Start page

Mykola Zharkikh (Kyiv)

Personal site

?

The death of prince Michael Vsevolodovych

Nicholas Zharkikh

Shortened text of the section. Full text in ukrainian version.

We left prince Michael Vsevolodovich on an island near Kyiv, where he arrived, according to the assumptions made, sometime in the summer of 1241.

All three sources tell generally the same thing: Michael came to the Horde, he was required to perform some rites incomprehensible to Christians, he refused to perform them and was killed on September 20, 1246. This is an invariant, the skeleton common to all sources.

Where did Michael come from?

Where did Michael go?

Why did Michael come to Batu?

What did Michael come with?

What did the Tatars accuse Michael of?

What happened in the Batu’s head-quarters?

Did the boyar Fedor exist?

When did the murder happen?

Where were Michael and Fedor buried?

The significance of the death of Michael and Fedor.

Only one thing is certain – Batu set out to exterminate everyone who was called the "Prince of Chernihiv", even if he could not be distinguished from a robber. The Tatars decided not to allow any revival of the Chernihiv principality, and this decision also extended to the principalities of Pereyaslav and Kyiv, and even to a certain extent to Galicia. It’s just that for other principalities there were no people willing to experimentally check whether such a solution exists or not. The experience of the Chernihiv princes looked quite convincing.

And so the Chernihiv principality disappeared from the political maps, while in previous years no significant political enterprise was carried out without it.