Who drove the Mongol Tatars from Russian soil. The Golden Horde and the Mongol Yoke in Rus'

Whatever one may say, history was, is, and also remains quite illusory and unreliable, and those facts that we are accustomed to taking at face value often turn out to be, upon closer examination, foggy and vague. Who exactly, and most importantly, why, is rewriting that very objective information is often simply impossible to identify, due to the lack of eyewitnesses who can either confirm or refute it. However, it is worth saying that there are inconsistencies, outright absurdity, as well as blunders that are striking and worth discussing in more detail, because among the huge amount of chaff, it is quite possible that the truth will be found. Moreover, in the history of our country there is also enough of such good things, for example, you can discuss the Tatar-Mongol yoke briefly, without wandering into the dark jungle of a flighty girl named Clio.

Official version: when the Mongol yoke was formed and who might need it

First of all, you need to find out what is said about the Mongol- Tatar yoke 1237-1480 is the official version of history, which we studied very successfully at school. It is this version that is considered correct, so we must proceed from this. Fans of this version believe, based on available sources, that in early spring 1237, that is, at the very beginning of the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan unexpectedly appeared at the helm of nomadic tribes living communally and scattered at that time. In just a couple of years, this truly talented leader, and roughly speaking, a real, brilliant leader, gathered such a colossal army that he was immediately able to set out on his, which turned out to be actually victorious, campaign to the north-west.

Although no, everything was somewhat not so fast, because at first, a hastily cobbled together state, which previously consisted of completely disparate tribes and communities, conquered China, which was quite strong at that time, and at the same time its closest neighbors. Only after all this, the Golden Horde, like an endless sea, rushed towards us, jingling with spears and playing with long beards, riding on dashing horses, intending to impose the Tatar-Mongol yoke on Mother Rus', which is what we are talking about.

Tatar-Mongol yoke: start and end dates, according to the official version, dates and numbers

Horror, fear, horror gripped all of ancient Rus', from edge to edge, when millions of troops entered our lands. Burning everything in its path, killing and also maiming the population, leaving behind only ashes, the “Horde” walked across the steppes and plains, capturing ever larger territories, horrifying everyone who met them on the way.

Absolutely no one could prevent this incredible avalanche, fragrant with fat and soot, and our epic good fellows and heroes, apparently, were just lying on the stoves, ripening for their allotted thirty-three years. Having reached the Czech Republic and Poland itself, the victorious campaign, for completely unknown reasons, suddenly choked and stood rooted to the spot, and the Tatar-Mongol yoke stopped, splashed in place, like a real sea, establishing its own order, as well as a fairly harsh regime on the conquered people. amazing lightness of the territories.

It was then that the Russian princes received special letters, as well as labels from the khan for governance. That is, the country, in fact, simply continued to live its usual, everyday life. To make it clearer, it is worth saying that in Ancient Rus', a yoke was the name given to a yoke placed on powerful animals, oxen, pulling an unbearable burden, for example, a cart loaded with salt. True, the Mongols and Tatars, at times, apparently to further intimidate and prevent outrage against the regime, destroyed several small villages or towns.

The khan had to pay tribute regularly and very carefully, in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts, and the establishment of the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Rus' went simply with a bang. Mongols are oriental people - quick-tempered and hot-tempered, why tempt fate? This went on for about three hundred years, until Dmitry Donskoy finally showed the handsome Horde, Khan Mamai, where these domestic crayfish spend the winter, which mortally frightened the invaders, who seemed completely fearless and invincible.

Around the same time, in the middle of the fourteenth century AD, on the Ugra River, Prince Ivan the Third and the Tatar Akhmat, having stood opposite each other for several days, for some reason simply separated without even entering into battle. Moreover, the Horde’s “staring contest” clearly lost. This time is considered the official end of the Mongol-Tatar yoke. These events date back to approximately 1380.

The period of the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Rus': years and key dates

However, the invaders remained angry and rampant for several more decades, and the consequences for the country were simply catastrophic; the horde managed to quarrel the Russian princes, so much so that they were ready to tear each other’s throats for labels and petitions from the khan. At that time, the son of the notorious Genghis Khan, the elderly young man Batu, became the head of the Horde, and he surrendered his position to the enemy.

Thus, it turns out that the Tatar-Mongol yoke, which lasted about two to three hundred years, ended in nothing. Moreover, the official version of history also offers the dates of the Mongol-Tatar yoke, which are key. How long did the Tatar-Mongol yoke last in Rus'? Do the math for yourself, it’s not at all difficult, because specific numbers are given, and then – pure mathematics.

• The Mongol-Tatar yoke, which we briefly talk about, began in 1223, when a countless horde approached the borders of Rus'.
• Even the date of the first battle, which marked the beginning of the Mongol-Tatar yoke, is known : May 31 of the same year.
• Tatar-Mongol yoke: the date of the massive attack on Rus' is the winter of 1237.
• In the same year, the Mongol yoke in Rus', in short, reigned; Kolomna and Ryazan were captured, and after them the entire Palo-Ryazan principality.
• In the early spring of 1238, at the very beginning of March, the city of Vladimir was captured, which later became the center from which the Tatar-Mongols ruled, and Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich was killed.
• A year later, the horde also captured Chernigov.
• Kyiv fell in 1240, and this was a complete collapse for Rus' at that time.
• By 1241, the Principality of Galicia-Volyn was captured, after which the activity of the Horde clearly stopped.

However, the Tatar-Mongol yoke did not end there, and for another forty years the Russians paid tribute to the Horde khan, because official history says that it ended only in 1280. To get a clearer idea of ​​the events taking place, it is worth considering the map of the Tatar-Mongol yoke; everything there is quite transparent and simple, if you take everything on faith.

Tatar-Mongol yoke: historical fact or fiction

What do they say, so to speak, alternative sources, was there really a Mongol-Tatar yoke in Rus', or was it specially invented for some specific purpose? Let's start with Genghis Khan himself, an extremely interesting and, one might even say, entertaining personality. Who was this “Comanche leader”, the most talented of all existing rulers, leaders and organizers, who probably surpassed Adolf Hitler himself? Mysterious phenomenon, but the Mongol by family and tribe, it turns out, was completely European in appearance! A Persian historian, a contemporary of the Mongol-Tatar campaigns, named Rashidad-Din, frankly writes in his chronicles:

“All the children from the clan of Genghis Khan were born with blond hair, and also gray eyes. The Great One himself had the yellow-green gaze of a wild puma.”

It turns out that he is not a Mongol at all, a great Mongol! For starters, there is also information, quite reliable: In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the invasion took place, the Mongolian and Tatar peoples simply did not have a written language! Therefore, they could not write down their own sources, purely physically. Well, they didn’t know how to write, and that’s all! It’s a pity, because their words would be useful to us in establishing the truth.

These peoples learned to write as many as five centuries later, that is, much later than the Tatar-Mongol yoke supposedly existed in Rus', and even that’s not all. If you thoroughly delve into the historical reports of other nations, then nothing is written about the black-eyed and black-haired invaders of vast territories, from China to the Czech Republic and Poland. The trail has been lost and it is impossible to find it.

The Mongol-Tatar yoke in Rus' lasted for a long time, but left no traces behind it

When Russian travelers, exploring more and more new lands, set their feet to the east, to the Urals and Siberia, then on their way they would certainly have encountered at least some traces of the presence of a once multimillion-strong army. After all, the Tatar-Mongols, according to legend, were supposed to “hold” these territories too. Moreover, no burials more or less reminiscent of Turkic ones were discovered. It turns out that no one has died in three hundred years? Cossack travelers did not even find a hint of cities or any kind of “decent” infrastructure for their time. But it was here that the very road along which tribute was brought from all over Rus' should have passed. A strange forgetfulness was observed among the people who occupied these lands for centuries - they knew neither in sleep nor in spirit about any yoke.

In addition to the complete “lack of presence,” as everyone’s favorite humorist Mikhail Zadornov would say, one can also note the elementary impossibility of existence, much less the victorious march of an army of half a million people in those ancient times! According to the same evidence on which official history is based, it turns out that each nomad had at least two horses at his disposal, and sometimes even three or four. It is difficult to imagine this herd of several million horses, and even more difficult to figure out how to feed such a host of hungry animals. In one day, these countless hordes of ungulates should have devoured all the greenery within a radius of several hundred kilometers and left behind a landscape most reminiscent of the consequences of a nuclear attack or a zombie invasion.

Perhaps, under the attack and rule of the Mongols, someone skillfully disguised something else, completely unrelated to the poor nomadic peoples? It is difficult to imagine that they, accustomed to life in a fairly warm steppe, felt calm in severe Russian frosts, but even the more persistent and hardy Germans could not withstand them, although they were equipped with the latest technology and weapons. And the very fact of such a well-coordinated and clearly functioning control mechanism is quite strange to expect from nomads. The most interesting thing is that completely wild people, at times, were depicted in early paintings dressed in armor and chain mail, and during military operations they could easily roll out a ram to the city gates. These facts somehow do not fit at all with the idea of ​​the Tatar-Mongols of that time.

Such inconsistencies, large and small, can be found if you dig into more than one volume of scientific work. Who and why needed to falsify history, “fooling lies” on the poor Mongols and Tatars, who were not even aware of something like that? To be honest, we must admit that these peoples learned about their heroic past much later, and most likely, already from the words of Europeans. It's funny, isn't it? What did they want to hide from their descendants, placing responsibility for the destruction and years of unbearable tribute on Genghis Khan? So far, all this is just theory and guesswork, and it is not at all a fact that the objective truth will ever be clarified.

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.

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Russians and Mongols

Died 978 Kyiv prince Yaroslav the Wise should have done this like the British do, in whom 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, 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 the forced baptism of Vladimir the Red Sun, the Principality of Kiev was destroyed, settlements were devastated, burned, and 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.

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. IN early XIII centuries 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.”

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 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 recent 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 fight against foreign aggressors, but pages civil war in Rus'. Moreover, this author promulgated a completely “revolutionary” idea: under the names “Genghis Khan” and “Batu” the Russian princes Yaroslav and Alexander Nevsky appear in history, and Dmitry Donskoy is Khan Mamai himself (!).

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

Who were the Mongols who approached the borders of the Christian world from the east? How did the powerful Mongol state appear? Let's make an excursion into its history, relying mainly on the works of Gumilyov.

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

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

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

The third son of the Great Khan, Ogedei, like Jochi, was distinguished by his kindness and tolerance towards people. The character of Ogedei is best illustrated by this incident: one day, on a joint trip, the brothers saw a Muslim washing himself by the water. According to Muslim custom, every believer is obliged to perform prayer and ritual ablution several times a day. Mongolian tradition, on the contrary, forbade a person to wash throughout the summer. The Mongols believed that washing in a river or lake causes a thunderstorm, and a thunderstorm in the steppe is very dangerous for travelers, and therefore “calling a thunderstorm” was considered an attempt on people’s lives. Nuker vigilantes of the ruthless zealot of the law Chagatai captured the Muslim. Anticipating a bloody outcome - the unfortunate man was in danger of having his head cut off - Ogedei sent his man to tell the Muslim to answer that he had dropped a gold piece into the water and was just 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 management of the ulus under him was carried out mainly thanks to the severity of Chagatai and the diplomatic and administrative skills of Tuluy. Myself great khan 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. So 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 were previously used.

The chronicle information that has reached us about the military campaigns of 1237–1238 depicts 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 Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” who became the Prince of Chernigov in 1198, set himself the goal of dealing with Kiev, a city where the rivals of his dynasty were constantly strengthening. He agreed with the Smolensk prince Rurik Rostislavich and called on the Polovtsians for help. Prince Roman Volynsky spoke in defense of Kyiv, the “mother of Russian cities,” relying on the Torcan troops allied to him.

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

After the fateful year of 1203, Kyiv never recovered.

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

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

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

It should be noted that the relations between Rus' and the Polovtsians do not fit into the scheme of irreconcilable confrontation “sedentary - nomadic”. 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 terrible sin murder of the trustee. 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 “standing on the Ugra.” In reality, the Khan's ambassadors did not come to Ivan and he did not solemnly tear up any basma letter in their presence.

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

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

What 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 led the Tatars into panic.

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

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

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

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

Does it not follow from this that the Russian side deliberately delayed the negotiations - while Akhmat was trying for a long time to achieve his unclear goals, making concession after concession, Russian troops sailed along the Volga to the capital of Akhmat and chopped down women, children and old people there, until the commanders woke up - like a conscience! Please note: it is not said that Voivode Gvozdev opposed the decision of Urodovlet and Oblyaz to stop the massacre. Apparently he was also fed up with blood. Naturally, Akhmat, having learned about the defeat of his capital, retreated from Ugra, hurrying home with all possible speed. 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 a “Grand Duke”. Writer's inaccuracy? But at the time when Lyzlov wrote his history, the title “tsar” was already firmly attached to the Russian autocrats, had a specific “binding” and exact value. Further, in all other cases Lyzlov does not allow himself such “liberties.” Western European kings are “kings”, Turkish sultans are “sultans”, 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” are by no means the same thing. Why are there so many holders of the title “tsar” among the Tatars, and why are Moscow sovereigns persistently called “grand princes?” Only in 1547, Ivan the Terrible for the first time in Rus' took the title “tsar” - and, as Russian chronicles extensively report, he did this only after much persuasion from the patriarch.

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 a struggle for the throne, rather than 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 the general conclusion they draw is correct: 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 for a long time were subordinate to the Horde and incapable of independence, that their lot was drunkenness and obedience?

Strange behavior of princes

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

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

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

Secrets of the disappeared chronicles

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

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

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

Another paradox: why suddenly the Russian princes in the Battle of Kalka surrender “on parole” to a representative of foreigners named Ploskinya, and he... kisses 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.

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

Golden Horde.

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

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

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

Tatar-Mongol yoke.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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