Prince Mikhail of Chernigov: From Maneuverer to Martyr

Abstract

Mikhail Vsevolodovich, the prince of Chernigov (Chernihiv), and his boyar Fedor were killed in the Horde by the order of Batu Khan. This event made an impression on contemporaries and revererberated for centuries in the hagiographic Tale about the Murder of Mikhail, which insists that Mikhail was executed solely due to his defiant refusal to perform pagan rites required before a personal visit to the khan. 1 Preoccupied with how he died, historians have overlooked compelling evidence that Mikhail submitted to the Mongols only after a sincere but failed attempt to join the fight against them in Central Europe.This article provides the first extensive analysis of Mikhail's behavior in 1241 in light of both the Rus´ chronicles and medieval sources from Silesia. Since Nikolai M. Karamzin, the opinion has existed in Russian scholarship that Mikhail Vsevolodovich "dolgo begal ot tatar iz zemli v zemliu" (for a long time ran from the Tatars from one country to another) until he was robbed by Germans in Central Europe. 2 The distinguished historian of Ukraine, Mykhailo Hrushevs´kyi, followed the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle inThe study was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation (Rossiiskii nauchnyi fond), Project 16-18-10137. I express my sincere thanks to Brian Boeck for his help in preparing this article for publication. 1 A. G. Iurchenko, "Kniaz´ Mikhail Chernigovskii i Batu-khan (K voprosu o vremeni sozdaniia agiograficheskoi legendy)," in Opyty po istochnikovedeniiu: Drevnerusskaia knizhnost´