The Black Death

The Black Death in Eastern Europe and Russia

The eastern reaches of Europe — the lands of modern Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, the Balkans, and the Russian principalities — were the last to be struck by the Black Death, and the evidence for the pandemic’s impact in these regions is generally sparser and more contested than for Western Europe. Nevertheless, the plague reached every corner of the continent by the early 1350s, and its effects on the political, economic, and social structures of Eastern Europe were significant and enduring.

Poland and the Kingdom of Kraków

Poland in the mid-fourteenth century was a kingdom of approximately two to three million people, ruled by Casimir III (later known as Casimir the Great). The country was predominantly rural, with a relatively small number of towns and a less developed commercial infrastructure than the kingdoms of Western Europe. This may have limited the spread of the plague, though the evidence is uncertain.

The plague reached Poland in 1349–1351, likely carried along the trade routes connecting Kraków to the cities of the Rhineland and Bohemia. Kraków, the royal capital and the largest city in Poland, was struck in 1349 or 1350. The city’s position on the trade routes linking the Baltic to the Black Sea made it vulnerable to infection from multiple directions.

The mortality in Poland is difficult to quantify. The Polish chronicler Jan Długosz, writing in the fifteenth century, described plague in Kraków and other Polish cities, but his account was composed long after the events and may not be entirely reliable. Some historians have argued that Poland suffered lower mortality than Western Europe — perhaps twenty to thirty percent rather than a third to a half — due to its lower population density and less developed urban network. Others have challenged this view, pointing to evidence of farm abandonment and the decline in tax revenues as indicators of severe demographic loss.

King Casimir III survived the plague and continued his programme of urban development and legal reform. He founded the University of Kraków (later the Jagiellonian University) in 1364, one of the earliest universities in Central Europe. The post-plague period in Poland was characterised by immigration from the German lands — particularly from regions devastated by the plague and the persecution of Jews — which contributed to the growth of Polish cities and the development of the kingdom’s commercial infrastructure.

Hungary and the Carpathian Basin

The Kingdom of Hungary, which encompassed the Carpathian Basin and parts of the Balkans, was a major power in Central Europe. Its population of perhaps two to three million included Magyars, Slavs, Germans, and various other ethnic groups. The kingdom’s extensive trade connections to Italy, the German lands, and the Balkans made it vulnerable to plague.

The disease reached Hungary in 1349–1350, likely carried by merchants and travellers moving along the Danube and the overland routes from Italy and the Adriatic. The mortality was significant, though precise figures are lacking. King Louis I (Louis the Great) survived the epidemic and continued his ambitious programme of territorial expansion and cultural patronage.

The economic impact of the plague on Hungary was similar to that experienced elsewhere: labour shortages drove up wages and disrupted the manorial economy. However, the Hungarian nobility responded to these changes by tightening restrictions on peasant movement, a process that would intensify in the fifteenth century and contribute to the peasant revolt of 1514.

The Balkans and the Byzantine World

The Balkan Peninsula in the mid-fourteenth century was a patchwork of states: the declining Byzantine Empire, centred on Constantinople; the Serbian Empire of Stefan Dušan; the Second Bulgarian Empire; and various smaller principalities and lordships. The region’s position at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, and its extensive maritime connections to the Black Sea, the Aegean, and the eastern Mediterranean, made it highly vulnerable to plague.

Constantinople, the former capital of the Roman Empire and still the largest city in the Christian East, was struck by plague in 1347 — possibly before the disease reached Western Europe. The city’s population, which had been declining for centuries, was further reduced by the epidemic. The Byzantine historian Nikephoros Gregoras described the plague’s impact on the city in his Roman History, noting the high mortality and the disruption of the city’s commercial and administrative life.

The plague’s impact on the Byzantine Empire was compounded by the political and military crises that the empire was already facing. The civil war of 1341–1347 had weakened the state, and the Ottoman Turks were expanding their territory in Anatolia and the Balkans. The demographic and economic losses caused by the plague further diminished the empire’s capacity to resist Ottoman expansion, and Constantinople would eventually fall to the Ottomans in 1453.

The Serbian Empire, which had reached its zenith under Stefan Dušan in the 1340s, was affected by the plague, though the evidence is sparse. Dušan himself died in 1355, and his empire fragmented rapidly after his death. Whether the plague contributed to this fragmentation is uncertain, but the demographic and economic disruption caused by the epidemic would have weakened the state’s capacity to maintain unity.

The Russian Principalities

The Russian lands in the mid-fourteenth century were divided among numerous principalities, all of which were subject to the Mongol Golden Horde. The largest and most important of these was the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which was beginning to emerge as the dominant Russian power. Other significant principalities included Novgorod, Tver, Riazan, and Vladimir-Suzdal.

The plague reached the Russian lands in the early 1350s, likely carried along the trade routes of the Volga and the Dnieper rivers. The first recorded outbreak struck the city of Pskov in 1352, and from there the disease spread to Novgorod and other cities of northwestern Russia. The Novgorod First Chronicle described the epidemic in vivid terms:

“The same autumn the wrath of God came upon the men of Pskov; a mortality fell upon them, and men died in great numbers; and the living could not bury the dead, and corpses lay in heaps.”

The mortality in Novgorod and Pskov was severe, and the disruption of the maritime trade that connected these cities to the Hanseatic League was significant. Novgorod, which was one of the great commercial centres of northern Europe, maintained extensive trading connections with the Baltic and Scandinavia, and the plague’s impact on these connections had long-term economic consequences.

Moscow was struck by plague in 1353. The Grand Prince Simeon Ivanovich (known as “Simeon the Proud”) died of the disease, along with his two sons and Theognostus, the Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus’. The loss of the grand prince and the metropolitan was a political catastrophe that threatened the stability of the emerging Muscovite state. However, Simeon’s brother Ivan II succeeded to the throne, and Moscow’s rise continued, albeit with a brief interruption.

The plague returned to the Russian lands in subsequent waves throughout the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Novgorod was struck again in 1360, 1390, and 1417, and Moscow suffered major epidemics in 1364, 1374, and 1415. The cumulative effect of these repeated outbreaks prevented demographic recovery and contributed to the political instability of the period.

Lithuania and the Baltic

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which in the mid-fourteenth century was still pagan and controlled a vast territory stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea, was affected by the plague, though the evidence is sparse. The Lithuanian lands were less urbanised and less commercially integrated than those of Western Europe, and the plague’s impact may have been correspondingly less severe.

The Teutonic Order, which controlled Prussia and Livonia (modern Latvia and Estonia), was significantly affected by the plague. The Order’s cities — Königsberg, Riga, Reval (Tallinn) — were connected to the Hanseatic trade network and were struck in 1350–1351. The mortality was significant, and the disruption of the Order’s military campaigns against Lithuania was noted by contemporary chroniclers.

The Golden Horde

The Golden Horde, the Mongol khanate that controlled the Pontic steppe and the lower Volga valley, was the source from which the plague spread to Europe. The khanate’s own population was affected by the disease, though the evidence is limited. The siege of Caffa in 1346, in which the army of Jani Beg was decimated by plague, demonstrates that the disease was active in the Horde’s territory before it reached Europe.

The plague may have contributed to the political fragmentation of the Golden Horde in the decades following the 1340s. The khanate, which had been the dominant power in the Pontic steppe since the thirteenth century, entered a period of decline that culminated in its disintegration in the fifteenth century. While this decline had multiple causes — internal dynastic conflicts, the rise of the Ottoman Empire, and the growing power of Moscow — the demographic and economic impact of the plague was likely a contributing factor.