was expected from A. A. Vasiliev in the United States was not narrowly specialized research, 35 but rather the development of a general, comprehensive course on the history of Byzantium. The work of A. A. Vasiliev fully satisfied these requirements.

It is possible that this particular one general character the work of A. A. Vasilyev, the peculiarities of presentation, when problems are not so much revealed as described, as well as inattention to socio-economic issues led to the following unexpected fact. “The History of the Byzantine Empire” exists in translations into many languages, but it is practically not referred to in scientific literature, unlike, for example, “The History of the Byzantine Empire” by F.I. Uspensky.

This fact, however, can be understood if you look at the work of A. A. Vasiliev from the other side. In contrast to the three-volume “History of Byzantium” by Yu. A. Kulakovsky, which remained in history precisely thanks to its extremely detailed presentation and fictionalized presentation, “The History of the Byzantine Empire” by A. A. Vasiliev is distinguished by a much more concise presentation and a more academic style of presentation of the material , although at the same time with a considerable number of subtle, maliciously ironic remarks, sometimes addressed to the characters of Byzantine history, sometimes to the contemporaries of A. A. Vasiliev.

More significant, however, is something else. As already noted, despite all the additions and insertions, despite the abundance of new notes, the general nature of the work of A. A. Vasiliev from 1917 to 1952. did not change. His work, written and published as a course of lectures, a set of material for students, remained as such. It is no coincidence that the percentage of direct textual correspondence between the 1952 edition and the original Russian versions is so high: A. A. Vasiliev did not change the essence of the work. He constantly changed and modernized the scientific apparatus 36, took into account the latest points of view on this or that issue, but at the same time he never went beyond the framework of the genre that requires only a competent presentation of facts and only outlines, a brief indication of the scientific problems that are associated with one period or another. This applies not only to problems of internal life, social and public relations, mainly not considered by A. A. Vasiliev 37, but also to problems, for example, source study, analyzed by the author in some detail. Thus, having mentioned the extremely complex history of the text of George Amartol, A. A. Vasiliev only lightly touched upon the no less complex - albeit somewhat different - history of the text of John Malala 38 .

To summarize, I would like to note that “The History of the Byzantine Empire” by A. A. Vasiliev was written, in a certain sense of the word, in the traditions of two schools of Byzantine studies - Russian and Western European, without completely fitting into either of them. A. A. Vasiliev returned to his “History of the Byzantine Empire” several times throughout his life, but this work, apparently, should not be called the main scientific work of Alexander Alexandrovich. This book is not a study of the history of Byzantium. Due to the above-mentioned features of his “History of the Byzantine Empire” work, this exposition of Byzantine history, in which all problematic issues are relegated to the background, being either only named or described externally. The latter circumstance is explained primarily by the role played by A. A. Vasiliev in the scientific life of the USA. Having, by the will of fate, turned out to be the actual founder of American Byzantine studies, A. A. Vasiliev was forced, first of all, to develop not specific problems, but the general course of the history of Byzantium as a whole.

Any phenomenon, however, must be assessed by what it gives. And in this sense, “The History of the Byzantine Empire” by A. A. Vasiliev can give the modern reader a lot, for recent general works on the history of Byzantium existing in Russian (the three-volume “History of Byzantium” (M., 1967); the three-volume “Culture of Byzantium” ( M., 1984–1991)), are unequal when written by different authors and are aimed mainly at specialists. Until now, there has not been a complete presentation of the history of Byzantium in Russian, which would be concise, clear and well-written, with a modern scientific apparatus that allows one to make inquiries and, to a first approximation, understand the problems of any period of Byzantine history. These indisputable and very important advantages of A. A. Vasiliev’s work will ensure its long life among a fairly wide range of readers.

A few final words about editor's notes. They are mainly devoted to textual issues related to understanding the text, or to discrepancies between the original Russian version and subsequent editions in foreign languages. The editor did not specifically set himself the goal of completely modernizing the scientific apparatus of A. A. Vasiliev’s work, taking into account the latest points of view on all the problems discussed in the book. This was done only in some of the most important places, as well as in those cases where the views of A. A. Vasiliev were outdated in the light of research published in recent years.

In the next volumes of the “Byzantine Library” series, the publishing house “Aletheia” begins to publish a series of general works by A.A. Vasiliev on Byzantine studies. In this regard, it seems necessary to say a few words about the author, his works on the history of Byzantium and the principles underlying the proposed publication.

Write about the biography of A.A. Vasiliev (1867-1953) is quite difficult, because there is almost no literature about him, there is also no archive of the scientist in Russia, and therefore the systematized information about his life presented below, taken from various sources, cannot claim to be an exhaustive picture of his life.

Alexander Alexandrovich Vasiliev was born in St. Petersburg in 1867. He studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University and received a broad education both in the field of oriental languages ​​(Arabic and Turkish) and history, as well as in classical languages ​​and history, not counting the obligatory modern languages. According to A.A. himself Vasiliev, his scientific fate was determined by chance. He was advised to study Byzantine studies by his Arabic language teacher, the famous Baron V.R. Rosen, who directed him to the no less famous Byzantinist V.G. Vasilievsky. The subsequent favorable reception of V.G. Vasilievsky and his first acquaintance with Byzantine history as presented by Gibbon, helped him choose the direction of specialization. We note, however, that good training in oriental studies allowed A.A. Vasiliev not only combine Byzantine studies and Arabic studies in his work, but also prove himself an Arabist in the proper sense of the word. A.A. Vasiliev prepared critical editions with translations into French of two Arab Christian historians - Agafia and Yahya ibn Said. Apparently, A.A. Vasilyev had another opportunity to prove himself as a professional orientalist. Judging by one letter from M.I. Rostovtsev dated August 14, 1942, A.A. Vasiliev taught Arabic at St. Petersburg University for some time. The said letter states, among other things, that A.A. Vasiliev taught literary critic G.L. at the university. Lozinsky basics of the Arabic language.

For the scientific fate of A.A. Vasilyev’s three years spent abroad as a scholarship holder at the Faculty of History and Philology were of great importance. Thanks to the support of V.G. Vasilievsky, P.V. Nikitin and I.V. Pomyalovsky A.A. Vasiliev spent 1897-1900. in Paris with a scholarship of 600 rubles per year at first, then 1,500 rubles. In France, he continued his study of oriental languages ​​(Arabic, Turkish and Ethiopian). During these same years, he prepared master's and doctoral dissertations on the relationship between Byzantium and the Arabs. Soon these works took the form of a two-volume monograph, translated, however, much later into French (see the list of works of A.V. Vasiliev below).

In the spring of 1902, together with N.Ya. Marrom, A.A. Vasiliev took a trip to Sinai, to the monastery of St. Catherine. He was interested in the manuscripts of Agathius stored there. In the same year A.A. Vasiliev spent several months in Florence, also working on the manuscripts of Agathius. The edition of the text he prepared was quickly published in the famous French publication Patrologia Orientalist. The publication of the text of the second Arab Christian historian, Yahya ibn Said, was prepared by A.A. Vasiliev and I.Yu. Krachkovsky later - in the twenties and thirties.

Scientific career of A.A. Vasilyeva was successful. In 1904-1912. he was a professor at Dorpat (Yuryev) University. Received by A.A. Vasiliev also participated in the work of the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople, which existed before the First World War. In 1912-1922. he was a professor and dean of the historical and philological faculty of the St. Petersburg (then Petrograd) Pedagogical Institute. From the same 1912 to 1925 A.A. Vasiliev was a professor at Petrograd (then Leningrad) University. In addition, A.A. Vasiliev worked at RAIMK-GAIMK, where since 1919 he held the position of head. category of archeology and art of Ancient Christian and Byzantine. In 1920-1925 he was already the chairman of RAIMK.

It should also be noted that since 1919 A.A. Vasiliev was a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Without reference to sources, the authors of the publication of letters to M.I. Rostovtsev to A.A. Vasiliev is informed that by the resolution of the General Meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences dated June 2, 1925, A.A. Vasiliev was expelled from the USSR Academy of Sciences and reinstated only posthumously, on March 22, 1990.

In 1934 he was elected a member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences. In subsequent years, A.A. Vasiliev was also the president of the Institute. N.P. Kondakov in Prague, a member of the American Academy of the Middle Ages and - in the last years of his life - chairman of the International Association of Byzantinists.

A turning point in the life of A.A. Vasilyev began in 1925, when he went on an official foreign business trip, without any special thought of emigrating from Russia. However, several meetings in Paris with M.I. Rostovtsev, a famous Russian antiquarian who left Russia quite deliberately, decided the fate of A.A. Vasilyeva. M.I. Rostovtsev suggested to A.A. back in 1924. Vasiliev received assistance in obtaining a place at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) due to the fact that M.I. Rostovtsev was moving from Madison to New Haven.

A.A. Vasiliev agreed and, having left for Berlin and Paris in the summer of 1925, in France he boarded a ship to New York, having an official invitation for a year from the University of Wisconsin. In the autumn of the same 1925, he already had a job in America. Preserved in the Archives of S.A. Zhebelev and other scientists letters to A.A. Vasiliev show at the same time that A.A. himself. Vasiliev regularly continued to make requests through S.A. Zhebelev about making his status official - he asked for an official extension of his business trip. His requests were satisfied by the People's Commissariat for Education and confirmed by the Academy of Sciences. However, in the end, July 1, 1928 was recognized as the deadline for extending his assignment. A.A. Vasiliev did not return either by this date or at any time later. Letter from S.A. Zhebelev, in which he explained the reasons for this, looks very diplomatic, soft, but, most likely, does not reveal the main thing, because the words of A.A. Vasiliev about the concluded contracts, the improved work, the lack of income in Leningrad are undoubtedly related to the current situation, but they leave something in the shadows.

Due to the fact that the archive of A.A. Vasilyeva is in the USA, here we unwittingly enter the realm of speculation. However, to characterize him as a person, it is extremely important to at least try to answer why A.A. Vasiliev accepted M.I.’s invitation. Rostovtsev about working in Madison and why he ultimately stayed in the USA. There are few opportunities to judge this, and yet several subtle, maliciously ironic remarks in the text of his “History of the Byzantine Empire” (for example, about Slavophilism in the USSR after the Second World War) allow us to assert that the entire ideological and political situation in the USSR was A.A. . Vasiliev is deeply alien. The ease with which A.A. Vasiliev decided to move to America, largely due to the fact that he was not held back by family ties. Judging by the available documents, he had a brother and a sister, but he remained single all his life.

A comparison of some facts makes it possible, it seems, to identify another important reason for A.A.’s determination. Vasilyeva to leave. It was already mentioned above that at the turn of the century, about five years in total, A.A. Vasiliev worked very fruitfully abroad, being a scholarship holder and while on official business trips. If we take into account all the features of the development of the USSR in the twenties and thirties, then we cannot but admit that the opportunity to work in foreign scientific centers for A.A. Vasiliev’s position became more and more problematic - scientific trips abroad became over time not the norm, but an exception to the rule, especially for scientists of the old formation. Materials provided by I.V. Kuklina, show that after moving to America A.A. Vasiliev spent most of his free time on the road, traveling sometimes for the purpose of scientific work, sometimes just as a tourist.

The presented material allows one to come to something unexpected, but according to the logic of events, a completely logical conclusion. One of the subjectively important for A.A. Vasiliev’s reasons for leaving should have been the desire to retain the opportunity to freely move around the world for both scientific and tourist purposes. He could not help but understand that in the conditions of the USSR in the twenties and thirties, no one could guarantee him this.

In other words, in 1925-1928. in front of A.A. Vasiliev had a choice - either Soviet Russia, in which the political regime and living conditions became alien to him, or another country, but a much more understandable ideological and political situation and familiar lifestyle.

Not without hesitation A.A. Vasiliev chose the second. What is the reason for the hesitation? The point here, apparently, is the character traits of A.A. Vasiliev, who was, apparently, not a very decisive person, who always preferred compromises and the absence of conflicts. We can probably also say that A.A. Vasiliev did not feel at all comfortable and cozy in America. In the surviving letters about the perception of America by A.A. Vasilyev has almost no information. However, it is no coincidence, of course, that A.A. Vasiliev wrote to M.I. Rostovtsev in August 1942: “Do I have it, this joy of life? Isn’t this a long-standing habit of appearing to be something other than who I am? After all, in essence, you have more reasons to love life. Don’t forget that I always have to try to fill my loneliness - to fill it artificially, of course, externally.” It is quite possible that these words - an involuntary recognition of forced pretense and carefully hidden escape from loneliness - are key to understanding the inner world, psychology and activities of A.A. Vasiliev as a person in the second period of his life. Only new publications of archival documents can confirm or not confirm this. Be that as it may, it seems important to emphasize the following fact from his biography.

The scientific biography of Alexander Alexandrovich was brilliant, however, working until his last days, spending his life on numerous travels, on a personal level he remained lonely and died in a nursing home.

In America, most of his life was connected with Madison and the University of Wisconsin. For the last ten years A.A. Vasiliev spent time in Washington, in the famous Byzantine center Dumbarton Oaks, where in 1944-1948. he was a Senior Scholar, and from 1949-1953. – Scholar Emeritus.

In the scientific heritage of A.A. Vasilyev’s work is occupied by two subjects that became the most important in his entire long scientific life. These are Byzantine-Arab relations and a series of general works on the history of Byzantium, which is now being republished, covering the entire period of the existence of the empire. Unlike his older contemporary, Yu.A. Kulakovsky, for whom writing a general plan on the history of Byzantium became the main scientific work, the role of “History of the Byzantine Empire” in the scientific heritage of Alexander Alexandrovich is different.

The original Russian text of the work was published in four volumes between 1917 and 1925. The most processed is the first volume of the original Russian version of the publication - “Lectures on the history of Byzantium. Volume 1. Time before the Crusades (before 1081)" (Pg., 1917). The book is a summary of the events of the period under review, without notes, with minimal literature on the issue at the end of the chapters, with chronological and genealogical tables. There are almost no conclusions in the book, as well as many sections added by A.A. Vasilyev later. In a purely technical (typographical) sense, the book was published poorly. Noteworthy is the very low-grade paper and fuzzy printing in places.

Three small volumes, a continuation of the 1917 edition, published in 1923-1925, look fundamentally different in all respects. publishing house "Academia":

A.A. Vasiliev. History of Byzantium. Byzantium and the Crusaders. The era of the Comneni (1081-1185) and Angels (1185-1204). Petersburg, 1923;

A.A. Vasiliev. History of Byzantium. Latin rule in the East. Pg., 1923;

A.A. Vasiliev. History of Byzantium. Fall of Byzantium. The Age of Palaiologos (1261-1453). L., 1925.

Lectures by A.A. Vasiliev and the above three monographs constituted that cycle of general works on Byzantine history, which the author revised and republished throughout his life. As can be seen from the list of references, the general history of Byzantium A.A. Vasiliev exists in publications in many languages, but the main ones are the following three: the first American - History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. 1-2. Madison, 1928-1929; French - Histoire de l "Empire Byzantin, vol. 1-2. Paris, 1932; second American edition - History of the Byzantine Empire, 324-1453. Madison, 1952. The latest edition is made in one volume, which was achieved by printing on thinner paper.

The second American edition is the most scientifically advanced. It is important, however, to note that, despite numerous insertions and additions, despite the abundance of notes, the second American edition and the original Russian versions turn out to be strikingly close. It is enough to put them side by side in order to discover with considerable amazement that at least 50% of the text of the latest American edition is a direct translation from the original Russian versions. The number of inserts and additions is really large, and yet the original Russian versions of 1917-1925. continue to form the basis, the backbone of even the latest American edition of the work. That is why this edition is based on the method of textual analysis, and not a direct translation of the entire text from the 1952 edition.

In all those cases when a Russian prototext was identified for the English text of the work, the editor reproduced the corresponding passages of the original Russian versions based on the fact that it makes no sense to translate into Russian what already exists in Russian. This reproduction, however, was never mechanical, because the processing of the text of the original Russian versions by A.A. Vasiliev was multifaceted - individual words and phrases were removed most often for stylistic reasons, in some cases phrases were rearranged. Quite often A.A. Vasiliev resorted to a different organization of text on the page - as a rule, in the second American edition the paragraphs, compared to the original Russian versions, are larger. In all such controversial cases, preference was given to the latest American edition.