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Alexander V. Maiorov

Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Fedor N. Veselov

Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Irina S. Rudenkova

Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

KIEVAN CHILIARCHY IN THE MID-13th CENTURY: TYSIATSKII DMITR AND BOYAR DMITR EYKOVICH

During the period of the conquests, the Mongols developed a strategy for governing the new territories of their expanding empire using local military administrators who had previously served other rulers. Foreigners who entered Mongol service were integrated into the military-administrative system of the Mongol Empire, organized according to the decimal principle. The universality of this system, which was widespread in one form or another throughout almost all of early medieval Eurasia, to some extent facilitated the incorporation of the Great Khan’s new servants into the imperial chiliarchy (I. de Rachewiltz’s term). The report of the papal envoy to the Mongols, John de Plano Carpini, who passed through Kiev in 1246 and 1247, leaves no doubt that the Mongols also established the chiliarchy system in Southern Rus: Kiev was governed by a millenarius (chief of a thousand). The Galician-Volhynian Chronicle records his name as Dmitr Eikovich. The same source also reports that in 1240, a Russian tysiatskii (commander) with the same name defended Kiev from the Mongols. The latter was captured by Batu and even became his military adviser. It has already been noted in the literature that the general Kievan context and the specific vocabulary of the chronicler allow us to identify both Dmitrs. Analyses of the Kievan tysiatskii’s connections with Rus princes, as well as comparisons of his fate with the career trajectories of foreign military leaders who defected to the Mongol service, support this hypothesis and present Dmitr’s case as typical for the era of the Mongol conquests.

Keywords: Kiev commander of a thousand, tysiatskii Dmitr, Dmitr Eikovich, Daniil Romanovich, Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, John de Plano Carpini

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