Tatar Mongol yoke leader. Mongol yoke

1243 - After the defeat of Northern Rus' by the Mongol-Tatars and the death of the Grand Duke of Vladimir Yuri Vsevolodovich (1188-1238x), Yaroslav Vsevolodovich (1190-1246+) remained the eldest in the family, who became the Grand Duke.
Returning from the western campaign, Batu summons Grand Duke Yaroslav II Vsevolodovich of Vladimir-Suzdal to the Horde and presents him at the Khan's headquarters in Sarai with a label (sign of permission) for the great reign in Rus': “You will be older than all the princes in the Russian language.”
This is how the unilateral act of vassal submission of Rus' to the Golden Horde was carried out and legally formalized.
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). Baskaks (governors) were sent to the Russian principalities - their capitals - to oversee the strict collection of tribute and compliance with its amounts.
1243-1252 - This decade was a time when Horde troops and officials did not bother Rus', receiving timely tribute and expressions of external submission. During this period, the Russian princes assessed the current situation and developed their own line of behavior in relation to the Horde.
Two lines of Russian policy:
1. The line of systematic partisan resistance and continuous “spot” uprisings: (“to run away, not to serve the king”) - led. book Andrey I Yaroslavich, Yaroslav III Yaroslavich and others.
2. Line of complete, unquestioning submission to the Horde (Alexander Nevsky and most other princes). Many appanage princes (Uglitsky, Yaroslavl, and especially Rostov) established relations with the Mongol khans, who left them to “rule and rule.” The princes preferred to recognize the supreme power of the Horde khan and donate part of the feudal rent collected from the dependent population to the conquerors, rather than risk losing their reigns (See “On the arrivals of Russian princes to the Horde”). The Orthodox Church pursued the same policy.
1252 Invasion of the "Nevryuev Army" The first after 1239 in North-Eastern Rus' - Reasons for the invasion: To punish Grand Duke Andrei I Yaroslavich for disobedience and to speed up the full payment of tribute.
Horde forces: Nevryu’s army had a significant number - at least 10 thousand people. and a maximum of 20-25 thousand. This indirectly follows from the title of Nevryuya (prince) and the presence in his army of two wings led by temniks - Yelabuga (Olabuga) and Kotiy, as well as from the fact that Nevryuya’s army was able to disperse throughout the Vladimir-Suzdal principality and "comb" it!
Russian forces: Consisted of regiments of the prince. Andrei (i.e. regular troops) and the squad (volunteer and security detachments) of the Tver governor Zhiroslav, sent by the Tver prince Yaroslav Yaroslavich to help his brother. These forces were an order of magnitude smaller than the Horde in number, i.e. 1.5-2 thousand people.
Progress of the invasion: Having crossed the Klyazma River near Vladimir, Nevryu’s punitive army hastily headed to Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, where the prince took refuge. Andrei, and, having overtaken the prince’s army, defeated him completely. The Horde plundered and destroyed the city, and then occupied the entire Vladimir land and, returning to the Horde, “combed” it.
Results of the invasion: The Horde army rounded up and captured tens of thousands of captive peasants (for sale in eastern markets) and hundreds of thousands of heads of livestock and took them to the Horde. Book Andrei and the remnants of his squad fled to the Novgorod Republic, which refused to give him asylum, fearing Horde reprisals. Fearing that one of his “friends” would hand him over to the Horde, Andrei fled to Sweden. Thus, the first attempt to resist the Horde failed. The Russian princes abandoned the line of resistance and leaned toward the line of obedience.
Alexander Nevsky received the label for the great reign.
1255 The first complete census of the population of North-Eastern Rus', carried out by the Horde - was accompanied by spontaneous unrest of the local population, scattered, unorganized, but united by the common demand of the masses: “not to give numbers to the Tatars,” i.e. do not provide them with any data that could form the basis for a fixed payment of tribute.
Other authors indicate other dates for the census (1257-1259)
1257 Attempt to conduct a census in Novgorod - In 1255, a census was not carried out in Novgorod. In 1257, this measure was accompanied by an uprising of the Novgorodians, the expulsion of the Horde “counters” from the city, which led to the complete failure of the attempt to collect tribute.
1259 Embassy of the Murzas Berke and Kasachik to Novgorod - The punitive-control army of the Horde ambassadors - the Murzas Berke and Kasachik - was sent to Novgorod to collect tribute and prevent anti-Horde protests by the population. Novgorod, as always in case of military danger, yielded to force and traditionally paid off, and also gave an obligation to pay tribute annually, without reminders or pressure, “voluntarily” determining its size, without drawing up census documents, in exchange for a guarantee of absence from the city Horde collectors.
1262 Meeting of representatives of Russian cities to discuss measures to resist the Horde - A decision was made to simultaneously expel tribute collectors - representatives of the Horde administration in the cities of Rostov the Great, Vladimir, Suzdal, Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, Yaroslavl, where anti-Horde popular protests take place. These riots were suppressed by Horde military detachments at the disposal of the Baskaks. But nevertheless, the khan’s government took into account 20 years of experience in repeating such spontaneous rebellious outbreaks and abandoned the Baskas, from now on transferring the collection of tribute into the hands of the Russian, princely administration.

Since 1263, the Russian princes themselves began to bring tribute to the Horde.
Thus, the formal moment, as in the case of Novgorod, turned out to be decisive. The Russians did not so much resist the fact of paying tribute and its size as they were offended by the foreign composition of the collectors. They were ready to pay more, but to “their” princes and their administration. The Khan's authorities quickly realized the benefits of such a decision for the Horde:
firstly, the absence of your own troubles,
secondly, a guarantee of an end to the uprisings and complete obedience of the Russians.
thirdly, the presence of specific responsible persons (princes), who could always easily, conveniently and even “legally” be brought to justice, punished for failure to pay tribute, and not have to deal with intractable spontaneous popular uprisings of thousands of people.
This is a very early manifestation of a specifically Russian social and individual psychology, for which the visible is important, not the essential, and which is always ready to make actually important, serious, essential concessions in exchange for visible, superficial, external, “toy” and supposedly prestigious ones, will be repeated many times throughout Russian history up to the present time.
The Russian people are easy to persuade, to appease with petty handouts, trifles, but they cannot be irritated. Then he becomes stubborn, intractable and reckless, and sometimes even angry.
But you can literally take it with your bare hands, wrap it around your finger, if you immediately give in to some trifle. The Mongols, like the first Horde khans - Batu and Berke, understood this well.

I cannot agree with V. Pokhlebkin’s unfair and humiliating generalization. You should not consider your ancestors as stupid, gullible savages and judge them from the “height” of 700 past years. There were numerous anti-Horde protests - they were suppressed, presumably, cruelly, not only by the Horde troops, but also by their own princes. But the transfer of the collection of tribute (from which it was simply impossible to free oneself in those conditions) to the Russian princes was not a “petty concession”, but an important, fundamental point. Unlike a number of other countries conquered by the Horde, North-Eastern Rus' retained its political and social system. There was never a permanent Mongol administration on Russian soil; under the painful yoke, Rus' managed to maintain the conditions for its independent development, although not without the influence of the Horde. An example of the opposite kind is the Volga Bulgaria, which, under the Horde, was ultimately unable to preserve not only its own ruling dynasty and name, but also the ethnic continuity of the population.

Later, the khan’s power itself became smaller, lost state wisdom and gradually, through its mistakes, “raised” from Rus' its enemy as insidious and prudent as itself. But in the 60s of the 13th century. this finale was still far away - two whole centuries. In the meantime, the Horde manipulated the Russian princes and, through them, all of Russia, as it wanted. (He who laughs last laughs best - isn't it?)

1272 Second Horde census in Rus' - Under the leadership and supervision of the Russian princes, the Russian local administration, it took place peacefully, calmly, without a hitch. After all, it was carried out by “Russian people”, and the population was calm.
It’s a pity that the census results were not preserved, or maybe I just don’t know?

And the fact that it was carried out according to the Khan’s orders, that the Russian princes delivered its data to the Horde and this data directly served the Horde’s economic and political interests - all this was “behind the scenes” for the people, all this “did not concern” them and did not interest them . The appearance that the census was taking place “without Tatars” was more important than the essence, i.e. the strengthening of the tax oppression that came on its basis, the impoverishment of the population, and its suffering. All this “was not visible,” and therefore, according to Russian ideas, this means that... it did not happen.
Moreover, in just three decades since the enslavement, Russian society had essentially become accustomed to the fact of the Horde yoke, and the fact that it was isolated from direct contact with representatives of the Horde and entrusted these contacts exclusively to the princes completely satisfied it, both ordinary people and nobles.
The proverb “out of sight, out of mind” explains this situation very accurately and correctly. As is clear from the chronicles of that time, the lives of saints and patristic and other religious literature, which was a reflection of the prevailing ideas, Russians of all classes and conditions had no desire to get to know their enslavers better, to get acquainted with “what they breathe,” what they think, how they think as they understand themselves and Rus'. They were seen as “God’s punishment” sent down to the Russian land for sins. If they had not sinned, if they had not angered God, there would not have been such disasters - this is the starting point of all explanations on the part of the authorities and the church of the then “international situation”. It is not difficult to see that this position is not only very, very passive, but that, in addition, it actually removes the blame for the enslavement of Rus' from both the Mongol-Tatars and the Russian princes who allowed such a yoke, and shifts it entirely onto the people who found themselves enslaved and suffered more than anyone else from this.
Based on the thesis of sinfulness, the churchmen called on the Russian people not to resist the invaders, but, on the contrary, to their own repentance and submission to the “Tatars”; they not only did not condemn the Horde power, but also... set it as an example to their flock. This was direct payment on the part of the Orthodox Church for the enormous privileges granted to it by the khans - exemption from taxes and levies, ceremonial receptions of metropolitans in the Horde, the establishment in 1261 of a special Sarai diocese and permission to erect an Orthodox church directly opposite the khan's Headquarters *.

*) After the collapse of the Horde, at the end of the 15th century. the entire staff of the Sarai diocese was retained and transferred to Moscow, to the Krutitsky monastery, and the Sarai bishops received the title of metropolitans of Sarai and Podonsk, and then of Krutitsky and Kolomna, i.e. formally they were equal in rank with the metropolitans of Moscow and All Rus', although they were no longer engaged in any real church-political activities. This historical and decorative post was liquidated only at the end of the 18th century. (1788) [Note. V. Pokhlebkina]

It should be noted that on the threshold of the 21st century. we are going through a similar situation. Modern “princes,” like the princes of Vladimir-Suzdal Rus', are trying to exploit the ignorance and slave psychology of the people and even cultivate it, not without the help of the same church.

At the end of the 70s of the 13th century. The period of temporary calm from Horde unrest in Rus' ends, explained by ten years of emphasized submission of the Russian princes and the church. The internal needs of the Horde economy, which made constant profits from the trade in slaves (captured during the war) in the eastern (Iranian, Turkish and Arab) markets, require a new influx of funds, and therefore in 1277-1278. The Horde twice makes local raids into the border Russian borders solely to remove the Polonians.
It is significant that it is not the central khan’s administration and its military forces that take part in this, but regional, ulus authorities in the peripheral areas of the Horde’s territory, solving their local, local economic problems with these raids, and therefore strictly limiting both place and time (very short, calculated in weeks) of these military actions.

1277 - A raid on the lands of the Galicia-Volyn principality is carried out by detachments from the western Dniester-Dnieper regions of the Horde, which were under the rule of the Temnik Nogai.
1278 - A similar local raid follows from the Volga region to Ryazan, and it is limited only to this principality.

During the next decade - in the 80s and early 90s of the 13th century. - new processes are taking place in Russian-Horde relations.
The Russian princes, having become accustomed to the new situation over the previous 25-30 years and deprived of essentially any control from domestic authorities, begin to settle their petty feudal scores with each other with the help of the Horde military force.
Just like in the 12th century. The Chernigov and Kyiv princes fought with each other, calling the Polovtsians to Rus', and the princes of North-Eastern Rus' fought in the 80s of the 13th century. with each other for power, relying on Horde troops, which they invite to plunder the principalities of their political opponents, i.e., in fact, they coldly call on foreign troops to devastate the areas inhabited by their Russian compatriots.

1281 - The son of Alexander Nevsky, Andrei II Alexandrovich, Prince Gorodetsky, invites the Horde army against his brother led. Dmitry I Alexandrovich and his allies. This army is organized by Khan Tuda-Mengu, who simultaneously gives Andrew II the label for the great reign, even before the outcome of the military clash.
Dmitry I, fleeing from the Khan's troops, fled first to Tver, then to Novgorod, and from there to his possession on Novgorod land - Koporye. But the Novgorodians, declaring themselves loyal to the Horde, do not allow Dmitry to enter his estate and, taking advantage of its location inside the Novgorod lands, force the prince to tear down all its fortifications and ultimately force Dmitry I to flee from Rus' to Sweden, threatening to hand him over to the Tatars.
The Horde army (Kavgadai and Alchegey), under the pretext of persecuting Dmitry I, relying on the permission of Andrew II, passes through and devastates several Russian principalities - Vladimir, Tver, Suzdal, Rostov, Murom, Pereyaslavl-Zalessky and their capitals. The Horde reached Torzhok, practically occupying all of North-Eastern Rus' to the borders of the Novgorod Republic.
The length of the entire territory from Murom to Torzhok (from east to west) was 450 km, and from south to north - 250-280 km, i.e. almost 120 thousand square kilometers that were devastated by military operations. This turns the Russian population of the devastated principalities against Andrew II, and his formal “reign” after the flight of Dmitry I does not bring peace.
Dmitry I returns to Pereyaslavl and prepares for revenge, Andrei II goes to the Horde with a request for help, and his allies - Svyatoslav Yaroslavich Tverskoy, Daniil Alexandrovich Moskovsky and the Novgorodians - go to Dmitry I and make peace with him.
1282 - Andrew II comes from the Horde with Tatar regiments led by Turai-Temir and Ali, reaches Pereyaslavl and again expels Dmitry, who flees this time to the Black Sea, into the possession of Temnik Nogai (who at that time was the de facto ruler of the Golden Horde) , and, playing on the contradictions between Nogai and the Sarai khans, brings the troops given by Nogai to Russia and forces Andrei II to return the great reign to him.
The price of this “restoration of justice” is very high: Nogai officials are left to collect tribute in Kursk, Lipetsk, Rylsk; Rostov and Murom are again being ruined. The conflict between the two princes (and the allies who joined them) continues throughout the 80s and early 90s.
1285 - Andrew II again travels to the Horde and brings from there a new punitive detachment of the Horde, led by one of the khan’s sons. However, Dmitry I manages to successfully and quickly defeat this detachment.

Thus, the first victory of Russian troops over the regular Horde troops was won in 1285, and not in 1378, on the Vozha River, as is usually believed.
It is not surprising that Andrew II stopped turning to the Horde for help in subsequent years.
The Horde themselves sent small predatory expeditions to Rus' in the late 80s:

1287 - Raid on Vladimir.
1288 - Raid on Ryazan and Murom and Mordovian lands. These two raids (short-term) were of a specific, local nature and were aimed at plundering property and capturing polyanyans. They were provoked by a denunciation or complaint from the Russian princes.
1292 - “Dedeneva’s army” to the Vladimir land Andrei Gorodetsky, together with princes Dmitry Borisovich Rostovsky, Konstantin Borisovich Uglitsky, Mikhail Glebovich Belozersky, Fyodor Yaroslavsky and Bishop Tarasius, went to the Horde to complain about Dmitry I Alexandrovich.
Khan Tokhta, having listened to the complainants, dispatched a significant army under the leadership of his brother Tudan (in Russian chronicles - Deden) to conduct a punitive expedition.
"Dedeneva's army" marched throughout Vladimir Rus', ravaging the capital of Vladimir and 14 other cities: Murom, Suzdal, Gorokhovets, Starodub, Bogolyubov, Yuryev-Polsky, Gorodets, Uglechepol (Uglich), Yaroslavl, Nerekhta, Ksnyatin, Pereyaslavl-Zalessky , Rostov, Dmitrov.
In addition to them, only 7 cities that lay outside the route of movement of Tudan’s detachments remained untouched by the invasion: Kostroma, Tver, Zubtsov, Moscow, Galich Mersky, Unzha, Nizhny Novgorod.
On the approach to Moscow (or near Moscow), Tudan’s army divided into two detachments, one of which headed to Kolomna, i.e. to the south, and the other to the west: to Zvenigorod, Mozhaisk, Volokolamsk.
In Volokolamsk, the Horde army received gifts from the Novgorodians, who hastened to bring and present gifts to the khan’s brother far from their lands. Tudan did not go to Tver, but returned to Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, which was made a base where all the looted booty was brought and prisoners were concentrated.
This campaign was a significant pogrom of Rus'. It is possible that Tudan and his army also passed through Klin, Serpukhov, and Zvenigorod, which were not named in the chronicles. Thus, its area of ​​​​operation covered about two dozen cities.
1293 - In winter, a new Horde detachment appeared near Tver under the leadership of Toktemir, who came with punitive purposes at the request of one of the princes to restore order in feudal strife. He had limited goals, and the chronicles do not describe his route and time of stay on Russian territory.
In any case, the entire year of 1293 passed under the sign of another Horde pogrom, the cause of which was exclusively the feudal rivalry of the princes. They were the main reason for the Horde repressions that fell on the Russian people.

1294-1315 Two decades pass without any Horde invasions.
The princes regularly pay tribute, the people, frightened and impoverished from previous robberies, are slowly healing from economic and human losses. Only the accession to the throne of the extremely powerful and active Uzbek Khan opens a new period of pressure on Rus'
The main idea of ​​Uzbek is to achieve complete disunity of the Russian princes and turn them into continuously warring factions. Hence his plan - the transfer of the great reign to the weakest and most unwarlike prince - Moscow (under Khan Uzbek, the Moscow prince was Yuri Danilovich, who challenged the great reign from Mikhail Yaroslavich Tver) and the weakening of the former rulers of the "strong principalities" - Rostov, Vladimir, Tver.
To ensure the collection of tribute, Uzbek Khan practices sending, together with the prince, who received instructions in the Horde, special envoys-ambassadors, accompanied by military detachments numbering several thousand people (sometimes there were up to 5 temniks!). Each prince collects tribute on the territory of a rival principality.
From 1315 to 1327, i.e. over 12 years, Uzbek sent 9 military “embassies”. Their functions were not diplomatic, but military-punitive (police) and partly military-political (pressure on princes).

1315 - “Ambassadors” of Uzbek accompany Grand Duke Mikhail of Tverskoy (see Table of Ambassadors), and their detachments plunder Rostov and Torzhok, near which they defeat detachments of Novgorodians.
1317 - Horde punitive detachments accompany Yuri of Moscow and plunder Kostroma, and then try to rob Tver, but suffer a severe defeat.
1319 - Kostroma and Rostov are robbed again.
1320 - Rostov becomes a victim of robbery for the third time, but Vladimir is mostly destroyed.
1321 - Tribute is extorted from Kashin and the Kashin principality.
1322 - Yaroslavl and the cities of the Nizhny Novgorod principality are subjected to a punitive action to collect tribute.
1327 “Shchelkanov’s Army” - Novgorodians, frightened by the Horde’s activity, “voluntarily” pay a tribute of 2,000 rubles in silver to the Horde.
The famous attack of Chelkan’s (Cholpan’s) detachment on Tver takes place, known in the chronicles as the “Shchelkanov invasion”, or “Shchelkanov’s army”. It causes an unprecedentedly decisive uprising of the townspeople and the destruction of the “ambassador” and his detachment. “Schelkan” himself is burned in the hut.
1328 - A special punitive expedition follows against Tver under the leadership of three ambassadors - Turalyk, Syuga and Fedorok - and with 5 temniks, i.e. an entire army, which the chronicle defines as a “great army.” Along with the 50,000-strong Horde army, Moscow princely detachments also took part in the destruction of Tver.

From 1328 to 1367, “great silence” sets in for 40 years.
It is a direct result of three circumstances:
1. Complete defeat of the Tver principality as a rival of Moscow and thereby eliminating the causes of military-political rivalry in Rus'.
2. Timely collection of tribute by Ivan Kalita, who in the eyes of the khans becomes an exemplary executor of the Horde’s fiscal orders and, in addition, expresses exceptional political obedience to it, and, finally
3. The result of the understanding by the Horde rulers that the Russian population had matured in its determination to fight the enslavers and therefore it was necessary to apply other forms of pressure and consolidation of the dependence of Rus', other than punitive ones.
As for the use of some princes against others, this measure no longer seems universal in the face of possible popular uprisings uncontrolled by the “tame princes.” A turning point is coming in Russian-Horde relations.
Punitive campaigns (invasions) into the central regions of North-Eastern Rus' with the inevitable ruin of its population have since ceased.
At the same time, short-term raids with predatory (but not ruinous) purposes on peripheral areas of Russian territory, raids on local, limited areas continue to take place and are preserved as the most favorite and safest for the Horde, one-sided short-term military-economic action.

A new phenomenon in the period from 1360 to 1375 were retaliatory raids, or more precisely, campaigns of Russian armed detachments in peripheral lands dependent on the Horde, bordering with Russia - mainly in the Bulgars.

1347 - A raid is made on the city of Aleksin, a border town on the Moscow-Horde border along the Oka
1360 - The first raid is made by Novgorod ushkuiniki on the city of Zhukotin.
1365 - The Horde prince Tagai raids the Ryazan principality.
1367 - The troops of Prince Temir-Bulat invade the Nizhny Novgorod principality with a raid, especially intensively in the border strip along the Piana River.
1370 - A new Horde raid follows on the Ryazan principality in the area of ​​the Moscow-Ryazan border. But the Horde troops stationed there were not allowed to cross the Oka River by Prince Dmitry IV Ivanovich. And the Horde, in turn, noticing the resistance, did not strive to overcome it and limited themselves to reconnaissance.
The raid-invasion is carried out by Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich of Nizhny Novgorod on the lands of the “parallel” khan of Bulgaria - Bulat-Temir;
1374 Anti-Horde uprising in Novgorod - The reason was the arrival of Horde ambassadors, accompanied by a large armed retinue of 1000 people. This is common at the beginning of the 14th century. the escort was, however, regarded in the last quarter of the same century as a dangerous threat and provoked an armed attack by the Novgorodians on the “embassy”, during which both the “ambassadors” and their guards were completely destroyed.
A new raid by the Ushkuiniks, who rob not only the city of Bulgar, but are not afraid to penetrate to Astrakhan.
1375 - Horde raid on the city of Kashin, brief and local.
1376 2nd campaign against the Bulgars - The combined Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod army prepared and carried out the 2nd campaign against the Bulgars, and took an indemnity of 5,000 silver rubles from the city. This attack, unheard of in 130 years of Russian-Horde relations, by Russians on a territory dependent on the Horde, naturally provokes a retaliatory military action.
1377 Massacre on the Pyana River - On the border Russian-Horde territory, on the Pyana River, where the Nizhny Novgorod princes were preparing a new raid on the Mordovian lands that lay beyond the river, dependent on the Horde, they were attacked by a detachment of Prince Arapsha (Arab Shah, Khan of the Blue Horde ) and suffered a crushing defeat.
On August 2, 1377, the united militia of the princes of Suzdal, Pereyaslavl, Yaroslavl, Yuryevsky, Murom and Nizhny Novgorod was completely killed, and the “commander-in-chief” Prince Ivan Dmitrievich of Nizhny Novgorod drowned in the river, trying to escape, along with his personal squad and his “headquarters” . This defeat of the Russian army was explained to a large extent by their loss of vigilance due to many days of drunkenness.
Having destroyed the Russian army, the troops of Tsarevich Arapsha raided the capitals of the unlucky warrior princes - Nizhny Novgorod, Murom and Ryazan - and subjected them to complete plunder and burning to the ground.
1378 Battle of the Vozha River - In the 13th century. after such a defeat, the Russians usually lost any desire to resist the Horde troops for 10-20 years, but at the end of the 14th century. The situation has completely changed:
already in 1378, the ally of the princes defeated in the battle on the Pyana River, Moscow Grand Duke Dmitry IV Ivanovich, having learned that the Horde troops who had burned Nizhny Novgorod intended to go to Moscow under the command of Murza Begich, decided to meet them on the border of his principality on the Oka and not allow to the capital.
On August 11, 1378, a battle took place on the bank of the right tributary of the Oka, the Vozha River, in the Ryazan principality. Dmitry divided his army into three parts and, at the head of the main regiment, attacked the Horde army from the front, while Prince Daniil Pronsky and Okolnichy Timofey Vasilyevich attacked the Tatars from the flanks, in the girth. The Horde were completely defeated and fled across the Vozha River, losing many killed and carts, which Russian troops captured the next day, rushing to pursue the Tatars.
The Battle of the Vozha River had enormous moral and military significance as a dress rehearsal for the Battle of Kulikovo, which followed two years later.
1380 Battle of Kulikovo - The Battle of Kulikovo was the first serious, specially prepared battle in advance, and not random and improvised, like all previous military clashes between Russian and Horde troops.
1382 Tokhtamysh's invasion of Moscow - The defeat of Mamai's army on the Kulikovo field and his flight to Kafa and death in 1381 allowed the energetic Khan Tokhtamysh to end the power of the Temniks in the Horde and reunite it into a single state, eliminating the "parallel khans" in the regions.
Tokhtamysh identified as his main military-political task the restoration of the military and foreign policy prestige of the Horde and the preparation of a revanchist campaign against Moscow.

Results of Tokhtamysh’s campaign:
Returning to Moscow in early September 1382, Dmitry Donskoy saw the ashes and ordered the immediate restoration of devastated Moscow, at least with temporary wooden buildings, before the onset of frost.
Thus, the military, political and economic achievements of the Battle of Kulikovo were completely eliminated by the Horde two years later:
1. The tribute was not only restored, but actually doubled, because the population decreased, but the size of the tribute remained the same. In addition, the people had to pay the Grand Duke a special emergency tax to replenish the princely treasury taken away by the Horde.
2. Politically, vassalage increased sharply, even formally. In 1384, Dmitry Donskoy was forced for the first time to send his son, the heir to the throne, the future Grand Duke Vasily II Dmitrievich, who was 12 years old, to the Horde as a hostage (According to the generally accepted account, this is Vasily I. V.V. Pokhlebkin, apparently, believes 1 -m Vasily Yaroslavich Kostromsky). Relations with neighbors worsened - the Tver, Suzdal, Ryazan principalities, which were specially supported by the Horde to create a political and military counterbalance to Moscow.

The situation was really difficult; in 1383, Dmitry Donskoy had to “compete” in the Horde for the great reign, to which Mikhail Alexandrovich Tverskoy again made his claims. The reign was left to Dmitry, but his son Vasily was taken hostage into the Horde. The “fierce” ambassador Adash appeared in Vladimir (1383, see “Golden Horde Ambassadors in Rus'”). In 1384, it was necessary to collect a heavy tribute (half a ruble per village) from the entire Russian land, and from Novgorod - Black Forest. The Novgorodians began looting along the Volga and Kama and refused to pay tribute. In 1385, it was necessary to show unprecedented leniency towards the Ryazan prince, who decided to attack Kolomna (annexed to Moscow back in 1300) and defeated the troops of the Moscow prince.

Thus, Rus' was actually thrown back to the situation in 1313, under the Uzbek Khan, i.e. practically, the achievements of the Battle of Kulikovo were completely erased. Both in military-political and economic terms, the Moscow principality was thrown back 75-100 years. The prospects for relations with the Horde, therefore, were extremely gloomy for Moscow and Rus' as a whole. One could have assumed that the Horde yoke would be consolidated forever (well, nothing lasts forever!) if a new historical accident had not occurred:
The period of the wars of the Horde with the empire of Tamerlane and the complete defeat of the Horde during these two wars, the disruption of all economic, administrative, political life in the Horde, the death of the Horde army, the ruin of both of its capitals - Sarai I and Sarai II, the beginning of a new unrest, the struggle for power of several khans in the period from 1391-1396. - all this led to an unprecedented weakening of the Horde in all areas and made it necessary for the Horde khans to focus on the turn of the 14th century. and XV century exclusively on internal problems, temporarily neglect external ones and, in particular, weaken control over Russia.
It was this unexpected situation that helped the Moscow principality gain significant respite and restore its strength - economic, military and political.

Here, perhaps, we should pause and make a few notes. I do not believe in historical accidents of this magnitude, and there is no need to explain the further relations of Muscovite Rus' with the Horde as an unexpected happy accident. Without going into details, we note that by the early 90s of the 14th century. Moscow somehow solved the economic and political problems that arose. The Moscow-Lithuanian Treaty concluded in 1384 removed the Principality of Tver from the influence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Mikhail Alexandrovich Tverskoy, having lost support both in the Horde and in Lithuania, recognized the primacy of Moscow. In 1385, the son of Dmitry Donskoy, Vasily Dmitrievich, was released from the Horde. In 1386, a reconciliation between Dmitry Donskoy and Oleg Ivanovich Ryazansky took place, which in 1387 was sealed by the marriage of their children (Fyodor Olegovich and Sofia Dmitrievna). In the same 1386, Dmitry managed to restore his influence there with a large military demonstration under the Novgorod walls, take the black forest in the volosts and 8,000 rubles in Novgorod. In 1388, Dmitry also faced the discontent of his cousin and comrade-in-arms Vladimir Andreevich, who had to be brought “to his will” by force and forced to recognize the political seniority of his eldest son Vasily. Dmitry managed to make peace with Vladimir two months before his death (1389). In his spiritual will, Dmitry blessed (for the first time) his eldest son Vasily “with his fatherland with his great reign.” And finally, in the summer of 1390, in a solemn atmosphere, the marriage of Vasily and Sophia, the daughter of the Lithuanian prince Vitovt, took place. In Eastern Europe, Vasily I Dmitrievich and Cyprian, who became metropolitan on October 1, 1389, are trying to prevent the strengthening of the Lithuanian-Polish dynastic union and replace the Polish-Catholic colonization of Lithuanian and Russian lands with the consolidation of Russian forces around Moscow. An alliance with Vytautas, who was against the Catholicization of the Russian lands that were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was important for Moscow, but could not be durable, since Vytautas, naturally, had his own goals and his own vision of what center the Russians should gather around lands.
A new stage in the history of the Golden Horde coincided with the death of Dmitry. It was then that Tokhtamysh came out of the reconciliation with Tamerlane and began to lay claim to the territories under his control. A confrontation began. Under these conditions, Tokhtamysh, immediately after the death of Dmitry Donskoy, issued a label for the reign of Vladimir to his son, Vasily I, and strengthened it, transferring to him the Nizhny Novgorod principality and a number of cities. In 1395, Tamerlane's troops defeated Tokhtamysh on the Terek River.

At the same time, Tamerlane, having destroyed the power of the Horde, did not carry out his campaign against Rus'. Having reached Yelets without fighting or looting, he unexpectedly turned back and returned to Central Asia. Thus, Tamerlane’s actions at the end of the 14th century. became a historical factor that helped Rus' survive in the fight against the Horde.

1405 - In 1405, based on the situation in the Horde, the Grand Duke of Moscow officially announced for the first time that he refused to pay tribute to the Horde. During 1405-1407 The Horde did not react in any way to this demarche, but then Edigei’s campaign against Moscow followed.
Only 13 years after Tokhtamysh’s campaign (Apparently, there is a typo in the book - 13 years have passed since Tamerlane’s campaign) could the Horde authorities again remember the vassalage of Moscow and gather forces for a new campaign in order to restore the flow of tribute, which had ceased since 1395.
1408 Edigei's campaign against Moscow - December 1, 1408, a huge army of Edigei's temnik approached Moscow along the winter sled road and besieged the Kremlin.
On the Russian side, the situation during Tokhtamysh’s campaign in 1382 was repeated in detail.
1. Grand Duke Vasily II Dmitrievich, hearing about the danger, like his father, fled to Kostroma (supposedly to gather an army).
2. In Moscow, Vladimir Andreevich Brave, Prince Serpukhovsky, a participant in the Battle of Kulikovo, remained as the head of the garrison.
3. The Moscow suburb was burned out again, i.e. all wooden Moscow around the Kremlin, for a mile in all directions.
4. Edigei, approaching Moscow, set up his camp in Kolomenskoye, and sent a notice to the Kremlin that he would stand all winter and starve out the Kremlin without losing a single fighter.
5. The memory of Tokhtamysh’s invasion was still so fresh among Muscovites that it was decided to fulfill any demands of Edigei, so that only he would leave without hostilities.
6. Edigei demanded to collect 3,000 rubles in two weeks. silver, which was done. In addition, Edigei's troops, scattered throughout the principality and its cities, began to gather Polonyanniks for capture (several tens of thousands of people). Some cities were severely devastated, for example Mozhaisk was completely burned.
7. On December 20, 1408, having received everything that was required, Edigei’s army left Moscow without being attacked or pursued by Russian forces.
8. The damage caused by Edigei’s campaign was less than the damage caused by Tokhtamysh’s invasion, but it also fell heavily on the shoulders of the population
The restoration of Moscow's tributary dependence on the Horde lasted from then on for almost another 60 years (until 1474)
1412 - Payment of tribute to the Horde became regular. To ensure this regularity, the Horde forces from time to time made frighteningly reminiscent raids on Rus'.
1415 - Ruin of the Yelets (border, buffer) land by the Horde.
1427 - Raid of Horde troops on Ryazan.
1428 - Raid of the Horde army on the Kostroma lands - Galich Mersky, destruction and robbery of Kostroma, Ples and Lukh.
1437 - Battle of Belevskaya Campaign of Ulu-Muhammad to the Trans-Oka lands. The Battle of Belev on December 5, 1437 (the defeat of the Moscow army) due to the reluctance of the Yuryevich brothers - Shemyaka and Krasny - to allow the army of Ulu-Muhammad to settle in Belev and make peace. Due to the betrayal of the Lithuanian governor of Mtsensk, Grigory Protasyev, who went over to the side of the Tatars, Ulu-Mukhammed won the Battle of Belev, after which he went east to Kazan, where he founded the Kazan Khanate.

Actually, from this moment begins the long struggle of the Russian state with the Kazan Khanate, which Rus' had to wage in parallel with the heir of the Golden Horde - the Great Horde and which only Ivan IV the Terrible managed to complete. The first campaign of the Kazan Tatars against Moscow took place already in 1439. Moscow was burned, but the Kremlin was not taken. The second campaign of the Kazan people (1444-1445) led to the catastrophic defeat of the Russian troops, the capture of the Moscow prince Vasily II the Dark, a humiliating peace and the eventual blinding of Vasily II. Further, the raids of the Kazan Tatars on Rus' and the retaliatory Russian actions (1461, 1467-1469, 1478) are not indicated in the table, but they should be kept in mind (See "Kazan Khanate");
1451 - Campaign of Mahmut, son of Kichi-Muhammad, to Moscow. He burned the settlements, but the Kremlin did not take them.
1462 - Ivan III stopped issuing Russian coins with the name of the Khan of the Horde. Statement by Ivan III on the renunciation of the khan's label for the great reign.
1468 - Khan Akhmat's campaign against Ryazan
1471 - Campaign of the Horde to the Moscow borders in the Trans-Oka region
1472 - The Horde army approached the city of Aleksin, but did not cross the Oka. The Russian army marched to Kolomna. There was no clash between the two forces. Both sides feared that the outcome of the battle would not be in their favor. Caution in conflicts with the Horde is a characteristic feature of the policy of Ivan III. He didn't want to take any risks.
1474 - Khan Akhmat again approaches the Zaoksk region, on the border with the Moscow Grand Duchy. Peace, or, more precisely, a truce, is concluded on the terms of the Moscow prince paying an indemnity of 140 thousand altyns in two terms: in the spring - 80 thousand, in the fall - 60 thousand. Ivan III again avoids a military conflict.
1480 Great Standing on the Ugra River - Akhmat demands that Ivan III pay tribute for 7 years, during which Moscow stopped paying it. Goes on a campaign against Moscow. Ivan III advances with his army to meet the Khan.

We formally end the history of Russian-Horde relations with the year 1481 as the date of death of the last khan of the Horde - Akhmat, who was killed a year after the Great Standing on the Ugra, since the Horde really ceased to exist as a state organism and administration and even as a certain territory to which jurisdiction and real the power of this once unified administration.
Formally and in fact, new Tatar states were formed on the former territory of the Golden Horde, much smaller in size, but manageable and relatively consolidated. Of course, the virtual disappearance of a huge empire could not happen overnight and it could not “evaporate” completely without a trace.
People, peoples, the population of the Horde continued to live their former lives and, feeling that catastrophic changes had occurred, nevertheless did not realize them as a complete collapse, as the absolute disappearance from the face of the earth of their former state.
In fact, the process of the collapse of the Horde, especially at the lower social level, continued for another three to four decades during the first quarter of the 16th century.
But the international consequences of the collapse and disappearance of the Horde, on the contrary, affected themselves quite quickly and quite clearly, distinctly. The liquidation of the gigantic empire, which controlled and influenced events from Siberia to the Balakans and from Egypt to the Middle Urals for two and a half centuries, led to a complete change in the international situation not only in this area, but also radically changed the general international position of the Russian state and its military-political plans and actions in relations with the East as a whole.
Moscow was able to quickly, within one decade, radically restructure the strategy and tactics of its eastern foreign policy.
The statement seems too categorical to me: it should be taken into account that the process of fragmentation of the Golden Horde was not a one-time act, but occurred throughout the entire 15th century. The policy of the Russian state changed accordingly. An example is the relationship between Moscow and the Kazan Khanate, which separated from the Horde in 1438 and tried to pursue the same policy. After two successful campaigns against Moscow (1439, 1444-1445), Kazan began to experience increasingly persistent and powerful pressure from the Russian state, which was formally still in vassal dependence on the Great Horde (in the period under review these were the campaigns of 1461, 1467-1469, 1478). ).
Firstly, an active, offensive line was chosen in relation to both rudiments and completely viable heirs of the Horde. The Russian tsars decided not to let them come to their senses, to finish off the already half-defeated enemy, and not to rest on the laurels of the victors.
Secondly, pitting one Tatar group against another was used as a new tactical technique that gave the most useful military-political effect. Significant Tatar formations began to be included in the Russian armed forces to carry out joint attacks on other Tatar military formations, and primarily on the remnants of the Horde.
So, in 1485, 1487 and 1491. Ivan III sent military detachments to strike the troops of the Great Horde, who were attacking Moscow's ally at that time - the Crimean Khan Mengli-Girey.
Particularly significant in military-political terms was the so-called. spring campaign of 1491 to the “Wild Field” along converging directions.

1491 Campaign to the “Wild Field” - 1. The Horde khans Seid-Akhmet and Shig-Akhmet besieged Crimea in May 1491. Ivan III dispatched a huge army of 60 thousand people to help his ally Mengli-Girey. under the leadership of the following military leaders:
a) Prince Peter Nikitich Obolensky;
b) Prince Ivan Mikhailovich Repni-Obolensky;
c) Kasimov prince Satilgan Merdzhulatovich.
2. These independent detachments headed for the Crimea in such a way that they had to approach the rear of the Horde troops from three sides in converging directions in order to squeeze them into pincers, while they would be attacked from the front by the troops of Mengli-Girey.
3. In addition, on June 3 and 8, 1491, the allies were mobilized to attack from the flanks. These were again both Russian and Tatar troops:
a) Kazan Khan Muhammad-Emin and his governors Abash-Ulan and Burash-Seyid;
b) Ivan III's brothers appanage princes Andrei Vasilyevich Bolshoi and Boris Vasilyevich with their troops.

Another new tactical technique introduced in the 90s of the 15th century. Ivan III in his military policy regarding Tatar attacks is a systematic organization of pursuit of Tatar raids invading Russia, which has never been done before.

1492 - The pursuit of the troops of two governors - Fyodor Koltovsky and Goryain Sidorov - and their battle with the Tatars in the area between the Bystraya Sosna and Trudy rivers;
1499 - Pursuit after the Tatars’ raid on Kozelsk, which recaptured from the enemy all the “full” and cattle he had taken away;
1500 (summer) - The army of Khan Shig-Ahmed (Great Horde) of 20 thousand people. stood at the mouth of the Tikhaya Sosna River, but did not dare to go further towards the Moscow border;
1500 (autumn) - A new campaign of an even more numerous army of Shig-Akhmed, but further than the Zaokskaya side, i.e. territory of the north of the Oryol region, it did not dare to go;
1501 - On August 30, the 20,000-strong army of the Great Horde began the devastation of the Kursk land, approaching Rylsk, and by November it reached the Bryansk and Novgorod-Seversk lands. The Tatars captured the city of Novgorod-Seversky, but this army of the Great Horde did not go further to the Moscow lands.

In 1501, a coalition of Lithuania, Livonia and the Great Horde was formed, directed against the union of Moscow, Kazan and Crimea. This campaign was part of the war between Muscovite Rus' and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for the Verkhovsky principalities (1500-1503). It is incorrect to talk about the Tatars seizing the Novgorod-Seversky lands, which were part of their ally - the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and were captured by Moscow in 1500. According to the truce of 1503, almost all of these lands went to Moscow.
1502 Liquidation of the Great Horde - The army of the Great Horde remained to winter at the mouth of the Seim River and near Belgorod. Ivan III then agreed with Mengli-Girey that he would send his troops to expel Shig-Akhmed’s troops from this territory. Mengli-Girey fulfilled this request, inflicting a strong blow on the Great Horde in February 1502.
In May 1502, Mengli-Girey defeated the troops of Shig-Akhmed for the second time at the mouth of the Sula River, where they migrated to spring pastures. This battle effectively ended the remnants of the Great Horde.

This is how Ivan III dealt with it at the beginning of the 16th century. with the Tatar states through the hands of the Tatars themselves.
Thus, from the beginning of the 16th century. the last remnants of the Golden Horde disappeared from the historical arena. And the point was not only that this completely removed from the Moscow state any threat of invasion from the East, seriously strengthened its security - the main, significant result was a sharp change in the formal and actual international legal position of the Russian state, which manifested itself in a change in its international -legal relations with the Tatar states - the “successors” of the Golden Horde.
This was precisely the main historical meaning, the main historical significance of the liberation of Russia from Horde dependence.
For the Moscow state, vassal relations ceased, it became a sovereign state, a subject of international relations. This completely changed his position both among the Russian lands and in Europe as a whole.
Until then, for 250 years, the Grand Duke received only unilateral labels from the Horde khans, i.e. permission to own his own fiefdom (principality), or, in other words, the khan’s consent to continue to trust his tenant and vassal, to the fact that he will temporarily not be touched from this post if he fulfills a number of conditions: pay tribute, conduct loyalty to the khan politics, send “gifts,” and participate, if necessary, in the military activities of the Horde.
With the collapse of the Horde and the emergence of new khanates on its ruins - Kazan, Astrakhan, Crimean, Siberian - a completely new situation arose: the institution of vassal submission to Rus' disappeared and ceased. This was expressed in the fact that all relations with the new Tatar states began to occur on a bilateral basis. The conclusion of bilateral treaties on political issues began at the end of wars and at the conclusion of peace. And this was precisely the main and important change.
Outwardly, especially in the first decades, there were no noticeable changes in the relations between Russia and the khanates:
The Moscow princes continued to occasionally pay tribute to the Tatar khans, continued to send them gifts, and the khans of the new Tatar states, in turn, continued to maintain the old forms of relations with the Moscow Grand Duchy, i.e. Sometimes, like the Horde, they organized campaigns against Moscow right up to the walls of the Kremlin, resorted to devastating raids for the meadows, stole cattle and plundered the property of the Grand Duke’s subjects, demanded that he pay indemnity, etc. and so on.
But after the end of hostilities, the parties began to draw legal conclusions - i.e. record their victories and defeats in bilateral documents, conclude peace or truce treaties, sign written obligations. And it was precisely this that significantly changed their true relations, leading to the fact that the entire relationship of forces on both sides actually changed significantly.
That is why it became possible for the Moscow state to purposefully work to change this balance of forces in its favor and ultimately achieve the weakening and liquidation of the new khanates that arose on the ruins of the Golden Horde, not within two and a half centuries, but much faster - in less than 75 years old, in the second half of the 16th century.

"From Ancient Rus' to the Russian Empire." Shishkin Sergey Petrovich, Ufa.
V.V. Pokhlebkina "Tatars and Rus'. 360 years of relations in 1238-1598." (M. "International Relations" 2000).
Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary. 4th edition, M. 1987.

MONGOL YOKE(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.

According to Russian chronicles, these nomads were called “Tatarov” in Rus' after the name of the most active and active tribe of Otuz-Tatars. It became known since the conquest of Beijing in 1217, and the Chinese began to call all the occupying tribes that came from the Mongolian steppes by this name. Under the name “Tatars,” the invaders entered Russian chronicles as a general concept for all eastern nomads who devastated Russian lands.

The yoke began during the years of conquest of Russian territories (the battle of Kalka in 1223, the conquest of northeastern Rus' in 1237–1238, the invasion of southern Russia in 1240 and southwestern Rus' in 1242). It was accompanied by the destruction of 49 Russian cities out of 74, which was a heavy blow to the foundations of urban Russian culture - handicraft production. The yoke led to the liquidation of numerous monuments of material and spiritual culture, the destruction of stone buildings, and the burning of monastery and church libraries.

The date of the formal establishment of the yoke is considered to be 1243, when the father of Alexander Nevsky was the last son of Vsevolod the Big Nest, Prince. Yaroslav Vsevolodovich accepted from the conquerors a label (certifying document) for the great reign in the Vladimir land, in which he was called “senior to all other princes in the Russian land.” At the same time, the Russian principalities, defeated by Mongol-Tatar troops several years earlier, were not considered directly included in the empire of the conquerors, which in the 1260s received the name Golden Horde. They remained politically autonomous and retained a local princely administration, the activities of which were controlled by permanent or regularly visiting representatives of the Horde (Baskaks). Russian princes were considered tributaries of the Horde khans, but if they received labels from the khans, they remained officially recognized rulers of their lands. Both systems - tributary (collection of tribute by the Horde - “exit” or, later, “yasak”) and issuance of labels - consolidated the political fragmentation of Russian lands, increased rivalry between the princes, contributed to the weakening of ties between the northeastern and northwestern principalities and lands from the south and southwestern Russia, which became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland.

The Horde did not maintain a permanent army on the Russian territory they conquered. The yoke was supported by the dispatch of punitive detachments and troops, as well as repressions against disobedient rulers who resisted the implementation of administrative measures conceived at the khan's headquarters. Thus, in Rus' in the 1250s, particular dissatisfaction was caused by the conduct of a general census of the population of Russian lands by the Baskaks, the “numbered”, and later by the establishment of underwater and military conscription. One of the ways to influence the Russian princes was the system of taking hostages, leaving one of the princes’ relatives at the khan’s headquarters, in the city of Sarai on the Volga. At the same time, the relatives of obedient rulers were encouraged and released, while the obstinate ones were killed.

The Horde encouraged the loyalty of those princes who compromised with the conquerors. Thus, for Alexander Nevsky’s willingness to pay a “exit” (tribute) to the Tatars, he not only received the support of the Tatar cavalry in the battle with the German knights on Lake Peipus in 1242, but also ensured that his father, Yaroslav, received the first label for the great reign. In 1259, during a rebellion against the “numerals” in Novgorod, Alexander Nevsky ensured that the census was carried out and even provided guards (“watchmen”) for the Baskaks so that they would not be torn to pieces by the rebellious townspeople. For the support provided to him, Khan Berke refused the forced Islamization of the conquered Russian territories. Moreover, the Russian Church was exempt from paying tribute (“exit”).

When the first, most difficult time of the introduction of the khan's power into Russian life had passed, and the top of Russian society (princes, boyars, merchants, church) found a common language with the new government, the entire burden of paying tribute to the united forces of the conquerors and old masters fell on the people. The waves of popular uprisings described by the chronicler constantly arose for almost half a century, starting from 1257–1259, the first attempt at an all-Russian census. Its implementation was entrusted to Kitata, a relative of the Great Khan. Uprisings against the Baskaks repeatedly occurred everywhere: in the 1260s in Rostov, in 1275 in the southern Russian lands, in the 1280s in Yaroslavl, Suzdal, Vladimir, Murom, in 1293 and again, in 1327, in Tver. Elimination of the Baska system after the participation of the troops of the Moscow prince. Ivan Danilovich Kalita in the suppression of the Tver uprising of 1327 (from that time on, the collection of tribute from the population was entrusted, in order to avoid new conflicts, to the Russian princes and their subordinate tax farmers) did not stop paying tribute as such. Temporary relief from them was obtained only after the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, but already in 1382 the payment of tribute was restored.

The first prince who received the great reign without the ill-fated “label”, on the rights of his “fatherland”, was the son of the winner of the Horde in the Battle of Kulikovo. Vasily I Dmitrievich. Under him, the “exit” to the Horde began to be paid irregularly, and Khan Edigei’s attempt to restore the previous order of things by capturing Moscow (1408) failed. Although during the feudal war of the mid-15th century. The Horde made a series of new devastating invasions of Rus' (1439, 1445, 1448, 1450, 1451, 1455, 1459), but they were no longer able to restore their dominion over. The political unification of the Russian lands around Moscow under Ivan III Vasilyevich created the conditions for the complete elimination of the yoke; in 1476 he refused to pay tribute at all. In 1480, after the unsuccessful campaign of the Khan of the Great Horde Akhmat (“Standing on the Ugra” 1480), the yoke was finally overthrown.

Modern researchers differ significantly in their assessments of the Horde's more than 240-year rule over Russian lands. The very designation of this period as “yoke” in relation to Russian and Slavic history in general was introduced by the Polish chronicler Dlugosz in 1479 and since then has been firmly entrenched in Western European historiography. In Russian science, this term was first used by N.M. Karamzin (1766–1826), who believed that it was the yoke that held back the development of Rus' in comparison with Western Europe: “The shadow of the barbarians, darkening the horizon of Russia, hid Europe from us at the very time when beneficial information and skills multiplied more and more in her.” The same opinion about the yoke as a restraining factor in the development and formation of all-Russian statehood, the strengthening of eastern despotic tendencies in it, was also shared by S.M. Soloviev and V.O. Klyuchevsky, who noted that the consequences of the yoke were the ruin of the country, a long lag behind Western Europe, irreversible changes in cultural and socio-psychological processes. This approach to assessing the Horde yoke also dominated in Soviet historiography (A.N. Nasonov, V.V. Kargalov).

Scattered and rare attempts to revise the established point of view met with resistance. The works of historians working in the West were critically received (primarily G.V. Vernadsky, who saw in the relationship between the Russian lands and the Horde a complex symbiosis, from which each people gained something). The concept of the famous Russian Turkologist L.N. Gumilyov, who tried to destroy the myth that nomadic peoples brought nothing but suffering to Rus' and were only robbers and destroyers of material and spiritual values, was also suppressed. He believed that the tribes of nomads from the East who invaded Rus' were able to establish a special administrative order that ensured the political autonomy of the Russian principalities, saved their religious identity (Orthodoxy), and thereby laid the foundations for religious tolerance and the Eurasian essence of Russia. Gumilyov argued that the result of the conquests of Rus' at the beginning of the 13th century. it was not a yoke, but a kind of alliance with the Horde, recognition by the Russian princes of the supreme power of the khan. At the same time, the rulers of neighboring principalities (Minsk, Polotsk, Kiev, Galich, Volyn) who did not want to recognize this power found themselves conquered by the Lithuanians or Poles, became part of their states and were subjected to centuries-long Catholicization. It was Gumilyov who first pointed out that the ancient Russian name for nomads from the East (among whom the Mongols predominated) - “Tatarov” - cannot offend the national feelings of modern Volga (Kazan) Tatars living on the territory of Tatarstan. Their ethnic group, he believed, did not bear historical responsibility for the actions of nomadic tribes from the steppes of Southeast Asia, since the ancestors of the Kazan Tatars were the Kama Bulgars, Kipchaks and partly the ancient Slavs. Gumilev connected the history of the emergence of the “myth of the yoke” with the activities of the creators of the Norman theory - German historians who served in the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the 18th century and distorted the real facts.

In post-Soviet historiography, the question of the existence of the yoke still remains controversial. A consequence of the growing number of supporters of Gumilyov’s concept was the appeal to the President of the Russian Federation in 2000 to cancel the celebration of the anniversary of the Battle of Kulikovo, since, according to the authors of the appeals, “there was no yoke in Rus'.” According to these researchers, supported by the authorities of Tatarstan and Kazakhstan, in the Battle of Kulikovo, united Russian-Tatar troops fought with the usurper of power in the Horde, Temnik Mamai, who proclaimed himself khan and gathered under his banner the mercenary Genoese, Alans (Ossetians), Kasogs (Circassians) and Polovtsians

Despite the debatability of all these statements, the fact of significant mutual influence of the cultures of peoples who have lived in close political, social and demographic contacts for almost three centuries is undeniable.

Lev Pushkarev, Natalya Pushkareva

The history of Russia has always been a little sad and turbulent due to wars, power struggles and drastic reforms. These reforms were often dumped on Russia at once, forcibly, instead of introducing them gradually, measuredly, as most often happened in history. From the time of the first mentions, the princes of different cities - Vladimir, Pskov, Suzdal and Kyiv - constantly fought and argued for power and control over the small semi-unified state. Under the rule of Saint Vladimir (980-1015) and Yaroslav the Wise (1015-1054)

The Kiev state was at the height of its prosperity and had achieved relative peace, unlike in previous years. However, time passed, the wise rulers died, and the struggle for power began again and wars broke out.

Before his death, in 1054, Yaroslav the Wise decided to divide the principalities between his sons, and this decision determined the future of Kievan Rus for the next two hundred years. Civil wars between brothers devastated most of the Kyiv Commonwealth of Cities, depriving it of the necessary resources that would be very useful to it in the future. As the princes continuously fought with each other, the former Kiev state slowly decayed, diminished and lost its former glory. At the same time, it was weakened by the invasions of the steppe tribes - the Cumans (aka Cumans or Kipchaks), and before that the Pechenegs, and in the end the Kiev state became easy prey for more powerful invaders from distant lands.

Rus' had a chance to change its destiny. Around 1219, the Mongols first entered the areas near Kievan Rus, heading to Russia, and they asked for help from the Russian princes. A council of princes met in Kyiv to consider the request, which greatly worried the Mongols. According to historical sources, the Mongols stated that they were not going to attack Russian cities and lands. Mongol envoys demanded peace with the Russian princes. However, the princes did not trust the Mongols, suspecting that they would not stop and would go to Rus'. The Mongol ambassadors were killed, and thus the chance for peace was destroyed at the hands of the princes of the disunited Kyiv state.

For twenty years, Batu Khan with an army of 200 thousand people carried out raids. One after another, the Russian principalities - Ryazan, Moscow, Vladimir, Suzdal and Rostov - fell into bondage to Batu and his army. The Mongols plundered and destroyed the cities, killing the inhabitants or taking them captive. The Mongols eventually captured, plundered and razed Kyiv, the center and symbol of Kievan Rus. Only the outlying northwestern principalities such as Novgorod, Pskov and Smolensk survived the onslaught, although these cities would endure indirect subjugation and become appendages of the Golden Horde. Perhaps the Russian princes could prevent this by concluding peace. However, this cannot be called a miscalculation, because then Rus' would forever have to change religion, art, language, system of government and geopolitics.

The Orthodox Church during the Tatar-Mongol yoke

The first Mongol raids sacked and destroyed many churches and monasteries, and countless priests and monks were killed. Those who survived were often captured and sent into slavery. The size and power of the Mongol army was shocking. Not only the economy and political structure of the country suffered, but also social and spiritual institutions. The Mongols claimed that they were God's punishment, and the Russians believed that all this was sent to them by God as punishment for their sins.

The Orthodox Church will become a powerful beacon in the “dark years” of Mongol dominance. The Russian people eventually turned to the Orthodox Church, seeking consolation in their faith and guidance and support in the clergy. The raids of the steppe people caused a shock, throwing seeds on fertile soil for the development of Russian monasticism, which in turn played an important role in the formation of the worldview of the neighboring tribes of the Finno-Ugrians and Zyryans, and also led to the colonization of the northern regions of Russia.

The humiliation to which the princes and city authorities were subjected undermined their political authority. This allowed the church to embody religious and national identity, filling the lost political identity. Also helping to strengthen the church was the unique legal concept of labeling, or the immunity charter. During the reign of Mengu-Timur in 1267, the label was issued to Metropolitan Kirill of Kyiv for the Orthodox Church.

Although the church had come under de facto Mongol protection ten years earlier (from the 1257 census taken by Khan Berke), this label officially sealed the sanctity of the Orthodox Church. More importantly, it officially exempted the church from any form of taxation by the Mongols or Russians. Priests had the right not to be registered during censuses and were exempt from forced labor and military service.

As expected, the label issued to the Orthodox Church had great significance. For the first time, the church becomes less dependent on the princely will than in any other period of Russian history. The Orthodox Church was able to acquire and secure significant tracts of land, giving it an extremely powerful position that continued for centuries after the Mongol takeover. The charter strictly prohibited both Mongolian and Russian tax agents from seizing church lands or demanding anything from the Orthodox Church. This was guaranteed by a simple punishment - death.

Another important reason for the rise of the church lay in its mission to spread Christianity and convert village pagans. Metropolitans traveled widely throughout the country to strengthen the internal structure of the church and to solve administrative problems and supervise the activities of bishops and priests. Moreover, the relative security of the monasteries (economic, military and spiritual) attracted peasants. Since the rapidly growing cities interfered with the atmosphere of goodness that the church provided, the monks began to go into the desert and rebuild monasteries and monasteries there. Religious settlements continued to be built and thereby strengthened the authority of the Orthodox Church.

The last significant change was the relocation of the center of the Orthodox Church. Before the Mongols invaded Russian lands, the church center was Kyiv. After the destruction of Kyiv in 1299, the Holy See moved to Vladimir, and then, in 1322, to Moscow, which significantly increased the importance of Moscow.

Fine arts during the Tatar-Mongol yoke

While mass deportations of artists began in Rus', a monastic revival and attention to the Orthodox Church led to an artistic revival. What brought Russians together during those difficult times when they found themselves without a state was their faith and ability to express their religious beliefs. During this difficult time, the great artists Theophanes the Greek and Andrei Rublev worked.

It was during the second half of Mongol rule in the mid-fourteenth century that Russian iconography and fresco painting began to flourish again. Theophanes the Greek arrived in Rus' in the late 1300s. He painted churches in many cities, especially in Novgorod and Nizhny Novgorod. In Moscow, he painted the iconostasis for the Church of the Annunciation, and also worked on the Church of the Archangel Michael. Several decades after Feofan's arrival, one of his best students was the novice Andrei Rublev. Icon painting came to Rus' from Byzantium in the 10th century, but the Mongol invasion in the 13th century cut off Rus' from Byzantium.

How the language changed after the yoke

Such an aspect as the influence of one language on another may seem insignificant to us, but this information helps us understand to what extent one nationality influenced another or groups of nationalities - on government, on military affairs, on trade, as well as how geographically this spread influence. Indeed, the linguistic and even sociolinguistic influences were great, as the Russians borrowed thousands of words, phrases, and other significant linguistic structures from the Mongolian and Turkic languages ​​united in the Mongol Empire. Below are some examples of words that are still used today. All borrowings came from different parts of the Horde:

• barn
• bazaar
• money
• horse
• box
• customs

One of the very important colloquial features of the Russian language of Turkic origin is the use of the word “come on”. Listed below are a few common examples that are still found in Russian.

• Let's have some tea.
• Let's have a drink!
• Let's go!

In addition, in southern Russia there are dozens of local names of Tatar/Turkic origin for lands along the Volga, which are highlighted on maps of these areas. Examples of such names: Penza, Alatyr, Kazan, names of regions: Chuvashia and Bashkortostan.

Kievan Rus was a democratic state. The main governing body was the veche - a meeting of all free male citizens who gathered to discuss issues such as war and peace, law, invitation or expulsion of princes to the corresponding city; all cities in Kievan Rus had a veche. It was essentially a forum for civil affairs, for discussion and problem solving. However, this democratic institution suffered severe curtailment under Mongol rule.

Of course, the most influential meetings were in Novgorod and Kyiv. In Novgorod, a special veche bell (in other cities church bells were usually used for this) served to convene the townspeople, and, theoretically, anyone could ring it. When the Mongols conquered most of Kievan Rus, the veche ceased to exist in all cities except Novgorod, Pskov and several other cities in the northwest. The veche in these cities continued to work and develop until Moscow subjugated them at the end of the 15th century. However, today the spirit of the veche as a public forum has been revived in several Russian cities, including Novgorod.

Population censuses, which made it possible to collect tribute, were of great importance to the Mongol rulers. To support censuses, the Mongols introduced a special dual system of regional administration, headed by military governors, the Baskaks, and/or civilian governors, the Darugachs. Essentially, the Baskaks were responsible for directing the activities of rulers in areas that resisted or did not accept Mongol rule. The Darugachs were civilian governors who controlled those areas of the empire that had surrendered without a fight or that were considered to have already submitted to the Mongol forces and were calm. However, the Baskaks and Darugachs sometimes performed the duties of the authorities, but did not duplicate it.

As we know from history, the ruling princes of Kievan Rus did not trust the Mongol ambassadors who came to make peace with them in the early 1200s; The princes, regrettably, put Genghis Khan's ambassadors to the sword and soon paid dearly. Thus, in the 13th century, Baskaks were installed in the conquered lands to subjugate the people and control even the daily activities of the princes. In addition, in addition to conducting the census, the Baskaks provided recruitment for the local population.

Existing sources and research indicate that the Baskaks largely disappeared from Russian lands by the mid-14th century, as Rus' more or less accepted the authority of the Mongol khans. When the Baskaks left, power passed to the Darugachi. However, unlike the Baskaks, the Darugachis did not live on the territory of Rus'. In fact, they were located in Sarai, the old capital of the Golden Horde, located near modern Volgograd. Darugachi served on the lands of Rus' mainly as advisers and advised the khan. Although the responsibility for collecting and delivering tribute and conscripts belonged to the Baskaks, with the transition from the Baskaks to the Darugachs, these responsibilities were actually transferred to the princes themselves, when the Khan saw that the princes could handle it quite well.

The first census conducted by the Mongols took place in 1257, just 17 years after the conquest of Russian lands. The population was divided into dozens - the Chinese had such a system, the Mongols adopted it, using it throughout their entire empire. The main purpose of the census was conscription as well as taxation. Moscow continued this practice even after it stopped recognizing the Horde in 1480. The practice attracted the interest of foreign visitors to Russia, for whom large-scale censuses were still unknown. One such visitor, Sigismund von Herberstein of Habsburg, noted that every two or three years the prince conducted a census of the entire land. The population census did not become widespread in Europe until the early 19th century. One significant remark that we must make: the thoroughness with which the Russians carried out the census could not be achieved in other parts of Europe during the era of absolutism for about 120 years. The influence of the Mongol Empire, at least in this area, was apparently deep and effective and helped create a strong centralized government for the Rus.

One of the important innovations that the Baskaks oversaw and supported was the pits (post system), which were built to provide travelers with food, lodging, horses, and carts or sleighs, depending on the time of year. Originally built by the Mongols, the yam allowed for the relatively rapid movement of important dispatches between the khans and their governors, as well as the rapid dispatch of envoys, local or foreign, between the various principalities throughout the vast empire. At each post there were horses to carry authorized persons, as well as to replace tired horses on particularly long trips. Each post was usually about a day's drive from the nearest post. Local residents were required to support caretakers, feed horses, and meet the needs of officials traveling on official business.

The system was quite effective. Another report by Sigismund von Herberstein of the Habsburg stated that the pit system allowed him to travel 500 kilometers (from Novgorod to Moscow) in 72 hours - much faster than anywhere else in Europe. The yam system helped the Mongols maintain tight control over their empire. During the dark years of the Mongols' presence in Rus' at the end of the 15th century, Prince Ivan III decided to continue using the idea of ​​the yam system in order to preserve the established communications and intelligence system. However, the idea of ​​a postal system as we know it today would not emerge until the death of Peter the Great in the early 1700s.

Some of the innovations brought to Rus' by the Mongols satisfied the needs of the state for a long time and continued for many centuries after the Golden Horde. This greatly enhanced the development and expansion of the complex bureaucracy of later, imperial Russia.

Founded in 1147, Moscow remained an insignificant city for more than a hundred years. At that time, this place lay at the crossroads of three main roads, one of which connected Moscow with Kiev. The geographical location of Moscow deserves attention, since it is located on the bend of the Moscow River, which merges with the Oka and Volga. Through the Volga, which allows access to the Dnieper and Don rivers, as well as the Black and Caspian seas, there have always been enormous opportunities for trade with neighbors and distant lands. With the advance of the Mongols, crowds of refugees began to arrive from the devastated southern part of Rus', mainly from Kyiv. Moreover, the actions of the Moscow princes in favor of the Mongols contributed to the rise of Moscow as a center of power.

Even before the Mongols granted Moscow the label, Tver and Moscow were constantly fighting for power. The main turning point occurred in 1327, when the population of Tver began to rebel. Seeing this as an opportunity to please the khan of his Mongol overlords, Prince Ivan I of Moscow with a huge Tatar army suppressed the uprising in Tver, restoring order in that city and winning the favor of the khan. To demonstrate loyalty, Ivan I was also given a label, and thus Moscow moved one step closer to fame and power. Soon the princes of Moscow took on the responsibility of collecting taxes throughout the land (including themselves), and eventually the Mongols assigned this task solely to Moscow and stopped the practice of sending their own tax collectors. However, Ivan I was more than a shrewd politician and a model of common sense: he was perhaps the first prince to replace the traditional horizontal succession scheme with a vertical one (although this was only fully achieved by the second reign of Prince Vasily in the middle of 1400). This change led to greater stability in Moscow and thus strengthened its position. As Moscow grew thanks to the collection of tribute, its power over other principalities became more and more established. Moscow received land, which meant it collected more tribute and gained greater access to resources, and therefore more power.

At a time when Moscow was becoming more and more powerful, the Golden Horde was in a state of general disintegration caused by riots and coups. Prince Dmitry decided to attack in 1376 and succeeded. Soon after, one of the Mongol generals, Mamai, attempted to create his own horde in the steppes west of the Volga, and he decided to challenge the authority of Prince Dmitry on the banks of the Vozha River. Dmitry defeated Mamai, which delighted the Muscovites and of course angered the Mongols. However, he gathered an army of 150 thousand people. Dmitry assembled an army of comparable size, and the two armies met near the Don River on the Kulikovo Field in early September 1380. Dmitry's Russians, although they lost about 100,000 people, won. Tokhtamysh, one of Tamerlane's generals, soon captured and executed General Mamai. Prince Dmitry became known as Dmitry Donskoy. However, Moscow was soon sacked by Tokhtamysh and again had to pay tribute to the Mongols.

But the great Battle of Kulikovo in 1380 was a symbolic turning point. Even though the Mongols took brutal revenge on Moscow for its insubordination, the power that Moscow showed grew and its influence over other Russian principalities expanded. In 1478, Novgorod finally submitted to the future capital, and Moscow soon abandoned its submission to the Mongol and Tatar khans, thus ending more than 250 years of Mongol rule.

Results of the period of the Tatar-Mongol yoke

Evidence suggests that the many consequences of the Mongol invasion extended to the political, social and religious aspects of Rus'. Some of them, such as the growth of the Orthodox Church, had a relatively positive impact on the Russian lands, while others, such as the loss of the veche and the centralization of power, contributed to the end of the spread of traditional democracy and self-government for the various principalities. Because of its influence on language and government, the impact of the Mongol invasion is still evident today. Perhaps with the chance to experience the Renaissance, as in other Western European cultures, Russia's political, religious and social thought will be very different from the political reality of today. Under the control of the Mongols, who adopted many of the ideas of government and economics from the Chinese, the Russians became perhaps a more Asian country in terms of administration, and the deep Christian roots of the Russians established and helped maintain a connection with Europe. The Mongol invasion, perhaps more than any other historical event, determined the course of development of the Russian state - its culture, political geography, history and national identity.

Controversy over the history of the invasion Tatar-Mongol and the consequences of their invasion, the so-called yoke, do not disappear, probably will never disappear. Under the influence of numerous critics, including Gumilyov’s supporters, new, interesting facts began to be woven into the traditional version of Russian history Mongol yoke that I would like to develop. As we all remember from our school history course, the prevailing point of view is still the following:

In the first half of the 13th century, Russia was invaded by the Tatars, who came to Europe from Central Asia, in particular China and Central Asia, which they had already conquered by this time. The dates are precisely known to our Russian historians: 1223 - Battle of Kalka, 1237 - fall of Ryazan, 1238 - defeat of the united forces of the Russian princes on the banks of the City River, 1240 - fall of Kyiv. Tatar-Mongol troops destroyed individual squads of the princes of Kievan Rus and subjected it to a monstrous defeat. The military power of the Tatars was so irresistible that their dominance continued for two and a half centuries - until the “Standing on the Ugra” in 1480, when the consequences of the yoke were eventually completely eliminated, the end came.

For 250 years, that’s how many years, Russia paid tribute to the Horde in money and blood. In 1380, Rus' for the first time since the invasion of Batu Khan gathered forces and gave battle to the Tatar Horde on the Kulikovo field, in which Dmitry Donskoy defeated the temnik Mamai, but from this defeat all the Tatar-Mongols did not happen at all, this was, so to speak, a won battle in lost war. Although even the traditional version of Russian history says that there were practically no Tatar-Mongols in Mamai’s army, only local nomads from the Don and Genoese mercenaries. By the way, the participation of the Genoese suggests the participation of the Vatican in this issue. Today, new data, as it were, has begun to be added to the known version of Russian history, but intended to add credibility and reliability to the already existing version. In particular, there are extensive discussions about the number of nomadic Tatars - Mongols, the specifics of their martial art and weapons.

Let's evaluate the versions that exist today:

I suggest starting with a very interesting fact. Such a nationality as Mongol-Tatars does not exist, and did not exist at all. Mongols And Tatar The only thing they have in common is that they roamed the Central Asian steppe, which, as we know, is large enough to accommodate any nomadic people, and at the same time give them the opportunity not to intersect on the same territory at all.

The Mongol tribes lived at the southern tip of the Asian steppe and often raided China and its provinces, as the history of China often confirms to us. While other nomadic Turkic tribes, called from time immemorial in Rus' Bulgars (Volga Bulgaria), settled in the lower reaches of the Volga River. In those days in Europe they were called Tatars, or TatAriev(the strongest of the nomadic tribes, unbending and invincible). And the Tatars, the closest neighbors of the Mongols, lived in the northeastern part of modern Mongolia, mainly in the area of ​​Lake Buir Nor and up to the borders of China. There were 70 thousand families, making up 6 tribes: Tutukulyut Tatars, Alchi Tatars, Chagan Tatars, Queen Tatars, Terat Tatars, Barkuy Tatars. The second parts of the names are apparently the self-names of these tribes. There is not a single word among them that sounds close to the Turkic language - they are more consonant with Mongolian names.

Two related peoples - the Tatars and the Mongols - waged a war of mutual destruction for a long time with varying success, until Genghis Khan did not seize power throughout Mongolia. The fate of the Tatars was predetermined. Since the Tatars were the killers of Genghis Khan’s father, destroyed many tribes and clans close to him, and constantly supported the tribes opposing him, “then Genghis Khan (Tei-mu-Chin) ordered the general massacre of the Tatars and not leave even one alive until the limit determined by law (Yasak); so that women and small children should also be killed, and the wombs of pregnant women should be cut open in order to completely destroy them. …”.

That is why such a nationality could not threaten the freedom of Rus'. Moreover, many historians and cartographers of that time, especially Eastern European ones, “sinned” to call all indestructible (from the point of view of Europeans) and invincible peoples TatAriev or simply in Latin TatArie.
This can be easily seen from ancient maps, for example, Map of Russia 1594 in the Atlas of Gerhard Mercator, or Maps of Russia and TarTaria Ortelius.

One of the fundamental axioms of Russian historiography is the assertion that for almost 250 years, the so-called “Mongol-Tatar yoke” existed on the lands inhabited by the ancestors of the modern East Slavic peoples - Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians. Allegedly, in the 30s - 40s of the 13th century, the ancient Russian principalities were subjected to a Mongol-Tatar invasion under the leadership of the legendary Batu Khan.

The fact is that there are numerous historical facts that contradict the historical version of the “Mongol-Tatar yoke.”

First of all, even the canonical version does not directly confirm the fact of the conquest of the northeastern ancient Russian principalities by the Mongol-Tatar invaders - supposedly these principalities became vassals of the Golden Horde (a state formation that occupied a large territory in the southeast of Eastern Europe and Western Siberia, founded Mongol prince Batu). They say that the army of Khan Batu made several bloody predatory raids on these very northeastern ancient Russian principalities, as a result of which our distant ancestors decided to go “under the arm” of Batu and his Golden Horde.

However, historical information is known that the personal guard of Khan Batu consisted exclusively of Russian soldiers. A very strange circumstance for the lackey vassals of the great Mongol conquerors, especially for the newly conquered people.

There is indirect evidence of the existence of Batu’s letter to the legendary Russian prince Alexander Nevsky, in which the all-powerful khan of the Golden Horde asks the Russian prince to take in his son and make him a real warrior and commander.

Some sources also claim that Tatar mothers in the Golden Horde frightened their naughty children with the name of Alexander Nevsky.

As a result of all these inconsistencies, the author of these lines in his book “2013. Memories of the Future” (“Olma-Press”) puts forward a completely different version of the events of the first half and mid-13th century on the territory of the European part of the future Russian Empire.

According to this version, when the Mongols, at the head of nomadic tribes (later called Tatars), reached the northeastern ancient Russian principalities, they actually entered into quite bloody military clashes with them. But Khan Batu did not achieve a crushing victory; most likely, the matter ended in a kind of “battle draw.” And then Batu proposed an equal military alliance to the Russian princes. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why his guard consisted of Russian knights, and why Tatar mothers frightened their children with the name of Alexander Nevsky.

All these terrible stories about the “Tatar-Mongol yoke” were invented much later, when the Moscow kings had to create myths about their exclusivity and superiority over the conquered peoples (the same Tatars, for example).

Even in the modern school curriculum, this historical moment is briefly described as follows: “At the beginning of the 13th century, Genghis Khan gathered a large army of nomadic peoples, and, subordinating them to strict discipline, decided to conquer the whole world. Having defeated China, he sent his army to Rus'. In the winter of 1237, the army of “Mongol-Tatars” invaded the territory of Rus', and subsequently defeating the Russian army on the Kalka River, went further, through Poland and the Czech Republic. As a result, having reached the shores of the Adriatic Sea, the army suddenly stops and, without completing its task, turns back. From this period the so-called “ Mongol-Tatar yoke"over Russia.

But wait, they were going to conquer the whole world... so why didn't they go further? Historians answered that they were afraid of an attack from behind, defeated and plundered, but still strong Rus'. But this is just funny. Will the plundered state run to defend other people's cities and villages? Rather, they will rebuild their borders and wait for the return of the enemy troops in order to fight back fully armed.
But the weirdness doesn't end there. For some unimaginable reason, during the reign of the House of Romanov, dozens of chronicles describing the events of the “time of the Horde” disappear. For example, “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land,” historians believe that this is a document from which everything that would indicate the Ige was carefully removed. They left only fragments telling about some kind of “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 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.
So, what really happened?

At that time, the “new faith” was already flourishing in Europe, namely Faith in Christ. Catholicism was widespread everywhere, and governed everything, from the way of life and the system, to the state system and legislation. At that time, crusades against infidels were still relevant, but along with military methods, “tactical tricks” were often used, akin to bribing authorities and inducing them to their faith. And after receiving power through the purchased person, the conversion of all his “subordinates” to the faith. It was precisely such a secret crusade that was carried out against Rus' at that time. Through bribery and other promises, church ministers were able to seize power over Kiev and nearby regions. Just relatively recently, by the standards of history, the baptism of Rus' took place, but history is silent about the civil war that arose on this basis immediately after the forced baptism. And the ancient Slavic chronicle describes this moment as follows:

« And the Vorogs came from overseas, and they brought faith in alien gods. With fire and sword they began to implant in us an alien faith, shower the Russian princes with gold and silver, bribe their will, and lead them astray from the true path. They promised them an idle life, full of wealth and happiness, and remission of any sins for their dashing deeds.

And then Ros broke up into different states. The Russian clans retreated north to the great Asgard, and named their empire after the names of their patron gods, Tarkh Dazhdbog the Great and Tara, his Sister the Light-Wise. (They called her the Great TarTaria). Leaving the foreigners with the princes purchased in the Principality of Kiev and its environs. Volga Bulgaria also did not bow to its enemies, and did not accept their alien faith as its own.
But the Principality of Kiev did not live in peace with TarTaria. They began to conquer the Russian lands with fire and sword and impose their alien faith. And then the military army rose up for a fierce battle. In order to preserve their faith and reclaim their lands. Both old and young then joined the Ratniki in order to restore order to the Russian Lands.”

And so began the war, in which the Russian army, the lands Great Aria (motherArias) defeated the enemy and drove him out of the original Slavic lands. It drove away the alien army, with their fierce faith, from its stately lands.

By the way, the word Horde translated by initial letters ancient Slavic alphabet, means Order. That is, the Golden Horde is not a separate state, it is a system. "Political" system of the Golden Order. Under which Princes reigned locally, planted with the approval of the Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Army, or in one word they called him HAN(our defender).
This means that there was not more than two hundred years of oppression, but there was a time of peace and prosperity Great Aria or TarTaria. By the way, modern history also has confirmation of this, but for some reason no one pays attention to it. But we will definitely pay attention, and very closely:

The Mongol-Tatar yoke is a system of political and tributary dependence of the Russian principalities on the Mongol-Tatar khans (until the early 60s of the 13th century, the Mongol khans, after the khans of the Golden Horde) in the 13th-15th centuries. The establishment of the yoke became possible as a result of the Mongol invasion of Rus' in 1237-1241 and occurred for two decades after it, including in lands that were not devastated. In North-Eastern Rus' it lasted until 1480. (Wikipedia)

Battle of the Neva (July 15, 1240) - a battle on the Neva River between the Novgorod militia under the command of Prince Alexander Yaroslavich and the Swedish army. After the victory of the Novgorodians, Alexander Yaroslavich received the honorary nickname “Nevsky” for his skillful management of the campaign and courage in battle. (Wikipedia)

Don’t you think it’s strange that the battle with the Swedes is taking place right in the middle of the invasion? Mongol-Tatars"to Rus'? Burning in fires and plundered " Mongols"Rus is attacked by the Swedish army, which safely drowns in the waters of the Neva, and at the same time the Swedish crusaders do not encounter the Mongols even once. And those who win are strong Swedish army Are the Russians losing to the Mongols? In my opinion, this is just nonsense. Two huge armies are fighting on the same territory at the same time and never intersect. But if you turn to the ancient Slavic chronicles, then everything becomes clear.

Since 1237 Rat Great TarTaria began to win back their ancestral lands, and when the war was coming to an end, the losing representatives of the church asked for help, and the Swedish crusaders were sent into battle. Since it was not possible to take the country by bribery, then they will take it by force. Just in 1240 the army Hordes(that is, the army of Prince Alexander Yaroslavovich, one of the princes of the ancient Slavic family) clashed in battle with the army of the Crusaders, who came to the rescue of their minions. Having won the Battle of the Neva, Alexander received the title of Prince of the Neva and remained to rule Novgorod, and the Horde Army went further to drive the adversary out of the Russian lands completely. So she persecuted “the church and the alien faith” until she reached the Adriatic Sea, thereby restoring her original ancient borders. And having reached them, the army turned around and went north again. Having installed 300 year period of peace.

Again, confirmation of this is the so-called end of Yig « Battle of Kulikovo"before which 2 knights took part in the match Peresvet And Chelubey. Two Russian knights, Andrei Peresvet (superior light) and Chelubey (beating the forehead, Telling, narrating, asking) Information about which was cruelly cut out from the pages of history. It was Chelubey’s loss that foreshadowed the victory of the army of Kievan Rus, restored with the money of the same “Churchmen” who nevertheless penetrated Rus' from the dark, albeit more than 150 years later. It will be later, when all of Rus' is plunged into the abyss of chaos, all sources confirming the events of the past will be burned. And after the Romanov family came to power, many documents will take on the form we know.

By the way, this is not the first time that the Slavic army defends its lands and expels infidels from its territories. Another extremely interesting and confusing moment in History tells us about this.
Army of Alexander the Great, consisting of many professional warriors, was defeated by a small army of some nomads in the mountains north of India (Alexander’s last campaign). And for some reason, no one is surprised by the fact that a large trained army that crossed half the world and redrew the world map was so easily broken by an army of simple and uneducated nomads.
But everything becomes clear if you look at the maps of that time and just even think about who the nomads who came from the north (from India) could have been. These are precisely our territories, which originally belonged to the Slavs, and where to this day the remains of civilization are found EtRusskov.

The Macedonian army was pushed back by the army Slavyan-Ariev who defended their territories. It was at that time that the Slavs “for the first time” walked to the Adriatic Sea, and left a huge mark on the territories of Europe. Thus, it turns out that we are not the first to conquer “half the globe.”

So how did it happen that even now we don’t know our history? Everything is very simple. The Europeans, trembling with fear and horror, never ceased to be afraid of the Rusichs, even when their plans were crowned with success and they enslaved the Slavic peoples, they were still afraid that one day Rus' would rise up and shine again with its former strength.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Peter the Great founded the Russian Academy of Sciences. Over the 120 years of its existence, there were 33 academic historians in the historical department of the Academy. Of these, only three were Russians (including M.V. Lomonosov), the rest were Germans. It turns out that the history of Ancient Rus' was written by the Germans, and many of them did not know not only the way of life and traditions, they did not even know the Russian language. This fact is well known to many historians, but they do not make any effort to carefully study the history that the Germans wrote and get to the bottom of the truth.
Lomonosov wrote a work on the history of Rus', and in this field he often had disputes with his German colleagues. After his death, the archives disappeared without a trace, but somehow his works on the history of Rus' were published, but under the editorship of Miller. At the same time, it was Miller who oppressed Lomonosov in every possible way during his lifetime. Computer analysis confirmed that Lomonosov’s works on the history of Rus' published by Miller are falsifications. Little remains of Lomonosov's works.

This concept can be found on the website of Omsk State University:

We will formulate our concept, hypothesis immediately, without
preliminary preparation of the reader.

Let's pay attention to the following strange and very interesting
data. However, their strangeness is based only on generally accepted
chronology and the version of ancient Russian instilled in us from childhood
stories. It turns out that changing the chronology removes many oddities and
<>.

One of the main moments in the history of ancient Rus' is this:
called the Tatar-Mongol conquest by the Horde. Traditionally
it is believed that the Horde came from the East (China? Mongolia?),
captured many countries, conquered Rus', swept to the West and
even reached Egypt.

But if Rus' had been conquered in the 13th century with any
was on the sides - or from the east, as modern ones claim
historians, or from the West, as Morozov believed, then they should
remain information about the clashes between the conquerors and
Cossacks who lived both on the western borders of Rus' and in the lower reaches
Don and Volga. That is, exactly where they were supposed to pass
conquerors.

Of course, in school courses on Russian history we are intensively
they convince that the Cossack troops allegedly arose only in the 17th century,
allegedly due to the fact that the slaves fled from the power of the landowners to
Don. However, it is known, although this is usually not mentioned in textbooks,
- that, for example, the Don Cossack state existed STILL IN
XVI century, had its own laws and history.

Moreover, it turns out that the beginning of the history of the Cossacks dates back to
to the XII-XIII centuries. See, for example, the work of Sukhorukov<>in DON magazine, 1989.

Thus,<>, - no matter where she came from, -
moving along the natural path of colonization and conquest,
would inevitably have to come into conflict with the Cossacks
regions.
This is not noted.

What's the matter?

A natural hypothesis arises:
NO FOREIGN
THERE WAS NO CONQUEST OF Rus'. THE HORDE DIDN'T FIGHT WITH THE COSSACKS BECAUSE
THE COSSACKS WERE AN COMPONENT PART OF THE HORDE. This hypothesis was
not formulated by us. It is substantiated very convincingly,
for example, A. A. Gordeev in his<>.

BUT WE ARE SAYING SOMETHING MORE.

One of our main hypotheses is that the Cossacks
the troops not only formed part of the Horde - they were regular
troops of the Russian state. Thus, THE HORDE WAS
JUST A REGULAR RUSSIAN ARMY.

According to our hypothesis, the modern terms ARMY and WARRIOR,
- Church Slavonic in origin, - were not Old Russian
terms. They came into constant use in Rus' only with
XVII century. And the old Russian terminology was: Horde,
Cossack, khan

Then the terminology changed. By the way, back in the 19th century
Russian folk proverbs words<>And<>were
interchangeable. This can be seen from the numerous examples given
in Dahl's dictionary. For example:<>and so on.

On the Don there is still the famous city of Semikarakorum, and on
Kuban - Hanskaya village. Let us remember that Karakorum is considered
THE CAPITAL OF GENGIZ KHAN. At the same time, as is well known, in those
places where archaeologists are still persistently searching for Karakorum, there is no
For some reason there is no Karakorum.

In desperation, they hypothesized that<>. This monastery, which existed back in the 19th century, was surrounded
an earthen rampart only about one English mile long. Historians
believe that the famous capital Karakorum was located entirely on
territory subsequently occupied by this monastery.

According to our hypothesis, the Horde is not a foreign entity,
captured Rus' from the outside, but there is simply an Eastern Russian regular
army, which was an integral part of the ancient Russian
state.
Our hypothesis is this.

1) <>IT WAS JUST A WAR PERIOD
MANAGEMENT IN THE RUSSIAN STATE. NO ALIENS Rus'
CONQUERED.

2) THE SUPREME RULER WAS THE COMMANDER-KHAN = TSAR, AND B
IN THE CITIES WERE SITTING CIVIL GOVERNORS - PRINCE WHO WERE DUTY
WERE COLLECTING TRIBUTE IN FAVOR OF THIS RUSSIAN ARMY, FOR ITS
CONTENT.

3) THUS, THE ANCIENT RUSSIAN STATE IS REPRESENTED
A UNITED EMPIRE, IN WHICH THERE WAS A STANDING ARMY CONSISTED OF
PROFESSIONAL MILITARY (HORDE) AND CIVILIAN UNITS THAT DID NOT HAVE
ITS REGULAR TROOPS. SINCE SUCH TROOPS WERE ALREADY PART OF THE
COMPOSITION OF THE HORDE.

4) THIS RUSSIAN-HORDE EMPIRE EXISTED SINCE THE XIV CENTURY
UNTIL THE BEGINNING OF THE 17TH CENTURY. HER STORY ENDED WITH A FAMOUS GREAT
THE TROUBLES IN Rus' AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 17TH CENTURY. AS A RESULT OF THE CIVIL WAR
RUSSIAN HORDA KINGS, THE LAST OF WHICH WAS BORIS
<>, — WERE PHYSICALLY EXTERMINED. AND THE FORMER RUSSIAN
THE ARMY-HORDE ACTUALLY SUFFERED DEFEAT IN THE FIGHT WITH<>. AS A RESULT, POWER IN Rus' CAME TO PRINCIPALLY
NEW PRO-WESTERN ROMANOV DYNASTY. SHE SEIZED POWER AND
IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCH (FILARET).

5) A NEW DYNASTY WAS NEEDED<>,
IDEOLOGICALLY JUSTIFYING ITS POWER. THIS NEW POWER FROM THE POINT
THE VIEW OF THE PREVIOUS RUSSIAN-HORDA HISTORY WAS ILLEGAL. THAT'S WHY
ROMANOV NEEDED TO RADICALLY CHANGE THE COVERAGE OF THE PREVIOUS
RUSSIAN HISTORY. WE NEED TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEM ARE DONE - IT WAS DONE
COMPETENTLY. WITHOUT CHANGING MOST OF THE ESSENTIAL FACTS, THEY COULD BEFORE
UNRECOGNITION WILL DISTORT ENTIRE RUSSIAN HISTORY. SO, PREVIOUS
HISTORY OF Rus'-HORDE WITH ITS CLASS OF FARMERS AND MILITARY
THE CLASS - THE HORDE, WAS DECLARED BY THEM AN ERA<>. AT THE SAME TIME, THERE IS OWN RUSSIAN HORDE-ARMY
TURNED, UNDER THE PENS OF ROMANOV HISTORIANS, INTO MYTHICAL
ALIENS FROM A DISTANT UNKNOWN COUNTRY.

Notorious<>, familiar to us from Romanovsky
history, was simply a GOVERNMENT TAX inside
Rus' for the maintenance of the Cossack army - the Horde. Famous<>, - every tenth person taken into the Horde is simply
state MILITARY RECRUITMENT. It’s like conscription into the army, but only
from childhood - and for life.

Next, the so-called<>, in our opinion,
were simply punitive expeditions to those Russian regions
who for some reason refused to pay tribute =
state filing. Then the regular troops punished
civilian rioters.

These facts are known to historians and are not secret, they are publicly available, and anyone can easily find them on the Internet. Skipping scientific research and justifications, which have already been described quite widely, let us summarize the main facts that refute the big lie about the “Tatar-Mongol yoke.”

1. Genghis Khan

Previously, in Rus', 2 people were responsible for governing the state: Prince And Khan. The prince was responsible for governing the state in peacetime. The khan or “war prince” took the reins of control during war; in peacetime, the responsibility for forming a horde (army) and maintaining it in combat readiness rested on his shoulders.

Genghis Khan is not a name, but a title of “military prince,” which, in the modern world, is close to the position of Commander-in-Chief of the army. And there were several people who bore such a title. The most outstanding of them was Timur, it is he who is usually discussed when they talk about Genghis Khan.

In surviving historical documents, this man is described as a tall warrior with blue eyes, very white skin, powerful reddish hair and a thick beard. Which clearly does not correspond to the signs of a representative of the Mongoloid race, but completely fits the description of the Slavic appearance (L.N. Gumilyov - “Ancient Rus' and the Great Steppe.”).

In modern “Mongolia” there is not a single folk epic that would say that this country once in ancient times conquered almost all of Eurasia, just as there is nothing about the great conqueror Genghis Khan... (N.V. Levashov “Visible and invisible genocide").

2. Mongolia

The state of Mongolia appeared only in the 1930s, when the Bolsheviks came to the nomads living in the Gobi Desert and told them that they were the descendants of the great Mongols, and their “compatriot” had created the Great Empire in his time, which they were very surprised and happy about. . The word "Mughal" is of Greek origin and means "Great". The Greeks used this word to call our ancestors – the Slavs. It has nothing to do with the name of any people (N.V. Levashov “Visible and Invisible Genocide”).

3. Composition of the “Tatar-Mongol” army

70-80% of the army of the “Tatar-Mongols” were Russians, the remaining 20-30% were made up of other small peoples of Rus', in fact, the same as now. This fact is clearly confirmed by a fragment of the icon of Sergius of Radonezh “Battle of Kulikovo”. It clearly shows that the same warriors are fighting on both sides. And this battle is more like a civil war than a war with a foreign conqueror.

4. What did the “Tatar-Mongols” look like?

Note the drawing of the tomb of Henry II the Pious, who was killed on the Legnica field. The inscription is as follows: “The figure of a Tatar under the feet of Henry II, Duke of Silesia, Cracow and Poland, placed on the grave in Breslau of this prince, killed in the battle with the Tatars at Liegnitz on April 9, 1241.” As we see, this “Tatar” has a completely Russian appearance, clothes and weapons. The next image shows “the Khan’s palace in the capital of the Mongol Empire, Khanbalyk” (it is believed that Khanbalyk is supposedly Beijing). What is “Mongolian” and what is “Chinese” here? Once again, as in the case of the tomb of Henry II, before us are people of a clearly Slavic appearance. Russian caftans, Streltsy caps, the same thick beards, the same characteristic blades of sabers called “Yelman”. The roof on the left is an almost exact copy of the roofs of old Russian towers... (A. Bushkov, “Russia that never existed”).

5. Genetic examination

According to the latest data obtained as a result of genetic research, it turned out that Tatars and Russians have very close genetics. Whereas the differences between the genetics of Russians and Tatars from the genetics of the Mongols are colossal: “The differences between the Russian gene pool (almost entirely European) and the Mongolian (almost entirely Central Asian) are really great - it’s like two different worlds...” (oagb.ru).

6. Documents during the period of the Tatar-Mongol yoke

During the period of existence of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, not a single document in the Tatar or Mongolian language has been preserved. But there are many documents from this time in Russian.

7. Lack of objective evidence confirming the hypothesis of the Tatar-Mongol yoke

At the moment, there are no originals of any historical documents that would objectively prove that there was a Tatar-Mongol yoke. But there are many fakes designed to convince us of the existence of a fiction called the “Tatar-Mongol yoke.” Here is one of these fakes. This text is called “The Word about the Destruction of the Russian Land” and in each publication it is declared “an excerpt from a poetic work that has not reached us intact... About the Tatar-Mongol invasion”:

“Oh, bright and beautifully decorated Russian land! You are famous for many beauties: you are famous for many lakes, locally revered rivers and springs, mountains, steep hills, high oak forests, clean fields, marvelous animals, various birds, countless great cities, glorious villages, monastery gardens, temples of God and formidable princes, honest boyars and many nobles. You are filled with everything, Russian land, O Orthodox Christian faith!..»

There is not even a hint of the “Tatar-Mongol yoke” in this text. But this “ancient” document contains the following line: “You are filled with everything, Russian land, O Orthodox Christian faith!”

More opinions:

The plenipotentiary representative of Tatarstan in Moscow (1999 - 2010), Doctor of Political Sciences Nazif Mirikhanov, spoke in the same spirit: “The term “yoke” appeared in general only in the 18th century,” he is sure. “Before that, the Slavs did not even suspect that they were living under oppression, under the yoke of certain conquerors.”

“In fact, the Russian Empire, and then the Soviet Union, and now the Russian Federation are the heirs of the Golden Horde, that is, the Turkic empire created by Genghis Khan, whom we need to rehabilitate, as we have already done in China,” Mirikhanov continued. And he concluded his reasoning with the following thesis: “The Tatars at one time frightened Europe so much that the rulers of Rus', who chose the European path of development, in every possible way dissociated themselves from their Horde predecessors. Today it is time to restore historical justice.”

The result was summed up by Izmailov:

“The historical period, which is commonly called the time of the Mongol-Tatar yoke, was not a period of terror, ruin and slavery. Yes, the Russian princes paid tribute to the rulers from Sarai and received labels for reign from them, but this is ordinary feudal rent. At the same time, the Church flourished in those centuries, and beautiful white stone churches were built everywhere. What was quite natural: scattered principalities could not afford such construction, but only a de facto confederation united under the rule of the Khan of the Golden Horde or Ulus Jochi, as it would be more correct to call our common state with the Tatars.”

Historian Lev Gumilyov, from the book “From Rus' to Russia”, 2008:
“Thus, for the tax that Alexander Nevsky undertook to pay to Sarai, Rus' received a reliable, strong army that defended not only Novgorod and Pskov. Moreover, the Russian principalities that accepted the alliance with the Horde completely retained their ideological independence and political independence. This alone shows that Rus' was not
a province of the Mongol ulus, but a country allied with the Great Khan, which paid a certain tax for the maintenance of the army, which it itself needed.”

Mongol-Tatars are all nomadic peoples living in the Volga region and further to the East, with whom Rus' fought in the 13th-15th centuries. The name was given by the name of one of the tribes

“In 1224 an unknown people appeared; an unheard of army came, godless Tatars, about whom no one knows well who they are and where they came from, and what kind of language they have, and what tribe they are, and what kind of faith they have ... "

(I. Brekov “The World of History: Russian Lands in the 13th-15th Centuries”)

Mongol-Tatar invasion

• 1206 - Congress of the Mongolian nobility (kurultai), at which Temujin was elected leader of the Mongolian tribes, who received the name Genghis Khan (Great Khan)
• 1219 - Beginning of Genghis Khan's three-year conquest in Central Asia
• 1223, May 31 - The first battle of the Mongols and the united Russian-Polovtsian army at the borders of Kievan Rus, on the Kalka River, near the Sea of ​​Azov
• 1227 - Death of Genghis Khan. Power in the Mongolian state passed to his grandson Batu (Batu Khan)
• 1237 - Beginning of the Mongol-Tatar invasion. Batu's army crossed the Volga in its middle course and invaded North-Eastern Rus'
• 1237, December 21 - Ryazan was taken by the Tatars
• 1238, January - Kolomna captured
• 1238, February 7 - Vladimir captured
• 1238, February 8 - Suzdal taken
• 1238, March 4 - Pal Torzhok
• 1238, March 5 - Battle of the squad of Moscow Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich with the Tatars near the Sit River. Death of Prince Yuri
• 1238, May - Capture of Kozelsk
• 1239-1240 - Batu’s army camped in the Don steppe
• 1240 - Devastation of Pereyaslavl and Chernigov by the Mongols
• 1240, December 6 - Kyiv destroyed
• 1240, end of December - Russian principalities of Volyn and Galicia destroyed
• 1241 - Batu's army returned to Mongolia
• 1243 - Formation of the Golden Horde, a state from the Danube to the Irtysh, with its capital Sarai in the lower Volga

The Russian principalities retained statehood, but were subject to tribute. In total, there were 14 types of tribute, including directly in favor of the khan - 1300 kg of silver per year. In addition, the khans of the Golden Horde reserved for themselves the right to appoint or overthrow the Moscow princes, who were to receive the label for the great reign in Sarai. The power of the Horde over Russia lasted for more than two centuries. It was a time of complex political games, when the Russian princes either united with each other for the sake of some momentary benefits, or were at enmity, while at the same time attracting Mongol troops as allies. A significant role in the politics of that time was played by the Polish-Lithuanian state that arose on the western borders of Rus', Sweden, the German orders of knighthood in the Baltic states, and the free republics of Novgorod and Pskov. Creating alliances with each other and against each other, with the Russian principalities, the Golden Horde, they waged endless wars

In the first decades of the 14th century, the rise of the Moscow principality began, which gradually became a political center and collector of Russian lands.

On August 11, 1378, the Moscow army of Prince Dmitry defeated the Mongols in the battle on the Vazha River. On September 8, 1380, the Moscow army of Prince Dmitry defeated the Mongols in the battle on the Kulikovo Field. And although in 1382 the Mongol Khan Tokhtamysh plundered and burned Moscow, the myth of the invincibility of the Tatars collapsed. Gradually, the Golden Horde state itself fell into decay. It split into the khanates of Siberian, Uzbek, Kazan (1438), Crimean (1443), Kazakh, Astrakhan (1459), Nogai Horde. Of all the tributaries of the Tatars, only Rus' remained, but it also periodically rebelled. In 1408, Moscow Prince Vasily I refused to pay tribute to the Golden Horde, after which Khan Edigei made a devastating campaign, robbing Pereyaslavl, Rostov, Dmitrov, Serpukhov, and Nizhny Novgorod. In 1451, Moscow Prince Vasily the Dark again refused to pay. The Tatar raids were fruitless. Finally, in 1480, Prince Ivan III officially refused to submit to the Horde. The Mongol-Tatar yoke ended.

Lev Gumilev about the Tatar-Mongol yoke

- “Batu’s army, which opposed the Polovtsians, with whom the Mongols had been at war since 1216, passed through Rus' to the rear of the Polovtsians in 1237-1238, and forced them to flee to Hungary. At the same time, Ryazan and fourteen cities in the Vladimir Principality were destroyed. And in total there were about three hundred cities there at that time. The Mongols did not leave garrisons anywhere, did not impose tribute on anyone, being content with indemnities, horses and food, which was what any army did in those days when advancing.”

- (As a result) “Great Russia, then called Zalesskaya Ukraine, voluntarily united with the Horde, thanks to the efforts of Alexander Nevsky, who became the adopted son of Batu. And the original Ancient Rus' - Belarus, Kiev region, Galicia and Volyn - submitted to Lithuania and Poland almost without resistance. And now, around Moscow there is a “golden belt” of ancient cities that remained intact during the “yoke,” but in Belarus and Galicia there are not even traces of Russian culture left. Novgorod was defended from the German knights by Tatar help in 1269. And where Tatar help was neglected, everything was lost. In the place of Yuryev - Dorpat, now Tartu, in the place of Kolyvan - Revol, now Tallinn; Riga closed the river route along the Dvina to Russian trade; Berdichev and Bratslav - Polish castles - blocked the roads to the "Wild Field", once the homeland of the Russian princes, thereby taking control of Ukraine. In 1340, Rus' disappeared from the political map of Europe. It was revived in 1480 in Moscow, on the eastern outskirts of former Rus'. And its core, ancient Kievan Rus, captured by Poland and oppressed, had to be saved in the 18th century.”

- “I believe that Batu’s “invasion” was actually a large raid, a cavalry raid, and further events have only an indirect connection with this campaign. In Ancient Rus', the word “yoke” meant something used to fasten something, a bridle or a collar. It also existed in the meaning of a burden, that is, something that is carried. The word “yoke” in the meaning of “domination”, “oppression” was first recorded only under Peter I. The alliance of Moscow and the Horde lasted as long as it was mutually beneficial.”

The term “Tatar yoke” originates in Russian historiography, as well as the position about its overthrow by Ivan III, from Nikolai Karamzin, who used it in the form of an artistic epithet in the original meaning of “a collar put on the neck” (“bent the neck under the yoke of the barbarians” ), who may have borrowed the term from the 16th-century Polish author Maciej Miechowski