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

The Kievan state was at the peak of prosperity and achieved relative peace, in contrast to past years. However, as time went on, the wise rulers died, and the struggle for power began again and wars broke out.

Before his death, in 1054, he 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 the brothers ruined most of the Kyiv community of cities, depriving it of the necessary resources, which would be very useful to it in the future. When the princes continuously fought with each other, the former Kievan state slowly decayed, decreased and lost its former glory. At the same time, it was weakened by the invasions of the steppe tribes - the Polovtsians (they are also Kumans or Kipchaks), and before that the Pechenegs, and in the end the Kievan state became an easy prey for more powerful invaders from distant lands.

Rus' had a chance to change its fate. Around 1219, the Mongols first entered the areas near Kievan Rus, heading for, 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 declared that they were not going to attack Russian cities and lands. Mongolian envoys demanded peace with the Russian princes. However, the princes did not trust the Mongols, suspecting that they would not stop and go to Rus'. The Mongol ambassadors were killed, and thus the chance for peace was destroyed by the hands of the princes of the divided Kievan state.

For twenty years, Batu Khan with an army of 200 thousand people made 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, the inhabitants were killed or taken into captivity. In the end, the Mongols captured, plundered and razed to the ground 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 tolerate indirect subjugation and become appendages of the Golden Horde. Perhaps, by making peace, the Russian princes could have prevented this. However, this cannot be called a miscalculation, because then Rus' would forever have to change religion, art, language, government and geopolitics.

Orthodox Church during the Tatar-Mongol yoke

Many churches and monasteries were looted and destroyed by the first Mongol raids, 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 were 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 a punishment for their sins.

The Orthodox Church will become a powerful beacon in the "dark years" of the Mongol dominance. The Russian people eventually turned to the Orthodox Church, seeking solace in their faith and guidance and support in the clergy. The raids of the steppe people caused a shock, throwing seeds on fertile ground for the development of Russian monasticism, which in turn played an important role in the formation of the worldview of the neighboring Finno-Ugric and Zyryan tribes, 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 act as the embodiment of religious and national identity, filling in the lost political identity. Also helping to strengthen the church was the unique legal concept of the label, or charter of immunity. In 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 de facto under the protection of the Mongols ten years earlier (from the 1257 census by Khan Berke), this label officially recorded the inviolability of the Orthodox Church. More importantly, he officially exempted the church from any form of taxation by the Mongols or Russians. Priests had the right not to register during censuses and were exempted from forced labor and military service.

As expected, the label given to the Orthodox Church was of great importance. 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, which gave it an extremely strong position that lasted for centuries after the Mongol takeover. The charter strictly forbade 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 to their faith. The metropolitans traveled extensively throughout the country to strengthen the internal structure of the church and to solve administrative problems and control the activities of bishops and priests. Moreover, the relative security of the sketes (economic, military and spiritual) attracted the peasants. Since the rapidly growing cities interfered with the atmosphere of goodness that the church gave, the monks began to go to the desert and re-build monasteries and sketes 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 art during the Tatar-Mongol yoke

While mass deportations of artists began in Rus', the monastic revival and attention to the Orthodox Church led to an artistic revival. What rallied the Russians at that difficult time when they found themselves without a state is their faith and ability to express their religious beliefs. During this difficult time, the great artists Feofan Grek and Andrey Rublev worked.

It was during the second half of Mongol rule in the middle of the 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. A few decades after Feofan's arrival, the novice Andrei Rublev became one of his best students. Iconography came to Rus' from Byzantium in the 10th century, but the Mongol invasion in the 13th century cut Rus' off from Byzantium.

How did the language change 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 the extent to which one nationality influenced another or groups of nationalities - on government, on military affairs, on trade, and also how geographically this spread influence. Indeed, the linguistic and even sociolinguistic impacts were great, as the Russians borrowed thousands of words, phrases, and other significant linguistic constructions from the Mongolian and Turkic languages, united in the Mongol Empire. Listed below are a few examples of words that are still in use 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 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 land along the Volga, which are highlighted on the 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 veche. It was, in fact, a forum for civil affairs, for discussing and solving problems. However, this democratic institution has undergone a serious reduction under the rule of the Mongols.

By far 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 call 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 a few other cities in the northwest. Veche in these cities continued to work and develop until Moscow subjugated them at the end of the 15th century. Today, however, the spirit of the veche as a public forum has been revived in several Russian cities, including Novgorod.

Of great importance for the Mongol rulers were the censuses, which made it possible to collect tribute. To support the censuses, the Mongols introduced a special dual system of regional administration headed by military governors, the Baskaks and/or civil governors, the Darugachs. In essence, the Baskaks were responsible for leading the activities of rulers in areas that resisted or did not accept Mongol rule. 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 Darugachi sometimes performed the duties of the authorities, but did not duplicate it.

As is known 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 the ambassadors of Genghis Khan to the sword and soon paid dearly. Thus, in the 13th century, Baskaks were placed on the conquered lands in order to subjugate the people and control even the daily activities of the princes. In addition, in addition to conducting a census, the Baskaks provided recruiting kits for the local population.

Existing sources and studies show that the Baskaks largely disappeared from Russian lands by the middle of the 14th century, as Rus' more or less recognized the authority of the Mongol khans. When the Baskaks left, power passed to the Darugachs. However, unlike the Baskaks, the Darugachi did not live on the territory of Rus. In fact, they were located in Saray, 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 duties were actually transferred to the princes themselves, when the khan saw that the princes were quite capable of doing this.

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 empire. The main purpose of the census was conscription as well as taxation. Moscow kept this practice even after it stopped recognizing the Horde in 1480. The practice interested foreign guests in 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 carried out a census throughout the 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 for about 120 years in other parts of Europe in the era of absolutism. The influence of the Mongol Empire, at least in this area, was obviously deep and effective and helped create a strong centralized government for Rus'.

One of the important innovations that the Baskaks oversaw and supported were the pits (a system of posts), which were built to provide travelers with food, lodging, horses, as well as wagons or sleighs, depending on the time of year. Originally built by the Mongols, the pit ensured 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 various principalities throughout the vast empire. There were horses at each post to carry authorized persons, as well as to replace tired horses on especially long trips. Each post, as a rule, was 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 efficient. Another report by Sigismund von Herberstein of 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 pit 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 pit system in order to preserve the established system of communications and intelligence. 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 expanded 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 Kyiv. The geographical location of Moscow deserves attention, since it is located on the bend of the Moskva River, which merges with the Oka and the 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 great opportunities for trade with near and far lands. With the onset 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 gave Moscow a label, Tver and Moscow were in a constant struggle 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 crushed the uprising in Tver, restoring order in this 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 over the duty of collecting taxes throughout the land (including from themselves), and eventually the Mongols left this task solely to Moscow and stopped the practice of sending their tax collectors. Nevertheless, Ivan I was more than a shrewd politician and a model of sanity: he was perhaps the first prince to replace the traditional horizontal succession with a vertical one (although it was not fully achieved until 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 by collecting tribute, its power over other principalities was more and more asserted. Moscow received land, which meant that it collected more tribute and got more 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, tried to create his own horde in the steppes west of the Volga, and he decided to challenge the power 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 gathered an army comparable in size, and these two armies met near the Don River on Kulikovo Field in early September 1380. The Russians of Dmitry, 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. Despite the fact that the Mongols brutally avenged Moscow for their defiance, the power that Moscow showed grew, and its influence on other Russian principalities expanded. In 1478, Novgorod finally submitted to the future capital, and Moscow soon threw off its obedience to the Mongol and Tatar khans, thus ending more than 250 years of Mongol rule.

The 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 effect on the Russian lands, while others, such as the loss of the veche and the centralization of power, helped to stop the spread of traditional democracy and self-government for various principalities. Due to the impact on the language and form of government, the impact of the Mongol invasion is still evident today. Perhaps due to the chance to experience the Renaissance, as in other Western European cultures, the political, religious and social thought of Russia 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 the development of the Russian state - its culture, political geography, history and national identity.

The Mongol-Tatar yoke is the dependent position of the Russian principalities on the states of the Mongol-Tatars for two hundred years from the beginning of the Mongol-Tatar invasion in 1237 to 1480. It was expressed in the political and economic subordination of the Russian princes from the rulers of the first Mongol Empire, and after its collapse - the Golden Horde.

Mongolo-Tatars are all nomadic peoples living in the Trans-Volga region and further to the East, with whom Rus' fought in the 13th-15th centuries. Named after one of the tribes

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

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

Mongol-Tatar invasion

  • 1206 - Congress of the Mongol nobility (kurultai), at which Temujin was elected leader of the Mongol tribes, who received the name Genghis Khan (Great Khan)
  • 1219 - The beginning of the three-year conquest campaign of Genghis Khan in Central Asia
  • 1223, May 31 - The first battle of the Mongols and the combined Russian-Polovtsian army near the borders of Kievan Rus, on the Kalka River, near the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov
  • 1227 - Death of Genghis Khan. Power in the Mongolian state passed to his grandson Batu (Batu Khan)
  • 1237 - The beginning of the Mongol-Tatar invasion. The Batu army crossed the Volga in its middle course and invaded the borders of North-Eastern Rus'
  • 1237, December 21 - Ryazan is taken by the Tatars
  • 1238, January - Kolomna is taken
  • February 7, 1238 - Vladimir is taken
  • February 8, 1238 - Suzdal is taken
  • 1238, March 4 - Pal Torzhok
  • 1238, March 5 - The battle of the squad of Moscow Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich with the Tatars near the Sit River. The death of Prince Yuri
  • 1238, May - Capture of Kozelsk
  • 1239-1240 - Batu's army encamped in the Don steppe
  • 1240 - Devastation by the Mongols of Pereyaslavl, Chernigov
  • 1240, December 6 - Kyiv destroyed
  • 1240, end of December - The Russian principalities of Volhynia and Galicia are destroyed
  • 1241 - Batu's army returned to Mongolia
  • 1243 - Formation of the Golden Horde, the state from the Danube to the Irtysh, with the capital Saray in the lower reaches of the 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 the right to appoint or overthrow the princes of Moscow, who were supposed to receive a label in Sarai for a great reign. The power of the Horde over Russia lasted 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 the Mongol detachments as allies with might and main. A significant role in the politics of that time was played by the Polish-Lithuanian state that arose near the western borders of Rus', Sweden, the German knightly orders 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 fourteenth century, the rise of the Moscow principality began, which gradually became the 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 state of the Golden Horde itself fell into decay. It split into the khanates of Siberia, Uzbek, Kazan (1438), Crimean (1443), Kazakh, Astrakhan (1459), Nogai Horde. Of all the tributaries, only Rus' remained with the Tatars, but she also periodically rebelled. In 1408, the Moscow Prince Vasily I refused to pay tribute to the Golden Horde, after which Khan Edigey made a devastating campaign, robbing Pereyaslavl, Rostov, Dmitrov, Serpukhov, Nizhny Novgorod. In 1451, Moscow Prince Vasily the Dark again refuses to pay. The raids of the Tatars are fruitless. Finally, in 1480, Prince Ivan III officially refused to submit to the Horde. The Mongol-Tatar yoke ended.

Lev Gumilyov about the Tatar-Mongol yoke

- “After the income of Batu in 1237-1240, when the war ended, the pagan Mongols, among whom there were many Nestorian Christians, were friends with the Russians and helped them stop the German onslaught in the Baltic. The Muslim khans Uzbek and Dzhanibek (1312-1356) used Moscow as a source of income, but at the same time protected it from Lithuania. During the Horde civil strife, the Horde was powerless, but the Russian princes paid tribute even at that time.

- “The army of Batu, who opposed the Polovtsy, with whom the Mongols had been at war since 1216, in 1237-1238 passed through Rus' to the rear of the Polovtsy, and forced them to flee to Hungary. At the same time, Ryazan and fourteen cities in the Vladimir principality were destroyed. In total, there were about three hundred cities there at that time. The Mongols did not leave garrisons anywhere, they did not impose tribute on anyone, being content with indemnities, horses and food, which was done in those days by any army during the offensive "

- (As a result) “Great Russia, then called Zalessky Ukraine, voluntarily united with the Horde, thanks to the efforts of Alexander Nevsky, who became the adopted son of Batu. And the primordial Ancient Rus' - Belarus, Kiev region, Galicia with Volhynia - almost without resistance submitted to Lithuania and Poland. And now, around Moscow - the "golden belt" of ancient cities, which remained intact under the "yoke", and in Belarus and Galicia there were not even traces of Russian culture left. Novgorod was defended from the German knights by Tatar help in 1269. And where the Tatar help was neglected, everyone lost. In the place of Yuryev - Derpt, now Tartu, in the place of Kolyvan - Revol, now Tallinn; Riga closed the river route along the Dvina for Russian trade; Berdichev and Bratslav - Polish castles - blocked the roads to the "Wild Field", once the fatherland of 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 big raid, a cavalry raid, and further events have only an indirect connection with this campaign. In ancient Rus', the word "yoke" meant something that fastens something, a bridle or 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 Union of Moscow and the Horde was kept as long as it was mutually beneficial”

The term "Tatar yoke" originates in Russian historiography, as well as the position of his overthrow by Ivan III, from Nikolai Karamzin, who used it as an artistic epithet in the original meaning of "a collar worn around the neck" ("they bowed the neck under the yoke of the barbarians" ), possibly borrowing the term from the 16th-century Polish author Maciej Miechowski

Studying the works of chroniclers, the testimonies of European travelers who visited Rus' and the Mongol Empire, the far from unambiguous interpretation of the events of the 10th–15th centuries by academician N.V. Levashov, L.N. Gumilyov, one cannot help but wonder a range of questions: there was a Tatar-Mongolian yoke or it was invented on purpose, for a specific purpose, this is a historical fact or deliberate fiction.

In contact with

Russians and Mongols

The prince of Kyiv Yaroslav the Wise, who died in 978, had to do so, how the british do it, in which the entire inheritance is given to the eldest son, and the rest become either priests or naval officers, then we would not have formed several separate regions given to the heirs of Yaroslav.

Specific disunity of Rus'

Each prince who received the land divided it among his sons, which contributed to an even greater weakening of Kievan Rus, although it expanded its possessions by transferring the capital to forest Vladimir.

Our state do not be specific disunity, would not allow the Tatar-Mongols to enslave themselves.

Nomads at the walls of Russian cities

At the end of the 9th century, Kyiv was surrounded by the Hungarians, who were forced out to the west by the Pechenegs. Following them, by the middle of the 11th century, Torks followed, followed by the Polovtsy; then the invasion of the Mongol Empire began.

Approaches to the Russian principalities repeatedly besieged by powerful troops steppe dwellers, after a while the former nomads were replaced by others who enslaved them with greater prowess and better weapons.

How did the empire of Genghis Khan develop?

The period of the end of the XII - beginning of the XIII century was marked by the unification of several Mongolian clans, directed by the extraordinary Temujin who took the title of Genghis Khan in 1206.

The endless feuds of the governors-noyons were stopped, ordinary nomads were subjected to exorbitant dues and obligations. To strengthen the position of the common population and the aristocracy, Genghis Khan moved his huge army first to the prosperous Celestial Empire, and later to Islamic lands.

The state of Genghis Khan had an organized military administration, government staff of employees, had postal communication, constant taxation. The code of canons "Yasa" balanced the powers of adherents of any beliefs.

The foundation of the empire was the army, based on the principles of universal army duty, military order, and strict restraint. Yurtzh quartermasters planned routes, halts, stocked food. Information about future points of attack brought merchants, heads of convoys, special missions.

Attention! The result of the aggressive campaigns of Genghis Khan and his followers was a gigantic superpower that covered the Middle Kingdom, Korea, Central Asia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Transcaucasia, Syria, the steppes of Eastern Europe, and Kazakhstan.

Successes of the Mongols

From the southeast, imperial troops unloaded on the Japanese Islands, the islands of the Malay Archipelago; reached Egypt on the Sinai Peninsula, to the north they approached the European borders of Austria. 1219 - the army of Genghis Khan conquered the greatest Central Asian state - Khorezm, which then became part of the Golden Horde. By 1220 Genghis Khan founded Karakorum- the capital of the Mongol Empire.

Having rounded the Caspian Sea from the south, the cavalry troops invaded Transcaucasia, through the Derbent Gorge they reached the North Caucasus, where they met with the Polovtsians and Alans, defeating whom, they captured the Crimean Sudak.

Steppe nomads persecuted by the Mongols asked for protection from the Russians. The Russian princes accepted the offer to fight with an unknown army outside the borders of their land. In 1223, by a cunning trick, the Mongols lured the Russians and Polovtsians to the shores. The squads of our commanders resisted separately and were completely overturned.

1235 - the meeting of the Mongolian aristocracy approved the decision on the campaign to capture Rus', detaching most of the imperial soldiers, about 70 thousand combat units under the control of Genghis Khan's grandson Batu.

This army was defined symbolically as "Tatar-Mongolian". "Tatars" were called Persians, Chinese, Arabs of the steppes living on northern border with them.

By the middle of the 13th century, in the mighty state of Chingizids, the chiefs of military districts and selected privileged fighters were Mongol, the other troops remained a characteristic imperial army, representing the soldiers of the defeated territories - the Chinese, Alans, Iranians, and countless Turkic tribes. Having captured Silver Bulgaria, the Mordvins and the Kipchaks, this cloud moved closer in the cold of 1237 to the borders of Rus', covered Ryazan, then Vladimir.

Important! The historical countdown of the Tatar-Mongol yoke begins in 1237, with the capture of Ryazan.

Russians defend themselves

Since that time, Rus' began to pay tribute to the conquerors, very often subjected to the most severe raids of the Tatar-Mongol troops. Rusichi heroically responded to the invaders. Little Kozelsk entered the history, which the Mongols called the evil city because he fought back and fought to the last; defenders fought: women, old people, children - everything, who could hold a weapon or pouring molten resin from the walls of the city. Not a single person in Kozelsk survived, some died in battle, the rest were finished off when the enemy army broke through the defenses.

The name of the Ryazan boyar Yevpaty Kolovrat is well known, who, having returned to his native Ryazan and seeing what the invaders had done there, rushed after the Batyev detachments with a small army, fought them to the death.

1242 - Khan Batu founded the newest settlement on the Volga plains Genghisid Empire - Golden Horde. The Russians gradually guessed with whom they were to come into conflict. From 1252 to 1263, Alexander Nevsky was the highest lord of Vladimir, in fact, then the Tatar yoke was established as a concept of legal subordination to the Horde.

Finally, the Russians understood that it was necessary to unite against a terrible enemy. 1378 - Russian squads on the Vozha River defeated the huge Tatar-Mongolian hordes under the leadership of an experienced Murza Begich. Offended by this defeat, the temnik Mamai put together an innumerable army and moved to Muscovy. At the call of Prince Dmitry to save his native land, all of Rus' rose.

1380 - Mamai's temnik was finally defeated on the Don River. After that great battle, Dmitry began to be called Donskoy, the battle itself was named after the historical town of Kulikovo field between the rivers Don and Nepryadva, where the massacre took place, called.

But Rus' did not come out of bondage. How many years still could not she gain final independence. Two years later, Tokhtamysh Khan burned Moscow, because Prince Dmitry Donskoy left to gather an army, he could not give worthy rebuff to the attackers. For another hundred years, the Russian princes continued to obey the Horde, and it became weaker and weaker due to the strife of Genghisides - the bloodlines of Genghis.

1472 - Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow, defeated the Mongols, refused to pay tribute to them. A few years later, the Horde decided to restore its rights and moved with the next campaign.

1480 - Russian troops settled on one bank of the Ugra River, Mongolian - on the other. "Standing" on the Ugra lasted 100 days.

Finally, the Russians moved away from the coast to make room for a future battle, but the Tatars did not have the courage to cross, they left. The Russian army returned to Moscow, and the opponents returned to the Horde. The question is who won- Slavs or the fear of their enemies.

Attention! In 1480 came the end of the yoke in Rus', its north and northeast. However, a number of researchers believe that Moscow's dependence on the Horde continued until the reign.

The results of the invasion

Some scholars believe that the contributed to the regression of Rus', but this is a lesser evil compared to the Western Russian enemies, who took away our allotments, demanding the transition of the Orthodox to Catholicism. Positive thinkers believe that the Mongol Empire helped Muscovy rise. The strife ceased, the divided Russian principalities united against a common enemy.

After the establishment of stable ties with Russia, the rich Tatar murzas with convoys amicably reached out to Muscovy. The arrivals converted to Orthodoxy, married Slavs, gave birth to children with non-Russian surnames: Yusupov, Khanov, Mamaev, Murzin.

The classic history of Russia is refuted

Among some historians there is a different opinion about the Tatar-Mongol yoke and about those who invented it. Here are some interesting facts:

  1. The gene pool of the Mongols is different from the gene pool of the Tatars, so they cannot be combined into a common ethnic group.
  2. Genghis Khan had a Caucasian appearance.
  3. Lack of writing Mongols and Tatars of the 12th–13th centuries, as a consequence of this - the lack of perpetuated evidence of their victorious raids.
  4. Our chronicles, confirming the bondage of the Russians for almost three hundred years, have not been found. There are some pseudo-historical documents that describe the Mongol-Tatar yoke only since the beginning of the reign.
  5. Confusion causes lack of archaeological artifacts from the place of famous battles, for example, from the Kulikovo field,
  6. The entire territory over which the Horde roamed did not give archaeologists either a lot of weapons of that time, or the burial places of the dead, or mounds with the bodies of the dead on the camps of the steppe nomads.
  7. The ancient Russian tribes had paganism with a Vedic worldview. Their patrons were the God Tarkh and his sister, the Goddess Tara. From here came the name of the people "Tarkhtars", later simply "Tartars". The population of Tartaria was Russian, further to the east of Eurasia they were diluted with scattered multilingual tribes, nomadic in search of food. All of them were called Tartars, in the present - Tatars.
  8. Later chroniclers covered up the fact of the violent, bloody imposition of the Greek Catholic faith on Rus' by the invasion of the Horde, carried out the order of the Byzantine Church and the ruling elite of the state. The new Christian doctrine, which received the name Orthodox Christianity after the reform of Patriarch Nikon, led the masses to a split: some accepted Orthodoxy, those who disagree exterminated or exiled to the northeastern provinces, to Tartaria.
  9. The Tartars did not forgive the destruction of the population, the ruin of the Kyiv principality, but its army failed to respond with lightning speed, distracted by turmoil on the Far Eastern borders of the country. When the Vedic empire gained strength, it rebuffed those who planted the Greek religion, a real civil war began: the Russians with the Russians, the so-called pagans (Old Believers) with the Orthodox. Lasting almost 300 years modern historians filed a confrontation of their own against ours as a “Mongol-Tatar invasion”.
  10. After the forced baptism by Vladimir the Red Sun, the Kiev principality was destroyed, the settlements were devastated, burned, most of the inhabitants were destroyed. They could not explain what was happening, so they covered it with a Tatar-Mongol yoke to mask the cruelty transition to a new faith(not without reason Vladimir after that began to be called Bloody) the invasion of "wild nomads" was called.

Tatars in Rus'

Kazan's past

The Kazan fortress of the end of the 12th century becomes the patronal city of the state of the Volga-Kama Bulgars. After some time, the country submits to the Mongols, for three centuries it submits to the Golden Horde, the Bulgarian rulers, akin to the Moscow princes, pay dues, correct subordinate functions.

By the fifties of the XV century, following the obvious division of the Mongol Empire, its former ruler Udu-Muhammed, who found himself without property, invaded the Bulgarian capital, executed the governor Ali-Bek, seized his throne.

1552 - Tsarevich Yediger arrived in Kazan - the heir of the Khan of Astrakhan. Ediger descended on 10,000 foreigners, self-willed nomads wandering around the steppe.

Ivan IV Vasilyevich, Tsar of All Rus', conquers the capital of Bulgaria

The battle for Kazan was played out not with the native inhabitants of the state, but with the military masses of Yediger, who had been overtaken by him from Astrakhan. The army of many thousands of Ivan the Terrible was opposed by a flock of Genghisides, consisting of the peoples of the Middle Volga region, Turkic tribes, Nogais, Mari.

October 15, 1552 after 41 days courageous defense, during a frenzied assault, the glorious fertile city of Kazan surrendered. After the defense of the capital, almost all of its defenders perished. The city was completely destroyed. A merciless punishment awaited the surviving residents: wounded men, old people, children - all were finished off by victors at the behest of the Moscow Tsar; young women with tiny babies were sent into slavery. If the tsar of all Rus', having finished with Kazan and Astrakhan, planned to perform the rite of baptism against the will of all Tatars, then, of course, he would have committed another lawlessness.

Even Peter I advocated the creation of a mono-confessional Christian state, but during his reign, the peoples of Rus' did not reach the universal baptism.

The baptism of the Tatars in Rus' took place from the first half of the 18th century. 1740 - Empress Anna Ioannovna issued a decree according to which all the heterodox peoples of Russia were to accept Orthodoxy. According to the prescriptions, it was not fitting for new converts to live with non-Christians; non-Christs were to be resettled in separate localities. Among the Muslim Tatars who recognized Orthodoxy there was a small share much less in comparison with the pagans. The situation gave rise to the displeasure of the crown and the administration, who adopted the practice of the last quarter of the 16th century. Those in power initiated cardinal sanctions.

Radical measures

It was not possible to baptize the Tatars in Rus' several centuries ago and remains problematic in our time. Actually, the refusal of the Tatars to accept Orthodoxy, as well as the resistance to the course of Christianization of the Orthodox priesthood, led to the implementation of the intention to destroy Muslim churches.

The Islamic people not only rushed to the authorities with petitions, but also reacted extremely disapprovingly to the widespread destruction of mosques. It spawned dominant power concern.

Orthodox priests of the Russian army became preachers among non-Christian servicemen. Upon learning of this, some of the heterodox recruits preferred to be baptized even before mobilization. In order to induce the adoption of Christianity, tax discounts were used by the baptized, and non-Orthodox had to pay additional contributions.

Documentary film about the Mongol-Tatar yoke

Alternative history, Tatar-Mongol yoke

findings

As you understand, many opinions are offered today about the features of the Mongol invasion. Maybe in the future, scientists will be able to find solid evidence of the fact of its existence or fiction, what politicians and rulers covered up with the Tatar-Mongol yoke, and for what purpose this was done. Perhaps the true truth about the Mongols (the "great" as other tribes called Genghisides) will be revealed. History is a science where there can be no unambiguous view on this or that event, as it is always considered from different points of view. Scientists collect facts, and descendants will draw conclusions.

In the 12th century, the state of the Mongols expanded, their military art improved. The main occupation was cattle breeding, they bred mainly horses and sheep, they did not know agriculture. They lived in felt tents-yurts, they were easy to transport during long-distance wanderings. Every adult Mongol was a warrior, from childhood he sat in the saddle and wielded weapons. Cowardly, unreliable, he did not fall into the warriors, he became an outcast.
In 1206, at the congress of the Mongol nobility, Temujin was proclaimed the great khan with the name Genghis Khan.
The Mongols managed to unite hundreds of tribes under their rule, which allowed them to use alien human material in the troops during the war. They conquered East Asia (Kyrgyz, Buryats, Yakuts, Uighurs), the Tangut Kingdom (southwest of Mongolia), Northern China, Korea and Central Asia (the largest Central Asian state of Khorezm, Samarkand, Bukhara). As a result, by the end of the 13th century, the Mongols owned half of Eurasia.
In 1223, the Mongols crossed the Caucasus Range and invaded the Polovtsian lands. The Polovtsy turned to the Russian princes for help, because. Russians and Polovtsy traded with each other, entered into marriages. The Russians responded, and on the Kalka River on June 16, 1223, the first battle of the Mongol-Tatars with the Russian princes took place. The army of the Mongol-Tatars was reconnaissance, small, i.e. the Mongol-Tatars had to scout out what kind of lands lie ahead. The Russians came just to fight, they had little idea what kind of enemy was in front of them. Before the Polovtsian request for help, they had not even heard of the Mongols.
The battle ended in the defeat of the Russian troops due to the betrayal of the Polovtsy (they fled from the very beginning of the battle), and also due to the fact that the Russian princes failed to combine their forces, underestimated the enemy. The Mongols offered the princes to surrender, promising to save their lives and release them for a ransom. When the princes agreed, the Mongols tied them up, put boards on them, and sitting on top, began to feast on the victory. Russian soldiers, left without leaders, were killed.
The Mongol-Tatars retreated to the Horde, but returned in 1237, already knowing what kind of enemy was in front of them. Batu Khan (Batu), the grandson of Genghis Khan, brought with him a huge army. They preferred to attack the most powerful Russian principalities - Ryazan and Vladimir. They defeated and subjugated them, and in the next two years - all of Rus'. After 1240, only one land remained independent - Novgorod, because. Batu had already achieved his main goals, it made no sense to lose people near Novgorod.
The Russian princes could not unite, so they were defeated, although, according to scientists, Batu lost half of his troops in the Russian lands. He occupied Russian lands, offered to recognize his authority and pay tribute, the so-called "exit". At first, it was collected "in kind" and made up 1/10 of the crop, and then it was transferred to money.
The Mongols established in Rus' a yoke-system of total suppression of national life in the occupied territories. In this form, the Tatar-Mongol yoke lasted 10 years, after which Prince Alexander Nevsky offered the Horde new relationships: the Russian princes entered the service of the Mongol Khan, were obliged to collect tribute, take it to the Horde and receive a label for a great reign - a leather belt. At the same time, the prince who paid more received the label for reigning. This order was provided by the Baskaks - the Mongol commanders, who with the army bypassed the Russian lands and monitored whether the tribute was being collected correctly.
It was the time of the vassalage of the Russian princes, but thanks to the act of Alexander Nevsky, the Orthodox Church was preserved, the raids stopped.
In the 60s of the 14th century, the Golden Horde split into two warring parts, the border between which was the Volga. In the left-bank Horde there were constant strife with the change of rulers. In the right-bank Horde, Mamai became the ruler.
The beginning of the struggle for liberation from the Tatar-Mongol yoke in Rus' is associated with the name of Dmitry Donskoy. In 1378, sensing the weakening of the Horde, he refused to pay tribute and killed all the Baskaks. In 1380, the commander Mamai went with the entire Horde to the Russian lands, and a battle took place on the Kulikovo field with Dmitry Donskoy.
Mamai had 300 thousand "sabers", and since. the Mongols had almost no infantry, he hired the best Italian (Genoese) infantry. Dmitry Donskoy had 160 thousand people, of which only 5 thousand were professional soldiers. The main weapons of the Russians were clubs bound with metal and wooden horns.
So, the battle with the Mongol-Tatars was suicide for the Russian army, but still the Russians had a chance.
Dmitry Donskoy crossed the Don on the night of September 7 to 8, 1380 and burned the crossing, there was nowhere to retreat. It remained to win or die. In the forest, he hid 5 thousand combatants, behind his troops. The role of the squad was to save the Russian army from being bypassed from the rear.
The battle lasted one day, during which the Mongol-Tatars trampled the Russian army. Then Dmitry Donskoy ordered the ambush regiment to leave the forest. The Mongol-Tatars decided that the main Russian forces were coming and, without waiting for everyone to leave, turned and began to run, trampling the Genoese infantry. The battle turned into a pursuit of a fleeing enemy.
Two years later, a new Horde came with Khan Tokhtamysh. He captured Moscow, Mozhaisk, Dmitrov, Pereyaslavl. Moscow had to resume paying tribute, but the Battle of Kulikovo was a turning point in the fight against the Mongol-Tatars, because. dependence on the Horde was now weaker.
After 100 years in 1480, the great-grandson of Dmitry Donskoy, Ivan III stopped paying tribute to the Horde.
Khan of the Horde Ahmed came out with a large army against Rus', wanting to punish the recalcitrant prince. He approached the border of the Moscow principality, to the Ugra River, a tributary of the Oka. Ivan III also approached there. Since the forces turned out to be equal, they stood on the Ugra River in spring, summer and autumn. Fearing the impending winter, the Mongol-Tatars left for the Horde. This was the end of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, because. the defeat of Akhmed meant the collapse of the power of Batu and the acquisition of independence by the Russian state. The Tatar-Mongol yoke lasted 240 years.

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

The truth about the Mongol-Tatar yoke

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

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

In the winter of 1237, a targeted invasion of the main troops of the Tatar-Mongols into the territory of Rus' began. This time, the enemy army was commanded by the grandson of Genghis Khan - Batu. The army of nomads managed to move quickly enough inland, plundering the principalities in turn and killing everyone who tried to resist on their way.

The main dates of the capture of Rus' by the Tatar-Mongols

  • 1223. The Tatar-Mongols approached the border of Rus';
  • May 31, 1223. First battle;
  • Winter 1237. The beginning of a targeted invasion of Rus';
  • 1237. Ryazan and Kolomna were captured. Palo Ryazan principality;
  • March 4, 1238. Grand Duke Yuri Vsevolodovich was killed. The city of Vladimir is captured;
  • Autumn 1239. Captured Chernigov. Palo Chernihiv Principality;
  • 1240 year. Kyiv captured. The Kiev principality fell;
  • 1241. Palo Galicia-Volyn principality;
  • 1480. The overthrow of the Mongol-Tatar yoke.

Causes of the fall of Rus' under the onslaught of the Mongol-Tatars

  • the absence of a unified organization in the ranks of Russian soldiers;
  • numerical superiority of the enemy;
  • the weakness of the command of the Russian army;
  • poorly organized mutual assistance from scattered princes;
  • underestimation of the strength and number of the enemy.

Features of the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Rus'

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

Vladimir became the actual center of political life, it was from there that the Tatar-Mongol Khan exercised his control.

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

The feudal fragmentation of the territories was strongly encouraged, as it reduced the likelihood of a centralized rebellion.

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

Consequences of the Mongol-Tatar conquest

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

  • Many cities and villages were destroyed, people were killed;
  • Agriculture, handicrafts, and the arts declined;
  • Feudal fragmentation increased significantly;
  • Significantly reduced population;
  • Rus' began to noticeably lag behind Europe in development.

The end of the Mongol-Tatar yoke

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