Dismantling the Mongol Tatar yoke, fact and fiction. The Tatar-Mongol yoke - historical fact or fiction. The meaning of the fall of the yoke

There have been many invasions in the history of both Russia and Europe, but the Tatar-Mongol invasion occupies a unique place among them. The problem of Mongol-Tatar influence has always worried Russian society. There are three diametrically opposed answers to the question posed.

1. Russian people did not suffer from the Horde yoke. (L.N. Gumilyov). As evidence, a chronicle text is cited in which Khan Janibek is called a “good” king. The words of the chronicle “this king Chyanibek Azbyakovich is very kind to Christianity” must be assessed in the context of the era. The chronicler praised the king for his moderation: he was not too cruel - for example, in the early 40s. XIV century released the metropolitan Theognost, whom he kept in prison for 600 rubles, to Rus'. Good Tsar: he could have killed the Metropolitan for this. But what is most surprising is the statement that “Batu’s few Mongol warriors only passed through Rus' and returned to the steppe.” And not a word - how did they “go”?

A few supporters of this point of view believe that the main danger to Rus' was not the Mongols, but the West, and therefore the alliance of Alexander Nevsky with the Horde was vital. However, how do such conclusions agree with ideas about the Black Ages of the Mongol-Tatar yoke? After all, the historical evidence of the chronicles about the invasions of punitive detachments, the Battle of Kulikovo itself can hardly be questioned.

2. The Mongol-Tatar yoke brought ruin, loss of life, delayed development, but did not fundamentally affect the further historical fate of Russia.

This position was occupied by S. Solovyov, V. Klyuchevsky, S. Platonov, M. Pokrovsky. According to this point of view, Russia has only slowed down its development, falling behind due to large-scale destruction and human losses.

3. The Mongol-Tatars had a decisive influence on public and social organization, on the development of statehood, the Moscow state.

So let's look at historical realities.

In the 20s XIII century Russian principalities first encountered hordes of Mongol-Tatars. (By the way, this name does not mean a completely defined people, but an association of dozens of nomadic tribes that arose at the beginning of the 13th century, of which the Mongols made up a small part). At the request of their Polovtsian neighbors, some princes took part in the battle with the Mongols on the river. Kalka in May 1223. The battle ended in the defeat of the allies, and in 1236 Batu Khan began the conquest of Rus' itself. It took four years and ended in December 1240 with the fall of Kyiv. During the last quarter of the 13th century. At least 15 aggressive campaigns of the Mongol-Tatars took place. In the areas of invasion, cities, villages, and crafts were destroyed, and stone construction was interrupted. Diplomatic ties between Rus' became difficult. According to archaeologists, in the XI-XIII centuries. There were 74 cities in Rus'. 19 were plundered and destroyed. In 14 of them, life did not resume, and 15 cities turned into villages.

The population of Rus' has decreased. Thousands of Russian slaves fell into the Horde. This is a lot, if you keep in mind that Ryazan and Rostov had no more than 1000 people, and Kyiv and Chernigov had 20-30 thousand inhabitants. First of all, artisans and women were taken into slavery.

But is this the only consequence of the invasion?

In the end, if the matter had been limited only to the destruction of Russian cities and villages, then after their restoration and the restoration of independence, Russia could repeat and continue the European path of development, even with a lag of several centuries. This, however, did not happen. Why? Is it just that the Tatar-Mongol invasion mechanically delayed the development of Russia for a very long time and threw it back? Or is it necessary and legitimate to talk about something more in this case?

In our opinion, two points need to be noted:

1. The Mongol-Tatar invasion, which lasted two and a half centuries (which corresponds to the change of 8-9 generations of people during this time), served as a natural watershed for the socio-historical paths of the Western European and Russian parts of our continent.

2. In a historical sense, it was the Tatar-Mongol invasion - its scale, the need to resist it and liberate itself from the centuries-old yoke - that became the main factor that predetermined the formation of a unique centralized Russian state.

So, despite the fact that during the Mongol-Tatar invasion, North-Eastern Rus' did not become an integral part of the Golden Horde (Rus had its own legal norms, and not legal code Mongols. The Mongol-Tatars did not eliminate the Russian princes, did not create their own dynasty in Rus'... The Golden Horde did not insist on a change of faith), it largely influenced the process of formation of the Russian people and the Moscow state.

How did the Mongol yoke affect socio-political development?

The nature of the socio-political relations of feudal society depended on the nature of relations within the ruling class. The Mongols turned the Russian princes into their subjects; since 1243, the rights to the great reign were granted to the applicants by the khan, who not only humiliated the princes, but often took their lives. The princes received rewards for faithful service - labels for individual lands from the khan. Russian princes absorbed the unquestioning obedience of their subjects. Could friendly relations develop freely if the princes were servants of the Mongol khans. Under these conditions, friendly relations could not develop; they were replaced by subject relations.

The death of the ruling class played a colossal role in the choice of the political path of development of Rus'. The princely squads were the first to enter the battle with the Mongols, i.e., the Russian nobility took the first blow. For example, in Ryazan, out of 12 princes, 9 died, in Rostov, out of 3, two, in Suzdal, out of 9, five. Along with the old nobility, the traditions of vassal-squad relations with the princes went away, and the new nobility was formed on the basis of relations of citizenship.

So, by the time of Batu’s arrival, the paths of Russian feudalism were not determined by history. It cannot be ruled out that even without the Horde yoke, in the confrontation between vassal-squad and princely-subject relations, the latter would have won.

The yoke influenced not only the choice of the type of Russian feudalism, but also the pace of its development. It delayed the feudal fragmentation of the country for 240 years.

It was then that the principle of Mongolian land rights was established in Rus', according to which all land belonged to the khan. There were no private land owners. It was this principle of land ownership that Muscovite Rus' adopted from the Tatars. And when Moscow managed to get out from under the Tatar yoke, its development went not along the proto-bourgeois path (variants of Novgorod and Galician-Volyn Rus), but along the Golden Horde path. Taking away their estates and inheritances from the princes, Moscow returned them to them, but not as property, but in the form of salaries for service.

The Horde yoke deformed Russian statehood. Fiscal matters became the most important - timely collection of all kinds of taxes. Hence the appearance of monetary units of clearly eastern origin, tanga, altyn, etc. Under the conditions of Horde dependence, a type was formed statesman, whose public concern was to ensure the timely receipt of money and keep his subjects in line. Rus' also inherited political instability from the Horde - the Grand Ducal government did not set itself tasks of national significance. Let's take the construction of roads as an example - if you compare the road in the Russian Principality or on the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then there are two big differences. Or take environmental problems. In 12th-century France, royal orders stipulated that new forests should be planted in place of those cut down. Before Peter I, we had nothing like this.

The Tatar-Mongol invasion is the first, extremely important boundary at which the further historical paths of the western and eastern parts of geographical Europe sharply diverge in the period after the 12th century.

The myth of the Mongol-Tatar yoke It is so firmly embedded in the consciousness of each of us by official historiography that it is extremely difficult to prove that there really was no yoke. But I'll try anyway. At the same time, I will not use speculative statements, but facts cited in his books by the great historian Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov.

Let's start with the fact that the ancient Russians themselves were not familiar with the word “yoke”. It was first used in a letter from the Zaporozhye Cossacks to Peter I, containing a complaint against one of the governors.

Further. Historical facts indicate that the Mongols never intended to conquer Rus'. The appearance of the Mongols in Rus' is associated with their war with the Cumans, whom the Mongols, ensuring the security of their borders, drove beyond the Carpathians. For this reason, a deep cavalry raid through Rus' was carried out. But the Mongols did not annex Russian lands to their state and did not leave garrisons in the cities.

Without critically perceiving the anti-Mongol chronicles, historians claim terrible devastation caused by the Tatars, but cannot explain why churches in Vladimir, Kyiv and many other cities were not destroyed and have survived to this day.

Little is known that Alexander Nevsky was the adopted son of Khan Batu. It is even less known that it was the alliance of Alexander Nevsky with Batu, and subsequently with Batu’s son Berku, that stopped the onslaught of the crusaders on Rus'. Alexander's treaty with the Mongols was, in fact, a military-political alliance, and the “tribute” was a contribution to the general treasury for the maintenance of the army.

It is also little known that Batu (Batu) emerged victorious from the confrontation with another Mongol khan, Guyuk, largely thanks to the support he received from the sons of Grand Duke Yaroslav - Alexander Nevsky and Andrei. This support was dictated by deep political calculations. From the beginning of the 13th century Catholic Church began a crusade against the Orthodox: Greeks and Russians. In 1204, the Crusaders captured the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople. Latvians and Estonians were conquered and turned into serfs. A similar fate awaited Rus', but Alexander Nevsky managed to defeat the crusaders in 1240 on the Neva, in 1242 on Lake Peipsi and thereby stop the first onslaught. But the war continued, and in order to have reliable allies, Alexander fraternized with Batu’s son, Spartacus, and received Mongolian troops to fight the Germans. This union survived even after the death of Alexander Nevsky. In 1269, the Germans, having learned about the appearance of a Mongol detachment in Novgorod, sued for peace: “The Germans, having made peace according to the entire will of Novgorod, were extremely afraid of the name of the Tatar.” Thus, thanks to the support of the Mongols, the Russian land was saved from the invasion of the Crusaders.

It should be noted that the first so-called Mongol campaign against Rus' was in 1237, and the Russian princes began to pay tribute only twenty years later, when the Pope declared a crusade against the Orthodox. To protect Rus' from the onslaught of the Germans, Alexander Nevsky recognized the sovereignty of the Khan of the Golden Horde and agreed to pay a kind of tax on military assistance to the Tatars, which was called tribute.

It is indisputable that where the Russian princes entered into an alliance with the Mongols, a great power grew - Russia. Where the princes refused such a union, and these are White Rus', Galicia, Volyn, Kyiv and Chernigov, their principalities became victims of Lithuania and Poland.

A little later, during the so-called Mongol-Tatar yoke, Russia was threatened both from the East by the Great Lame (Timur) and from the West by Vytautas, and only an alliance with the Mongols made it possible to protect Russia from invasion.

Mongol-Tatars are to blame for the desolation of Rus'

Here is the generally accepted version. In the 12th century, Kievan Rus was a rich country, with excellent crafts and brilliant architecture. By the 14th century, this country was so desolate that in the 15th century it began to be repopulated by immigrants from the north. In the interval between the eras of prosperity and decline, Batu’s army passed through these lands, therefore, it was the Mongol-Tatars who were responsible for the decline of Kievan Rus.

But in reality, everything is not so simple. The fact is that the decline of Kievan Rus began in the second half of the 12th century or even in the 11th century, when the trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks” lost its significance due to the fact that the Crusades opened an easier road to the riches of the East. And the invasion of the Tatars only contributed to the desolation of the region, which began 200 years ago.

The widespread opinion that almost all the cities (“they are countless”) in Rus' were taken by the Tatars is also incorrect. The Tatars could not stop at every city to destroy it. They bypassed many fortresses, and forests, ravines, rivers, and swamps sheltered both villages and people from the Tatar cavalry.

Mongol-Tatars are a primitive, uncivilized people

The view that the Tatars were savage and uncivilized is widespread due to the fact that this was the official opinion of Soviet historiography. But, as we have seen more than once, the official is not at all identical to the true.

To debunk the myth of the backwardness and primitiveness of the Mongol-Tatars, we will once again use the works of Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov. He notes that the Mongols, indeed, killed, robbed, drove away cattle, took away brides and committed many such acts that are usually condemned in any textbook for young children.

Their actions were far from gratuitous. As their habitat expanded, the Mongols encountered rivals. The war with them was a completely natural rivalry. Cattle driving is a kind of sport associated with a risk to the life of, first of all, the horse thief. Bride kidnapping was explained by concern for the offspring, since stolen wives were treated no less delicately than those matched by consent of both families.

All this, of course, brought a lot of blood and grief, but, as Gumilyov notes, unlike other so-called civilized regions, in the Great Steppe there were no lies and deception of those who trusted.

Speaking about the uncivilization of the Mongols, we “reproach” them for the fact that they did not have cities and castles. In fact, the fact that people lived in felt yurts - gers - cannot in any way be considered a sign of uncivilization, because this is saving the gifts of nature, from which they took only what was necessary. It is worth noting that animals were killed exactly as much as was needed to satisfy hunger (unlike “civilized” Europeans who hunted for fun). It is also important that clothes, houses, saddles and horse harnesses were made from unstable materials that returned back to Nature along with the bodies of the Mongols. The culture of the Mongols, according to L.N. Gumilyov, “crystallized not in things, but in words, in information about ancestors.”

A thorough study of the way of life of the Mongols allows Gumilyov to draw, perhaps a somewhat exaggerated, but essentially correct conclusion: “Just think... the Mongols lived in the sphere of earthly sin, but outside the sphere of otherworldly evil! And other nations drowned in both.”

Mongols - destroyers of cultural oases of Central Asia

According to the established opinion, the cruel Mongol-Tatars destroyed the cultural oases of agricultural cities. But was this really the case? After all, the official version is based on legends created by Muslim court historiographers. Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov talks about the value of these legends in his book “From Rus' to Russia”. He writes that the fall of Herat was reported by Islamic historians as a disaster in which the entire population of the city was exterminated, except for a few men who managed to escape in the mosque. The city was completely devastated, and only wild animals roamed the streets and tormented the dead. After sitting for some time and coming to their senses, the surviving inhabitants of Herat went to distant lands to rob caravans, guided by the “noble” goal of regaining their lost wealth.

Gumilyov further continues: “This is a typical example of myth-making. After all, if the entire population big city was exterminated and lay corpses on the streets, then inside the city, in particular in the mosque, the air would have been contaminated with cadaveric poison, and those hiding there would simply have died. No predators, except jackals, live near the city, and they very rarely penetrate into the city. It was simply impossible for exhausted people to move to rob caravans several hundred kilometers from Herat, since they would have to walk, carrying heavy loads - water and provisions. Such a “robber”, having met a caravan, would not be able to rob it, since he would only have enough strength to ask for water.”

Even more ridiculous are the reports of Islamic historians about the fall of Merv. The Mongols took it in 1219 and allegedly exterminated every inhabitant of the city there to the last person. Nevertheless, already in 1220 Merv rebelled, and the Mongols had to take the city again (and exterminate everyone again). But two years later, Merv sent a detachment of 10 thousand people to fight the Mongols.

There are many similar examples. They once again clearly show how much you can trust historical sources.

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. Gumilev, one cannot help but wonder a whole series of questions: there was a Tatar-Mongol yoke or it was invented specifically, for a specific purpose, this is a historical fact or a deliberate fiction.

In contact with

Russians and Mongols

The Kiev prince Yaroslav the Wise, who died in 978, had to do this: like the British do, 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 land divided it between his sons, which contributed to an even greater weakening of Kievan Rus, although it expanded its possessions by moving the capital to the forested Vladimir.

Our state don’t be specific disunity, would not allow himself to be enslaved by the Tatar-Mongols.

Nomads near the walls of Russian cities

At the end of the 9th century, Kyiv was surrounded by the Hungarians, who were driven west by the Pechenegs. Following them, by the middle of the 11th century, came the Torci, followed by the Polovtsians; then the invasion of the Mongol Empire began.

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

How did Genghis Khan's empire develop?

The period of the late XII - early XIII centuries was marked by the unity of several Mongol families, guided by the extraordinary Temujin, who took the title of Genghis Khan in 1206.

The endless feuds of the Noyon governors were stopped, ordinary nomads were imposed with exorbitant quitrents and obligations. To strengthen the position of the common population and 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 personnel, postal communications, and constant imposition of duties. The Yasa Code of Canons balanced the powers of adherents of any faith.

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

Attention! The consequence of the aggressive campaigns of Genghis Khan and his followers became a gigantic superpower, covering the Celestial Empire, 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 and the islands of the Malay Archipelago; reached Egypt on the Sinai Peninsula, and further north approached the European borders of Austria. 1219 - Genghis Khan's army 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 skirted 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 them, they captured the Crimean Sudak.

Steppe nomads persecuted by the Mongols asked the Russians for protection. The Russian princes accepted the offer to fight an unknown army beyond the borders of their land. In 1223, with a cunning trick, the Mongols lured the Russians and Cumans to the shores. The squads of our governors resisted scatteredly and were completely overthrown.

1235 - a meeting of the Mongol aristocracy approved the decision on a campaign to capture Rus', dispatching 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-Mongol”. “Tatars” were called by the Persians, Chinese, and Arabs of the steppes living in northern border with them.

By the middle of the 13th century, in the mighty state of the Chingizids, the Mongol were the heads of military districts and selected privileged fighters, other troops remained a characteristic imperial army, representing the warriors 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

From that time on, Rus' began to pay tribute to the conquerors, very often being subjected to brutal raids by Tatar-Mongol troops. The Russians heroically responded to the invaders. Little Kozelsk went down in history, which the Mongols called an evil city because it fought back and fought to the last; defenders fought: women, old people, children - everyone, who could hold a weapon or pour molten resin from the city walls. Not a single person in Kozelsk was left alive, some died in battle, the rest were finished off when the enemy army broke through the defenses.

The name of the Ryazan boyar Evpatiy Kolovrat is well known, who, having returned to his native Ryazan and seeing what the invaders had done there, rushed with a small army after Batu’s troops, fighting them to the death.

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

Finally, the Russians realized that they needed to unite against the terrible enemy. 1378 - Russian squads on the Vozha River defeated huge Tatar-Mongol hordes under the leadership of the experienced Murza Begich. Insulted by this defeat, Temnik Mamai amassed a countless army and moved towards Muscovy. At the call of Prince Dmitry to save their native land, all of Rus' rose up.

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

But Rus' did not emerge from bondage. For many years she could not gain final independence. Two years later, Tokhtamysh Khan burned Moscow, because Prince Dmitry Donskoy left to gather an army and could not give in time worthy rebuff to the attackers. For another hundred years, the Russian princes continued to submit to the Horde, and it became increasingly weaker due to the strife of the Genghisids - the bloodlines of Genghis.

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

1480 - Russian troops settled on one bank of the Ugra River, Mongol troops on the other. The “stand” on the Ugra lasted 100 days.

Finally, the Russians moved away from the banks to make way for a future battle, but the Tatars did not have the courage to cross and walked away. 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, the yoke came to an end in Rus', its north and northeast. However, a number of researchers believe that Moscow’s dependence on the Horde continued until the reign.

Results of the invasion

Some scientists believe that the yoke contributed to the regression of Rus', but this is a lesser evil compared to the Western Russian enemies who took away our allotments and demanded the conversion of the Orthodox to Catholicism. Positive thinkers believe that the Mongol Empire helped Muscovy rise. The strife stopped, the disunited Russian principalities united against a common enemy.

After establishing stable ties with Russia, the rich Tatar Murzas with their carts moved towards Muscovy. Those who arrived converted to Orthodoxy, married Slavic women, and gave birth to children with non-Russian surnames: Yusupov, Khanov, Mamaev, Murzin.

Classic Russian history is being 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 differs 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 written language Mongols and Tatars of the 12th–13th centuries, as a consequence of this, there is a lack of immortalized evidence of their victorious raids.
4. Our chronicles confirming the bondage of the Russians for almost three hundred years have not been found. Some pseudo-historical documents appear that describe the Mongol-Tatar yoke only from the beginning of the reign.
5. It's embarrassing lack of archaeological artifacts from the site of famous battles, for example, from the Kulikovo field,
6. The entire territory over which the Horde roamed did not give archaeologists many weapons of that time, nor burials of the dead, nor mounds with the bodies of those who died in the camps of the steppe nomads.
7. The ancient Russian tribes had paganism with a Vedic worldview. Their patrons were God Tarkh and his sister, Goddess Tara. This is where the name of the people “Tarkhtars” came from, later simply “Tartars”. The population of Tartaria consisted of Russians, further to the east of Eurasia they were diluted with scattered multilingual tribes wandering in search of food. They were all called Tartars, today - Tatars.
8. Later chroniclers covered up the fact of the violent, bloody imposition of the Greek Catholic faith in Rus' with the invasion of the Horde; they carried out the order of the Byzantine Church and the ruling elite of the state. The new Christian teaching, which after the reform of Patriarch Nikon received the name Orthodox Christianity, led the masses to a split: some accepted Orthodoxy, those who disagreed exterminated or exiled to the northeastern provinces, to Tartary.
9. The Tartars did not forgive the destruction of the population, the ruin of the Kyiv principality, but their army was unable to respond with lightning speed, distracted by the troubles on the Far Eastern borders of the country. When the Vedic empire gained strength, it fought back against those who spread the Greek religion, and a real civil war began: the Russians with the Russians, the so-called pagans (Old Believers) with the Orthodox. Lasted almost 300 years Modern historians presented the confrontation of theirs against ours as a “Mongol-Tatar invasion.”
10. After forced baptism by Vladimir Red Sun Principality of Kiev was destroyed, settlements were ravaged, burned, most of the inhabitants were killed. They couldn’t explain what was happening, so they covered it up with the Tatar-Mongol yoke to disguise the cruelty conversion to a new faith(it was not for nothing that Vladimir began to be called the Bloody after this) the invasion of “wild nomads” was called for.

Tatars in Rus'

Past of Kazan

At the end of the 12th century, the Kazan fortress became the throne city of the state of the Volga-Kama Bulgars. After some time, the country submits to the Mongols, submits to the Golden Horde for three centuries, the Bulgar rulers, akin to the Moscow princes, pay taxes and correct subordinate functions.

By the fifties of the 15th century, following the obvious division of the Mongol Empire, its former ruler Udu-Muhammad, who found himself without property, invaded the Bulgarian capital, executed the governor Ali-Bek, and seized his throne.

1552 - Tsarevich Ediger, the heir of the Khan of Astrakhan, arrived in Kazan. Ediger arrived with 10 thousand foreigners, willful nomads wandering around the steppe.

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

The battle for Kazan was fought not with the native inhabitants of the state, but with the military masses of Ediger, who were driven by him from Astrakhan. The army of many thousands of Ivan the Terrible was opposed by a flock of Genghisids, consisting of the peoples of the Middle Volga region, Turkic tribes, Nogais, and Mari.

October 15, 1552 after 41 days brave defense, during a frenzied assault the glorious, fertile city of Kazan surrendered. After the defense of the capital, almost all of its defenders were killed. The city was subjected to total plunder. A merciless punishment awaited the surviving residents: wounded men, old people, children - everyone was finished off by the triumphants at the behest of the Moscow Tsar; young women with tiny babies were sent into slavery. If the Tsar of All Rus', who had dealt 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 under his rule it did not come to the general baptism of the peoples of Rus'.

The baptism of Tatars in Rus' occurred from the first half of the 18th century. 1740 - Empress Anna Ioannovna issued a decree according to which all heterodox peoples of Russia were to accept Orthodoxy. According to the regulations, it was not appropriate for converts to live together with people of other faiths; non-Christians were to be resettled in separate areas. 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, which adopted the practice of the last quarter of the 16th century. Those in power initiated drastic sanctions.

Radical measures

It was not possible to carry out the baptism of Tatars in Rus' several centuries ago and remains problematic in our time. Actually, the Tatars’ refusal to accept Orthodoxy, as well as resistance to the course towards 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. This gave rise to dominant power concern.

Orthodox priests of the Russian army became preachers among non-Christian servicemen. Having learned about this, some of the non-religious recruits preferred to be baptized even before mobilization. To encourage the adoption of Christianity, tax discounts were used enterprisingly for the baptized; additional contributions had to be paid by non-Orthodox Christians.

Documentary film about the Mongol-Tatar yoke

Alternative history, Tatar-Mongol yoke

conclusions

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

Original taken from koparev in 10 facts about the "Tatar-Mongol yoke"

We all know from the school history course that Rus' at the beginning of the 13th century was captured by the foreign army of Batu Khan. These invaders came from the steppes of modern Mongolia. Huge hordes fell upon Rus', merciless horsemen, armed with bent sabers, knew no mercy and acted equally well both in the steppes and in Russian forests, and used frozen rivers to quickly move along the Russian impassability. They spoke an incomprehensible language, were pagans and had a Mongoloid appearance.

Our fortresses could not resist skilled warriors armed with battering machines. Terrible dark times came for Rus', when not a single prince could rule without the khan’s “label,” to obtain which he had to humiliatingly crawl on his knees the last kilometers to the headquarters of the main khan of the Golden Horde. The “Mongol-Tatar” yoke lasted in Rus' for about 300 years. And only after the yoke was thrown off, Rus', thrown back centuries, was able to continue its development.

However, there is a lot of information that makes you look at the version familiar from school differently. Moreover, we are not talking about some secret or new sources that historians simply did not take into account. We are talking about the same chronicles and other sources of the Middle Ages, on which supporters of the version of the “Mongol-Tatar” yoke relied. Often inconvenient facts are justified as the chronicler's “mistake” or his “ignorance” or “interest.”

1. There were no Mongols in the “Mongol-Tatar” horde

It turns out that there is no mention of Mongoloid-type warriors in the “Tatar-Mongol” troops. From the very first battle of the “invaders” with the Russian troops on Kalka, there were wanderers in the troops of the “Mongol-Tatars”. Brodniks are free Russian warriors who lived in those places (predecessors of the Cossacks). And at the head of the wanderers in that battle was Voivode Ploskinia, a Russian.

Official historians believe that Russian participation in the Tatar forces was forced. But they have to admit that, “probably, the forced participation of Russian soldiers in the Tatar army later ceased. There were mercenaries left who had already voluntarily joined the Tatar troops” (M. D. Poluboyarinova).

Ibn-Batuta wrote: “There were many Russians in Sarai Berke.” Moreover: “The bulk of the armed service and labor forces of the Golden Horde were Russian people” (A. A. Gordeev)

“Let us imagine the absurdity of the situation: for some reason the victorious Mongols transfer weapons to the “Russian slaves” they conquered, and they (being armed to the teeth) calmly serve in the troops of the conquerors, making up the “main mass” in them! Let us remind you once again that the Russians were supposedly just defeated in open and armed struggle! Even in traditional history Ancient Rome never armed the slaves he had just conquered. Throughout history, the victors took away the weapons of the vanquished, and if they later accepted them into service, they constituted an insignificant minority and were, of course, considered unreliable.”

“What can we say about the composition of Batu’s troops? The Hungarian king wrote to the Pope:

“When the state of Hungary, from the Mongol invasion, as if from a plague, for the most part, was turned into a desert, and like a sheepfold was surrounded by various tribes of infidels, namely: Russians, Brodniks from the east, Bulgarians and other heretics from the south...”

“Let’s ask a simple question: where are the Mongols here? Mention is made of Russians, Brodniks, and Bulgarians—that is, Slavic tribes. Translating the word “Mongol” from the king’s letter, we simply get that “great (= megalion) peoples invaded,” namely: Russians, Brodniks from the east, Bulgarians, etc. Therefore, our recommendation: it is useful to replace the Greek word “Mongol” every time = megalion” its translation = “great”. The result will be a completely meaningful text, for the understanding of which there is no need to involve some distant immigrants from the borders of China (by the way, there is not a word about China in all these reports).” (With)

2. It is unclear how many “Mongol-Tatars” there were

How many Mongols were there at the beginning of Batu’s campaign? Opinions on this matter vary. There are no exact data, so there are only historians' estimates. Early historical works suggested that the Mongol army consisted of about 500 thousand horsemen. But the more modern the historical work, the smaller Genghis Khan’s army becomes. The problem is that each rider needs 3 horses, and a herd of 1.5 million horses cannot move, since the front horses will eat all the pasture and the rear ones will simply die of hunger. Gradually, historians agreed that the “Tatar-Mongol” army did not exceed 30 thousand, which, in turn, was not enough to capture all of Russia and enslave it (not to mention the other conquests in Asia and Europe).

By the way, the population of modern Mongolia is a little more than 1 million, while 1000 years before the conquest of China by the Mongols, there were already more than 50 million. And the population of Rus' already in the 10th century was approximately 1 million. However, nothing is known about targeted genocide in Mongolia. That is, it is not clear whether such a small state could conquer such large ones?

3. There were no Mongol horses in the Mongol troops

It is believed that the secret of the Mongolian cavalry was a special breed of Mongolian horses - hardy and unpretentious, capable of independently obtaining food even in winter. But in their steppe they can break the crust with their hoofs and profit from the grass when they graze, but what can they get in the Russian winter, when everything is covered with a meter-long layer of snow, and they also need to carry a rider. It is known that in the Middle Ages there was a Little Ice Age (that is, the climate was harsher than now). In addition, horse breeding experts, based on miniatures and other sources, almost unanimously claim that the Mongol cavalry fought on Turkmen horses - horses of a completely different breed, which in winter cannot feed themselves without human help.

4. The Mongols were engaged in the unification of Russian lands

It is known that Batu invaded Rus' at a time of permanent internecine struggle. In addition, the issue of succession to the throne was acute. All these civil strifes were accompanied by pogroms, destruction, murders and violence. For example, Roman Galitsky buried his rebellious boyars alive in the ground and burned them at the stake, chopped them “at the joints,” and flayed the skin from the living. A gang of Prince Vladimir, expelled from the Galician table for drunkenness and debauchery, was walking around Rus'. As the chronicles testify, this daring freewoman “dragged girls to fornication” and married women, killed priests during worship, and staked horses in the church. That is, there was the usual civil strife with a normal medieval level of atrocity, the same as in the West at that time.

And, suddenly, “Mongol-Tatars” appear, who quickly begin to restore order: a strict mechanism of succession to the throne appears with a label, a clear vertical of power is built. Separatist inclinations are now nipped in the bud. It is interesting that nowhere except Rus' do the Mongols show such concern about establishing order. But according to the classical version, the Mongol Empire contained half of the then civilized world. For example, during its western campaign, the horde burns, kills, robs, but does not impose tribute, does not try to build a vertical power structure, as in Rus'.

5. Thanks to the “Mongol-Tatar” yoke, Rus' experienced a cultural upsurge

With the advent of the “Mongol-Tatar invaders” in Rus', the Orthodox Church began to flourish: many churches were erected, including in the horde itself, church ranks were elevated, and the church received many benefits.

It’s interesting that the written Russian language during the “yoke” takes it to a new level. Here is what Karamzin writes:

“Our language,” writes Karamzin, “from the 13th to the 15th centuries acquired more purity and correctness.” Further, according to Karamzin, under the Tatar-Mongols, instead of the former “Russian, uneducated dialect, writers more carefully adhered to the grammar of church books or ancient Serbian, which they followed not only in declensions and conjugations, but also in pronunciation.”

So, in the West classical Latin appears, and in our country - Church Slavonic language in its correct classical forms. Applying the same standards as for the West, we must recognize that the Mongol conquest marked the flowering of Russian culture. The Mongols were strange conquerors!

It is interesting that the “invaders” were not so lenient towards the church everywhere. Polish chronicles contain information about the massacre committed by the Tatars among Catholic priests and monks. Moreover, they were killed after the capture of the city (that is, not in the heat of battle, but intentionally). This is strange, since the classical version tells us about the exceptional religious tolerance of the Mongols. But in the Russian lands, the Mongols tried to rely on the clergy, providing the church with significant concessions, up to complete exemption from taxes. It is interesting that the Russian church itself showed amazing loyalty to the “foreign invaders.”

6. After the great empire there was nothing left

Classical history tells us that the “Mongol-Tatars” managed to build a huge centralized state. However, this state disappeared and left no traces behind. In 1480, Rus' finally threw off the yoke, but already in the second half of the 16th century, the Russians began advancing eastward - beyond the Urals, into Siberia. And they did not find any traces of the former empire, although only 200 years had passed. There are no large cities and villages, there is no Yamsky tract thousands of kilometers long. The names of Genghis Khan and Batu are not familiar to anyone. There is only a rare nomadic population engaged in cattle breeding, fishing, and primitive agriculture. And no legends about great conquests. By the way, the great Karakorum was never found by archaeologists. But it was a huge city, where thousands and tens of thousands of artisans and gardeners were taken (by the way, it’s interesting how they were driven across the steppes 4-5 thousand km).

There were also no written sources left after the Mongols. No “Mongol” labels for the reign were found in Russian archives, of which there should have been many, but there are many documents of that time in Russian. Several labels were found, but already in the 19th century:

Two or three labels found in the 19th century And not in state archives, but in the papers of historians. For example, the famous label of Tokhtamysh, according to Prince MA Obolensky, was discovered only in 1834 “among the papers that were once in the Krakow crown archive and which were in the hands of the Polish historian Narushevich” Regarding this label, Obolensky wrote: “It (Tokhtamysh’s label - Author) positively resolves the question in what language and in what letters were the ancient khan’s labels to the Russian great princes written? Of the acts hitherto known to us, this is the second diploma.” It turns out , further, that this label “is written in various Mongolian scripts, infinitely different, not at all similar to the Timur-Kutlui label of 1397 already printed by Mr. Hammer”

7. Russian and Tatar names are difficult to distinguish

Old Russian names and nicknames did not always resemble our modern ones. These old Russian names and nicknames can easily be mistaken for Tatar ones: Murza, Saltanko, Tatarinko, Sutorma, Eyancha, Vandysh, Smoga, Sugonay, Saltyr, Suleysha, Sumgur, Sunbul, Suryan, Tashlyk, Temir, Tenbyak, Tursulok, Shaban, Kudiyar , Murad, Nevryuy. Russian people bore these names. But, for example, the Tatar prince Oleks Nevryuy has a Slavic name.

8. Mongol khans fraternized with the Russian nobility

It is often mentioned that Russian princes and “Mongol khans” became brothers-in-law, relatives, sons-in-law and fathers-in-law, and went on joint military campaigns. It is interesting that in no other country that they defeated or captured did the Tatars behave this way.

Here is another example of the amazing closeness between our and the Mongolian nobility. The capital of the great nomadic empire was in Karakorum. After the death of the Great Khan, the time comes for the election of a new ruler, in which Batu must also take part. But Batu himself does not go to Karakorum, but sends Yaroslav Vsevolodovich there to represent himself. It would seem that a more important reason to go to the capital of the empire could not be imagined. Instead, Batu sends a prince from the occupied lands. Marvelous.

9. Super-Mongol-Tatars

Now let's talk about the capabilities of the “Mongol-Tatars”, about their uniqueness in history.

The stumbling block for all nomads was the capture of cities and fortresses. There is only one exception - the army of Genghis Khan. The answer of historians is simple: after the capture of the Chinese Empire, Batu’s army mastered the machines themselves and the technology for using them (or captured specialists).

It is surprising that the nomads managed to create a strong centralized state. The fact is that, unlike farmers, nomads are not tied to the land. Therefore, with any dissatisfaction, they can simply up and leave. For example, when in 1916, tsarist officials bothered the Kazakh nomads with something, they took it and migrated to neighboring China. But we are told that the Mongols succeeded at the end of the 12th century.

It is not clear how Genghis Khan could persuade his fellow tribesmen to go on a trip “to the last sea”, without knowing maps and generally nothing about those with whom he would have to fight along the way. This is not a raid on neighbors you know well.

All adult and healthy men among the Mongols were considered warriors. In peacetime they ran their own household, and in wartime they took up arms. But who did the “Mongol-Tatars” leave at home after they went on campaigns for decades? Who tended their flocks? Old people and children? It turns out that this army did not have a strong economy in the rear. Then it is not clear who ensured an uninterrupted supply of food and weapons to the Mongol army. This is a difficult task even for large centralized states, let alone a nomadic state with a weak economy. In addition, the scope of the Mongol conquests is comparable to the theater of military operations of World War II (and taking into account the battles with Japan, and not just Germany). The supply of weapons and supplies seems simply impossible.

In the 16th century, the “conquest” of Siberia by the Cossacks began and was not an easy task: it took about 50 years to fight several thousand kilometers to Lake Baikal, leaving behind a chain of fortified forts. However, the Cossacks had in the rear strong state, from where they could draw resources. And the military training of the peoples who lived in those places could not be compared with the Cossacks. However, the “Mongol-Tatars” managed to cover twice the distance in the opposite direction in a couple of decades, conquering states with developed economies. Sounds fantastic. There were other examples. For example, in the 19th century, it took Americans about 50 years to cover a distance of 3-4 thousand km: Indian wars were fierce and the losses of the US Army were significant despite their gigantic technical superiority. European colonialists in Africa faced similar problems in the 19th century. Only the “Mongol-Tatars” succeeded easily and quickly.

It is interesting that all the major campaigns of the Mongols in Rus' were in winter. This is not typical for nomadic peoples. Historians tell us that this allowed them to move quickly across frozen rivers, but this, in turn, required a good knowledge of the area, which the alien conquerors could not boast of. They fought equally successfully in the forests, which is also strange for the steppe inhabitants.

There is information that the Horde distributed forged letters on behalf of the Hungarian king Bela IV, which brought great confusion to the enemy’s camp. Not bad for steppe dwellers?

10. The Tatars looked like Europeans

A contemporary of the Mongol wars, the Persian historian Rashid ad-Din writes that in the family of Genghis Khan, children “were mostly born with gray eyes and blond hair.” Chroniclers describe Batu's appearance in similar terms: fair hair, light beard, light eyes. By the way, the title “Chinggis” is translated, according to some sources, as “sea” or “ocean”. Perhaps this is due to the color of his eyes (in general, it is strange that the Mongolian language of the 13th century has the word “ocean”).

In the battle of Liegnitz, in the midst of the battle, the Polish troops panicked and they fled. According to some sources, this panic was provoked by the cunning Mongols, who wormed their way into the battle formations of the Polish squads. It turns out that the “Mongols” looked like Europeans.

And here is what Rubrikus, a contemporary of those events, writes:

“In 1252-1253, from Constantinople through the Crimea to Batu’s headquarters and further to Mongolia, the ambassador of King Louis IX, William Rubricus, traveled with his retinue, who, driving along the lower reaches of the Don, wrote: “Russian settlements are scattered everywhere among the Tatars; The Russes mixed with the Tatars... adopted their customs, as well as their clothes and way of life. Women decorate their heads with headdresses similar to the headdresses of French women, the bottom of their dresses is lined with furs, otters, squirrels and ermine. Men wear short clothes; kaftans, checkminis and lambskin hats... All routes of movement in the vast country are served by the Rus; at river crossings there are Russians everywhere”

Rubricus travels through Rus' just 15 years after its conquest by the Mongols. Didn't the Russians mix too quickly with the wild Mongols, adopted their clothes, preserving them until the beginning of the 20th century, as well as their customs and way of life?

In the image in the tomb of Henry II the Pious with the comment: “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 battle with the Tatars at Lingnitsa on April 9, 1241,” we see Tatar, no different from Russian:

Here's another example. In the miniatures from the Litsevoy Vault of the 16th century, it is impossible to distinguish a Tatar from a Russian:

Other interesting information

There are a few more interesting points that are worth noting, but which I couldn’t figure out what section to include.

At that time, not all of Russia was called “Rus”, but only the Kiev, Pereyaslav and Chernigov principalities. There were often references to trips from Novgorod or Vladimir to “Rus”. For example, the Smolensk cities were no longer considered “Rus”.

The word “horde” is often mentioned not in relation to the “Mongol-Tatars”, but simply to the troops: “Swedish Horde”, “German Horde”, “Zalessky Horde”, “Land of the Cossack Horde”. That is, it simply means an army and there is no “Mongolian” flavor in it. By the way, in modern Kazakh “Kzyl-Orda” is translated as “Red Army”.

In 1376, Russian troops entered Volga Bulgaria, besieged one of its cities and forced the inhabitants to swear allegiance. Russian officials were placed in the city. According to traditional history, it turned out that Rus', being a vassal and tributary of the “Golden Horde,” organizes a military campaign on the territory of a state that is part of this “Golden Horde” and forces it to take a vassal oath. As for written sources from China. For example, in the period 1774-1782 in China, seizures were carried out 34 times. A collection of all printed books ever published in China was undertaken. This was connected with the political vision of the history of the ruling dynasty. By the way, we also had a change from the Rurik dynasty to the Romanovs, so a historical order is quite likely. It is interesting that the theory of the “Mongol-Tatar” enslavement of Rus' was not born in Russia, but among German historians much later than the alleged “yoke” itself.

Conclusion

Historical science has a huge number of contradictory sources. Therefore, one way or another, historians have to discard some of the information in order to get a complete version of events. What was presented to us in the school history course was only one version, of which there are many. And, as we see, it has many contradictions.

The traditional version of the Tatar-Mongol invasion of Rus', the “Tatar-Mongol yoke,” and liberation from it is known to the reader from school. As presented by most historians, the events looked something like this. At the beginning of the 13th century, in the steppes of the Far East, the energetic and brave tribal leader Genghis Khan gathered a huge army of nomads, welded together by iron discipline, and rushed to conquer the world - “to the last sea.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After the fateful year of 1203, Kyiv never recovered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Couldn’t the campaigns of Mamai and Akhmat against Moscow be explained by the fact that, according to certain rules that were perfectly understood by contemporaries, the “tsar” was superior to the “grand duke” and had more rights to the throne? What did some dynastic system, now forgotten, declare itself to be here?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

from the magazine "Vedic Culture No. 2"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strange behavior of princes

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

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

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

Secrets of the disappeared chronicles

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

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

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

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

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

There was no invasion!

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

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

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

Horde - the name of the Russian army

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which Rus' did the Horde go to?

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

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

Grand falsification

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

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

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