Historical chronicle in two acts

Alexei Borisovich Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky...

Calling this name, I want to ask a school question:

- Children, raise your hands, who knows?

Children "didn't get through this." Only historians and diplomats know the prince, because he managed to live two lives - as a historian and a diplomat. For me, the author, not a day goes by that I do not turn to the works of Alexei Borisovich. Suppose it was necessary to find out who the unknown lieutenant Danila Glinka was married to - I find the answer in the prince's genealogical books; I climb into the jungle of ancient politics - and again his name appears. Finally, he was also just a man - with his personal passions, with crises of heart anguish, he endured humiliation, fell and rose again. “But Prince Lobanov always remained a decent man,” judged contemporaries who served with him.

I will add that the Lobanov-Rostovskys, when they entered the city of Rostov the Great, had the right to receive special honors - with the ringing of church bells and firing from cannons, but they themselves refused these honors.

By the way, I’ll say right away that Lobanov-Rostovsky did not have landed property, he was never a landowner, but lived on his hard-earned money - from his salary. To readers who have been brought up on school "wisdom" since childhood, this circumstance will probably seem strange, but it was just that ...

The young prince Alexei Borisovich was leaving the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum in 1844 with the rank of titular adviser; having received a gold medal, he was listed on a marble plaque and, probably, like all lyceum students, greeted his future with the words of the lyceum hymn to the words of Delvig:

Six years have passed like a dream

In the arms of sweet silence.

And the calling of the Fatherland

It thunders to us: “Come, sons!”

Yevgeny Shumigorsky, a historian rarely mentioned by us, wrote that at the Lyceum “the legends of the Pushkin era were alive then, and in the eyes of his pupils the name of their famous classmate was inextricably linked with the concept of love for native land and to her native antiquity. This last thing is very important for us: innate, and not imposed from above, patriotism is always inseparable from the thirst for knowledge of the history of one's people...

In the years of lyceum youth, the prince still found noble elders still alive, for whom the “golden age of Ekaterianism” was their youth, their rampage-curseliness, their meaningful maturity, nurtured in the plentiful pastures of Voltaire’s free-thinking. For them, these relics of the past, it was easier than ever to strangle one emperor in order to “plant” his wife on the throne, and then with the same ease they knocked her son down with a snuffbox. These old men, already exhausted by years and illnesses, remembered a lot, and the young prince was keenly aware of their judgments about the past. At the same time, Lobanov-Rostovsky taught himself to write down what was not written in books, but only passed from mouth to mouth, as something forbidden, which should not be spoken loudly.

The "eighteenth" century became his secret, and the reign of Paul I a favorite topic for historical research. One day, the prince learned that in the provincial wilderness, an elderly nobleman was living, just about ready to die, who would take the secrets of his time to the grave. Alexei Borisovich, without hesitation, set off on his journey. Having found the estate of the old man, he found his house as if extinct, even the dogs in the kennel did not bark. It turned out that the nobleman turned day into night, and it was impossible to wake him up. Only in the evening did he wake up, and breakfast took place at midnight - by candlelight in old-fashioned chandeliers. The old man involuntarily began to talk, and Alexei Borisovich took “interviews” until dawn, receiving such intimate secrets of the court and politics that Russian society was hardly aware of. It is clear that many years later, Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky easily and often drew for friends in what order the furniture was arranged in the bedroom of Emperor Paul I when the killers broke into it.

“I envy the people who lived in the eighteenth century,” Alexei Borisovich said more than once, “they had a much more free life than all of us who had to drag out the nineteenth century until the end, doomed to move no longer by the passions of people, but only accelerated by the power of steam in sophisticated machines ...

It was not easy to “drag out” one’s career in this century, especially under Nicholas I, when foreign policy Russia was ruled by the hook-nosed dwarf Nesselrode.

It was under him that Lobanov-Rostovsky began his career. One could envy one's rather tricky ancestors, if under Nicholas I everything was built according to rank, according to rank, according to the regulations ... wow!

But you still have to serve, and your career began in the economic department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. True, the descendant of Vladimir Monomakh somehow did not fit to sit in the accounting department, calculating the expenditure amounts for dinner parties, and in 1849 the tsar distinguished the prince with the rank of chamber junker. Nesselrode promised:

- At the first vacancy, I will find you a place abroad ...

Then or later, Lobanov-Rostovsky made friends with Prince Peter Dolgoruky, who was expelled from the page in disgrace for bad behavior. He was a man of great and very evil mind, of such unheard-of impudence that Benckendorff and his family were tired of listening to reports about his scandals. The exile to Vyatka did not bring him to his senses at all, on the contrary, he inflamed him, and Dolgoruky in his writings spared only one person in the world - it was Herzen, who later became a witness to his death agony.

Everyone was afraid of Dolgoruky, because he had a terrible and strong power over people - knowledge of the genealogy of the nobility, perfectly owning the secrets of the most famous families. Having been abroad, Dolgoruky published a book about the behind-the-scenes secrets of the genealogy of titled families, and this book caused great irritation in the government of Nicholas I, because the prince opened the legendary “Pandora's box”, bringing a lot of trouble to princes and counts.

Lobanov-Rostovsky spoke to Prince Dolgoruky:

“Of course, The Velvet Book is not a collection of immutable truths, but they are afraid of you, because you did not even spare your ancestors.

“They are afraid,” Dolgoruky answered, “because, having a genuine genealogy, I can kill any courtier at any moment, proving that his grandmother cheated on her husband with a coachman, and the family of the Vorontsov princes has long been stopped, “half scoundrel, half ignoramus” Vorontsov, who is sitting in the Crimea is not Vorontsov at all, but an impostor, for the genuine Vorontsovs have all died out long ago ...

Few people know that the famous four-volume P-V. Dolgoruky under the name "Russian genealogical book" contained a considerable share of genealogical materials collected not by the author, but by Lobanov-Rostovsky, who generously gave them to his fellow historian. This became known much later, and then not to everyone, but only to the elite. P. V. Dolgoruky ended his life in the alienation of emigration, and Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky continued the work he had begun ...

It was 1850 when Nesselrode told him:

- A vacancy has opened up at our embassy in Berlin, would you deign to start serving as a secretary of the mission?

Alexei Borisovich left for Berlin, taking with him huge trunks filled with historical materials so that there, in Berlin, devote days to diplomacy, and set aside nights for history in its most mysterious and unexplained phenomena. It was in Berlin that the prince began to discover unknown pages of Russian history, it was in Berlin that he experienced, as a patriot, strong mental anguish when the Nikolaev era ended with the tragic Crimean campaign.

“Of course,” he reasoned in a circle of embassy officials, “the muse of diplomacy is silent when the cannons rumble, but she begins to smile and even flirt when the cannons are rolled into the arsenals. I have no doubt that after the war there will be displacement, and I don’t know where they will send me ...

With the death of Emperor Nicholas I, his henchman Karl Nesselrode also disappeared, having done nothing but harm for Russia, and after Crimean War the renewal of the diplomatic staffs followed. In April 1856, Alexei Borisovich was packing his gigantic wardrobe trunks again. From the banks of the muddy Oder, he was transferred to the radiant shores of the Bosphorus as an adviser to the mission. The young man made a very fast career, still unable to foresee that soon she would crackle like a bad ship thrown onto the reefs, and, of course, a woman would be the cause of the crash.

Is that why he remained an eternal bachelor?

Turkey, as you know, along with England and France fought against Russia, therefore it was a victorious country when a mission adviser arrived in its capital, representing his homeland as a country defeated ... The situation is unpleasant!

The embassy was headed by a seasoned diplomat Apollinary Butenev, who had begun his career in politics on the eve of Austerlitz. The old man was smart, but critical:

“We will climb out of the abyss of complacency and bragging into which the deceased drove us, who promised the people forty barrels of prisoners and slipped away into the grave in time from universal contempt. The main thing is to restore good relations with the Turks. Know, prince, that in the East what cannot be achieved through official means must be carried out through personal relations.

Butenev did not like that the prince was still single.

“However,” he said, “you don’t have to be afraid of women on the Bosphorus, for all the ladies sit in harems and chirp quietly. So your career is safe on that side...

prophesied! On the same day, Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky introduced himself at the French embassy, ​​where he met Madame Juliette Bourkinet, the wife of the secretary of the French mission.

“Here,” she said, obviously flirting, “I should only be afraid of men, because, not locked in a harem, I am surrounded by universal male attention, and at the same time I feel as if I had been stripped naked in the middle of the street ...

Juliette was beautiful, and therefore the prince tactfully answered her that the attention of men was quite justified:

“But don’t be afraid of me, for I am beginning to be afraid of you.

"Don't," Bourkinet replied capriciously. “Unfortunately, I have a husband who is above all preoccupied with his career.

What a pleasant coincidence! - Alexei Borisovich was jokingly surprised. “I have exactly the same concerns as your husband. But, unlike him, I, alas, remain single for now.

But it seems that Madame Bourkinet at the same time decided to add worries not only to her husband, but also to the adviser to the Russian mission. However, Alexei Borisovich at that time was tormented by completely different torments, far from those of the heart; he established friendly relations with the vizier, created a brilliant position at the court of Sultan Abdul-Mejid, who was already close to insanity from satiation with the blessings of life. The peace of Paris did not bring calm, for a massacre of Christians began, and in Bulgaria, Bosnia and Damascus unrest of the peoples began. Taking advantage of the attention at the “Threshold of Happiness”, Alexei Borisovich literally saved the Montenegrins from extermination and managed to influence the Sultan to leave the people of Lebanon alone.

He was rewarded with the rank of state councilor, acquired in 1857, and two years later, Ambassador Butenev handed over to him the affairs of the Russian embassy, ​​and the prince, at the age of thirty-five, took the high post of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, with which Juliette Bourkinet hastened to congratulate him .

“You're making great progress,” the woman hinted playfully, “and my poor husband can't keep up with you. However, seeking favors at the Sultan's "Threshold of Happiness", aren't you Russians infringing on the honor and authority of France too much?

“No way, madam! How can one neglect the interests of France on the shores of the Bosporus, where you so worthily represent all the most beautiful things that France can be proud of ...

You can't joke with a Frenchwoman like that - it's dangerous!

Words spoken for the sake of ordinary courtesy are not perceived by Parisians as simply as these words are pronounced. Polite admiration for her beauty, expressed by the prince, Juliette Bourkinet deciphered in her own way - as a long-awaited declaration of love.

But, secretly in love with the Russian ambassador herself, then she entered ... How should I say this? Too bold.

It is true that you cannot refuse her personal courage.

It was already late; Alexey Borisovich returned from a walk in Buyuk-Der, and the embassy footman warned him that a certain lady under a veil had been waiting for a long time in the ambassador's office. The shadow of a woman's figure glimmered dimly in the gap of the office window.

Alexey Borisovich understood: the woman came to him not for the sake of a momentary whim, but after a painful mental struggle, losing everything in the world for the sake of a sudden feeling. To insult a woman at such moments is like spitting in her face.

“Yes, I love you,” admitted Lobanov-Rostovsky, “and you, madam, can be sure of my reciprocal feeling ...

The night was over, their first night of love, and in the morning, when Juliette woke up, she saw the prince at his desk.

What are you writing, my dear?

- Resignation letter.

- For what? After all, your career is going great.

“But our relationship is even better, my darling.

- I do not understand you...

And you don't have to understand. But in St. Petersburg they will understand everything at once.

Aleksey Borisovich was retired “due to domestic circumstances”, and this was not the worst form of resignation. At the “Threshold of Happiness”, where the prince left many Turkish friends, they sincerely regretted his removal, for the prince knew how to reconcile the irreconcilable. But the woman crossed the road in order to find happiness in Russian from the French embassy, ​​and this was irreparable. The lovers settled in the south of France, deliberately alienating society, and the St. Petersburg relatives experienced the collapse of the prince's career almost painfully, accusing him of frivolity.

But Alexey Borisovich never blamed Juliette:

- I only succumbed to circumstances, sacrificing only a career. But she, having come to me, sacrificed everything that every woman cherishes. And what does my career mean before words of love? A woman in love is always right. But I was also right,” Lobanov-Rostovsky argued. “It would be ignoble and even vile to reject a woman who threw herself into my arms, as if into a pool ...

For three years he was happy. But, obviously, the transition across the street at that time - from one embassy to another - was not given to Juliette so easily. She quickly melted from consumption. Thanks to the prince for everything he gave her, she died out in his own arms, and, sobbing over her, rapidly cooling, he was horrified to hear the music of a merry carnival bursting from the street ... It was so scary, so incomprehensible and so naturally! Life went on.

Upon returning to his homeland, still suffering, the prince decided to end his service in diplomacy and entered the staff of the Ministry of the Interior. Count Peter Valuev, who ran the ministry, was very sympathetic:

- You probably want the province? What?

In the summer of 1866, the prince began to rule Oryol province, but he himself called himself an “accidental” governor, and already in the spring of 1867 he handed over his affairs to the writer-historian Mikhail Longinov:

“I didn’t build anything in Orel, didn’t offend anyone and didn’t flog anyone, because the transition from foreign policy to domestic politics did not please me, but rather frightened me ...

Emperor Alexander II “frightened” him even more:

– Prince, what happened to you there in Constantinople?

- The usual story - with a woman.

– Ordinary? I agree. But... scandalous?

- The scandal did not worsen Russian-French relations, because I did not take the woman away from the harem, she herself left her husband.

This conversation arose in the Winter Palace, where the prince introduced himself to the emperor, and the sharpness of their conversation is understandable, given that Alexander II was the most desperate womanizer.

“Have you forgotten her over the past years?” - he asked.

Lobanov-Rostovsky, on the contrary, was not a womanizer:

“No, your majesty. Did not forget. And I won't forget.

- So consider, prince, - the emperor decided, - that I forgot this story with someone else's wife, wanting to see you near me ...

After that, he became a fellow minister of the interior!

For seven years he was in charge of the affairs of the schismatics, participated in the development of major reforms (worthy of a brighter memory), and today, at the insistence of Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky, all civil posts in the provinces went to officials, and not to generals, the prince transformed the order in the investigative bodies and so on. Having left the world of diplomacy, Alexei Borisovich was still surrounded by foreign ambassadors, among whom he singled out the Bavarian Truxess-Wetzhausen, the Brazilian Ribeiro de Silva, the English William Rumbold - all these ambassadors were the husbands of his cousins, for the Lobanov-Rostovskys had an extensive cosmopolitan kinship. Rumbold wrote in his memoirs: “Lobanov was one of the most charming representatives of the Russian aristocracy, for it has long been known that if members of the chosen Russian society set out to seduce someone, then they are truly irresistible ... The prince’s erudition in the field of Russian history was amazing !”

Perhaps history was the main meaning of the life of Alexei Borisovich. In his service, he involuntarily came across contemporaries who were very far from perfection, looking for examples of nobility in people who had long outlived their age, “trying to find in their deeds motives more exalted than those that he, a modern diplomat, had to reckon with” - wrote about Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky historian A. A. Polovtsev.

Alexei Borisovich did not even hide this, saying:

- During the days, meeting scoundrels and scoundrels, at night I burrow into the past of Russia, resting my soul on the attractive features of my ancestors, which are protected from the slander of descendants by a marble tombstone. I am very fascinated by the sharp dissimilarity between the dead and the living, and less people the former are similar to my contemporaries, the more they attract my attention ...

As an epigraph for his entire life, the prince would gladly put down a quote from the works of the poet P. A. Vyazemsky, who highlighted the importance of examples of the past for the development of morality in hereditary generations: “In our time,” he wrote, “it is necessary to put the dead on their feet in order to scare and to bring living impudence to conscience and wean from it the current mouth-waterers, who still marvel at it with kneeling...”

It is said so strongly that it can be carved on the tablets!

Meanwhile, everything written by him, Alexei Borisovich kept in vain, rarely appearing in print. Plunging into the past, he chose paths in history that no one had traveled - he looked for people who were forgotten or those whose biographies seemed mysterious to him; he was attracted to individuals marked by the fate of misfortunes. Perhaps he was right in his own way in his research. In the end, a lot has been written about Pushkin or Suvorov (and even more will be written), but to highlight in the darkness the appearance of a person about whom everyone is silent is a painstaking task, almost painful, because the grave is silent, the archives are silent. , and around - an unsociable silence, and no one responds to you in response ...

It is terrible to disturb the peace of an old grave, where there is only dust and bones, mixed with tatters of decayed clothes, and it is just as terrible to plunge into someone else's, long ago noisy human life, filled with passions, love, anger, envy, pride, humiliation and unrealizable dreams.

– Where did it all go? - the prince painfully pondered over the fate of people who silently departed from us into eternity ...

During these years, the Russian intelligentsia willingly read the monthly issues of the historical journals Russkaya Starina (M.I. Semevsky) and Russian Archive (P.I. Barteneva). In these editions, Lobanov-Rostovsky sometimes placed his historical notes, and Semevsky was surprised at his knowledge of genealogy, without which penetration into Russian history is unthinkable:

- I feel, prince, that you know the relationship between surnames not only noble, but also rundown ... Where did you get this from?

Alexey Borisovich confessed that he had once helped Pyotr Dolgoruky, and now he decided to supplement his four-volume book with his genealogies. On this subject, he had his own opinion:

- Of course, it is easy to study the course of events in history, but the hidden springs of these events sometimes depended on family ties, and the Russian nobility was reborn among themselves so widely and densely that sometimes genealogical tables seem to me much more complicated than algebraic formulas. What is hidden for us from the outside is revealed only from the inside, if we resort to the help of genealogical intelligence.

“I am not only a historian, but also a publisher,” said Semevsky. “Trust me with your genealogical materials.

- Excuse me, I hold such a post in the state that it is inconvenient for me to put my name on the cover of the publication.

– And we will publish your “portfolio” anonymously...

This is how the “Russian Genealogical Book” appeared in two volumes, in the preface of which it was said that it was compiled by a certain history lover who, busy with his service, devotes his leisure time to questions of Russian genealogy. But the anonymous author was soon exposed, and in the press Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky was openly called "the greatest of the modern developers of the national genealogy." It was 1876 when Alexei Borisovich was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences.

Soon the war for the liberation of the Bulgarians from the old Ottoman yoke, and Alexander II warned the prince:

- You seem to have stayed up in St. Petersburg, and perhaps a more important occupation will soon be found for you ...

Lobanov-Rostovsky has already crossed the half-century boundary of his life, remaining a stately man, outwardly very pleasant and youthful, in the capital he was still considered an enviable groom, but Madame Bourkinet was not forgotten by him, and therefore he had no matrimonial plans, which he himself spoke of in hints :

- Having burned themselves in milk, they blow on the water ...

Soon the Russian army reached the shores of the Sea of ​​​​Marmara, in the seaside town of San Stefano, peace was signed with the Brilliant Porte, and Sultan Abdul-Hamid wished to see the Russian ambassador at the “Threshold of Happiness” - Chancellor Gorchakov, a lyceum student of the Pushkin era, informed Lobanov-Rostovsky about this .

“Alas,” he said, “the British fleet appeared in the Sea of ​​Marmara, and I was forced to warn Whitehall that if it were active on the Bosphorus, our army would immediately take Constantinople with bare hands. But we, the Russians, added the Chancellor, are not at all going to strangle Turkey in her own lair.

- I would not like to return to Constantinople, - answered Lobanov-Rostovsky, - because with this city I have the sweetest, but also the saddest memories.

“But I would not like to accredit you to the capital of Turkey,” Gorchakov finished. “But Sultan Abdul-Hamid asks for this, and we should not offend the defeated now ...

The day of the signing of the San Stefano Peace remains to this day a national holiday for Bulgaria, but the Russian ambassador had no time to celebrate. Although at the Berlin Congress Europe enviously nullified the favorable terms of peace with the Turks, Alexei Borisovich nevertheless insisted to Abdul-Hamid that his troops leave Batum and fortresses in Bulgaria, the sultan promised to pay Russia military costs in the amount of one billion rubles.

Lobanov-Rostovsky received the rank of real Privy Councilor, and he himself understood that he could not rise above this.

“My staircase has ended, its steps break off over the grave,” he said without humor, but also without bitter regret ...

In December 1879, he was hastily transferred as ambassador to London, because relations between Russia and England were deteriorating catastrophically because of the "Afghan issue." It was a crisis, no one knows when it arose, and no one knew when it would end. Afghanistan, in fact, became like a barrier between the Russian possessions and the colonies of the British, who, wanting to destroy this “barrier”, set the Afghan tribes against Russia for many years in a row, and they arbitrarily seized the Turkmen lands. In this “Afghan” cauldron, the prince “boiled” for three years in a row, rejecting the claims of Kabul, which the British incited against the Russians. The “Afghan crisis” was not resolved by the ambassador (and will only be resolved by the withdrawal of our troops to Kushka) when he was transferred as ambassador to Vienna.

At the Vienna train station, the prince was met by his niece, the wife of the Austrian Count Okolichiani, former ambassador In Petersburg.

“Olenka,” Lobanov-Rostovsky told her, “I’m so tired after this fuss with Kabul that, I hope, on the Vienna Prater I will rest my soul and body, listening to Strauss waltzes ... Now in London they talk a lot about Turkey as a “sick “man” of Europe, who should be cut into pieces, like a carcass of a ram, in the general market for the redivision of the world, but I think that the “sick man” is not at all going to die. And you look very good,” he said to his niece, “it is pleasant to look at you.

- Oh, uncle, why did you remain single?

“I have already received my dose of love in full, and, believe me, this portion was quite enough for me not to feel unhappy,” answered Alexei Borisovich ...

During the years spent in Vienna, he gained pan-European authority, becoming a "star of the first magnitude" in the heavens of diplomacy. Here he received the highest order of the empire - the Order of St. Andrew, here in January 1895 he was ordered to urgently leave Vienna in order to take the place of ambassador in Berlin.

“It seems,” he said, “in St. Petersburg they are attaching additional steps to the ladder of my life so that I rise higher and higher ... over the very cliff into the abyss.

He did not have time to unpack his luggage in Berlin, when it became known that Foreign Minister Gire had died, the prince was instructed to urgently leave for St. Petersburg to replace the deceased in his chair.

“My last step,” said Lobanov-Rostovsky.

He appeared in the ministry, suggesting to the officials:

- Talleyrand claimed that in politics only the moment of the present is important to him. I don't believe it! The importance must be recognized not only of the present day, but of all the politics of the past. For a diplomat, history is the best mentor for analyzing the present. Is it possible to understand Li Hong-chang's intentions without taking into account the centuries-old experience of Chinese diplomacy? Politicians who do not know the history of the countries in which they are accredited for the benefit of their fatherland are no longer diplomats, but only miserable blind kittens ...

He mentioned China for a reason. Having won the war with China, the samurai presented Beijing with such enslaving peace conditions that Petersburg decided to intervene. Lobanov-Rostovsky enlisted France and Germany in a joint demarche to force the Japanese to moderate their appetites. This was Lobanov-Rostovsky's first success as a minister. At the same time, German diplomats hinted to him about Russia's right to own the Turkish straits.

But Lobanov-Rostovsky rejected these hints.

“On the contrary,” he said, “Russia does not want the end of the Ottoman Empire, which is so strongly dreamed of on moonlit nights on the banks of the Thames, provoking Europe to divide Turkey.

- You, prince, are simply in love with the East! they reproached him.

- I have fallen out of love with my own in the East and I wish that Russia is respected in the East - as a country of justice ...

Alexei Borisovich knew how to influence Emperor Nicholas II, who, having seen the Kaiser in Wiesbaden, stated quite definitely: “I am not interested in the Bosphorus, from now on my eyes are turned towards China ...” Beijing, grateful to Russia for its intervention in peace affairs with the Japanese , sent to Moscow his best diplomat, Li Hong-chang, a cunning and corrupt old man. Just at that time, the laying of the Siberian Railway was going on, which should describe a large arc along the Amur River, and Minister of Finance S. Yu. Witte suggested:

- Our rails have already been stretched to Transbaikalia, it's time to decide - what to do next? If we persuade Li Hong-chang to allow the rails to be pulled through Manchuria, then Russia will shorten the route from Moscow to Vladivostok by 500 miles at once. In such a matter, one should not be stingy with Li Hong-chang, because rails and sleepers will cost our treasury much more ...

This is how the Sino-Eastern Railway(CER).

Between political affairs, Lobanov-Rostovsky republished his “Russian Genealogical Books”, supplementing them with new materials, and drew up a project for the formation of the Russian Genealogical Society - this was an old dream of his whole life! In August 1896, he left for Vienna, where Nicholas II was expected to pay a visit. Niece Olga Okolichiani met her uncle at the station.

"Oh, uncle, what's the matter with you?"

- Heart. It’s not my age to drag this cross, since morning I thought about Morocco, where a Russian consul is needed, but in the evenings ... By the way, Olenka, I would like to see the Roman ambassador Nigra.

Nigra, familiar to him from life in St. Petersburg, met the prince with open arms - and in time, for Lobanov-Rostovsky went limp in his arms, almost losing his senses. Nigra said:

- Probably, you, as always, do not sleep at night?

Yes, history is best studied at night.

This is where history will kill you.

- No, dear, politics will ruin me ... From Vienna I have a visit to London, where I do not expect anything good.

“Cancel the visit,” Nigra advised...

His niece Olga also asked for the same:

“From Vienna, please return home, for, as the people say, houses and straw are eaten.” I'm worried about you...

Nicholas II gave him a salon in his imperial express, and Lobanov-Rostovsky hoped that he would rest and recover in Kyiv. On August 18, the train suddenly stopped.

- Where are we? Alexey Borisovich asked.

- We did not reach Shepetovka station.

- Why did you stop?

- At the request of the sovereign, who saw a beautiful grove in the distance, and the retinue persuaded him to take a walk.

Alexei Borisovich also got out of the car. But he immediately felt ill and sat down on the ground warmed by the sun.

- The minister is in trouble! shouted his secretary.

The emperor turned around at the shout, waved his hand:

- Bring it to the car, I cancel the walk. Let's go...

The train went faster to speed up the arrival in Kyiv, but before reaching Kyiv, Prince Alexei Borisovich died.

“Rupture of the heart,” they reported to the king.

There were no newspapers in Europe that did not respond to the death of the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs with sympathetic obituaries; the metropolitan newspapers of Europe wrote that the political course of the deceased contributed to the observance of peace and justice, and "his policy from now on will not disappear from the traditions of the people of Russia."

“Russian Starina” honored the prince with an obituary that ended with the words: “The minister, who used his leisure time to study Russian history, could not help but love Russia, could not help but understand her historical tasks, could not help being heartbroken by her needs and her sufferings.” Probably, the heart ached too much and could not stand it, because on the eve of the 20th century - already our century! - Too many questions and doubts have accumulated in life.

The man was gone. But books remained after him.

Some, written in French, were not translated into Russian, and Russian books were never republished.

Meanwhile, our history is boring without them...

The dream of Alexei Borisovich came true posthumously: in 1897, the Russian Genealogical Society was formed, two thick magazines devoted to searches in genealogies began to appear in the country; finally, in 1906, Moscow received a special scientific department - in genealogy, so that students, future historians, would become familiar with the knowledge of genealogical complexities. But after the revolution, genealogy became persecuted "as a servant of the bourgeoisie." But after all, history without genealogy is a vessel from which a life-giving drink was ruthlessly thrown out.

For many years we were limited by the knowledge of Leo Tolstoy's grandfather or Alexander Pushkin's grandmother, and then they were not allowed to go further, just as children are not allowed into the mysterious thickets of the ancient forest. From such impotence of the historical intellect, a genealogy of a new type was planted, which is why, for example, the “noble dynasty of turners Patrikeyevs” or “the glorious dynasty of weavers Pakhomovs” appeared.

Of course, we still have too much power of false traditions!

Let us recall at least the writer Georgy Storm with the book “The Hidden Radishchev”. Storm deliberately turned to the genealogy of the writer and therefore was able to open for us a new Radishchev - far from the textbook clichés developed by venerable historians. But, God, how many slaps he received from scientists precisely because he broke the inveterate canons of official science. With hurtful bitterness, Georgy Shtorm wrote about this: “I came across an unwritten but valid law, or rather, a tradition: a writer who does not belong to the class of scientists is immediately attacked from all sides if he tries to discover something ... ”

I agree that genealogy is a dangerous science, just like explosives Therefore, communication with her is risky. But with the beginning of glasnost, the time has come to delve further ... into the mysterious jungle of ancestors, who from the depths of centuries will still whisper to us the hidden secrets of past centuries. Let's open the book by N. K. Teleshova “Forgotten family ties of A. S. Pushkin” - and great poet appears before us in the dazzling crown of grandfather's legends, in a completely unexpected relationship with the people who made the history of Russia. Only by knowing the poet's remote and collateral ancestors can you better understand the poet himself...

Historical chronicle in two acts

Action 1

Characters Cousins ​​and grandchildren of Yaroslav the Wise: Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh, Prince Pereyaslavsky, Mstislav Vladimirovich, | sons Svyatoslav Vladimirovich, | Monomakh Anna, stepmother of Monomakh Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, Prince of Kyiv, Oleg Svyatoslavich (Gorislavich), Prince of Chernigov, Vsevolod Olgovich, son of Oleg Svyatoslavich, David Svyatoslavich, Prince of Smolensky, David Igorevich, Prince of Vladimir, Vasilko Rostislavich, Prince of Terebovskiy; Nikifor, boyar of Prince Vsevolod, Monomakh's father, Ratibor, boyar, adviser to Monomakh Thomas, | Oleg, | his sons Slavata, boyar Svyatopolk, Simon, monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, former nobleman Vsevolod, Ivan Chudinovich, boyar Oleg Svyatoslavich, Daniel, Bishop of Chernigov, John, hegumen of the Mikhailovsky Monastery in Kyiv, Nikolai, Metropolitan Vasily, monk of Kiev Pechersk; Itlyar, Polovtsian Khan, Beldyuz, his son, Bonyak, Polovtsian Khan, Four who blinded Vasilko. Warriors Youths Polovtsy Girls Peselniki

Phenomenon 1

Oleg's tent, luxuriously furnished in an oriental way. Oleg, about forty, tall, swarthy, thin, imperious face, regular features, but secretive, cruel. He is dressed like a prince - a long caftan with a belt, a high sable hat, soft boots, a mantle over a caftan (or mantle, that is, a korzn - all the princes in the play are dressed like this, the boyars are simpler). There is a shell under the cloak, a sword in a scabbard lies nearby, on the carpet. Sits on a carved low bench in deep thought. David Svyatoslavich, his brother, enters, is baptized on the icon and, as he is, dressed, rushes into a corner, on a couch, face down.

Oleg: It's you?

David: I returned.

Oleg: Well?

David: All the same (turns to the wall)

Oleg (furiously running up, grabs him by the shoulders): Can you, finally, mediocre fool, explain everything plainly! I work for you with Yaroslavets, I beat off your father’s volosts for you, I bring the Polovtsian crowds to Russia - I’m drowning in sin, and he fell apart like a cat in the sun, and is silent ... he swallowed his tongue, or what?

David (without turning around): You're the head of everything. You know everything yourself, you understand, you calculate - get off me, count your own sins. Only Monomakh cannot be dealt with. He was defeated once, when Rostislav Vsevolodovich drowned in Stugna ...

Oleg: I know, I know everything (laughs). And about his valor, and about honor. I myself went on campaigns with him - against the Duke of Bohemia, for Boleslav ... and I saw him on a hunt - how an elk trampled on him, a bear crushed, a boar tore his sword from his belt, and he was all intact ... Daring prince, Monomakh, to be sure, the grandson of grandfather Yaroslav is successful - he was born into his beloved son, Vsevolod Yaroslavich, and of royal blood ... Zoya, Monomakh's mother, is the daughter of Constantine of Constantinople. That’s all, to tell Yaroslav, not like his beloved son, Vsevolod ... Yes, they agreed with Izyaslavushka, they dropped our father from the account. And where are we, orphaned nephews, us Svyatoslavichs?

David: Well they gave you a parish - Vladimir.

Oleg: Dali?! You, fool, all the same, that Vladimir, that Chernigov, or what? My father was in Kyiv, and I will be.

David: Oh I do not know. Father did not sit for long, and not according to the rule, Izyaslav's place was - the Kyiv table. Remember Rostislav Vladimirovich, how did the Greek poison him? Didn't our father give such a decree? (Rising and pointing to the sky with his finger) But God knows everything, knows everything ...

Oleg (menacingly): And-and-and, it will be! What are you, that your son is a saint ... everything is the same - God is far, high - go get it, if you can (slightly mockingly). Let the Saint in the Lavra pray for us... I (clenches his fists) for Roman, our brother, I will pray here, in Chernigov, on the ramparts of the city, I will put Vladimir Vsevolodovich on the shield!

David waves his hand, lies face down again. Oleg's warrior enters, a lad, a member of his younger squad.

Youth: Prince! Oleg Svyatoslavich! David Svyatoslavich! Can't take now

cities - they made an attack four times, they could not. Just since you left, four times. It's getting dark now. Accept tomorrow, or what, put?

The princes are silent. David lies. Oleg thought.

Youth: Accept - for tomorrow, prince? What is it?

David (sits down, quickly): For tomorrow! Don't sit them out. Although his squad is fighting back, are there only a hundred people there, brother? a? Oleg! What's wrong with you, dumbass?

Oleg (calmly): No! I think what should I do with them, with Monomakh, his family and his squad, when I take my patrimony, Chernigov, take it?

Youth: But isn’t it the same as what the allied khans did with the surrounding smerds?

Behind the tent noise, screams, crying.

Otrok (peeping out): Here, they continue, not everything has been robbed yet. Tea, isn’t the whole volost being taken away in full, who will plow you, prince?

David: No. While the agreement was not to take prisoners.

Oleg: How ... They will be persuaded. They have one price for the service - Christian blood ... (approaches the icon, reproachfully) Here, mother of God, what I endure, this is how I suffer through you (crosses himself, whispers loudly), I promise to go to the Church of the Annunciation in Kyiv, to the Mikhailovsky Monastery ... St. Andrew's Monastery ...

Itlyar enters - a barbarian, short, well-built, bright, slightly slanting, a sly face, armed.

Itlyar: What, prince, are you promising an idol? It's right. That's good. That's fine. Well, you can’t refuse him either - a good prince. If everyone were like that in Russian soil, that would be the case.

David (hotly): What's the noise over there? Who is yelling, who is being raped?

Itlyar (smiling, looking at Oleg expectantly): I don't know. Don't know. (Powerfully to David) But my son is our pledge, prince.

Oleg: Shut up, David Svyatoslavich! My honor, my goal is worth any price. Even though all Russia will fall here, but I will take the city. Vsevolod Yaroslavich is to blame for everything - he muddied the water, his son - to answer.

The curtain of the tent is raised. Enter Vladimir Monomakh - short, strong, a little over forty, oversized, curly, reddish, thick, curly beard, short, clear, straight, face open, kind and strong. The lad comes out, makes a sign to Itlyar, who, having carefully looked, goes out too.

Monomakh (crossing himself on the icon): Hello, brother Oleg, hello, brother David. That means how they saw each other, Svyatoslavichi ... (sits down on the couch, next to David).

Oleg (returning to his bench): Hello, Vladimir Vsevolodovich! I did not expect you - but - if you please - we will talk.

Monomakh (benevolently, but seriously): Well, brother Oleg! The conversation is short - I will not surrender Chernigov ...

Oleg: Yep, I was waiting for this!

Monomakh (making a sign with his hand to wait): I'll give it to you like that. Let not the enemies of our land rejoice. With pity for Christian blood, I will give it.

Oleg (hotly): I don't believe you, hypocrite! I do not believe! Your squad is small - you want to go out with honor, again with honor! Honest what - at someone else's expense. And nothing more. You lie, you cheat. Monomakh! You know that you will hand over the city, but you are not used to handing over ...

Monomakh: I'm not used to it - I can't. But he did not learn to take away. However, you live with your head. You are responsible for yourself.

David (Extremely surprised): But you could have called Svyatopolk - he would have ripened at once. Well you gave him Kyiv.

Monomakh: I won't call. I hate strife. Yaroslav bequeathed the world, and we will keep the world. The Russian princes must defend the Russian land. Well, hand, Svyatoslavichi (holds out his hand, Oleg shakes reluctantly, David warmly). Tomorrow, at dawn, I will go to Pereyaslavl with my retinue and family - the Polovtsy are walking there. Earth trouble. So I’ll call Svyatopolk - beat the filthy (goes to the exit).

Oleg (lowering her head): I hope you have no doubt that I will let you go?

Monomakh (calmly, kindly): I never wanted to shed brotherly blood, I think that you don’t want mine either (it turns out).

CURTAIN

Phenomenon 2

Room in the prince's chamber in Pereyaslavl. Nikifor and the youth Svyatoslav Vladimirovich enter.

Nicephorus: You, child, wait here, I'll be right back.

Svyatoslav: Tell me, boyar, will they not return me there again?

Nikifor (waves his hands): Save Christ! What are you, prince, no, of course not. And why?

Svyatoslav: But I am a hostage for the honor of my father. He has an agreement with the raw eaters. I didn't dare to leave.

Nikifor (chuckling) You didn't leave. It was Ratiborushka and I who secretly stole you.

Svyatoslav: And does the father know?

Nicephorus: And how he knows. I ordered it myself.

Svyatoslav: It can not be!

Ratibor (enters): A lot of honor - to do honor with them, prince! They howl like wolves with wolves. Do you remember how you drove from Chernigov?

Svyatoslav (sinking down on the bench): I remember ... The filthy licked themselves, jumped all the way around, played with lassoes, licked at us, they didn’t dare to touch us ... I remember the prisoners ... Horror - there were a lot of them - an abyss! All the Russian people, chasing in the steppe... in full... Undressed, undressed, unhappy... They only talked to each other about who came from where - and - about nothing more. All the roads are full of them...

Nicephorus: Well, you know, well done! The enemies of the earth are your enemies. And you should be able to hate them.

Svyatoslav: How about “love your enemy”?

Ratibor: I'm not good at writing. But King David fought with the pagans and beat them more than once. Yes, and by the will of God.

Svyatoslav: So they gave the land according to God's vow! (to incoming Monomakh) Father!

Monomakh: Me son! Hello hello! Target? Well, thank God (he baptizes him and baptizes himself). Yes, according to God's vow... Isn't any land given to the people by God's vow? And isn’t it God’s will that from the steppes first the Huns, then the Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsy come, like waves on the Russian Sea? How are the sand waves? And we, the Russian princes, should stand along the path from the Varangians to the Greeks, and protect it, and Russian cities, and set up churches of God - to keep the people and the faith? His will, son, is the law. Happy is the sovereign who understands His will. For whoever goes against her will perish and destroy the earth. Science is not easy.

Svyatoslav: So you told me to steal?

Monomakh (thinking): I.

Svyatoslav: Not an honest thing.

Ratibor: Nothing. All is well with them. Just to win! Predatory, fierce animals! Fiends of the human race.

Nicephorus: They have nothing sacred, and never have been, and never will be! Insatiable bloodsuckers, mangy dogs...

Slava runs.

Slavata: Bury yourself, Svyatoslav Vladimirovich, Itlyar is coming.

Svyatoslav, looking at his father, leaves.

Slavata (quietly to the prince): They decided Kitan, the Polovtsian ambassador.

Monomakh nods to him, Slavata leaves. Itlyar enters.

Itlyar: Be healthy, prince! What shall we interpret?

Monomakh (sitting down): Come on, khan, let's talk...

He makes a sign, Nikifor comes out, the youths come with honey, snacks, put on the table, go out. Sit down at the table, khan, eat what God sent! And you, boyars, sit down.

Everyone sits down at the table, except for Monomakh. He sits aside, carefully, but imperceptibly examines Itlyar. He greedily, not very neatly eats.

Itlyar: And you, prince?

Monomakh: I don't eat with guests. Guests must be served. After all, they will glorify you everywhere, both good and evil ...

Itlyar (drinking honey): That's right, prince. You are wise as a serpent, and valiant as a lion. Tell me, do you want peace?

Monomakh (smiling) I do. I wanted him before Stugna too. Yes, but when did you keep peace? BUT? Can you tell me sincerely for once?

Itlyar (also smiling): And with us, each khan is his own head. He concluded one world, but not the other, so he goes wherever he wants ... and Russia is rich - there is bread, there is gold, there are clothes ...

Monomakh: So this is a robbery, khan.

Itlyar: Booty, prince. Taken in battle - prey. As in the forest: the deer eats the grass, the wolf eats the deer. Not this way?

Monomakh: We are not deer or wolves.

Itlyar: And-and-and ... full! We are all the same, people. Your princes are like each other, eh? But - people of the same blood, of the same kind? And what about others? Well, isn't it a forest?

Monomakh: And yet, we are human.

Itlyar: What are people? Alive - rejoice, all the same - you will die.

Monomakh (very quiet):

What is a person that You remember about him?
And he visited him in His greatness?
Before a host of angels without belittling him,
and do not deprive of honor before Himself,
gave him dominion over all creation,
made it a custom for him to reign over the created.

Itlyar: What's this?

Monomakh: So. One king, David, said - I repeat. Well, shall we talk?

Itlyar: We want peace. Buy the world.

Ratibor: Have mercy! How much is possible! We always bought, and you robbed again!

Monomakh (to Ratibor): Quiet, boyar. (Itlyar): What are you asking for peace?

Itlyar: 600 hryvnias of silver, but to leave prisoners, and cattle, and what kind of churches were demolished ...

Nicephorus: Fear God... however, you have no God!

Monomakh: And Bonyak won't come? And Sharukan won't come?

Itlyar: You will add 100 hryvnias, I will persuade them.

Nikifor, Ratibor move forward, indignant.

Monomakh (stopping them with a gesture and standing up immediately): All right. Faced. Only the prisoners to return all. The last word.

It turns out.

Itlyar: Well, boyars, aren't you happy? And I'm glad - a smart prince. He saves the earth: he buys people, his own. Well, we will return the prisoners ...

Ratibor: How! You will return! Yes, and everyone! And how many were beaten, orphaned, widowed! What are they to pay?

Nicephorus: People are counted by God, to one.

Itlyar: Are you stupid that God is sitting - counting people?

Laughs out.

Ratibor: No, Slavat is right, Svyatopolk Izyaslavich is right - enough to endure them, enough. Lord, forgive me, a sinner, but I hate this cunning raw-eater with fierce hatred.

Slavata enters, Foma and Olbeg with him.

Slavata: Well, boyars. Settled Kitana.

Olbeg (half-drawing the sword): And his people too.

Ratibor: So, children, so them, for Russian blood.

Thomas: There were standing in our house, father ... It seems - guests ...

Nicephorus: Guests! glad to devour our bones. Guests, but not invited.

Slavata: And what about them according to our Christian law?

Olbeg: They don't understand him.

Slavata: They do not “do not understand”, but do not want to understand.

Thomas: Or maybe they don't...

Ratibor: I was a Tmutarakan posadnik - there are an abyss of them, filthy ones. I've seen enough of them in their very nests: they live to live, but they don't want to understand that they live. This is what it is without God. How they lived from Noah to Abraham. There is no sin on us for them! No, children, and do not be afraid of the wrath of God, do not be afraid.

The light goes out. Everyone leaves. Only part of the scene is illuminated: the upper room in the house Ratibor. Two floors. Downstairs, Itlyar enters the room, pleased, rubs his hands, lies down on the couch, on his back, stretches, closes his eyes dreamily. A beautiful girl enters with a tray, he opens his eyes, gets up, hugs her, drags her on the bed, but then he looks at the ceiling, notices something was wrong, jumps up in alarm. Oleg and Foma are on the second floor, silently opening a hole in the ceiling. Itlyar looks up fascinated, Foma lowers an arrow, hits him in the chest. Itlyar falls. The girl calmly collects the tray and leaves.

Phenomenon 3

Early morning. Monastery cell, whitewashed, low ceiling, icons, on the table, on the benches - books everywhere. The Bible is opened. The candle burns out, dissolving in the light of the rising sun. Fresh greenery, a summer dawn in the window, the dark blue Dnieper, high hills, gardens are far visible. In the cell - Vasily and Simon. Simon holds his hand on an open book. He has a manly face, he is not young, he is over 70, but cheerful, enlightened and very wise. Vasily is fragile, sickly, transparent face, clear eyes, about twenty-five years old.

Simon: What day has started?

Basil: Twentieth day of the worm!

Simon (opens window): Clean day! Clear, light. It will be a good day! Well, so what did I tell you, son?

Basil: 0 Glebe Svyatoslavich, Prince of Novgorod.

Simon: Will you write, or what?

Basil: Remember, I remember everything you say. When you leave, I'll write it down. And now - the words would not be dropped.

Simon: Well, how do you confuse or remember?

Basil: But was it like that?

Simon: It wasn't, but maybe...

Basil: I'll come to you - I'll ask. You will indicate how.

Simon (smiles): Well, how can I completely leave?

Basil (alarmed): Where is it?

Simon: Where did everyone go - and Vsevolod Yaroslavich, and here is Gleb Svyatoslavich ... Well, listen. There was a famine throughout Russia, a great pestilence, diseases, and then locusts. Flew - horror. And magicians, pagan sorcerers, appeared everywhere. And the people believed them. Before that, around Yaroslavl, they cut the skin of the women from shoulder to shoulder, and took out the life from there, or rather, they themselves put it there first. And the people themselves led their wives-sisters to them ... Well, one sorcerer showed up in Novgorod. He stands on the shore and broadcasts ... de, he believes in the Antichrist, de, he is stronger, and everything on earth is subject to him. Calls to destroy churches, priests and clergy to execute. I was a prince in the squad. We stand on the shore. Ahead is Gleb Svyatoslavich, on foot, armed. We are behind him. And against us are Novgorodians, baptized. And, do you believe me, I cut a lot, I was in evil battles - I was not shy, but then my heart sank: Nikita, a bishop from the Sophia church, and two priests, and a deacon came out to them. With crosses, with icons ... they go ... And opposite - the whole of Novgorod. Well, I think the baptized bishops will decide, and we are here too ... And the prince is young, hot, angry ... And here - he is standing! and holds his hand on the hilt of his sword. I only pray: "Lord, don't give up! Let me die a Christian!" And the sorcerer is furious: "Now I will show you all my strength - I will cross the Volkhov on the water ..." And the murmur in the crowd at the bishop, which is getting closer, closer ... Well, very close. I feel wet paths run down my back... Then Gleb Svyatoslavich broke loose. He doesn’t run - he flies, we keep up with him, but we’ve become on the side of the saints, we’ve completely caught up with them. Gleb raised his sword and said: "Here is your strength!" and cut off his head. And that's it! the power of the demons subsided - and the people subdued ... Do you remember?

Basil: Yes! What, are there demons?

Simon: But what about - the Savior himself remembers them. He drove them into a herd of pigs, drove them out of the demon-possessed ... more than once. Only those who worship them do not have the fear of God, they think about the power of the earth ...

Basil: Here are the Polovtsy - aren't they demon-possessed?

Simon: No. Such is their fate - to rob and beat the Christian people. Terrible fate. This is what it is - “turn the other cheek”. It’s better to be tormented by monsters than you yourself would be tormented by someone, but for that you are forever tormented ... (blowing on a candle). It went out ... and the day rose - hello, God's day! How beautiful you are. But - we will not forever celebrate the light of the earth ... and this is sad ...

Basil: Everyone is like that ... and the people? and the whole world? Well, the Russian world is not forever?

Simon: Forever, son. Until the end of time, I think. The Lord loves Russia - he showed her the light of his truth, and the Apostle Andrew then proclaimed that she should be a saint. So, a martyr.

Basil: Well, is it good - only a martyr?

Simon: And His ways are inscrutable. We just have to believe that He is right. For as the clay grumbles against the potter, so the creature competes with the creator. When Sophia of Novgorod was painted, then Spas squeezed his hand, unclenched it, squeezed it again and his voice was: I hold in my hand Velikiy Novgorod let him go, he will die.

A noise is heard: the tramp of many horses is approaching. The noise grows like an inevitability. The monks wake up in their cells. Their voices, disturbing from sleep, ring with fear.

2nd: Nicephorus, father, wake up, trouble, the infidels are jumping. Get up, honey! God! Thomas! Nikita! ... Here, here, Nikifor died at night, at prayer!

1st: Rest, Lord...

3rd (hotly): Jesus! How much can you torment us, have mercy and save your people ...

4th (evil): So, so, punish them, Lord, with Jezebel theirs, the mistress of St.

From the side one can hear a single female screeching and crying of a child from a Kyiv suburb.

Basil (crossing himself): Well, it has begun ... Polovtsy! Filthy! (kneels before the icon) Mother of God! Intercede for orphans, for the helpless, for the old, for plowmen, for merchants - for your people, Orthodox, Lady! You see everything from heaven - pray to the Son to save Russia! Save Kyiv! And us, the unworthy disciples of Blessed Anthony, Saint Barlaam, the nuns of the Caves!

Simon silently prays. Noise, now hundreds of running feet, furious wild cries, like hot breath; slamming doors, people screaming, begging for mercy.

2nd: Leave, let me go! I am not guilty...

3rd: Blessed is he - the holy fool ... Do not fall, villain!

2nd: Don't burn my hair - it hurts!

1st: Mother! Mother!

3rd: The temple is on fire! Fire! Orthodox churches are on fire!

Simon: Get up. Run, son. On the! (Gives him a Bible and a scroll with an annals) Run! Save yourself! Monomakh is alive - the Lavra will not perish, for a long time he will sow light among the people. And you run, run.

Pushing him to the window, Vasily was confused, mechanically got up, took a bundle - a book and a manuscript, but he had not yet made up his mind.

Basil (at the window): And you?

Simon (imperatively): Run, the Lord is with you, son.

Vasily jumps out the window, runs away. The door swings open, on the threshold of Bonyak, the Polovtsian Khan, with him are two Polovtsians, vicious, intoxicated with the massacre of the monks, heated, you can - in blood and soot. Bonyak looks like a fox, and in a fox hat.

Simon (calmly): What, Bonyak, did Vladimir Vsevolodovich and Svyatopolk Izyaslavich drive you into the steppes? Far driven, to the Don? Revenge, or what, appeared? Stealthily, to the unarmed, when no one was waiting. You scoundrel! Better try with my prince, Fighter, fight in single combat ... in a fair fight.

Bonyak concentratedly rips and tramples the icons, tearing off the salaries, puts them in a sack, hands over a part to the Polovtsy, tears the books with hatred.

Keep me. God,
You are my one
Darling
Lord!
wondrous
Make me like yours
draw near to the saints,
that's all you pray for
devoted son.
All those who honor another God,
I'm runing,
I am not lying, --
I curse their names
they are dead
and their seeds will not sprout
in Life and Word!

Bonyak, about to leave, comes up and spits in Simon's face. Simon swings a bench at him. Bonyak comes out with one of the Polovtsians. The second, from behind, from the back, hits Simon on the head with his saber and comes out too. Simon falls.

CURTAIN

Phenomenon 4

Upper room in the prince's chamber, in Starodub. Oleg is very gloomy. Beldyuz, young Polovtsian, son of Itlyar; Ivan Chudinovich, Oleg's boyar, is middle-aged and restrained.

Oleg (displeased, walks around the room): What? How many days do we sit in Starodub?

Beldyuz (looks like his father, -- copy, sorting out the rosary): Thirty-three today.

Ivan Chudinovich: Prince! What are you so worried about? God willing, David will come, Yaroslavushka...

Oleg (impatiently): Leave it! Svyatopolk and Vladimir went to the Polovtsians? Went. Did they beat them? Beaten. But not me. If I don't trust them, I won't go with them. I will go alone, but not with them.

Belduz: And how did they tell you to be at the congress - to dress up with the boyars and priests about the Russian land? Yes, you, prince, daring, whom will you listen to?

Vsevolod Olegovich enters, the same age as Beldyuz, 18 years old.

Oleg: Shut up, you bastard! I won't give you up - and rejoice! But - shut up, hateful! Davidka was given Novgorod instead of Smolensk, and he was again sent to Smolensk, but he was not stable there... And the Novgorodians were free, quarrelsome, they called Mstislavka Vladimirovich again - they love Monomakh's blood in Russia!

Vsevolod (ironically, evil): Especially Mstislav - the son of Guida, the English princess. Yes, and his father is of royal blood, Greek. Russian there is just not enough.

Ivan Chudinovich: My young prince! Mstislav Vladimirovich is your father's godson. You would be closer to him, so that this mess, in strife, would not be repeated in Russia. Eh! Yaroslav, from wise advice and love, and the world bequeathed to you ...

Oleg (angrily): It was free to chat with the tongue - it is not he who disentangles. Yes, and you hold your own, or you don’t like my affairs - for my bread?

Ivan Chudinovich: I, the prince, love you and shed blood for you ... Simply - a little old and chattered. Sorry for the stupidity, do not blame me (bows).

Vsevolod: Was it he, Yaroslav, who said to the accursed Svyatopolk: "Let God judge between us and let the wickedness of the sinner end?"

Oleg: He. As Monomakh told me - he remembered, well, repeat it?

Vsevolod: May God judge us...

Oleg (going to the window): Something gloomy. And the day is dark - to bad weather. Click-ka, son, peselnikov, perhaps feel better.

Vsevolod comes out. Belduz is behind him.

What, Ivanko, are our deeds bad? Did they feast like that in Tmutarakan? And why did I return to this Russia only? No will, no life - all Monomakh, like a thorn in the sun, is planted for me ...

Ivan Chudinovich: Yes, and there, too, it was ... spinning between the khans - who is allied, who is the enemy ... figure it out: everyone is oblique, everyone is cunning, today - one thing, tomorrow - another. And Rostislavichi, and Davidka Igorevich? How much fun! Your father was sitting on the Kiev table, and you will be! Who is as lucky as you? Heather how are you? Slick how are you? What is this Monomakh to you? Do serfs and serfs love him, that he redeems the poor from captivity, and the princes favor him with something?

Oleg (shaking his head): I know - Russia loves him. I don't know why, but I love it. What was my name? Gorislavich - that I bring grief to them, I brought the Polovtsy three times. But I don’t care about Russia - he loves not loves, I will achieve my goal. I will sit down in Kyiv. The end will justify all means. And there I’ll take care of Russia ... How Grand Duke- I will defend her, keep her ... what am I with her love? So I took my wife - they gave me and took it. Didn't know any love. And the children survived, and - nothing. Father gave a wife, God - Russia, what does love have to do with it, I don’t understand? Something doesn't make sense to me.

Peselniki enter, servants with honey, snacks, put on the tables. A beautiful girl, smartly dressed, sings, the songbirds pick up, at the same time playing the harp. Oleg examines the girl eagerly. A strong clap of thunder and more noise, a growing rumble. The girl falls silent, Oleg is dissatisfied.

Oleg (to the girl): Sing, Lyubava, sing! Yes, today you will sing to me alone, at night! Sing, why are you silent?

The silence is wary. The girl continues timidly, the window swings open, lightning flashes. Ivan Chudinovich, crossing himself, closes the window. Vsevolod runs in.

Vsevolod: Father! Monomakh and Svyatopolk took the city by storm! Now they will be here! (runs out)

Immediately the door opens, Svyatopolk enters, without vigilantes. Svyatopolk to 50, lean, straight blond hair, nervous, long face, large bulging, bright eyes. Peselniki, Ivan Chudinovich, the girl hurried out.

Svyatopolk: What, Oleg Svyatoslavich, is it difficult to go against the Grand Duke? It can be seen that you can’t trample on the gossip (sits down). I kicked you out of Chernigov. You ran out here, but I - here, right there!

Oleg (angrily): You're welcome! And then - Monomakh. He is the head of everything. You sit by his hand in Kyiv, and he gave up the throne to you: the veche shouted at him!

Svyatopolk: Do you think to quarrel with Monomakh? -- will not work. I need him more than you, troublemaker.

Oleg: Well, yes, you need it! If you are more afraid of him than death!

Svyatopolk: Well, I'm afraid! And you don't lie. Fear is not stronger than profit. So that.

Enter Monomakh and Bishop Daniel of Chernigov.

Monomakh: Hello Oleg! We don’t want your blood with the Grand Duke, but why didn’t you give us Itlyar’s son, didn’t go to the filthy ones?

Oleg (grinning): You ask that you are the senior prince of Kyiv, and not him. (Arrogantly) That's why he didn't give up and didn't go, because he kept his honor - he kept the contract. I, like you, do not hit ambassadors and allies with arrows. I am a man of honor. My word is princely.

Svyatopolk (calmly): Well, we won't judge that. The city is taken - do you ask for peace?

Oleg: Please brothers, please. How not to ask? You don’t drive me, the wretched one, give me a part in the Russian land - don’t deprive me of bread, we are all of the same kind of people.

Monomakh: Nobody is chasing you. Just be at the convention! (to the Bishop) Speak, holy father.

Daniel: In Chernigov, at a veche, they decided to leave you as a prince, not to drive you off the table. But - only if you go to the princely congress, arrange yourself with the princes, with the boyars, with the priests about the Russian land, torn apart by the filthy, and how they

beat out. If you don’t go, you won’t see the Chernigov table like your own ears.

Oleg: I'll go, brothers! I'll go! In everything I will be in your will! I won't go out.

Daniel (holds out the cross, taking it off his chest): Kiss the cross on that one!

Oleg kisses the cross, crosses himself, climbs to kiss Svyatopolk. While they are kissing, Monomakh comes out.

CURTAIN

Phenomenon 5

Wide open shore Klyazma. Two battle camps opposite each other. The action is in the camp of Mstislav Vladimirovich of Novgorod, in his camp tent. The entrance is open, the curtain is completely raised, so everything is visible from the tent: Oleg's camp is at a great distance. Armed people walk around Mstislav's camp, talking, the horses are not unsaddled. There are many banners on both sides. In the tent Mstislav, 21 years old, blond, tall, strong, clear open face, generous and smart; monk Vasily, chronicler.

Mstislav (looking at Oleg's camp): You know, Vasily, it's disgusting to me! Even before

nausea - so disgusting, heavy, the heart groans like the wind in spring.

Basil: Pray, Mstislav Vladimirovich! Pray. The Lord alone will calm the soul, no one else can. What will I say, how will I console you, prince? No Izyaslav Vladimirych .... no, and no one will raise him. Only the Lord will save him, comfort you, send you a meeting... bliss...

Mstislav: I also have other brothers. But my dead mother, he and I are only sons.

Basil: Like Joseph and Benjamin. It was already. And will be. Everything was, prince, and everything will be. There is nothing new under the sun.

Mstislav: Why live?

Basil: For everyone to live. It will reach the essence - love and knowledge - his happiness. Will remain on greed, cruelty, revenge - woe to him!

Mstislav: Who didn't make it? How is my brother?

Basil: Looking up to what. The main thing is to live to love, forgiveness, wisdom. We are all in the power of the Lord. And then, my dear prince, he could not restrain himself, he could not endure, he did not think ...

Mstislav: Wrong, right? this is what? Well, I was wrong. But not yet...

Basil: Are they dying? Princes more often. And by the way (he is baptized) and the saints are not spared ...

Mstislav: You are an orphan, aren't you? Did Simon teach you, brought you into the people?

Basil: I am rootless. My father was a smerd, completely stolen away, my mother and sister were hacked to death in our hut by the filthy ones, and I slept in the hay, I was seven years old, well, I escaped ... (quietly) I know how it is - to lose dear ... the very only one. You have brothers, father... I only had him.

Mstislav (approaching): How did you decide?

Basil: I know he is saved and I will see him. I know that I must complete the chronicle. I know from the inside. That's all. He wouldn't make it - he's old. I barely escaped.

Mstislav: OK then. Everything was, everything will be ... And why then rush about, co-operate, fight with the godfather? (Nods at Oleg's camp)

Basil: Izyaslav, he, tea, is also a godfather? And he killed him. Didn't regret? Word violated - killed?

Mstislav: I do not avenge, even for my brother. Only for the Russian land. Or should I not answer for her before the Lord?

Basil: You as well as any lackey. Equally. And here it is for you-

My Lord! By Your strength
the king will rejoice
and your joy
the saved sovereign is full ...

Twentieth psalm. I am not teaching you - this is the truth. I remind you, I want you to come yourself, I love you, Mstislav, we grew up together ... and you are the Prince of Novgorod, the son of Monomakh, the hope of Russia.

Mstislav: Should I fight Oleg Gorislavich, didn't you say? We have been standing here for four days, but there is no battle. Neither he nor I start...

Basil: Did he kiss the cross? And fulfilled? No. Izyaslav for Moore killed. Rostov, Suzdal captured. If it weren’t for the people of Novgorod with Dobrynya Raguilovich, I wouldn’t conclude peace with you. Again - violated, came here. He's mean Sneaky man, Pharisaic leaven. There will be a battle, a fierce slash (solemnly, excitedly) and the Lord will send you victory and life!

Mstislav: How do you know?

Basil: I know, prince.

Mstislav (joyfully): I believe you, Vasilko - a pure soul at your place. And the mind is clear. Happy are you!

Basil: Well? What is it? Orphanhood, right?

Mstislav: And this. And monasticism.

Basil (laughs): Well, a monk like you wouldn't make a monk!

Mstislav (also laughs): Would you make a warrior?

Basil (seriously): I don't know. This is according to circumstances. The Apostle Paul is also a warrior, God's. And now maybe I’ll go into battle (laughing again), at least with your sword! And you need to calm him down! You won’t defeat him, prince, so that he feels his weakness, humiliation, he will not dress up with your father, he needs to be forced to force the law! He himself will not accept the law, he wants to live in lawlessness - such is the man he is ...

Vsevolod Olgovich inaudibly approached, entered the tent. Vasily leaves.

Vsevolod: Hello, my brother, Mstislav Vladimirovich Monomakh!

Mstislav (shuddering): Look how you crept up, invisible, quiet. Well, hello, if you've come. What did you come with, Vsevolod Olgovich?

Vsevolod: Brother Vyacheslav came to you with the Polovtsy Kunuy? The slaughter will be evil ... for Izyaslav Vladimirovich.

Mstislav (proudly): I do not avenge my brother, let the Lord judge this matter. I will go for the truth and let God judge us.

Vsevolod: I walked here in the forest, ate berries, well, let me, I think, I’ll go to my brother, maybe we won’t see each other all of a sudden. Someone will be the first in the Russian land, you or me?

Mstislav: Let the elder be first. As according to the law of grandfathers it is necessary.

Vsevolod: And the older one is you. It's clear.

Mstislav: Not me. Law. Let the law reign. I am for the law.

Vsevolod: And I am for strength. You are arrogant, brother. Only I didn't kill your brother. What is so harsh with me?

Mstislav: And you are treacherous. In the father of a darling. Or do you not harass my daughter-in-law, Vseslava, you scoundrel?

Vsevolod (leaving, quietly): And you - in your ... Well, God willing - in battle we will count for these words (leaves).

Mstislav puts on armor and leaves. It can be seen how in both camps they are preparing for battle. They raise banners, count people, consider enemies, etc.

CURTAIN

Phenomenon 6

Monomakh alone in the low room. Night. Deep silence. A kivot with icons over the table. There is a lamp on the table, an unfolded parchment scroll, a ladle of kvass, an inkwell and feathers next to the scroll. Monomakh walks around the room. He is cramped, stuffy. He unbuttons his caftan, the mantle lies on the bench. On the other bench, a skin is covered with a blanket, a pillow... Monomakh drinks kvass, sits down, gets up again, goes to the table, takes a scroll, reads without looking at it...

Monomakh: For a long time my sad heart struggled with the Christian duty to forgive and show mercy to those who command. God tells brothers to love one another; but the most intelligent grandfathers, our most kind and blessed fathers, seduced by the enemy of Christians, rebelled against blood ... I am writing to you, convinced by your godson, who begs me to leave malice for the good of the Russian land and bring the death of his brother to the judgment of God .. And indeed, do we, perishable creatures, dare to reject the example of divine meekness given to us by the Savior? Today - in honor and glory, tomorrow - in the grave ... and others will share our wealth. Let us remember, my brother, our fathers: what did they take with them, besides their souls? For the unrighteousness of this vain age they killed my child in the bloom of youth. I would say to you as to David: “I know my sin, it is before me, I see” ...

Monomakh gets up again, sits down again, thinks, begins to read, quietly, clearly, evenly, without raising his voice, experiencing what he is reading:

I love you, my Lord, fortress,
the stronghold of the world, the home of the native.
My rock, my lectern,
to be afraid with you? Absurdity.
Hell tried to entangle my legs with chains,
already trying to throw the nets of death,
and to Thee I called, and with my own hands
You delivered me. On the high line
I stood, hearing Your wrath, Omnipotent
Lord of hosts, and that voice was more terrible of anger:
then the earth shook
spewing fire, you opened your mouth,
tilted the heavens
and got off; it seemed to me --
cherubs on windy wings
carried you, O God, through the darkness,
and the radiance fled like a heavenly opening,
and the girdle of thy glory shone, the zodiac.
Fired arrows of lightning
like thunder proclaimed
the foundations of the universe Your anger laid bare;
and you stretched out your hand from on high,
and delivered me from all the power of my enemies,
You were my support
breaking the shackles.
For I honored You, and fearing to sin,
lived, listening to You, as You commanded me,
because I don't know how to stop loving you,
and to you I have confessed the whole truth of my soul.
For you are pure with the pure, but you will repay the evil one
out of deceit, saving the innocent,
You will betray the arrogant to the judgment of your truth,
in lies, self-interest and malice of the guilty.
You enlighten the darkness
my light and shield is the Lord,
I firmly believe that
that the Lord is my stronghold,
undefiled are his ways, pure are his words,
a fortress to all in whom the Lord's truth is alive.
Besides God, who is God?
Who else is protecting?
Helped me win
He fills my heart.
Raised to the heights
strengthened my hands
so that copper bows
I crushed. They are alive and great.
You extended my step, enemies
run and fall at my feet,
they cry to You, but their steps
will not break on Your thresholds.
You do not hear them and do not heed,
although you embrace the world.
Under my foot they are only dirt,
dust before my face, blown by the wind,
I can neither get tired nor fall with You,
crushed the rebellion You shamed boars.
And raised me up as the head of the nations,
and my other tribes tremble,
Lord live! My protector!
My salvation!
my redemption-
it is you, you are the lamp
Good, may Your name be glorified!

Transfers the spirit. Somewhere in the middle of the psalm, Vasilko Rostislavich entered - a little over thirty, strong, well-built, black-haired, big gray eyes, thick eyebrows, straight posture, with great feeling dignity.

Vasilko (joyfully, quietly):

Showing mercy to the anointed David
in his offspring, in himself forever,
You are alive and happy Man,
you will not give offense to the right!

Monomakh (turns around, very joyfully): It's you, Vasilko! How did you guess to enter, it's night! You are a dear person, your heart is smart, and your mind is kind. If not for you, who would I hope for in this life.

Vasilko: Well, what are you, prince, what are you! Full! Am I the only one who believes you - Russia believes you, you are the hope and protection of the humiliated, the destitute. You save prisoners, you don’t execute anyone by death, you beat the filthy! You know, I, too, have become without tiuns, I myself judge, sort out lawsuits, I want to do everything myself, like Monomakh, to do!

Monomakh (smiles): My heart was constrained, prince, and now it has passed - from your smile. It can be seen that there is no greater happiness than unanimity in a brother.

Vasilko (notices the letter): Oleg Svyatoslavich?

Monomakh: To him. Here (reads): Repent before God and write a letter to me with an ambassador or with a priest without any guile: you will take your region in good order, turn my heart to yourself. God knows that I wish good to the earth and brothers. May he who does not desire peace for Christians among you be forever deprived of the peace of his soul. You know, it’s not fear, it’s not extremes that compel me to write, I don’t write out of need, but for my soul — it’s dearer to me than the whole world...

Vasilko: So, prince, everything is so. But it’s not your truth that humbles him, but that Mstislav defeated him on the Klyazma, that they didn’t let him into Smolensk, locked himself in Murom, sits out of Mstislav’s mercy. Strength will compel him to obey. Not a kiss on the cross, not honor, not conscience, not reason - strength. He only knows power. He is given no more. Well, God bless him! Do you forgive him for everything?

Monomakh (gloomy): What can I tell you, Rostislavich! People are different. Here you are, and your brothers, Rurik and Volodar, are different, and Oleg is the third, and I am the fourth ... Snowflakes are different, not like people by the will of the Lord! There is a law of love - this is the law of Christ and the law of the fathers. This is the law of life. I want to combine them in my deeds, like a prince I guard Russia, but in laws, I don’t want to break them. In battle, take it easy - read seventy, or something, since I fought with the filthy. You know you're right, and you fight. And then - my child was killed, my love. Died in strife. And Oleg this how many times betrayed!

Vasilko: Don't you think that if he died, well, at least die in the battle - it would be better?

Monomakh: No, Vasilko. How many others are better? If only I could find a way to rid Russia of strife, completely, forever, I would be happy! And so, I do what I can. And you do.

Vasilko: I want to go to the Poles, and then to the Bulgarians, to seek glory for Russia and myself, and most importantly - for the Polovtsians!

Monomakh: Good! And let's go! I'm going to them again. Only, you see, for this we all need to make peace, in order to act together, together we are invincible! (Sighs) That's why I forgot my son's death - it's my duty (Clenches his fists, walks around the room). I will force him to come to the congress in Lyubech, in order to arrange the land, and go to the Polovtsy. Enough for them to burn cities, trample down villages - this is some kind of curse for our sins. And we sin again, but they don’t count, the Hagarites, they go, and they go, and they go. Do you remember how the accursed Svyatopolk cut three brothers?

Vasilko: I remember. I confess, you are right, the damned were, are and will always be. And there will be Polovtsy. Where is the end? Exit? To end once and for all...

Monomakh: Our business is to work, Vasilko, but it will not be given to see the fruits of our labors.

Curtain

Action 2

Phenomenon 1

Grand Duke's Terem in Kyiv. Richly decorated room. The feast has just ended. The youths of the prince clear the dishes from the tables. Enter Svyatopolk. He is gloomy, immersed in himself, sits down at the table, waits, looks impatiently and nervously at the door. All the boys come out. Soon after them, David Igorevich, Prince of Vladimir-Volynsky, appears, tall, stooping, thin, still young, suspicious look, thick eyebrows, clear features, unkind and dark.

David: I want to talk to you brother. You see - I stayed.

Svyatopolk: I see. You are gloomy - you are silent. Yes, I know, I guessed what you would say, David!

David (sits down opposite): Are we alone?

Svyatopolk: Alone. Tea, there is no one to be under the table, or in the chest? Maybe for images? However, the brownie is already listening, right.

David: It’s good for the brownie to live with the prince of Kyiv, behind the stove - he knows everything, more than us, sinners, your younger brothers ...

Svyatopolk (with a grin): I don't hide from my brothers. Just now in Lyubech, at the congress, he said everything as it is, as if in spirit. But you - not everything, if you stopped by to me, do not feast the day after tomorrow, on my name day, on St. Michael's Day. You hide something in your heart, prince, a deep thought.

David: Tayu. And you didn't guess it either. (Hotly) Monomakh congress - the soul. His work, his thought, his decision. Judge for yourself - did he imprison you or veche? Do not blame me, brother, for the truth - I will say everything that I think, for now it will be too late to hide.

Svyatopolk (getting up, pacing up and down the room): What other truth is there, except for the fact that three days ago, in Lyubech, the Russian princes kept repeating, kissing the Holy Cross? (Coming close to David) "If now someone rises against another, then we all - against the instigator, and the honest cross, against him, and the whole Russian land." BUT?

David: And that one, Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, that like the Lyubech Congress - Monomakh has a soul, so does the Russian land, with his hand you sit on the Kiev table senior. That's the truth, it's bitter.

Svyatopolk (turning away - quietly): And what follows from that truth?

David (getting up, moving away to the window, turning away): And the fact that he cannot but desire the Kyiv table. Is it possible for him, whom the Kiev veche, after his father Vsevolod Yaroslavich, unanimously called out not to take him? You interfere.

Svyatopolk (furiously): I don't believe it! Monomakh would not have gathered a congress, striven for it, sacrificed his son, so that everyone would swear in alliance, brotherly love, duty as a prince - to keep Russia. He is not such a person.

David (quietly): What kind of person? All people are the same. And more than one person for the power of his son sacrificed his soul too. I see so: I could, and another can. And that the glory of him goes - about his honor and conscience - so if he dissolves it himself, but circumstances always play into his hands - that's the whole story. There is no one to be seen behind him in Russia. (Turning to Svyatopolk, sharply) Who killed your brother, Yaropolk Izyaslavich, my Prince Vladimir, Volynsky?

Svyatopolk (whistling): Look where you have gone, dear brother, my uncle, Igor Yaroslavich, the only son. Vaughn what!

David: And who is now sleeping with Vasilko Rostislavich Terebovlsky in the Mikhailov Monastery, do you know?

Svyatopolk: Vasilko in Kyiv?

David: Now he has entered, returning from Pereyaslavl, from his dear Monomakh, from the other bank of the Dnieper to himself, to Terebovl Chervensky ...

Svyatopolk: So what?

David (approaching him, passionately, quietly): And the fact that Lazar, my boyar, was there the day before yesterday, and found out all their conversations.

Svyatopolk: From where?

David: The brownie, apparently, told them, they buried themselves behind the stove!

Svyatopolk: Chat more! So I will believe you, as you revealed to me where Lazar listened to ...

David: And this is what they decided ... Vasilka is my city, Vladimir, for which your brother, Yaropolk, was killed, - Neradets, a youth of the Rostislavichs ...

Well, and Monomakh is Kyiv. Thoughts about your own head, if you don’t want to together ...

Goes to the door. Enter Vladimir, a youth, Vasilka's young combatant.

Youth: Prince Svyatopolk Izyaslavich! I come to you from Vasilko Rostislavich, my prince... He prays in the Mikhailov Monastery, I bowed, he will be with you tomorrow after Mass.

David (quickly): What's your name?

Youth: Vladimir.

David: You lie! You are Neradets, the murderer of Prince Yaropolk.

Youth: My father's name was indeed that, as you say, I am his son.

David: You see, Svyatopolk - your brother is not avenged, but the murderer's son - his the nearest boy.

It turns out. The lad hurries to follow him. Svyatopolk alone.

Svyatopolk (approaching the icon): Lord! Is this true? Oh my God! What should I do, what should I do? (Steps away from the icons) Vladimir could, could. He's dark, strong, smart. He could do anything. Why give up the table? Why didn't you just sit down? (wipes sweat) Ah! I know! I know! If he first sat down - there would be strife. And he doesn't like strife. And so - kill me, remove ... and take Kyiv, for me, brother, that means. In law. Here it is - its legitimacy! What to decide, how to be? (Screams) Putyatka, Dobrynka, come here! To me! (The sleepy youths enter.) Tomorrow morning, before mass, gather the big boyars to me, for advice, let them be.

Phenomenon 2

The same mountain. Early morning. Svyatopolk wakes up on a bench - he slept dressed, gets up, stretches, he is uncomfortable, not well, dreary. Hastens to the window, opens it.

Svyatopolk: Dark. Breast already. Studeno. Look how it froze the upper room. (Closes the window) Oh my God! God! What will happen to me?!? Well, how did Davidka talk the truth - Monomakh planned evil? Will destroy me. Yes, let him just say (looks around in fear), I will give Kyiv, I will not regret it. My head is the most precious thing to me...

Enter David.

David: What? Did not sleep?

Svyatopolk: And you? What are you looking at? Didn't see? And what did you complain about at such an early hour? What are you, guarding me? what are you waiting for?

David: Your boyars gathered there to think. What to tell them?

Svyatopolk: Go tell them everything you told me. Say I said. I ask them for advice - what should I do, what should I do? But be quiet yourself. Wait to be told.

David exits. Enter Daniel, Bishop of Chernigov.

Daniel: Hello, prince. What's so pale?

Svyatopolk: Vasilko - where?

Daniel: Yesterday I was in the Mikhailovsky Monastery, praying. He returned to spend the night in his camp, outside the city.

Svyatopolk: And what about the abbot, something did not leave him to spend the night?

Daniel: Left, but he did not want to.

Svyatopolk: Why didn’t he, like a human being, come to his uncle, to me? Or disrespect me? Or does the old remember everything? Didn't you kiss the cross for friendship and love? Maybe he's up to something bad...

Daniel: No, prince. Vasilko is not such a person. The cross kissed in truth - to forget the old. I will vouch for him before the Lord God.

Svyatopolk: And what about your guarantee to me - you are close to Monomakh. What he commands is your oath.

Daniel (outraged): I do not sell my conscience, prince. I have my own thoughts, and if I vouch, so I vouch. There are no princes between me and my Lord.

Svyatopolk: The words! Words are everything! And what are you responsible for? I need to think about every step.

David enters, whispers something to Svyatopolk. Daniel gets up to leave.

Svyatopolk: Speak, speak aloud to him. I do not hide the bishop, Monomakhov's friend.

Daniel: He is your brother, your friend, the prince. What a friend he is to me.

David: The boyars decided: think for yourself. But if your head is in danger, save it. He is guilty - execute him, but if you execute an innocent - you will answer God.

Daniel (shocked): What are you thinking? Is it against Vasilko Rostislavich?

David ( menacingly): Do you want to forestall him? Hey lads!

Three boys enter.

David: Take the holy father to me in the upper room to pray, and when I say, let him out. Yes, be more respectful - he is a bishop and my guest.

Daniel (walking before the youths): I'm coming! Only the Lord be with me - I am your witness in this matter (leaves).

David: Now I called him twice from you - to stay. Doesn't want to. Once he says, they are waiting at home. If he does not listen here, whether he will listen to you in his parish, judge for yourself.

Svyatopolk: I’ll send to call him at least to visit (leaves).

David: You hesitate, Svyatopolkushka! Indecisive, but domineering. Vile, but not firm. You didn’t go out into the father either - he is firmer, more powerful, and more resolute. Oh, you, the namesake of the accursed Svyatopolk Vladimirych!

Svyatopolk returns.

Svyatopolk: Sent. Where is his father?

David: Guard. Yesterday at once I also ordered to guard.

Svyatopolk: They were sharp with him - he will warn Vasilko if he runs out. Do you know what they told me about Vladimir, he and Volodar?

David: Well?

Svyatopolk: Their, de, grandfather, the eldest son of Yaroslavov, Vladimir Yaroslavich, and they, therefore, by seniority, have all the rights and only by nobility they do not always achieve them. And Vladimir is their city, and no one else's. And Yaropolk died ... the work of their hands ...

Vasilko Rostislavich enters.

Vasilko (baptized on the image): Dear uncles - joy.

Svyatopolk (going to him, kissing): What - didn't you go? I call - he does not go, does not want to, or what? Vasilko - a favorite of Vladimir Monomakh - is dear to me already. I wait, I call, but he does not - he goes and does not go.

Vasilko: True, I'm in a hurry to go home - I'm going on a campaign to the Poles, they are naughty in my parish.

David: Wait for the name day, Mikhailov's day ... Let's feast ...

Vasilko: No I can not. I've come to visit.

Svyatopolk: I'll feed you, son. Now I’ll go and see that all the best is served, I’ll arrange it myself (he comes out hurriedly).

David (it turns pale, then blushes, does not look at Vasilko): Go help him, or something ... Yes, it’s better to call him. And you will talk to him (leaves hastily).

Vasilko (opens the Bible, reads): “But I tell you that everyone who is angry with his brother in vain is subject to judgment, whoever says “cancer” to his brother is subject to the Sanhedrin; and whoever says “mad” is subject to fiery hell ... "

His lad enters quickly, the son of Neradets - Vladimir

Youth: Prince, my dear! They planned to destroy you.

Vasilko: Why do you think so? And where are you from?

Youth: Yesterday I wanted to tell you that they followed me. They remembered my father - that he had killed, about revenge. They are on you, otherwise why would they lock me up?

Vasilko: It can't be. They kissed the cross the other day. You confused something. Oversleep!

Youth: Run, prince, run. A great sin is being prepared, evil is being plotted.

Vasilko: Get out of here. Will I listen to a servant against princes, my cousins' uncles? Father - brothers. Yes, even after Lyubech! No... (Crossing himself) I don't believe it. I will surrender to the will of God - but I will not run away.

Svyatopolk's groom and his youths enter. They rush to Vasilko, shackle him. The lad Vladimir tries to protect him. He is stabbed on the spot. Vasilko, of course, resists for a long time, but he is constrained. He is taken away. The lad is dragged out. The whole scene without words.

Phenomenon 3

Svyatopolk returns, thoughtful, right behind him is the hegumen of the Mikhailovsky monastery John, extremely excited.

John: Prince! Where is the Bishop of Chernigov, Daniel?

Svyatopolk: How much do I know? Kyiv is great.

John: I know he's in your yard. Tell him to bring him. Or to fail you - I will now convict of everything, in your self-interest, indulgence of luxury, and in the malice of your son Mstislav, who tortured the monks, tormented the saints, a fierce snake, - for the gold of the Varangian cave ... Do not escape him the predicted arrow. .. God's judgment is! There is!

Svyatopolk (tired, devastated, slightly raising his voice): Let Danila out! Let it be here. What's itching for you, holy father? Isn't it enough for me to give to your monastery? All the cattle are from a full Polovtsian, and how many Greek utensils did you pass on?

John: You don't have God. “Get away from me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, because you think not about what is God, but what is human...” “And I say to you again: it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Enter Daniel.

John: What have the monsters of the human race done to you, these accursed ones, destroying the Russian land with their accounts and calculations and lust for power?

Daniel: I am alive and well, John. Yes, and it’s not for me to be a victim here - to your guest, Prince Vasilko Rostislavich. I testify in the name of God - they decided to destroy him, they slandered the innocent.

John: Who are they? Who are the villains?

Daniel (pointing to Svyatopolk): One is in front of you, the other is David Igorevich. Then they locked me up too, to keep silent for the time being.

John (approaching Svyatopolk): Where is Vasilko? Let him go - fear God. Or have you forgotten - a man is not eternal on earth, not everything is for him to walk in the flesh, the terrible hour of death will come. And the princes will not take power with them, but will become “the first last and last first.” For the beggar Lazarus lay at the door of the nobleman, a leper, unfortunate, praying for a crust of bread. And he died - and now Abraham reclines in his bosom for patience, for humility, for the spirit of poverty ... And the rich man died, fell into hell, the proud one. Prays Abraham for a drop of water, so that Lazarus will bring to moisten his mouth. And what did Abraham say to him, do you remember? - You received your good in life, and Lazarus evil, but now he is comforted here, and you are suffering. You would not be, Svyatopolkushka, that rich man, Vasilka - Lazarus.

Daniel: Let him go. We vouch for him. He will not plan evil on you ... Let him go, prince. For the sake of your soul.

Svyatopolk (pale, sweaty, sinking onto the bench): I'll let him go, I'll let him go this very hour. Just go with God! Leave me! (Priests exit.) And the truth - to let go! For the soul. And I'll let go! Am I a villain, a monster? Killer? I'll let go ... (cheered up, cheerful)

Enter David.

David: Well, you've decided what?

Svyatopolk: And if everything is your invention? Remember God, He knows everything, sees everything, looks into the soul, into thoughts. He is a heartbreaker.

David: You are a whore. What are you hesitating again? To be without a head. How your brother, Yaropolk, will be punished, somewhere in the wagon, with a knife in the side, with the hand of a serf. That is what you deserve. You are not a prince, you are not a knight - a woman.

Svyatopolk: Shut up! What to do with it?

David: Not to kill, so at least blind him. He is strong, enterprising, young, smart, Monomakh is a comrade-in-arms. And the blind man, what can he do? You can't lead regiments without eyes...

Svyatopolk (recoiling): Blind?!? Are you out of your mind? Nothing like this has ever happened in Russia.

David: Before something happens, it didn't even exist. And if it happens, they get used to it, they give it a name. And they commemorate - in a warning.

Svyatopolk: No. I will let him go. I am not a killer.

David: So give it to me! I take the sin upon myself! Give it to me! I will be guilty! The answer is mine. I hate him! He was very daring, handsome, brave, he will take my cities - he will deprive me of bread, he will survive in Tmutarakan again, get out. Not I him, so he me. Give it to me...

Svyatopolk: Well, take it, perhaps ... Just don't do any harm - I'm not the defendant in this case, you're out of my court, but hurry! Out!

David hurries out.

CURTAIN

Phenomenon 4

Vasilko in the dungeon. He walks, leaning on the walls, feeling the bench before sitting on it. He sits down, but immediately gets up, walks, holding on to the wall, to the window, unmistakably - to the light that breaks through the cramped, but well-furnished room. It stands in front of the window. The eyes are covered with a tight bandage. The sound of an unlocked door, heavy, rough. Someone dark enters.

Vasilko (not turning around): Who are you? From David? From a kind uncle? What's so awkward? You stand in the corner and you don't move... (He slowly moves towards him, holding on to the bench, to the walls, stumbles, falls on the table with his chest, lies like that for some time, struggling with himself, trembling with suppressed sobs.) Say what you need? Are my eyes not enough for him? Want life? What does not take - his will. Yes, only I have a brother - Volodar Rostislavich, he will avenge my eyes and for my pain - for humiliation ... Ah-ah-ah, right, Vladimir Vsevolodovich found out that I was brutally abused and is leading regiments to take revenge on the villain Svyatopolk . Exactly! I know him - he will not tolerate injustice, he will reckon with meanness, he will not take anything into account, but he will stand up for an offended person - he has such a soul, Monomakh, he alone is only a worker, a sufferer for the Russian land, the rest - they eat it with food, they tear it to pieces. But - no ... Davidka is mistaken - (gets up) I will not ask Prince Vladimir Monomakh for him, nor for the damned Svyatopolk - let them get theirs in this life here. And there - and God's judgment will come in time!

Basil (he is dressed as before in a monastic dress, crying softly): It's me, Vasilko Rostislavich, I, Vasily, a monk of Kiev Pechersk, to you ... You don't know, you don't remember, but you probably saw me at Monomakh in Pereyaslavl ?

Vasilko (heatedly rushing towards him, stumbling again, supported by Vasily): Are you from him?

Basil: No, prince. I myself was in Vladimir Volynsky, here, on church business, and volunteered to talk to you - to console you. And most importantly, to tell you: Monomakh wept when he learned about what he had done, said that such villainy had never happened in Russia, he called Oleg Gorislavich and his brothers, and all of them, horrified by such a betrayal of the kiss of the cross, besieged Kyiv - they rose up on Svyatopolk, as swore in Lyubech.

Vasilko ( bitterly: I knew it. Now David will torture me, set conditions. Well, Vasily, did he ask you to tell me?

Basil: He wants you to ask Monomakh for him - to leave him the parish, not to go to Volhynia with a beating ...

Vasilko: And what do you think about it? Myself?

Basil (firmly): I think this way - Russians should not shed each other's blood anymore. Do not torment the earth, do not tear. You (sighs) ask Monomakh for his villains, so that he does not avenge you - otherwise the princes will again flood the earth with blood. You are strong, brave, smart, kind. Much has been given to you, and the Lord will ask much of you. That's why I undertook to say to you that I believe - you feel sorry for the Russian land, you don't want to shed Christian blood for yourself ... (Quietly) Although, of course, your insult is terrible, innocent ... But evil begets evil - how much there were strife ... And who is guilty of what, go and figure it out. That you killed Yaropolk with your brother - I do not say, I do not know, but that you hated him, and his killer fled to you - everyone knows. And hatred begets hatred, and wickedness creates wickedness. You must understand this, Vasilko...

Vasilko (excited): Evil begets evil -- so. But who will put my eyes back to me?

Basil (confidently): The Lord will ask the villains for them on the day of judgment. Do you believe the Lord? He will not leave - he will judge according to honor. He alone is just, who is just and true like Him?

Vasilko: And it is. When I take off the flesh, like a caftan, or my bloody shirt, I will begin to think, as you say, to the end. But I still can't... I can't see anything at all!

Basil: You, prince, have other eyes - spiritual ones, and with them you will see more sighted ones.

Vasilko: Sit down monk. I confess to you - I'll tell you everything - you're talking business. Yes, it hurts, my soul hurts!

(Vasily sits down. Vasilko stands leaning on the table. Soon - they are not visible. Most of the stage is free, and everything that Vasilko talks about takes place on it.)

Vasilko: I dream the same thing, and often, monk, almost every other night. I can see how it was with me. I'll tell you - it will become easier, the heavy cross fell on my shoulders, I know: I'll carry one, but I want to tell you - it will make me feel better! The Lord humbled me! For my arrogance humbled. True cross (widely crossed), I did not plan anything on them. I wanted to seek the glory of Russia and myself - to beat the Poles, to humble the Danube Bulgarians and bring them to the ground - to put them in jail for raids. And most importantly, to go to the Polovtsians - to share honor with Monomakh! After all, he drank the Don with a golden helmet!

Basil (quietly): You wanted to tell how it was. Tell me in detail - I'll write everything in my history - that's what a lie is done for power on slander, when a person casts out God.

Vasilko: Why write, monk? People lived, live and will continue to live in untruth, until the end of time. True, you yourself said that only the Lord God ... does not have it in the hearts of people. Here our land is held together by the valor and honor of Monomakh, and if it does not become him, then what?

Basil (excitedly): We do not know what the Lord has prepared for our land - whether to be a holy martyr ... but I will write everything. For I see - there were, are and will be such as Monomakh - and they will not lag behind God's truth. Let all the forces of evil be on them - they will not destroy their souls. The Russian land will become strong with them: martyrs, saints, like you ... Workers for good, like him. (hoarsely) Speak, prince!

Vasilko: So it was.

Vasilko and Vasily in the dark. The action takes place on a free part of the stage. They took me into the night, in chains, on a cart to Belgorod - Turyak, Lazar, Vasil, Berendiovchar, Torchin by birth. They took me to the hut. On the free space of the stage - a poor hut.

Vasilko(in chains, with him a shepherd. He sharpens a knife): Give me at least some water, animals! When you don't eat...

Enter Lazarus.

Lazarus: There is? What are you, what are you, prince, before we begin to do, you can’t eat - out of great need it will pull (laughs). Better not to drink.

Vasilko (worried): What are you going to do? Slaughter me, right? How's the lamb?

Lazarus (calmly): Worse, princeling: gouge out the eyeballs so that you don’t see the light of God anymore ...

Jumps on Vasilko, he resists fiercely, although he is bound. Berendi, having checked whether the knife is sharp, rushes to help Lazarus.

Vasilko (casting them aside, shouting in a wild voice): Help for Christ's sake! Somebody good people! (The scream turns into a sob, into a roar. Then, he falls silent so as not to waste strength, resists even more fiercely than before, he cannot be broken.

Turyak and Vasil enter, also pounce on the prince, four of them overcome him.

Vasilko: Lord Jesus Christ, you alone be my witness! You alone are Good, and Truth and Judgment!

He is thrown down on the carpet they themselves have laid, a board is piled on his chest, the bones in his chest are already cracking. Berendi with a knife sits on the board astride, gouges out his eyes. Vasilko is silent, twitching under the board.

Lazarus: Look - he didn’t hit, the oblique devil, he cut his whole face ...

Vasil: But the prince was handsome - he was a noble person, the women, like bees, stuck to a flower. And here's to you, you scoundrel! Don't get carried away! Get it! Kicks the unconscious body with his foot. Berendi wipes the knife. Turyak and Lazar untie Vasilko and put him on the bench. Everyone goes out. Dark. Deep night.

Vasilko (from another part of the scene, hoarse, caked with tears; it hurts him to remember): Well, in the morning I want to open my eyes - I remember how they open, - but there is no eyelid, - there is nothing - the fire burns and devours the eye sockets - such pain... And how long I lay, I don't remember, unconscious. All I hear is a woman next to me, moving, bustling.

Vasilko lies on a bench; winter twilight, a torch shines, covered with the carpet on which they tortured him. An elderly woman scurries around him, changing the bandages on his face, on the table she has jars of infusions, bunches of dry grass.

Vasilko: Who are you, mother?

Woman (approaching him): Alive and awake - thank God!

Vasilko (getting up): I don't see it! Where are the eyes? (falls on the bench with a groan).

Woman(wiping tears): Pray, son, pray and be patient - oh, bitter grief! Be patient ... endure - feel better. You will live forever, you have not died - and thank God ...

Vasilko (with gnashing of teeth): Better death... She again begins to change the bandages, he is silent. Finally, she puts on the last, dense one, sits in his head, baptizes him, whispers a prayer.

Enter Lazarus.

Lazarus: Popadya! Widow!

Woman: What are you yelling? Here I am, here, what do you want, beastly drunk?

Lazarus: Shut up, fool. Listen. He (nods at Vasilko) is ordered to be taken away. And his shirt is stained with blood. You wash quickly.

Vasilko (calmly, distinctly): Not my shirt, don't! I want to stand in it for God's judgment.

Everything is getting dark. There is a room where Vasilko is standing and Vasily is sitting.

Basil: Lord, where is the measure? Where are you?

Vasilko: Ask David to send my boyar Kulmey, I will send him to Monomakh, I also think that many innocent people should not suffer behind my eyes - they should die in strife.

Basil (comes close): You are a golden prince, Vasilko Rostislavich! If only there were more such people in the Russian land... You are a blessed person.

CURTAIN

Phenomenon 5

Monomakh's camp at the Kyiv walls. Monomakh's tent. Removed in a princely way. Domes of Kyiv churches are visible in the distance. Monomakh, Oleg and David Svyatoslavich.

David: Yes, life is hard and difficult. And yet there is a lot of joy in it.

Monomakh: So long ago that you can’t even remember who you were then, Oleg Svyatoslavich and I, I remember, fought together for Russia.

Oleg: Yes, but now we will fight together in strife. You can’t forgive this - it can happen again. Everyone will take it into account - to gouge out each other's eyes with knives (twitching). Punish to be disrespectful.

David: Yes, everyone knew the will of our grandfather, Yaroslav, but who is doing it?

Oleg: And is it doable? Everyone is for himself. Not even for his family, but in the family, and even then - for himself.

Monomakh: And if every man is for himself, it means that his eyes will prick. Who else is thinking? But here they don’t think about the earth, what about a brother! When my father fled from Chernigov to Kyiv, to Izyaslav, from you, Oleg Svyatoslavich, what did Izyaslav say to him? “If there is my share in the Russian land - and yours should be, we will become to own together.” So, was he faithful to his father's will?

Oleg (walks, agitated): It's a shame, Vladimir Vsevolodovich, to remember such a thing is a sin, because it's not true. That is the truth. But who deprived the orphan nephews of their hereditary, paternal share?

Monomakh: Not me. You are right about one thing - we didn’t make the mess with you, it’s hard to figure it out. It is impossible - so many grievances have accumulated. Yes, but I'm not talking about who is to blame! I want no one to figure it out anymore - let go of insults to God's judgment and defend the earth together! So that everyone has patience!

Oleg (looking at him in bewilderment): Well, is it your own interest - not the main one? And what is the main thing then?

Monomakh (hotly): Russia! You look - and in Kyiv, and in Smolensk, and in Minsk, and in Novgorod, and in Suzda, Russian people live everywhere. They speak one language, they profess one faith ... Ask anyone who he is? Say - Russian. Not Olegov, not Monomakhov, not Vasilkov. We are defense, protection, protection for them, they must feed us for that. There is no patience to think, to forgive - hence the evil. Not what the Savior taught!

Oleg (with conviction): And it won't, prince! If people were worthy of saving truth, Caiaphas, Annas and all the people would not crucify him, except for a few believers. Are you looking for holiness in people? Truth? She's not there. Everyone - tears himself, does not think about his brother. A small child, unintelligent, but he hides his spillikin, conceals it, he only wants to play it - he does not share it with anyone. And here - the power, the treasury! Or do you think that a person has changed since the time of the crucifixion?

Monomakh (shakes head): I don't think so. He would come to us - and we would crucify him, and those who follow us would crucify him, God, without him it would be easier to be yourself. But you, knowing the truth, how do you reject it?

Oleg: Knowing is one thing. Living on it is different. Or are you holy?

Monomakh: Save the Lord from such pride in thoughts! Not holy. Everyone is worse. Here again, this strife, now, I started, but who else? I did not give this case to God's judgment. It is impossible, truly, to combine faith in the Lord and human fidelity.

Here is grief. Only Vasilkov's story cannot be allowed to go like this... Let's take revenge on him, Svyatopolk, and Davidka Igorevich, who betrayed the kiss of the cross, retreated from the brotherly oath.

David: We'll take revenge!

Oleg: And you, Monomakh, we will put you on the Kyiv table...

Monomakh (changing his face, close to Oleg, very quietly, clearly): Who said that I want his blood? I don't want blood, I want truth. Not a table - punishment.

Oleg: Truth without blood does not reign on earth. Only in the kingdom of God is this possible, but with us sinners it is impossible...

You can hear how all the bells in Kyiv are ringing, towards vespers.

Monomakh: Did you, brothers, distinguish the veche bell? I have heard. Let's wait a little - veche decides ...

Oleg: Is it worth the wait? Take Kyiv - and that's it.

Monomakh: Let's wait until tomorrow. Well, the fate of us to destroy Kyiv, so be it. Seventy times I beat the Polovtsians, forty, it’s true, I drove them away from Kyiv, now I myself have come.

Anna enters the tent, elderly, stately, in a monastic dress and Metropolitan Nikolai in vestments. Nikolai baptizes the princes who came under the blessing, Monomakh is the last.

Nicholas: What, my children, with the army surrounded the city, the capital city of the Grand Duke of the Russian land? Can you think of destroying Kyiv?

Monomakh: (To Anna, who baptizes him): Mother-princess, holy father! We want to fulfill our duty - to punish Svyatopolk ...

Nicholas: I tore your stepmother from prayers, I came myself - we were sent from the veche, from Kiev, to ask you not to do that - save Kiev, do not shed Christian blood, prince ...

Oleg: We cannot leave this matter like this - you do not understand, right, holy father, our princely affairs. Let's leave this matter to the will of fate - tomorrow Svyatopolk will blind us. By the way, Davidka Vladimirsky, he also slandered Vladimir Vsevolodovich ...

Anna (alarmedly): Well, Metropolitan Nikolai, maybe we really shouldn’t touch you and me? Say they couldn't stop. I do not want the family of Vsevolod Yaroslavich Monomakh to be deprived. I am the widow of Vsevolod, he sat on the Kiev table, my son died young, I want my stepson to sit down and his children rule from generation to generation in Russia.

Nicholas: Princess! You are wearing a monastic robe, but under it is a sovereign heart. You can't throw a black scarf on him. Yes, you are humanly right. But according to God's truth, no. Let me tell you, priest, and you, all here, Russian princes, do not blame me. The Ryurik family will rule, but cutting each other will not be enough? Kill Svyatopolk, his sons - outcasts? will you fight for Kyiv? Over there, Oleg Svyatoslavich's eyes are burning - he wants to go to Kyiv. And you, Monomakh, the veche will call, how many times have you rescued Kyiv, God grant you health and understanding! Everything will start again, in the new tribe of your family, your children will fight, and they will bequeath children to children - not peace, enmity. The prince acted vilely, but did you find out - is he alone guilty? Or, out of weakness, out of cowardice, did he obey David's slander? Let him punish David with his own hand. And you, Monomakh, knew that Svyatopolk Izyaslavich was weak, but you gave him the throne of the grand duke... Didn't you want strife? But didn’t this give birth to strife again? May the will of the Lord be upon you! He alone is right, walking in inscrutable ways. Listen to him!

Oleg (jumping up): We can't forgive this thing like that! We have our own truth - princely. You, holy father, talk about faith, but we will talk about power!

Nicholas (calmly): If you, Oleg Gorislavich, talk about her as before, the Lavra will again burn like a torch! And if you have Christian feelings, then let's remember God and think hard before destroying Kiev.

Anna (in great agitation): Vladimir Vsevolodovich, think, child! There is a lot of meaning in his words - and you are smart, to repay evil with good - only in this way can evil be humbled. If you pay evil for evil, evil will multiply again. It happened more than once in Russia... Do not let your own blood be shed, but refrain from shedding someone else's. Let Svyatopolk punish David - this is a wise decision.

Monomakh thinks, is silent.

David: And the truth! Maybe that's better?

Oleg (hardly humbled himself): Well, I don’t mind if Vladimir Vsevolodovich agrees, he called us here - we came to take revenge for the violated, outraged princely oath.

Monomakh: Be your way, holy father. Let Svyatopolk come, I will talk to him - our conditions are such that he himself would take revenge on David Igorevich, with his own hand, and on that we will stand. So, princes?

Oleg, David Yes, so exactly.

CURTAIN

Phenomenon 6

The same situation. Monomakh and Svyatopolk.

Svyatopolk: Called me? I'm here, right here. You don't come to me, but I come to you. Here it is, as always.

Monomakh: Don't lie, brother! At least now... Power is dearer to you in itself than its expressions. And the treasury is even more expensive! And your own skin is closest! What do you think, I don't know the price for you? Hypocrite! Now you will begin to dodge, even without heeding my words.

Svyatopolk: Do you offend me - do you think I love you for it?

Monomakh: There is no love where there is misunderstanding. One fear ... Here Vasilko loves me, because he understands. What have you done to him, villain? For what?

Svyatopolk (recoiling, but aggressively): Yes, he is alive and well. His brother repulsed him in battle, he is with Volodar. What more do you need from me? I didn't pierce his eyes. Berendi pricked, according to David's decree. I'm not guilty, I drove Davidka out of Kyiv. He told me about you that you want my blood, but Vasilko craves his blood, Rostislavich ...

Monomakh: Do you have your own mind? After all, you swore in Lyubech, and he, and I, and Davidka. Why should we break our oath?

Svyatopolk: And what? Does the mouth always say what the soul wants? Never.

Monomakh: Not never, but not for everyone. Himself a liar, and you measure everyone by yourself. Scum! In the next world, you will already give an answer to the true court!

Svyatopolk: And you, will you forgive me? For the sake of the people of Kyiv, the churches of God?

Monomakh (bitterly): God will forgive, ask him. I will not forget you Vasilka. I know, and you would gouge out my eyes if you could, and threw them to snakes and kites. Just in case, you never know... But - I don't care about that! I despise you, Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, the Lord offended you - he didn’t finish his mind and valor, but now I’m not talking with you, but with the Kyiv prince. (Stands up). For the fact that you heeded the slander, did not check the words of the slander, gave Vasilko Rostislavich Terebovsky to his slanderer, instead of calling us, all the princes, to judge the whole matter together, what did you throw out? ... You are guilty in my opinion. But he asks the Kiev veche through the tropolitan and the widow of Vsevolod Yaroslavich not to take the city - I resign myself. With only one condition - you yourself will avenge Vasilko to David. Go and punish him. It will not be bad for you! (Goes out without looking at Svyatopolk).

Phenomenon 7

(instead of an epilogue)

March 26, 1109. On the bank of the steppe river. The area is deserted. Night. The camp of Russians returning with victory after a fierce battle with the Polovtsians on March 24. Monomakh is alone, armed, far from the camp, sitting in deep thought. Then quietly recites a psalm.

Monomakh:
0, You alone, Lord, my stronghold,
do not be silent - do not execute me.
Hear my prayers when the shrine
in my eyes, and I pray: my
prayer reach you
do not destroy with the unclean, Lord,
they talk about the world, but shamelessly
destroy my soul and flesh.
Repay them for deeds that are wrong,
give them what they deserve
destroy them, God! god of glory
and do not create, but perish with their evil!
Blessed be the Lord, prayers
heard my voice,
He saved me.
And I will glorify Him with a river of songs.
The Lord is the strength of the people,
protection of the king
oh never leave the altar
for You erected it, and Your choice is freedom.

Noises, screams are heard, a dozen and a half people, Russians, come up from the darkness, they lead the bound Beldyuz and the Polovtsian shaman. Belduz is angry, trying to escape. The shaman howls softly like a wolf. Monomakh does not get up, but carefully peers at those walking, waits, sits on a tree fallen by bad weather.

Thomas (from the crowd): Prince! We are bringing the twenty-first Khan to you - I wanted to run away. And he caught him - Ivanko - you see, he was mutilated as ... he was full of seven years! You saved him that you beat the Polovtsy. (He points to a strong young man holding Belduz from behind by the rope with which Khan's hands are twisted, the whole face of the peasant is covered in saber scars).

Man: I, the gentle prince, our sun, caught him, but I lead the right one to your court.

Monomakh (Khanu): What's your name?

Belduz: Beldyuz, son of Itlyar, who was ruined by you.

Monomakh: And how many thousands of Russian people did he ruin, and you, well done? Doesn't that count for you? Only me - in the account ...

Thomas: What, Vladimir Vsevolodovich, do you want to do?

Monomakh: Now I'm going to judge him. How many times have you fought and plundered the Russian land?

Beldyuz (breaking out with force, throwing himself on his knees): The redemption of ladies is unheard of, prince, innumerable! I am rich - how many times did my father buy the world from Russia? Horses - herds,

sheep - flocks, gold - mountains! Leave life alone! I want to live! Let the poor, the naked, the destitute ... Live! At least breathe, at least defecate - but live! Nothing dearer than life No! My Polovtsy say that they saw bright people above you in battle, white, like Russian children, - heaven helps you, underground gods and earthly gods help me ... My gods are the gods of life, leave me life ...

Creeps to the feet of Monomakh, tries to hug his knees. The shaman howls like a wolf wildly, loudly, uterine. Everyone recoils. Dark steppe. The stars are burning. One small torch for the whole crowd in the hands of Thomas. Endless steppe, and endless silence. And wolf howl...

Monomakh (getting up, moving away sharply from Belduz, who remains on his knees, with a pleading look, to the shaman): Stop it! Who are you calling?

Shaman: Death, enmity, steppes - on you, on your churches, cities! Wolves will come - wild, evil, will tear apart your land, which drove my nomadic people, here, intervened in the life of the spirits, came to the steppe ...

Monomakh (sternly): What kind of perfume?

Shaman: Spirits of evil, strength, struggle... Those that are against your Heaven.

Monomakh: How do you know about Heaven?

Shaman: I hate Him, and you, and your people (howling again)...

Thomas (approaches, hits him flat on the head with a saber handle): Enough! Tired, wolf.

Monomakh (when everyone is silent): Execution! I will execute you, Beldyuz, I, Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh, as the people command and according to the will of my heart! I don't need your ransom - we have the loot! So that it was not habitual to go to the cities of the steppe, trying to swallow them up with darkness!

The approval is noisy, joyful.

2nd: Our sun!

3rd: You enlightened Russia!

4th: So he, the bastard, and it is necessary.

Foma and Ivanko, the peasant who captured Beldyuz, drag the captive Khan into the darkness. Everyone follows them, with a torch. Only Monomakh remains in the darkness, who sits down again, and a stunned shaman lies in the grass. Mstislav Vladimirovich approaches, he leads Vasilko by the arm.

Monomakh (seating Vasilko): You, brother? I'm glad for you! Always happy.

Mstislav: I, father, brought, as you ordered, I will go - there. (Leaves in the direction where Belduz was taken away).

Monomakh: Sit down. Let's have a rest.

Vasilko (lowering his head): Do you remember that conversation we had? I didn’t know how many more strife there would be - I felt it. Yes, I am unclean. He could not restrain himself - Vsevolozh burned out, interrupted people, for himself. He was allied with the Polovtsy, with Davidka himself, when he defended himself from Svyatopolk, the robber ...

Monomakh (puts her hand on his arm): Who, Vasilko Rostislavich, bathing in mud, will remain clean? Only the one who chooses death will save the soul. And we not only chose our soul - but also Russia, because we love her as a soul. Is there something God won't forgive?

Vasilko: I heard what a fight it was! Knew --- you are the first in it! Yes, and all of Russia blesses you that you fulfilled the good thought inspired by God - you drove the Polovtsy! So, it’s true, we lived ... we thought correctly that we kept monasteries and books from the steppe, that Saints Cyril and Methodius also bequeathed to the Slavs.

Monomakh: Do you think the steppe cannot be enlightened with Christian truth? Monks try...

Vasilko: It is impossible, I think... Even if someone accepts the truth, but never. Right or wrong, we have been, our duty since the time of Rurik - to keep this land, to keep its defense - we honestly fulfill with you. Anything else is out of our control...

The shaman woke up and howled like a wolf. Monomakh thought.

Vasilko (with horror, shakes his head): Who is this? Wolves, prince?

Monomakh: No, Vasilko, this is a man, just like you and me - only he howls at us like a wolf.

The election of princes by the people was discussed above. We saw that the people exercised their right, in spite of any agreements of the princes on the order of succession. After the death of Svyatopolk-Mikhail, the people of Kiev called Vladimir Monomakh to their table, although according to the Lyubetsky treatise, he swore under an oath not to sit in Kyiv.

In addition to what has been said, it must be pointed out that the popular election also needed recognition, or at least tacit consent from other princes, otherwise they would start a war against the chosen one and the volost that elected him. In 1146, after the death of Vsevolod of Chernigov, the people of Kiev invited Prince Izyaslav Mstislavich of Vladimir to their table. Prior to this invitation, he was in alliance with the Chernigov Olgovichi and Davydovichi. But this union was broken by Izyaslav's invitation to Kyiv, because one of its conditions was the entry of Igor Olgovich to the Kyiv table. Izyaslav, having occupied Kyiv near Igor, provoked a war against his former allies. Svyatoslav Olgovich, the brother of the deceived Igor, not hoping to defeat Izyaslav on his own, turned to his uncle, Yuri, and offered him his help in mastering the Kyiv parish. In 1147, the Davydovichi also joined Svyatoslav and Yuri. Thus began this memorable struggle between Izyaslav and Yuri, in which the Chernigov princes were either on the side of Izyaslav, or on the side of Yuri. In the first year of the war, Yuri did not help his allies, and they were forced to conclude peace with Izyaslav, according to which they recognized him as the prince of Kyiv. In the very year of this reconciliation, Izyaslav had to ask for help from his new allies against Uncle Yuri. The renewed war was fought with variable allies and variable happiness, and Izyaslav even had to give up Kyiv in favor of a happy rival, and the people of Kiev parted with their beloved Izyaslav and accepted Yuriy, who was objectionable to them, into their walls.

All these are the usual consequences of the inconstancy of military happiness.

The practice of electing princes by the people is not perfect, however, excluded the beginning of heredity or, in the language of that time, the beginning of paternalism. Sometimes the people elected the prince not only personally, but also with his children. This should be seen not as a future renunciation of the right to be elected, but as a restriction of this right in its exercise by the descendants of a famous prince.

The same idea of ​​heredity is undoubtedly heard in the refusal of the population of some volosts to fight against the princes of one line or another. So, the people of Kiev do not want to raise their hands against the princes of Vladimir's tribe. In 1149, having learned about Yuri's campaign against Izyaslav, chosen by them, they refuse to go against Yuri and demand from Izyaslav that he put up with his uncle. It makes sense that the descendants of their chosen one, Vladimir Monomakh, are considered by the people of Kiev as if born Kyiv princes. They liked Izyaslav more than Yuri, and therefore they chose him; but when Yuri clashes with Izyaslav, they prefer mutual concessions and reconciliation of these "their princes", and therefore advise Izyaslav peace. In extreme cases, they are even ready to accept Yuri, although they know that they will not get along with him.

In this sense, the Pereyaslavites speak of the same Yuri:
“Gyurgi is our prince, we had to look for that and far away” (Ipat. 1149).

Pereyaslavl is the fatherland of Vladimir Monomakh, Yuri is his son, which is why the Pereyaslavl people say that he is their prince, and take his side. The Vladimir tribe was loved not only in Kyiv, it enjoyed no less affection in its original homeland, Pereyaslavl.

Hence a direct transition to the beginning of heredity in the distribution of volosts.

Source: Sergeevich V.I. Veche and the prince. Prince's advisers / V.I. Sergeyevich. - M., 2007. - S. 237-238 (Election of princes by the people).