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THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF THE MONGOLS AND CENTRAL-EASTERN EUROPE
The Routledge Handbook of the Mongols and Central-Eastern Europe offers a comprehensive overview of the Mongols’ military, political, socio-economic, and cultural relations with Central and Eastern European nations between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land empire in history, and one which contributed to the establishment of political, commercial, and cultural contacts between all Eurasian regions. The Golden Horde, founded in Eastern Europe by Chinggis Khan’s grandson, Batu, in the thirteenth century, was the dominant power in the region. For 200 years, all of the countries and peoples of Central and Eastern Europe had to reckon with a powerful centralized state with enormous military potential. Some chose to submit to the Mongols, whilst others defended their independence, but none could avoid the influence of this powerful empire. In this book, 25 chapters examine this crucial period in Central-Eastern European history, including trade, confrontation, and cultural and religious exchange between the Mongols and their neighbours.
This book will be an essential reference for scholars and students of the Mongols, and also those interested in the political, social, and economic history of medieval Central-Eastern Europe.
Alexander V. Maiorov is Professor and Head of the Department of Museology at St. Petersburg State University, Russia. Roman Hautala is a Docent in the Department of History at University of Oulu, Finland.
CONTRIBUTORS
Darius Baronas (Dr. University of Vilnius, 2001) is a leading research fellow in the Department of the History of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the Lithuanian Institute of History and part-time Professor at the Faculty of History, Vilnius University. His scholarly interests focus on the medieval history of Lithuania, with a special emphasis on Christianization, and her international and cultural relations with neighbouring countries. He is an editorial board member of Lithuanian Historical Studies. His monographs include: I martiri_francescani di Vilnius e il loro culto nei secoli XIV—XX, traduzione dal lituano a cura di G. Michelini, Vilnius, 2017; The Conversion of Lithuania: From Pagan Barbarians to Late Medieval Christians, Vilnius, 2015 (co-authored with S. C. Rowell); Lietuvos istorija, vol. 3: XII a. — 1385 m. Valstybés iskilimas tarp Ryty ir Vakary, Vilnius, 2011 (co-authored with A. Dubonis, R. Petrauskas); Pilénai ir Margiris: istorija ir legenda, Vilnius, 2010 (co-authored with D. Matiulis); and Trys Vilniaus kankiniai: Gyvenimas ir istorija (Istoriné studija ir Saltiniai) = Tres Martyres Vilnenses: Vita et Historia (Studium historicum et editio fontium), Vilnius, 2000.
Andrey V. Belyakov (PhD, Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 2017) is a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for the History of Russian Feudalism of the Institute of Russian History (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow). His books include Uraz Muhammad bin Ondan and Isinei Karamyshev, Son of Musait: An Experience of Joint Biography (Almaty, 2019, in Russian), Employees of the Ambassadorial Office 1645-1682 (Saint Petersburg, 2017, in Russian), The Serving Chinggisids from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries: A Prosopographic Study (Riazan’, 2011, in Russian), as well as numerous works on the history of the diplomatic service of the Muscovite state, the Time of Troubles in Russia at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the incorporation of the non-Orthodox population of eastern origin into the Muscovite ruling elite.
Dmitrij M. Bulanin (Dr. habilitatus, Leningrad, USSR, 1989) is a Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House), Russian Academy of Sciences, Department of Old Russian Literature (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). His academic interests concern the relations of Old Slavic literatures with Byzantine and West European cultures. His books include Translations and Epistles by Maxim the Greek: Unpublished Texts (Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1984, in Russian), Ancient Greek and Roman Traditions in Old Russian Literature of the 11-16th Centuries (Munich, 1991, in Russian), Jeanne d’Arc in Russia: The Historical Image between Literature and Propaganda (Moscow-Saint Petersburg, 1916, in Russian) as well as numerous papers, mainly on the cultural history of pre-Petrine Russia.
Moshe Grinberg is an M.A. graduate of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel (the Faculty of Humanities, an individual program on the history of Russia and Inner Asia). His works include several publications on the history of the Golden Horde’s history.
Viadyslav Gulevych (MA, Taras Shevchenko University, Ukraine, 2003) is a Researcher in the M. S. Hrushevsky Institute of Ukrainian Archaeography and Source Studies (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv) and Chief Adviser of the Office for Relations with the Local Government and the Local Authorities of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. His publications include a book From the Horde’s Ulus to the Girays’ Khanate: Crimea in 1399-1502 (Kazan, Sh. Marjani Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, 2018, in Russian) as well as numerous works on the history of the Crimean Khanate.
Roman Hautala (PhD, University of Siena, Italy, 2011) is a Docent in the Department of History at the University of Oulu (Finland), a Senior Research Fellow in the Sh. Marjani Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences (Kazan, Russian Federation), and the editor of the Golden Horde Review. His books include In the Lands of “Northern Tartary”: Information from Latin Sources about the Golden Horde during the Reign of Uzbek Khan (Kazan, Sh. Marjani Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, 2019, in Russian), Crusaders, Missionaries and Eurasian Nomads in the 13th—14th Centuries: A Century of Interactions (Bucuresti, Editura Academiei Romane, 2017) and From “David, King of the Indies” to “Detestable Plebs of Satan”: An Anthology of Early Latin Information about the Tatar-Mongols (Kazan, Sh. Marjani Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, 2015, in Russian) as well as numerous works on the history of the Mongol Empire.
Michal Hole8éak (PhD, Comenius University, Slovakia, 2017) is the Head of the Department of Medieval and Early Modern Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology of Slovak Academy of Sciences in Nitra. His professional focus lies on military archaeology, specifically the arms, armour and horse harness of Late Nomads: Cumans and Mongols. His first monograph Archer’s Equipment from the Territory of Slovakia (Bratislava, VEDA, 2019) collected and categorized the material culture connected with the archery from the northern part of the Carpathian Basin, with its main asset being the description in detail of the Cuman and Mongol archery equipment in the researched area, leading to the further research of the nomadic presence in the region.
Adrian Jusupovié (PhD at the Faculty of History at the Warsaw University, 2011; habilitation at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 2018; Professor, 2019) is a Professor in the Department of the Source Criticism and Editing at the Tadeusz Manteuftel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Co-editor of Monumenta Poloniae Historica, Nova Series, Vol. XVI: Chronica Galiciano-Voliniana. Chronica Romanoviciana, ediderunt, praefatione notisque instruxerunt, D. Dabrowski, A. Jusupovié, Krakow-Warszawa 2017. His books include The Chronicle of Halych-Volhynia: The Dynastic Chronicle of the Romanovichi (Warszawa and Krakow, 2019) and The Elites of Halych and Volhynian Land during the Period of the Romanovichi (1205-1269). Prosopography Study (Krakow, 2013), as well as numerous articles focused on the following specialization: medieval Rus’, Polish-Rus’ relationship, source editing, source study, small seals of drohichyn type, climate and prosopography.
Lawrence N. Langer (PhD, University of Chicago, 1972) is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History, University of Connecticut (USA), where he was also Director of the Center for Slavic and East European Studies. He has been an Associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, since 2002. He also serves as editor in chief of the journal Russian History since 2009. He is the author of a Historical Dictionary of Medieval Russia (Scarecrow Press/Division of Rowan & Littlefield: Lanham, Maryland and London, 2002), currently in preparation of a 2nd edition, and editor (with Peter Brown) of a Festschrift for Richard Hellie in Russian History, Part 1, vol. 34, nos. 1-4 (2007); Part 2, vol. 35, nos. 1-2 (2008); Part 3, vol. 35, nos. 3—4 (2008); Parts 4—6, vol. 36, nos. 1-3 (2009) (Idyllwild, CA: Charles Schlacks, 2007-2008; Leiden: Brill, 2009). He has published numerous articles and is completing a study of the Mongols in medieval Rus’.
Alexander V. Maiorov (Doctor of Historical Studies, 2004) is Professor and Head of the Department of Museology, St. Petersburg State University. He is the author of many books and articles on the history of Ancient Rus’, Rus’-Byzantine and Rus’-Mongol relations, including: ‘The Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe in 1223, 1237-1240’, in David Ludden (ed. in chief), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (Oxford University Press, 2020) (oxfordre.com/asianhistory); “The Rus Archbishop Peter at the First Council of Lyon’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 71, 2020, pp. 20-39; ‘Prince Mikhail of Chernigov: From Maneuverer to Martyr’, Kritika 18, 2017, pp. 237-56; ‘The Mongolian Capture of Kiev: The Two Dates’, Slavonic and East European Review 94, 2016, pp. 702-14; and ‘The Mongol Invasion of South Rus’ in 1239-1240s: Controversial and Unresolved Questions’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies 29, 2016, pp. 473-99.
Maxim V. Moiseev (PhD, Sholokhov Moscow State University for Humanities, 2007) is a Senior Research Fellow of the Novosibirsk State University and a Head of the Sector of exposition and exhibition work in the Museum Association ‘Museum of Moscow’, and the editor of the Yearbook of the Museum of Moscow titled Muscovy: Materials and Research on History and Archaeology, as well as of the collection of documents Ambassadorial Book on the Relation of the Muscovite State with Crimea. 1567-1572 (Moscow, “Russian Knights’ Foundation, 2016, in Russian). His publications include over a hundred articles on the eastern policy of the Muscovite state from the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth centuries, source studies, and the history of the successor states of the Golden Horde.
Alexander Nikolov (PhD, University of Sofia, Bulgaria, 2006, MPhil in Medieval Studies, CEU, Budapest, 2008) is a Professor in Medieval History at the Faculty of History, University of Sofia ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’ (Bulgaria). His books include Believe or I Shall Kill You: The Image of the ‘Orientals’ in the Crusaders’ Propaganda 1270-1370 (Sofia, 2006, in Bulgarian) and From Acre to Constantinople: Five Medieval Treatises on Christian-Muslim Relations (Sofia, 2018, in Bulgarian), as well as numerous studies on crusaders’ propaganda, imagology, frontier societies, migrations, history of the Cumans and the Golden Horde.
Alexandr Osipian (PhD, University of Donetsk, Ukraine, 1999) is a Research Fellow at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO), Leipzig, Ger-many. His publications include ‘Armenian Involvement in the Latin-Mongol Crusade: Uses of the Magi and Prester John in Constable Smbat’s Letter and Hayton of Corycus’s “Flos historiarum terre orientis”, 1248-1307””, Medieval Encounters 20, no. 1 (2014) and ‘Practices of Integration and Segregation: Armenian Trading Diasporas and Their Interaction with the Genoese and Venetian Colonies in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, 1289— 1484’, Union in Separation. Diasporic Groups and Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean (1100— 1800), ed. by Georg Christ et al. (Roma: Viella, 2015).
Roman Iu. Pochekaev (Candidate of Sciences/PhD in Law, St. Petersburg State University, Russia, 2006) is a Professor and Head of the Department of Theory and History of Law and State at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg (Russia). He is a member of editorial boards of the Golden Horde Review (Kazan, Russia), RUDN Journal of Law (Moscow, Russia), Paleorosia. Ancient Rus in Time, in Personalities, in Ideas (St. Petersburg, Russia) and Memleket Tarikhi/History of the State (Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan). His books include Law of the Golden Horde (Kazan, Fen Publ., 2009, in Russian), The Tsars of the Horde: Biographies of Khans and Rulers of the Golden Horde (2nd ed., St. Petersburg, Eurasia Publ., 2012), Legal Culture of the Golden Horde (Moscow, Iurlitinform Publ., 2015, in Russian), Chinggis’ Law: Legal Heritage of the Mongol Empire in the Turkic-Tatar Khanates and States of Central Asia (Kazan, Tatar Book Publ., 2016, in Russian), Golden Horde: The History within the Imperial Context (St. Petersburg, Nauka Publ., 2017, in Russian), Legitimacy of Power, Usurpers and Impostors in the States of Eurasia (Turkic-Mongol World: From the Thirteenth to the Beginning of the Twenties Centuries) (Moscow, Higher School of Economics Publishing House, 2017, in Russian), Batyi: Khan Who Was Not a Khan (2nd ed., St. Petersburg: Eurasia Publ., 2018, in Russian), Steppe Empires of Eurasia: Power — People — Law (Almaty, Abdi Company Publ., 2018, in Russian), as well as numerous works on the state and law of the medieval Turkic-Mongol states.
Stephen Pow (PhD, Central European University, Budapest and Vienna, 2020) is a historian of the Mongol invasion of Europe. His publications on the topic include ‘The Last Campaign and Death of Jebe Noyan’ published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society as well as in the Golden Horde Review in Russian translation (2017). His co-authored works include translations of the biographies of Siibiitai found in the Yuan Shi (2018) and the surviving fragments of the report of Simon of Saint-Quentin. His dissertation, Conquest and Withdrawal: The Mongols Invasions of Europe in the Thirteenth Century, is being prepared for publication.
Lorenzo Pubblici (PhD in Medieval History 2005, Universita degli Studi di Firenze) is Full Professor of History and Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Humanities and Liberal Arts (DHLA) of the Santa Reparata International School of Arts (SRISA) in Florence where he has been a faculty member since 2006. Professor Pubblici was a professor of Eastern European History at the University of Florence (2016-2018) and spent ten years as a faculty member at Sarah Lawrence College, Florence Program (2005-2016). Together with colleague prof. Marcello Garzaniti, prof. Pubblici is the scientific director of CeSecom (Center for Studies on Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages) and the editor in chief of the book series Europe in Between. Histories, Cultures and Languages from Central Europe to the Eurasian Steppes published by the Florence University Press. His research interests lie in the relations between Western Europe, Russia and Central Asia in the Middle Ages. Among his most recent publications are From Caucasus to the Azov Sea. The Impact of the Mongol Invasion in Caucasia between Nomadism and Sedentary Societies (1204-1295) (Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2018, in Italian); ‘Some remarks on the slave trade in the heart of the Golden Horde (fourteenth century) in the wake of C. Verlinden’s research’, Golden Horde Review 5/3 (2017), pp. 566-76; ‘Giovanni di Plano Carpini and the representation of otherness in the first part of the Historia Mongalorum’, Golden Horde Civilization 10 (2017), pp. 38-49; “Women in the Italian “emporia” of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Middle Ages’, in Women of the Mediterranean: Representations and Self- Representations, Lanciano 2018, pp. 21-34 (in Italian); “The affirmation of nomadism on the frontiers of Central Asia, between Islam, Rus’ and the Byzantine Empire from the ninth to eleventh centuries’, Slavia 2/2019, pp. 125—48 (in Italian).
Tomas Somer (PhD, Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic, 2013) is an Assistant Professor at the Palacky University Olomouc (Czech Republic) and a Fellow in the Centre for Medieval Studies (Prague, Czech Republic). He wrote several books such as Faith, Piousness, Patronage: Lords of Ronov and Pribyslav and the Church in the Middle Ages (Olomouc, Vydavatelstvi Filozofické fakulty Univerzity Palackého v Olomouci, 2018, in Czech), Peasants, Burghers and Lesser Nobility in the Caslav region before the Hussite Wars: The Vilémov Abbey and Its Regional Power-structures (Olomouc, Vydavatelstvi Univerzity Palackého v Olomouci, 2016, in Czech), The Benedictine Abbey in Vilémov: History of a Forgotten Monastery on the CzechMoravian Border (in collaboration with Josef Sramek, Ceské Budéjovice, Veduta, 2015, in Czech) and Smil of Lichtenburg: The Story of a Nobleman in a Turbulent Age (Ceské Bud@jovice, Veduta, 2012, in Czech) as well as numerous papers predominantly focusing on economic, social and religious history of the Kingdom of Bohemia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Witold Swietostawski (PhD, Polish Academy of Sciences, 1990). He is Professor at the University of Gdansk. His books include: Medieval Stirrups from Poland (Lédz, 1990, in Polish), Archaeological Traces of the Tatar Invasions of Central Europe in the Thirteenth Century (Lodz, 1997, in Polish), Arms and Armour of the Nomads of the Great Steppe in the Times of the Mongol Expansion (12th—14th Centuries) (LOdz, 1999), The Nomads of the Great Steppe on the Polish Territory from the Tenth to Twelfth Centuries (L6dz, 2006, in Polish).
Aleksandar Uzelac (PhD, University of Belgrade, Serbia, 2013) is a Senior Research Associate in the Institute of History, Belgrade. He published a book titled Under the Shadow of the Dog: Tatars and South Slavic Lands in the Second Half of the Thirteenth Century (Belgrade, Utopia, 2015, in Serbian) and numerous articles about the relations of the Golden Horde with Central and Southeastern Europe, in his native language, as well as in English, Russian, Bulgarian, and Turkish. He is a member of the editorial board of the Golden Horde Review, published by Sh. Marjani Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences (Kazan, Russian Federation).
Istvan Vasary (b. 1945) is Professor Emeritus of Turkic and Central Asian Studies at the Lorand E6tvés University (Budapest), member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and former Ambassador of Hungary to Ankara (1991-1996) and Tehran (1999-2003). He specializes in medieval history of the Eurasian steppe region. He is the author of the books The Golden Horde (1986), Chancellery of the Golden Horde (1987) and History of Pre-Mongol Inner Asia (1993) (all in Hungarian); Cumans and Tatars. Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185-1365 (Cambridge University Press, 2005); Turks, Tatars and Russians in the 13th—-16th Centuries (Variorum Collected Studies Series. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2007); Hungarian Primordial Homelands and Historians of the Early Hungarians (2008, in Hungarian), and more than 200 articles published in international and Hungarian periodicals.
Fedor N. Veselov (PhD, St Petersburg State University, Russia, 2018) is a Docent in the Department of Museology, Institute of History at the St Petersburg State University (Russia) and a Senior Research Fellow in the Military-Historical museum of Artillery, Engineer Troops and Signal Corps (St Petersburg, Russia). His works include studies on Medieval Russian illuminated battle narratives, including its miniatures and texts, codices provenance, palaeographic characteristics and codicology, as well as studies on textual and pictorial sources concerning the Mongol invasion to Europe.
INTRODUCTION
From the Great Western campaign to the decline of the Golden Horde: new tendencies in the study of the Mongol factor in the history of Eastern and East Central Europe
Alexander V. Maiorov and Roman Hautala
The proposed volume is unique in its kind. Despite the abundance of scholarly literature on Mongols, there are no special studies in any language covering the whole range of the Mongols’ relations with Central and Eastern Europe. To some extent, this gap is filled with studies in regional languages (primarily Slavic, as well as Hungarian and Romanian) dedicated to local subjects and relations of individual countries of Central and Eastern Europe with the Mongols. A well-known book by Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West (2005, 2018), is dedicated to the relations of the Mongols mainly with Western Europe and the Roman Church, and therefore it casts little attention to Eastern European problems.
On the basis of an integrated interdisciplinary approach to the study of heterogeneous sources, this volume examines various aspects of the Mongols’ relations with Central and Eastern Europe in the military-political, socio-economic, cultural, and ecclesiastical-religious spheres. The seven special thematic sections of the collection contain 25 chapters that explore specific areas and key problems in the history of the relations of the Mongols with Russia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Moravia, Bulgaria, the northern Black Sea coast, Crimea, and Byzantium. Chronologically, the volume covers the period from the mid-thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth centuries. In their respective chapters, the authors of the collection acquaint readers with the results of the latest research on the specific issues indicated above, and also demonstrate the general state and main trends in the development of the modern study of Mongol-European contacts in the Middle Ages. The fact that the contributors to the collection use both the medieval written sources in different languages (Latin, Old Russian, Greek, etc.) as well as numerous artifacts found by archaeologists, including those in recent times, underlines its value.
A comprehensive study of Mongol-European relations objectively requires the combined efforts of a large team of scholars from different countries. This problem has been addressed with this collection. The contributors to the volume represent various research schools and disciplines that have developed in Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Serbia, as well as in Finland, Germany, Italy, Israel, and the United States of America. Most of the chapters of this volume are written by researchers from Eastern and Central Europe, whose studies remain little known to the modern English-speaking readers because of the language barrier.
The first information about the crushing campaign of the armies of Chinggis Khan and his heirs, which appeared in Europe, was confused and contradictory: for several decades the ideas about the Mongols went through a complex evolution — from the bright warriors of the legendary ‘Prester John’ to the dark ‘forerunners of the apocalypse’. Our contributors study the influence of information that came to Western Europe through various channels and through those who faced the eastern threat before — on whose accounts the chroniclers of the Rus’ principalities were based. Many facts point to a secondary perception of the Mongols as ‘Ishmaelites’ from the ‘Revelations’ of pseudo-Methodius and the enclosed nations of Gog and Magog in the testimony of European chroniclers who borrowed this information from the Russian sources.
In 1223, the Polovtsian leaders fled from the forces of Jebe and Stibadai to the Rus’ princes and informed them that the new conquerors had already subjugated many tribes and peoples and that now the Polovtsians and Rus’ were next in line. When the combined Rus’Polovtsian army came out against the conquerors, the latter, through the ambassadors, informed the Rus’ princes that the rulers of the Mongols were fulfilling a divine mission, which consisted in establishing their power over the whole world and creating a universal empire headed by the Great Khan. Having killed the Mongol ambassadors, the Rus’ princes, together with the Polovtsians, continued their campaign and suffered a catastrophic defeat. Pursuing the enemy, the Mongols reached almost as far as Kyiv, the main city of Southern Rus’. An anonymous Southern Rus’ author compiled the Tale of the Battle on the Kalka River on the heels of these dramatic events, which was then included in the Russian chronicles.
At the end of his tale, an unnamed Rus’ author quoted the ominous revelations of pseudo-Methodius (known in Rus’ from the end of the eleventh century) and identified the Mongols with the harbingers of the End of Times. Presenting themselves as executors of God’s will, the Mongols, not being Christians, behave like Christians, and even the ‘godless sons of Ishmael’ were given to them as slaves. Thus, the behavior of the Mongols and their perception of themselves as a ‘scourge of God’ was the main reason for their identification with the eschatological Midianites of pseudo-Methodius — the tribes that for centuries troubled the Chosen People of Israel and were prepared by God for the Last Days as retribution for the sins of mankind.
Another monument of Old Russian literature — the Tale of the Ruin of Riazan’ by Batu — conveys unique information that makes it possible to answer the question of why the Mongols chose a forceful scenario of subjugating Northeastern Rus’, in spite of the earlier attempts of peaceful submission through negotiations and marriage alliance with Rus’ princes. The scepticism that is noticeable in the secondary literature regarding the information contained in the Tale is due, on the one hand, to an unproven opinion about the late origin of the monument, and, on the other, to the attitude towards it only as a literary work, generated exclusively or mainly by the fiction of the author. Nevertheless, the key episodes of the Tale reveal their correspondence to the historical realities of the times of the Mongol conquests and the creation of the universal empire of the Mongols.
First of all, these are details that are absent in other sources of peace negotiations between the Riazan’ princes and Batu, marriage proposals received from him, as well as additional requirements for the Riazan’ prince, Fedor Iur’evich, affecting the honor of his wife. All these episodes reflect, at their core, the political realities of the Mongol Empire in the first half of the thirteenth century and could arise only as a result of direct contacts with the conquerors.
At the same time, the demands concerning the wife of the Riazan’ prince and the murder of the latter for refusing to fulfill them could have been a deliberate provocation undertaken by Batu in order to create a pretext for the Jochids to change the direction of the main strike of the Mongols, who were originally aimed at the war with the Polovtsians. Batu’s unilateral actions displeased other Mongol princes, participants in the Western campaign, and led to an acute conflict with Giytik and Biiri.
The Riazanians attack on Batu’s headquarters described in the Tale, launched in response to the murder of Prince Fedor, does not contradict, but rather, on the contrary, agrees with the general picture of the Mongol conquest of the Riazan’ land, confirmed by the totality of data from all currently known sources. In response to this attack, the leaders of the Mongols had to abandon the original plan for the peaceful subordination of Northeastern Rus’ and significantly adjust the strategy of the Western campaign as a whole. The death of Prince Kélgen, the only son of Chinggis Khan who participated in the Western campaign, which occurred in a clash with the Riazan’ people supported by the detachment of Grand Duke Iurii Vsevolodovich, finally buried any peaceful alternative in relations with the Mongols and predetermined the tragic fate of the Vladimir—Suzdal’ land.
Half a century ago, thanks to authoritative research by Wactaw Zatorski, Stefan Krakowski, and Gerard Labuda, estimates of the most important facts related to the Mongol invasions of Poland were formulated. Later researchers basically repeated the observations of these authors. Although some attempts have been made to put forward new hypotheses and re-evaluate individual episodes, they have not been fully accepted. It is obvious that many issues related to the Mongol invasions of Polish lands remain unclear. It is safe to assume that we will never know, for example, the exact number of participants in the Battle at Legnica or the place of death of Duke Henry I the Pious. At the same time, the use of modern naturalscientific knowledge makes it possible to establish that the Mongols won the decisive battle with the Poles at Legnica due to the successful use of military poison gases of nerve action. It is hoped that over time, our knowledge will be more complete in relation to such issues as, for example, the routes of movement of the Mongol units or the scale of their destruction. Our chances of new discoveries can enhance interdisciplinary research across different categories of source material. The narratives of Jan Dlugosz require further study, since they are very rich in factual data, not yet fully explored. In addition, a comprehensive analysis of the late medieval depictions of the Mongols in the art of Central Europe is needed.
During Batu’s invasion, the Hungarian kingdom was subjected to extensive destruction and significant civilian casualties, but it was able to defend its independence. Further coexistence with the neighbouring Mongol state was determined for one century by the constant threat of a new attack by the Mongol army and compelled the Hungarian rulers to maintain diplomatic relations with the central authority of the Golden Horde in the Lower Volga region, as well as with the closer regional rulers of the Mongols between the Dnieper and Dniester and in the Danube Delta. In addition, the Mongol expansion led to the migration of an impressive number of Cumans to the Hungarian kingdom. The nomads who renounced submission to the Mongols and took refuge in Hungary were the shock forces of the Hungarian army, which contributed to the successful reflection of small Mongol raids into the border areas of the Hungarian kingdom. Their presence in Hungary, however, introduced a certain domestic political instability in the kingdom and, at the same time, significantly enriched the culture of Hungary thanks to the appearance within its borders of a significant ethnic group that differed from the main part of the kingdom.
The study of the routes along which the Mongol armies moved during the invasion of Hungary, as well as the ways of withdrawal of the conquerors to the East, allows to redefine the long-term strategic goals of the Mongol Empire, the reaction to changes in the political situation, and sometimes even shed light on the motives of the actions of individuals. The revision of some of the controversial and unresolved issues related to the presence of the Mongols in the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary calls into question some of our longstanding historical assumptions, including even widespread theories about the departure of the Mongols in 1242. A number of new observations show that Batu withdrew troops east to Transylvania and then south from the Carpathian Basin, without any haste and probably not in response to the news of the death of the Great Khan. This casts doubt on the reliability of the explanation of the reasons for the departure of the Mongols from Hungary, which for a long time was most often proposed.
In 1241, the Mongol corps, which probably numbered no more than ten thousand people, briefly appeared in Moravia to join the main Mongol army in Hungary. Having quickly passed through the Moravian lands, the Mongols did not take a single city or castle, limiting themselves to plundering the countryside. In 1253, the Hungarian king Bela IV invaded Moravia along with the Cumans, who showed themselves as cruel marauders, and this event was mistaken for a new invasion of the Mongols. Sixteenth-century historians have added to their accounts of the Mongol invasion a fictional character, Jaroslav of Sternberg, allegedly defending Olomouc. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the story of the defeat of the Mongols at Olomouc became part of popular myths and church traditions, acquiring new fantastic details. In the early nineteenth century, the legend was used in the fabrication of the so-called Kéniginhof Manuscript and became the Czech national symbol. After the forgery was exposed at the end of the nineteenth century, the victory over the Mongols at Olomouc, Hostyn, and Stramberk disappeared from the textbooks. However, the memory of this story is still alive.
The Hungarian kingdom, weakened by internal contradictions during the reign of Ladislaus IV, became a convenient target for a new attack by the Mongols. In early February 1285, the Mongol leaders Nogai and Tola Buqa, together with their Rus’ allies, invaded Hungary. Then the armies split into smaller raid detachments and, bypassing large cities and fortifications, began to systematically loot the countryside in a wide area of modern Eastern Slovakia and Northern Transylvania, between the Carpathians and the Danube. The most likely target of the invasion was booty of war, including prisoners who became slaves. It is no coincidence that soon after 1285, Caffa, a small settlement in the Eastern Crimea, turned into the main trade centre on the northern coast of the Black Sea, one of the most important economic assets of which was the slave trade.
During the reign of King Louis the Great, there were several new clashes between the Hungarians and the Mongols (Tatars). In 1345, by order of the king, Andrew Lackfi, ispan of the Székelys of Transylvania, defeated a Tatar detachment under the command of Atlamosh, who was killed in action. During the second Lithuanian campaign of 1352, in which King Louis personally participated, a new clash with the Tatars, the allies of the Lithuanians, was supposed to occur, but it was ultimately avoided. The gradual decrease in the number of Hungarian-Tatar military clashes and their complete cessation by the middle of the fourteenth century clearly indicates the military-political weakening of the western territories of the Golden Horde. The emergence of the Wallachian and Moldavian principalities, as well as the strengthening and expansion of the young Lithuanian state, led to the gradual withdrawal of the Tatars from the regions between the Lower Danube and the Dniester, as well as from Podolia and Volhynia.
From the 1340s, the Polish and Hungarian kingdoms moved from defense to offensive and, despite two major invasions of the Mongols in Poland in 1341 and 1352, were able to significantly expand their possessions in the east. The annexation of Halych to the Kingdom of Poland, most likely, happened with the consent of Janibeg Khan, who received guarantees from King Casimir HI of the continuation of the payment of tribute previously collected by the Tatars from Halych lands. Casimir’s attempt to evade these obligations prompted an immediate reaction from the Tatars, who supported the Lithuanians during their invasion of Poland in 1352. In response, the Polish monarch hastened to send his representative to the court of Janibeg, reaffirming his previous obligations regarding the Halych tribute, thereby causing the condemnation of Pope Innocent VI. Despite the political weakening of the Golden Horde, which was on the verge of a deep internal crisis, the Polish king could carry out his territorial expansion to the east only through negotiations and forced compromises with its ruler.
The Mongols showed extremely increased activity in southeastern Europe since the end of the Mongol invasion in 1242 and over the next one and a half centuries. Mongol military actions were interspersed with long peaceful periods that promoted intensive cultural contacts. The resettlement of a significant number of Mongols in the Danube Delta and the founding of their capital in Isaccea in the last quarter of the thirteenth century significantly diversified the already variegated ethnic spectrum of the peoples who lived in this region of Europe.
The complex relations between the Mongols and Byzantium often led to open confrontation, but for the most part had a friendly character. Since 1261, the Greek Empire gained full control over the Bosphorus and achieved extremely important strategic importance, acting as an intermediary in the diplomatic relations of the Mongols with the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt and Syria, as well as with Western Europe. Since their appearance in Europe, the Mongols established close contact with Byzantium and sought to maintain friendly relations with the Greek Empire. These relations, however, were complicated by the support that the Mongols rendered to the Bulgarian kingdom, which was often in hostile relations with Byzantium.
Unlike Hungary, Poland, and Byzantium, the Bulgarian kingdom recognized its dependence on the Mongols shortly after their invasion in 1242. In addition, the intensity of the relations between the Mongols and the Bulgarians was determined by the fact that a significant group of Mongols settled in eastern Bulgaria. A consequence of the immediate neighborhood of the Mongols with the Bulgarians was the continued participation of the Mongols in the internal events in the kingdom. The Danube Mongols had a significant impact on the territory of modern Romania and Moldova. The period of Mongol domination in southeastern Europe was of direct importance for the political consolidation of the Vlachs (future Romanians) and the gradual emergence of their independent state.
As a result of the Great Western campaign, many states and peoples of the Volga-Ural region, the Northern Black Sea region, and the Caucasus, as well as all Rus’ principalities, for several centuries fell under the rule of the Mongol Empire and its western ulus, the Golden Horde, which later became an independent state. During the period of Mongol rule in Eastern Europe, complex political processes contributed to the gradual consolidation and ultimately unification of the scattered principalities of Northeastern Rus’ around Moscow. These changes also led to the emergence of the Russian centralized state in the second half of the fifteenth century, which managed not only to free itself from the power of the Horde, but also to subjugate in the future all its political centres and territories.
During the period of subordination to the Golden Horde, a specific system of power and administration developed in the Rus’ principalities, one of the main elements of which were the basqaqs. The Mongol rulers paid great attention to this most important instrument of their power and with particular care selected candidates suitable for the position of basqaq, choosing them from among the Turkic, Mongol, and also local elites, including Rus’ princes and their entourage. The choice of the basqaq from among the local elites loyal to the Mongols was a deliberate strategic manoeuvre: such people were well-versed in local conditions and, as a rule, enjoyed the support of the population. The transfer of the functions of the basqaqs to the Rus’ princes, on the one hand, helped to stabilize the political situation, increase the collection of tribute and, outwardly, strengthened the power of the Horde. But, on the other hand, this measure turned out to be fraught with long-term consequences for the Mongol power, as it strengthened the political and financial capabilities of the Rus’ princes, gradually turning them into a force capable of withstanding the power of the conquerors.
As suzerains of the Rus’ princes, the Khans of the Golden Horde acted as arbitrators in disputes between them. The Khan’s court provided for a well-developed procedure, which included a claim, the preliminary collection of evidence by the parties in their favour, the search for intercessors (guarantors), the consistent defence of their position in the court session, the assessment of the evidence presented in the form of oral testimony of witnesses and written documents, and, finally, the adoption a decision made through the issuance of a Khan’s yarliq. The legal basis for the Khan’s decision on a particular case was less clearly regulated. In the complete absence of references to the norms of Mongol imperial law, the Khan made a decision at his own discretion, only sometimes taking into account the opinion of his entourage or Rus’ traditions and the political situation in the Rus’ lands. The decisions made by the Khan were not always considered final. Even in periods when the power of the Golden Horde over Rus’ reached its climax, the disputing princes could reconsider the verdict by mutual agreement. When the power of the Khan began to weaken from the end of the fourteenth century, the Rus’ princes began to ignore his will.
In the fifteenth century, relations between Muscovite Rus’ and the Tatar states underwent a significant evolution. The disintegration of the ulus of Jochi into several new khanates and hordes did not immediately bring Muscovite Rus’ liberation from dependence. On the contrary, some Rus’ lands, for example, Nizhnii Novgorod and Suzdal’, came under the direct control of the Tatars. The tribute collected from them increased. However, the situation gradually began to change in favour of Moscow, and in the second half of the fifteenth century a new system of relations with the Great Horde, the Kazan and Crimean khanates, and subsequently with the Nogai Horde took shape. Using the contradictions between the rulers of various Tatar states, the Grand Duke of Moscow, Ivan HI, supported the Crimean Khans. With their help he managed to establish a protectorate over the Kazan Khanate. At the same time providing asylum to various contenders for power in Crimea, Ivan II was able to interfere in the internal affairs of this Tatar state as well. Through a complex system of mutual obligations, Moscow eventually managed to create a coalition with Crimea, Kazan and the Nogais, and with its help deal a fatal blow to the main Tatar state — the Great Horde. After that, the Russian state fully restored its foreign policy sovereignty. Having become an equal ally of the Crimean Khanate, Moscow actually became a senior partner in relations with the Nogai Horde and the Kazan Khanate.
The internal political crisis that occurred in the Golden Horde in the 1360s—70s caused a massive resettlement of a significant part of the Tatar population, including representatives of the nobility, to the west, as well as to the lands of Northeastern Rus’. In the fifteenth century, some Chinggisids began to move to the Rus’ lands controlled by Moscow for various reasons. This process was generally associated with the dissolution of the Golden Horde into a number of independent states, the rulers of which were at enmity with each other. From the middle of the fifteenth century, some Chinggisids began to go into the service of the Moscow princes, receiving considerable material support and help in the struggle for power in the Crimea or Kazan. Passing into the service of the Muscovite sovereign, the descendants of Chinggis Khan not only raised the political status of their new overlord, but also increased the size of his army at the expense of their military detachments. These new Tatar units, numbering several hundred sabers, were usually deployed on the border with the steppe and were successfully used against both external and internal enemies of Moscow.
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania avoided the attack of the Batu’s army in 1241 and the subsequent subjugation by the Mongols. Nevertheless, it did not escape the direct influence of the Golden Horde, along with other countries of Eastern and Central Europe. An amazing and not yet fully explained phenomenon is the gradual expansion of Lithuania into the lands of modern Belarus and Ukraine subordinate to the Mongols, successfully carried out in the second half of the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth centuries. The expansion of Lithuania to the south and east could only be carried out with the tacit consent of the rulers of the Golden Horde, which implies the existence of the Lithuanian—Tatar alliance, in which the Lithuanian princes were for a long time in the position of junior partners. Their dependence on the Horde manifested itself in the regular payment of tribute from the Rus’ lands that came under the rule of Lithuania (there is no evidence that Lithuania itself paid such a tribute), and in the participation of Lithuanian troops in the military campaigns of the Horde. In addition, despite constant appeals and threats from the West, until the end of the fourteenth century, Lithuania did not join the camp of the enemies of the Golden Horde, which consisted of Poland, Hungary, and the Teutonic Order.
In 1348, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Olgerd, sent an embassy to the Horde led by his brother, Koriat, with a request for military assistance against the Teutonic Order. However, the intervention of the ambassadors of the Grand Duke of Moscow, Simeon the Proud, who feared the growing influence of Lithuania in Novgorod, led to the fact that Janibeg Khan refused to help the Lithuanian prince and, moreover, ordered to escort his ambassadors to Moscow. The Khan’s decision grossly violated the immunity of the foreign ambassador, which was usually strictly observed by the Mongols. In exchange for military aid and political support, the Lithuanian prince, perhaps, was ready to make new, more significant concessions to the Horde, right up to recognizing himself as a vassal of the Khan. However, Janibeg had already made a bet on the support of the Moscow prince, who had proved his complete loyalty.
Olgerd’s diplomatic failure had geopolitical consequences that were important for the whole of Eastern Europe. The Polish king Casimir III took advantage of the situation and conducted a successful military campaign in the east, as a result of which he captured Halychyna and most of Volhynia, which Lithuania also claimed. Moscow, which benefited the most from Lithuania’s failure, could not enjoy its fruits for long. A terrible plague epidemic, later called the ‘Black Death’, came to Rus’ and sent to the grave the main beneficiary — Grand Duke Simeon.
Lithuanian expansion to the east, which reached its greatest scope during the reign of the Grand Dukes Gediminas and his son, Olgerd, was due to several reasons. This was facilitated, first of all, by the severe internal political crisis that the Golden Horde experienced in the second half of the fourteenth century, as well as the readiness of the population of the Rus’ principalities subordinate to the Horde to recognize the power of the rulers who could free them from paying the Horde’s tribute. In addition, the Lithuanian princes did not seek to change the existing internal system in the annexed lands and were easily ready to convert to Orthodoxy, which was professed by the absolute majority of their new subjects.
In the 1350s—60s, as a result of a long struggle and difficult compromises between Poland and Lithuania, the territory of the former Halych-Volhynian principality was divided: the former received Halychyna and Western Volhynia, and the latter got the lands of Eastern Volhynia. Around the same time, with the support of local boyars, Lithuania peacefully annexed Briansk, and then the rest of the former Chernihiv principality, and between 1357 and 1361 — vast territories of the former Kyivan principality. In 1362, Olgerd’s victory at the Blue Waters over the minor Tatar princes who had their possessions in Podillia, secured the transfer of Podillian, Kyivan, and Chernihiv lands under the rule of Lithuania. At the same time, the Moldavian principality was formed at the southern borders of Podillia, which soon extended its possessions in the area between the Prut and Dniester rivers. Geographical proximity and the general threat of a Tatar attack contributed to the rapprochement of the Lithuanian and Moldovan rulers.
From the end of the fourteenth century (probably after the Rus’ victory over the main forces of the Horde in the Battle of Kulikovo) Lithuania completely stopped paying tribute to the Horde’s rulers from the Rus’ lands. In the second half of the 1390s, taking advantage of the further weakening of the Horde, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Vytautas, launched a new offensive against the Tatar possessions east of the Dnieper. Having entered into an alliance with Togtamish, expelled from the Horde by Temiir Qutlugh, Vytautas, with the support of his cousin, the Polish King Jogaila, began a war against the main forces of the Horde, but was defeated at the Battle of Vorskla on 12 August 1399. This failure did not lead to territorial losses for Lithuania, although the general balance of power for some time shifted again in favour of the Horde.
In the first half of the fifteenth century, the internal political crisis in the Horde became irreversible. At this time, the rulers of Lithuania did not set themselves the task of completely destroying the Horde, but only sought to weaken it to a level that was safe for themselves. The main tactical means for this was the support of some Horde Khans against others, who were constantly fighting for power among themselves, without Lithuania’s direct military participation in this struggle. When at the turn of the 1430s—40s, as a result of the separation of Kazan, the Nogais, and Crimea, the disintegration of the Horde became a fait accomph, the Lithuanian rulers continued the same line, actively taking advantage of the contradictions that constantly arose between the new Tatar states.
In the second half of the fifteenth century, relying on an alliance with the Crimean Khanate, the rulers of Lithuania and Poland fought against the Great Horde, which claimed the political legacy of the Golden Horde, including power over the Rus’ lands. At the same time, rivalry with Moscow due to influence in Novgorod and other Western Rus’ lands pushed the Polish-Lithuanian rulers to an alliance with the Great Horde, which took shape during the reign of Ahmad Khan. In response to this, the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan HI went to rapprochement with the Crimea, seeking to use it as an ally against the Great Horde and Lithuania. Ahmad Khan’s unsuccessful campaign against Moscow in 1480 led to the final fall of the Tatars’ power over the Russian state. Having lost its main income, the Great Horde plunged into a severe crisis and ceased to exist in 1502.
The tribute collected by the Horde from the Rus’ lands consisted mainly of the valuable fur of forest animals and silver, which came in the form of ingots, primarily through Novgorod, which conducted extensive trade with the Hanseatic League. Over time, Moscow challenged Novgorod’s control over the northern fur trade by creating its own fur network. In addition, the Horde was interested in manufactured goods as well as artisans who were able to produce them. Tatars acquired these artisans through conversion into debt slavery or as a result of constant raids on Rus’ lands.
During the reign of Dmitrii Donskoi, minting of coins began in Rus’, and in the first half of the fifteenth century, coins were minted already in 25 cities. In the second half of the century, Moscow largely centralized the collection of tribute from the principalities of Northeastern Rus’, creating a more efficient and consistent tax system based on the quantitative accounting of arable land and the size of the solvent male population. Regularly supplying the Tatar rulers with furs, silver, and slaves, Moscow learned to benefit from its position, creating its own administrative and financial institutions to mobilize the material and human resources of most of the Rus’ lands.
Armenian merchants very often acted as trade and diplomatic intermediaries between the Golden Horde and its successor states, the Genoese colonies, the principalities of Rus’, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Poland, the late Byzantine states, and the early Ottomans. The very nature of medieval long-distance trade prompted merchants to establish trusting relationships with the ruling elites of other countries. The upper classes were exclusive consumers of the luxury goods — silk, spices, and pearls — traded by the Armenians. The rulers of different countries used them to broadcast news and as agents to ransom noble prisoners of war. Fluency in the Kipchak/Cuman language (lingua comanescha) — the lingua franca in the Golden Horde — turned Armenian merchants into translators in the royal/princely service. Wealthy traders traveling between foreign countries often worked as official or secret envoys.
Perceiving the Armenians as economic and diplomatic agents of the Tatar rulers, the Muscovite princes did not allow them to settle in the territory of Northeastern Rus’. At the same time, in the lands of Southern Rus’, which became part of Poland and Lithuania, there was amore tolerant attitude towards the Armenians and their faith. Their communities were granted judicial autonomy on the model of the so-called ‘German (Magdeburg) Law’. In the southern Rus’ lands, as well as in territories controlled by the Tatars, Armenians were allowed to build their churches and found dioceses, such as in Sarai, Cafta, Solkhat, and Lviv.
By the middle of the thirteenth century, the Black Sea had become an integral part of the trading macrosystem that united the Mediterranean with Asian countries. The trading settlements of Genoa and Venice on the shores of Pontus allowed the Europeans to establish permanent contacts with the Far East, gain new knowledge, make profitable investments, develop shipping and navigation by promoting new discoveries and inventions in the field of shipbuilding and navigation.
In the middle of the fourteenth century, the political situation in the region changed dramatically, as one after the other the main communications connecting Romania with Asia were blocked. The Hkhanate’s crisis that erupted after the death of Abu Said in 1335 made it difficult to visit the city of Tabriz, a major trading hub of the Indian Ocean and Iraq. The conquest of Ayas by the Mamluks in 1337 cut off another trade network connecting Constantinople, Trebizond, and the Palestinian coast. In addition to everything, the Plague, which came from Central Asia, struck Tana, Cafta, and the entire Black Sea region, and from there arrived in Italy on Genoese ships.
However, even during the outbreak of the epidemic, Genoa and Venice did not stop investing in the Black Sea and made huge diplomatic and financial efforts to restore their trading posts in the Crimea and at the mouth of the Don. The inexorable decline of the Mongol powers in Asia coincided with the advance of the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia, and at the end of the fourteenth century with the invasion of Central Asia and North Pontus by Tamerlane. But even under these conditions, Italian merchants continued to visit Egyptian and Middle Eastern ports, without leaving their Black Sea settlements. Only the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the subsequent loss of Tana and Caffa put an end to the presence of the Genoese and Venetians on the Pontic shores.
The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and the fall of Byzantium demanded radical changes in the previously dominant Christian schemes for the development of the world and man, sharpened the sense of historical dynamics in general among contemporaries. Starting from the second half of the fifteenth century, in Old Russian literature, works are created one after another, full of intense meditations about the inscrutable ways of Divine Providence, which elevates some peoples and kingdoms and overthrows others from the heights of power. In these reflections, the authors were assisted by typological exegesis, which has long been in service with Christian philosophy and which made it possible to build events of the past and present as a series of time horizons. With this view on the twists and turns of history, events and heroes of different eras, especially those related to turning points in the past, turn out to be comparable and interchangeable at the symbolic level.
The preference for the symbolic interpretation of facts over the literal one sometimes leads the authors of tales to ambivalence in the ethical and political assessments of the characters. Their idea of history borders on fatalism, and this introduces an element of uncertainty into the strict separation of positive and negative characters inherent in medieval literature. Characters often change attributes. In the story about the Battle of Kulikovo, which is contained in the Tale of the Battle against Mamai, the author, directly or with the help of hints, referred the reader to episodes of the Serbian version of the Romance of Alexander (Serbian Alexandria), which Old Russian readers met as a result of the second Southern Slavic influence. Medieval writers usually tried on the ideal rulers of any other era to the image of Alexander the Great. The situation is different in the Tale of the Battle against Mamai, where heroes-antagonists — the winner of the unholy army, Dimitrii Donskoi, and his opponent, Mamai — are alternately related to Alexander. In symbolic terms, they become equal.
In works of fine art, the images of the Mongols, monstrous monsters that differ from ordinary people even in body proportions, appear as a living response to the invasion of the conquerors in the middle of the thirteenth century. However, the expected End of the World did not come, and very soon Christians of the East and West began to build relationships no longer with ‘an immense horde of that detestable race of Satan’, but with people like themselves. In the Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle (Chronica Pictum), the images of the Mongols are quite human and mix with the images of the earlier enemies of the Hungarian kingdom — the Cumans, whose iconographic features (conical caps with brims and caftans) were widely distributed along with the illustrative cycle of the Legend of St Ladislaus in book illustrations and frescoes on a large territory of Central Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Cuman attributes in the images of the Mongols also appear in miniatures of the Life of St Hedwig (Codex of 1353).
The appearance on the borders of the Christian world of new enemies, the Ottoman Turks, leads to the fact that the elements of the Western European chronicles of the fifteenth century (turbans, robes, banners with images of the head of a Moor and a scorpion) are transferred to the Mongols, for example, when illustrating the invasion of Hungary and battles of Legnica in the printed Chronica Hungarorum of Johannes Thuroczy and in the 1451 copy of the Life of St Hedwig.
After the fall of the Horde’s power, the difference in the image of the Mongols and the Christian army gradually fades. The artists of the official chronicle of the Muscovite State, the Illuminated Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible, depict both the Mongol horsemen of Batu and the Rus’ defenders of Riazan’, Vladimir, and Kozel’sk, in the same armor and clothes, with similar weapons. Earlier Rus’ images illustrating the events of the Batu’s invasion have not reached us, but it can be assumed that the image of the Mongols and other nomads in Rus’ changed in about the same way as in Central Europe. If in the Illuminated Chronicle the Polovtsian and Mongol warriors outwardly resemble the Rus’, then on the miniatures of the earlier Radziwitt Chronicle the Turkic nomads are endowed with features that bring them closer to the images of the Cumans of the Hungarian and Polish illustrated codes of the fourteenth century.
No matter how strong the belief of the Mongols was that Chinggis Khan was ordained by Heaven to conquer the whole world, they also considered it prudent to respect all religions, since one can never be sure which of the many deities offers the right path to Heaven. Political considerations were also not the least important, since the support of religious institutions, whose servants were supposed to pray for the well-being of the Mongol rulers, helped the population of the conquered countries to accept the power of the conquerors.
While some historians are sceptical about the scale of the devastation caused by the Mongols, there can be no doubt that during the invasions of Rus’ in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Mongols did not show any mercy or tolerance towards Christians and Christian institutions. Faced in the future with uprisings and other challenges to their power, the Mongols also showed no leniency for the Christian clergy or church institutions.
At the same time, from the second half of the thirteenth century, the Rus’ Church and all its ministers began to enjoy special protection and patronage from the rulers of the Golden Horde, including exemption from tribute, as well as all other taxes and duties. The church was provided with guarantees of protection of its land holdings and other property, which also extended to farmers and artisans living on church lands.
The unity of the Rus’ Church was ensured by the Metropolitan, confirmed by the Patriarch of Constantinople. Consistently supporting the Moscow princes in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Rus’ metropolitans made an important contribution to the political strengthening of Moscow as a new world centre of Eastern Christianity.
Ozbeg Khan’s ascension in the Golden Horde, who was a Muslim and made great efforts to spread Islam in the Jochid empire, caused a wary reaction from Russian chroniclers. However, the reliability of the testimonies of Rus’ authors in many cases raises doubts and requires verification. Preserved chronicle collections were often compiled several centuries after the events described in them. Therefore, their information was influenced by significant ideological changes. In addition, the authors of the Russian chronicles focused on describing only those events that were directly related to the Rus’ principalities and their rulers. Additional information in the little-known Latin written sources to some extent compensates for the complete lack of Jochid written sources. Testimonies of Latin sources allow us to reconsider the prevailing opinion on the total Islamization of the Jochid ulus during Ozbeg Khan’s rule. In particular, a comparative study of Russian chronicles and reports of Catholic missionaries who preached the Gospel in the Golden Horde suggests that the Muslim ruler, Ozbeg, adhered to the principles of religious tolerance traditional for the Chinggisids throughout his reign.
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So, this volume offers readers a comprehensive overview of almost three hundred years of relations between the Mongols and the countries and peoples of Eastern and East Central Europe in the military-political, socio-economic, cultural, and church-religious fields. In general, it covers the period between the first appearance of the Mongol tiimens in the Southern Rus’ steppes in 1223 and the end of the existence of the Great Horde in 1502.
The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land empire in history and one which contributed to the establishment of political, commercial, and cultural contacts between all Eurasian regions without exception. It is safe to say that by the end of the period of the main conquests of the Mongols in 1260, Eurasia’s appearance had completely changed and this change had an impact on every single region.
The Mongol state, commonly called the Golden Horde, founded in Eastern Europe by the grandson of Chinggis Khan, Batu, completely changed the established political situation in the region. From the middle of the thirteenth century, all the countries and peoples of Eastern and East Central Europe had to reckon with a powerful centralized state with enormous military potential. Some countries, like Rus’ and Bulgaria, chose to submit to the Mongols after several military defeats. Others, like Poland and Hungary, defended their independence, but could not avoid the influence of the Mongols.
The new centralized state of the Mongols posed a grave military threat to its neighbours. However, having subjugated the larger part of Eastern Europe, the Mongols removed the former borders that divided the peoples and promoted new cultural contacts. The power of the conquerors contributed to mass migrations of the population, the rise of international trade, the transfer of knowledge and technology, a change in old ideas about the world and its peoples, the formation of a generally more tolerant attitude towards carriers of other cultures and religions. However, the flip side of Mongol globalization was the largest plague pandemic in the world of the mid-fourteenth century (the Black Death), which claimed the lives of several tens of millions of people, according to some estimates, up to half of the population of Europe. Over the centuries of confrontation with the Mongols, new political and economic centres replaced the previous ones, new states and geopolitical realities were established, and a new political culture was formed, based on the absolutization and sacralization of the supreme power.
The contributors and editors of this volume hope that readers interested in the history of relations between the Mongols and the West will have fewer unresolved or unanswered questions. At the same time, we are fully aware that new questions will inevitably appear, which, perhaps, will become an incentive for further research.
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