1.71 - Daniil of Galicia II - Galicia and the Mongols

[00:00:26] Hello and welcome to the Russian Empire History Podcast, the history of all the peoples of the Russian Empire. I'm your host, JP Bristow, and this is Season 1, The Forest, the Steppe, and the Birth of the Russian Empire, Episode 71, Daniil of Galicia Part 2, Galicia and the Mongols.

[00:00:50] We left off last time with Prince Andrew of Hungary dead and Daniil back in Galicia. Although he may have thought that he had finally achieved his aims, you will soon find out that this is not the case. Around the same time, off to the east, messengers from the Bulgars came to Yuri of Suzdalia asking for help against an invader.

[00:01:19] Yuri consulted the other kniazs. They decided not to get involved because, the chronicler writes, of the many uprisings, conspiracies and countless wars in Rus. Vladimir Rurikovic sent his son Rostislav to support Daniil, but the situation of the Rostislavici continued to deteriorate.

[00:01:48] The conflict with Mikhail Vsevolodovic of Chernihiv continued. Lithuanian raids and the Smolensk famine reduced their fighting men. In July 1232, Sviatoslav Mstislavici, the legitimate heir to Smolensk, succeeded in overthrowing the usurper Rostislav Mstislavici,

[00:02:12] which included slaughtering many of the city's inhabitants in revenge for them supporting his rival. Mikhail of Chernihiv had his own claim to Kyiv. But Daniil repaid Vladimir's support with his own. He brought his army to Kyiv and Mikhail thought better of attacking and withdrew to Chernihiv.

[00:02:40] Daniil and Vladimir followed, looting and setting fire to the suburbs outside the city walls. They settled into a siege but grew overconfident. Seeing them off guard, Mikhail sallied out at night and fell on the Galicians, slaughtering huge numbers, almost catching and killing Daniil and sending them fleeing home.

[00:03:07] Without his allies, Vladimir also returned home. And nothing was decided. Within a few months they met in battle again near Turchesk. The chronicles tell us that Vladimir and Daniil were betrayed by godless boyars. Mikhail allowed his Paulovtsy allies to take Vladimir and hold him to ransom,

[00:03:33] and to sack Kyiv before he assumed the throne. The first Olgovich to do so in more than two decades. So, Daniil lost a key ally. And when he returned to Halic, the boyars rebelled and he was forced to leave. After the last episode you might be surprised to hear that he chose to flee to Hungary to look for help.

[00:04:03] But actually there had been a few changes in Hungary too. Andrew had died and Daniil had been invited to the coronation of the new king, Bela IV. Mikhail, of course, did not miss the opportunity to occupy Halic himself. In Kyiv, Mikhail tried to reinforce his position by turning his main rivals into subordinates.

[00:04:32] He appointed a Rostislavich, Izyaslav Mstislavich, to administer the city on condition that he hand it over to Vladimir Rurikovich once he was ransomed from the Paulovtsy. The move is likely evidence that Mikhail understood the Rostislavici were weakening and could be brought under his control.

[00:04:58] He could also be motivated by his own position. Mikhail was a legitimate claimant to Kyiv through his father, Psevolod Chomny. But due to the lack of Olgovici kniazis in Kyiv in recent decades, none of the other Olgovici kniazis had a claim. Mikhail took Halic without much effort.

[00:05:25] Besides losing Vladimir and the defeat at Turchersk, which had cost him significantly in men lost or captured by the Paulovtsy, Daniil was abandoned by many of his boyars after Vasilko refused to give them some of the loot the Galicians had gathered while pillaging Chernihiv.

[00:05:51] But Daniil was welcomed to Hungary, where Bila expressed support. But as a new king, he was still making sure he was secure and was not ready for any foreign adventures. So Daniil found himself trying to return to Halic with his men greatly reduced and no allies.

[00:06:14] The boyars turned out to be in no mood to allow him to return, and he was forced to return to Vladimir in Volinia instead. The next three years passed without change. In 1236, Mikhail, supported by a faction of Galician boyars, Kyivan forces, Paulovtsy and Polish troops from his uncle, Konrad of Mazovia, invaded Volinia.

[00:06:44] If you recall, Konrad had previously supported Daniil, so he had lost another ally. Historian Martin Dimnik argues that Mikhail was not out to take Vladimir, but rather to use it as a bargaining chip to force Daniil to relinquish his claim to Halic forever.

[00:07:09] An actual attempt to seize Vladimir, which was securely Daniil's patrimony, could have kicked off a new dynastic war. The attempt failed due to the Paulovtsy once again turning coat rather than attack Volinia. Instead, they pillaged their way across Galicia, which forced Mikhail to return to restore order.

[00:07:47] Soon after, Daniil and Vasilko made their own attempt to seize Halic. The boyars kept the city gates shut and they failed. Halic was also defended by a contingent of Hungarians, which showed that Bila was not yet ready to pick a side.

[00:08:08] Daniel gained a boost when it turned out that Yuri Sivolodovic of Sosdalia was not happy with the way that Mikhail's power was growing. The chronicle is not clear when, but it seems they formed an alliance. If you recall from last episode, Vasilko was already married to Yuri's daughter Dubravka, so there was already a kinship tie.

[00:08:35] The Paulovtsy eventually released Vladimir Rurikovic. He returned to Kyiv and his former position as Knyaz, this time at the pleasure of Mikhail, as mentioned a few minutes ago. He did not encounter any significant difficulties and it seems that the people of Kyiv were happy to welcome him back.

[00:09:03] Despite this, we have to assume that the whole episode was recognised as showing the decline of the Rostislavici and their general weakness. As a result, in 1236, Yuri sent his brother, Yaroslav, to take Kyiv over.

[00:09:26] Yaroslav arrived in Kyiv without an army and in the company of a group of Novgorodian merchants and boyars, which suggests that the decision to take Kyiv was something to do with Novgorod. It's likely that Mikhail had interrupted the trade between the two, something we've seen happen a couple of times previously, and Novgorod was now here to restore it.

[00:09:56] Yaroslav apparently did not expect and did not encounter any armed opposition. He walked into the city, Vladimir packed his bags and left for Smolensk. Mikhail was off attacking Danil in Volhynia and couldn't do anything to stop him. Although Yaroslav had a claim since Sivulod had sat on the throne of Kyiv,

[00:10:23] this was probably a mirror image of Mikhail's attack on Volhynia. It's doubtful that Yaroslav expected to hold Kyiv without any of his own troops and with Mikhail's home territory nearer than Svazdalia. And his family were not particularly popular with the townspeople. Instead, it was another bargaining chip.

[00:10:50] Kyiv for halage and free trade with Novgorod. The chronicler implies that Yaroslav even left before he was forced to, saying that he returned to Svazdal and Mikhail took Kyiv again. For Mikhail, though, it must have been a wake-up call. The ease with which Yaroslav had taken the city showed that if he was going to keep halage,

[00:11:20] he needed to do it while he was in Kyiv. So for now, he installed his son, Rostislav, in halage and continued to fight Danil. Father and son attacked Perumichil, the only Galician town that Danil still held, and took it from him.

[00:11:52] Word came that the Mongols had destroyed Bulgaria. The news seemed to make no impression on their neighbours in Svazdalia, so we should not be surprised that no one seemed to care on the other side of Rus. For Danil and the Olgovici, their own affairs were their only concern. At the end of 1236, probably rather exhausted, Danil and Mikhail reached a truce.

[00:12:24] Danil used the period of respite in Rus to negotiate with Mindogas and used the Lithuanians to retaliate against Conrad of Mazovia for attacking Volinia. This annoyed Conrad, and he asked Rostislav Mikhailovich to help him hit back at the Lithuanians. Rostislav was happy to oblige and brought his army, including the boyars, with him.

[00:12:53] As soon as they were gone, the townspeople of Halage summoned Danil and reinstalled him as Knyas. The bishop and a man named Grigori Vasilievich, who Rostislav had placed in charge of the garrison of foreign soldiers, tried to resist, but were eventually forced to yield. Now it was Rostislav's turn to flee to Hungary.

[00:13:24] If you're anything like me, you might be getting a bit frustrated by this whole narrative. The chronicles certainly give us a picture in which the people of Halage support Danil and the boyars are constantly throwing in with either the Hungarians, those foreign invaders, or the Olgovici, a family with a much weaker claim. No real explanation for either is given.

[00:13:53] We might even wonder whether any of it is true, given that the Galician-Volignian chronicle in particular was thoroughly rewritten later, with the aim of presenting Danil as hero. With Danil returned to Halage, the chronicle skips what is happening with the other towns, like Pirimishalan's Venegorod.

[00:14:19] We're left to assume that he took them back from the Olgovici as well, and that he reached some kind of settlement with the boyars, since there is nothing about punishing them. Whatever the details may be, we find Danil back in Halage in 1237, as the Mongols begin their invasion. I think that some aspects of the invasion should be becoming clearer by now.

[00:14:50] Suzdalia, as we will cover in the next episode, has been enjoying a protracted period of peace and development. Although Yuri in particular does not cover himself in glory, they were strong and well-positioned to face an invasion.

[00:15:07] The battle near Kaluga is the largest battle of the whole invasion of Europe and cost the Mongols heavy losses, including the only Chinggisid commander killed in the entire campaign. In the southwest, as we have seen in the previous episodes, the situation is as different as it could be.

[00:15:30] The Halage succession struggle has seen almost 40 years of continuous warfare among the Knazes, plus invasions by Hungarian and Polish armies. The rise of Lithuania, the never-ending rivalry with the Olgovici and famine, have sapped the strength of the Rostislavici and sent them into a clear decline.

[00:15:57] Although the Olgovici gain where the Rostislavici slip, they have not achieved a clearly secure position and still have to fight to constantly assert themselves. On the steppe, the Polovici are much reduced. You might have noticed that for the last three decades, they have appeared in the Chronicle only as allies of the Knazes.

[00:16:25] They no longer exist as an independent force. And in Halage itself, how can any Knazes feel secure? Every pretender is beset from all sides and the boyars betray them at the drop of a hat. Any time a Knazes leaves the city, they can never be sure they will be able to return. In short, as John Fennell writes in The Crisis of Medieval Russia, quote,

[00:16:56] The princes of the south were no longer capable of concerted action as they had been earlier in the century, or of forming a firm alliance against any external enemy. End quote.

[00:17:22] Even after Rezan and Suzdalya had fallen, and the Mongols withdrew to recuperate, the Knazes of south-western Rus did nothing to prepare for an attack. They moved only when the Mongols took and sacked Peryaslavl. Mikhail evidently had no faith in his ability to defend Kyiv, and he left with his family and Brugina.

[00:17:49] They headed for Kamenec, which we previously encountered as a stronghold of Danil, but which was currently held by another Olgovich, Izyaslav Vladimirovich. Before Mikhail could settle into Kamenec and organize his defenses, Yaroslav Siavolodovich of Suzdalya took him by surprise,

[00:18:14] attacked the city, captured Mikhail's wife, treasure, and numerous boyars. This attack was rather uncharacteristic. The Knazes of Suzdalya had certainly attempted to impose their authority on other Knazes, and had, of course, taken part in the conflicts over Kyiv. But this kind of invasion at distance and direct attack on a fellow senior Knazes was unusual.

[00:18:45] The chronicles provide a bare description without any explanation of Yaroslav's motivation. Historians have speculated that it was down to revenge for Mikhail's incursions into Novgorodian politics, or Mikhail being the one to expel Yaroslav and his Novgorodian merchants from Kyiv. But we should also remember that Suzdalya was allied with Danil.

[00:19:15] Danil wasted no time sending messengers to Yaroslav to remind him that Mikhail was both their enemies, and to ask Yaroslav to send Mikhail's wife, Daniel's sister in case you forgot, to him for safekeeping. Yaroslav obliged, giving Danil an advantage against Mikhail and strengthening the alliance.

[00:19:51] Following Yaroslav's intervention, Mikhail returned to Kyiv. In late 1239, the Mongols invaded the Chernihiv lands and Chernihiv surrendered on 18th October. From there, the Mongols sent envoys to the other southwestern Knazes, offering peace in exchange for acknowledgement of their overlordship and payment of a 10% tax on everything.

[00:20:21] According to the Chronicles, Mikhail, Mikhail, in Kyiv, refused. In early 1240, Mikhail received another mission from the Mongols, trying to force him to surrender.

[00:20:48] He put them to death, just like Mstislav Romanović had done before the battle on the Kolka. Unlike Mstislav though, Mikhail had no one to call on to mount a defence. Yaroslav Psevolodovic still had his družina and other troops, which were in Novgorod, so far beyond the reach of the current Mongol incursion.

[00:21:14] Danil and Vladimir Rudrykovich had already made a deal with the Mongols. Mikhail had no options other than to ask Bila of Hungary for aid. Despite being in the middle of an invasion, some Knazes only saw the opportunities for their own ambitions. With Eastern Rus in ruins and Kyiv looking to be next in line,

[00:21:44] Rostislav Mstislavić took advantage of Mikhail travelling to Hungary and took Kyiv. Rostislav was the son of Mstislav Romanović and claimed Kyiv on the basis that his father and grandfather had ruled there. For some reason, we're not told what, Rostislav was unacceptable to Danil, who immediately attacked Kyiv and evicted him.

[00:22:13] Given that his father Roman had also driven Rurik Rostislavić out of Kyiv twice, and Danil had helped Yaroslav Zivolović overthrow Vladimir Rurikovic. It appears that Danil may have followed in his father's footsteps and turned against the Rostislavici as such ruling in Kyiv, but this is just another gap in the chronicles.

[00:22:44] Danil's next move was completely unprecedented. We've already seen senior Knazes take Kyiv and appoint a more junior Knaz to rule in their place, and under their authority, but they still followed the tradition of a Knaz who had claimed the throne of Kyiv ruling in the city. Danil, however, appointed one of his boyars to take care of the capital,

[00:23:12] which must have been a stunning downgrade for the residents. There was one Knaz in Volhynia widow claimed to Kyiv, Yaroslav Ingvarovic of Lutsk. The chronicles do not mention him, which leads scholars to speculate that he had either been killed or was another Knaz who had fled abroad as the Mongols approached.

[00:23:50] Mikhail had no luck seeking help from Hungary. Bela did not want to marry his daughter to Mikhail San Rostislav, and he decided that Mikhail had lost his domains and had no hope of recovering them. He therefore expelled him from Hungary. Mikhail travelled on to see his uncle, Konrad of Mazovia, who gave him a much warmer welcome.

[00:24:16] It had become clear to him that his only chance of returning to Rus was to be reconciled with Danil. Messengers were sent carrying promises to never oppose Danil and to relinquish all claims to Halij. Danil forgave Mikhail, returned his wife, and allowed him to return to Kyiv.

[00:24:43] But only provided Danil's boyah, Dmitri, remained in command. Danil now controlled Volhynia, Halij and Kyiv. Later entries in the Chronicle imply that he appeared to believe that his deal with the Mongols meant that he was safe from invasion and did not need to prepare his defences.

[00:25:07] Instead, he travelled to Hungary to propose his son Lev marry Bela's daughter. Bela rejected this suitor as well. As we have already heard, at the end of 1240, Danil found out that his agreement with the Mongols did not give him quite the protection he might have thought it did.

[00:25:32] Battle to Kyiv in December, split his forces and marched on Volhynia and Galicia. Vladimir and Halij were soon captured. Danil was travelling back from Hungary. He met refugees on the road and heard the news.

[00:25:50] He was not with his army and his cities had already fallen, so he had no choice but to join the flight, this time to Poland rather than Hungary, where he joined Mikhail at the home of Konrad's son, Boleslav. Behind them came the Mongols, crushing the Poles at Lignitz and the Hungarians at Mohy.

[00:26:14] In the aftermath, while the Mongols stayed in Hungary and the fighting had settled down, Danil and Mikhail returned to Rus. Danil made Holm, now Chelm in Poland, his new capital, in place of the ruined Vladimir, while Mikhail returned to what was left of Kyiv, now under control of a Mongol official.

[00:26:41] Danil was able to quickly stabilise Volhynia, but Galicia was in a state of anarchy. The Mongols had caused widespread destruction and populations had fled. At the same time, the chronicles seemed to suggest that the Mongols were seen in much the same way as previous steppe enemies,

[00:27:03] a temporary incursion that would withdraw back to where they came from, leaving the Rus to return to their usual lives. The boyars of Galicia's towns disregarded the Mongol officials turning up to administer them. Many boyars made a show of welcoming back Danil, but also took advantage of the chaos to appropriate more autonomy or align with new pretenders.

[00:27:31] Then Olgovich Knyas, Dobroslav Sudic, seized the town of Bakuta under Dništa and took over the Bonesia district. While Grigory Vasiljević, the boyar we previously encountered holding halic for Rostislav, managed to grab Perumishl for himself.

[00:27:55] These two later got into a conflict over who controlled what, and were forced to turn to Danil to settle their arguments. Then they refused to accept his verdict and tried to give their land to Rostislav, who was still in Hungary. Danil wasn't going to stand for that. He imprisoned them and took his land back for himself.

[00:28:22] Rostislav Mikhailovich recruited the Knyas of Bolochov, a town that appears several times in the chronicles but has never been reliably identified, probably lying somewhere on the border between the Kievan lands and Galicia. Together they attacked Talic. Danil's commander brought out the army to confront them and Rostislav decided to withdraw.

[00:28:48] Meanwhile, Danil attacked Volokhov and burned the crops they had been growing for the Mongols. Rostislav's next campaign was more successful, and he managed to capture both Halic and Perumishl. But Danil and Vasilko brought up their forces from Valinia, and Rostislav was forced to abandon Halic and flee.

[00:29:13] Danil and Vasilko decided against chasing him as word came that the Mongols were on their way back from Hungary. Rostislav fled to the Hungarian court, where he was finally allowed to marry Bela's daughter and entered into Bela's service.

[00:29:32] Although the chronicle is typically vague, it seems that the return of the Mongols was an unpleasant surprise. As mentioned earlier, Danil appears to have agreed to submit to the Mongols before Kiev was attacked. Galicia was not ready when their armies moved in to subjugate the Knyashtva,

[00:29:58] neither prepared to defend itself nor ready to give the Mongols the supplies and tribute they were looking for. Resistance had varied from town to town, with some surrendering and escaping relatively unscathed, while those who fought were savagely suppressed. While the Galicians may have decided that the Mongols had come and gone like steppe raiders before them,

[00:30:26] and gone back to their own affairs, the Mongols had not. They returned expecting to find a waiting vassal, and were disappointed when they didn't. Two commanders, Manmun and Balai, were dispatched to find Danil and hear his explanation. Holm closed its gates, and Danil and Vassilko retreated to safety.

[00:30:53] Manmun and Balai ravaged the countryside in what appears to have been a punitive mission to put Danil in his place, but they were unable to capture him. Once the Mongols had left Volinia for their new base on the Volga, Bela sent Rostislav with Hungarian troops to make another attempt to take Galicia.

[00:31:18] In 1244 they laid siege to Piriumisho, but Danil arrived in time to relieve the city. The following year, Rostislav led a combined Hungarian and Polish army into Galicia. This time it came to a major battle. On 17th August, Danil and his Porlovtsy allies crushed the invaders.

[00:31:45] Rostislav managed to escape, but most of the pro-Hungarian Galician boyers were captured and executed, along with any Hungarian soldiers who fell into Galician hands. The scale of the defeat and execution of the Hungarian captives made a big impression on Bela. Hungarian claims to Galicia were abandoned, and there were no further invasions.

[00:32:15] Danil was finally able to unite Galicia and Volinia into a single knyazstwa, but it was a knyazstwa under Mongol overlords. Once they had established their base on the Volga,

[00:32:43] the Mongols began summoning the knyazists who come and receive their yalik, the symbol of their authority under the Mongols. The knyazists of the northeast responded promptly, but Danil and Mikhail did not. Despite the recent punitive campaign, or maybe because of it and the distrust that Mongol actions in Galicia had caused,

[00:33:13] Danil stayed at home. But if he did not go to Sarai to receive a yalik, it meant that the Mongols did not recognize his authority, as he found out in 1245 when the Mongol commander Moguchi turned up and demanded Danil hand Halic over to him. And so, in late October 1245,

[00:33:40] Danil finally set out for Sarai to see the khan. He did not receive the warmest of welcomes, as Batu began by asking why he had been so slow. But in the end, the khan granted his yalik, or Valinia and Galicia.

[00:34:02] While the Galician-Valinian Chronicle admits that Danil acknowledged Batu as overlord and swore fealty to him, it presents the meeting as slightly different to those between Batu and other Rus knyazists. Danil was said to have sworn with a heavy heart, regarding acknowledging Mongol power as a necessary evil and still intending to resist.

[00:34:30] Batu, meanwhile, is supposed to have treated him with unusual respect, giving him wine to drink instead of kumis. Reluctant though he may have been, Batu's imprimatur made Danil the most secure he had been in his life. With his rule in Valinia and Galicia recognised by the Mongols, none of the other Rus knyazists could attempt to take any of his domain

[00:34:59] without risking reprisals from the Mongols. Michal remained the last of the senior knyazists who had not submitted to the Mongols. He finally set out in the summer of 1246. When he arrived in Sarai, he was ordered to bow to the Mongols' ritual fires and acknowledge their idols, practices the other knyazists had gone along with.

[00:35:29] Michal refused and the Mongols executed him and the boyar fjorda accompanying him. Around the same time as he received his Jarlok, Daniel married for a second time, this time to a niece of Mindogas of Lithuania. His son Svan, as we already heard in our episode on Mindogas,

[00:35:56] also married into Lithuanian nobility and was to be heavily involved in its politics. With his newfound stability, Daniel turned his attention to developing his domain. He tried to attract refugees from the Kyiv lands and southern Rus, as well as, the Chronicle tells us, Germans and Poles. Quote, They came day in and day out.

[00:36:25] Youths and masters of all kinds fled here from the Tartars, saddlers, bowmen and fletchers, iron, copper and silversmiths, and they filled the fields and villages around Holm with dwellings. Lviv, named after his son Liev, which was to succeed Holm as capital, was founded,

[00:36:49] and the towns and cities of Bolinia and Galicia were strengthened and re-fortified. For the first decade or so after the conquest, the Mongols were absentee landlords in Rus, and it's clear that Daniel continued to hold hopes that they would,

[00:37:19] like their predecessors, return to the steppe and enable him to shake off basaldom. Besides building his strength and re-fortifying his towns and cities, Daniel tried to resist in other ways. On his way back from Sarai, Daniel had met Giovanni di Pleno Campini and he accepted his invitation to establish relations with the Pope. When he returned home,

[00:37:49] Daniel sent an Orthodox priest to visit Pope Innocent IV in Lyon. The Pope, as ever, wanted the Orthodox Knazes of Eastern Europe to acknowledge his supremacy. Daniel wondered whether the Pope could compel the Catholic rulers of Central Europe to support him against the Mongols. At first it seemed like the idea might bear fruit.

[00:38:19] In 1253, Innocent issued a papal bull asking the Catholic rulers of Central Europe and the Balkans to undertake a crusade against the Mongols. He sent a legate to Daniel and declared him Rex Rusanorum or King of the Rus. Bela finally agreed to allow one of his daughters to marry Liv,

[00:38:45] while his younger son, Roman, married Gertrud of Austria. Encouraged by these promising signs, Daniel began to move against the Mongols. He recovered parts of Eastern Volhynia that had been under direct Mongol control and took parts of Bordolia. He got lucky with the timing as Batu died in 1255

[00:39:12] and was followed by two short-lived successors, distracting the Mongols. But Daniel's hopes that the Mongols would drift back to the steppe proved baseless. Five years later, with their succession issues resolved, a new army arrived in Galicia and Volhynia to restore their control.

[00:39:39] Daniel's hopes for Western support turned out to be equally baseless. The rulers of Central Europe ignored the Pope's calls for a crusade against the Mongols. His marriage alliances also brought no aid. The Hungarians were at war with the Czechs and had nothing to spare, and the Austrians were just not interested.

[00:40:07] Burundai marched an army into Galicia. He demanded that Daniel dismantle his fortifications, and Daniel was forced to comply. Then he demanded that Daniel give him men for campaigns against the Poles and Lithuanians. Again, Daniel was forced to comply, burying any hopes in his Western alliances that might have remained.

[00:40:35] His flirtation with the Pope also got him into trouble with the Orthodox Church. Following the sack of Constantinople in 1204, well reported in the Rusk Chronicles, the rivalry between the churches had been growing into outright hostility. All the more so as most of the Metropolitans of Rusk were still being supplied from Constantinople.

[00:41:02] Daniel's relations with the Pope contributed to the Metropolitan moving from Kyiv to Vladimir rather than Galicia. Even when Daniel's candidate, Kyrile of Holm, was accepted as Metropolitan, Constantinople made his confirmation conditional on him moving to Vladimir, not staying in Holm, where the Knaz favored the Pope.

[00:41:34] Daniel died in Holm in 1264, aged in his early sixties, after an entire lifetime of fighting for his kingdom. He had succeeded in forming a united Galicia Volinia and set it on a different path to the Knazistva of the Northeast.

[00:42:05] The rivalries between the Knazes of Rus, as we have known them for the last 40-odd episodes, are over. I'm sure for many of you that will come as a great relief. No more keeping track of which mistislov from where is now trying to become Knaz of which town. The death of Mikhail of Chernihiv ended the Olgovici dynasty as a political force.

[00:42:34] They will never recover. The Rostislavici continue their slump. Smoliansk will bumble along as a second-tier Knazistva for another century, before being absorbed by Lithuania. Daniel of Galicia and Yaroslav of Suzdalia received their Jarliks and had been recognized by the Mongols as the senior rulers of Rus,

[00:43:01] one on each side of the old Rus territory, one the core of what would become Ukraine, the other the core of what would become Russia. As you can imagine, this has led to some, let's say varied, assessments of Daniel's life in the historiography.

[00:43:27] In the Russian imperial narrative that emerged in the early 19th century, in which Kievan Rus was the ancestral homeland of the Russian state, Daniel of Halich was seen as a significant contributor to state-building in Rus, especially in the way that he resisted foreign invaders from the West and the Mongols. In the later 19th century, with the Ukrainian national awakening,

[00:43:56] a new narrative emerged, led by Mikhail Khrushchevsky and his History of Ukraine-Rus. In his work, Khrushchevsky opposed the idea that Russia through Suzdalia was the successor to Rus, by arguing instead that Galicia-Volynia was the sole legitimate heir to Rus.

[00:44:21] Further, there was a continuity from Rus through Galicia to Ukraine that excluded Russia from the inheritance of Rus. Rus. Khrushchevsky's Daniel is a ruler who maintained and developed state structures, resisted external threats, and created a unified, independent kingdom.

[00:44:47] By inviting German, Polish, and Rus merchants and artisans into his domain and founding cities like Holm and Lviv, who promoted the cultural and economic development of the region with Western ties. Through his diplomatic efforts, he won international recognition, particularly in the form of his papal coronation,

[00:45:12] making him a European sovereign ruler and the legitimate king of Rus. In contrast, Russian and Soviet historians downplayed Daniel's coronation. Which, in my opinion, better fits the facts. The Pope had no standing to decide who was king of anywhere in Eastern Europe.

[00:45:38] The people of Rus were Orthodox Christians who owed him no allegiance, and the overlord of Galicia was Batu of the Ulus of Giorgi, not the Holy Roman Emperor. The Pope was trying to grab power where he had none, and Daniel was looking for allies where he could. Neither got anything worthwhile out of it.

[00:46:06] The whole affair was a minor episode that provided ammunition for later arguments, while having no practical significance. But Khrushchevsky's breakthrough in creating a Ukrainian historical narrative that did not depend on Russia cannot be underestimated and was enormously influential,

[00:46:31] making Daniel a central figure in Ukrainian ideas about their identity and nationhood. In Soviet times, Khrushchevsky's work was suppressed. Daniel was returned to a position as a Russian Knyaz, as the narrative of Eastern Slavic unity under Russian leadership prevailed. His significance was reduced to his efforts at resisting the Mongols.

[00:47:04] In the post-Soviet period, Daniel has become a founding father of Ukraine, a symbol of Ukrainian resilience and sovereignty. His relations with Western neighbours have been played up as evidence of Ukraine's place in Europe. While his resistance to the Mongols forms a large part of his popular image,

[00:47:28] historians like Serhii Plokhi and Orest Subtenly take a more measured approach, acknowledging that he was in fact a Mongol vassal. The Yarlik system was intended to appoint Knyazes to rule their domains for the Mongols without direct interference, so the claims of Galician internal independence are maybe less impressive than sometimes presented.

[00:47:57] Daniel is maybe one of those figures who has become more significant for what he symbolises than for what he actually did. In post-Soviet Russia, Daniel was always a target for nationalist revisionists, and this has only been exacerbated as Russia's attacks on Ukraine increased.

[00:48:21] In these narratives, presented in propaganda schools and events such as the Russia My History exhibition we've had cause to look at before, Daniel is not the founding father of Ukraine, which, of course, Putin claims never existed as a state, but a divisive regional ruler who weakened Rus through his constant conflicts with his neighbours.

[00:48:47] He is presented as a kind of anti-Alexander Nevsky, a figure of dubious legitimacy elevated by a boyar oligarchy who chose to look west rather than east, essentially betraying orthodoxy. In upcoming episodes, we will be looking at what followed Rus.

[00:49:12] Long-time listeners will know that I take the position that Rus is its own thing, and therefore neither Russia nor Ukraine is the sole and direct heir. Over the rest of this season, we will return to this subject and consider why, and what did happen to the legacy of Rus. The lands of southwestern Rus will not become part of the Russian Empire for a long time yet.

[00:49:39] They will still be coming into our narrative from time to time, but I will be covering the story of their development in detail later. Join me next episode as we move back to the northeast and the Mongols' impact on Suzdalia. Thank you for listening, and until next time, goodbye.