Vladimir-Suzdal

At a glance

Where was Vladimir-Suzdal?

Vladimir-Suzdal lay in the north-eastern corner of the Rus' lands, the region the chronicles call the "Suzdal land" and modern historians call north-eastern Rus'. Its towns lay between the upper Volga and the Oka: the old city of Rostov in the north, Suzdal and Yuriev in the centre, Pereslavl-Zalessky to the west, and Vladimir on the river Klyazma. The Nerl flows into the Klyazma just below Vladimir, and Andrei Bogolyubsky built his residence and his most famous church at that confluence.

To the north-west lay Novgorod, which its princes tried again and again to control; down the Volga to the east, Volga Bulgaria, the target of repeated campaigns; to the south, Riazan and Murom. Kiev, the old centre of Kievan Rus', was far to the south-west.

Did Andrei Bogolyubsky move the capital to Vladimir in 1157?

Not in the way it is usually told. Andrei's father, Yuri Dolgoruky, died as prince of Kiev in May 1157. In 1155 Andrei had left him at Vyshgorod near Kiev and gone north with an icon of the Mother of God that had come from Constantinople. The Laurentian Chronicle says he covered it with "more than thirty grivnas of gold" and placed it in his church at Vladimir. This is the icon later known as Our Lady of Vladimir, painted in Constantinople before 1130 according to the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia and now kept at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

What happened in 1157 was not a decree moving a capital. The Laurentian Chronicle records under that year that "the men of Rostov and Suzdal, having all taken counsel, took Andrei, his eldest son, and set him in Rostov on his father's throne, and in Suzdal, because he was loved by all". The historian A. V. Nazarenko, writing in the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, notes that this went against Yuri's own plan, which had been to leave the land to his younger sons Mikhalko and Vsevolod. Only after this, he writes, did "the centre of the principality" move from Rostov and Suzdal to Vladimir.

That shift was gradual. Nazarenko notes that Andrei had twice, in 1151 and 1155, preferred his Vladimir appanage to lands in the south, and the building that made Vladimir a capital began in 1158. A fair summary is that Andrei took power in 1157 and from 1158 built Vladimir into his capital.

Around 1161 he drove out his younger brothers, among them Vsevolod, and his nephews, who found refuge with the Byzantine emperor Manuel I; he expelled his father's leading boyars too.

How did Andrei build Vladimir?

Fast and on a grand scale. Under the year 1158 the Laurentian Chronicle records that "Prince Andrei founded in Vladimir the stone church of the Holy Mother of God, in the month of April, on the 8th day", a Tuesday. He endowed it with villages, purchased slaves, a tenth of his herds and of the market, and the same year "founded a larger town". This was the Dormition Cathedral, the chronicle's "Golden-domed" church, painted in 1161.

According to the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, the walled area of Vladimir was enlarged more than threefold, with a Silver Gate and a Golden Gate. In 1164 the church over the Golden Gate was consecrated. The Vladimir-Suzdal Museum dates the gate to 1158–1164 and describes it as a tower with a 14-metre-high arch, once closed by oak doors plated with gilded copper. It was one of five outer gates of the city and is the only one that survives.

Near the mouth of the Nerl, Andrei built his residence, Bogolyubovo, from which he took his name, "the God-loving". The Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia dates it to about 1157/58: a two-storey stone palace joined by a passage and a staircase tower to the palace church, within stone walls. Its builders were European masters, from Lombardy according to O. M. Ioannisian or from southern Germany according to A. I. Komech. The staircase tower and passage still stand.

The most famous building of Andrei's time is the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl near Bogolyubovo, dated by UNESCO to 1165 and "traditionally considered", says the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, the first church in Rus' dedicated to the feast of the Intercession (Pokrov). Its onion dome was added in 1803 and hides the original helmet-shaped roof.

In 1164 Andrei campaigned against the Volga Bulgars with the icon carried before the army, and took the Bulgar town of Briakhimov. Tradition credits him with founding the feast of the Intercession in memory of this campaign; the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia accepts the twelfth-century date of the texts behind it, while the scholar M. Pliukhanova dates them later.

Why did Andrei sack Kiev in 1169?

Because he wanted to control the senior throne of Rus' without living there. In the winter of 1168/69, the Laurentian Chronicle reports, Andrei sent his son Mstislav "with the men of Rostov, Vladimir and Suzdal" and eleven other princes against Prince Mstislav Iziaslavich of Kiev. They took the city after a three-day siege and "plundered all Kiev, churches and monasteries, for three days, and took icons, books and vestments". The chronicler adds that such a thing "had never been before". The Hypatian Chronicle dates the fall to 8 March, "in the second week of Lent, on a Wednesday"; its editor pointed out that this Wednesday fell on 12 March, so one detail is wrong.

Andrei's son placed Andrei's brother Gleb on the Kiev throne and went home. Andrei himself never went south: the most powerful prince of Rus' now treated Kiev as a throne to be filled, not a capital to be won.

Andrei also wanted a metropolitan of his own at Vladimir. Nazarenko writes that Patriarch Luke Chrysoberges refused, and in 1169 the chronicle celebrates the expulsion of Andrei's candidate, the "false bishop" Feodorets.

The next campaign failed. In the winter of 1169/70 the men of Suzdal under Andrei's son, with forces from Smolensk, Toropets, Murom, Riazan and Polotsk, besieged Novgorod for three days. The Novgorod Chronicle says that Prince Roman Mstislavich and the Novgorodians defeated them "on the 25th of the month of February, the day of the holy Bishop Tarasi", and took so many prisoners that "they bought men of Suzhdal at 2 nogatas", a tiny sum. The annal files this under 6677, a March-based year that ran into early 1170, so the battle was in February 1170.

How was Andrei Bogolyubsky murdered?

At night in his palace at Bogolyubovo, by men of his own household, at the end of June 1174. The Laurentian Chronicle says he was killed "on 29 June, on the day of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, on Saturday night". The longer Tale of the Murder of Andrei, preserved in the Hypatian Chronicle and probably written between 1174 and 1177, gives "June 28, on the eve of the holy apostles", also a Saturday. The two can be reconciled as the night of 28/29 June 1174.

The chronicle names the conspirators: "The leader of the murderers was Petr, Kuchka's son-in-law; Anbal, a Yas [an Alan], the keyholder; Yakim Kuchkovich." They were twenty in all. According to the Tale, they drank wine first and broke down the bedchamber door. Andrei reached for his sword, which had belonged to St Boris, but Anbal had removed it that day. His body lay unburied for two days before it was taken to the Dormition Cathedral at Vladimir, and violence spread across the land.

A later tradition says Andrei's wife was a Kuchkovich and the murder family revenge; Nazarenko calls it untrustworthy. He adds that an examination of the remains in 1934 confirmed the account of the murder. Andrei was later venerated as a saint.

Who was Vsevolod "Big Nest"?

Andrei's youngest half-brother, who won the succession war after the murder. At first the Rostov and Suzdal boyars, with Prince Gleb of Riazan, backed Andrei's nephews Mstislav and Yaropolk Rostislavich. On 15 June 1175 Andrei's brothers Mikhalko and Vsevolod defeated the nephews about five versts from Vladimir, supported by the townsmen and clergy of Vladimir. Mikhalko took the city.

After Mikhalko's death in June 1176, Vsevolod defeated Mstislav Rostislavich and the Rostov army on 27 June at Yuriev Field on the river Lipitsa. That autumn and winter Gleb of Riazan and Mstislav burned Moscow and Bogolyubovo. On 7 March 1177 Vsevolod won the decisive battle. Gleb was captured and died in prison in June 1177; Mstislav and Yaropolk were blinded, according to the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia "against Vsevolod's will".

Vladimir, Andrei's new city, had backed the winner against the old towns of Rostov and Suzdal.

Vsevolod Yurievich, born on 19 October 1154, was Yuri Dolgoruky's youngest son, by his second wife. He ruled until his death in April 1212; the Laurentian Chronicle says he reigned "in the Suzdal land 37 years".

According to the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia he was the first Rus' prince whom the chronicles regularly called "grand prince", from the late 1180s, and the title then stayed with his successors at Vladimir.

In 1208, after uncovering a plot, he burned Riazan and deported its people to Vladimir. He used the arrest of Novgorod's merchants and attacks on Torzhok to keep his sons on the Novgorod throne for much of the 1200s, and in the south he acted as arbiter between rival princes. His Vladimir chroniclers claimed that the throne of Kiev was filled at his will; the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia states plainly that this "does not correspond to historical facts".

The Lay of Igor's Campaign hails him: "Great prince Vsevolod! … For you can splash the Volga dry with your oars and scoop out the Don with your helmets." The Laurentian obituary says that "at his name alone all lands trembled".

The nickname "Big Nest" (Bolshoe Gnezdo) refers to his many children, but it does not appear in that obituary and no source consulted for this entry attests it in his lifetime. The Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia lists eight sons by his first wife, Maria Shvarnovna, who died in 1205: Konstantin, Boris and Gleb (who died in infancy), Yuri, Yaroslav, Vladimir, Sviatoslav and Ivan, "and several daughters". His second marriage, in 1210, was apparently childless. The often-repeated figure of exactly twelve children has no basis in these sources.

How did Vsevolod rebuild Vladimir?

After a fire. In April 1185 a "great fire" swept Vladimir, and the Laurentian Chronicle says almost the whole town burned, including Andrei's cathedral. The chronicle dates this to Wednesday 18 April; its editor noted that 18 April fell on a Wednesday only in 1184, so the year may be 1184. Vsevolod rebuilt and enlarged the Dormition Cathedral, and Bishop Luka consecrated it again in 1189. The museum's English page speaks of a fire in 1189, which is the year of the reconsecration.

On 4 June 1194 Vsevolod founded the inner citadel of Vladimir, and in the 1190s he built his palace church, the Cathedral of St Demetrius, dedicated to the patron saint whose name he bore in baptism. In January 1197 a board from the tomb of St Demetrius was brought to it from Thessaloniki. UNESCO dates the cathedral to 1194–1197 and counts "over a thousand stone carvings" on its walls, on the theme of King David. The Vladimir-Suzdal Museum counts more than one and a half thousand carved stones, with David, the ascension of Alexander the Great and the labours of Hercules, and a relief of Vsevolod enthroned with his sons. Who built it is disputed: the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia says German masters took part, while the museum attributes it to local craftsmen.

What happened at the Battle of Lipitsa in 1216?

Vsevolod's sons fought each other for his throne. In 1211, the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia reports, his eldest son Konstantin of Rostov refused to move to Vladimir, wanting "to take Vladimir along with Rostov". Vsevolod called an assembly and left the seniority to his second son, Yuri, who took the throne in 1212.

Konstantin allied with Mstislav Mstislavich of Novgorod, who had his own quarrel with his son-in-law Yaroslav, Yuri's brother. The armies met near Yuriev-Polsky. When peace was offered, the Novgorod Chronicle says, Yaroslav answered: "you have gone far, and are come out like fish on to dry land". The Novgorodians told Mstislav they did not want "to die on horse-back", dismounted, "and thrown off their breeches ran forward barefoot, having thrown off their boots". Yuri and Yaroslav were routed "on April 21, the day of SS. Timofei and Fedor".

The Novgorod chronicler calls the dead "numberless". The Academic (Suzdal) chronicle gives a precise figure of 9,233 killed; it is the chronicler's figure and cannot be checked. Yuri surrendered Vladimir and went to the small town of Radilov (Gorodets), and the Novgorodians "set Kostyantin on his father's throne in Volodimir". This was the second battle on the Lipitsa: Vsevolod had already fought there in 1176.

Konstantin died on 2 February 1218 and Yuri returned. In 1221, the Laurentian Chronicle records, he "founded a town at the mouth of the Oka and named it Novgorod", today's Nizhny Novgorod.

How did the Mongols take Vladimir in 1238?

In winter, in a few days. Late in 1237, the Laurentian Chronicle says, "the godless Tatars" came from the east into the Riazan land; the Novgorod Chronicle dates the fall of Riazan to 21 December. At Kolomna they defeated Yuri's son Vsevolod, and they took Moscow and captured another son, Vladimir. Yuri left his capital with a small force to gather troops on the river Sit, leaving his sons Vsevolod and Mstislav and the voevoda Petr Osliadiukovich to hold Vladimir.

The Mongols reached Vladimir in early February and took Suzdal in the meantime. On the Saturday, says the Laurentian Chronicle, they set up siege engines and "fenced the whole town of Vladimir round with a palisade". On Meatfare Sunday, 7 February 1238, after matins, they stormed it: "from the Golden Gate, by St Saviour, they came in over the ramp through the town wall", and from other sides through the Irinin, Copper and Volga gates. Bishop Mitrofan, Yuri's wife with her daughter, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, and many boyars and townspeople shut themselves in the Dormition Cathedral, where they died when it was set on fire. The Novgorod Chronicle instead dates the fall to the "Friday before Sexagesima Sunday".

The Golden Gate itself was not stormed: the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum says the enemy broke in through a breach in the wooden wall on the rampart, which agrees with the chronicle's "ramp".

Yuri's army was caught on the Sit. "The battle happened in the month of March, the 4th day," says the Laurentian Chronicle; Grand Prince Yuri "was killed on the Sit river"; his nephew Vasilko of Rostov was captured and later killed. Bishop Kirill, coming from Beloozero, took Yuri's body to Rostov. The Novgorod chronicler was less sure: "God knows how he died; for some say much about him." Later chronicles, followed by the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, name the Mongol commander at the Sit as Burundai; the Laurentian account does not name him.

Who ruled Vladimir-Suzdal?

The throne passed among the descendants of Yuri Dolgoruky, first by inheritance and war, from the 1240s by the khan's grant. Dates often differ between chronicles.

What was the khan's patent for Vladimir?

A grant from the Mongol ruler that made a prince grand prince of Vladimir. After the conquest the land was tributary to the Golden Horde, and the throne became the khan's to give. Historians call the document a yarlyk, but the chronicles of the 1240s do not use that word. The Laurentian Chronicle says that in 1243 Yaroslav Vsevolodovich went to Batu, sent his son Konstantin on to the Great Khan, and that Batu honoured him and said: "Yaroslav, be the eldest of all the princes in the Russian land." The Nikon Chronicle, compiled in the sixteenth century, puts the same journey under 1242 and says Batu gave him "seniority over all the Russian land". V. A. Kuchkin writes that from 1242 the princes, the prince of Vladimir among them, were confirmed on their thrones by the khans.

Yaroslav died on 30 September 1246 on his way back from the Great Khan's court in Mongolia. The Franciscan envoy John of Plano Carpini, who was there, wrote that Yaroslav had been invited to eat and drink with the emperor's mother, fell sick and died within seven days, that his body turned "of a strange blew colour", and that "it was commonly reported" that he had been poisoned so that the Tatars could take his lands. It remains a rumour; in Zenkovsky's notes to the Nikon Chronicle, Karamzin doubted it and Vernadsky thought it plausible.

In 1249 the Great Khan's court made an awkward double grant. The Laurentian Chronicle says that Alexander and Andrei, Yaroslav's sons, came back and that "they commanded Alexander to have Kiev and all the Russian land, and Andrei sat in Vladimir on the throne". The Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia calls the meaning of Alexander's grant unclear; he never went to Kiev.

In 1252 the Laurentian Chronicle records that Alexander went to the Tatars and was given "seniority among all his brethren", while Andrei "resolved with his boyars to flee rather than serve the tsars". A Tatar army caught up with him near Pereslavl and carried off many people. Andrei fled through Novgorod and Pskov to Kolyvan (Tallinn) and then to Sweden, according to the Nikon Chronicle. The episode is remembered as Nevriui's raid, after the commander named in the Life of Alexander Nevsky. Alexander returned to Vladimir and was met "at the Golden Gate" by the metropolitan, the abbots and the townspeople, who set him on his father's throne.

Whether Alexander brought the Tatars against his brother is disputed. The Life of Alexander blames Batu's anger at Andrei. The Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia writes that Alexander drove Andrei out "having secured Tatar help", and notes that Russian historians usually treat him as a national hero while foreign historians, especially recent ones, criticise his "pro-Tatar conformism"; it cites John Fennell's The Crisis of Medieval Russia.

Why did Tver and Moscow fight over Vladimir?

Because the patent gave seniority over the other princes, rule over Novgorod and a large domain. After Alexander's death in 1263 it passed among his brothers and sons, watched by the khan's officials: Kuchkin cites a chronicle of 1269 that names "the great baskak of Vladimir, called Amragan".

In the 1280s Alexander's sons Dmitry and Andrei fought for the throne, each with Mongol backing; Zenkovsky notes that Dmitry received a patent from Nogai, the warlord who rivalled the khan at Sarai. In 1293 Andrei came back from the Horde with other princes "and with them Tsar Diuden", as the Laurentian Chronicle puts it. The Tatars took Vladimir, Pereslavl, Moscow, Volok "and 14 towns in all". The Nikon Chronicle adds that they robbed the cathedral at Vladimir and "even tore out its marvelous copper floor". The Nikon Chronicle calls him Tudan and says the khan sent him "with a multitude of warriors".

In 1299, the Laurentian Chronicle reports, Metropolitan Maksim, "not enduring the violence of the Tatars", left Kiev with his whole household, and soon "sat in Vladimir on the throne". He kept the title "of Kiev", since Constantinople treated Kiev as the official centre of the metropolitanate until 1354. His successor Petr moved to Moscow at the end of his life and died there on 20 December 1326. When he moved is disputed: the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia reports that Musin suggests 1317, Borisov after 1322, and Kuchkin after the murder of Yuri of Moscow in late 1325.

The rivalry between Tver and Moscow dominated the next decades. Mikhail Yaroslavich of Tver held the throne from 1305 to 1317; Kuchkin writes that he officially took the title "grand prince of all Rus'", and that from then on the Vladimir principality "began to be called grand". In 1317 Yuri Danilovich of Moscow came back from the Horde as grand prince, married to the khan's sister Konchaka, and Mikhail was executed in the Horde. In 1322 Khan Uzbek gave the throne to Mikhail's son Dmitry "Terrible Eyes", who killed Yuri at the Horde in 1325 and was executed in 1326; the throne passed to his brother Alexander.

In 1327 Tver rose against the khan's envoy Shevkal; the Nikon Chronicle says the townspeople burned the palace where he had fled, "and so Shevkal and the other Tatars burned there". Ivan Danilovich of Moscow, later called Kalita, joined the punitive campaign that followed. What he received in return is disputed. The Nikon Chronicle says Uzbek "gave the grand principality of Vladimir to Prince Ivan Danilovich" in 1328. The Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, following Kuchkin, says Ivan got only half: Alexander Vasilievich of Suzdal received Vladimir and the Nizhny Novgorod Volga lands, and only after Alexander's death in 1331 did Ivan get "the whole grand principality", in 1332.

How did Moscow make Vladimir its own?

By holding the patent for three generations and then refusing to let it go. From 1332 to 1359 Ivan Kalita and his sons Semyon and Ivan II held Vladimir. Ivan II was enthroned there on 25 March 1354, after Khan Janibeg chose him over Konstantin Vasilievich of Suzdal.

When Ivan II died in 1359 his heir Dmitry, born in 1350, was still a boy, and in 1360 Khan Navruz gave the throne to Dmitry Konstantinovich of Suzdal. The Nikon Chronicle comments that this was done "contrary to the tradition of their fathers and grandfathers", a tradition only a generation old.

The Horde was by then split between rival khans. In 1362 Khan Murad (Amurat) gave the grand principality to the young Dmitry Ivanovich of Moscow, "and it passed according to the tradition of their fathers and grandfathers", says the Nikon Chronicle. The Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia says the patent came "from one of the rival khans" and that in 1363 Dmitry also obtained one from Abdullah, the khan in whose name the emir Mamai ruled. Moscow's army drove Dmitry Konstantinovich out; he came back in 1363 with a new patent and, says the Nikon Chronicle, held Vladimir for "exactly twelve days". In 1364 he gave up yet another patent, from Khan Aziz, in exchange for Moscow's help against his own brother. From 1365 he ruled as grand prince of Suzdal and Nizhny Novgorod, no longer a contender for Vladimir.

The last challenge came from Tver. In April 1371 Mikhail Alexandrovich of Tver came home from Mamai with a patent for Vladimir. The Nikon Chronicle says "the people of Vladimir did not accept him", and that Dmitry told the khan's envoy: "I will not go to attend the yarlyk [ceremony] and I will not let [Mikhail] into the land of the principality of Vladimir." Dmitry went to Mamai himself and was "again granted the Grand Principality of Vladimir". In July 1375 a patent reached Mikhail again; the Nikon Chronicle dates its arrival to 14 July and the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia to 13 July. This time Moscow marched on Tver. In the peace treaty Mikhail agreed to conduct relations with the Horde only "by counsel" (po dume) with the grand prince of Moscow.

When did Vladimir-Suzdal end?

There is no single date, and the "1389" often given is the weakest of the candidates.

For V. A. Kuchkin, the author of the Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia's article on the grand principality, the end came at the close of 1362. Dmitry Ivanovich joined the grand principality to his possessions and "declared the Vladimir principality his patrimony, that is, a hereditary, inalienable possession. From this time the grand principality of Vladimir ceased to exist as a separate state." He adds that the struggle with Tver was finally settled only by a treaty of 1399.

The year 1389 comes from Dmitry Donskoy's will. Dmitry died on 19 May 1389. In his testament he blessed his eldest son Vasily with the grand principality as his own patrimony, and he foresaw that if God "changed the Horde", his children would no longer pay it tribute. The Nikon Chronicle's version, which Zenkovsky says follows the surviving document closely, says Dmitry summoned "his eldest son, Prince Vasilii, to whom he gave the Grand Principality, his patrimony". A grand prince was disposing of Vladimir by will, like a family estate.

But the khan's role did not end. The same chronicle records that "on the fifteenth day of August, the day of the Dormition of the Most Pure Theotokos, Prince Vasilii Dmitrievich became grand prince of Vladimir… He was assisted by Sheib Akhmat, envoy of Khan Tokhtamysh." The will had made Vladimir Moscow's inheritance; the Horde still enthroned the heir.

That mattered again in 1431–32, when Vasily II and his uncle Yuri Dmitrievich took their quarrel to Khan Ulugh Muhammad. Yuri, the Nikon Chronicle says, "based his case upon the chronicles, the old charters and the Will of his father, Grand Prince Dmitrii". Vasily's boyar Ivan Dmitrievich answered the khan that Yuri wanted the throne on the basis of his father's charter, not the khan's grant, and told him: "You are free in your realm, however, to bestow [the Grand Principality] according to your will to whomsoever you wish." The khan chose Vasily. A. A. Gorskii notes that the princes went to the khan on their own initiative, so they still saw him as their lawful overlord. Yuri ignored the ruling and seized Moscow in 1433 and 1434.

So the best summary is a range: Moscow absorbed the grand principality in the 1360s, the will of 1389 first treated it as hereditary Muscovite property, and the khan's patent still counted in 1432.

What is the legacy of Vladimir-Suzdal?

The title and the churches. Kuchkin writes that the grand princes of Moscow and the tsars "invariably" included the title "prince of Vladimir" in their style. The Vladimir-Suzdal Museum notes that the Italian architect Aristotele Fioravanti studied Vladimir's Dormition Cathedral as the model for the one he built in the Moscow Kremlin in the late fifteenth century.

UNESCO says that most of the Dormition Cathedral's twelfth-century frescoes "were destroyed by Mongols in 1238, but new mural paintings were added in 1408 by the master painters Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chernii, in particular the famous 'Last Judgment'". The museum says more cautiously that they were "damaged in a fire set by the Mongols"; the city was also sacked again in 1293.

In 1992 UNESCO inscribed the White Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal on the World Heritage List: the Dormition and St Demetrius cathedrals and the Golden Gate, the remains of Andrei's palace at Bogolyubovo, the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl, and monuments at Suzdal and Kideksha.

The "Golden Ring", the tourist circuit of old towns around Moscow, is a modern name. According to the official Golden Ring site and Kultura, the journalist Yuri Bychkov coined it in 1967 for a series of articles in Sovetskaya kultura; the original eight towns included Vladimir and Suzdal.

Common myths about Vladimir-Suzdal

Timeline of Vladimir-Suzdal

What the map shows next

The border data draws this territory only from 1294 to 1486, much later than its history begins. For the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries the map uses the older name: the same land appears at Rostov-Suzdal. At 1300 on the map the Grand Principality of Vladimir sits beside Tver and Moscow, under the overlordship of the Golden Horde. By 1360 the Suzdal princes' realm on the Volga appears separately as Nizhny Novgorod. The data keeps the name Vladimir on the map until 1486, long after the grand principality had become part of Moscow's realm; by then the land belongs historically to the Grand Principality of Moscow, whose rulers kept "prince of Vladimir" in their title.