Christians and Muslims regarded each other as mortal enemies and equally hated the Jews. But these three cultures arose from the same Hellenistic and Semitic traditions; they all recognized the Bible as a sacred book, prayed to one God, and the educated elite sought to expand their horizons, exchanging the achievements of humanitarian and technical knowledge. The situation was quite different with the Mongols. They had nothing to do with Christian traditions, and it is probably for this reason that the inhabitants of Christendom did not take them seriously, except, of course, those who, by misfortune, fell in their way.

The Mongols were the last nomadic Central Asian people to invade the agricultural and urban civilizations of Eurasia; but they acted much more decisively and over immeasurably wider areas than any of their predecessors, beginning with the Huns. In 1200, the Mongols lived between Lake Baikal and the Altai Mountains in Central Asia. They were illiterate pagans, traditionally exceptionally skilled warriors. A cruel hierarchy was preserved in the social structure: on its upper step was the “aristocracy” (owners of herds of horses and cattle), to which numerous semi-dependent steppe dwellers and slaves were subordinate. In general, the Mongols differed little from other tribes that lived in the expanses of Inner Asia. For almost a thousand years, these peoples - from the Huns to the Avars, Bulgars and various Turkic tribes - demonstrated their ability to defeat the armies of more advanced peoples and create vast amorphous empires or possessions, provided that they did not stray too far from the geographic and climatic conditions of the Eurasian steppes familiar to them. .

At the very beginning of the XIII century. an exceptionally gifted leader - Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227) - managed to unite the Mongol tribes, and then extend his power to the east and west. There is no reason to believe that the Mongols began to move under the influence of some climatic changes that adversely affected livestock grazing. Under the command of Genghis Khan was an excellently organized and disciplined army; it consisted of mounted archers and possessed exceptional mobility combined with superiority in long-range weapons. Genghis Khan himself was remarkable for his amazing ability to adapt to unfamiliar conditions and willingly used Chinese and Muslim-Turkic "specialists" in his army.

He organized a magnificent "service of informers", and merchants of all nationalities and religions delivered a lot of information to him, whom he encouraged in every possible way. Genghis Khan also succeeded in the cold-blooded, thoughtful use of diplomatic measures and military force in accordance with the circumstances. All these qualities allowed Genghis Khan, his gifted sons, grandchildren and military leaders to continuously win victories over the next enemy. Beijing fell in 1215, although it took the Mongols another fifty years to conquer all of China. The Islamic states to the east of the Caspian Sea with their rich cities of Bukhara and Samarkand were conquered much faster (1219–1220). By 1233 Persia had been conquered and, at about the same time, Korea on the other side of Asia. In 1258 the Mongols took Baghdad; at the same time, the last caliph from the Abbasid dynasty died. Only the Mameluks managed to defeat the Mongol detachment in Palestine (1260), thereby protecting Egypt from the Mongol invasion. It was a victory comparable to that of Charles Martel over the Arabs at Tours and Poitiers, for it marked a turning point in repulsing the wave of invasion.

Between 1237 and 1241 the Mongols invaded Europe. Their onslaught, as in Asia, was cruel and intimidating. Having devastated Russia, southern Poland and a significant part of Hungary, they destroyed the army of German knights in Silesia (1241) near the city of Liegnitz (Legnica), west of the Oder River. Apparently, only the problems associated with the choice of a successor to Genghis Khan forced the leaders of the Mongols to turn east after this victory.

Meanwhile, the great rulers of Western Europe - the emperor, pope and kings of France and England - were busy sorting things out and, not taking the Mongol threat seriously, consoled themselves with the reassuring thought that Genghis Khan was the legendary John the Presbyter, or made tempting plans to convert the khan to Christianity. Saint Louis even tried to negotiate with the Mongols on joint actions against the Muslims in Syria. The Mongols were not particularly impressed and showed no interest. In 1245, the khan told the papal envoy: “From sunrise to sunset, all lands are subject to me. Who could do such a thing against the will of God?”

Is it possible to say that Western and Southern Europe simply by a lucky chance escaped the Mongol invasion? Probably you can. The Russians were much less fortunate, and for almost 300 years they were forced to bear all the hardships of the Mongol yoke. However, it is also quite probable that the Mongols have exhausted their conquering possibilities. Their operations in the tropical rainforests and jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia were unsuccessful, and naval expeditions against Japan and Java ended in complete failure. Although the Mongols possessed a very advanced siege technique, their cavalry armies would hardly have been able to prevail in Western Europe with its hundreds of fortified cities and castles. At least it is doubtful.

The first two generations of Mongol leaders and their successors were overwhelmed by a passion for profit and domination. But even for this last purpose, a developed administrative organization was needed, and from the very beginning the Mongols had to adopt such an organization from the conquered, but more developed peoples and appoint experienced Chinese, Persians, Turks and Arabs to important posts.

The religious beliefs of the Mongols could not compete with the great world religions - Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. It is not surprising that they tried not to delve too deeply into this issue: Marco Polo and other Western travelers who visited the court of the Great Khan noted the tolerance of the Mongols and open respect for the religion of strangers. However, even those of modern historians who carefully assess the Mongols can hardly find any justification for their conquests, except that the caravan trade between East and West became safer, and the Mongol subjects lived in conditions pax mongolica- peace that came after the destruction of all real and potential opponents. Indeed, the Mongol conquests were very reminiscent of those of the Romans, of which their contemporary from Britain said: "They turn everything into a desert and call it peace."

In the XIV century. the rulers of various parts of the Mongol Empire adopted Buddhism or Islam; this meant that in fact they were subjugated by the cultures in which they lived - Chinese, Persian or Arabic. With the decline of the great caravan routes, which gave way to sea routes, and with the development of new military-commercial states, the era of the great continental nomadic empires came to an end. They gave nothing to humanity and left a bad memory everywhere. But the indirect results were enormous: successive nomadic invasions provoked the migration of other, more sedentary, peoples, who in turn defeated the former ancient civilizations. This is exactly what happened in the 4th-5th centuries. happened with the Germanic tribes, who destroyed the Roman Empire in the West, and then with some Turkic tribes, who finally destroyed what was left of its eastern part.

MONGOLO-TATAR INVASION

Formation of the Mongolian state. At the beginning of the XIII century. in Central Asia, in the territory from Lake Baikal and the upper reaches of the Yenisei and Irtysh in the north to the southern regions of the Gobi Desert and the Great Wall of China, the Mongolian state was formed. By the name of one of the tribes that roamed near Lake Buirnur in Mongolia, these peoples were also called Tatars. Subsequently, all the nomadic peoples with whom Russia fought began to be called Mongolo-Tatars.

The main occupation of the Mongols was extensive nomadic cattle breeding, and in the north and in the taiga regions - hunting. In the XII century. among the Mongols there was a disintegration of primitive communal relations. From the environment of ordinary community members-cattle breeders, who were called karachu - black people, noyons (princes) stood out - to know; having squads of nukers (warriors), she seized pastures for livestock and part of the young. The noyons also had slaves. The rights of the noyons were determined by "Yasa" - a collection of teachings and instructions.

In 1206, a congress of the Mongol nobility - kurultai (Khural) took place on the Onon River, at which one of the noyons was elected the leader of the Mongol tribes: Temuchin, who received the name Genghis Khan - "great khan", "sent by God" (1206-1227). Having defeated his opponents, he began to rule the country through his relatives and the local nobility.

Mongolian army. The Mongols had a well-organized army that maintained tribal ties. The army was divided into tens, hundreds, thousands. Ten thousand Mongol warriors were called "darkness" ("tumen").

Tumens were not only military, but also administrative units.

The main striking force of the Mongols was the cavalry. Each warrior had two or three bows, several quivers with arrows, an ax, a rope lasso, and was proficient with a saber. The warrior's horse was covered with skins, which protected it from the arrows and weapons of the enemy. The head, neck and chest of the Mongol warrior from enemy arrows and spears were covered with an iron or copper helmet, leather armor. The Mongolian cavalry had high mobility. On their undersized, shaggy-maned, hardy horses, they could travel up to 80 km per day, and up to 10 km with carts, wall-beating and flamethrower guns. Like other peoples, passing through the stage of state formation, the Mongols were distinguished by their strength and solidity. Hence the interest in expanding pastures and in organizing predatory campaigns against neighboring agricultural peoples, who were at a much higher level of development, although they experienced a period of fragmentation. This greatly facilitated the implementation of the conquest plans of the Mongol-Tatars.

Defeat of Central Asia. The Mongols began their campaigns with the conquest of the lands of their neighbors - Buryats, Evenks, Yakuts, Uighurs, Yenisei Kirghiz (by 1211). Then they invaded China and in 1215 took Beijing. Three years later, Korea was conquered. Having defeated China (finally conquered in 1279), the Mongols significantly increased their military potential. Flamethrowers, wall-beaters, stone-throwing tools, vehicles were taken into service.

In the summer of 1219, almost 200,000 Mongol troops led by Genghis Khan began the conquest of Central Asia. The ruler of Khorezm (a country at the mouth of the Amu Darya), Shah Mohammed, did not accept a general battle, dispersing his forces over the cities. Having suppressed the stubborn resistance of the population, the invaders stormed Otrar, Khojent, Merv, Bukhara, Urgench and other cities. The ruler of Samarkand, despite the demand of the people to defend himself, surrendered the city. Mohammed himself fled to Iran, where he soon died.

The rich, flourishing agricultural regions of Semirechye (Central Asia) turned into pastures. Irrigation systems built up over centuries were destroyed. The Mongols introduced a regime of cruel requisitions, artisans were taken into captivity. As a result of the conquest of Central Asia by the Mongols, nomadic tribes began to inhabit its territory. Sedentary agriculture was supplanted by extensive nomadic pastoralism, which slowed down the further development of Central Asia.

Invasion of Iran and Transcaucasia. The main force of the Mongols with the loot returned from Central Asia to Mongolia. The 30,000-strong army under the command of the best Mongol commanders Jebe and Subedei set off on a long-range reconnaissance campaign through Iran and Transcaucasia, to the West. Having defeated the united Armenian-Georgian troops and causing enormous damage to the economy of Transcaucasia, the invaders, however, were forced to leave the territory of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, as they met with strong resistance from the population. Past Derbent, where there was a passage along the coast of the Caspian Sea, the Mongolian troops entered the steppes of the North Caucasus. Here they defeated the Alans (Ossetians) and Polovtsy, after which they ravaged the city of Sudak (Surozh) in the Crimea. The Polovtsy, led by Khan Kotyan, the father-in-law of the Galician prince Mstislav Udaly, turned to the Russian princes for help.

Battle on the Kalka River. On May 31, 1223, the Mongols defeated the allied forces of the Polovtsian and Russian princes in the Azov steppes on the Kalka River. This was the last major joint military action of the Russian princes on the eve of the invasion of Batu. However, the powerful Russian prince Yuri Vsevolodovich of Vladimir-Suzdal, the son of Vsevolod the Big Nest, did not participate in the campaign.

Princely strife also affected during the battle on the Kalka. The Kyiv prince Mstislav Romanovich, having fortified himself with his army on a hill, did not take part in the battle. Regiments of Russian soldiers and Polovtsy, having crossed the Kalka, struck at the advanced detachments of the Mongol-Tatars, who retreated. The Russian and Polovtsian regiments were carried away by the persecution. The main Mongol forces that approached, took the pursuing Russian and Polovtsian warriors in pincers and destroyed them.

The Mongols laid siege to the hill, where the prince of Kyiv fortified. On the third day of the siege, Mstislav Romanovich believed the promise of the enemy to honorably release the Russians in the event of voluntary surrender and laid down his arms. He and his warriors were brutally killed by the Mongols. The Mongols reached the Dnieper, but did not dare to enter the borders of Russia. Russia has not yet known a defeat equal to the battle on the Kalka River. Only a tenth of the troops returned from the Azov steppes to Russia. In honor of their victory, the Mongols held a "feast on the bones". The captured princes were crushed with boards on which the victors sat and feasted.

Preparation of a campaign to Russia. Returning to the steppes, the Mongols made an unsuccessful attempt to capture Volga Bulgaria. Reconnaissance in force showed that wars of conquest against Russia and its neighbors could be waged only by organizing a general Mongol campaign. At the head of this campaign was the grandson of Genghis Khan - Batu (1227-1255), who inherited from his grandfather all the territories in the west, "where the foot of the Mongol horse sets foot." His main military adviser was Subedei, who knew the theater of future military operations well.

In 1235, at the Khural in the capital of Mongolia, Karakorum, a decision was made on a general Mongol campaign to the West. In 1236 the Mongols captured the Volga Bulgaria, and in 1237 they subjugated the nomadic peoples of the Steppe. In the autumn of 1237, the main forces of the Mongols, having crossed the Volga, concentrated on the Voronezh River, aiming at the Russian lands. In Russia, they knew about the impending formidable danger, but the princely feuds prevented the sips from uniting to repel a strong and treacherous enemy. There was no unified command. Fortifications of cities were erected for defense against neighboring Russian principalities, and not from steppe nomads. The princely cavalry squads were not inferior to the Mongol noyons and nukers in terms of armament and fighting qualities. But the bulk of the Russian army was made up of the militia - urban and rural warriors, inferior to the Mongols in weapons and combat skills. Hence the defensive tactics, designed to deplete the enemy's forces.

Defense of Ryazan. In 1237, Ryazan was the first of the Russian lands to be attacked by invaders. The Princes of Vladimir and Chernigov refused to help Ryazan. The Mongols laid siege to Ryazan and sent envoys who demanded obedience and one-tenth "in everything." The courageous answer of the people of Ryazan followed: "If we are all gone, then everything will be yours." On the sixth day of the siege, the city was taken, the princely family and the surviving inhabitants were killed. In the old place, Ryazan was no longer revived (modern Ryazan is a new city located 60 km from the old Ryazan, it used to be called Pereyaslavl Ryazansky).

Conquest of North-Eastern Russia. In January 1238, the Mongols moved along the Oka River to the Vladimir-Suzdal land. The battle with the Vladimir-Suzdal army took place near the city of Kolomna, on the border of the Ryazan and Vladimir-Suzdal lands. In this battle, the Vladimir army died, which actually predetermined the fate of North-Eastern Russia.

Strong resistance to the enemy for 5 days was provided by the population of Moscow, led by the governor Philip Nyanka. After the capture by the Mongols, Moscow was burned, and its inhabitants were killed.

February 4, 1238 Batu besieged Vladimir. The distance from Kolomna to Vladimir (300 km) was covered by his troops in a month. On the fourth day of the siege, the invaders broke into the city through gaps in the fortress wall near the Golden Gate. The princely family and the remnants of the troops closed in the Assumption Cathedral. The Mongols surrounded the cathedral with trees and set it on fire.

After the capture of Vladimir, the Mongols broke into separate detachments and crushed the cities of North-Eastern Russia. Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich, even before the approach of the invaders to Vladimir, went to the north of his land to gather military forces. Hastily assembled regiments in 1238 were defeated on the Sit River (the right tributary of the Mologa River), and Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich himself died in the battle.

The Mongol hordes moved to the north-west of Russia. Everywhere they met stubborn resistance from the Russians. For two weeks, for example, a distant suburb of Novgorod, Torzhok, defended itself. North-Western Russia was saved from defeat, although it paid tribute.

Having reached the stone Ignach Cross - an ancient sign on the Valdai watershed (one hundred kilometers from Novgorod), the Mongols retreated south, to the steppe, in order to restore losses and give rest to tired troops. The retreat was in the nature of a "raid". Divided into separate detachments, the invaders "combed" the Russian cities. Smolensk managed to fight back, other centers were defeated. Kozelsk, which held out for seven weeks, put up the greatest resistance to the Mongols during the "raid". The Mongols called Kozelsk an "evil city".

Capture of Kyiv. In the spring of 1239, Batu defeated South Russia (Pereyaslavl South), in the fall - the Chernigov principality. In the autumn of the next 1240, the Mongol troops crossed the Dnieper and laid siege to Kyiv. After a long defense, led by the governor Dmitr, the Tatars defeated Kyiv. In the next 1241, the Galicia-Volyn principality was attacked.

Batu's campaign against Europe. After the defeat of Russia, the Mongol hordes moved to Europe. Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the Balkan countries were devastated. The Mongols reached the borders of the German Empire, reached the Adriatic Sea. However, at the end of 1242 they suffered a series of setbacks in Bohemia and Hungary. From distant Karakorum came the news of the death of the great Khan Ogedei - the son of Genghis Khan. It was a convenient excuse to stop the difficult campaign. Batu turned his troops back to the east.

A decisive world-historical role in the salvation of European civilization from the Mongol hordes was played by the heroic struggle against them by the Russian and other peoples of our country, who took the first blow from the invaders. In fierce battles in Russia, the best part of the Mongol army perished. The Mongols lost their offensive power. They could not but reckon with the liberation struggle unfolding in the rear of their troops. A.S. Pushkin rightly wrote: "A great destiny was determined for Russia: its boundless plains absorbed the power of the Mongols and stopped their invasion on the very edge of Europe ... the emerging enlightenment was saved by torn to pieces by Russia."

Fight against the aggression of the crusaders. The coast from the Vistula to the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea was inhabited by Slavic, Baltic (Lithuanian and Latvian) and Finno-Ugric (Ests, Karelians, etc.) tribes. At the end of the XII - beginning of the XIII centuries. the peoples of the Baltic states are completing the process of disintegration of the primitive communal system and the formation of an early class society and statehood. These processes were most intense among the Lithuanian tribes. The Russian lands (Novgorod and Polotsk) exerted a significant influence on their western neighbors, who did not yet have a developed state of their own and church institutions (the peoples of the Baltic were pagans).

The attack on Russian lands was part of the predatory doctrine of the German chivalry "Drang nach Osten" (onslaught to the East). In the XII century. it began the seizure of lands belonging to the Slavs beyond the Oder and in the Baltic Pomerania. At the same time, an offensive was carried out on the lands of the Baltic peoples. The Crusaders' invasion of the Baltic lands and Northwestern Russia was sanctioned by the Pope and the German Emperor Frederick II. German, Danish, Norwegian knights and troops from other northern European countries also took part in the crusade.

Knightly orders. In order to conquer the lands of the Estonians and Latvians, the knightly Order of the Sword-bearers was created in 1202 from the Crusaders defeated in Asia Minor. The knights wore clothes with the image of a sword and a cross. They pursued an aggressive policy under the slogan of Christianization: "Whoever does not want to be baptized must die." Back in 1201, the knights landed at the mouth of the Western Dvina (Daugava) River and founded the city of Riga on the site of the Latvian settlement as a stronghold for subjugating the Baltic lands. In 1219, the Danish knights captured part of the Baltic coast, founding the city of Revel (Tallinn) on the site of an Estonian settlement.

In 1224 the crusaders took Yuriev (Tartu). To conquer the lands of Lithuania (Prussians) and the southern Russian lands in 1226, the knights of the Teutonic Order, founded in 1198 in Syria during the Crusades, arrived. Knights - members of the order wore white cloaks with a black cross on the left shoulder. In 1234, the Swordsmen were defeated by the Novgorod-Suzdal troops, and two years later, by the Lithuanians and Semigallians. This forced the crusaders to join forces. In 1237, the swordsmen united with the Teutons, forming a branch of the Teutonic Order - the Livonian Order, named after the territory inhabited by the Liv tribe, which was captured by the Crusaders.

Neva battle. The offensive of the knights especially intensified due to the weakening of Russia, which bled in the fight against the Mongol conquerors.

In July 1240, the Swedish feudal lords tried to take advantage of the plight of Russia. The Swedish fleet with an army on board entered the mouth of the Neva. Having risen along the Neva to the confluence of the Izhora River, the knightly cavalry landed on the shore. The Swedes wanted to capture the city of Staraya Ladoga, and then Novgorod.

Prince Alexander Yaroslavich, who was 20 years old at that time, with his retinue quickly rushed to the landing site. "We are few," he turned to his soldiers, "but God is not in power, but in truth." Covertly approaching the Swedes' camp, Alexander and his warriors hit them, and a small militia led by Misha from Novgorod cut off the Swedes' path along which they could flee to their ships.

Alexander Yaroslavich was nicknamed Nevsky by the Russian people for the victory on the Neva. The significance of this victory is that it stopped the Swedish aggression to the east for a long time, retained Russia's access to the Baltic coast. (Peter I, emphasizing the right of Russia to the Baltic coast, founded the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in the new capital on the site of the battle.)

Battle on the Ice. In the summer of the same 1240, the Livonian Order, as well as Danish and German knights, attacked Russia and captured the city of Izborsk. Soon, due to the betrayal of the posadnik Tverdila and part of the boyars, Pskov was taken (1241). Strife and strife led to the fact that Novgorod did not help its neighbors. And the struggle between the boyars and the prince in Novgorod itself ended with the expulsion of Alexander Nevsky from the city. Under these conditions, individual detachments of the crusaders found themselves 30 km from the walls of Novgorod. At the request of the veche, Alexander Nevsky returned to the city.

Together with his retinue, Alexander liberated Pskov, Izborsk and other captured cities with a sudden blow. Having received the news that the main forces of the Order were coming at him, Alexander Nevsky blocked the way for the knights, placing his troops on the ice of Lake Peipsi. The Russian prince showed himself as an outstanding commander. The chronicler wrote about him: "Winning everywhere, but we won't win at all." Alexander deployed troops under the cover of a steep bank on the ice of the lake, eliminating the possibility of enemy reconnaissance of his forces and depriving the enemy of freedom of maneuver. Taking into account the construction of the knights as a "pig" (in the form of a trapezoid with a sharp wedge in front, which was heavily armed cavalry), Alexander Nevsky arranged his regiments in the form of a triangle, with a point resting on the shore. Before the battle, part of the Russian soldiers were equipped with special hooks to pull the knights off their horses.

On April 5, 1242, a battle took place on the ice of Lake Peipsi, which was called the Battle of the Ice. The knight's wedge broke through the center of the Russian position and hit the shore. The flank strikes of the Russian regiments decided the outcome of the battle: like pincers, they crushed the knightly "pig". The knights, unable to withstand the blow, fled in panic. The Novgorodians drove them for seven versts across the ice, which by the spring had become weak in many places and collapsed under heavily armed soldiers. The Russians pursued the enemy, "flashed, rushing after him, as if through air," the chronicler wrote. According to the Novgorod chronicle, "400 Germans died in the battle, and 50 were taken prisoner" (German chronicles estimate the death toll at 25 knights). The captured knights were led in disgrace through the streets of the Lord Veliky Novgorod.

The significance of this victory lies in the fact that the military power of the Livonian Order was weakened. The response to the Battle of the Ice was the growth of the liberation struggle in the Baltic states. However, relying on the help of the Roman Catholic Church, the knights at the end of the XIII century. captured a significant part of the Baltic lands.

Russian lands under the rule of the Golden Horde. In the middle of the XIII century. one of the grandsons of Genghis Khan, Khubulai moved his headquarters to Beijing, founding the Yuan dynasty. The rest of the Mongol state was nominally subordinate to the great khan in Karakorum. One of the sons of Genghis Khan - Chagatai (Jagatai) received the lands of most of Central Asia, and the grandson of Genghis Khan Zulagu owned the territory of Iran, part of Western and Central Asia and Transcaucasia. This ulus, singled out in 1265, is called the Hulaguid state after the name of the dynasty. Another grandson of Genghis Khan from his eldest son Jochi - Batu founded the state of the Golden Horde.

Golden Horde. The Golden Horde covered a vast territory from the Danube to the Irtysh (Crimea, the North Caucasus, part of the lands of Russia located in the steppe, former lands Volga Bulgaria and nomadic peoples, Western Siberia and part of Central Asia). The capital of the Golden Horde was the city of Sarai, located in the lower reaches of the Volga (a shed in Russian means a palace). It was a state consisting of semi-independent uluses, united under the rule of the khan. They were ruled by the Batu brothers and the local aristocracy.

The role of a kind of aristocratic council was played by the "Divan", where military and financial issues were resolved. Being surrounded by the Turkic-speaking population, the Mongols adopted the Turkic language. The local Turkic-speaking ethnic group assimilated the newcomers-Mongols. A new people was formed - the Tatars. In the first decades of the existence of the Golden Horde, its religion was paganism.

The Golden Horde was one of the largest states of its time. At the beginning of the XIV century, she could put up a 300,000th army. The heyday of the Golden Horde falls on the reign of Khan Uzbek (1312-1342). In this era (1312), Islam became the state religion of the Golden Horde. Then, just like other medieval states, the Horde experienced a period of fragmentation. Already in the XIV century. the Central Asian possessions of the Golden Horde separated, and in the 15th century. the Kazan (1438), Crimean (1443), Astrakhan (mid-15th century) and Siberian (end of the 15th century) khanates stood out.

Russian lands and the Golden Horde. The Russian lands devastated by the Mongols were forced to recognize vassal dependence on the Golden Horde. The unceasing struggle waged by the Russian people against the invaders forced the Mongol-Tatars to abandon the creation of their own administrative authorities in Russia. Russia retained its statehood. This was facilitated by the presence in Russia of its own administration and church organization. In addition, the lands of Russia were unsuitable for nomadic pastoralism, unlike, for example, from Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea.

In 1243, Yaroslav Vsevolodovich (1238-1246), the brother of the Grand Duke of Vladimir, who was killed on the Sit River, was called to the Khan's headquarters. Yaroslav recognized vassal dependence on the Golden Horde and received a label (letter) for the great reign of Vladimir and a golden plaque ("paydzu"), a kind of pass through the Horde territory. Following him, other princes reached out to the Horde.

To control the Russian lands, the institution of Baskak governors was created - the leaders of the military detachments of the Mongol-Tatars, who monitored the activities of the Russian princes. The denunciation of the Baskaks to the Horde inevitably ended either with the summoning of the prince to Sarai (often he lost his label, and even his life), or with a punitive campaign in the unruly land. Suffice it to say that only in the last quarter of the XIII century. 14 similar campaigns were organized in Russian lands.

Some Russian princes, in an effort to quickly get rid of vassal dependence on the Horde, took the path of open armed resistance. However, the forces to overthrow the power of the invaders were still not enough. So, for example, in 1252 the regiments of the Vladimir and Galician-Volyn princes were defeated. This was well understood by Alexander Nevsky, from 1252 to 1263. Grand Duke Vladimirsky. He set a course for the restoration and recovery of the economy of the Russian lands. The policy of Alexander Nevsky was also supported by the Russian Church, which saw a great danger in Catholic expansion, and not in the tolerant rulers of the Golden Horde.

In 1257, the Mongol-Tatars undertook a census of the population - "recording the number." Besermens (Muslim merchants) were sent to the cities, and the collection of tribute was paid off. The size of the tribute ("exit") was very large, only the "royal tribute", i.e. tribute in favor of the khan, which was first collected in kind, and then in money, amounted to 1300 kg of silver per year. The constant tribute was supplemented by "requests" - one-time extortions in favor of the khan. In addition, deductions from trade duties, taxes for "feeding" the khan's officials, etc. went to the khan's treasury. In total there were 14 types of tributes in favor of the Tatars. Census of the population in the 50-60s of the XIII century. marked by numerous uprisings of Russian people against the Baskaks, Khan's ambassadors, tribute collectors, scribes. In 1262, the inhabitants of Rostov, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Suzdal, and Ustyug dealt with the tribute collectors, the Besermen. This led to the fact that the collection of tribute from the end of the XIII century. was handed over to the Russian princes.

The consequences of the Mongol conquest and the Golden Horde yoke for Russia. The Mongol invasion and the Golden Horde yoke became one of the reasons for the Russian lands lagging behind the developed countries of Western Europe. Huge damage was done to the economic, political and cultural development of Russia. Tens of thousands of people died in battle or were driven into slavery. A significant part of the income in the form of tribute went to the Horde.

The old agricultural centers and the once developed territories were abandoned and fell into decay. The border of agriculture moved to the north, the southern fertile soils were called the "Wild Field". Russian cities were subjected to mass ruin and destruction. Many handicrafts were simplified and sometimes disappeared, which hampered the creation of small-scale production and ultimately delayed economic development.

The Mongol conquest preserved political fragmentation. It weakened the ties between various parts states. Traditional political and trade ties with other countries were disrupted. The vector of Russian foreign policy, which ran along the "south - north" line (the fight against the nomadic danger, stable ties with Byzantium and through the Baltic with Europe), radically changed its direction to the "west - east". The pace of cultural development of the Russian lands slowed down.

What you need to know about these topics:

Archaeological, linguistic and written evidence about the Slavs.

Tribal unions of the Eastern Slavs in the VI-IX centuries. Territory. Lessons. "The Way from the Varangians to the Greeks". Social system. Paganism. Prince and squad. Campaigns to Byzantium.

Internal and external factors that prepared the emergence of statehood among the Eastern Slavs.

Socio-economic development. Formation of feudal relations.

Early feudal monarchy of the Rurikids. "Norman theory", its political meaning. Management organization. Domestic and foreign policy of the first Kyiv princes (Oleg, Igor, Olga, Svyatoslav).

The heyday of the Kievan state under Vladimir I and Yaroslav the Wise. Completion of the unification of the Eastern Slavs around Kyiv. Border defense.

Legends about the spread of Christianity in Russia. Adoption of Christianity as the state religion. The Russian Church and its role in the life of the Kyiv state. Christianity and paganism.

"Russian Truth". The establishment of feudal relations. organization of the ruling class. Princely and boyar estates. Feudal-dependent population, its categories. Serfdom. Peasant communities. City.

The struggle between the sons and descendants of Yaroslav the Wise for the grand ducal power. fragmentation tendencies. Lyubech congress princes.

Kievan Rus in the system of international relations in the 11th - early 12th centuries. Polovtsian danger. Princely feuds. Vladimir Monomakh. The final collapse of the Kievan state at the beginning of the XII century.

Culture of Kievan Rus. Cultural heritage of the Eastern Slavs. Oral folk art. Epics. Origin Slavic writing. Cyril and Methodius. Beginning of chronicle. "The Tale of Bygone Years". Literature. Education in Kievan Rus. Birch letters. Architecture. Painting (frescoes, mosaics, iconography).

Economic and political reasons for the feudal fragmentation of Russia.

feudal landownership. Urban development. Princely power and boyars. The political system in various Russian lands and principalities.

The largest political formations on the territory of Russia. Rostov-(Vladimir)-Suzdal, Galicia-Volyn principality, Novgorod boyar republic. Socio-economic and internal political development of principalities and lands on the eve of the Mongol invasion.

International position of Russian lands. Political and cultural ties between Russian lands. Feudal strife. Fighting external danger.

The rise of culture in the Russian lands in the XII-XIII centuries. The idea of ​​the unity of the Russian land in the works of culture. "The Tale of Igor's Campaign".

Formation of the early feudal Mongolian state. Genghis Khan and the unification of the Mongol tribes. The conquest by the Mongols of the lands of neighboring peoples, northeastern China, Korea, Central Asia. Invasion of Transcaucasia and South Russian steppes. Battle on the Kalka River.

Campaigns of Batu.

Invasion of North-Eastern Russia. The defeat of southern and southwestern Russia. Campaigns of Batu in Central Europe. Russia's struggle for independence and its historical significance.

Aggression of the German feudal lords in the Baltic. Livonian order. The defeat of the Swedish troops on the Neva and the German knights in the Battle of the Ice. Alexander Nevskiy.

Formation of the Golden Horde. Socio-economic and political system. Control system for conquered lands. The struggle of the Russian people against the Golden Horde. The consequences of the Mongol-Tatar invasion and the Golden Horde yoke for the further development of our country.

The inhibitory effect of the Mongol-Tatar conquest on the development of Russian culture. Destruction and destruction of cultural property. Weakening of traditional ties with Byzantium and other Christian countries. Decline of crafts and arts. Oral folk art as a reflection of the struggle against the invaders.

• Sakharov A.N., Buganov V.I. History of Russia from ancient times to the end of the 17th century.

Chapter 7

§ 1. MONGOLIAN CONQUESTS

In the middle of the XIII century. the territory of North Asia was covered by events that led to fundamental changes in the development of both the entire region as a whole and Ancient Russia.

Formation of the Mongolian state. In the second half of the XII century. on the lands of numerous Mongolian tribes (Kerits, Tayjuns, Mongols, Merkits, Tatars, Oirats, Onguts, etc.), who roamed from Lake Baikal and the upper reaches of the Yenisei and Irtysh to the Great Wall of China, the process of decomposition of the tribal system intensified. Within the framework of tribal ties, property and social stratification took place with the promotion of such an economic unit as the family to the fore. The steppe Mongols based their economy on cattle breeding. In conditions when the steppes were common, there was a custom of passing into the ownership of pastures by the right of their primary capture by one or another family. This made it possible to single out wealthy families who own countless herds of horses, large and small livestock. This is how the nobility (noyons, bagaturs) was formed, new associations were created - hordes, all-powerful khans appeared, squads of nukers were formed, which were a kind of guard of khans.

A feature of the existence of the Mongols-nomads was a marching way of life, when a person from childhood did not part with a horse, when every nomad was a warrior capable of instantaneous movement over any distance. Plano Carpini in the History of the Mongols (1245-1247) wrote: “Their children, when they are 2 or 3 years old, immediately begin to ride and control horses and jump on them, and they are given a bow according to their age, and they learn to shoot arrows, for they are very dexterous and also bold. They went through the science of fighting by themselves. Unpretentiousness in everyday life, endurance, ability to act, not having a minute of sleep and not a crumb of food for three or four days, a warlike spirit - all this character traits ethnicity as a whole. Therefore, social stratification, the formation of the nobility, the emergence of khans smoothly formed the emerging state as a militarized one. In addition, the basis of the life of nomads - cattle breeding - organically assumed the extensive nature of the use of pastures, their constant change, and periodically - the seizure of new territories. The primitive life of the nomads came into conflict with the demands of the formed elite, which potentially prepared society for wars of conquest.

By the end of the XII century. inter-tribal struggle for supremacy reached its climax. Inter-tribal unions, confederations were created, some tribes subjugated or exterminated others, turned them into slaves, forced to serve the winner. The elite of the victorious tribe became polyethnic.

So, in the middle of the XII century. the leader of the Taichiut tribe Yesugei united most of the Mongol tribes, but the Tatars hostile to him managed to destroy him, and the political association (ulus) that had barely arisen fell apart. However, by the end of the century, Yesugei's eldest son Temujin (named after the leader of the Tatars who was killed by Yesugei) managed to subdue part of the Mongol tribes again and become a khan. A brave warrior, distinguished by both courage, cruelty, and deceit, he, avenging his father, defeated the Tatar tribe. The Secret History reports that "all Tatar men taken prisoner were killed, and women and children were distributed among different tribes." Part of the tribe survived and was used as a vanguard in subsequent grandiose military actions.

At a kurultai, a congress that met on the Onon River in Mongolia in 1206, Temujin was proclaimed ruler of "all Mongols" and took the name Genghis Khan ("great khan"). Like the previous associations of nomads, the new empire was characterized by the combination of tribal division with a strong military organization, based on decimal division: a detachment of 10 thousand horsemen (“tumen”) was divided into “thousands”, “hundreds” and “tens” (and this cell coincided with a real family - ail). The Mongol army differed from the previous nomadic armies in a particularly severe and strict discipline: if one warrior escaped from a dozen, the whole ten were killed, if a dozen retreated, the whole hundred were punished. The usual execution is a fracture of the spine or the removal of the heart of the offender.

One of the first objects of expansion was the peoples living in the steppe and (partially) forest zone of Siberia: Buryats, Evenks, Yakuts, Yenisei Kyrgyz. The conquest of these peoples was completed by 1211, and campaigns of the Mongol troops began in the rich lands of Northern China, culminating in the capture of Beijing (1215). Under the rule of the Mongol nomadic nobility were vast territories with an agricultural population. With the help of his Chinese advisers, Genghis Khan set about creating an organization for their management and exploitation, which was then used in other conquered lands. The captures in China gave the Mongol rulers at the disposal of wall and stone-throwing machines, which made it possible to destroy fortresses that were inaccessible to the Mongol cavalry. The army of Genghis Khan significantly increased in size due to the forced inclusion in its composition of warriors from among the nomadic tribes that submitted to the Mongols. In the early 20s. 13th century Genghis Khan's troops, numbering 150-200 thousand people, invaded Central Asia, devastating the main centers of Semirechye, Bukhara, Samarkand, Merv and others, and subjugating this entire vast region to their power. In Northern Eurasia, a huge, multi-ethnic state was taking shape, headed by the Mongol nobility - the Mongol Empire.

The first war between the Mongols and Russia. After the conquest during 1219-1221. In Central Asia, a 30,000-strong Mongol army led by commanders Jebe and Subedei went on a reconnaissance campaign to the West. Having defeated Northern Iran in 1220, the Mongols invaded Azerbaijan, part of Georgia and, having ruined them, penetrated through the Derbent passage to the North Caucasus, where they defeated the Alans, Ossetians and Polovtsy. Pursuing the Polovtsy, the Mongols entered the Crimea. In the fight against them, the Polovtsian association near the Don, headed by Yuri Konchakovich, was defeated, and the defeated fled to the Dnieper. Khan Kotyan and the heads of other Polovtsian hordes requested support from the Russian princes. Galician prince Mstislav Udatny (i.e. lucky), Kotyan's son-in-law, appealed to all the princes. As a result, the assembled army was led by the Kyiv prince Mstislav Romanovich. Smolensk, Pereyaslavl, Chernigov and Galician-Volyn princes took part in the campaign. To fight the Mongol army, most of the military forces that were available at the beginning of the 13th century were assembled. Ancient Russia. But not everyone participated in the campaign, in particular, the Suzdal regiments did not come. On the Dnieper, Russian troops joined at Oleshya with "the whole land of the Polovtsian". But there was no unity in this large army. Polovtsy and Russians did not trust each other. The Russian princes, competing with each other, each sought to win a victory on their own. The advanced regiment of the Mongols was defeated by Mstislav Udatny and Daniil Volynsky, but when the Mongols on May 31, 1223 met the allied army in the Azov steppes on the Kalka River, Mstislav Galitsky, together with the Polovtsy, entered the battle, without informing the other princes, and the Polovtsy, who were put to flight the Mongols, "the trampling of the fleeing camps of the Russian prince." The head of the campaign, Mstislav Romanovich, did not take part in the battle at all, having dug in with his regiment on a hill. >Oosle three days of siege, the army surrendered on the condition that the soldiers get the opportunity to redeem themselves from captivity, but the promises were broken and the soldiers were brutally killed, barely a tenth of the army survived. The Mongols went away, but these events showed that the military forces of the scattered Russian principalities would hardly be able to repulse the main forces of the Mongolian army. For many centuries the Russian people kept in memory the bitterness of this defeat.

Mongol-Tatar invasion. The decision to march the Mongol troops to the West was made at the congress of the Mongol nobility in the capital of the Mongol Empire - Karakorum in 1235 after the death of Genghis Khan, although a preliminary discussion was in 1229. The eldest grandson of Genghis Khan Batu (Batu of ancient Russian sources) became the head of these troops , his main adviser was Subedey, who won the battle on Kalka. A huge army (according to Plano Carpini, 160 thousand Mongols and 450 thousand from the conquered tribes) in its main part consisted of cavalry, divided into tens, hundreds and thousands, united under a single command and acting according to a single plan. It was reinforced by flame-throwing and stone-throwing weapons, as well as wall-beating machines, against which the wooden walls of Russian fortresses could not resist.

In 1236, the Mongol commander Burundai attacked Volga Bulgaria. The capital of the state - "the great city of Bulgaria" - was taken by storm and destroyed, and its population was exterminated. Then came the turn of the Polovtsy. In 1237, one of the main Polovtsian khans, Kotyan, with a 40,000-strong horde, fleeing from the Mongols, fled to Hungary. The Polovtsy, who remained in the steppe and submitted to the new government, became part of the Mongol army, increasing its strength. In the autumn of 1237, the Mongol-Tatar troops approached the territory of North-Eastern Russia.

Although the impending danger was known in advance, the Russian princes did not conclude an agreement among themselves on joint actions against the Mongols. The Ryazan princes were the first to face them, who at first were presented with an ultimatum: to pay off with a tithe in people, horses and armor. However, the princes decided to defend themselves and turned to the Grand Duke of Vladimir Yuri Vsevolodovich for help. But he “does not go himself, nor listen to the prayers of the princes of Ryazan, but he himself wants to create an individual scolding.” The prince of Chernigov also refused to help. And therefore, when Batu's troops invaded the Ryazan land in the winter of 1238, the Ryazan princes, after being defeated in a battle on the Voronezh River, were forced to take refuge in fortified cities. Russian people bravely defended themselves. Thus, the defense of the capital of the Ryazan land, the city of Ryazan, continued for six days. Suffering serious losses, the Mongol commanders resorted to deception. According to the Ipatiev Chronicle, the chief prince of Ryazan, Yuri Igorevich, who took refuge in Ryazan, and his princess, who was in Pronsk, they “led out on flattering” from these cities, i.e. lured out by deceit, promising honorable terms of surrender. When the goal was achieved, the promises were broken, the main centers of the Ryazan land were burned, their population was partly killed, partly driven into slavery. Subsequently, when it was not possible to overcome the defense of Russian cities, the Mongols repeatedly resorted to such a technique. And "not a single one from the princes ... go to each other's help."

Part of the Ryazan troops, led by Prince Roman Ingvarevich, managed to retreat to Kolomna, where they joined up with the army of the governor Yeremey Glebovich, who approached from Vladimir. Under the walls of the city at the beginning of 1238, "there was a great slaughter." The Russian people "strongly fight", one of the "princes" - the grandsons of Genghis Khan, who participated in the campaign, died in battle. From the captured Kolomna, the Mongol-Tatars moved towards Moscow. Muscovites, led by Philip Nyanka, showed courage, but the forces were unequal, the city was taken, "and people were beaten from an old man to a living baby." Immediately, the Mongol-Tatars invaded the lands of the Vladimir Grand Duchy. Yuri Vsevolodovich went north to Yaroslavl to collect a new army, and on February 3, 1238, the Mongols besieged the capital of the region - Vladimir. A few days later, the walls of the city were destroyed, on February 7 the city was taken and devastated, the population was driven into slavery, in the Assumption Cathedral the wife of Grand Duke Yuri, his children, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, and Vladimir Bishop Mitrofan and his clergy perished in the fire. Bursting into the burning temple, the adversaries main "wonderful icon odrash, decorated with gold and silver and precious stones." The Nativity Monastery was destroyed to the ground, and Archimandrite Pachomius and the abbots, monks and residents of the city were killed or taken into captivity. Yuri's sons also died.

Mongol-Tatar detachments dispersed throughout North-Eastern Russia, reaching in the north to Galich Mersky (Kostroma). During February 1238, 14 cities were devastated and burned (among them Rostov, Yaroslavl, Suzdal, Tver, Yuryev, Dmitrov, etc.), not counting settlements and churchyards: where you did not fight on the Suzhdal land. On the Sit River on March 4, 1238, Grand Duke Yuri died, his hastily assembled, but brave regiments, fighting desperately, could not break the strength of the huge Mongol army. In the battle, Yuri's nephew Vasilko Konstantinovich was captured. The Mongols forced him for a long time in the Sheren forest to go over to the camp of the enemy and "be in their will and fight with them." The young prince rejected all offers and was killed. The chronicler wrote about him: “Because Vasilko has a red face, his eyes are bright and formidable, he is braver than measures in fishing, his heart is light, to the boyars affectionate.” Another part of Batu's army moved west.

On March 5, 1238, Torzhok was taken and burned, but the city held back the Mongol army for two whole weeks, and its heroic defense saved Novgorod. Because of the forthcoming spring thaw, the Mongol-Tatars were forced to turn before reaching the city. Through the eastern lands of the Smolensk and Chernigov principalities, they moved to the "Polovtsian land" - the Eastern European steppes. On this way, the Mongols encountered stubborn resistance from the small town of Kozelsk, the siege of which lasted 7 weeks. When the city fortifications were destroyed, the inhabitants on the streets "cut knives" with the Mongols. The goats cut down their battering rams, killed, according to the chronicle, four thousand, and were themselves killed. During the capture of the city, the sons of three temniks, large Mongol-Tatar commanders, died. And again, the warriors of Batu wiped the city off the face of the earth and slaughtered its inhabitants, right down to the “boys” and “sucking milk”.

In the following year, in 1239, the Mongols conquered the Mordovian land, and their troops reached the Klyazma, reappearing on the territory of the Vladimir Grand Duchy. Fear-stricken people ran wherever their eyes looked. But the main forces of the Mongol-Tatars were directed to South Russia. Impressed by what happened in the north of Russia, the local princes did not even try to gather forces to repulse them. The most powerful among them - Daniil Galitsky and Mikhail Chernigov, without waiting for the arrival of the Mongols, went to the west. Every land, every city fought desperately, relying on its own strength. On March 3, Pereyaslavl South was stormed and destroyed, where Batu killed all the inhabitants, destroyed the Church of Michael the Archangel, seizing all the gold utensils and precious stones, and killing Bishop Simeon. In October 1239, Chernigov fell. In the late autumn of 1240, the army of Batu "in the strength of the heavy" "many multitude of his strength" laid siege to Kyiv. The chronicler writes that “from the creaking of his carts, the multitude of zeal of his camels and the neighing from the voice of the herds of his horse,” the voices of the people who defended the city were not heard. The annals also note that the Mongol commander, who was sent a year before the siege to "look" at Kyiv, "seeing the city, marveled at its beauty and its majesty." The people of Kiev rejected the offers of surrender coming from the commander. Here the Mongols met with particularly stubborn resistance, although at the end of 1239 Kyiv was left without a prince, since Mikhail Chernigov, who was sitting in Kyiv, fled to the Hungarians, and Rostislav Smolensky, who occupied the Kyiv table, was captured by the Galician prince Daniel. Daniil planted the voivode Dmitr in Kyiv. Starting the siege, Batu concentrated wall-beating guns, which beat days and nights, in the area of ​​​​the Lyash Gates. The townspeople desperately defended themselves on the walls. When the walls of the city were destroyed by wall-beating machines, the inhabitants of Kyiv, led by voivode Dmitr, set up a new "city" around tithe church and continued to fight there. The arches, collapsed from the weight of many people who ran up to the church, became a grave for the last defenders of the capital of Ancient Russia.

Having taken Kyiv, the Mongols moved to the Galicia-Volyn land and stormed Galich and Vladimir Volynsky, whose inhabitants were "beaten without sparing." “Many other cities were devastated, they are innumerable.”

Already this rather brief description of events shows how the Mongol invasion with its huge, superbly equipped army differed from those traditional nomadic raids to which the ancient Russian lands were subjected in previous centuries. Firstly, these raids never covered such a vast territory, because huge regions were devastated (as, for example, North-Eastern Russia), which had not previously been subjected to nomad raids. The Pechenegs and Polovtsy, capturing booty and prisoners, did not set themselves the goal of capturing Russian cities, and they did not have the appropriate means for this. Only occasionally did they manage to capture one or another secondary fortress. Now the main cities of many ancient Russian lands were completely destroyed and lost most of their population. Now in the cultural deposits of many ancient Russian cities of the middle of the XIII century. archaeologists have discovered layers of continuous conflagrations and mass graves of the dead. Of the 74 ancient Russian cities studied by archaeologists, 49 were devastated by the troops of Batu, in 14 of them life ceased altogether, 15 turned into rural-type settlements. The merciless extermination and deportation of a mass of skilled artisans led to the fact that a number of branches of handicraft production ceased to exist. In particular, a huge lack of funds and skilled labor led to the cessation of stone construction in the country for a number of decades. The first stone building that appeared in North-Eastern Russia after the Mongol invasion was the Cathedral of the Savior in Tver, erected only in 1285. The process of recovery after the grandiose destruction by the forces of a society with a traditionally limited total surplus product was stretched out for many decades and even centuries.

Having bled, depriving the Old Russian lands of a significant part of the population, destroying the cities, the Mongol invasion threw the Old Russian society back at the very moment when progressive social transformations began in the countries of Western Europe, associated with the development of internal colonization and the rise of cities.

§ 2. EASTERN SLAVES UNDER THE RULE OF THE GOLDEN HORDE AND THEIR RELATIONS WITH THE WESTERN NEIGHBORS

Establishment of the yoke of the Golden Horde. However, the negative consequences of the changes that took place were far from limited to this. After the return of the Mongol army from a campaign in the countries of Western Europe, the ancient Russian lands became part of the "Ulus of Batu" - possessions subject to the supreme authority of the grandson of Genghis Khan and his descendants. The center of the ulus was the city of Sarai (“shed” in Russian - “palace”) in the lower reaches of the Volga, by the middle of the 14th century. numbering up to 75 thousand inhabitants. Initially, the Batu ulus was part of the gigantic Mongol Empire, subject to the supreme authority of the great khan in Karakorum - the eldest among the descendants of Genghis Khan. It included China, Siberia, Central Asia, Transcaucasia, Iran. From the beginning of the 60s. 13th century the possessions of Batu's successor, Berke, became an independent state, which, according to tradition in Russian literature, is called the Golden Horde (other names: "Ulus Jochi", "White Horde", "Dashti Kypchak"). The Golden Horde occupied a much larger territory than the pastures of the Pechenegs and Polovtsy - from the Danube to the confluence of the Tobol into the Irtysh and the lower reaches of the Syr Darya, including the Crimea, the Caucasus to Derbent. Together with the steppes - traditional places nomadic - the Batu ulus also included a number of agricultural territories with a developed urban life, such as Khorezm in Central Asia, the southern coast of Crimea. Russia belonged to the number of such lands. The backbone of the Khan's power was the nomads of the Eastern European and Western Siberian steppes, who sent up an army, with the help of which he kept dependent farmers in obedience. Already in the army that came from Batu, a significant part were the Turkic-speaking tribes of Central Asia, they were then joined by the Polovtsy, who submitted to the power of the Mongols. In the end, the Mongols melted into the mass of Turkic-speaking nomads, assimilating their language and customs. According to scientists, even the court circles from the end of the XIV century. spoke Turkish. Official documents were also written in the Turkic language. The new people formed in this way received the name "Tatars" in ancient Russian and other sources. The connection with the Mongolian traditions was preserved only in the sense that only the descendants of Genghis Khan had the right to occupy the Khan's throne, the people subsequently laid the foundation for the formation of the main Turkic ethnic groups in our country.

What were the main manifestations of the dependence of the ancient Russian lands on the Horde? Firstly, the Russian princes became vassals of the khan, and in order to rule his principality, the prince had to receive a “label” (letter) from the khan in Saray, giving the right to reign. The first to go to Batu for a label in 1243 was the new Grand Duke of Vladimir Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, and other princes followed him to the Horde. The trip for the label was a rather dangerous business. In a difficult situation, Yaroslav had to leave his son Svyatoslav in the Horde as a hostage. And hostage-taking has now become a fairly common occurrence. And in 1245, Yaroslav was again summoned by Batu to Saray and from there sent to Karakorum, where in 1246, after a meal with the great khansha Tarakina, he died on the way home. Blame, apparently, were suspicions of contacts with the Catholics of the West. In 1246, Prince Mikhail of Chernigov, who refused to go through a cleansing fire when visiting the Khan's headquarters, was killed by the Tatars. From now on, in disputes between the princes, the khan acted as the supreme arbiter, whose decisions were binding. After the separation of the Batu ulus from the Mongol Empire, its head - khan - on the pages of ancient Russian chronicles began to be called "Caesar", as previously only the head of the Orthodox Christian world - the Byzantine emperor, was called.

The Russian princes had to participate in campaigns with their troops on the orders of the khan. So, in the second half of the XIII century. A large group of princes from North-Eastern Russia participated in campaigns against the Alans, who did not want to submit to the authority of the Golden Horde.

Another important duty was the constant payment of tribute (“exit”) to the Horde. The first steps to register the population and organize the collection of tribute were taken immediately after the capture of Kyiv. Khan Guyuk ordered to enumerate all the inhabitants for their partial sale into slavery and the collection of tribute in kind. In 1252-1253. The Mongols conducted censuses in China and Iran. For better organization of tribute collection in the late 50s. 13th century a total census of the population (“number”) was also carried out on the ancient Russian lands subject to the Golden Horde. The far-sighted Mongolian authorities, in an effort to divide the conquered society, exempted only the Orthodox clergy from paying tribute, which had to pray for the well-being of the khan and his state. According to some reports, the Suzdal, Ryazan and Murom lands were originally described. According to the testimony of the Franciscan Plano Carpini, who visited the ancient Russian lands on his way to the Horde, the size of the “exit” was 1/10 of the property and 1/10 of the population, which for some 10 years in total was equivalent to the initial amount of all property and the entire population. People who were unable to pay tribute, as well as those who did not have families and the poor, turned into slavery. In the event of a delay in the payment of tribute, cruel punitive actions immediately followed. As Plano Carpini wrote, such a land or city is being destroyed “with the help of a strong detachment of Tatars who come without the knowledge of the inhabitants and suddenly rush at them.” In many Russian cities, special representatives of the khan appeared - "baskaks" (or darugs), they were accompanied by armed detachments, and they, exercising political power on the spot, had to observe how the orders of the khan were carried out. At first, they were also responsible for collecting tribute. Over time, he was handed over to the farm. In the XIV century. as a result of outbreaks of riots and unrest that swept across Russian lands in the second half of the 13th century. (uprisings in 1259 in Novgorod, 1262 in Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Suzdal, Rostov, Ustyug), Russian princes began to collect tribute to the Mongols.

Thus, the ancient Russian principalities not only lost their political independence, but also had to pay a huge tribute to the country devastated by the invasion. Thus, the volume of the total surplus product, which was already limited due to unfavorable natural and climatic conditions, was sharply reduced, and the possibilities for progressive development were extremely difficult.

The severe negative consequences of the Mongol invasion in different regions of Ancient Russia affected with unequal force. The princes of North-Eastern Russia, like the sons of other ancient Russian lands, had to go to the Horde for labels and pay a heavy “exit”. They also lost tribute from the tribes of the Middle Volga region, which were now subject to the power of the Khan in Saray. Nevertheless, it was possible to preserve the traditional forms of social structure and the traditional organization of the Vladimir Grand Duchy, when the prince - the owner of the label for the great reign - received the city of Vladimir with the surrounding territories, enjoyed a kind of honorary seniority among the Russian princes and could convene the princes to congresses to decide questions concerning the whole "land" (for example, to discuss how the orders of the khan should be carried out). This state of affairs was greatly facilitated by the fact that in the north of Russia in the forest zone of Eastern Europe there were no territories suitable for nomadic cattle breeding, that is, there were no conditions for the regime of permanent occupation of these lands by the Mongols.

A different situation has developed in the south of Russia, in the forest-steppe zone of Eastern Europe. In some territories, such as, for example, in the basin of the Southern Bug, the Horde nomad camps themselves were located, in other territories the Horde established their direct, direct control. So, according to the testimony of the Ipatiev Chronicle, the Bolokhov land in the southern part of the Galicia-Volyn principality was not devastated during the invasion - “they left them to the Tatars, but to yell wheat and millet.” When Plano Carpini went to the Horde in 1245, he noticed that the city of Kanev, located on the Dnieper below Kyiv, was "under the direct rule of the Tatars." Daniil Galitsky, who was traveling at the same time to the Horde, was met by the Tatars even near Pereyaslavl. Soon after the Mongol invasion, the princely tables in Kyiv and Pereyaslavl Russky ceased to exist, and in the Chernigov land Roman, the son of Mikhail killed in the Horde, transferred the capital of the principality from Chernigov to Bryansk, in the region of the famous Bryansk forests, and the episcopal chair also moved there. The sons of Mikhail, judging by their names in the genealogical tradition, moved to the towns along the Upper Oka in the northern part of the Chernihiv land that became their lot. The Metropolitan, who rarely left Kyiv in previous years, now begins to spend more and more time in the north of Russia, and in 1300, when, according to the chronicle, “all Kyiv fled”, that is, became an empty city, Metropolitan Maxim, “not enduring the Tatar violence”, moved the metropolitan residence to Vladimir on the Klyazma.

All these concrete facts were an external reflection of deeper, underlying processes - the migration of the population from the forest-steppe zone - the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe direct presence of the Horde - to forest areas more remote from their nomad camps, less accessible to them according to the conditions of the terrain.

The difficulties faced by the ancient Russian lands after the Mongol-Tatar invasion turned out to be all the more difficult to overcome because at the same time they were subjected to hostile actions from other external forces.

Lithuania and Russian lands in the XIII century. The process of formation of the early feudal society that began in the southern Baltic Lithuanian state was accompanied already in the last decades of the 12th - early 13th centuries. a sharp increase in Lithuanian raids on neighboring lands. The time has passed when, as it was said in the "Word about the destruction of the Russian land", "Lithuania from the swamps into the world does not rise." The Lithuanian squads not only systematically devastated the Polotsk and Smolensk lands neighboring Lithuania. In the second decade of the thirteenth century Lithuanian squads have already made raids on Volhynia, Chernigov and Novgorod lands. Under 1225, the Vladimir chronicler wrote: “Lithuania fought the Novgorod volost and poimash a lot of very Christians and did a lot of evil, fighting near Novgorod and near Toropch and Smolensk and up to Poltesk, it was great to fight, but it was not from the beginning of the world” . In the years following the Mongol invasion, these raids intensified even more. Plano Carpini, who traveled from Volyn to Kyiv in 1245, wrote: “We traveled constantly in mortal danger because of the Lithuanians, who often raided the lands of Russia, and since most of the people of Russia were killed by the Tatars and taken prisoner, so they were by no means able to offer them strong resistance. In the middle of the 13th century, when the Lithuanian tribes united into one state headed by Mindovg, a transition began from raids to capture booty and prisoners to the occupation of Russian cities by Lithuanian squads. By the end of the 40s. 13th century Mindovg's power extended to the territory of modern Western Belarus with such cities as Novogrudok and Grodno. From the 60s. 13th century princes dependent on Lithuania are also established in the main center on the territory of modern Eastern Belarus - in Polotsk.

Crusaders in the Baltic. The offensive of the German and Swedish knights on the Russian lands. By the time of the Mongol invasion, a wave of external expansion had reached the borders of the ancient Russian lands, which began in northern Europe in the second half of the 12th century. It was the expansion of the chivalry of Northern Germany, Denmark and Sweden in the form of crusades to the lands of the "pagan" peoples on the southern and eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. This expansion was supported by the merchants of the port cities of Northern Germany, who hoped to take control of the trade routes along the Baltic Sea, linking the East and West of Europe. If the ancient Russian principalities were content with collecting tribute from subordinate tribes, without interfering in their internal life, then the crusaders set as their goal their transformation into dependent peasants. In the occupied territories, stone fortresses were systematically built (Riga, Tallinn - in the literal translation "Danish city", etc.), which became the strongholds of the new government. At the same time, local residents were forcibly forced to accept the Catholic faith. Orders of chivalry became the most effective means of expansion in this area. Uniting in their ranks knights who had taken a monastic vow, the orders managed to create a strong, well-organized and well-armed army, subordinate to a single leadership, which, as a rule, prevailed over the scattered tribal militias.

The first campaigns of the Swedish crusaders on the territory of modern Finland began already in the middle of the 12th century. Initially, their object was a territory remote from the Russian borders in the southwestern part of the country, but, having gained a foothold on these lands, the Swedish knights from the 20s. 13th century They began to try to subjugate the Em tribe, which lay in the zone of Novgorod influence.

At the very end of the XII century. German crusaders landed on the Western Dvina. In 1201, at its mouth, they founded their stronghold - the city of Riga. The main military force of the Crusaders in the Baltics was the Order of the Swordsmen, established in 1202 (later called the Livonian Order). Prince Vladimir of Polotsk, who ruled the land devastated by Lithuanian raids and disintegrated into a number of small principalities, in 1213 was forced to conclude a peace with the crusaders, according to which he renounced claims to the lands of the tribes who had previously paid tribute to Polotsk. In 1223, weakened by the struggle against the knights and Lithuanians, Polotsk was captured by Smolensk. The Crusaders invaded the Estonian lands. In 1224, Yuryev fell after a brutal assault, and Izborsk was under threat. This is already by the middle of the second decade of the XIII century. led to a conflict between the crusaders and Novgorod. The military operations that unfolded simultaneously in the territories of Estonia and Finland had one common feature. The Novgorod state (in particular, in those years when Yaroslav, the younger brother of the Grand Duke of Vladimir Yuri Vsevolodovich, was reigning in Novgorod) repeatedly undertook military campaigns to restore its positions, and in 1236 reached peace with the swordsmen. But the latter soon attracted the expansion of the Teutonic Order from Palestine. Novgorod troops repeatedly won victories in the open field; on the territory of Estonia, they could rely on the support of local tribes who were looking for support in Novgorod against the crusaders. However, the results of these victories could not be consolidated. Unlike the crusaders, the Novgorodians did not create a network of fortified strongholds in the controlled territories, and neither the Estonians nor the Novgorodians had the necessary equipment to capture and destroy the knight's castles. In addition, following the German crusaders, Denmark also invaded the zone of Novgorodian influence. The troops of the Danish king occupied the northern part of Estonia, having founded their stronghold here, the city of Revel (modern Tallinn) (1219).

By the middle of the XIII century. novgorod zone of influence in the baltic states and Finland ceased to exist. The Novgorod boyars and the urban community lost the tribute that came to Novgorod from the tribes living there. The German merchants, having received strongholds on the trade routes, ousted the Novgorod merchants from the Baltic Sea.

The terrible devastation of Russian lands during the years of the Mongol invasion prompted the western neighbors of Novgorod to attack Novgorod territory. In the summer of 1240 a large Swedish army landed at the mouth of the Neva. By building a fortress at the mouth of the Neva, the Swedish military leaders hoped to put under their control the most important waterway leading from the Baltic Sea to the Novgorod lands, and to subjugate the land of the Izhora tribe, allied to Novgorod, under their control. This plan was thwarted thanks to the quick and decisive actions of the son of the Grand Duke of Vladimir Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, Alexander, who was sitting on the reign in Novgorod. Having quickly set out on a campaign with a small military force, on July 15 he managed to suddenly attack the Swedish army that had settled down to rest and defeated it. The Swedes fled, loading the dead onto their ships. A vivid description of the battle was preserved in his "Life" created after the death of Alexander, in the compilation of which the stories of the soldiers - participants in the battle were used. One of the soldiers, Gavrila Aleksich, pursuing the Swedes, broke into a Swedish ship on horseback. One of the "young people" named Sava, having made his way to the "great golden-domed" tent of the Swedish military leaders in the midst of the battle, brought it down, causing the rejoicing of the Russian army. Alexander himself fought with the leader of the Swedes and "put a seal on your face with your sharp spear." For this victory, Alexander Yaroslavich was nicknamed Nevsky.

The actions of the German crusaders turned out to be even more dangerous for the Novgorod state. In the summer of the same 1240, they managed to capture the Pskov suburb of Izborsk and defeated the Pskov army that opposed them. Later, due to the betrayal of part of the Pskov boyars, they occupied Pskov. Then the crusaders occupied the land of the Vodi tribe, allied to Novgorod, and set up a fortress there. Separate groups of crusaders devastated villages 30 miles from Novgorod. In the following year, 1241, Alexander Yaroslavin liberated the lands they had captured from the crusaders. Alexander Yaroslavich, having strengthened his Novgorodian army with regiments sent by his father, undertook a campaign against the lands of the Chud subject to the Order and met the troops of the Order on the ice of Lake Peipus on Uzmen "at the Voronyago stone." The German army was a powerful force. At the beginning of the battle, it "pulled a pig through the regiment" of the Novgorodians, but the "great slaughter" ended with the victory of the Russian army. In the battle that took place on April 5, 1242, the heavily armed knightly army was defeated. The Russian soldiers pursued the fleeing 7 versts to the western shore of Lake Peipsi. After that, a peace was concluded, according to which the Order abandoned all previously captured Novgorod lands. The attacks on Novgorod ended in complete failure, but strong hostile neighbors stood at the western borders of the Novgorod state, and Novgorodians had to be constantly ready to repel attacks from their side.

Everything that happened contributed to a change in the perception of the Russian people about the outside world, it began to be perceived primarily as an alien, hostile force, from which danger constantly emanates. Hence the desire to isolate oneself from this world, to limit one's contacts with it. Antagonism of Ancient Russia with the nomadic world by the 13th century. was traditional, but the disasters of the Mongol invasion contributed to its further aggravation. Probably, it was at that time that the struggle of the heroes for the liberation of Russia from the Horde yoke became one of the main themes of the Russian heroic epic. What was new was the sharp antagonism with the Western, "Latin" world, which was not characteristic of earlier centuries, which for ancient Russian society was a natural reaction to hostile actions on the part of Western neighbors. Since that time, various ties with the countries of Western Europe have been sharply reduced, being limited mainly to the sphere of trade relations.

One of the important negative consequences of changes in the position of the ancient Russian lands in the XIII century. there was a weakening, and even a rupture of ties between the individual lands of Ancient Russia. Comparison of annalistic news of the first and second half of the XIII century. clearly shows that the chronicle monuments created in the Rostov-Suzdal land, in Novgorod, in the Galicia-Volyn principality in the first half of the 13th century. contain messages about events that took place in different lands of Ancient Russia, and in the second half of the 13th century. the horizons of the chronicler are limited to the scope of his reign. All this created the prerequisites for a special, independent development of different parts of Ancient Russia, but in the XIII century. before that it was far away. All Eastern Slavs, despite the weakening of ties between them, continued to live in a single socio-cultural space.

The current situation created great difficulties for the Novgorod boyars, who built their policy on the use of rivalry between different centers of Ancient Russia. The possibilities for such maneuvering were sharply reduced with the desolation of the Chernigov land and the involvement of Smolensk in the fight against the Lithuanians. At the same time, in conditions of serious conflicts with its western neighbors, Novgorod needed external support. Gradually during the second half of the XIII century. there was a tradition according to which the chief of the princes of North-Eastern Russia became the prince of Novgorod - the Grand Duke of Vladimir, who sent his governors to Novgorod. For the formation of a unified Russian state in the historical perspective, such an establishment of a permanent connection between North-Eastern Russia and Novgorod was of great importance.

Russian lands and the Golden Horde in the second half of the 13th century. If for Novgorod in the XIII century. relations with the western neighbors were of particular importance, the state of affairs in the principalities of North-Eastern Russia depended entirely on their relations with the Horde. Not all ancient Russian princes were ready to put up with the establishment of Horde domination over Russian lands. The most powerful of the rulers of the south of Russia, the Galician-Volyn prince Daniil Romanovich hatched a plan to liberate the Horde from power with the support of the states of Western Europe, primarily his neighbors - Poland and Hungary. The papal throne, to which Daniel promised to obey, was supposed to contribute to obtaining help. Both the Grand Duke of Vladimir Andrei Yaroslavich and his younger brother Yaroslav, who was sitting in Tver, were involved in the implementation of these plans. Note that by the will of the widow of the great Khan Gukzha in 1249 the sons of the poisoned Yaroslav Vsevolodovich received labels for reigning: Andrei - for Vladimirskoye, and Alexander, who won fame in battles - for Kievskoye. In 1250 Daniel's union with the Prince of Vladimir was sealed by marriage: Andrei married the daughter of Prince Daniel. In 1252, counting on getting help soon, Daniel refused obedience to the Horde and began hostilities. When the hordes of Kuremsa, wandering in the Dnieper region, moved to the Galicia-Volyn region, Daniel went to war against him and recaptured a number of cities from the Mongols. Residents of Volodymyr Volynsky and Lutsk repulsed Kuremsa's detachments on their own. Andrey and Yaroslav Yaroslavichi did the same, speaking out against the Tatars in the same year. Then Khan Batu sent an army led by the commander Nevryuy to North-Eastern Russia. However, the princes did not dare to join the battle and fled. The country was again devastated. The Horde army took with them "countless", in the words of the chronicler, the number of prisoners and cattle. The most influential of the princes of North-Eastern Russia, Alexander Nevsky, did not take part in such plans, considering them unrealistic. The course of events confirmed the correctness of his ideas. Daniil Romanovich fought the Horde commanders for several years, but did not receive any help from his western neighbors. In 1258, he was forced to submit to the power of the Horde and tear down all the main fortresses on the territory of his principality. His army was forced to take part in campaigns organized by the Horde against Lithuania and Poland.

In 1252, Alexander Nevsky, who occupied the Vladimir grand-ducal table, pursued a policy of strict fulfillment of obligations to the Horde. In 1259, he made a special visit to Novgorod to convince the inhabitants of the city to agree to conduct a census and pay tribute to the Horde. So Alexander Nevsky hoped to avoid repeated punitive campaigns and create minimal conditions for the revival of life in a devastated country. Thanks to his personal authority, he managed to subjugate other princes of North-Eastern Russia, who went on campaigns on his orders, in particular against the German knights. However, shortly after his death, the great reign of Vladimir was engulfed in long troubles.

With all the cruel and predatory nature of the orders established by the Horde, one could expect under these conditions at least an end to the strife, since all the princely tables were now occupied by the decision of the khan, a speech against which threatened the most severe consequences. The cessation of strife could contribute to the restoration, even if gradual and slow, of economic and social life on the territory of the Vladimir Grand Duchy, but it turned out differently. In the early 80s. 13th century a split occurred in the Golden Horde state. Its western part separated from the Horde - the ulus of one of Batu's distant relatives - Nogai, who occupied the lands from the Lower Danube to the Dnieper. Nogai sought to put his proteges on the khan's throne, which caused a hostile reaction from the nobility sitting in Saray. The establishment of dual power in the Horde contributed to the outbreak of the struggle for the Vladimir Grand Duke's table between the sons of Alexander Nevsky - Dmitry and Andrei. In the 80s. 13th century the princes of North-Eastern Russia split into two hostile alliances, each of which turned to its “own” khan for support and brought Tatar troops to Russia. If Dmitry Alexandrovich and his allies Mikhail of Tverskoy and Daniil of Moscow, the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky, were associated with Nogai, then Andrei Alexandrovich and the Rostov princes who supported him and Fedor Yaroslavsky sought help from the khans who were sitting in Sarai. The princely strife that ravaged the country in recent decades 13th century accompanied by constant invasions of the Horde. The largest of them was the so-called Dudenev's army - an army led by Tsarevich Tudan, the brother of Khan Tokhta, who was sitting on the Volga, who was supposed to bring Dmitry Alexandrovich and his allies into obedience. It was ruined, as during the invasion of Batu, 14 cities, among them Moscow, Suzdal, Vladimir, Pereyaslavl. Tudan did not dare to attack Tver, where Nogai's troops were stationed. The death of Dmitry Alexandrovich did not put an end to the strife. Now

Daniel of Moscow in 1296 made claims to the grand prince's table and sent his son Ivan as governor to Novgorod. In response to this, Andrei Alexandrovich brought a new army from the Volga Horde, led by Nevryuy. Only in 1297 was peace concluded between the rival factions. Thus, by the end of the XIII century. the grave consequences of the Mongol invasion were not only not eliminated, but were aggravated by new disasters.

How and why did Russia fall under the rule of the Mongol khans?

It is possible to perceive the historical period we are considering in different ways, to evaluate the causal relationship of the actions of the Mongols. The facts remain unchanged that the Mongol raid on Russia took place and that the Russian princes, despite the heroism of the defenders of the cities, could not or did not want to see sufficient reasons for eliminating internal differences, uniting and elementary mutual assistance. This did not allow to repulse the Mongol army and Russia fell under the rule of the Mongol khans.

What was the main goal of the Mongol conquests?

It is believed that the main goal of the Mongol conquests is to conquer all the "evening countries" up to the "last sea". This was the behest of Genghis Khan. However, Batu's campaign against Russia is most likely more correctly called a raid. The Mongols did not leave garrisons, they were not going to establish permanent power. Those cities that refused to make peace with the Mongols and began armed resistance turned out to be destroyed. There were cities like Uglich that paid off the Mongols. Kozelsk can be considered an exception; the Mongols dealt with it in revenge for the murder of their ambassadors. In fact, the entire western campaign of the Mongols was a large-scale cavalry raid, and the invasion of Russia was a raid for the purpose of robbery, replenishment of resources, and subsequently establishing dependence with the payment of tribute.

What principalities existed in Russia at the beginning of the 13th century?

Galician, Volyn, Kiev, Turov-Pinsk, Polotsk, Pereyaslav, Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversk, Smolensk, Novgorod, Ryazan, Murom, Vladimir-Suzdal principalities.

Suggest why Batu made his trip to North-Eastern Russia in winter

The attack on Russia was not unexpected. The border Russian principalities knew about the impending invasion. From the autumn of 1237, the Mongol troops were grouped near the borders. I think that the Mongols were waiting for a connection with the units that fought with the Polovtsians and Alans, and also for the earth, rivers and swamps to freeze with the onset of the coming winter, after which it would be easy for the Tatar cavalry to plunder all of Russia.

Find out what peoples then lived in the North Caucasus

In the historical period we are considering, the western Caucasus was inhabited mainly by the Adygs, to the east of them by the Alans (wasps, Ossetians), then the ancestors of the Veinakhs, about whom there is almost no real news, and then various Dagestan peoples (Lezgins, Avars, Laks, Dargins, etc. .). The ethnic map of the foothills and partly mountainous regions changed even before the 13th century: with the arrival of the Turko-Polovtsy, and even earlier the Khazars and Bulgars, part of the local population, merging with them, became the basis for such nationalities as Karachays, Balkars, Kumyks.

Why do you think the Mongols failed to fulfill the will of Genghis Khan?

Genghis Khan's testament was to conquer all the "evening countries" up to the "last sea". But was Batu's invasion of Europe for the sake of fulfilling this testament? Perhaps yes, perhaps not. The main enemy of the Mongols in the west were the Polovtsy. This is evidenced by the long prehistory of the relationship of these nomadic peoples. It was in pursuit of the Polovtsians who had retreated to Hungary that the Mongols moved on through Galicia, trying to establish an inviolable western border of their state. First, their ambassadors visited Poland, but were killed by the Poles. Therefore, according to nomadic laws, another war was inevitable. The Mongols passed through Poland, Hungary, and were defeated near Olomouc in the Czech Republic, although today this victory of the Czechs is considered a fiction. The great western campaign was over when Batu's troops reached the Adriatic Sea in 1242. The Mongols ensured the security of their western border, because neither the Czechs, nor the Poles, nor the Hungarians could reach Mongolia: for this they had neither the desire nor the opportunity. The original enemies of the Mongolian ulus - the Polovtsy - also could not threaten him: they were driven into Hungary, and their fate turned out to be sad. In addition, the great Khan Ogedei died at that time, which radically changed the situation in the Horde of Batu Khan.

According to another version, it is believed that it was the campaign against Russia that weakened the forces of the Mongol invasion of Europe, and they simply could not fulfill the will of Genghis Khan.

Questions and tasks for working with the text of the paragraph

1. Make a chronological table in your notebook of the main events associated with Batu's campaigns in Russia.

The first campaign of Batu to Russia (1237-1239)

the date	Direction	Results
December 1237	Ryazan principality	For five days, the defenders of Ryazan repelled the attacks of the Mongols. On the sixth day, the enemies broke through the walls with rams, broke into the city, set it on fire and killed all the inhabitants.
Winter 1237	Kolomna	The victory was on the side of Batu. The Mongols opened the road to the Vladimir-Suzdal land.
February 1238	Vladimir	After a three-day siege, the Mongols broke into the city and set it on fire.
March 1238	River Sit on the border of Vladimir-Suzdal and Novgorod lands	The defeat of the squad of the Grand Duke of Vladimir Yuri Vsevolodovich. Death of a prince
February-March 1238	Northeast Russia	Batu divided the army, "dissolved the raid" in North-Eastern Russia. Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, Tver, Torzhok, Kozelsk were taken and plundered.

The second campaign of Batu to Russia (1239-1241)

2. Where did the conquerors meet the most fierce resistance?

Kyiv, Kozelsk, Torzhok, Kolomna, Ryazan, Pereyaslavl-Zalessky

3. What were the results of Batu's campaigns on Russian lands?

As a result of the invasion, a significant part of the population of Russia died. Kyiv, Vladimir, Suzdal, Ryazan, Tver, Chernigov, and many other cities were destroyed. The exceptions were Veliky Novgorod, Pskov, as well as the cities of Smolensk, Polotsk and Turov-Pinsk principalities. The developed urban culture of Ancient Russia suffered significant damage.

4. What consequences for the Russian lands did Batu's invasion have?

The blow inflicted on the Russian lands in the middle of the XIII century by the Mongol hordes seriously influenced their development. Most of the Russian lands turned out to be completely devastated and became dependent on foreign authorities.

In its socio-economic development, Russia was significantly thrown back. For several decades, stone construction practically ceased in Russian cities. Complex crafts, such as the production of glass jewelry, cloisonne enamel, niello, granulation, and polychrome glazed ceramics, have disappeared. The southern Russian lands lost almost the entire settled population. The surviving population went to the forested northeast, concentrating in the interfluve of the Northern Volga and Oka, where there were poorer soils and a colder climate than in the completely devastated southern regions of Russia.

Also, Kyiv ceased to be the subject of a struggle between various branches of the Rurikovichs and the center of the struggle against the steppe, the institution of “communions in the Russian land” disappeared, since the Mongol khans began to control the fate of Kyiv.

5. What, in your opinion, are the main reasons for the victories of Batu's troops?

• Mongolian tactics. Pronounced offensive character. They sought to inflict swift blows on the enemy taken by surprise, to disorganize and introduce disunity into his ranks. They avoided large frontal battles as far as possible, breaking the enemy piece by piece, exhausting him with incessant skirmishes and surprise attacks. For battle, the Mongols were built in several lines, having heavy cavalry in reserve, and in the front ranks - formations of conquered peoples and light detachments. The battle began with the throwing of arrows, with which the Mongols sought to bring confusion into the ranks of the enemy. They sought to break through the front of the enemy with sudden blows, to divide it into parts, widely using flank coverage, flank and rear strikes.
• Armament and military technologies. A composite bow that nails armor from 300-750 paces, wall and stone throwing machines, catapults, ballistas and 44 types of fire attack weapons, cast-iron bombs with powder filling, a two-jet flamethrower, poison gases, dry food storage technologies, etc. Almost all of this, as well as intelligence techniques, the Mongols took from the Chinese.
• Continuous leadership of the battle. Khans, temniks and thousanders did not fight together with ordinary soldiers, but were behind the formation, on elevated places, directing the movement of troops with flags, light and smoke signals, the corresponding signals of pipes and drums.
• Intelligence and diplomacy. Mongol invasions were usually preceded by thorough reconnaissance and diplomatic preparations aimed at isolating the enemy and fanning internal strife. Then there was a hidden concentration of Mongolian troops near the border. The invasion usually began from different directions by separate detachments, heading, as a rule, to one previously designated point. First of all, the Mongols sought to destroy the enemy's manpower and prevent him from replenishing the troops. They penetrated deep into the earth, destroying everything in their path, exterminating the population and stealing the herds.

Working with the map

Show on the map the directions of Batu's campaigns and the cities that offered especially fierce resistance to the conquerors.

Border of Russian lands marked with a green line

Directions of movement of the Mongolian troops marked with purple arrows

Cities marked with red dots with a blue border put up the most resistance Mongol conquerors. These are: Vladimir, Pereyaslavl, Torzhok, Moscow, Ryazan, Kozelsk, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl, Kyiv, Galich, Pereyaslavl, Vladimir-Volynsky.

Cities marked with red dots were burned: Murom, Vladimir, Suzdal, Yuriev, Pereyaslavl, Kostroma, Galich, Tver, Torzhok, Volok-Lamsky, Moscow, Kolomna, Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky, Ryazan, Kozelsk, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl, Kyiv, Galich, Pereyaslavl, Vladimir-Volynsky.

We study the document

1. Using the text of the paragraph and the document, prepare a story about the struggle of the defenders of Russian cities with the conquerors.

“Batu came to Kyiv with a heavy force, with a lot of his strength, and surrounded the city, and besieged (the city) the Tatar force.” Thus begins the chronicle text about the siege and assault of Kyiv by the Mongol conquerors. Let's try to describe the siege of Kyiv, based on the Hypatian Chronicle and other historical sources. It is worth noting that in Russia, despite the Mongol invasion, the struggle of the princes for power did not stop, which turned into a great tragedy for the entire Russian people. The princes in Kyiv succeeded one another. The powerful Prince of Galicia Daniil Romanovich, having expelled the Smolensk prince Rostislav from Kyiv, instructed his governor Dmitr to defend Kyiv from the Mongols, and he returned to his principality, where, judging by the available sources, he did not particularly prepare to repel the conquerors.

In the summer of 1240, the Mongols finished preparing for a big campaign, the purpose of which was to conquer Western Europe. The losses that they suffered in battles with the Volga Bulgars, Mordovians, Polovtsians, Alans, Circassians, Rusichs were made up for by fresh forces that arrived from the east, as well as detachments recruited from among the conquered peoples. The question of the size of Batu's troops in this campaign is debatable; modern researchers call numbers from 40 to 120 thousand.

The first big city on the way of the conquerors was Kyiv, then The largest city Eastern Europe with a population of 40-50 thousand people. The fortifications of Kyiv were unparalleled in Eastern Europe. But they were built in the X-XI centuries, in an era when fortresses were taken either by a sudden raid or by a long passive siege. The Kyiv fortifications were not designed to resist the assault with the use of siege engines. In addition, Kyiv had very few defenders. Prince Daniel left only a small part of the squad to defend Kyiv. If all the combat-ready men, plus the boyar squads, also took up arms, then the defenders would have accumulated five to ten thousand. Against several tumens of the Mongol army with siege weapons, this was a negligible number. Most of the people of Kiev had only spears and axes. As weapons, in their ability to use them, in organization and discipline, they certainly lost to the Mongols, as the militia of a professional army always loses.

The chronicle testifies that the townspeople defended themselves actively. For about three months, the Mongols exhausted the Kyivans with a siege and prepared for an assault. The chronicle calls the site chosen for the strike: “Batu set up vices against the city fortifications near the Lyadsky gates, because wilds (ravines, rugged terrain) approached (close to the city).” This site was chosen because there were no steep natural slopes in front of the fortifications. After the walls were destroyed by the vices, the attack began. When the attackers climbed the shaft, a fierce hand-to-hand fight boiled in the gap. In this battle, the governor Dmitr was wounded.

Finally, the besieged were driven off the ramparts. The Kievans, taking advantage of the respite, withdrew to Detinets and during the night organized a new line of defense around the Church of the Holy Mother of God. The second and last day of the assault came. “And the next day (Tatars) came to them, and there was a great battle between them. In the meantime, people ran out to the church, and to the vaults of the church with their belongings, and the church walls fell down from the weight with them, and so the city was taken by (Tatar) soldiers.

The Ipatiev Chronicle does not directly speak about the destruction of Kyiv and the mass death of its inhabitants, but another chronicle, Suzdal, reports: “The Tatars took Kyiv, and plundered St. from young to old they killed with a sword. The fact of the "great massacre" is confirmed by archaeological excavations. In Kyiv, the remains of burnt houses of the 13th century were investigated, in which the skeletons of people of different ages and sexes lay, with traces of sabers, spears and arrows. In place of one of these mass graves, near the eastern wall of the Church of the Tithes, a gray granite cross has been erected in our time. This is the only monument in Kyiv, reminiscent of those tragic events.

2. Formulate main idea document.

3. What weapons are mentioned in the document?

The document speaks of vices - stone-throwing tools, with the help of which the Mongols destroyed the fortifications of cities.

Thinking, comparing, reflecting

1. A. S. Pushkin wrote that Western Europe was saved by "torn and dying Russia." Explain the words of the poet.

I suppose Pushkin believed that the Mongol troops were bled dry during the invasion of Russia, and this did not allow them to completely capture Europe. Many historians consider this position to be erroneous. There are several reasons for this opinion. Before going to Europe, the Mongols left North-Eastern Russia and replenished their troops. Their path to Europe passed along the southern borders of Russia, which were already weakened by internecine wars. Only Kyiv offered serious resistance to the horde. The goals of the Mongols in the Western campaign are also called into question. Perhaps they were not going to fulfill the behest of Genghis Khan at all costs, but simply ensured the security of their western borders. The end of Batu's campaign, which reached the Adriatic Sea, is also associated not so much with the weakening of the army, although it was defeated near Olomouc in the Czech Republic, but with the death of the Great Khan Ogedei and the beginning of internal struggle in the Horde itself. Guessing, would have had the strength Mongol horde to go to war with the states of Western Europe, means to think out what could or could not have happened.

2. It is known that Russia was subjected to constant incursions into its territory by nomadic peoples - the Pechenegs, Polovtsians. What was the difference between the invasion of the Mongol troops?

All of them are brought by a historical wave:

• in the 10th century, the Pechenegs, who oust the Khazars and extend their power to the Northern Black Sea region, the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov and Crimea;
• in the 11th century, the Polovtsy, who partially assimilate, partially destroy and oust the Pechenegs and take their place;
• in the XIII century, the Mongols, who partially destroy, partially oust the Polovtsy and have a strong influence on the ruling Russian elite until the end of the XV century.

The Pechenegs and Polovtsy were engaged exclusively in robbery and captivity of the population. The morals of the Mongols were much tougher - they put to death those who violated their laws, they were merciless to the enemy and fought until it was completely destroyed.

3. Find out in which region of the Russian Federation the city of Kozelsk is located. Find out what reminds you of the events of 1238 in this city.

Today the city of Kozelsk is located on the territory of the Kaluga region. In memory of the events of that heroic defense, today on the central square of Kozelsk there is a stone cross, which is a copy of the cross placed on the mass grave of the dead residents of the city in 1238.

4. Why, in your opinion, despite the heroic resistance, the Mongols managed to conquer the Russian lands?

The answer to this question can be formulated very briefly - one is not a warrior in the field. Without realizing itself as a single people, without mutual assistance and unification of all lands against a common threat, Russia was doomed to defeat.

Possible questions in the lesson

On which principality did the Mongols deal the first blow?

The first blow of the horde of the Mongol Khan was dealt in December 1237 to the Ryazan principality.

What did Batu demand from the inhabitants of the Ryazan land?

Batu sent ambassadors to the Ryazanians demanding tribute, "a tenth of everything you have in your land."

What did the Ryazan prince do?

The Ryazan prince refused the ambassadors: "When we are all gone, everything will be yours." At the same time, the Ryazan prince turned to the neighboring principalities for help and at the same time sent his son Fyodor to Batu with gifts.

What were the consequences of negotiations with the Mongols?

Batu accepted the gifts, but put forward new demands - to give the prince's sisters and daughters as wives to his commanders, and for himself he demanded the wife of the son of Prince Fyodor Evpraksia. Fedor responded with a decisive refusal and, together with the ambassadors, was executed.

Who led the defense of Moscow?

The defense of Moscow was headed by the governor Philip Nyanka.

Who led the defense of Vladimir?

The defense of Vladimir was led by the voivode Pyotr Oslyadyukovich.

What weapons did the Mongols use when they stormed cities?

When storming cities, the Mongols used wall-beating devices and stone-throwing machines.

Which prince of Vladimir tried to join forces and repulse the conquerors?

After the fall of Ryazan, Vladimir Grand Duke Yuri Vsevolodovich went north to gather an army.

What are the results of this battle?

Prince Yuri underestimated the Mongols, and his army was defeated in March 1238. In the battle, Prince Yuri died. The throne was taken by his brother Yaroslav Vsevolodovich.

Describe the heroic defense of Kozelsk

The Batu horde approached Kozelsk, whose inhabitants refused to surrender and decided to defend the city. The defense of the city lasted 7 weeks. Then the Mongols used their favorite tactic - after the next assault, they began to portray a stampede. The defenders of the city left the city and were surrounded. All the inhabitants of the city were killed, and the city was destroyed.

How did Novgorod manage to avoid the fate of many other centers of Russia?

The Mongols did not reach 100 versts to Novgorod. The city was well fortified and had well-trained troops, and the Mongol army was exhausted and did not have sufficient supplies of fodder for horses.

Why did the Mongols decide to "turn the muzzles of the horses to the south"?

The battles with the Novgorodians could drag on, and the Mongol cavalry would have to act in the conditions of a spring thaw in a wooded and swampy area. After much deliberation, Batu ordered "to turn the muzzles of the horses to the south", and the horde went to the Don steppes rich in pastures and spent the whole summer of 1238 there.

Why did Batu call Kozelsk an "evil city"?

Perhaps the city of Kozelsk became “evil” because 15 years ago, before this invasion, it was Mstislav, the prince of Chernigov and Kozelsk, who became a participant in the murder of Mongolian ambassadors, which, in accordance with the concept of collective responsibility, made the city an object of revenge. And perhaps Batu was enraged by the fierce resistance of the city, which held firm and for a long time, and during the siege, Batu's army suffered heavy losses. By the way, during the seven-week siege, none of the Russians came to the aid of this city.

What cities of North-Eastern Russia did the Mongols later raid?

Later, the Mongols raided Murom, Nizhny Novgorod, Gorokhovets.

Is it possible to name 1237-1241. tragic and heroic time in the history of Russia?

Yes, this period can be called a tragic and heroic time in the history of Russia. Heroic, because every city, every warrior fought bravely. Tragic, because many Russian cities were destroyed, the troops were defeated, and the inhabitants of the settlements were either killed or taken prisoner. But the most important tragedy, in my opinion, is that the whole past history of Russia did not teach the Russians that no matter how brave the warriors were, they are weak without the unity of all Russian lands. Not only did the Russians themselves weaken their positions by civil strife, they also did not want to unite even in the presence of a threat.

Why did Batu manage to conquer most of the Russian lands?

Batu managed to conquer most of the Russian lands, because each principality, each city fought only for itself. One by one, they were all captured, and the troops were defeated.

780 years ago, in the spring of 1236, the "Mongolian" army moved to conquer Eastern Europe. A large army, which was replenished on the way with more and more detachments, reached the Volga in a few months and there it joined the forces of the "Ulas Jochi". In the late autumn of 1236, the united "Mongolian" forces attacked the Volga Bulgaria. This is the official version of the history of the "Mongolian" empire and the conquests of the "Mongol-Tatars".

Official version

According to the version included in the history textbooks, from all over the vast region of Central Asia, “Mongolian” feudal princes (noyons) with their retinues gathered on the banks of the Onon River. Here, in the spring of 1206, at a congress of representatives of the largest tribes and clans, Temujin was proclaimed the great khan as the supreme ruler of the Mongols. It was a tough and successful one of the "Mongolian" clans, who was able to defeat rivals in the course of bloody internecine squabbles. He adopted a new name - Genghis Khan, and his family was declared the eldest of all generations. Previously, independent tribes and clans of the great steppe united into a single state entity.

The unification of tribes into a single state was a progressive phenomenon. The internecine wars are over. There were prerequisites for the development of economy and culture. A new law came into force - Yasa of Genghis Khan. In Yasa, the main place was occupied by articles on mutual assistance in a campaign and the prohibition of deceiving a trusted person. Those who violated these regulations were executed, and the enemy of the "Mongols", who remained loyal to their ruler, were spared and accepted into their army. Loyalty and courage were considered good, while cowardice and betrayal were considered evil. Genghis Khan divided the entire population into tens, hundreds, thousands and tumens-darkness (ten thousand), thereby mixing tribes and clans and appointing specially selected people from the entourage and nuker vigilantes as commanders over them. All adult and healthy men were considered warriors who ran their household in peacetime and took up arms in wartime. Many young, unmarried women could also serve in the military (an ancient tradition of the Amazons and Poles). Genghis Khan created a network of communication lines, courier communications on a large scale for military and administrative purposes, organized intelligence, including economic intelligence. No one dared to attack the merchants, which led to the development of trade.

In 1207, the "Mongol-Tatars" began to conquer the tribes that lived north of the Selenga River and in the Yenisei valley. As a result, areas were captured that were rich in ironworks, which was of great importance for arming a new large army. In the same year, 1207, the "Mongols" subjugated the Tangut kingdom of Xi-Xia. The Tangut ruler became a tributary of Genghis Khan.

In 1209, the conquerors invaded the country of the Uighurs (East Turkestan). After a bloody war, the Uighurs were defeated. In 1211, the "Mongolian" army invaded China. The troops of Genghis Khan defeated the army of the Jin Empire, the conquest of vast China began. In 1215, the "Mongolian" army took the capital of the country - Zhongdu (Beijing). In the future, the campaign against China was continued by the commander Mukhali.

After conquering the main part of the Jin Empire, the "Mongols" began a war against the Kara-Khidan Khanate, defeating which they established a border with Khorezm. Khorezmshah ruled over the huge Muslim Khorezm state, which stretched from northern India to the Caspian and Aral Seas, as well as from modern Iran to Kashgar. In 1219-1221. "Mongols" defeated Khorezm and took the main cities of the kingdom. Then the detachments of Jebe and Subedei devastated Northern Iran and, moving further to the northwest, ravaged the Transcaucasus and entered the North Caucasus. Here they encountered the combined forces of the Alans and Polovtsians. The "Mongols" failed to defeat the united Alano-Polovtsian army. The "Mongols" managed to defeat the Alans by bribing their allies - the Polovtsian khans. The Polovtsy left, and the "Mongols" defeated the Alans, and fell upon the Polovtsy. The Polovtsy could not join forces and were defeated. Having relatives in Russia, the Polovtsians turned to the Russian princes for help. The Russian princes of Kyiv, Chernigov and Galich and other lands joined their efforts to jointly repel aggression. On May 31, 1223, on the Kalka River, Subedey defeated the much superior forces of the Russian-Polovtsian army due to the inconsistency in the actions of the Russian and Polovtsian squads. The Grand Duke of Kyiv Mstislav Romanovich Stary and the Prince of Chernigov Mstislav Svyatoslavich died, like many other princes, governors and heroes, and the Galician Prince Mstislav Udatny, famous for his victories, fled. However, on the way back, the “Mongolian” army was defeated by the Volga Bulgars. After a four-year campaign, Subedei's troops returned.

Genghis Khan himself, having completed the conquest of Central Asia, attacked the previously allied Tanguts. Their kingdom was destroyed. Thus, by the end of the life of Genghis Khan (he died in 1227), a huge empire was created from Pacific Ocean and North China in the East to the Caspian in the West.

The successes of the "Mongol-Tatars" are explained by:

Their “chosenness and invincibility” (“Secret Legend”). That is, their morale was much higher than that of the enemy;

The weakness of the neighboring states, which experienced a period of feudal fragmentation, were split into public entities, tribes little connected with each other, where elite groups fought among themselves and vying with each other offered their services to the conquerors. The masses, exhausted by internecine wars and bloody feuds of their rulers and feudal lords, as well as heavy tax oppression, found it difficult to unite to repulse the invaders; the masses were passive, waiting for who would win;

The reforms of Genghis Khan, who created a powerful shock equestrian fist with iron discipline. At the same time, the "Mongolian" army used offensive tactics and retained the strategic initiative (Suvorov's eye, speed and onslaught). The "Mongols" sought to inflict sudden blows on the enemy taken by surprise ("like snow on their heads"), to disorganize the enemy, to beat him in parts. The "Mongolian" army skillfully concentrated forces, inflicting powerful and crushing blows with superior forces on the main directions and decisive sectors. Small professional squads and poorly trained armed militias or loose huge Chinese armies could not resist such an army;

Using the achievements of the military thought of neighboring peoples, such as the siege equipment of the Chinese. In their campaigns, the "Mongols" massively used a wide variety of siege equipment of that time: battering rams, wall-beating and throwing machines, assault ladders. For example, during the siege of the city of Nishabur in Central Asia, the “Mongolian” army was armed with 3,000 ballistae, 300 catapults, 700 machines for throwing pots of burning oil, and 4,000 assault ladders. 2500 wagons with stones were brought to the city, which were brought down on the besieged;

Thorough strategic and economic intelligence and diplomatic preparation. Genghis Khan thoroughly knew the enemy, his strengths and weaknesses. They tried to isolate the enemy from possible allies, to inflate internal strife and conflicts. One of the sources of information was merchants who visited countries of interest to the conquerors. It is known that in Central Asia and Transcaucasia, the "Mongols" quite successfully attracted to their side the rich merchants, who conducted international trade. In particular, trade caravans from Central Asia regularly went to the Volga Bulgaria, and through it to the Russian principalities, delivering valuable information. An effective method of reconnaissance was the reconnaissance campaigns of individual detachments, which went very far from the main forces. So, for 14 years of Batu invasion, far to the west, up to the Dnieper, a detachment of Subedei and Jebe penetrated, which went a long way and collected valuable information about the countries and tribes that they were going to conquer. A lot of information was also collected by the “Mongolian” embassies, which the khans sent to neighboring countries under the pretext of negotiations on trade or an alliance.

Empire of Genghis Khan at the time of his death

Beginning of the Western campaign

Plans for a campaign to the West were formed by the "Mongolian" leadership long before Batu's campaign. Back in 1207, Genghis Khan sent his eldest son Jochi to conquer the tribes that lived in the valley of the Irtysh River and further to the west. Moreover, the lands of Eastern Europe, which were to be conquered, were already included in the “ulus of Jochi”. The Persian historian Rashid ad-Din wrote in his “Collection of Chronicles”: “Juchi, on the basis of the greatest command of Genghis Khan, had to go with an army to conquer all regions of the north, that is, Ibir-Sibir, Bular, Desht-i-Kipchak (Polovtsian steppes), Bashkird, Rus and Cherkas to the Khazar Derbent, and subjugate them to your power.

However, this broad aggressive program was not carried out. The main forces of the "Mongolian" army were connected by battles in the Celestial Empire, Central and Central Asia. In the 1220s, only a reconnaissance campaign was undertaken by Subedei and Jebe. This campaign made it possible to study information about the internal situation of states and tribes, communication routes, the capabilities of the enemy’s military forces, etc. Deep strategic reconnaissance of the countries of Eastern Europe was carried out.

Genghis Khan handed over to his son Jochi the “country of the Kipchaks” (Polovtsy) and instructed him to take care of expanding possessions, including at the expense of lands in the west. After the death of Jochi in 1227, the lands of his ulus pass to his son, Batu. Genghis Khan's son Ogedei became the Great Khan. The Persian historian Rashid ad-Din writes that Ögedei "in pursuance of the decree given by Genghis Khan in the name of Jochi, entrusted the conquest of the Northern countries to members of his house."

In 1229, having ascended the throne, Ogedei sent two corps to the west. The first, led by Chormagan, was sent south of the Caspian Sea against the last Khorezm Shah Jalal ad-Din (he was defeated and died in 1231), to Khorasan and Iraq. The second corps, led by Subedey and Kokoshay, moved north of the Caspian Sea against the Polovtsy and the Volga Bulgars. It was no longer a reconnaissance campaign. Subedey conquered the tribes, prepared the way and base for the invasion. The detachments of Subedei pushed back the Saksin and Polovtsy in the Caspian steppes, destroyed the Bulgarian "watchmen" (guard posts) on the Yaik River and set about conquering the Bashkir lands. However, Subedei could not advance further. For further advance to the west, much larger forces were required.

After the kurultai of 1229, the great Khan Ogedei moved the troops of the “ulus of Jochi” to help Subedei. That is, the march to the west was not yet common. The main place in the policy of the empire was occupied by the war in China. At the beginning of 1230, the troops of the "ulus of Jochi" appeared in the Caspian steppes, reinforcing the corps of Subedei. The "Mongols" broke through the Yaik River and broke into the possessions of the Polovtsy between Yaik and the Volga. At the same time, the "Mongols" continued to put pressure on the lands of the Bashkir tribes. Since 1232, the “Mongolian” troops have increased pressure on the Volga Bulgaria.

However, the forces of the "ulus of Jochi" were not enough to conquer Eastern Europe. The Bashkir tribes stubbornly resisted, and it took several more years for their complete subjugation. The Volga Bulgaria also withstood the first blow. This state had a serious military potential, rich cities, a developed economy and a large population. The threat of an external invasion forced the Bulgar feudal lords to unite their squads and resources. On the southern borders of the state, on the border of the forest and the steppe, powerful defensive lines were built to defend against the steppes. Huge shafts stretched for tens of kilometers. On these fortified lines, the Bulgars-Volgars were able to hold back the onslaught of the "Mongolian" army. The "Mongols" had to spend the winter in the steppes, they could not break through to the rich cities of the Bulgars. Only in the steppe zone did the “Mongolian” detachments manage to advance quite far to the west, reaching the lands of the Alans.

At the council, which met in 1235, the question of the conquest of the countries of Eastern Europe was again discussed. It became clear that the forces of only the western regions of the empire - the "ulus of Jochi", could not cope with this task. The peoples and tribes of Eastern Europe fiercely and skillfully fought back. The Persian historian Juvayni, a contemporary of the “Mongolian” conquests, wrote that in the kurultai of 1235 “the decision was made to take possession of the countries of the Bulgars, Ases and Rus, which were located with the camps of Batu, were not yet conquered and were proud of their large numbers.”

The meeting of the "Mongolian" nobility in 1235 announced a general campaign to the west. "To help and reinforce Batu" troops were sent from Central Asia and most of the khans - the descendants of Genghis Khan (Genghisids). Initially, Ogedei himself planned to lead the Kipchak campaign, but Mönke dissuaded him. The following Chingizids participated in the campaign: the sons of Jochi - Baty, Orda-Ezhen, Shiban, Tangkut and Berke, the grandson of Chagatai - Buri and the son of Chagatai - Baidar, the sons of Ogedei - Guyuk and Kadan, the sons of Tolui - Munke and Buchek, the son of Genghis Khan - Kulkhan ( Kyulkan), grandson of Genghis Khan's brother - Argasun. One of the best commanders of Genghis Khan, Subedei, was summoned from China. Messengers were sent to all parts of the empire with an order to the clans, tribes and nationalities, subject to the great khan, to gather on a campaign.

Throughout the winter of 1235-1236. "Mongolian" gathered in the upper reaches of the Irtysh and the steppes of the Northern Altai, preparing for a big campaign. In the spring of 1236, the army set off on a campaign. Previously, hundreds of thousands of "fierce" warriors were written about. In modern historical literature, the total number of the "Mongolian" troops in the western campaign is estimated at 120-150 thousand people. According to some estimates, the army initially consisted of 30-40 thousand soldiers, but then it was reinforced by the allied and subjugated tribes who joined, who put up auxiliary contingents.

A large army, which was replenished on the way with more and more detachments, reached the Volga in a few months and there it joined the forces of the "ulus of Jochi". Very late in 1236, the combined "Mongolian" forces attacked the Volga Bulgaria.

The defeat of the neighbors of Russia

This time the Volga Bulgaria could not resist. First, the conquerors increased their military power. Secondly, the "Mongols" neutralized the neighbors of Bulgaria, with which the Bulgars interacted in the fight against the invaders. Even at the very beginning of 1236, the Eastern Polovtsy, allied to the Bulgars, were defeated. Some of them, led by Khan Kotyan, left the Volga region and migrated to the west, where they asked for protection from Hungary. The rest submitted to Batu and, along with the military contingents of other Volga peoples, later joined his army. The "Mongols" managed to agree with the Bashkirs and part of the Mordovians.

As a result, the Volga Bulgaria was doomed. The conquerors broke through the defensive lines of the Bulgars and invaded the country. The Bulgarian cities, fortified with ramparts and oak walls, fell one after another. The capital of the state - the city of Bulgar was taken by storm, the inhabitants were killed. The Russian chronicler wrote: “The godless Tatars came from the Eastern countries to the Bulgarian land, and took the glorious and great city Bulgarian, and beat with weapons from an old man to a youth and a baby, and took a lot of goods, and burned the city with fire and captured the whole earth. Volga Bulgaria was terribly devastated. The cities of Bulgar, Kernek, Zhukotin, Suvar and others were turned into ruins. The countryside was also heavily devastated. Many Bulgars fled to the north. Other refugees were accepted by the Grand Duke of Vladimir Yuri Vsevolodovich and settled them in the cities of the Volga. After the formation of the Golden Horde, the territory of the Volga Bulgaria became part of it, and the Volga Bulgarians (Bulgars) became one of the main components in the ethnogenesis of the modern Kazan Tatars and Chuvashs.

By the spring of 1237, the conquest of Volga Bulgaria was completed. Moving north, the "Mongols" reached the Kama River. The "Mongolian" command was preparing for the next stage of the campaign - for the invasion of the Polovtsian steppes.

Polovtsy. As it is known from written sources, the “disappeared” Pechenegs were replaced in the 11th century by the Torks (according to the classical version, the southern branch of the Seljuk Turks), then the Cumans. But during the two decades of their stay in the southern Russian steppes, the Torks did not leave any archaeological monuments (S. Pletneva, Polovtsian land, Old Russian principalities of the 10th-13th centuries). In the 11th-12th centuries, the Cumans, direct descendants of the Siberian Scythians, known to the Chinese as the Dinlins, moved into the steppe zone of European Russia from southern Siberia. They, like the Pechenegs, had a "Scythian" anthropological appearance - they were fair-haired Caucasians. The paganism of the Polovtsy practically did not differ from the Slavic: they worshiped the father-heaven and mother-earth, the cult of ancestors was developed, the wolf enjoyed great respect (we recall Russian fairy tales). The main difference between the Polovtsy and the Rus of Kyiv or Chernigov, who led a completely settled way of life of the tillers, was paganism and a semi-nomadic lifestyle.

In the steppes near the Urals, the Polovtsy strengthened themselves in the middle of the 11th century, and their mention in Russian chronicles is connected with this. Although not a single burial ground of the XI century has been found in the steppe zone of Southern Russia. This suggests that initially military detachments, and not the people, came to the borders of Russia. Somewhat later, the traces of the Polovtsians will be clearly visible. In the 1060s, military clashes between the Russians and the Polovtsy became regular, although the Polovtsy often act in alliance with one of the Russian princes. In 1116, the Polovtsy won over the yas and occupied Belaya Vezha, since that time their archaeological traces - “stone women” - have appeared on the Don and Donets. It was in the Don steppes that the earliest Polovtsian “women” were discovered (the so-called images of “ancestors”, “grandfathers”). It should be noted that this custom also has a connection with the Scythian era and the Early Bronze Age. Later Polovtsian statues appear in the Dnieper, Azov and Ciscaucasia. It is noted that the sculptures of Polovtsian women have a number of "Slavic" features - these are temporal rings (a distinctive tradition of the Russian ethnic group), many have multi-beam stars and crosses in a circle on their chests and belts, these amulets meant that their mistress was patronized by the Mother Goddess.

For a long time it was considered that the Polovtsy were almost Mongoloids in appearance, and Turks in language. However, in their anthropology, the Polovtsy are typical northern Caucasians. This is confirmed by the statues, where the images of male faces are always with mustaches and even with a beard. The Türkic-speaking of the Polovtsy is not confirmed. The situation with the Polovtsian language is reminiscent of the Scythian - in relation to the Scythians, they accepted the version (not confirmed by anything) that they are Iranian-speaking. Almost no traces of the Polovtsian language, like the Scythian, remained. The question is also interesting, where did he disappear in such a relatively short period of time? For analysis, there are only a few names of the Polovtsian nobility. However, their names are not Turkic! There are no Turkic analogues, but there is consonance with Scythian names. Bunyak, Konchak sound the same as the Scythian Taksak, Palak, Spartak, etc. Names similar to the Polovtsian are also found in the Sanskrit tradition - Gzak and Gozak are noted in Rajatorongini (Kashmir chronicle in Sanskrit). According to the "classical" (Western European) tradition, everyone who lived in the steppes to the east and south of the Rurik state was called "Turks" and "Tatars".

In anthropological and linguistic terms, the Polovtsy were the same Scythians-Sarmatians as the inhabitants of the Don region, the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, on whose lands they came. The formation of the Polovtsian principalities in the southern Russian steppes of the 12th century should be considered as a result of the migration of the Siberian Scythians (Rus, according to Yu.D. Petukhov and a number of other researchers) under the pressure of the Turks to the west, to the lands of the related Volga-Don Yases, and the Pechenegs.

Why did kindred peoples fight each other? It is enough to recall the bloody feudal wars of the Russian princes or look at the current relations between Ukraine and Russia (two Russian states) to understand the answer. The ruling factions fought for power. There was also a religious split - between pagans and Christians, Islam was already penetrating somewhere.

Archeological data confirm this opinion, about the origin of the Polovtsy, as the heirs of the Scythian-Sarmatian civilization. There is no big gap between the Sarmatian-Alanian cultural period and the "Polovtsian" one. Even more than that, the cultures of the "Polovtsian field" reveal kinship with the northern, Russian ones. In particular, only Russian ceramics were found in the Polovtsian settlements on the Don. This proves that in the XII century the bulk of the population of the "Polovtsian field" was still made up of direct descendants of the Scythian-Sarmatians (Rus), and not the "Turks". This is also confirmed by the written sources of the XV-XVII centuries that have not been destroyed and have come down to us. Polish researchers Martin Belsky and Matvey Stryikovsky report on the relationship of the Khazars, Pechenegs and Polovtsy with the Slavs. The Russian nobleman Andrei Lyzlov, the author of the Scythian History, as well as the Croatian historian Mavro Orbini, in the book Slavic Kingdom, argued that the "Polovtsy" are related to the "Goths" who stormed the borders of the Roman Empire in the 4th-5th centuries, and "Goths", in turn, are the Scythians-Sarmatians. Thus, the sources that have survived after the total “purge” of the 18th century (carried out in the interests of the West) speak of the relationship of the Scythians, Polovtsians and Russians. Russian researchers of the 18th - early 20th centuries wrote about the same, who opposed the "classical" version of the history of Russia, composed by the "Germans" and their Russian sing-alongs.

The Polovtsy were not the "wild nomads" that they like to portray. They had their own cities. The Polovtsian cities of Sugrov, Sharukan and Balin are known to Russian chronicles, which contradicts the concept of the "Wild Field" in the Polovtsian period. The famous Arab geographer and traveler Al-Idrisi (1100-1165, according to other sources 1161) reports on six fortresses on the Don: Luka, Astarkuza, Barun, Busar, Sarada and Abkad. There is an opinion that Baruna corresponds to Voronezh. Yes, and the word "Baruna" has a Sanskrit root: "Varuna" in the Vedic tradition, and "Svarog" in the Slavonic Russian (God "cooked", "bungled", created our planet).

During the period of fragmentation of Russia, the Polovtsy actively participated in the dismantling of the Rurik princes, in Russian strife. It should be noted that the Polovtsian princes-khans regularly entered into dynastic alliances with the princes of Russia, and became related. In particular, the Kyiv prince Svyatopolk Izyaslavich married the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan Tugorkan; Yuri Vladimirovich (Dolgoruky) married the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan Aepa; Volyn Prince Andrei Vladimirovich married the granddaughter of Tugorkan; Mstislav Udaloy was married to the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan Kotyan, etc.

The Cumans suffered a severe defeat from Vladimir Monomakh (Kargalov V., Sakharov A. Generals of Ancient Russia). Part of the Polovtsy went to Transcaucasia, the other to Europe. The remaining Polovtsy reduced their activity. In 1223, the Polovtsians were twice defeated by the "Mongolian" troops - in alliance with the Yasses-Alans and with the Russians. In 1236-1337. The Polovtsians took the first blow from Batu's army and put up stubborn resistance, which was finally broken only after several years of brutal war. The Polovtsy made up the majority of the population of the Golden Horde, and after its collapse and absorption by the Russian state, their descendants became Russian. As already noted in anthropological and cultural terms, they were descendants of the Scythians, like the Rus of the Old Russian state, so everything returned to normal.

Thus, the Polovtsians, contrary to the opinion of Western historians, were neither Turks nor Mongoloids. The Polovtsy were light-eyed and fair-haired Indo-Europeans (Aryans), pagans. They led a semi-nomadic ("Cossack") way of life, settled in vezhs (remember Aryan Vezhi - vezhi-vesi of the Aryans), if necessary, fought with the Rus of Kyiv, Chernigov, and the Turks, or were friends, made friends and brothers. They had a common Scythian-Aryan origin with the Rus of the Russian principalities, a similar language, cultural traditions and customs.

According to the historian Yu.D. Petukhova: “Most likely, the Polovtsy were not some kind of separate ethnic group. Their constant companionship of the Pechenegs suggests that they were one people, more precisely. A nationality that could not cling either to the Russ of Kievan Rus, Christianized by that time, or to the pagan Rus of the Scythian-Siberian world. The Polovtsy were located between two huge ethno-cultural and linguistic cores of the Rus superethnos. But they were not included in any "core". ... Not entering any of the gigantic ethno-massifs decided the fate of both the Pechenegs and the Polovtsy. When the two parts of the two cores of the superethnos collided, the Polovtsians left the historical arena, were absorbed by two arrays of Russ.

The Polovtsy were among the first to take the blows of the next wave of the Scythian-Siberian Rus, who, according to Western tradition, are usually called "Tatar-Mongols." Why? In order to reduce the civilizational, historical and living space of the super-ethnos of the Rus - Russians, to solve the "Russian question", deleting the Russian people from history.

In the spring of 1237, the "Mongols" struck at the Polovtsians and Alans. From the Lower Volga, the "Mongolian" army moved west, using "roundup" tactics against their weakened enemies. The left flank of the main arc, which ran along the Caspian Sea and further along the steppes of the North Caucasus, to the mouth of the Don, was made up of the corps of Guyuk Khan and Munke. The right flank, which moved to the north, along the Polovtsian steppes, was made up of the troops of Mengu Khan. To help the khans, who waged a stubborn struggle against the Polovtsians and Alans, Subedei was later nominated (he was in Bulgaria).

The "Mongolian" troops marched across the Caspian steppes on a wide front. The Polovtsians and Alans suffered a heavy defeat. Many died in fierce battles, the remaining forces rolled back behind the Don. However, the Polovtsians and Alans, the same courageous warriors as the "Mongols" (heirs of the northern Scythian tradition), continued to resist.

Almost simultaneously with the war in the Polovtsian direction, hostilities were going on in the north. In the summer of 1237, the "Mongols" attacked the lands of the Burtases, Mokshas and Mordovians, these tribes occupied vast territories on the right bank of the Middle Volga. The corps of Batu himself and several other khans - the Horde, Berke, Buri and Kulkan - fought against these tribes. The lands of the Burtases, Moksha and Morda were relatively easily conquered by the "Mongols". They had a hollow advantage over the tribal militias. In the autumn of 1237, the "Mongols" began to prepare for a campaign against Russia.

“The myth of the “Mongols from Mongolia in Russia” is the most grandiose and monstrous provocation of the Vatican and the West as a whole against Russia”

Obviously, the invasion of Eastern Europe and Russia in 1236-1240. was from the East. This is evidenced by the cities and fortresses taken by storm and destroyed, traces of battles and devastated settlements. However, the question is, who are the "Mongol-Tatars"? Mongols-Mongoloids from Mongolia or someone else? Is it not a fake "Mongols from Mongolia" launched by the spy of the Pope Plano Carpini and other agents of the Vatican (the worst enemy of Russia)? Obviously, the West has been playing its game of destroying Russian civilization not since the 20th century, not even from the 18th-19th centuries, but since its inception, and the Vatican was the first “command post” of the Western project.

One of the main methods of the enemy is the information war, the distortion and rewriting of true history, the creation of the so-called. black myths: about the original "savagery of the Slavs"; that the Russian statehood was created by the Viking Swedes; that writing, culture and the “light of the true faith” were brought to the Russians by the developed Roman Greeks; about the "traitor" Alexander Nevsky; about the "bloody tyrants" Ivan the Terrible and Stalin; about the "Russian occupiers" who seized one-sixth of the land and turned it into a "prison of peoples"; that the Russians adopted all the achievements of civilization from the West and the East; about drunkenness and laziness of Russians, etc. In particular, at present, the myth of “Ukraine-Rus” has been launched in Ukraine-Little Russia, that is, the Russian history has been cut off for several more centuries. It is clear that the West will support this black myth with great pleasure.

One of these myths is the myth of the "Mongol-Tatar" invasion and yoke. According to the historian Yu.D. Petukhov: "The myth of the "Mongols from Mongolia in Russia" is the most grandiose and monstrous provocation of the Vatican and the West as a whole against Russia." A careful study of the issue reveals too many inconsistencies and facts that contradict the "classic" version:

How could semi-wild shepherds (albeit warlike) crush such developed powers as China, Khorezm, the Tangut kingdom, go through the mountains of the Caucasus, where warlike tribes lived, disperse and subjugate dozens of tribes, crush the rich Volga Bulgaria and Russian principalities and almost capture Europe , easily scattering the troops of the Hungarians, Poles and German knights. And this is after heavy battles with the Rus, Alans, Polovtsians and Bulgars!

After all, it is known from history that any conqueror relies on a developed economy. Rome was the foremost power in Europe. Alexander the Great relied on the economy created by his father Philip. With all his talents, he could not have done even half of the achievements if his father had not created a powerful mining and metallurgical industry, strengthened finances, and carried out a number of military reforms. Napoleon and Hitler had under them the most powerful and developed states of Europe (France and Germany) and practically the resources of all of Europe, the most technologically advanced part of the world. Before the creation of the British Empire, on which the sun did not set, there was an industrial revolution that turned England into the “workshop of the world”. The current "world gendarme" - the United States has the most powerful economy on the planet, and the ability to buy "brains" and resources for paper.

And the real Mongols at that time were poor nomads, primitive pastoralists and hunters, who stood at a low stage of primitive communal development, who did not even create a pre-state formation, not to mention the Eurasian empire. They simply could not crush, and even relatively easily, the development of the power of that time. This required production, military base, cultural traditions that are created by many generations of people.

The then Mongols did not have the necessary demographic potential to create a large and strong army. Even now, Mongolia is a deserted, sparsely populated country with minimal military potential. It is obvious that almost a thousand years ago it was even poorer, with small clans of shepherds and hunters. Tens of thousands of well-armed and organized fighters, who went to conquer almost the entire mainland, were simply nowhere to take it from.

Thus, the wild nomads, hunters had no opportunity in the blink of an eye to become an invincible people-army, which in the shortest (by historical standards) crushed the advanced powers of Asia and Europe. There was no corresponding cultural, economic, military or demographic potential. There was also no military revolution (such as the invention of the phalanx, the legion, the domestication of the horse, the creation of iron weapons, etc.), which could give an advantage to any nationality.

A myth was created about the "invincible" Mongols warriors. They were described by the wonderful historical novels of V. Yan. However, from the point of view of historical reality, this is a myth. There were no "invincible" Mongol warriors. In armament, the "Mongols" were no different from the Russian soldiers. Numerous archers and the tradition of archery is an ancient Scythian and Russian tradition. A clear and uniform organization: the cavalry troops were divided into tens, hundreds, thousands and tumens-darkness (10-thousand corps), headed by tenants, centurions, thousanders and temniks. This is not an invention of the Mongols. Russian troops for thousands of years were divided in this way, according to the decimal system. Iron discipline was not only among the "Mongols", but also in the Russian squads. The "Mongols" preferred to conduct offensive operations - the Russian squads also acted. The Russians knew the siege technique long before the "Mongolian" invasion. The same Russian Prince Svyatoslav stormed enemy strongholds with the help of battering rams, wall and throwing machines, assault ladders, etc. "Mongols" could make long trips without carts, without replenishing food supplies. However, the soldiers of Svyatoslav also acted, and then the later Cossacks. It is reported that among the "Mongols" even "women are warlike, like themselves: they shoot arrows, ride horses like men." We remember the Amazons from the time of the Scythians, Russian Polanits, that is, this is one tradition.

The wild nomadic Mongols did not have such a military tradition. Such a tradition has been created for more than one generation, for example, the legions of Rome, the phalanx of Sparta and Alexander the Great, the invincible rati of Svyatoslav, the iron tread of the Wehrmacht. Only the descendants of Great Scythia, the Rus of the Scythian-Siberian world, had such a tradition. And so all countless works of art, novels and films about "Mongolian warriors" who destroy everything in their path - this is a myth.

We are told about the "Tatar-Mongols", but from the biology course it is known that the genes of Negroids and Mongoloids are dominant. And if hundreds of thousands of “Mongols” warriors, destroying enemy troops, would pass through Russia and half of Europe, then the current population of Russia and Eastern, Central Europe would be very similar to modern Mongols. Let me remind you that during all wars, women were prey and subjected to massive violence. Mongoloid features include: short stature, dark eyes, coarse black hair, swarthy, yellowish skin, high cheekbones, epicanthus, flat face, poorly developed tertiary hairline (beard and mustache practically do not grow, or are very liquid), etc. Does the described sound like modern Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Germans?

Archaeologists, for example, see the data of S. Alekseev, digging up places of fierce battles, they find mainly the skeletons of Caucasians, representatives of the white race. There were no Mongols in Russia. Archaeologists find traces of battles, pogroms, burned and destroyed settlements, but there was no “anthropological Mongoloid material” in Russia. There really was a war, but it was not a war of the Rus with the Mongols. In the burial grounds of the times of the Golden Horde, the skeletons of only Caucasians are found. This is confirmed by written sources, as well as drawings: they describe the “Mongols” warriors of European appearance - blond hair, light eyes (gray, blue), tall. Sources depict Genghis Khan as tall, with a luxurious long beard, with "lynx", green-yellow eyes. The Persian historian of the times of the Golden Horde, Rashid ad Din, writes that in the family of Genghis Khan, children "were born mostly with gray eyes and blond." In the miniatures of Russian chronicles there are no racial differences, and even serious differences in clothing and weapons between the "Mongols" and the Russians. In Western Europe, on engravings, "Mongols" are depicted as Russian boyars, archers and Cossacks.

In reality, the Mongoloid element in Russia in small quantities will appear only in the 16th-17th centuries, together with the serving Tatars, who, being Caucasoids themselves, will begin to acquire Mongoloid features in eastern frontiers Russia.

There were no "Tatars" in the invasion either. It is known that until the beginning of the 12th century, the powerful Moghuls and the Turkic Tatars were at enmity. The Secret History reports that the soldiers of Temujin (Genghis Khan) hated the Tatars. For some time, Temujin subjugated the Tatars, but then they were completely destroyed. Much later, "Tatars" began to be called the Bulgars - the inhabitants of the state of Volga Bulgaria on the Middle Volga, which became part of the Golden Horde. In addition, there is a version that the Tatar, translated from Old Russian (Sanskrit), is just a distorted “Tatarokh” - “royal horseman”.

Thus, the "Mongols" who came to Russia were typical representatives of the Caucasian race, the white race. There were no anthropological differences between the Polovtsy, "Mongols" and Russians of Kyiv and Ryazan.

The notorious "Mongols" did not leave a single (!) Mongolian word in Russia. Familiar from historical novels, the words "Horde" are Russian word Rod, Rada (Golden Horde - Golden Rod, i.e. royal, of divine origin); "tumen" - the Russian word for "darkness" (10,000); “Khan-Kagan”, the Russian word “Kokhan, Kokhany” - beloved, respected, this word has been known since the time of Ancient Russia, as the first Rurikoviches were sometimes called (for example, Kagan Vladimir). The word "Byty" is "father", a respectful name for the leader, as the president is still called in Belarus.

During the Golden Horde, the population of this empire - mostly Polovtsy and descendants of the "Mongols", was no less than the population of the Russian principalities. Where did the population of the Horde go? After all, the former lands of the Horde became part of the Russian state, that is, at least half of the population of Russia had to have Turkic, Mongolian roots. However, there are no traces of the Turkic and Mongoloid population of the Horde! Kazan Tatars are considered descendants of the Bulgars-Volgars, that is, Caucasians. Crimean Tatars are not related to the core population of the Horde, they are a mixture of the indigenous population of Crimea and many external migration waves. It is obvious that the Polovtsy and the Horde simply disappeared into the kindred Russian people, leaving no anthropological or linguistic traces. How the Pechenegs dissolved before, etc. Everyone became Russian. If they were "Mongols", then traces would remain. Such a huge mass of the population cannot simply dissolve.

The term "Tatar-Mongols" is not in Russian chronicles. The Mongolian peoples themselves called themselves "Khalkha", "Oirats". This is a completely artificial term, which was introduced in 1823 by P. Naumov in the article “On the attitude of Russian princes to the Mongol and Tatar khans from 1224 to 1480”. The word "Mongols", in the original version "Moguls" comes from the root word "could, can" - "husband, mighty, mighty, powerful." From this root came the word "Moguls" - "great, powerful." It was a nickname, not a self-name of the people.

From school history, we can recall the phrase "Great Mughals." This is a tautology. Mogul, and so in translation - great, he became a Mongol later, as knowledge was lost and distorted. Obviously, the Mongols could not be called "great, powerful" then, and even now. Anthropological Mongoloids "Khalkhu" never reached Russia and Europe. The Mongols in Mongolia only learned from Europeans in the 20th century that they had captured half the world and they had a “shaker of the Universe” - “Genghis Khan”, and from that time they started a business in this name.

Alexander Yaroslavovich Nevsky acted very much in concert with the "Orda-Rod" of Batu. Batu struck at Central and Southern Europe, almost repeated the campaign of the “scourge of God” Atilla. Alexander, on the other hand, crushed the western troops on the northern flank - he defeated the Swedish and German knights. The West received a strong blow, and temporarily abandoned the onslaught on the East. Russia got time to restore unity.

It is not surprising that many, including Russian (!), Historians accused Alexander of "betrayal", that he betrayed Russia under the yoke and entered into an alliance with the "filthy", instead of taking the crown from his hands Pope and conclude an alliance with the West in the fight against the Horde.

However, given the new data about the Horde, Alexander's actions become completely logical. Alexander Nevsky agreed to an alliance with the Golden Horde not at all out of desperation - he chose the lesser of two evils. Becoming the adopted son of Batu Khan and the spiritual brother of Sartak, Nevsky strengthened the Russian state, which included the Horde and the unity of the Rus superethnos. The Russians and the Horde were two active nuclei of a single ethno-linguistic community, the heirs of ancient Scythia and the country of the Aryans, the descendants of the Hyperboreans. Alexander closed the "window to Europe" for several centuries, stopping the cultural (information) and military-political expansion of the West. Giving Russia the opportunity to get stronger and preserve its identity.

There are many other inconsistencies that destroy the overall picture of the "Mongol-Tatar" invasion. So, in the "Tale and the Battle of Mamaev", a Moscow literary monument of the 15th century, gods are mentioned, who were worshiped by the so-called. "Tatars": Perun, Salavat, Rekliy, Khors, Mohammed. That is, even at the end of the XIV century, Islam was not the dominant religion in the Horde. Ordinary "Tatar-Mongols" continued to revere Perun and Khors (Russian deities).

"Mongolian" names Bayan (conqueror of South China), Temuchin-Chemuchin, Baty, Berke, Sebedai, Ogedei-Guess, Mamai, Chagatai-Chagadai, Borodai-Borondai, etc. - these are not "Mongolian" names. They clearly belong to the Scythian tradition. For a long time, Russia on European maps was designated as Great Tartaria, Russian people were called white Tatars. In the eyes of Western Europe, the concepts of "Russia" and "Tartaria" ("Tataria") were united for a long time. At the same time, the territory of Tartaria coincides with the territory of the Russian Empire and the USSR - from the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean and to the borders of China and India.

Russian-Horde Empire

Taking into account the above facts, it is obvious that the traditional version of the "Tatar-Mongolian" invasion, the yoke and more broadly - the creation of the empire of Genghis Khan, is a myth. Moreover, this myth is very beneficial for Russia's geopolitical "partners" both in the West and in the East. It allows you to sharply narrow the historical, chronological and territorial space of Russian civilization and the superethnos of the Rus.

The time frame is usually limited to the first princes of the Rurik dynasty and the baptism of Russia (IX-X centuries). Although with the advent of the theory of the "Ukraine-Rus" state, when all the first centuries of the Russian state headed by the Rurik dynasty and all the first princes were "Ukrainized", Russian history was cut off right up to the formation of the "Old Russian nationality", the creation of Vladimir-Moscow Rus. At the same time, the Russians were even deprived of the Slavic community - they are now the descendants of "Finno-Finns, Turks, Mongols with a slight admixture of Slavic blood." And the “Ukrainians” were declared the “true” heirs of ancient Kievan Rus.

The territorial framework of the settlement of the superethnos of the Rus is limited to the Dnieper region, the Pripyat swamps. From there, the Russians allegedly settled in the rest of the lands, displacing and assimilating the Finno-Ugric peoples, Balts and Turks. That is, everything is within the framework of the myth of the "prison of peoples", where the Russians allegedly from ancient times conquered and oppressed neighboring tribes and peoples.

It is clear that some researchers saw weaknesses in the official version of the "Tatar-Mongolian" invasion. Trying to recover true story, they went several ways. The first attempt to give a different explanation of the events of the XIII century is the so-called. "Eurasianism" of G. Vernadsky, L. Gumilyov and others. Historians of this trend retain the traditional factual basis of the "Mongolian" invasion, but carry out a complete ideological revision, where the minuses become pluses.

That is, the "Eurasians" did not question the origin of the "Mongols". But, in their opinion, the “Tatar-Mongols” were generally friendly to Russia and were with her as part of the Golden Horde in a state of idyllic “symbiosis”. On the whole, sound facts are given about the positive influence of the power of Genghis Khan and the first rulers after him on the vast Asian expanses. In particular, the merchants could easily overcome great distances without fear of the robbers, who were destroyed; a well-organized postal service was created. North-Eastern Russia, with the support of Batu, survived in the fight against the Western "knight dogs". Later, Moscow became the new center of the "Eurasian empire", continuing the common cause.

The Eurasian version is useful in that it dealt a strong blow to the "armor" of the classical history written by the Germans and Westerners for Russia. She showed the deception of the stereotype about the eternal enmity of the "forest" and the "steppe", the incompatibility of the Slavic world with the cultures of the Eurasian steppe. Westerners attributed the Slavic world to Europe. Like, the Slavs fell under the Horde yoke, and their history was subjected to harmful "distortions" from the "steppe". Like the "totalitarianism and tyranny" of the Mongol rulers. Moscow inherited the "Asian" traditions and attitudes of the Horde, instead of returning to the "European family".

The version of the "Tatar-Mongol yoke", which was proposed by the authors of the theory of a radical revision of history, the so-called. "new chronology" - A.T. Fomenko, G.V. Nosovsky and other authors. It must be said that the authors of the “new chronology” used the earlier ideas of the Russian scientist N.A. Morozov. "Fomenkovtsy" revised the traditional chronology in the direction of its reduction, and believe that there is a system of historical twins, when some events are repeated at another time and in another region. The "New Chronology" made a lot of noise in the historical and near-historical world. A whole world of "new chronology" has been created. In turn, the detractors wrote a whole bunch of exposés.

According to Fomenko and Nosovsky, there was a single Russian-Horde Empire (Nosovsky G.V., Fomenko A.T. "New Chronology of Russia"; Nosovsky G.V., Fomenko A.T. "Russia and the Horde. The Great Empire of the Middle Ages "):

The "Tatar-Mongol yoke" was simply a period of military control in the Russian state. No foreigners conquered Russia. The supreme ruler was the commander - the khan-king, and in the cities there were civilian governors - princes, who collected tribute for the maintenance of the army.

The ancient Russian state was a single Eurasian empire, which included a permanent army - the Horde, which consisted of professional military men, and a civilian unit that did not have a permanent army. The notorious tribute (the Horde exit), familiar to us from the traditional presentation of history, was simply a state tax within Russia for the maintenance of a regular army - the Horde. The famous "blood tribute" - every tenth person taken into the Horde - is a state military set. Like drafting into the army, but for life. Later, they also took recruits - for life. The so-called "Tatar raids-rati" were the usual punitive expeditions-raids into those Russian regions where the local administration, the princes did not want to obey the tsar's will. No wonder Alexander Nevsky so firmly established the control of the Horde in the Novgorod-Pskov land. For him, the unity of the state was an obvious necessity in the face of an invasion from the West. Russian regular troops punished the rebels, as they would later do in other periods of history.

The "Tatar-Mongol invasion" is an internal war of Russians, Cossacks and Tatars within the framework of one single empire. The Golden Horde and Russia were part of the huge power "Great Tartaria", which was predominantly populated by Russians. Great Russia ("Tartaria") was split into two fronts, into two rival dynasties - the western and eastern, and the eastern Russian Horde and were those "Tatar-Mongols" who took, stormed the cities of Vladimir-Suzdal, Kyiv and Galician Rus. This event went down in history as the "invasion of the filthy", the "Tatar yoke".

The Russian-Horde empire existed from the 14th century to the beginning of the 17th century, and its era ended in great turmoil. As a result of the turmoil, which was initiated in Rome with the help of part of the Russian "elite", the pro-Western Romanov dynasty came to power. She carried out a "cleansing" of sources, caused a split in the church with the emasculation of Orthodoxy, when religion became a formality and one of the tools for controlling the people. Russia under the Romanovs (except for some periods when patriotic emperors were at the head of Russia) headed for the "restoration" of unity with the West. However, this course was contrary to the "Russian matrix" - the cultural code of the Russian superethnos. As a result, the lack of unity between the "elite" and the people led to a new turmoil - the catastrophe of 1917.

The Romanovs, in order to retain and maintain power, as well as to pursue a pro-Western course, needed a new history that would ideologically justify their power. The new dynasty from the point of view of the former Russian history was illegal, therefore, it was necessary to radically change the coverage of previous Russian history. This is what the Germans did. They "wrote" new history Russia, removing facts that contradicted the new order and cutting off Russian history in the interests of the West and the new authorities. Professionals worked, without changing the facts on the merits, they were able to distort the entire Russian history beyond recognition. The history of Russia-Horde with its class of farmers and the military class (horde) was declared the era of "foreign conquest", "Tatar-Mongol yoke". At the same time, the Russian army (horde) turned into mythical aliens from a distant unknown country.

The famous writer Vasily Golovachev adheres to the same version: “Here we were told all our lives: the Tatar-Mongol yoke, the Tatar-Mongol yoke, implying that Russia was in slavery for many centuries, not having its own culture, its own written language. What nonsense! There was no Tatar-Mongol yoke! Yoke in general from Old Slavonic - "rule"! The words "army" and "warrior" are not originally Russian, they are Church Slavonic and were introduced into use in the seventeenth century instead of the words "horde" and "horde". Before the forced baptism, Russia was not pagan, but Vedic or, rather, Vestic, it lived according to the traditions of Vesta, not religion, but the most ancient system of universal knowledge. Russia was the Great Empire, and the views of German historians were imposed on us about the allegedly slave past of Russia, about the slave souls of its people ... A conspiracy against true Russian history existed and still operates, and we are talking about the most vile distortion of the history of our fatherland to please those who are interested in concealing the secrets of the accession to the throne of the Romanov dynasty, and most importantly, in the humiliation of the Russian family, supposedly the family of slaves, groaning under the unbearable burden of the three-hundred-year-old Tatar-Mongol yoke, who did not have their own culture. ... There was a great Russian-Horde empire, ruled by the Cossack ataman - the father - hence, by the way, the name-nickname - Batu - spread over a territory larger than the former USSR. Is this not a reason for the Pharisees who lived in America and Europe to imagine that everything was the other way around, that it was not they who occupied a dominant position, but the Slavs?

The “new chronology” of Fomenko and Nosovsky raises many questions and, apparently, is erroneous. But the main thing is that the "Fomenkovites" in their writings published a large number of traces of the presence of Russian-Russians in Europe and throughout Eurasia. Although according to the "classical" version of history, the Eastern Slavs (Russians) crawled out of the swamps and forests only somewhere in the period of the 5th-6th centuries. (others give an even later date), their statehood was created by the "Viking Swedes", and the Russians supposedly have nothing to do with " real history”, which was in Europe and Asia.

True, having found numerous traces of the presence of Russians in Europe and Asia, where they should not officially be, Fomenko and Nosovsky made a strange conclusion: the Russians, together with the Cossacks and Turks, conquered Europe during the reign of Ivan III and ruled it for a long time. Europe was part of the Russian Empire. Then, gradually, the Russians were ousted from Europe, and their traces were tried to be destroyed so that there was no doubt about the greatness of European civilization.

Here we can agree with the last conclusion: the Vatican, the later Masonic orders and lodges really did everything to destroy the traces of the Slavs, Russians in Europe, and also write the "history" of Russia-Russia in their own interests. But this could not be done completely, because the Russians were not short-term invaders of Europe, as it seems to the supporters of the "new chronology". There was no conquest of Europe, the Rus were the autochthonous (indigenous) population of Europe, as they lived in Europe from ancient times. Our ancestors - Wends, Venets, Viennas, Vandals, Ravens-Crows, Rugi-Rarogs, Pelasgians, Racens, etc. have lived in Europe since ancient times.

This is confirmed by most of the toponymy of Europe (names of rivers, lakes, localities, mountains, cities, settlements, etc.). Since ancient times, the Ruses inhabited the expanses of the Balkans, including Greece-Horecia and Crete-Skryten, modern Poland, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Northern France, Northern Italy, and Scandinavia. The process of their physical destruction, assimilation, Christianization, and expulsion from Europe began around the middle of the 1st millennium AD. It was the Slavic-Russian tribes that crushed the completely late rotten Rome (“Germanic” tribes, which are considered to be Germans, have nothing to do with them, for example, the “Germans”-Vandals are the Slavs-Wends). But the flag of the “Roman contagion” was already picked up by Western Christian Rome and the Roman (Byzantine) empire, a protracted war began that went on for a thousand years (and continues to this day, because the “Russian question” has not yet been resolved). The Slavic-Russians were destroyed, turned into "dumb Germans", who were thrown at the brothers who had not yet forgotten their language and family, were pushed to the east. A significant part of them were destroyed or assimilated, turning into "Germans", included in the new Romanesque and German-Scandinavian peoples. So, the whole Slavic civilization in the center of Europe - Western (Varangian) Russia was destroyed. You can read about this in the work of L. Prozorov “Varangian Rus: Slavic Atlantis” or the work of Yu. D. Petukhov “Normans. Russians of the North.

Other Slavic-Russians were inoculated with the virus of Catholicism, the Slavs were subjugated to the Western matrix, making their brothers enemies. In particular, in this way, the Poles-glades were turned into stubborn enemies of Russia. Now, according to the same scheme, the southern and western parts of the Rus superethnos are being turned into "ukrov-orcs". In Belarus, Russians are made into “Litvins”. In Russia itself, Russians are turned into an ethnographic mass, a biomaterial - "Russians".

The third version is offered by supporters of the idea that the Russian civilization and the superethnos of the Rus have always existed, often creating great (world powers), moreover, within the borders of Northern Eurasia. From ancient times, northern Eurasia was inhabited by our ancestors, the Rus, whom the sources know under different names - Hyperboreans, Aryans, Scythians, Tauro-Scythians, Sarmatians, Roxolans-Rossolans, Varangians-Venedi, Dew-Rusichi, "Mogols" ("powerful"), etc.

So, in the work of N.I. Vasilyeva, Yu.D. Petukhov "Russian Scythia" it is noted that in the territory of Northern Eurasia - from the Pacific Ocean and the borders of China to the Carpathians and the Black Sea, anthropological, cultural (spiritual and material culture), often political unity can be traced from the Neolithic and Bronze Age (the time of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, Aryans) until the Middle Ages.

There are facts indicating that our direct ancestors lived on the territory of modern Russia-Russia from the very appearance of man modern type- Caucasian Cro-Magnon. So, a group of scientists from Russia and Germany, after many years of research, came to the conclusion that it was the Russian land that was the cradle of European civilization. The results of the latest research have proved that a modern Caucasoid type of man arose by the 50th-40th millennium BC. and initially lived exclusively within the Russian Plain, and only then settled throughout Europe.

According to the British radio company BBC, scientists made such conclusions by examining a human skeleton discovered in 1954 near Voronezh in the ancient burial place of Markina Gora (Kostenki XIV). It turned out that the genetic code of this man, buried about 28 thousand years ago, corresponds to genetic code modern Europeans. To date, the Kostenki complex near Voronezh has been recognized by world archaeologists as the most ancient habitat for a modern-type human, a Caucasian. Thus, the modern territory of Russia was the cradle of European civilization.

According to Yu.D. Petukhov, author of the series fundamental research according to the history of the Rus (“History of the Rus”, “Antiquities of the Rus”, “Roads of the Gods”, etc.) huge forest-steppe spaces from the Northern Black Sea region through the Southern Urals to Southern Siberia, modern Mongolia, which were given by Western historians to the “Mongol-Tatars ", in the XII-XIV centuries. actually belonged to the so-called. "Scythosiberian world". Caucasoids mastered vast expanses from the Carpathians to the Pacific Ocean even before the departure of the wave of Aryans-Indo-Europeans in 2 thousand BC. e. to Iran and India. The memory of tall, fair-haired and light-eyed warriors has been preserved both in China and in neighboring regions. The military elite, the nobility of Transbaikalia, Khakassia and Mongolia were Caucasians-Indo-Europeans. It was from here that the legend of the Russobeard and blue-eyed (green-eyed) Genghis Khan-Temuchin, the European appearance of Batu, etc. arose. It was these heirs of the great northern civilization - Scythia, that were the only real military force that could conquer China, Central Asia (which was previously under their sphere of influence), the Caucasus, Russia and other regions. Later, they were dissolved among the Mongoloids and Turks, giving a passionate impulse to the Turks, but they retained their memory as fair-haired and light-eyed "giants" (for less physically developed Mongoloids, they were giant heroes, like the Rus of Kyiv, Chernigov and Novgorod for the Arabs). travelers).

The relatively fast assimilation (within the framework of the historical process - only a few centuries) of the Horde Rus should not be surprising. So, the Northern Caucasoids captured China more than once (they don’t like to remember this in the Celestial Empire), but they all disappeared into the mass of the Mongoloids, their subjects. Also, after the catastrophe of 1917, thousands and tens of thousands of Russians ended up in China. Where are they? They should have been a significant part of modern Chinese society. However, they were assimilated. Already in the second, third generation, everyone became "Chinese". Lost not only racial, but also linguistic, cultural differences. Only in India, the descendants of the Aryans-Indo-Europeans (our siblings) were able to preserve their appearance, cultural traditions (Old Russian language - Sanskrit) in a huge mass of the "black" population, thanks to a rigid caste system. Therefore, the modern castes of Kshatriya warriors and Brahmin priests are very different from the rest of the Indian population.

In the Horde, the principles of caste division were not adhered to, therefore, the Horde in China and other areas, which the Mongoloids mastered, dissolved, transferring part of their signs and passionary charge to the Mongoloids and Turks.

Some of these Scythians-Rus came to Russia. Anthropologically and genetically, these late Scythians were the same Russians as the Rusichi living in Ryazan, Novgorod, Vladimir or Kyiv. Outwardly, they were distinguished by the manner of dressing - the "Scythian-Siberian animal style", their own dialect of the Russian language, and the fact that they were for the most part pagans. Therefore, the chroniclers called them "filthy", i.e. pagans. This is the key to the phenomenon that the three-century "Mongolian" yoke did not introduce the slightest anthropological changes in indigenous people Russia. Therefore, the Scythian-Russians of the Horde (the word "horde" is a distorted Russian word "genus", "rad", in German it is preserved as "order, ordnung") quickly found a common language with most Russian princes, became related, fraternized. It is doubtful that in the same way the Russians would begin to establish relations with the absolute alien Mongoloids.

This version immediately puts into place many pieces of the puzzle that do not find a place for themselves in the traditional version. The Siberian Scythians-Rus had a multi-thousand-year-old developed spiritual and material culture, a production base, military traditions (similar to the later Cossacks) and could form an army capable of crushing China and reaching the Adriatic Sea. The invasion of the Scythian-Siberian pagan Rus drew pagan Turks, pagan Polovtsy and Alans into its mighty shaft. Subsequently, the Siberian Rus created the Great "Mongolian" empire, which began to degenerate and degrade only after the growing Islamization, which was facilitated by the influx of a significant number of Arabs into the Golden (White) Horde. Islamization became the main prerequisite for the death of a mighty empire. It fell apart into many fragments, among which Muscovite Russia began to rise, which would restore the empire. After the Battle of Kulikovo, Moscow gradually comes to the fore as the capital of the new Russian empire. In about a century and a half, the new center will be able to restore the main core of the empire.

Thus, Russian state in the 16th-19th centuries, it did not conquer foreign lands, but returned territories that had been part of the northern civilization since ancient times.

Therefore, it is not surprising that in the 16th-17th centuries, and sometimes until the 18th century, most of Eurasia in Europe was called Great Scythia (Sarmatia) or Great Tartaria-Tataria. The origins of that time identified the ancient Scythians-Sarmatians and contemporary Russian-Slavs, believing that the entire forest-steppe Eurasia, as before, was inhabited by one people. This was the opinion not only of the authors who used literary sources, but also of travelers. The Roman humanist of the 15th century, Julius Let, traveled to "Scythia", visited Poland, the Dnieper, at the mouth of the Don and described the life and customs of the "Scythians". The traveler spoke about the "Scythian" mead and braga, about how the "Scythians" sitting at oak tables proclaim toasts in honor of the guests, wrote down a few words (turned out to be Slavic). He reported that "Scythia" extends to the borders of India, where the "Khan of the Asiatic Scythians" rules.

The Arab (Egyptian) historian of the mid-14th century Al-Omari, reporting on the “lands of Siberia and Chulyman”, reports a severe cold and that beautiful, remarkably built people live there, distinguished by their white faces and blue eyes. In China, under the rule of the Yuan Dynasty (1260-1360s), the guard, recruited from Yasses, Alans and Russians, was of great importance in the capital. Some names of the “Alanian” commanders are also known - Nikolai, Ilie-bagatur, Yuvashi, Arselan, Kyurdzhi (George), Dmitry. The Slavic pagan name was borne by the famous commander "Hundred-eyed" Bayan. In 1330, Emperor Wen-zong (Kubilai's great-grandson) created a Russian formation of 10 thousand soldiers - translated from Chinese into Russian, its name sounds like "Eternally faithful Russian guard." Given the fact that by the middle of the 14th century the former unified "Mongolian" empire had collapsed, it is hard to imagine that thousands of Russian soldiers came from Vladimir-Moscow Russia in China. Most likely, they were from closer places. Thus, the Chinese Wang Hoi and Yu Tang-Jia, who lived in the XIV century, wrote: “The Russians are the descendants of the ancient Usun people.” And the Usuns are the Siberian Scythians, who were called Issedons in ancient Europe (they occupied the territories of the Southern Urals and Siberia).

Russian historical tradition, before outside intervention, directly traced the origin of the Russian people to the Alans-Sarmatians. The author of the "Scythian History" A. Lyzlov identified the Sarmatians-Sauromatians with the Russians. In "History" V.N. Tatishchev and M. Lomonosov report that the Russians descended from the Roxalan Sarmatians (Eastern Rus), on the one hand, and from the Wends-Vendi (Western Slavic Russians), on the other.

Thus, it is clear that practically the entire history of Western Europe is a myth. The winners, that is, the masters of the West, simply ordered a story for themselves, trying to clean up or hide unnecessary pages. But we do not need their myth, we cannot build our power on other people's fairy tales. We need our own, Russian history, which will help preserve our civilization and the Russian race.