o (Mongol-Tatar, Tatar-Mongol, Horde) - the traditional name for the system of exploitation of Russian lands by nomadic conquerors who came from the East from 1237 to 1480.

This system was aimed at carrying out mass terror and robbing the Russian people by levying cruel exactions. She acted primarily in the interests of the Mongolian nomadic military-feudal nobility (noyons), in whose favor the lion's share of the collected tribute went.

Mongolian Tatar yoke was established as a result of the invasion of Batu Khan in the 13th century. Until the early 1260s, Rus' was under the rule of the great Mongol khans, and then the khans of the Golden Horde.

The Russian principalities were not directly part of the Mongol state and retained the local princely administration, the activities of which were controlled by the Baskaks - the khan's representatives in the conquered lands. The Russian princes were tributaries of the Mongol khans and received from them labels for ownership of their principalities. Formally, the Mongol-Tatar yoke was established in 1243, when Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich received from the Mongols a label for the Grand Duchy of Vladimir. Rus', according to the label, lost the right to fight and had to regularly pay tribute to the khans twice annually (in spring and autumn).

There was no permanent Mongol-Tatar army on the territory of Rus'. The yoke was supported by punitive campaigns and repressions against rebellious princes. The regular flow of tribute from Russian lands began after the census of 1257-1259, conducted by Mongol “numerals”. The units of taxation were: in cities - yard, in rural areas - “village”, “plow”, “plough”. Only the clergy were exempt from tribute. The main “Horde burdens” were: “exit”, or “tsar’s tribute” - a tax directly for the Mongol khan; trade fees (“myt”, “tamka”); carriage duties (“pits”, “carts”); maintenance of the khan's ambassadors (“food”); various “gifts” and “honors” to the khan, his relatives and associates. Every year, Russian lands left in the form of tribute. huge amount silver Large “requests” for military and other needs were periodically collected. In addition, the Russian princes were obliged, by order of the khan, to send soldiers to participate in campaigns and in round-up hunts (“lovitva”). In the late 1250s and early 1260s, tribute was collected from the Russian principalities by Muslim merchants (“besermen”), who bought this right from the great Mongol Khan. Most of the tribute went to the Great Khan in Mongolia. During the uprisings of 1262, the “besermans” were expelled from Russian cities, and the responsibility for collecting tribute passed to the local princes.

Rus''s struggle against the yoke became increasingly widespread. In 1285 Grand Duke Dmitry Alexandrovich (son of Alexander Nevsky) defeated and expelled the army of the “Horde prince”. At the end of the 13th - first quarter of the 14th century, performances in Russian cities led to the elimination of the Baskas. With the strengthening of the Moscow principality, the Tatar yoke gradually weakened. Moscow Prince Ivan Kalita (reigned in 1325-1340) achieved the right to collect “exit” from all Russian principalities. From the middle of the 14th century, the orders of the khans of the Golden Horde, not supported by a real military threat, were no longer carried out by the Russian princes. Dmitry Donskoy (1359-1389) did not recognize the khan's labels issued to his rivals and seized the Grand Duchy of Vladimir by force. In 1378, he defeated the Tatar army on the Vozha River in the Ryazan land, and in 1380 he defeated the Golden Horde ruler Mamai in the Battle of Kulikovo.

However, after Tokhtamysh’s campaign and the capture of Moscow in 1382, Rus' was forced to again recognize the power of the Golden Horde and pay tribute, but already Vasily I Dmitrievich (1389-1425) received the great reign of Vladimir without the khan’s label, as “his patrimony.” Under him, the yoke was nominal. Tribute was paid irregularly, and the Russian princes pursued independent policies. The attempt of the Golden Horde ruler Edigei (1408) to restore full power over Russia ended in failure: he failed to take Moscow. The strife that began in the Golden Horde opened up the possibility for Russia to overthrow the Tatar yoke.

However, in the middle of the 15th century, Muscovite Rus' itself experienced a period of internecine war, which weakened its military potential. During these years, the Tatar rulers organized a series of devastating invasions, but they were no longer able to bring the Russians to complete submission. The unification of Russian lands around Moscow led to the concentration in the hands of the Moscow princes of such political power that the weakening Tatar khans could not cope with. The Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III Vasilyevich (1462-1505) refused to pay tribute in 1476. In 1480, after the unsuccessful campaign of the Khan of the Great Horde Akhmat and “standing on the Ugra”, the yoke was finally overthrown.

The Mongol-Tatar yoke had negative, regressive consequences for the economic, political and cultural development Russian lands, was a brake on the growth of the productive forces of Rus', which were at a higher socio-economic level compared to the productive forces of the Mongolian state. It artificially preserved for a long time the purely feudal natural character of the economy. Politically, the consequences of the yoke were manifested in the disruption of the natural process state development Rus', in artificially maintaining its fragmentation. The Mongol-Tatar yoke, which lasted two and a half centuries, was one of the reasons for the economic, political and cultural lag of Rus' from Western European countries.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources.

The Tatar-Mongols created the largest empire in history. Their state extended from the Pacific Ocean to the Black Sea. Where did the people who controlled a quarter of the earth's land disappear to?

There were no Mongol-Tatars

Mongol-Tatars or Tatar-Mongols? No historian or linguist can answer this question with precision. For the reason that there were never Mongol-Tatars.

In the 14th century, the Mongols, who conquered the lands of the Kipchaks (Cumans) and Rus', began to mingle with the Kipchaks, a nomadic people Turkic origin. There were more Polovtsians than foreign Mongols, and despite their political dominance, the Mongols dissolved in the culture and language of the people they conquered.

“They all began to look like the Kipchaks, as if they belonged to the same family, for the Mongols, having settled in the land of the Kipchaks, entered into marriages with them and remained to live on their land,” says the Arab historian.

In Rus' and Europe in the 13th-14th centuries, all nomadic neighbors of the Mongol Empire, including the Polovtsians, were called Tatars.

After the destructive campaigns of the Mongols, the word “Tatars” (in Latin - tartari) became a kind of metaphor: the foreign “Tatars”, who attacked their enemies with lightning speed, were supposedly the creation of hell - Tartarus.

The Mongols were first identified with the “people from hell”, then with the Kipchaks, with whom they were assimilated. In the 19th century, Russian historical science decided that the “Tatars” were Turks who fought on the side of the Mongols. This is how a curious and tautological term emerged, which is a merger of two names of the same people and literally means “Mongol-Mongols.”

The order of words was determined by political considerations: after the formation of the USSR, it was decided that the term “Tatar-Mongol yoke” too radicalized the relations between Russians and Tatars, and they decided to “hide” them behind the Mongols, who were not part of the USSR.

Great Empire

The Mongolian ruler Temujin managed to win the internecine wars. In 1206, he took the name Genghis Khan and was proclaimed great Mongol Khan, uniting the disparate clans. He overhauled the army, dividing the soldiers into tens of thousands, thousands, hundreds and dozens, and organized elite units.

The famous Mongol cavalry could move faster than any other type of military force in the world - it covered up to 80 kilometers per day.

For many years, the Mongol army ravaged many cities and villages that crossed their path. Soon the Mongol Empire included Northern China and India, Central Asia, and then parts of the territories of Northern Iran, the Caucasus, and Rus'. The empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea.

The collapse of the largest state in the world

The conquest of the advanced forces reached Italy and Vienna, but a full-scale invasion of Western Europe never happened. Genghis Khan's grandson Batu, having learned about the death of the Great Khan, returned with his entire army to elect a new head of the empire.

During his lifetime, Genghis Khan divided his colossal lands into uluses among his sons. After his death in 1227, the world's greatest empire, covering a quarter of the world's landmass and accounting for a third of the world's population, remained unified for forty years.

However, it soon began to fall apart. The uluses separated from each other, and the independent Yuan Empire, the Hulaguid state, and the Blue and White Hordes appeared. The Mongol Empire was destroyed by administrative problems, internal struggles for power and the inability to control the state's huge population (about 160 million people).

Another problem, perhaps the most fundamental, was the motley national composition empires. The fact is that the Mongols did not dominate their state either culturally or numerically. Advanced militarily, famous horsemen and masters of intrigue, the Mongols were unable to maintain their national identity as the dominant one. The conquered peoples actively dissolved the Mongol conquerors within themselves, and when assimilation became noticeable, the country turned into fragmented territories in which, as before, they lived different peoples, never became a single nation.

Despite the fact that at the beginning of the 14th century they tried to re-create the empire as a conglomerate of independent states under the leadership of the Great Khan, it did not last long. In 1368, the Red Turban Rebellion takes place in China, as a result of which the empire disappears. Only a century later, in 1480, would the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Rus' be finally lifted.

Decay

Despite the fact that the empire had already collapsed into several states, each of them continued to fragment. This especially affected the Golden Horde. In twenty years, more than twenty-five khans changed there. Some uluses wanted to gain independence.

Russian princes took advantage of the confusion of the internecine wars of the Golden Horde: Ivan Kalita expanded his domains, and Dmitry Donskoy defeated Mamai in the Battle of Kulikovo.

In the 15th century, the Golden Horde finally broke up into the Crimean, Astrakhan, Kazan, Nogai and Siberian khanates. The legal successor of the Golden Horde was the Great or Great Horde, which was also torn apart by civil strife and wars with its neighbors. In 1502, the Crimean Khanate captured the Volga region, as a result of which the Great Horde ceased to exist. The remaining lands were divided among other fragments of the Golden Horde.

Where did the Mongols go?

There are several reasons for the disappearance of the “Tatar-Mongols”. The Mongols were culturally absorbed by the conquered peoples because they took cultural and religious politics lightly.

Moreover, the Mongols were not the majority militarily. The American historian R. Pipes writes about the size of the army of the Mongol Empire: “The army that conquered Rus' was led by the Mongols, but its ranks consisted mainly of people of Turkic origin, colloquially known as Tatars.”

Obviously, the Mongols were finally forced out by other ethnic groups, and their remnants mixed with the local population. As for the Tatar component of the incorrect term “Tatar-Mongols” - numerous peoples who lived on the lands of Asia before the arrival of the Mongols, called “Tatars” by Europeans, continued to live there after the collapse of the empire.

However, this does not mean that the nomadic Mongol warriors disappeared forever. After the collapse of Genghis Khan's empire, a new Mongol state arose - the Yuan Empire. Its capitals were Beijing and Shangdu, and during the wars the empire subjugated the territory of modern Mongolia. Some of the Mongols were subsequently expelled from China to the north, where they established themselves in the territories of modern Inner (part of China's autonomous region) and Outer Mongolia.

The traditional version of the Tatar-Mongol invasion of Rus', “Tatar- Mongol yoke”, and liberation from it is known to the reader from school. As presented by most historians, the events looked something like this. IN early XIII centuries in the steppes Far East The energetic and brave tribal leader Genghis Khan gathered a huge army of nomads, welded together by iron discipline, and rushed to conquer the world - “to the last sea.”

So was there a Tatar-Mongol yoke in Rus'?

Having conquered their closest neighbors, and then China, the mighty Tatar-Mongol horde rolled west. Having traveled about 5 thousand kilometers, the Mongols defeated Khorezm, then Georgia, and in 1223 they reached the southern outskirts of Rus', where they defeated the army of Russian princes in the battle on the Kalka River. In the winter of 1237, the Tatar-Mongols invaded Rus' with all their countless troops, burned and destroyed many Russian cities, and in 1241 they tried to conquer Western Europe, invading Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, reached the shores of the Adriatic Sea, but turned back because that they were afraid to leave Rus' in their rear, devastated, but still dangerous for them. The Tatar-Mongol yoke began.

The great poet A.S. Pushkin left heartfelt lines: “Russia was destined for a high destiny... its vast plains absorbed the power of the Mongols and stopped their invasion at the very edge of Europe; The barbarians did not dare to leave enslaved Russia in their rear and returned to the steppes of their East. The resulting enlightenment was saved by a torn and dying Russia...”

The huge Mongol power, stretching from China to the Volga, hung like an ominous shadow over Russia. The Mongol khans gave the Russian princes labels to reign, attacked Rus' many times to plunder and plunder, and repeatedly killed Russian princes in their Golden Horde.

Having strengthened over time, Rus' began to resist. In 1380, the Grand Duke of Moscow Dmitry Donskoy defeated the Horde Khan Mamai, and a century later in the so-called “stand on the Ugra” the troops of the Grand Duke Ivan III and the Horde Khan Akhmat met. The opponents camped for a long time on opposite sides of the Ugra River, after which Khan Akhmat, finally realizing that the Russians had become strong and he had little chance of winning the battle, gave the order to retreat and led his horde to the Volga. These events are considered the “end of the Tatar-Mongol yoke.”

But in last decades this classic version has been called into question. Geographer, ethnographer and historian Lev Gumilyov convincingly showed that relations between Russia and the Mongols were much more complex than the usual confrontation between cruel conquerors and their unfortunate victims. Deep knowledge in the field of history and ethnography allowed the scientist to conclude that there was a certain “complementarity” between the Mongols and Russians, that is, compatibility, the ability for symbiosis and mutual support at the cultural and ethnic level. The writer and publicist Alexander Bushkov went even further, “twisting” Gumilyov’s theory to its logical conclusion and expressing a completely original version: what is commonly called the Tatar-Mongol invasion was in fact a struggle of the descendants of Prince Vsevolod the Big Nest (son of Yaroslav and grandson of Alexander Nevsky ) with their rival princes for sole power over Russia. Khans Mamai and Akhmat were not alien raiders, but noble nobles who, according to the dynastic ties of the Russian-Tatar families, had legally valid rights to the great reign. Thus, the Battle of Kulikovo and the “stand on the Ugra” are not episodes of the struggle against foreign aggressors, but pages civil war in Rus'. Moreover, this author promulgated a completely “revolutionary” idea: under the names “Genghis Khan” and “Batu” the Russian princes Yaroslav and Alexander Nevsky appear in history, and Dmitry Donskoy is Khan Mamai himself (!).

Of course, the publicist’s conclusions are full of irony and border on postmodern “banter,” but it should be noted that many facts of the history of the Tatar-Mongol invasion and “yoke” really look too mysterious and need closer attention and unbiased research. Let's try to look at some of these mysteries.

Let's start with a general note. Western Europe in the 13th century presented a disappointing picture. The Christian world was experiencing a certain depression. The activity of Europeans shifted to the borders of their range. German feudal lords began to seize the border Slavic lands and turn their population into powerless serfs. Western Slavs, who lived along the Elbe, resisted German pressure with all their might, but the forces were unequal.

Who were the Mongols who approached the borders of the Christian world from the east? How did the powerful Mongol state appear? Let's take an excursion into its history.

At the beginning of the 13th century, in 1202-1203, the Mongols defeated first the Merkits and then the Keraits. The fact is that the Keraits were divided into supporters of Genghis Khan and his opponents. The opponents of Genghis Khan were led by the son of Van Khan, the legal heir to the throne - Nilha. He had reasons to hate Genghis Khan: even at the time when Van Khan was an ally of Genghis, he (the leader of the Keraits), seeing the latter’s undeniable talents, wanted to transfer the Kerait throne to him, bypassing own son. Thus, the clash between some of the Keraits and the Mongols occurred during Wang Khan’s lifetime. And although the Keraits had a numerical superiority, the Mongols defeated them, as they showed exceptional mobility and took the enemy by surprise.

In the clash with the Keraits, the character of Genghis Khan was fully revealed. When Wang Khan and his son Nilha fled from the battlefield, one of their noyons (military leaders) with a small detachment detained the Mongols, saving their leaders from captivity. This noyon was seized, brought before the eyes of Genghis, and he asked: “Why, noyon, seeing the position of your troops, didn’t you leave? You had both time and opportunity.” He replied: “I served my khan and gave him the opportunity to escape, and my head is for you, O conqueror.” Genghis Khan said: “Everyone must imitate this man.

Look how brave, faithful, valiant he is. I can’t kill you, noyon, I’m offering you a place in my army.” Noyon became a thousand-man and, of course, served Genghis Khan faithfully, because the Kerait horde disintegrated. Van Khan himself died while trying to escape to the Naiman. Their guards at the border, seeing Kerait, killed him, and presented the old man’s severed head to their khan.

In 1204, there was a clash between the Mongols of Genghis Khan and the powerful Naiman Khanate. And again the Mongols won. The vanquished were included in the horde of Genghis. In the eastern steppe there were no longer any tribes capable of actively resisting the new order, and in 1206, at the great kurultai, Chinggis was again elected khan, but of all Mongolia. This is how the pan-Mongolian state was born. The only tribe hostile to him remained the ancient enemies of the Borjigins - the Merkits, but by 1208 they were forced out into the valley of the Irgiz River.

The growing power of Genghis Khan allowed his horde to assimilate different tribes and peoples quite easily. Because, in accordance with Mongolian stereotypes of behavior, the khan could and should have demanded humility, obedience to orders, and fulfillment of duties, but forcing a person to renounce his faith or customs was considered immoral - the individual had the right to his own choice. This state of affairs was attractive to many. In 1209, the Uighur state sent envoys to Genghis Khan with a request to accept them into his ulus. The request was naturally granted, and Genghis Khan gave the Uyghurs enormous trading privileges. A caravan route passed through Uyghuria, and the Uyghurs, once part of the Mongol state, became rich by selling water, fruit, meat and “pleasures” to hungry caravan riders at high prices. The voluntary union of Uighuria with Mongolia turned out to be useful for the Mongols. With the annexation of Uyghuria, the Mongols went beyond the boundaries of their ethnic area and came into contact with other peoples of the ecumene.

In 1216, on the Irgiz River, the Mongols were attacked by the Khorezmians. Khorezm by that time was the most powerful of the states that arose after the weakening of the power of the Seljuk Turks. The rulers of Khorezm turned from governors of the ruler of Urgench into independent sovereigns and adopted the title of “Khorezmshahs”. They turned out to be energetic, enterprising and militant. This allowed them to conquer most of Central Asia and southern Afghanistan. The Khorezmshahs created a huge state in which the main military force were Turks from the adjacent steppes.

But the state turned out to be fragile, despite the wealth, brave warriors and experienced diplomats. The regime of the military dictatorship relied on tribes alien to the local population, who had a different language, different morals and customs. The cruelty of the mercenaries caused discontent among the residents of Samarkand, Bukhara, Merv and other Central Asian cities. The uprising in Samarkand led to the destruction of the Turkic garrison. Naturally, this was followed by a punitive operation of the Khorezmians, who brutally dealt with the population of Samarkand. Other large and wealthy cities in Central Asia were also affected.

In this situation, Khorezmshah Muhammad decided to confirm his title of “ghazi” - “victor of the infidels” - and become famous for another victory over them. The opportunity presented itself to him in the same year 1216, when the Mongols, fighting with the Merkits, reached Irgiz. Having learned about the arrival of the Mongols, Muhammad sent an army against them on the grounds that the steppe inhabitants needed to be converted to Islam.

The Khorezmian army attacked the Mongols, but in a rearguard battle they themselves went on the offensive and severely battered the Khorezmians. Only the attack of the left wing, commanded by the son of the Khorezmshah, the talented commander Jalal ad-Din, straightened the situation. After this, the Khorezmians retreated, and the Mongols returned home: they did not intend to fight with Khorezm; on the contrary, Genghis Khan wanted to establish ties with the Khorezmshah. After all, the Great Caravan Route went through Central Asia and all the owners of the lands along which it ran grew rich due to the duties paid by merchants. Merchants willingly paid duties because they passed on their costs to consumers without losing anything. Wanting to preserve all the advantages associated with the existence of caravan routes, the Mongols strove for peace and quiet on their borders. The difference of faith, in their opinion, did not give a reason for war and could not justify bloodshed. Probably, the Khorezmshah himself understood the episodic nature of the clash on Irshza. In 1218, Muhammad sent a trade caravan to Mongolia. Peace was restored, especially since the Mongols had no time for Khorezm: shortly before this, the Naiman prince Kuchluk began a new war with the Mongols.

Once again, Mongol-Khorezm relations were disrupted by the Khorezm Shah himself and his officials. In 1219, a rich caravan from the lands of Genghis Khan approached the Khorezm city of Otrar. The merchants went to the city to replenish food supplies and wash themselves in the bathhouse. There the merchants met two acquaintances, one of whom informed the city ruler that these merchants were spies. He immediately realized that there was an excellent reason to rob travelers. The merchants were killed and their property was confiscated. The ruler of Otrar sent half of the loot to Khorezm, and Muhammad accepted the loot, which means he shared responsibility for what he had done.

Genghis Khan sent envoys to find out what caused the incident. Muhammad became angry when he saw the infidels, and ordered some of the ambassadors to be killed, and some, stripped naked, to be driven out to certain death in the steppe. Two or three Mongols finally made it home and told about what had happened. Genghis Khan's anger knew no bounds. From the Mongolian point of view, two most terrible crimes: deception of those who trusted and murder of guests. According to custom, Genghis Khan could not leave unavenged either the merchants who were killed in Otrar, or the ambassadors whom the Khorezmshah insulted and killed. Khan had to fight, otherwise his fellow tribesmen would simply refuse to trust him.

In Central Asia, the Khorezmshah had at his disposal a regular army of four hundred thousand. And the Mongols, as the famous Russian orientalist V.V. Bartold believed, had no more than 200 thousand. Genghis Khan demanded military assistance from all allies. Warriors came from the Turks and Kara-Kitai, the Uyghurs sent a detachment of 5 thousand people, only the Tangut ambassador boldly replied: “If you don’t have enough troops, don’t fight.” Genghis Khan considered the answer an insult and said: “Only the dead could I bear such an insult.”

Genghis Khan sent assembled Mongolian, Uighur, Turkic and Kara-Chinese troops to Khorezm. Khorezmshah, having quarreled with his mother Turkan Khatun, did not trust the military leaders related to her. He was afraid to gather them into a fist in order to repel the onslaught of the Mongols, and scattered the army into garrisons. The best commanders of the Shah were his own unloved son Jalal ad-Din and the commandant of the Khojent fortress Timur-Melik. The Mongols took the fortresses one after another, but in Khojent, even after taking the fortress, they were unable to capture the garrison. Timur-Melik put his soldiers on rafts and escaped pursuit along the wide Syr Darya. The scattered garrisons could not hold back the advance of Genghis Khan's troops. Soon all the major cities of the sultanate - Samarkand, Bukhara, Merv, Herat - were captured by the Mongols.

Regarding the capture of Central Asian cities by the Mongols, there is an established version: “Wild nomads destroyed the cultural oases of agricultural peoples.” Is this true? This version, as L.N. Gumilev showed, is built on the legends of court Muslim historians. For example, the fall of Herat was reported by Islamic historians as a disaster in which the entire population of the city was exterminated, except for a few men who managed to escape in the mosque. They hid there, afraid to go out into the streets littered with corpses. Only wild animals roamed the city and tormented the dead. After sitting for some time and coming to their senses, these “heroes” went to distant lands to rob caravans in order to regain their lost wealth.

But is this possible? If the entire population of a large city was exterminated and lay on the streets, then inside the city, in particular in the mosque, the air would be full of corpse miasma, and those hiding there would simply die. No predators, except jackals, live near the city, and they very rarely penetrate into the city. It was simply impossible for exhausted people to move to rob caravans several hundred kilometers from Herat, because they would have to walk, carrying heavy loads - water and provisions. Such a “robber”, having met a caravan, would no longer be able to rob it...

Even more surprising is the information reported by historians about Merv. The Mongols took it in 1219 and also allegedly exterminated all the inhabitants there. But already in 1229 Merv rebelled, and the Mongols had to take the city again. And finally, two years later, Merv sent a detachment of 10 thousand people to fight the Mongols.

We see that the fruits of fantasy and religious hatred gave rise to legends of Mongol atrocities. If we take into account the degree of reliability of sources and ask simple but inevitable questions, it is easy to separate historical truth from literary fiction.

The Mongols occupied Persia almost without fighting, pushing the Khorezmshah's son Jalal ad-Din into northern India. Muhammad II Ghazi himself, broken by the struggle and constant defeats, died in a leper colony on an island in the Caspian Sea (1221). The Mongols made peace with the Shiite population of Iran, which was constantly offended by the Sunnis in power, in particular the Baghdad Caliph and Jalal ad-Din himself. As a result, the Shia population of Persia suffered significantly less than the Sunnis of Central Asia. Be that as it may, in 1221 the state of the Khorezmshahs was ended. Under one ruler - Muhammad II Ghazi - this state achieved its greatest power and perished. As a result, Khorezm, Northern Iran, and Khorasan were annexed to the Mongol Empire.

In 1226, the hour struck for the Tangut state, which, at the decisive moment of the war with Khorezm, refused to help Genghis Khan. The Mongols rightly viewed this move as a betrayal that, according to Yasa, required vengeance. The capital of Tangut was the city of Zhongxing. It was besieged by Genghis Khan in 1227, having defeated the Tangut troops in previous battles.

During the siege of Zhongxing, Genghis Khan died, but the Mongol noyons, by order of their leader, hid his death. The fortress was taken, and the population of the “evil” city, which suffered the collective guilt of betrayal, was executed. The Tangut state disappeared, leaving behind only written evidence of its former culture, but the city survived and lived until 1405, when it was destroyed by the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty.

From the capital of the Tanguts, the Mongols took the body of their great ruler to their native steppes. The funeral ritual was as follows: the remains of Genghis Khan were lowered into a dug grave, along with many valuable things, and all the slaves who performed funeral work were killed. According to custom, exactly one year later it was necessary to celebrate the wake. In order to later find the burial place, the Mongols did the following. At the grave they sacrificed a little camel that had just been taken from its mother. And a year later, the camel herself found in the vast steppe the place where her cub was killed. Having slaughtered this camel, the Mongols performed the required funeral ritual and then left the grave forever. Since then, no one knows where Genghis Khan is buried.

In the last years of his life, he was extremely concerned about the fate of his state. The khan had four sons from his beloved wife Borte and many children from other wives, who, although they were considered legitimate children, had no rights to their father’s throne. The sons from Borte differed in inclinations and character. The eldest son, Jochi, was born shortly after the Merkit captivity of Borte, and therefore not only evil tongues, but also his younger brother Chagatai called him a “Merkit degenerate.” Although Borte invariably defended Jochi, and Genghis Khan himself always recognized him as his son, the shadow of his mother’s Merkit captivity fell on Jochi with the burden of suspicion of illegitimacy. Once, in the presence of his father, Chagatai openly called Jochi illegitimate, and the matter almost ended in a fight between the brothers.

It is curious, but according to the testimony of contemporaries, Jochi’s behavior contained some stable stereotypes that greatly distinguished him from Chinggis. If for Genghis Khan there was no concept of “mercy” in relation to enemies (he left life only for small children adopted by his mother Hoelun, and valiant warriors who went into Mongol service), then Jochi was distinguished by his humanity and kindness. So, during the siege of Gurganj, the Khorezmians, completely exhausted by the war, asked to accept surrender, that is, in other words, to spare them. Jochi spoke out in favor of showing mercy, but Genghis Khan categorically rejected the request for mercy, and as a result, the garrison of Gurganj was partially slaughtered, and the city itself was flooded by the waters of the Amu Darya. The misunderstanding between the father and the eldest son, constantly fueled by the intrigues and slander of relatives, deepened over time and turned into the sovereign's mistrust of his heir. Genghis Khan suspected that Jochi wanted to gain popularity among the conquered peoples and secede from Mongolia. It is unlikely that this was the case, but the fact remains: at the beginning of 1227, Jochi, who was hunting in the steppe, was found dead - his spine was broken. The details of what happened were kept secret, but, without a doubt, Genghis Khan was a person interested in the death of Jochi and was quite capable of ending his son’s life.

In contrast to Jochi, Genghis Khan's second son, Chaga-tai, was a strict, efficient and even cruel man. Therefore, he received the position of "guardian of the Yasa" (something like an attorney general or chief judge). Chagatai strictly observed the law and treated its violators without any mercy.

The third son of the Great Khan, Ogedei, like Jochi, was distinguished by his kindness and tolerance towards people. The character of Ogedei is best illustrated by this incident: one day, on a joint trip, the brothers saw a Muslim washing himself by the water. According to Muslim custom, every believer is obliged to perform prayer and ritual ablution several times a day. Mongolian tradition, on the contrary, forbade a person to wash throughout the summer. The Mongols believed that washing in a river or lake causes a thunderstorm, and a thunderstorm in the steppe is very dangerous for travelers, and therefore “calling a thunderstorm” was considered an attempt on people’s lives. Nuker vigilantes of the ruthless zealot of the law Chagatai captured the Muslim. Anticipating a bloody outcome - the unfortunate man was in danger of having his head cut off - Ogedei sent his man to tell the Muslim to answer that he had dropped a gold piece into the water and was only looking for it there. The Muslim said so to Chagatay. He ordered to look for the coin, and during this time Ogedei’s warrior threw the gold into the water. The found coin was returned to the “rightful owner.” In parting, Ogedei, taking a handful of coins from his pocket, handed them to the saved man and said: “The next time you drop gold into the water, don’t go after it, don’t break the law.”

The youngest of Genghis' sons, Tului, was born in 1193. Since Genghis Khan was in captivity at that time, this time Borte’s infidelity was quite obvious, but Genghis Khan recognized Tuluya as his legitimate son, although he did not outwardly resemble his father.

Of Genghis Khan's four sons, the youngest had the greatest talents and showed the greatest moral dignity. A good commander and an outstanding administrator, Tuluy was also loving husband and was distinguished by nobility. He married the daughter of the deceased head of the Keraits, Van Khan, who was a devout Christian. Tuluy himself did not have the right to accept the Christian faith: like Genghisid, he had to profess the Bon religion (paganism). But the khan’s son allowed his wife not only to perform all Christian rituals in a luxurious “church” yurt, but also to have priests with her and receive monks. The death of Tuluy can be called heroic without any exaggeration. When Ogedei fell ill, Tuluy voluntarily took a powerful shamanic potion in an effort to “attract” the disease to himself, and died saving his brother.

All four sons had the right to succeed Genghis Khan. After Jochi was eliminated, there were three heirs left, and when Genghis died and a new khan had not yet been elected, Tului ruled the ulus. But at the kurultai of 1229, the gentle and tolerant Ogedei was chosen as the Great Khan, in accordance with the will of Genghis. Ogedei, as we have already mentioned, had kind soul, but the kindness of the sovereign is often not to the benefit of the state and his subjects. The management of the ulus under him was carried out mainly thanks to the severity of Chagatai and the diplomatic and administrative skills of Tuluy. The Great Khan himself preferred wanderings with hunts and feasts in Western Mongolia to state concerns.

The grandchildren of Genghis Khan were allocated various areas of the ulus or high positions. Jochi's eldest son, Orda-Ichen, received the White Horde, located between the Irtysh and the Tarbagatai ridge (the area of ​​​​present-day Semipalatinsk). The second son, Batu, began to own the Golden (Great) Horde on the Volga. The third son, Sheibani, received the Blue Horde, which roamed from Tyumen to the Aral Sea. At the same time, the three brothers - the rulers of the uluses - were allocated only one or two thousand Mongol soldiers, while the total number of the Mongol army reached 130 thousand people.

The children of Chagatai also received a thousand soldiers, and the descendants of Tului, being at court, owned the entire grandfather’s and father’s ulus. Thus, the Mongols established a system of inheritance called minorat, in which the youngest son received all the rights of his father as an inheritance, and older brothers received only a share in the common inheritance.

The Great Khan Ogedei also had a son, Guyuk, who claimed the inheritance. The expansion of the clan during the lifetime of Chingis’s children caused the division of the inheritance and enormous difficulties in managing the ulus, which stretched across the territory from the Black to the Yellow Sea. In these difficulties and family scores were hidden the seeds of future strife that destroyed the state created by Genghis Khan and his comrades.

How many Tatar-Mongols came to Rus'? Let's try to sort this issue out.

Russian pre-revolutionary historians mention a “half-million-strong Mongol army.” V. Yang, author of the famous trilogy “Genghis Khan”, “Batu” and “To the Last Sea”, names the number four hundred thousand. However, it is known that a warrior of a nomadic tribe goes on a campaign with three horses (minimum two). One carries luggage (packed rations, horseshoes, spare harness, arrows, armor), and the third needs to be changed from time to time so that one horse can rest if it suddenly has to go into battle.

Simple calculations show that for an army of half a million or four hundred thousand soldiers, at least one and a half million horses are needed. Such a herd is unlikely to be able to effectively move a long distance, since the leading horses will instantly destroy the grass over a vast area, and the rear ones will die from lack of food.

All the main invasions of the Tatar-Mongols into Rus' took place in winter, when the remaining grass was hidden under the snow, and you couldn’t take much fodder with you... The Mongolian horse really knows how to get food from under the snow, but ancient sources do not mention the horses of the Mongolian breed that existed “in service” with the horde. Horse breeding experts prove that the Tatar-Mongol horde rode Turkmens, and this is a completely different breed, looks different, and is not capable of feeding itself in the winter without human help...

In addition, the difference between a horse allowed to wander in winter without any work and a horse forced to make long journeys under a rider and also participate in battles is not taken into account. But in addition to the horsemen, they also had to carry heavy booty! The convoys followed the troops. The cattle that pull the carts also need to be fed... The picture of a huge mass of people moving in the rearguard of an army of half a million with convoys, wives and children seems quite fantastic.

The temptation for a historian to explain the Mongol campaigns of the 13th century by “migrations” is great. But modern researchers show that the Mongol campaigns were not directly related to the movements of huge masses of the population. Victories were won not by hordes of nomads, but by small, well-organized mobile detachments returning to their native steppes after campaigns. And the khans of the Jochi branch - Batu, Horde and Sheybani - received, according to the will of Genghis, only 4 thousand horsemen, i.e. about 12 thousand people settled in the territory from the Carpathians to Altai.

In the end, historians settled on thirty thousand warriors. But here, too, unanswered questions arise. And the first among them will be this: isn’t it enough? Despite the disunity of the Russian principalities, thirty thousand cavalry is too small a figure to cause “fire and ruin” throughout Rus'! After all, they (even supporters of the “classical” version admit this) did not move in a compact mass. Several detachments scattered in different directions, and this reduces the number of “innumerable Tatar hordes” to the limit beyond which elementary mistrust begins: could such a number of aggressors conquer Rus'?

It turns out to be a vicious circle: a huge Tatar-Mongol army, for purely physical reasons, would hardly be able to maintain combat capability in order to move quickly and deliver the notorious “indestructible blows.” A small army would hardly have been able to establish control over most of the territory of Rus'. To get out of this vicious circle, we have to admit: the Tatar-Mongol invasion was in fact only an episode of the bloody civil war that was going on in Rus'. The enemy forces were relatively small; they relied on their own forage reserves accumulated in the cities. And the Tatar-Mongols became an additional external factor, used in the internal struggle in the same way as the troops of the Pechenegs and Polovtsians had previously been used.

The chronicles that have reached us about the military campaigns of 1237-1238 depict the classically Russian style of these battles - the battles take place in winter, and the Mongols - the steppe inhabitants - act with amazing skill in the forests (for example, the encirclement and subsequent complete destruction on the City River of a Russian detachment under the command of the great Prince of Vladimir Yuri Vsevolodovich).

Having taken a general look at the history of the creation of the huge Mongol power, we must return to Rus'. Let us take a closer look at the situation with the Battle of the Kalka River, which is not fully understood by historians.

It was not the steppe people who represented the main danger to Kievan Rus at the turn of the 11th-12th centuries. Our ancestors were friends with the Polovtsian khans, married “red Polovtsian girls”, accepted baptized Polovtsians into their midst, and the descendants of the latter became Zaporozhye and Sloboda Cossacks, it is not for nothing that in their nicknames the traditional Slavic suffix of affiliation “ov” (Ivanov) was replaced by the Turkic one - “ enko" (Ivanenko).

At this time, a more formidable phenomenon emerged - a decline in morals, a rejection of traditional Russian ethics and morality. In 1097, a princely congress took place in Lyubech, marking the beginning of a new political form existence of the country. There it was decided that “let everyone keep his fatherland.” Rus' began to turn into a confederation of independent states. The princes swore to inviolably observe what was proclaimed and kissed the cross in this. But after the death of Mstislav, the Kiev state began to quickly disintegrate. Polotsk was the first to settle down. Then the Novgorod “republic” stopped sending money to Kyiv.

A striking example of the loss of moral values ​​and patriotic feelings was the act of Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky. In 1169, having captured Kyiv, Andrei gave the city to his warriors for three days of plunder. Until that moment, in Rus' it was customary to do this only with foreign cities. During any civil strife, such a practice was never extended to Russian cities.

Igor Svyatoslavich, a descendant of Prince Oleg, the hero of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” who became the Prince of Chernigov in 1198, set himself the goal of dealing with Kiev, a city where the rivals of his dynasty were constantly strengthening. He agreed with the Smolensk prince Rurik Rostislavich and called on the Polovtsians for help. Prince Roman Volynsky spoke in defense of Kyiv, the “mother of Russian cities,” relying on the Torcan troops allied to him.

The plan of the Chernigov prince was implemented after his death (1202). Rurik, Prince of Smolensk, and the Olgovichi with the Polovtsy in January 1203, in a battle that was fought mainly between the Polovtsy and the Torks of Roman Volynsky, gained the upper hand. Having captured Kyiv, Rurik Rostislavich subjected the city to a terrible defeat. The Tithe Church and the Kiev Pechersk Lavra were destroyed, and the city itself was burned. “They have created a great evil that has not existed since baptism in the Russian land,” the chronicler left a message.

After the fateful year of 1203, Kyiv never recovered.

According to L.N. Gumilyov, by this time the ancient Russians had lost their passionarity, that is, their cultural and energetic “charge”. In such conditions, a clash with a strong enemy could not but become tragic for the country.

Meanwhile, the Mongol regiments were approaching the Russian borders. At that time, the main enemy of the Mongols in the west was the Cumans. Their enmity began in 1216, when the Cumans accepted the blood enemies of Genghis - the Merkits. The Polovtsians actively pursued their anti-Mongol policy, constantly supporting the Finno-Ugric tribes hostile to the Mongols. At the same time, the Cumans of the steppe were as mobile as the Mongols themselves. Seeing the futility of cavalry clashes with the Cumans, the Mongols sent an expeditionary force behind enemy lines.

Talented commanders Subetei and Jebe led a corps of three tumens across the Caucasus. The Georgian king George Lasha tried to attack them, but was destroyed along with his army. The Mongols managed to capture the guides who showed the way through the Daryal Gorge. So they went to the upper reaches of the Kuban, to the rear of the Polovtsians. They, having discovered the enemy in their rear, retreated to the Russian border and asked for help from the Russian princes.

It should be noted that the relations between Rus' and the Polovtsians do not fit into the scheme of irreconcilable confrontation “settled people - nomads”. In 1223, the Russian princes became allies of the Polovtsians. The three strongest princes of Rus' - Mstislav the Udaloy from Galich, Mstislav of Kiev and Mstislav of Chernigov - gathered troops and tried to protect them.

The clash on Kalka in 1223 is described in some detail in the chronicles; In addition, there is another source - “The Tale of the Battle of Kalka, and of the Russian Princes, and of the Seventy Heroes.” However, the abundance of information does not always bring clarity...

Historical science has long not denied the fact that the events on Kalka were not the aggression of evil aliens, but an attack by the Russians. The Mongols themselves did not seek war with Russia. The ambassadors who arrived to the Russian princes quite friendly asked the Russians not to interfere in their relations with the Polovtsians. But, true to their allied obligations, the Russian princes rejected peace proposals. In doing so, they made a fatal mistake that had bitter consequences. All the ambassadors were killed (according to some sources, they were not just killed, but “tortured”). At all times, the murder of an ambassador or envoy was considered a serious crime; According to Mongolian law, deceiving someone who trusted was an unforgivable crime.

Following this Russian army goes on a long journey. Having left the borders of Rus', it first attacks the Tatar camp, takes booty, steals cattle, after which it moves outside its territory for another eight days. Happens on the Kalka River decisive battle: An eighty-thousand-strong Russian-Polovtsian army attacked a twenty-thousand (!) detachment of Mongols. This battle was lost by the Allies due to their inability to coordinate their actions. The Polovtsy left the battlefield in panic. Mstislav Udaloy and his “younger” prince Daniil fled across the Dnieper; They were the first to reach the shore and managed to jump into the boats. At the same time, the prince chopped up the rest of the boats, fearing that the Tatars would be able to cross after him, “and, filled with fear, I reached Galich on foot.” Thus, he doomed his comrades, whose horses were worse than princely horses, to death. The enemies killed everyone they overtook.

The other princes are left alone with the enemy, fight off his attacks for three days, after which, believing the assurances of the Tatars, they surrender. There's another mystery here. It turns out that the princes surrendered after a certain Russian named Ploskinya, who was in the enemy’s battle formations, solemnly kissed the pectoral cross that the Russians would be spared and their blood would not be shed. The Mongols, according to their custom, kept their word: having tied up the captives, they laid them on the ground, covered them with planks and sat down to feast on the bodies. Not a drop of blood was actually shed! And the latter, according to Mongolian views, was considered extremely important. (By the way, only the “Tale of the Battle of Kalka” reports that the captured princes were put under planks. Other sources write that the princes were simply killed without mockery, and still others that they were “captured.” So the story with a feast on the bodies is just one version.)

Different peoples perceive the rule of law and the concept of honesty differently. The Russians believed that the Mongols, by killing the captives, broke their oath. But from the point of view of the Mongols, they kept their oath, and the execution was the highest justice, because the princes committed the terrible sin of killing someone who trusted them. Therefore, the point is not in deceit (history provides a lot of evidence of how the Russian princes themselves violated the “kiss of the cross”), but in the personality of Ploskini himself - a Russian, a Christian, who somehow mysteriously found himself among the warriors of the “unknown people”.

Why did the Russian princes surrender after listening to Ploskini’s entreaties? “The Tale of the Battle of Kalka” writes: “There were also wanderers along with the Tatars, and their commander was Ploskinya.” Brodniks are Russian free warriors who lived in those places, the predecessors of the Cossacks. However, establishing social status Ploschini only confuses the matter. It turns out that the wanderers in a short time managed to come to an agreement with the “unknown peoples” and became so close to them that they jointly struck at their brothers in blood and faith? One thing can be stated with certainty: part of the army with which the Russian princes fought on Kalka was Slavic, Christian.

The Russian princes in this whole story do not look in the best possible way. But let's return to our riddles. For some reason, the “Tale of the Battle of Kalka” that we mentioned is not able to definitely name the enemy of the Russians! Here is the quote: “...Because of our sins, unknown peoples came, the godless Moabites [symbolic name from the Bible], about whom no one knows exactly who they are and where they came from, and what their language is, and what tribe they are, and what faith. And they call them Tatars, while others say Taurmen, and others say Pechenegs.”

Amazing lines! They were written much later than the events described, when it was supposed to be known exactly who the Russian princes fought on Kalka. After all, part of the army (albeit a small one) nevertheless returned from Kalka. Moreover, the victors, pursuing the defeated Russian regiments, chased them to Novgorod-Svyatopolch (on the Dnieper), where they attacked the civilian population, so that among the townspeople there should have been witnesses who saw the enemy with their own eyes. And yet he remains “unknown”! This statement further confuses the matter. After all, by the time described, the Polovtsians were well known in Rus' - they lived nearby for many years, then fought, then became related... The Taurmen - a nomadic Turkic tribe that lived in the Northern Black Sea region - were again well known to the Russians. It is curious that in the “Tale of Igor’s Campaign” certain “Tatars” are mentioned among the nomadic Turks who served the Chernigov prince.

One gets the impression that the chronicler is hiding something. For some reason unknown to us, he does not want to directly name the Russian enemy in that battle. Maybe the battle on Kalka is not a clash with unknown peoples at all, but one of the episodes of the internecine war waged among themselves by Russian Christians, Polovtsian Christians and the Tatars who got involved in the matter?

After the Battle of Kalka, some of the Mongols turned their horses to the east, trying to report on the completion of the assigned task - the victory over the Cumans. But on the banks of the Volga, the army was ambushed by the Volga Bulgars. The Muslims, who hated the Mongols as pagans, unexpectedly attacked them during the crossing. Here the victors at Kalka were defeated and lost many people. Those who managed to cross the Volga left the steppes to the east and united with the main forces of Genghis Khan. Thus ended the first meeting of the Mongols and Russians.

L.N. Gumilyov collected a huge amount of material, clearly demonstrating that the relationship between Russia and the Horde CAN be described by the word “symbiosis”. After Gumilev, they write especially a lot and often about how Russian princes and “Mongol khans” became brothers-in-law, relatives, sons-in-law and fathers-in-law, how they went on joint military campaigns, how (let’s call a spade a spade) they were friends. Relations of this kind are unique in their own way - the Tatars did not behave this way in any country they conquered. This symbiosis, brotherhood in arms leads to such an interweaving of names and events that sometimes it is even difficult to understand where the Russians end and the Tatars begin...

Therefore, the question of whether there was a Tatar-Mongol yoke in Rus' (in the classical sense of the term) remains open. This topic awaits its researchers.

When it comes to “standing on the Ugra”, we are again faced with omissions and omissions. As those who diligently studied a school or university history course will remember, in 1480 the troops of the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III, the first “sovereign of all Rus'” (ruler of the united state) and the hordes of the Tatar Khan Akhmat stood on the opposite banks of the Ugra River. After a long “standing”, the Tatars fled for some reason, and this event marked the end of the Horde yoke in Rus'.

There are many dark places in this story. Let's start with the fact that famous painting, which even found its way into school textbooks - “Ivan III tramples the Khan’s basma” - was written on the basis of a legend composed 70 years after the “standing on the Ugra”. In reality, the Khan's ambassadors did not come to Ivan and he did not solemnly tear up any basma letter in their presence.

But here again an enemy is coming to Rus', an infidel who, according to contemporaries, threatens the very existence of Rus'. Well, everyone is preparing to fight back the adversary in a single impulse? No! We are faced with a strange passivity and confusion of opinions. With the news of Akhmat's approach, something happens in Rus' that still has no explanation. These events can be reconstructed only from scanty, fragmentary data.

It turns out that Ivan III does not at all seek to fight the enemy. Khan Akhmat is far away, hundreds of kilometers away, and Ivan’s wife, Grand Duchess Sophia, is fleeing Moscow, for which she receives accusatory epithets from the chronicler. Moreover, at the same time some strange events are unfolding in the principality. “The Tale of Standing on the Ugra” tells about it this way: “That same winter, Grand Duchess Sophia returned from her escape, for she fled to Beloozero from the Tatars, although no one was chasing her.” And then - even more mysterious words about these events, in fact the only mention of them: “And those lands through which she wandered became worse than from the Tatars, from the boyar slaves, from the Christian bloodsuckers. Reward them, Lord, according to the deceit of their actions, give them according to the works of their hands, for they loved wives more than the Orthodox Christian faith and the holy churches, and they agreed to betray Christianity, for their malice blinded them.”

What are we talking about? What was happening in the country? What actions of the boyars brought upon them accusations of “blood drinking” and apostasy from the faith? We practically do not know what was discussed. Some light is shed by reports about the “evil advisers” of the Grand Duke, who advised not to fight the Tatars, but to “run away” (?!). Even the names of the “advisers” are known: Ivan Vasilyevich Oshera Sorokoumov-Glebov and Grigory Andreevich Mamon. The most curious thing is that the Grand Duke himself does not see anything reprehensible in the behavior of his fellow boyars, and subsequently not a shadow of disfavor falls on them: after “standing on the Ugra” both remain in favor until their death, receiving new awards and positions.

What's the matter? It is completely dull and vague that it is reported that Oshera and Mamon, defending their point of view, mentioned the need to preserve a certain “antiquity”. In other words, the Grand Duke must give up resistance to Akhmat in order to observe some ancient traditions! It turns out that Ivan violates certain traditions by deciding to resist, and Akhmat, accordingly, acts in his own right? There is no other way to explain this mystery.

Some scientists have suggested: maybe we are facing a purely dynastic dispute? Once again, two people are vying for the Moscow throne - representatives of the relatively young North and the more ancient South, and Akhmat, it seems, has no less rights than his rival!

And here the Rostov Bishop Vassian Rylo intervenes in the situation. It is his efforts that turn the situation around, it is he who pushes the Grand Duke to go on a campaign. Bishop Vassian begs, insists, appeals to the prince’s conscience, gives historical examples, and hints that the Orthodox Church may turn away from Ivan. This wave of eloquence, logic and emotion is aimed at convincing the Grand Duke to come out to defend his country! What the Grand Duke for some reason stubbornly refuses to do...

The Russian army, to the triumph of Bishop Vassian, leaves for the Ugra. Ahead lies a long, several-month standstill. And again something strange happens. First, negotiations begin between the Russians and Akhmat. The negotiations are quite unusual. Akhmat wants to do business with the Grand Duke himself, but the Russians refuse. Akhmat makes a concession: he asks that the brother or son of the Grand Duke arrive - the Russians refuse. Akhmat concedes again: now he agrees to speak with a “simple” ambassador, but for some reason this ambassador must certainly become Nikifor Fedorovich Basenkov. (Why him? A mystery.) The Russians refuse again.

It turns out that for some reason they are not interested in negotiations. Akhmat makes concessions, for some reason he needs to come to an agreement, but the Russians reject all his proposals. Modern historians explain it this way: Akhmat “intended to demand tribute.” But if Akhmat was only interested in tribute, why such long negotiations? It was enough to send some Baskak. No, everything indicates that we are faced with some big and dark secret that does not fit into the usual patterns.

Finally, about the mystery of the retreat of the “Tatars” from the Ugra. Today, in historical science, there are three versions of not even a retreat - Akhmat’s hasty flight from the Ugra.

1. A series of “fierce battles” undermined the morale of the Tatars.

(Most historians reject this, rightly stating that there were no battles. There were only minor skirmishes, clashes of small detachments “in no man’s land.”)

2. The Russians used firearms, which led the Tatars into panic.

(Hardly: by this time the Tatars already had firearms. The Russian chronicler, describing the capture of the city of Bulgar by the Moscow army in 1378, mentions that the residents “let thunder from the walls.”)

3. Akhmat was “afraid” of a decisive battle.

But here's another version. It is extracted from a historical work of the 17th century, written by Andrei Lyzlov.

“The lawless tsar [Akhmat], unable to endure his shame, in the summer of the 1480s gathered a considerable force: princes, and lancers, and Murzas, and princes, and quickly came to the Russian borders. In his Horde he left only those who could not wield weapons. The Grand Duke, after consulting with the boyars, decided to do a good deed. Knowing that in the Great Horde, from where the king came, there was no army left at all, he secretly sent his numerous army to the Great Horde, to the dwellings of the filthy. At their head were the service Tsar Urodovlet Gorodetsky and Prince Gvozdev, the governor of Zvenigorod. The king did not know about it.

They, in boats along the Volga, sailed to the Horde, saw that there were no military people there, but only women, old men and youths. And they began to captivate and devastate, mercilessly putting the filthy wives and children to death, setting their homes on fire. And, of course, they could kill every single one of them.

But Murza Oblyaz the Strong, Gorodetsky’s servant, whispered to his king, saying: “O king! It would be absurd to completely devastate and destroy this great kingdom, because this is where you yourself come from, and all of us, and here is our homeland. Let’s leave here, we’ve already caused enough destruction, and God may be angry with us.”

So the glorious Orthodox army returned from the Horde and came to Moscow with a great victory, having with them a lot of booty and a considerable amount of food. The king, having learned about all this, immediately retreated from Ugra and fled to the Horde.”

Does it not follow from this that the Russian side deliberately delayed the negotiations - while Akhmat was trying for a long time to achieve his unclear goals, making concession after concession, Russian troops sailed along the Volga to the capital of Akhmat and chopped down women, children and old people there, until the commanders woke up - like a conscience! Please note: it is not said that Voivode Gvozdev opposed the decision of Urodovlet and Oblyaz to stop the massacre. Apparently he was also fed up with blood. Naturally, Akhmat, having learned about the defeat of his capital, retreated from Ugra, hurrying home with all possible speed. What next?

A year later, the “Horde” is attacked with an army by the “Nogai Khan” named... Ivan! Akhmat was killed, his troops were defeated. Another evidence of the deep symbiosis and fusion of Russians and Tatars... The sources also contain another option for the death of Akhmat. According to him, a certain close associate of Akhmat named Temir, having received rich gifts from the Grand Duke of Moscow, killed Akhmat. This version is of Russian origin.

It is interesting that the army of Tsar Urodovlet, who carried out a pogrom in the Horde, is called “Orthodox” by the historian. It seems that we have before us another argument in favor of the version that the Horde members who served the Moscow princes were not Muslims at all, but Orthodox.

And one more aspect is of interest. Akhmat, according to Lyzlov, and Urodovlet are “kings”. And Ivan III is only the “Grand Duke”. Writer's inaccuracy? But at the time when Lyzlov wrote his history, the title “tsar” was already firmly attached to the Russian autocrats, had a specific “binding” and exact value. Further, in all other cases Lyzlov does not allow himself such “liberties.” Western European kings are “kings”, Turkish sultans are “sultans”, padishah is “padishah”, cardinal is “cardinal”. Is it possible that the title of Archduke was given by Lyzlov in the translation “Artsy prince”. But this is a translation, not an error.

Thus, in the late Middle Ages there was a system of titles that reflected certain political realities, and today we are quite aware of this system. But it is not clear why two seemingly identical Horde nobles are called one “prince” and the other “Murza”, why “Tatar prince” and “Tatar khan” are by no means the same thing. Why are there so many holders of the title “tsar” among the Tatars, and why are Moscow sovereigns persistently called “grand princes?” Only in 1547, Ivan the Terrible for the first time in Rus' took the title “tsar” - and, as Russian chronicles extensively report, he did this only after much persuasion from the patriarch.

Are the campaigns of Mamai and Akhmat against Moscow explained by the fact that, according to certain rules that were perfectly understood by contemporaries, the “tsar” was higher than the “grand duke” and had more rights to the throne? What did some dynastic system, now forgotten, declare itself to be here?

It is interesting that in 1501 the Crimean king Chess, having been defeated in internecine war, for some reason he expected that the Kiev prince Dmitry Putyatich would come out on his side, probably due to some special political and dynastic relations between the Russians and the Tatars. It is not known exactly which ones.

And finally, one of the mysteries of Russian history. In 1574, Ivan the Terrible divided Russian kingdom into two halves; he rules one himself, and transfers the other to Kasimov’s Tsar Simeon Bekbulatovich - along with the titles of “Tsar and Grand Duke of Moscow”!

Historians still do not have a generally accepted convincing explanation for this fact. Some say that Grozny, as usual, mocked the people and those close to him, others believe that Ivan IV thus “transferred” his own debts, mistakes and obligations to the new tsar. Could we not be talking about joint rule, which had to be resorted to due to the same complicated ancient dynastic relations? Maybe, last time in Russian history these systems made themselves known.

Simeon was not, as many historians previously believed, a “weak-willed puppet” of Ivan the Terrible - on the contrary, he was one of the largest state and military figures of that time. And after the two kingdoms again united into one, Grozny by no means “exiled” Simeon to Tver. Simeon was granted the title of Grand Duke of Tver. But Tver in the time of Ivan the Terrible was a recently pacified hotbed of separatism, which required special supervision, and the one who ruled Tver certainly had to be Ivan the Terrible’s confidant.

And finally, strange troubles befell Simeon after the death of Ivan the Terrible. With the accession of Fyodor Ioannovich, Simeon was “removed” from the reign of Tver, blinded (a measure that in Rus' from time immemorial was applied exclusively to rulers who had rights to the table!), and was forcibly tonsured a monk of the Kirillov Monastery (also a traditional way to eliminate a competitor to the secular throne! ). But this turns out to be not enough: I.V. Shuisky sends a blind elderly monk to Solovki. One gets the impression that the Moscow Tsar was in this way getting rid of a dangerous competitor who had significant rights. A contender for the throne? Are Simeon's rights to the throne really not inferior to the rights of the Rurikovichs? (It is interesting that Elder Simeon survived his tormentors. Returned from Solovetsky exile by decree of Prince Pozharsky, he died only in 1616, when neither Fyodor Ioannovich, nor False Dmitry I, nor Shuisky was alive.)

So, all these stories - Mamai, Akhmat and Simeon - are more like episodes of the struggle for the throne, and not like a war with foreign conquerors, and in this respect they resemble similar intrigues around one or another throne in Western Europe. And those whom we have become accustomed to considering since childhood as “the deliverers of the Russian land”, perhaps, actually solved their dynastic problems and eliminated their rivals?

Many members of the editorial board are personally acquainted with the inhabitants of Mongolia, who were surprised to learn about their supposed 300-year rule over Russia. Of course, this news filled the Mongols with a sense of national pride, but at the same time they asked: “Who is Genghis Khan?”

from the magazine "Vedic Culture No. 2"

In the chronicles of the Orthodox Old Believers it is said unequivocally about the “Tatar-Mongol yoke”: “There was Fedot, but not the same one.” Let's turn to the Old Slovenian language. By adapting runic images to modern perception, we get: thief - enemy, robber; Mughal - powerful; yoke - order. It turns out that the “Tata of the Aryans” (from the point of view of the Christian flock), with the light hand of the chroniclers, were called “Tatars”1, (There is another meaning: “Tata” is the father. Tatar - Tata of the Aryans, i.e. Fathers (Ancestors or older) Aryans) powerful - by the Mongols, and the yoke - the 300-year-old order in the State, which stopped the bloody civil war that broke out on the basis of the forced baptism of Rus' - “holy martyrdom”. Horde is a derivative of the word Order, where “Or” is strength, and day is the daylight hours or simply “light.” Accordingly, the “Order” is the Power of Light, and the “Horde” is the Light Forces. So these Light Forces of the Slavs and Aryans, led by our Gods and Ancestors: Rod, Svarog, Sventovit, Perun, stopped the civil war in Russia on the basis of forced Christianization and maintained order in the State for 300 years. Were there dark-haired, stocky, dark-skinned, hook-nosed, narrow-eyed, bow-legged and very angry warriors in the Horde? Were. Mercenary squads different nationalities, which, like in any other army, were driven in the front ranks, preserving the main Slavic-Aryan Troops from losses on the front line.

Hard to believe? Take a look at the "Map of Russia 1594" in Gerhard Mercator's Atlas of the Country. All the countries of Scandinavia and Denmark were part of Russia, which extended only to the mountains, and the Principality of Muscovy is shown as an independent state not part of Rus'. In the east, beyond the Urals, the principalities of Obdora, Siberia, Yugoria, Grustina, Lukomorye, Belovodye are depicted, which were part of the Ancient Power of the Slavs and Aryans - Great (Grand) Tartaria (Tartaria - lands under the patronage of the God Tarkh Perunovich and the Goddess Tara Perunovna - Son and Daughter of the Supreme God Perun - Ancestor of the Slavs and Aryans).

Do you need a lot of intelligence to draw an analogy: Great (Grand) Tartaria = Mogolo + Tartaria = “Mongol-Tataria”? We do not have a high-quality image of the named painting, we only have the “Map of Asia 1754.” But this is even better! See for yourself. Not only in the 13th, but until the 18th century, Grand (Mogolo) Tartary existed as real as the faceless Russian Federation now.

The “history scribblers” were not able to distort and hide everything from the people. Their repeatedly darned and patched “Trishka caftan”, covering the Truth, is constantly bursting at the seams. Through the gaps, the Truth reaches the consciousness of our contemporaries bit by bit. They do not have truthful information, so they are often mistaken in the interpretation of certain factors, but they draw the right general conclusion: what they taught school teachers to several dozen generations of Russians - deception, slander, falsehood.

Published article from S.M.I. “There was no Tatar-Mongol invasion” is a striking example of the above. Commentary on it from a member of our editorial board, Gladilin E.A. will help you, dear readers, dot the i's.
Violetta Basha,
All-Russian newspaper “My Family”,
No. 3, January 2003. p.26

The main source by which we can judge the history of Ancient Rus' is considered to be the Radzivilov manuscript: “The Tale of Bygone Years.” The story about the calling of the Varangians to rule in Rus' is taken from it. But can she be trusted? Its copy was brought at the beginning of the 18th century by Peter 1 from Konigsberg, then its original ended up in Russia. It has now been proven that this manuscript is forged. Thus, it is not known for certain what happened in Rus' before the beginning of the 17th century, that is, before the accession to the throne of the Romanov dynasty. But why did the House of Romanovs need to rewrite our history? Is it not to prove to the Russians that they have been subordinate to the Horde for a long time and are not capable of independence, that their destiny is drunkenness and obedience?

Strange behavior of princes

The classic version of the “Mongol-Tatar invasion of Rus'” has been known to many since school. She looks like this. At the beginning of the 13th century, in the Mongolian steppes, Genghis Khan gathered a huge army of nomads, subject to iron discipline, and planned to conquer the whole world. Having defeated China, Genghis Khan's army rushed to the west, and in 1223 it reached the south of Rus', where it defeated the squads of Russian princes on the Kalka River. In the winter of 1237, the Tatar-Mongols invaded Rus', burned many cities, then invaded Poland, the Czech Republic and reached the shores of the Adriatic Sea, but suddenly turned back because they were afraid to leave devastated, but still dangerous Rus' in their rear. The Tatar-Mongol yoke began in Rus'. The huge Golden Horde had borders from Beijing to the Volga and collected tribute from the Russian princes. The khans gave the Russian princes labels to reign and terrorized the population with atrocities and robberies.

Even the official version says that there were many Christians among the Mongols and some Russian princes established very warm relations with the Horde khans. Another oddity: with the help of the Horde troops, some princes remained on the throne. The princes were very close people to the khans. And in some cases, the Russians fought on the side of the Horde. Aren't there a lot of strange things? Is this how the Russians should have treated the occupiers?

Having strengthened, Rus' began to resist, and in 1380 Dmitry Donskoy defeated the Horde Khan Mamai on the Kulikovo Field, and a century later the troops of Grand Duke Ivan III and the Horde Khan Akhmat met. The opponents camped for a long time on opposite sides of the Ugra River, after which the khan realized that he had no chance, gave the order to retreat and went to the Volga. These events are considered the end of the “Tatar-Mongol yoke.”

Secrets of the disappeared chronicles

When studying the chronicles of the Horde times, scientists had many questions. Why did dozens of chronicles disappear without a trace during the reign of the Romanov dynasty? For example, “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land,” according to historians, resembles a document from which everything that would indicate the yoke was carefully removed. They left only fragments telling about a certain “trouble” that befell Rus'. But there is not a word about the “invasion of the Mongols.”

There are many more strange things. In the story “about the evil Tatars,” the khan from the Golden Horde orders the execution of a Russian Christian prince... for refusing to worship the “pagan god of the Slavs!” And some chronicles contain amazing phrases, for example: “Well, with God!” - said the khan and, crossing himself, galloped towards the enemy.

Why are there suspiciously many Christians among the Tatar-Mongols? And the descriptions of princes and warriors look unusual: the chronicles claim that most of them were of the Caucasian type, had not narrow, but large gray or blue eyes and light brown hair.

Another paradox: why suddenly the Russian princes in the Battle of Kalka surrender “on parole” to a representative of foreigners named Ploskinia, and he... kisses the pectoral cross?! This means that Ploskinya was one of his own, Orthodox and Russian, and, moreover, of a noble family!

Not to mention the fact that the number of “war horses”, and therefore the warriors of the Horde army, was initially, with the light hand of historians of the House of Romanov, estimated at three hundred to four hundred thousand. Such a number of horses could neither hide in the copses nor feed themselves in the conditions of a long winter! For last century Historians continually reduced the number of the Mongol army and reached thirty thousand. But such an army could not keep all the peoples from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean in subjection! But it could easily perform the functions of collecting taxes and establishing order, that is, serving as something like a police force.

There was no invasion!

A number of scientists, including academician Anatoly Fomenko, made a sensational conclusion based on a mathematical analysis of the manuscripts: there was no invasion from the territory of modern Mongolia! And there was a civil war in Rus', the princes fought with each other. There were no traces of any representatives of the Mongoloid race who came to Rus'. Yes, there were individual Tatars in the army, but not aliens, but residents of the Volga region, who lived in the neighborhood of the Russians long before the notorious “invasion.”

What is commonly called the “Tatar-Mongol invasion” was in fact a struggle between the descendants of Prince Vsevolod the “Big Nest” and their rivals for sole power over Russia. The fact of war between princes is generally recognized; unfortunately, Rus' did not unite immediately, and quite strong rulers fought among themselves.

But who did Dmitry Donskoy fight with? In other words, who is Mamai?

Horde - the name of the Russian army

The era of the Golden Horde was distinguished by the fact that, along with secular power, there was a strong military power. There were two rulers: a secular one, called the prince, and a military one, he was called the khan, i.e. "military leader" In the chronicles you can find the following entry: “There were also wanderers along with the Tatars, and their governor was so-and-so,” that is, the Horde troops were led by governors! And the Brodniks are Russian free warriors, the predecessors of the Cossacks.

Authoritative scientists have concluded that the Horde is the name of the Russian regular army (like the “Red Army”). And Tatar-Mongolia is Great Rus' itself. It turns out that it was not the “Mongols”, but the Russians who conquered a vast territory from the Pacific to Atlantic Ocean and from the Arctic to the Indian. It was our troops who made Europe tremble. Most likely, it was fear of the powerful Russians that became the reason that the Germans rewrote Russian history and turned their national humiliation into ours.

By the way, the German word “Ordnung” (“order”) most likely comes from the word “horde.” The word "Mongol" probably comes from the Latin "megalion", that is, "great". Tataria from the word “tartar” (“hell, horror”). And Mongol-Tataria (or “Megalion-Tartaria”) can be translated as “Great Horror.”

A few more words about names. Most people of that time had two names: one in the world, and the other received at baptism or a military nickname. According to the scientists who proposed this version, Prince Yaroslav and his son Alexander Nevsky act under the names of Genghis Khan and Batu. Ancient sources depict Genghis Khan as tall, with a luxurious long beard, and “lynx-like” green-yellow eyes. Note that people of the Mongoloid race do not have a beard at all. The Persian historian of the Horde, Rashid al-Din, writes that in the family of Genghis Khan, children “were mostly born with gray eyes and blond hair.”

Genghis Khan, according to scientists, is Prince Yaroslav. He just had a middle name - Genghis with the prefix “khan”, which meant “warlord”. Batu is his son Alexander (Nevsky). In the manuscripts you can find the following phrase: “Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky, nicknamed Batu.” By the way, according to the description of his contemporaries, Batu had fair hair, a light beard and light eyes! It turns out that it was the Horde khan who defeated the crusaders on Lake Peipsi!

Having studied the chronicles, scientists discovered that Mamai and Akhmat were also noble nobles, who, according to the dynastic ties of the Russian-Tatar families, had the right to a great reign. Accordingly, “Mamaevo’s Massacre” and “Standing on the Ugra” are episodes of the civil war in Rus', the struggle of princely families for power.

Which Rus' did the Horde go to?

The records do say; "The Horde went to Rus'." But in the 12th-13th centuries, Russia was the name given to a relatively small territory around Kyiv, Chernigov, Kursk, the area near the Ros River, and Seversk land. But Muscovites or, say, Novgorodians were already northern inhabitants who, according to the same ancient chronicles, often “traveled to Rus'” from Novgorod or Vladimir! That is, for example, to Kyiv.

Therefore, when the Moscow prince was about to go on a campaign against his southern neighbor, this could be called an “invasion of Rus'” by his “horde” (troops). It is not for nothing that on Western European maps for a very long time Russian lands were divided into “Muscovy” (north) and “Russia” (south).

Grand falsification

At the beginning of the 18th century, Peter 1 founded the Russian Academy of Sciences. On historical department Over the 120 years of its existence, the Academy of Sciences has had 33 academic historians. Of these, only three are Russians, including M.V. Lomonosov, the rest are Germans. The history of Ancient Rus' until the beginning of the 17th century was written by the Germans, and some of them did not even know Russian! This fact is well known to professional historians, but they make no effort to carefully review what kind of history the Germans wrote.

It is known that M.V. Lomonosov wrote the history of Rus' and that he had constant disputes with German academics. After Lomonosov's death, his archives disappeared without a trace. However, his works on the history of Rus' were published, but under the editorship of Miller. Meanwhile, it was Miller who persecuted M.V. Lomonosov during his lifetime! The works of Lomonosov on the history of Rus' published by Miller are falsifications, this was shown by computer analysis. There is little left of Lomonosov in them.

As a result, we do not know our history. The Germans of the House of Romanov hammered into our heads that the Russian peasant was good for nothing. That “he doesn’t know how to work, that he’s a drunkard and an eternal slave.

Golden Horde- one of the saddest pages in Russian history. Some time after the victory in Battle of Kalka, the Mongols began to prepare a new invasion of Russian lands, having studied the tactics and characteristics of the future enemy.

Golden Horde.

The Golden Horde (Ulus Juni) was formed in 1224 as a result of the division Mongol Empire Genghis Khan between his sons to the western and eastern parts. The Golden Horde became the western part of the empire from 1224 to 1266. Under the new khan, Mengu-Timur became virtually (although not formally) independent from the Mongol Empire.

Like many states of that era, in the 15th century it experienced feudal fragmentation and as a result (and there were a lot of enemies offended by the Mongols) by the 16th century it finally ceased to exist.

In the 14th century state religion Islam became the Mongol Empire. It is noteworthy that in the territories under their control the Horde khans (including in Rus') did not particularly impose their religion. The concept of “Golden” became established among the Horde only in the 16th century because of the golden tents of its khans.

Tatar-Mongol yoke.

Tatar-Mongol yoke, just like Mongol-Tatar yoke, - not entirely true from a historical point of view. Genghis Khan considered the Tatars his main enemies, and destroyed most of them (almost all) tribes, while the rest submitted to the Mongol Empire. The number of Tatars in the Mongol troops was scanty, but due to the fact that the empire occupied all the former lands of the Tatars, Genghis Khan’s troops began to be called Tatar-Mongolian or Mongol-Tatar conquerors. In reality, it was about Mongol yoke.

So, the Mongolian, or Horde, yoke is a system of political dependence of Ancient Rus' on the Mongol Empire, and a little later on the Golden Horde as a separate state. The complete elimination of the Mongol yoke occurred only at the beginning of the 15th century, although the actual one was somewhat earlier.

The Mongol invasion began after the death of Genghis Khan Batu Khan(or Khan Batu) in 1237. The main Mongol troops converged on the territories near present-day Voronezh, which had previously been controlled by the Volga Bulgars until they were almost destroyed by the Mongols.

In 1237 Golden Horde captured Ryazan and destroyed the entire Ryazan principality, including small villages and towns.

In January-March 1238, the same fate befell the Vladimir-Suzdal principality and Pereyaslavl-Zalessky. The last to be taken were Tver and Torzhok. There was a threat of taking the Novgorod principality, but after the capture of Torzhok on March 5, 1238, less than 100 km from Novgorod, the Mongols turned around and returned to the steppes.

Until the end of 38, the Mongols only made periodic raids, and in 1239 they moved to Southern Rus' and took Chernigov on October 18, 1239. Putivl (the scene of “Yaroslavna’s Lament”), Glukhov, Rylsk and other cities on the territory of what is now Sumy, Kharkov and Belgorod regions were destroyed.

In the same year Ögedey(the next ruler of the Mongol Empire after Genghis Khan) sent additional troops to Batu from Transcaucasia and in the fall of 1240 Batu Khan besieged Kyiv, having previously plundered all the surrounding lands. The Kyiv, Volyn and Galician principalities at that time were ruled by Danila Galitsky, son of Roman Mstislavovich, who at that moment was in Hungary, unsuccessfully trying to conclude an alliance with the Hungarian king. Perhaps later, the Hungarians regretted their refusal to Prince Danil, when Batu's Horde captured all of Poland and Hungary. Kyiv was taken by early December 1240 after several weeks of siege. The Mongols began to control most of Rus', including even those areas (on an economic and political level) that they did not capture.

Kyiv, Vladimir, Suzdal, Tver, Chernigov, Ryazan, Pereyaslavl and many other cities were completely or partially destroyed.

An economic and cultural decline set in in Rus' - this explains the almost complete absence of chronicles of contemporaries, and as a result - a lack of information for today's historians.

For some time, the Mongols were distracted from Rus' due to raids and invasions of Polish, Lithuanian, Hungarian and other European lands.

3 The emergence and development of the Old Russian state (IX - beginning of the 12th century). The emergence of the Old Russian state is traditionally associated with the unification of the Ilmen region and the Dnieper region as a result of the campaign against Kyiv by the Novgorod prince Oleg in 882. Having killed Askold and Dir, who reigned in Kyiv, Oleg began to rule on behalf of the young son of Prince Rurik, Igor. The formation of the state was the result of long and complex processes that took place over vast areas of the East European Plain in the second half of the 1st millennium AD. By the 7th century East Slavic tribal unions settled in its vastness, the names and location of which are known to historians from the ancient Russian chronicle “The Tale of Bygone Years” by the Monk Nestor (11th century). These are the glades (along the western bank of the Dnieper), the Drevlyans (to the northwest of them), the Ilmen Slovenes (along the banks of Lake Ilmen and the Volkhov River), the Krivichi (in the upper reaches of the Dnieper, Volga and Western Dvina), the Vyatichi (along the banks of the Oka), northerners (along the Desna), etc. The northern neighbors of the eastern Slavs were the Finns, the western - the Balts, the south-eastern - the Khazars. Of great importance in their early history had trade routes, one of which connected Scandinavia and Byzantium (the route “from the Varangians to the Greeks” from the Gulf of Finland along the Neva, Lake Ladoga, Volkhov, Lake Ilmen to the Dnieper and the Black Sea), and the other connected the Volga regions with the Caspian Sea and Persia. Nestor leads famous story about the calling of the Varangian (Scandinavian) princes Rurik, Sineus and Truvor by the Ilmen Slovenes: “Our land is great and abundant, but there is no order in it: come reign and rule over us.” Rurik accepted the offer and in 862 he reigned in Novgorod (that is why the monument “Millennium of Russia” was erected in Novgorod in 1862). Many historians of the 18th-19th centuries. were inclined to understand these events as evidence that statehood was brought to Rus' from the outside and the Eastern Slavs were unable to create their own state on their own (Norman theory). Modern researchers recognize this theory as untenable. They pay attention to the following: - Nestor’s story proves that the Eastern Slavs by the middle of the 9th century. there were bodies that were the prototype of state institutions (prince, squad, meeting of tribal representatives - the future veche); - the Varangian origin of Rurik, as well as Oleg, Igor, Olga, Askold, Dir is indisputable, but the invitation of a foreigner as a ruler is an important indicator of the maturity of the prerequisites for the formation of a state. The tribal union is aware of its common interests and tries to resolve contradictions between individual tribes with the calling of a prince standing above local differences. The Varangian princes, surrounded by a strong and combat-ready squad, led and completed the processes leading to the formation of the state; - large tribal super-unions, which included several tribal unions, developed among the Eastern Slavs already in the 8th-9th centuries. - around Novgorod and around Kyiv; - in the formation of the Ancient Tehran state, external factors played an important role: threats coming from outside (Scandinavia, Khazar Kaganate) pushed for unity; - the Varangians, having given Rus' a ruling dynasty, quickly assimilated and merged with the local Slavic population; - as for the name “Rus”, its origin continues to cause controversy. Some historians associate it with Scandinavia, others find its roots in the East Slavic environment (from the Ros tribe, who lived along the Dnieper). Other opinions are also expressed on this matter. At the end of the 9th - beginning of the 11th century. The Old Russian state was going through a period of formation. The formation of its territory and composition was actively underway. Oleg (882-912) subjugated the tribes of the Drevlyans, Northerners and Radimichi to Kyiv, Igor (912-945) successfully fought with the streets, Svyatoslav (964-972) - with the Vyatichi. During the reign of Prince Vladimir (980-1015), the Volynians and Croats were subjugated, and power over the Radimichi and Vyatichi was confirmed. In addition to the East Slavic tribes, the Old Russian state included Finno-Ugric peoples (Chud, Merya, Muroma, etc. ). The degree of independence of the tribes from the Kyiv princes was quite high. For a long time, the only indicator of submission to the authorities of Kyiv was the payment of tribute. Until 945, it was carried out in the form of polyudya: the prince and his squad from November to April traveled around the territories under their control and collected tribute. The murder of Prince Igor in 945 by the Drevlyans, who tried for the second time to collect tribute that exceeded the traditional level, forced his wife Princess Olga to introduce lessons (the amount of tribute) and establish graveyards (places where tribute was to be taken). This was the first example known to historians of how the princely government approved new norms that were mandatory for ancient Russian society. Important functions of the Old Russian state, which it began to perform from the moment of its inception, were also protecting the territory from military raids (in the 9th - early 11th centuries these were mainly raids by the Khazars and Pechenegs) and pursuing an active foreign policy (campaigns against Byzantium in 907, 911, 944, 970, Russian-Byzantine treaties 911 and 944, defeat Khazar Khaganate in 964-965 etc.). The period of formation of the Old Russian state ended with the reign of Prince Vladimir I the Holy, or Vladimir the Red Sun. Under him, Christianity was adopted from Byzantium (see ticket No. 3), a system of defensive fortresses was created on the southern borders of Rus', and the so-called ladder system of transfer of power was finally formed. The order of succession was determined by the principle of seniority in the princely family. Vladimir, having taken the throne of Kiev, placed his eldest sons in the largest Russian cities. The most important reign after Kyiv - Novgorod - was transferred to his eldest son. In the event of the death of the eldest son, his place was to be taken by the next in seniority, all other princes were moved to more important thrones. During the life of the Kyiv prince, this system worked flawlessly. After his death, as a rule, there followed a more or less long period of struggle by his sons for the reign of Kiev. The heyday of the Old Russian state occurred during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054) and his sons. It includes the oldest part of the Russian Pravda - the first monument of written law that has come down to us (“Russian Law,” information about which dates back to Oleg’s reign, has not been preserved either in the original or in copies). Russian Truth regulated relations in the princely economy - the patrimony. Its analysis allows historians to talk about the existing system of government: the Kiev prince, like the local princes, is surrounded by a squad, the top of which are called boyars and with whom he consults on the most important issues (the Duma, the permanent council under the prince). From among the warriors, mayors are appointed to manage cities, governors, tributaries (collectors of land taxes), mytniki (collectors of trade duties), tiuns (administrators of princely estates), etc. Russian Pravda contains valuable information about ancient Russian society. It was based on the free rural and urban population (people). There were slaves (servants, serfs), farmers dependent on the prince (zakup, ryadovichi, smerds - historians do not have a common opinion about the situation of the latter). Yaroslav the Wise pursued an energetic dynastic policy, tying his sons and daughters by marriage with ruling families Hungary, Poland, France, Germany, etc. Yaroslav died in 1054, before 1074. his sons managed to coordinate their actions. At the end of the 11th - beginning of the 12th century. the power of the Kyiv princes weakened, individual principalities acquired increasing independence, the rulers of which tried to agree with each other on cooperation in the fight against the new - Polovtsian - threat. Tendencies towards fragmentation of a single state intensified as its individual regions grew richer and stronger (for more details, see ticket No. 2). The last Kyiv prince who managed to stop the collapse of the Old Russian state was Vladimir Monomakh (1113-1125). After the death of the prince and the death of his son Mstislav the Great (1125-1132), the fragmentation of Rus' became a fait accompli.

4 Mongol-Tatar yoke briefly

The Mongol-Tatar yoke is the period of the capture of Rus' by the Mongol-Tatars in the 13th-15th centuries. The Mongol-Tatar yoke lasted for 243 years.

The truth about the Mongol-Tatar yoke

The Russian princes at that time were in a state of hostility, so they could not give a worthy rebuff to the invaders. Despite the fact that the Cumans came to the rescue, the Tatar-Mongol army quickly seized the advantage.

The first direct clash between troops took place on the Kalka River, May 31, 1223 and was quickly lost. Even then it became clear that our army would not be able to defeat the Tatar-Mongols, but the enemy’s onslaught was held back for quite some time.

In the winter of 1237, a targeted invasion of the main Tatar-Mongol troops into the territory of Rus' began. This time the enemy army was commanded by the grandson of Genghis Khan, Batu. The army of nomads managed to move quite quickly into the interior of the country, plundering the principalities in turn and killing everyone who tried to resist as they went.

Main dates of the capture of Rus' by the Tatar-Mongols

1223 The Tatar-Mongols approached the border of Rus';

Winter 1237. The beginning of a targeted invasion of Rus';

1237 Ryazan and Kolomna were captured. The Ryazan principality fell;

Autumn 1239. Chernigov captured. The Principality of Chernigov fell;

1240 Kyiv is captured. The Principality of Kiev fell;

1241 The Galician-Volyn principality fell;

1480 Overthrow of the Mongol-Tatar yoke.

Reasons for the fall of Rus' under the onslaught of the Mongol-Tatars

lack of a unified organization in the ranks of Russian soldiers;

numerical superiority of the enemy;

weakness of the command of the Russian army;

poorly organized mutual assistance on the part of disparate princes;

underestimation of enemy forces and numbers.

Features of the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Rus'

The establishment of the Mongol-Tatar yoke with new laws and orders began in Rus'.

Vladimir became the de facto center of political life; it was from there that the Tatar-Mongol khan exercised his control.

The essence of the management of the Tatar-Mongol yoke was that Khan awarded the label for reign at his own discretion and completely controlled all territories of the country. This increased the enmity between the princes.

Feudal fragmentation of territories was encouraged in every possible way, as this reduced the likelihood of a centralized rebellion.

Tribute was regularly collected from the population, the “Horde exit.” The collection of money was carried out by special officials - Baskaks, who showed extreme cruelty and did not shy away from kidnappings and murders.

Consequences of the Mongol-Tatar conquest

The consequences of the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Rus' were terrible.

Many cities and villages were destroyed, people were killed;

Agriculture, handicrafts and art fell into decline;

Feudal fragmentation increased significantly;

The population has decreased significantly;

Rus' began to noticeably lag behind Europe in development.

The end of the Mongol-Tatar yoke

Complete liberation from the Mongol-Tatar yoke occurred only in 1480, when Grand Duke Ivan III refused to pay money to the horde and declared the independence of Rus'.