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

So was there a Tatar-Mongol yoke in Russia?

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

The great poet AS Pushkin left heartfelt lines: “Russia was assigned a high mission ... its boundless plains absorbed the power of the Mongols and stopped their invasion at the very edge of Europe; the barbarians did not dare to leave enslaved Russia in their rear and returned to the steppes of their East. The resulting enlightenment was saved by a torn apart and dying Russia ... "

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

Having strengthened over time, Russia began to resist. In 1380, the Grand Duke of Moscow Dmitry Donskoy defeated the Horde Khan Mamai, and a century later, the troops of the Grand Duke Ivan III and the Horde Khan Akhmat met in the so-called "standing on the Ugra". The opponents camped for a long time on different 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 took 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 Gumilyov convincingly showed that relations between Russia and the Mongols were much more complicated 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 kind of "complementarity" between the Mongols and the Russians, that is, compatibility, the ability to 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 actually the struggle of the descendants of Prince Vsevolod the Big Nest (son of Yaroslav and grandson of Alexander Nevsky ) with their rival princes for the 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 justified rights to the great reign. Thus, the Battle of Kulikovo and the "standing on the Ugra" are not episodes of the struggle against foreign aggressors, but pages of the civil war in Russia. Moreover, this author promulgated a completely "revolutionary" idea: under the names "Genghis Khan" and "Batu" in history there are ... Russian princes Yaroslav and Alexander Nevsky, and Dmitry Donskoy - this is Khan Mamai himself (!).

Of course, the conclusions of the publicist 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 the "yoke" really look too mysterious and need more close attention and unbiased research. Let's try to consider some of these mysteries.

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

Who were the Mongols who approached the borders of the Christian world from the east? How did the powerful Mongolian state come about? Let's make an excursion into its history.

At the beginning of the XIII century, in 1202-1203, the Mongols first defeated the Merkits, and then the Kerait. The fact is that the Kerait were divided into supporters of Genghis Khan and his opponents. The opponents of Genghis Khan were led by the son of Wang Khan, the legitimate heir to the throne - Nilha. He had reason to hate Genghis Khan: even at the time when Wang Khan was an ally of Genghis, he (the leader of the Kerait), seeing the indisputable talents of the latter, wanted to transfer the Kerait throne to him, bypassing his own son. Thus, the collision of a part of the Kerait with the Mongols occurred during the life of Wang Khan. And although the Kerait were outnumbered, the Mongols defeated them, as they showed exceptional mobility and took the enemy by surprise.

In the collision with the Kerait, the character of Genghis Khan was fully manifested. 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 Chinggis, and he asked: “Why, noyon, seeing the position of your troops, didn’t leave yourself? You had both the time and the opportunity. " He replied: "I served my khan and gave him the opportunity to escape, and my head is for you, about the victor." Genghis Khan said: “Everyone should imitate this man.

Look how brave, loyal, valiant he is. I cannot kill you, noyon, I offer you a place in my army. " Noyon became a thousand-man and, of course, faithfully served Genghis Khan, because the Kerait horde disintegrated. Wang Khan himself died while trying to escape to the Naimans. Their guards at the border, seeing the Kerait, killed him, and the severed head of the old man was brought to their khan.

In 1204, the Mongols of Genghis Khan and the powerful Naiman Khanate clashed. And again the Mongols won the victory. The defeated were included in the Chinggis horde. In the eastern steppe, there were no more tribes capable of actively resisting the new order, and in 1206, at the great kurultai, Chinggis was re-elected as a khan, but already throughout Mongolia. This is how the all-Mongolian state was born. The only hostile tribe to him remained the old enemies of the Borjigins - the Merkits, but even those by 1208 were forced out into the valley of the Irgiz River.

The growing power of Genghis Khan allowed his horde to quite easily assimilate different tribes and peoples. Because, in accordance with Mongolian stereotypes of behavior, the khan could and should have required obedience, obedience to orders, performance of duties, but forcing a person to abandon his faith or customs was considered immoral - the individual had the right to make his own choice. This state of affairs was attractive to many. In 1209, the Uighur state sent ambassadors to Genghis Khan with a request to accept them into his ulus. The request, of course, was granted, and Genghis Khan gave the Uighurs huge trade privileges. A caravan route passed through the Uyguria, and the Uyghurs, being part of the Mongol state, became rich due to the fact that they sold water, fruit, meat and "pleasure" to starving caravan men at high prices. The voluntary union of the Uyguria with Mongolia turned out to be useful for the Mongols as well. With the annexation of the Uyguria, the Mongols went beyond the boundaries of their ethnic range and came into contact with other peoples of the oikumene.

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 from the governors of the ruler of Urgench turned into independent sovereigns and took the title of “Khorezmshahs”. They turned out to be energetic, adventurous and belligerent. This allowed them to conquer most of Central Asia and southern Afghanistan. The Khorezmshahs created a huge state in which the main military force was made up of the Turks from the adjacent steppes.

But the state turned out to be fragile, despite the wealth, brave warriors and experienced diplomats. The military dictatorship relied on tribes alien to the local population, which had a different language, different customs and customs. The mercenaries' cruelty 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 by the Khorezmians, who cruelly dealt with the population of Samarkand. Other large and wealthy cities of Central Asia also suffered.

In this situation, Khorezmshah Muhammad decided to confirm his title “ghazi” - “conqueror 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. Upon learning of the arrival of the Mongols, Muhammad sent an army against them on the grounds that the steppe inhabitants should be converted to Islam.

The Khorezm army attacked the Mongols, but in the rearguard battle they themselves went on the offensive and severely wounded 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 that, the Khorezmians withdrew, and the Mongols returned home: they were not going to fight with Khorezm, on the contrary, Genghis Khan wanted to establish contacts with the Khorezmshah. After all, the Great Caravan Route went through Central Asia and all the owners of the lands along which it ran got rich at the expense of the duties paid by merchants. Merchants willingly paid duties, because they passed their expenses on to consumers, while losing nothing. Wishing to preserve all the advantages associated with the existence of caravan routes, the Mongols strove for peace and tranquility on their borders. The difference of faith, in their opinion, did not give a pretext for war and could not justify the bloodshed. Probably, the Khorezmshah himself understood the episodic nature of the clash on Irshze. In 1218, Muhammad sent a trade caravan to Mongolia. Peace was restored, especially since the Mongols had no time for Khorezm: shortly before that, the Naiman prince Kuchluk began a new war with the Mongols.

The Mongol-Khorezm relations were again violated by the Khorezmshah 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 bathe in the bathhouse. There the merchants met two acquaintances, one of whom informed the governor of the city that these merchants were spies. He immediately realized that there was a great reason to rob the travelers. The merchants were killed, their property was confiscated. The ruler of Otrar sent half of the loot to Khorezm, and Muhammad took the spoil, which means he shared responsibility for what he had done.

Genghis Khan sent ambassadors to find out what caused the incident. Muhammad was angry when he saw the infidels, and ordered some of the ambassadors to kill, and some, stripping naked, drive them out to certain death in the steppe. Two or three Mongols finally got home and talked about what had happened. Genghis Khan's anger had no limits. From the Mongolian point of view, there were two most terrible crimes: deceiving those who confided in and killing guests. According to custom, Genghis Khan could not leave unavenged neither the merchants who were killed in Otrar, nor the ambassadors whom the Khorezmshah insulted and killed. The khan had to fight, otherwise his fellow tribesmen would simply refuse to trust him.

In Central Asia, the Khorezmshah had at their 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-Kitays, the Uighurs sent a detachment of 5 thousand people, only the Tangut ambassador boldly replied: "If you do not have enough troops, do not fight." Genghis Khan considered the answer an insult and said: "Only dead could I bear such an insult."

Genghis Khan threw the assembled Mongol, Uyghur, Turkic and Kara-Chinese troops on Khorezm. Khorezmshah, having quarreled with his mother Turkan-Khatun, did not trust the military leaders who were 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 across the garrisons. The best generals of the shah were his own unloved son Jalal-ad-Din and the commandant of the Khujand fortress Timur-Melik. The Mongols took the fortresses one after another, but in Khojent, even taking the fortress, they could not capture the garrison. Timur-Melik put his soldiers on rafts and escaped pursuit along the wide Syr Darya. Scattered garrisons could not hold back the advance of Genghis Khan's troops. Soon all the major cities of the Sultanate - Samarkand, Bukhara, Merv, Herat - were captured by the Mongols.

Regarding the capture of Central Asian cities by the Mongols, there is a well-established version: "Wild nomads destroyed the cultural oases of agricultural peoples." Is it so? This version, as shown by L. N. Gumilev, is based on the legends of the court Muslim historians. For example, the fall of Herat was reported by Islamic historians as a disaster in which the entire population was exterminated in the city, except for a few men who managed to escape in the mosque. They hid there, afraid to take to the streets littered with corpses. Only wild beasts roamed the city and tormented the dead. After sitting out 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 it possible? If the entire population of a large city was exterminated and lay on the streets, then inside the city, in particular in the mosque, the air would be full of cadaveric miasma, and those who were hiding there would simply die. No predators, except jackals, live near the city, and they very rarely enter 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, could no longer rob it ...

Even more surprising is the information reported by historians about Merv. The Mongols took it in 1219 and also supposedly exterminated all the inhabitants there. But already in 1229 Merv revolted, 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 the legends of Mongol atrocities. If we take into account the degree of reliability of the sources and ask simple but inevitable questions, it is easy to separate the historical truth from literary fiction.

The Mongols occupied Persia almost without a fight, driving out the son of the Khorezmshah Jelal ad-Din to northern India. Muhammad II Gazi himself, broken by 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 Shiite 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 finished. Under one ruler - Muhammad II Gazi - this state reached its highest power and perished. As a result, Khorezm, Northern Iran, and Khorasan were annexed to the Mongol empire.

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

During the siege of Zhongsin, Genghis Khan died, but the Mongol noyons, on the orders of their leader, concealed his death. The fortress was taken, and the population of the "evil" city, on which the collective guilt for betrayal fell, was subjected to execution. The Tangut state disappeared, leaving behind only written evidence of the past 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 rite was as follows: the remains of Genghis Khan were lowered into the dug grave, along with many valuable things, and all the slaves who performed the funeral work were killed. According to custom, exactly one year later, it was required to celebrate the commemoration. In order to find the burial place later, the Mongols did the following. At the grave, they sacrificed a little camel just taken from the mother. And a year later, the camel herself found in the boundless steppe a place where her cub was killed. Having killed this she-camel, the Mongols performed the prescribed ceremony of commemoration and then left the grave forever. Since then, no one knows where Genghis Khan is buried.

V last years 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, did not have the right to the father's throne. Sons from Borte differed in inclinations and character. The eldest son, Jochi, was born shortly after the Merkit captivity of Borte, and therefore not only gossips, but his younger brother Chagatai also called him a “Merkit geek”. 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 case almost ended in a fight between the brothers.

It is curious, but according to the testimony of contemporaries, there were some persistent stereotypes in Jochi's behavior that greatly distinguished him from Chinggis. If for Genghis Khan there was no concept of "mercy" in relation to enemies (he left life only to young children, who were adopted by his mother Hoelun, and to the valiant Bagatura who passed on to the 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 the surrender, that is, in other words, to spare them. Jochi spoke in favor of showing mercy, but Genghis Khan categorically rejected the request for mercy, and as a result, the garrison of Gurganj was partially cut, 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 distrust 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 so, but the fact remains: at the beginning of 1227, Jochi, hunting in the steppe, was found dead - his spine was broken. The details of the incident were kept secret, but, without a doubt, Genghis Khan was a man interested in the death of Jochi and quite capable of ending his son's life.

In contrast to Jochi, the second son of Genghis Khan, Chaga-tai, was a strict, executive and even cruel man. Therefore, he was promoted to the "keeper of the Yasa" (something like the attorney general or the supreme judge). Chagatai strictly observed the law and treated its violators without mercy.

The third son of the great khan, Ogedei, like Jochi, was distinguished by kindness and tolerance towards people. The character of Ogedei is best illustrated by the following incident: once, on a joint trip, the brothers saw a Muslim washing himself by the water. According to Muslim custom, every believer is obliged to perform namaz and ritual ablution several times a day. Mongolian tradition, on the other hand, forbade a person to bathe during the entire 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 viewed as an attempt on people's lives. The nukers-vigilantes of the ruthless adherent of the Chagatai law seized a Muslim. Anticipating a bloody denouement - the unfortunate man was threatened with cutting off his head - Ogedei sent his man to tell the Muslim to answer that he had dropped the gold one into the water and was just looking for it there. The Muslim said so to Chagatay. He ordered to look for a coin, and during this time Ogedei's vigilante threw a gold coin into the water. The found coin was returned to the "rightful owner". At parting, Ogedei, taking out a handful of coins from his pocket, handed them to the rescued person and said: "The next time you drop a gold coin into the water, don't go after it, don't break the law."

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

Of the four sons of Genghis Khan, the youngest had the greatest talents and showed the greatest moral dignity. A good commander and an outstanding administrator, Tului was also a loving husband and distinguished for his nobility. He married the daughter of the deceased head of the Kerait, Wang Khan, who was a devout Christian. Tului himself had no right to accept the Christian faith: like Chinggisid, he had to profess the Bon religion (paganism). But the son of the khan allowed his wife not only to send everything Christian rites in a luxurious "church" yurt, but also have priests and monks. The death of Tului can be called heroic without any exaggeration. When Ogedei fell ill, Tului voluntarily took a strong shamanic potion, trying to "attract" the disease to himself, and died saving his brother.

All four sons had the right to inherit Genghis Khan. After the elimination of Jochi, three heirs remained, and when Chinggis was gone, and the 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 Chinggis. Ogedei, as we have already mentioned, had a kind soul, but the kindness of the sovereign is often not good for the state and subjects. Under him, the administration of the ulus was mainly due to the strictness of Chagatai and the diplomatic and administrative skills of Tului. The great khan himself preferred nomadic wanderings and feasts in Western Mongolia to state concerns.

The grandchildren of Genghis Khan were allocated different areas of the ulus or high positions... The eldest son of Jochi, 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 (big) Horde on the Volga. The third son, Sheibani, went to the Blue Horde, roaming from Tyumen to the Aral Sea. At the same time, the three brothers - the rulers of the uluses - were allocated only one to two thousand Mongolian soldiers each, while the total number of the Mongol army reached 130 thousand people.

The children of Chagatai also received a thousand warriors, and the descendants of Tului, being at the court, owned all of their grandfather's and paternal ulus. So the Mongols established a system of inheritance, called a minorat, in which the youngest son inherited all the rights of his father, and the older brothers - only a share in the common inheritance.

The great khan Ogedei also had a son - Guyuk, who claimed the inheritance. The increase in the clan during the lifetime of Chinggis's children caused the division of the inheritance and enormous difficulties in managing the ulus, stretching from the Black to the Yellow Sea. These difficulties and family accounts concealed the seeds of future strife, which destroyed the state created by Genghis Khan and his associates.

How many Tatar-Mongols came to Russia? Let's try to deal with this issue.

Russian pre-revolutionary historians mention the "half-million Mongolian army." V. Yan, the author of the famous trilogy "Genghis Khan", "Batu" and "To the Last Sea", calls the number four hundred thousand. However, it is known that a warrior of a nomadic tribe sets out on a campaign with three horses (at least two). One carries luggage ("dry rations", horseshoes, spare harness, arrows, armor), and the third one needs to change from time to time so that one horse can rest if he suddenly has to engage in battle.

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

All the main invasions of the Tatar-Mongols into Russia took place in winter, when the remaining grass is hidden under the snow, and you cannot take a lot of forage with you ... The Mongolian horse really knows how to get food from under the snow, but ancient sources do not mention the Mongolian horses that were "In service" of the horde. Horse-breeding experts prove that the Tatar-Mongolian horde rode the Turkmens, and this is a completely different breed, and looks different, and is unable to feed itself in winter without human help ...

In addition, the difference between a horse that was allowed to roam 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 they, in addition to the horsemen, had to carry also heavy prey! Convoys followed the troops. The cattle that pulls the carts also need to be fed ... The picture of a huge mass of people moving in the rearguard of a half-million army with carts, wives and children seems rather fantastic.

The temptation for the historian to explain the campaigns of the Mongols of the 13th century by "migrations" is great. But modern researchers show that the Mongol campaigns were not directly related to the displacement 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 Sheibani - received, according to the will of Chinggis, only 4 thousand horsemen, that is, about 12 thousand people who settled in the territory from the Carpathians to Altai.

In the end, historians settled on thirty thousand warriors. But even here unanswered questions arise. And the first among them will be this: is it not enough? Despite the disunity of the Russian principalities, thirty thousand horsemen is too small a figure to arrange “fire and ruin” all over Russia! After all, they (even the supporters of the "classical" version admit it) 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 begins an elementary mistrust: could such a number of aggressors conquer Russia?

It turns out to be a vicious circle: for purely physical reasons, a huge Tatar-Mongol army could hardly have retained its 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 Russia. To get out of this vicious circle, one has to admit: the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols was actually just an episode of the bloody civil war going on in Russia. The forces of the opponents were relatively small, they relied on their own stocks of fodder accumulated in the cities. And the Tatar-Mongols became additional external factor, used in the internal struggle in the same way as the troops of the Pechenegs and Polovtsians were previously used.

The chronicles that have come down to us about the military campaigns of 1237-1238 paint the classically Russian style of these battles - battles take place in winter, and the Mongols - steppe people - operate with amazing skill in the forests (for example, the encirclement and subsequent complete destruction of the Russian detachment on the City River under the command of the great Prince Vladimirsky Yuri Vsevolodovich).

Having cast a general glance at the history of the creation of a huge Mongolian state, we must return to Russia. Let us take a closer look at the situation with the battle of the Kalka River, which is not fully understood by historians.

At the turn of the 11th-12th centuries, it was not the steppe inhabitants that represented the main danger for Kievan Rus. Our ancestors were friends with the Polovtsian khans, married the “red Polovtsian girls”, accepted the baptized Polovtsians into their midst, and the descendants of the latter became Zaporozhye and Slobod Cossacks, not without reason in their nicknames the traditional Slavic suffix of belonging “ov” (Ivanov) was replaced by the Turkic one - “ Enko "(Ivanenko).

At this time, a more formidable phenomenon emerged - a fall in morals, a rejection of traditional Russian ethics and morality. In 1097, a princely congress took place in Lyubech, which marked the beginning of a new political form the existence of the country. There it was decided that "let everyone keep his fatherland." Russia began to turn into a confederation of independent states. The princes vowed to keep the proclaimed inviolably and in that they kissed the cross. But after the death of Mstislav, the Kiev state began to quickly disintegrate. Polotsk was the first to postpone. Then the Novgorod "republic" stopped sending money to Kiev.

A striking example of the loss of moral values and patriotic feelings was the act of Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky. In 1169, having seized Kiev, Andrew gave the city to his warriors for a three-day plunder. Until that moment, it was customary in Russia to do this only with foreign cities. Under no civil strife, this practice has never been extended to Russian cities.

Igor Svyatoslavich, a descendant of Prince Oleg, the hero of The Lay of Igor's Regiment, who became Prince of Chernigov in 1198, set himself the goal of cracking down on Kiev, a city where rivals of his dynasty were constantly strengthening. He agreed with the Smolensk prince Rurik Rostislavich and called for the help of the Polovtsi. In defense of Kiev - “the mother of Russian cities” - the prince Roman Volynskiy came forward, relying on the Tork 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 went mainly between the Polovtsy and the torques of Roman Volynsky, prevailed. Having captured Kiev, Rurik Rostislavich subjected the city to a terrible defeat. The Church of the Tithes and the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra were destroyed, and the city itself was burned. “They did a great evil, which was not from baptism in the Russian land,” the chronicler left a message.

After the fateful year 1203, Kiev has not 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 adversary 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 Polovtsy. Their enmity began in 1216, when the Polovtsians accepted Chingis' blood enemies - the Merkits. The Polovtsians actively pursued the anti-Mongol policy, constantly supporting the Finno-Ugric tribes hostile to the Mongols. At the same time, the steppe-Polovtsians were as mobile as the Mongols themselves. Seeing the futility of cavalry clashes with the Polovtsy, the Mongols sent an expeditionary corps to the rear of the enemy.

The talented commanders Subatei 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 the army. The Mongols managed to capture the guides who showed the way through the Darial Gorge. So they went to the upper reaches of the Kuban, to the rear of the Polovtsy. Those, finding the enemy in their rear, retreated to the Russian border and asked for help from the Russian princes.

It should be noted that the relationship between Russia and the Polovtsians does not fit into the scheme of irreconcilable confrontation "sedentary - nomads". In 1223 the Russian princes became the allies of the Polovtsians. The three strongest princes of Russia - Mstislav Udaloy from Galich, Mstislav of Kiev and Mstislav of Chernigov - gathered troops and tried to protect them.

The collision on Kalka in 1223 is described in some detail in the annals; in addition, there is another source - "The Tale of the Battle of Kalka, and about the Russian princes, and about seventy heroes." However, the abundance of information does not always clarify ...

Historical science has not denied for a long time the fact that the events on Kalka were not the aggression of evil aliens, but an attack from the Russians. The Mongols themselves did not strive for a war with Russia. The ambassadors who arrived to the Russian princes quite friendly asked the Russians not to interfere in their relations with the Polovtsy. But, true to allied commitments, the Russian princes rejected the 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 even simply killed, but "tortured"). At all times, the murder of an ambassador, a parliamentarian was considered a grave crime; according to the Mongolian law, the deceit of the trusting person was an unforgivable crime.

Following this, the Russian army sets out on a long campaign. Having left the borders of Russia, it was the first to attack the Tatar camp, take prey, steal cattle, after which it moves out of its territory for another eight days. A decisive battle takes place on the Kalka River: an 80,000-strong Russian-Polovtsian army fell on a 20,000th (!) Detachment of Mongols. This battle was lost by the Allies due to the inability to coordinate actions. The Polovtsi left the battlefield in panic. Mstislav Udaloy and his "younger" prince Daniel 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 them, "and, fearful, he made his way to Galich." Thus, he doomed to death his comrades-in-arms, whose horses were worse than the prince's. The enemies killed everyone they overtook.

The other princes are left alone with the enemy, they beat off his attacks for three days, after which, believing the assurances of the Tatars, they surrender. Another mystery lurks here. It turns out that the princes surrendered after a certain Rusich named Ploskinya, who was in the enemy's battle formations, solemnly kissed the pectoral cross that the Russians would be spared and not shed their blood. The Mongols, according to their custom, kept their word: having tied the captives, they laid them on the ground, covered them with a deck of planks and sat down to feast on the bodies. Not a drop of blood was really spilled! And the latter, according to Mongolian views, was considered extremely important. (By the way, the fact that the captive princes were put under the boards is reported only by “The Tale of the Battle of Kalka.” Other sources write that the princes were simply killed without mockery, and still others - that they were “taken prisoner.” So the story with a feast on bodies is just one of the versions.)

Different peoples have different perceptions of the rule of law and the concept of honesty. The Rusichi believed that the Mongols, having killed the captives, had broken their oath. But from the point of view of the Mongols, they kept the oath, and execution was the highest justice, because the princes committed the terrible sin of murdering the one who trusted. Therefore, it is not a matter of treachery (history gives 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 Christian who somehow mysteriously found himself among the soldiers of the "unknown people".

Why did the Russian princes surrender after listening to the persuasions of Ploskini? "The Tale of the Battle of Kalka" writes: "There were also the Rogues along with the Tatars, and Ploskinya was their commander." Brodniks are Russian free warriors who lived in those places, the predecessors of the Cossacks. However, the establishment of Ploskini's social position only confuses the matter. It turns out that the roaming people 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 were fighting on Kalka was Slavic, Christian.

Russian princes in this whole story do not look the best way... But back to our riddles. The Tale of the Battle of Kalka, which we have mentioned, for some reason is not able to definitely name the enemy of the Russians! Here is a quote: “... Because of our sins, nations came unknown, 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 kind of tribe they are, and what faith. And they call them Tatars, and some say - Taurmen, and others - Pechenegs. "

Amazing lines! They were written much later than the events described, when it seemed like it was supposed to know exactly with whom the Russian princes fought on Kalka. After all, part of the army (albeit a small one) nevertheless returned from Kalka. Moreover, the victors, in pursuit of the broken Russian regiments, chased them to Novgorod-Svyatopolch (on the Dnieper), where they attacked civilians, so that among the townspeople there should have been witnesses who had seen the enemy with their own eyes. And yet he remains "unknown"! This statement further confuses the matter. After all, by the time described in Russia they knew the Polovtsians very well - they lived side by side for many years, fought, then became related ... The Taurmen - a nomadic Turkic tribe that lived in the Northern Black Sea region - was again well known to the Russians. It is curious that in the "Lay of Igor's Regiment" some "Tartars" are mentioned among the nomadic Türks 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 enemy of the Russians in that battle. Maybe the battle on Kalka was not a clash with unknown peoples at all, but one of the episodes of the internecine war waged between the Russian-Christians, the Polovtsian Christians and the Tatars who got involved in the cause?

After the battle on Kalka, part of the Mongols turned their horses eastward, trying to report on the fulfillment of the assigned task - on the victory over the Polovtsians. But on the banks of the Volga, the army was ambushed by the Volga Bulgars. Muslims, who hated the Mongols as pagans, unexpectedly attacked them during the crossing. Here the victors at Kalka were defeated and many people lost. 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 the Russians.

LN Gumilev has collected a huge amount of material that clearly indicates that the relationship between Russia and the Horde CAN be designated by the word "symbiosis". After Gumilyov, they write especially a lot and often about how the Russian princes and "Mongol khans" became brothers-in-arms, relatives, sons-in-law and father-in-law, how they went on joint military campaigns, how (let's call things by their proper names) they were friends. Relations of this kind are unique in their own way - in no other country they conquered did the Tatars behave like that. 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 Russia (in the classical sense of this term) remains open. This topic is waiting for its researchers.

When it comes to "standing on the Ugra", we again encounter omissions and omissions. As those diligently studying the school or university course of history remember, in 1480 the troops of the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III, the first "sovereign of all Russia" (ruler of the united state) and the hordes of the Tatar Khan Akhmat stood on opposite banks of the Ugra River. After a long "standing" the Tatars fled for some reason, and this event was the end of the Horde yoke in Russia.

There are many dark places in this story. Let's start with the fact that the famous painting, which even got into school textbooks, - "Ivan III tramples the Khan's Basma", - written on the basis of a legend composed 70 years after "standing on the Ugra". In fact, the khan's ambassadors did not come to Ivan and he did not solemnly tore up any Basma letter in their presence.

But here again an enemy, a non-believer, is coming to Russia, threatening, according to his contemporaries, the very existence of Russia. Well, all in one impulse are preparing to repulse the adversary? No! We are faced with a strange passivity and confusion of opinion. At the news of the approach of Akhmat, something happens in Russia, for which there is still no explanation. It is possible to reconstruct these events only on the basis of 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, flees Moscow, for which she is rewarded with 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: "In the same winter, the Grand Duchess Sofia returned from her escape, for she ran to Beloozero from the Tatars, although no one was chasing her." And further - even more mysterious words about these events, in fact, the only mention of them: “And those lands in which she wandered, it became worse than from the Tatars, from the boyar slaves, from the Christian bloodsuckers. Give them back, Lord, according to the deceit of their deeds, according to the works of their hands, give them, for they loved more wives 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 accusations of "bloodsucking" and apostasy from the faith on them? We practically do not know what it was about. A little 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 Oschera 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 there is no shadow of disgrace 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 all too dull, vaguely reported that Oshchera and Mamon, defending their point of view, mentioned the need to observe some kind of "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 breaks some traditions, deciding to resist, and Akhmat, accordingly, acts in his own right? Otherwise, this riddle cannot be explained.

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

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

The Russian army, for the triumph of Bishop Vassian, goes to Ugra. Ahead - a long, for several months, "standing". Again, something strange happens. First, negotiations begin between the Russians and Akhmat. The negotiations are rather unusual. Akhmat wants to do business with the Grand Duke himself - the Russians refuse. Akhmat makes a concession: he asks for a brother or son of the Grand Duke to arrive - the Russians refuse. Akhmat again concedes: now he agrees to speak with a "simple" ambassador, but for some reason Nikifor Fedorovich Basenkov must become this ambassador. (Why exactly he? A riddle.) 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 of his proposals. Modern historians explain it this way: Akhmat "intended to demand tribute." But if Akhmat was only interested in tribute, why so long negotiations? It was enough to send some baskak. No, everything indicates that we have before us some great and dark secret that does not fit into the usual schemes.

Finally, about the riddle of the retreat of the "Tatars" from the Ugra. Today in historical science there are three versions of not even a retreat - a hasty flight of Akhmat from Ugra.

1. A series of "fierce battles" undermined the fighting spirit of the Tatars.

(Most historians reject this, rightly stating that there were no battles. There were only minor skirmishes, clashes of small detachments "on a no-man's land".)

2. The Russians used firearms, which caused the Tatars to panic.

(It is unlikely: by this time the Tatars already had firearms. The Russian chronicler, describing the capture of the Bulgar city by the Moscow army in 1378, mentions that the inhabitants “thundered from the walls.”)

3. Akhmat was "afraid" of a decisive battle.

But here's another version. She is extracted from historical writing XVII century, belonging to the pen of Andrei Lyzlov.

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

Having sailed to the Horde in boats along the Volga, they saw that there were no military people there, but only the female sex, old men and youths. And they undertook to capture and devastate, unmercifully betraying wives and children of the filthy to death, setting fire to their dwellings. And, of course, we could have killed every one.

But Murza Oblaz the Strong, a servant of Gorodetsky, whispered to his king, saying: “O king! It would be absurd to devastate and destroy this great kingdom to the end, because from here you yourself are from, and we are all, and here is our homeland. Let us go away from here, and without that they have done enough ruin, and God can be angry with us. "

So the glorious Orthodox army returned from the Horde and came to Moscow with a great victory, having with them a lot of booty and a great deal. The king, having learned about all this, at the same hour departed from Ugra and fled to the Horde. "

Does it not follow from this that the Russian side deliberately dragged out the negotiations - while Akhmat was trying to achieve his vague goals for a long time, making concession after concession, Russian troops sailed along the Volga to the capital of Akhmat and chopped down women, children and the elderly there, until the commanders woke up that something like a conscience! Please note: it is not said that the governor Gvozdev opposed the decision of Urodovlet and Oblaz 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 a "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 version of Akhmat's death. According to him, a certain close to Akhmat by the name of 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 the Tsar Urodovlet, who staged a pogrom in the Horde, is called an "Orthodox" historian. It seems that we have before us another argument in favor of the version that the Horde who served the Moscow princes were by no means Muslims, but Orthodox.

And one more aspect is of interest. Akhmat, according to Lyzlov, and Urodovlet are "tsars". And Ivan III is only the "Grand Duke". Writer's inaccuracy? But at the time when Lyzlov was writing his history, the title "Tsar" was already firmly entrenched for the Russian autocrats, had a specific "tie" and exact value... Further, in all other cases Lyzlov does not allow himself such "liberties". Western European kings are "kings" for him, Turkish sultans - "sultans", padishah - "padishah", cardinal - "cardinal". Perhaps the title of Archduke was given by Lyzlov in the translation “prince of arts”. But this is a translation, not a mistake.

Thus, in the late Middle Ages, there was a system of titles that reflected certain political realities, and today we are well aware of this system. But it is not clear why two seemingly identical Horde nobles are called one "Tsarevich" and the other "Murza", why "Tatar Prince" and "Tatar Khan" are not the same thing. Why among the Tatars there are so many holders of the title "Tsar", and the Moscow sovereigns are persistently called "Grand Dukes"? It was only in 1547 that Ivan the Terrible for the first time in Russia took the title "Tsar" - and, as the Russian chronicles say at length, he did this only after much persuasion from the patriarch.

Are not the campaigns of Mamai and Akhmat on Moscow explained by the fact that according to some perfectly understandable rules of the contemporaries, the “tsar” was taller than the “grand duke” and had more rights to the throne? What did some dynastic system, now forgotten, declare about itself here?

It is interesting that in 1501 the Crimean king Chess, having suffered defeat in the internecine war, for some reason expected that Kiev prince Dmitry Putyatich will act on his side, probably due to some special political and dynastic relations between Russians and Tatars. Which ones are not exactly known.

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 the Kasimov 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, blunders and obligations to the new tsar. Couldn't we be talking about joint rule, which had to be resorted to due to the same tangled old dynastic relations? Perhaps, last time in Russian history, these systems made themselves known.

Simeon was not, as many historians previously believed, a "weak-willed puppet" of Grozny - on the contrary, he is one of the largest statesmen and military leaders of that time. And after the two kingdoms were once again united into one, Grozny by no means "exiled" Simeon to Tver. Simeon was granted to the Grand Dukes of Tver. But Tver at the time of Ivan the Terrible was recently a pacified hotbed of separatism, which required special supervision, and the one who ruled Tver must certainly have been a confidant of Grozny.

And finally, strange troubles befell Simeon after the death of Ivan the Terrible. With the accession of Fyodor Ioannovich, Simeon was "brought down" from the Tver reign, blinded (a measure that in Russia from time immemorial was applied exclusively to the sovereign persons who had the right to the table!), Forcibly tonsured into monks of the Kirillov Monastery (also a traditional way to eliminate a competitor to the secular throne! ). But even this is not enough: I. V. Shuisky sends a blind elderly monk to Solovki. One gets the impression that the Moscow tsar in this way got rid of a dangerous competitor who had weighty rights. A pretender to the throne? Was Simeon's right to the throne not inferior to the rights of the Rurikovichs? (It is interesting that Elder Simeon survived his tormentors. Returned from Solovetsky exile by order of Prince Pozharsky, he died only in 1616, when neither Fyodor Ioannovich, nor False Dmitry I, nor Shuisky were alive.)

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

Many members of the editorial board are personally acquainted with the inhabitants of Mongolia, who were surprised to learn about their allegedly 300-year rule over Russia.

from the magazine "Vedic Culture No. 2"

In the annals of the Pravo-Glorious Old Believers about the "Tatar-Mongol yoke" it is said unequivocally: "Fedot was, but not that one." Let's turn to the Old Slovenian language. Having adapted the runic images to modern perception, we get: thief - an enemy, a robber; mogul-powerful; yoke - order. It turns out that "tati Arias" (from the point of view of the Christian flock), with the light hand of the chroniclers, were called "Tartars" 1, (There is one more meaning: "Tata" is a father. the older ones) the Aryans) the mighty - the Mongols, and the yoke - the 300-year-old order in the State, which ended the bloody civil war that broke out on the basis of the forcible baptism of Russia - "holy martyrdom". Horde is a derivative of the word Order, where "Or" is strength, and day is 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 violent Christianization and kept order in the State for 300 years. And were there dark-haired, stocky, dark-skinned, hunch-nosed, narrow-eyed, bow-legged and very evil warriors in the Horde? Were. Detachments of mercenaries of different nationalities, who, like in any other army, were driven in the forefront, keeping the main Slavic-Aryan Troops from losses on the front line.

It's hard to believe? Take a look at the "Map of Russia 1594" in the "Atlas of Gerhard Mercator-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 that is not part of Russia. In the east, beyond the Urals, are depicted the principalities of Obdora, Siberia, Yugoria, Grustin, Lukomorye, Belovodye, which were part of the Ancient State of the Slavs and Aryans - Great (Grand) Tartary (Tartaria - lands under the auspices of God Tarkh Perunovich and Goddess Tara Perunovna - Son and Daughter of the Highest God Perun - the ancestor of the Slavs and Aryans).

Does it take a lot of intelligence to draw an analogy: Great (Grand) Tartary = Mogolo + Tartary = "Mongol-Tartary"? We do not have a high-quality image of the named painting, there is only "Map of Asia 1754". But it's even better! See for yourself. Not only in the 13th, but until the 18th century, Grand (Mogolo) Tartary existed as real as the faceless RF is now.

"Pisarchuk from history" not all were able to distort and hide from the people. Their many times darned and patched "Trishkin caftan", covering the Truth, now and then burst at the seams. Through the gaps Truth bit by bit reaches the consciousness of our contemporaries. They do not have truthful information, therefore, they are often mistaken in the interpretation of certain factors, but the general conclusion they make is correct: what school teachers taught to several dozen generations of Russians is deception, slander, falsehood.

Published article from S.M. “There was no Tatar-Mongol invasion” is a vivid example of the above. Commentary on it by E.A. Gladilin, a member of our editorial board. will help you, dear readers, to 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 history Ancient Rus, it is considered to be the Radziwill manuscript: "The Tale of Bygone Years." The story about the vocation of the Varangians to rule in Russia is taken from it. But can you trust her? A copy of it was brought to early XVIII century by Peter 1 from Konigsberg, then its original appeared in Russia. This manuscript has now been proven to be forged. Thus, it is not known for certain what happened in Russia until the beginning of the 17th century, that is, before the accession to the throne of the Romanov dynasty. But why did the house of the Romanovs need to rewrite our history? Was it then, to prove to the Russians that they were subordinate to the Horde for a long time and were not capable of independence, that their lot is drunkenness and obedience?

Strange behavior of the princes

The classic version of the "Mongol-Tatar invasion of Russia" is known to many since school. It looks like this. At the beginning of the 13th century, in the Mongol steppes, Genghis Khan gathered from the nomads a huge army, subject to iron discipline, and planned to conquer the whole world. Having defeated China, the army of Genghis Khan rushed to the west, and in 1223 went to the south of Russia, where it defeated the squads of Russian princes on the Kalka River. In the winter of 1237, the Tatar-Mongols invaded Russia, 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 the ruined, but still dangerous for them, Russia in the rear. The Tatar-Mongol yoke began in Russia. The huge Golden Horde had borders from Beijing to the Volga and collected tribute from the Russian princes. The khans issued labels to the Russian princes for reign and terrorized the population with atrocities and plunder.

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 of the princes were kept 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 oddities? Is that how the Russians should have treated the invaders?

Having strengthened, Russia began to resist, and in 1380 Dmitry Donskoy defeated the Horde Khan Mamai on the Kulikovo Field, and a century later the troops of the Grand Duke Ivan III and the Horde Khan Akhmat came together. The opponents camped for a long time on different sides of the Ugra River, after which the khan realized that he had no chance, gave the order to retreat and left for 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 Lay of the Death of the Russian Land", according to historians, resembles a document from which everything was carefully removed, which would testify to the yoke. They left only fragments telling about a certain "misfortune" that befell Russia. But there is not a word about the "Mongol invasion".

There are many more oddities. In the story "About the Evil Tatars" the khan from the Golden Horde orders the execution of the Russian Christian prince ... for refusing to worship the "pagan god of the Slavs!" And some chronicles contain amazing phrases, such as: "Well, with God!" - said the khan and, crossing himself, galloped to the enemy.

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

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

Not to mention the fact that the number of "war horses", and hence the soldiers of the Horde army, at first, with the light hand of the historians of the Romanov dynasty, was estimated at three hundred or 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 past century, historians have been constantly reducing the number of the Mongol army and reached thirty thousand. But such an army could not keep all peoples from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean in subjection! But it could easily perform the functions of collecting taxes and restoring order, that is, serve 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 Russia, the princes fought with each other. No representatives of the Mongoloid race who came to Russia did not exist at all. Yes, there were some Tatars in the army, but not newcomers, but the inhabitants of the Volga region, who lived in the neighborhood with the Russians long before the notorious "invasion".

What is commonly called the "Tatar-Mongol invasion" was actually the struggle of the descendants of Prince Vsevolod "Big Nest" with their rivals for sole power over Russia. The fact of the war between the princes is generally recognized, unfortunately, Russia was not united at once, and rather strong rulers fought among themselves.

But with whom did Dmitry Donskoy fight? 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 the secular power, there was a strong military power. There were two rulers: a secular one who was called a prince, and a military man, it was he who was called the khan, i.e. "Warlord". In the annals, you can find the following record: "There were also roamers with the Tatars, and they had such and such a governor," that is, the troops of the Horde were headed by the governors! And the Brodniks are Russian free warriors, the predecessors of the Cossacks.

Authoritative scholars have concluded that the Horde is the name of the Russian regular army (like the "Red Army"). And Tatar-Mongolia is Great Russia itself. It turns out that no "Mongols", but the Russians, 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 precisely the fear of 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." Tartary from the word "tartar" ("hell, horror"). And Mongolo-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, under the names of Genghis Khan and Batu are Prince Yaroslav and his son Alexander Nevsky. Ancient sources paint Genghis Khan as tall, with a luxurious long beard, with "lynx", green-yellow eyes. Note that people of the Mongoloid race do not have a beard at all. Persian historian of the time of the Horde Rashid adDin writes that in the family of Genghis Khan, children “were born for the most part with gray eyes and blond. "

Genghis Khan, according to scientists, is Prince Yaroslav. He just had a middle name - Chingis with the prefix "khan", which meant "military leader." 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 was fair-haired, light-bearded and light-eyed! It turns out that the Horde Khan defeated the crusaders on Lake Peipsi!

Having studied the chronicles, scientists discovered that Mamai and Akhmat were also noble nobles, according to the dynastic ties of the Russian-Tatar families, who had the right to a great reign. Accordingly, "Mamayevo's massacre" and "standing on the Ugra" are episodes of the civil war in Russia, the struggle of the princely families for power.

Which Rus did the Horde go to?

The annals do say; "The Horde went to Russia." But in the XII-XIII centuries, Rus was called a relatively small territory around Kiev, Chernigov, Kursk, an area near the Ros river, Severskaya land. But Muscovites or, say, Novgorodians were already northern inhabitants, who, according to the same ancient chronicles, often “went to Russia” from Novgorod or Vladimir! That is, for example, to Kiev.

Therefore, when the Moscow prince was about to go on a campaign against his southern neighbor, it could be called the "invasion of Russia" by his "horde" (troops). No wonder that on Western European maps, for a very long time, Russian lands were divided into "Muscovy" (north) and "Russia" (south).

Grandiose falsification

At the beginning of the 18th century, Peter the Great founded the Russian Academy of Sciences. During the 120 years of its existence, the historical department of the Academy of Sciences has had 33 academic historians. Of these, only three are Russians, including M.V. Lomonosov, the rest are Germans. The history of Ancient Russia until the beginning of the 17th century was written by the Germans, and some of them did not even know the Russian language! This fact is well known to professional historians, but they make no effort to look closely at what history the Germans wrote.

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

As a result, we don't know our history. The Germans of the Romanovs' house hammered into our heads that the Russian peasant is not good for anything. That “he does not know how to work, that he is a drunkard and an eternal slave.

There are two polar and in their own way grounded points of view on the existence of the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Russia. One claims that the yoke was centuries old and cruel; the second suggests that the yoke could not exist by definition.

Modern researchers of the past discuss this part of Russian history mainly in polemics with, perhaps, the most cited ideologue of denying the existence of the Mongol-Tatar yoke, the famous historian Gumilev.

Justification

The main concept of Lev Nikolaevich, on which he built his theory of the relationship between Russia and the Golden Horde until the XIII century, includes the hypothesis of a non-hostile, and in some way even allied coexistence of the Tartars and the Slavs. As Gumilyov believed, the Tatar-Mongols helped the Russian princes to resist the expansion of the Livonians, and this alliance was mostly military, not political.

In his book "From Russia to Russia" Lev Nikolaevich defined his position on this issue as follows: Prince Alexander Yaroslavovich was interested in military support from the Mongols in order to restrain the Western onslaught on Russia and pacify internal opposition; for all this Nevsky would not have regretted any payment, even a large one.

In support of the theory of the alliance of the Horde and the Russian princes, Gumilev cited in his book an argument about the salvation of Novgorod, Pskov and Smolensk in 1268 and 1274 - supposedly these cities escaped capture only thanks to the presence of many hundreds of detachments of Tatar horsemen among their defenders. In turn, Lev Nikolaevich continues, the Rusichi helped the Tatar-Mongols in the conquest of the Alans.

The tax that Russia paid to the Tatars, according to Gumilyov, was a kind of amulet and a kind of guarantor of the security of the Russian lands. In addition, the Tatars did not enslave our lands ideologically and politically, Russia was not a provincial appendage of the Mongol ulus, Gumilyov emphasized.

In modern terms, there were no “NATO bases” on our territory (Tatar-Mongolian detachments were not deployed). The Horde, as Gumilev argued, did not think to establish permanent power in Russia. Moreover, during one of Nevsky's visits to Batu, the Golden Horde "grew" an Orthodox episcopate.

The Bishop of Sarsk, as Gumilyov wrote, was not put up with any obstacles at the khan's court. Moreover, when Islam began to establish itself among the Horde, the Russian Orthodox Church was not subjected to religious persecution.

"With fire and sword to kill"

Opponents of Gumilev's theory refer to chronicles describing those cruel times. In particular, the famous opponent of Lev Nikolaevich - Chivilikhin - quotes from documents of the 11th century telling about the mass killings of Russian princes by the Tatars: Dmitry of Chernigov (for adherence to Orthodoxy), John Putivlstky with his family, Alexander Novosilsky.

According to Chuvilikhin's interpretation, the Tatar-Mongols killed everyone who was suspected of being unreliable. The second half of the 13th century, according to opponents of Gumilyov, is northeastern Russia, practically devastated after the raids of the Tatars, a scorched earth.

According to Gumilyov, the Kulikovo battle was led by the "putsch" in the Mama Horde and the subsequent rupture of the alliance agreement between the Horde and the Rus. The opponents of this theory have a more prosaic justification: just gradually, “anti-Gov” sentiments accumulated among the princes, which ultimately contributed to the unification of the Slavs to deliver a decisive blow and the subsequent defeat of the Horde troops at the Mamayev massacre.

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

The Khorezm army attacked the Mongols, but in the rearguard battle they themselves went on the offensive and severely wounded 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 that, the Khorezmians withdrew, and the Mongols returned home: they were not going to fight with Khorezm, on the contrary, Genghis Khan wanted to establish contacts with the Khorezmshah. After all, the Great Caravan Route went through Central Asia and all the owners of the lands along which it ran got rich at the expense of the duties paid by merchants. Merchants willingly paid duties, because they passed their expenses on to consumers, while losing nothing. Wishing to preserve all the advantages associated with the existence of caravan routes, the Mongols strove for peace and tranquility on their borders. The difference of faith, in their opinion, did not give a pretext for war and could not justify the 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 were not up to Khorezm: shortly before that, the Naiman prince Kuchluk began a new war with the Mongols.

In the last years of his life, he was extremely concerned about the fate of his state. The khan had four sons from his beloved wife Borte and many children from other wives, who, although they were considered legitimate children, did not have the right to the father's throne. 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 the younger brother Chagatai called him a “Merkit geek”. 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 case almost ended in a fight between the brothers.

The third son of the great khan, Ogedei, like Jochi, was distinguished by kindness and tolerance towards people. The character of Ogedei is best illustrated by the following incident: once, on a joint trip, the brothers saw a Muslim washing himself by the water. According to Muslim custom, every believer is obliged to perform namaz and ritual ablution several times a day. Mongolian tradition, on the other hand, forbade a person to bathe during the entire 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 viewed as an attempt on people's lives. The nukers-vigilantes of the ruthless adherent of the Chagatai law seized a Muslim. Foreseeing a bloody denouement - the unfortunate man was threatened with cutting off his head - Ogedei sent his man to tell the Muslim to answer that he had dropped the gold one into the water and was just looking for it there. The Muslim said so to Chagatay. He ordered to look for a coin, and during this time Ogedei's vigilante threw a gold coin into the water. The found coin was returned to the "rightful owner". At parting, Ogedei, taking out a handful of coins from his pocket, handed them to the rescued person and said: "The next time you drop a gold coin into the water, don't go after it, don't break the law."

Of the four sons of Genghis Khan, the youngest had the greatest talents and showed the greatest moral dignity. A good commander and an outstanding administrator, Tului was also a loving husband and distinguished for his nobility. He married the daughter of the deceased head of the Kerait, Wang Khan, who was a devout Christian. Tului himself had no right to accept the Christian faith: like Chinggisid, he had to profess the Bon religion (paganism). But the son of the khan allowed his wife not only to perform all Christian rituals in a luxurious "church" yurt, but also to have priests with them and receive monks. The death of Tului can be called heroic without any exaggeration. When Ogedei fell ill, Tului voluntarily took a strong shamanic potion, trying to "attract" the disease to himself, and died saving his brother.

Genghis Khan's grandchildren were allocated various areas of the ulus or high positions. The eldest son of Jochi, 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 (big) Horde on the Volga. The third son, Sheibani, went to the Blue Horde, roaming from Tyumen to the Aral Sea. At the same time, the three brothers - the rulers of the uluses - were allocated only one to two thousand Mongolian soldiers each, while the total number of the Mongol army reached 130 thousand people.

How many Tatar-Mongols came to Russia? Let's try to deal with this issue.

It turns out to be a vicious circle: for purely physical reasons, a huge Tatar-Mongol army could hardly have retained its 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 Russia. To get out of this vicious circle, one has to admit: the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols was actually just an episode of the bloody civil war going on in Russia. The forces of the opponents were relatively small, they relied on their own stocks of fodder 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.

At the turn of the 11th – 12th centuries, it was not the steppe inhabitants that represented the main danger for Kievan Rus. Our ancestors were friends with the Polovtsian khans, married the “red Polovtsian girls”, accepted the baptized Polovtsians into their midst, and the descendants of the latter became Zaporozhye and Slobod Cossacks, not without reason in their nicknames the traditional Slavic suffix of belonging “ov” (Ivanov) was replaced by the Turkic one - “ Enko "(Ivanenko).

At this time, a more formidable phenomenon emerged - a fall in morals, a rejection of traditional Russian ethics and morality. In 1097, a princely congress took place in Lyubech, which marked the beginning of a new political form of the country's existence. There it was decided that "let everyone keep his fatherland." Russia began to turn into a confederation of independent states. The princes vowed to keep the proclaimed inviolably and in that they kissed the cross. But after the death of Mstislav, the Kiev state began to quickly disintegrate. Polotsk was the first to postpone. Then the Novgorod "republic" stopped sending money to Kiev.

After the fateful year 1203, Kiev has not recovered.

Russian princes in this whole story do not look the best. But back to our riddles. The Tale of the Battle of Kalka, which we have mentioned, for some reason is not able to definitely name the enemy of the Russians! Here is a quote: “... Because of our sins, nations came unknown, 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 kind of tribe they are, and what faith. And they call them Tatars, and some say - Taurmen, and others - Pechenegs. "

Amazing lines! They were written much later than the events described, when it seemed like it was supposed to know exactly with whom the Russian princes fought on Kalka. After all, part of the army (albeit a small one) nevertheless returned from Kalka. Moreover, the victors, in pursuit of 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 had seen the enemy with their own eyes. And yet he remains "unknown"! This statement further confuses the matter. After all, by the time described in Russia they knew the Polovtsians very well - they lived side by side for many years, fought, then became related ... The Taurmen - a nomadic Turkic tribe that lived in the Northern Black Sea region - was again well known to the Russians. It is curious that in the "Lay of Igor's Regiment" some "Tartars" are mentioned among the nomadic Türks 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 enemy of the Russians in that battle. Perhaps the battle on Kalka was not a clash with unknown peoples at all, but one of the episodes of the internecine war waged between Russian Christians, Polovtsian Christians and the Tatars who got involved in the cause?

Therefore, the question of whether there was a Tatar-Mongol yoke in Russia (in the classical sense of this term) remains open. This topic is waiting for its researchers.

There are many dark places in this story. Let's start with the fact that the famous painting that even got into school textbooks - "Ivan III tramples the Khan's Basma" - was written on the basis of a legend composed 70 years after "standing on the Ugra". In fact, the khan's ambassadors did not come to Ivan and he did not solemnly tore up any Basma letter in their presence.

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, flees Moscow, for which she is rewarded with 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: "In the same winter, the Grand Duchess Sofia returned from her escape, for she ran 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 in which she wandered, it became worse than from the Tatars, from boyar slaves, from Christian bloodsuckers. Give them back, Lord, according to the deceit of their deeds, according to the works of their hands, give them, for they loved more wives than the Orthodox Christian faith and the holy churches, and they agreed to betray Christianity, for their malice blinded them. "

Some scholars have suggested: maybe we are facing a purely dynastic dispute? Once again, two are claiming 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!

Finally, about the riddle of the retreat of the "Tatars" from the Ugra. Today in historical science there are three versions of not even a retreat - a hasty flight of Akhmat from Ugra.

1. A series of "fierce battles" undermined the fighting spirit of the Tatars.

(Most historians reject this, rightly stating that there were no battles. There were only minor skirmishes, clashes of small detachments "on a no-man's land".)

2. The Russians used firearms, which caused the Tatars to panic.

3. Akhmat was "afraid" of a decisive battle.

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

And one more aspect is of interest. Akhmat, according to Lyzlov, and Urodovlet are "tsars". And Ivan III is only the "Grand Duke". Writer's inaccuracy? But at the time when Lyzlov was writing his history, the title "Tsar" was already firmly entrenched for the Russian autocrats, had a specific "tie" and precise meaning. Further, in all other cases Lyzlov does not allow himself such "liberties". Western European kings are "kings" for him, Turkish sultans - "sultans", padishah - "padishah", cardinal - "cardinal". Perhaps the title of Archduke was given by Lyzlov in the translation “prince of arts”. But this is a translation, not a mistake.

It is interesting that in 1501, the Crimean king Chess, having suffered defeat in an internecine war, for some reason expected that the Kiev prince Dmitry Putyatich would take his side, probably due to some special political and dynastic relations between Russians and Tatars. Which ones are not exactly known.

And finally, one of the mysteries of Russian history. In 1574, Ivan the Terrible divides the Russian kingdom into two halves; one is ruled by himself, and the other is transferred to the Kasimov 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, blunders and obligations to the new tsar. Couldn't we be talking about joint rule, which had to be resorted to due to the same tangled old dynastic relations? Perhaps the last time in Russian history, these systems declared themselves.

Many members of the editorial board are personally acquainted with the inhabitants of Mongolia, who were surprised to learn about their allegedly 300-year rule over Russia.

from the magazine "Vedic Culture No. 2"

The main source by which we can judge the history of Ancient Rus is considered to be the Radziwill manuscript: "The Tale of Bygone Years". The story about the vocation of the Varangians to rule in Russia is taken from it. But can you trust her? A copy of it was brought at the beginning of the 18th century by Peter the Great from Konigsberg, then its original turned up in Russia. This manuscript has now been proven to be forged. Thus, it is not known for certain what happened in Russia until the beginning of the 17th century, that is, before the accession to the throne of the Romanov dynasty. But why did the house of the Romanovs need to rewrite our history? Was it then, to prove to the Russians that they were subordinate to the Horde for a long time and were not capable of independence, that their lot is drunkenness and obedience?

Strange behavior of the princes

Secrets of the disappeared chronicles

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

There was no invasion!

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

Horde - the name of the Russian army

Which Rus did the Horde go to?

Grandiose falsification

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Today we will talk about a very "slippery" from the point of view modern history and science, but also an equally interesting topic. This is the question raised by the May table of orders ihoraksjuta “Now we went on, the so-called Tatar-Mongol yoke, I don’t remember where I read it, but there was no yoke, these are all the consequences of the baptism of Rus, the bearer of the faith of Christ fought with those who did not want, well, as usual, with sword and blood, remember the cross hikes, can you tell us more about this period? "

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

In the first half of the XIII century, Russia was subjected to the invasion of the Tatars, who came to Europe from Central Asia, in particular, China and Central Asia, which they had already conquered by that time. Our historians of Russia know exactly the dates: 1223 - the Battle of Kalka, 1237 - the fall of Ryazan, in 1238 - the defeat of the combined forces of the Russian princes on the banks of the City River, in 1240 - the fall of Kiev. Tatar-Mongol troops destroyed individual squads of the princes of Kievan Rus and subjected it to a monstrous defeat. Military strength The Tatars were so irresistible that their rule continued for two and a half centuries - until the "Standing on the Ugra" in 1480, when the consequences of the yoke were finally completely eliminated, the end came.

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

Let's evaluate the versions that exist at the moment:

I propose to start with a very interesting fact. Such a nationality as Mongolo-Tatars does not exist, and did not exist at all. Mongols and Tatars The only thing that makes them related is that they roamed the Central Asian steppe, which, as we know, is large enough to accommodate any nomadic people, and at the same time give them the opportunity not to intersect on the same territory at all.

The Mongol tribes lived in the southern tip of the Asian steppe and often hunted in raids on China and its provinces, which is often confirmed by the history of China. Whereas other nomadic Türkic tribes, called Bulgars (Volga Bulgaria) from the Pokonese centuries in Russia, settled in the lower reaches of the Volga River. In those days in Europe they were called Tatars, or Tat'Ariev(the most powerful of the nomadic tribes, unbending and invincible). And the Tatars, the closest neighbors of the Mongols, lived in the northeastern part of modern Mongolia, mainly in the area of Lake Buir-Nor and up to the borders of China. There were 70 thousand families, which made up 6 tribes: Tatars-tutukulyut, Tatars-alchi, Tatars-chagan, Tatars-Kuin, Tatars-terat, Tatars-barkuy. The second parts of the names, apparently, are the self-names of these tribes. There is not a single word among them that would sound close to the Turkic language - they are more consonant with the Mongolian names.

Two kindred peoples - Tatars and Mongols - for a long time waged a war with varying success for mutual extermination, while Genghis Khan did not seize power in all of Mongolia. The fate of the Tatars was a foregone conclusion. Since the Tatars were the murderers of Genghis Khan's father, they exterminated many tribes and clans close to him, constantly supported the tribes opposing him, “then Genghis Khan (Tei-mu-Chin) ordered to carry out a general beating of the Tatars and not to leave one alive to the limit determined by the law (Yasak); to kill women and small children, and to cut the wombs of pregnant women in order to completely destroy them. … ”.

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

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

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

First of all, even in the canonical version, the fact of the conquest of the northeastern Old Russian principalities by the Mongol-Tatar invaders is not directly confirmed - allegedly these principalities were in vassal dependence on the Golden Horde (a state formation that occupied a large territory in the southeast of Eastern Europe and Western Siberia, founded Mongolian prince Batu). They say that the army of Khan Batu made several bloody predatory raids on these very northeastern ancient Russian principalities, as a result of which our distant ancestors decided to go "arm in arm" of Batu and his Golden Horde.

However, historical information is known that the personal guard of Khan Baty consisted exclusively of Russian soldiers. A very strange circumstance for the lackeys-vassals of the great Mongol conquerors, especially for the people they had just conquered.

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

Also, some sources claim that Tatar mothers in the Golden Horde frightened their disobedient children with the name of Alexander Nevsky.

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

According to this version, when the Mongols at the head of the nomadic tribes (later called the Tatars) came to the northeastern Russian principalities, they really entered into rather bloody military clashes with them. But the only thing was that Batu Khan did not succeed in a crushing victory; most likely, the case ended in a kind of "combat draw". And then Batu offered the Russian princes an equal military alliance. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why his guards consisted of Russian knights, and with the name of Alexander Nevsky, Tatar mothers frightened their children.

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

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

But wait, they were going to conquer the whole world ... so why not move on? Historians replied that they were afraid of an attack from the back, broken and plundered, but still strong Russia. But this is just ridiculous. Plundered state, will run to defend other people's cities and villages? Rather, they will rebuild their borders, and wait for the return of the enemy troops, so that they can fight back fully armed.
But the oddities don't end there. For some unimaginable reason, during the reign of the House of Romanov, dozens of chronicles describing the events of the “times of the Horde” disappear. For example, "The Lay of the Death of the Russian Land", historians believe that this is a document from which everything was carefully removed, which would testify to the Yoke. They left only fragments telling about some kind of "misfortune" that befell Russia. But there is not a word about the "Mongol invasion".

There are many more oddities. In the story "About Evil Tatars" Khan from Golden Horde orders to execute the Russian Christian prince ... for refusing to worship the "pagan god of the Slavs!" And some of the annals contain amazing phrases, such as: “ Well, with God! " - said the khan and, crossing himself, galloped to the enemy.
So what really happened?

At that time, Europe was already flourishing " new faith" namely Faith in Christ... Catholicism was widespread everywhere, and ruled everything from the way of life and order, to the state system and legislation. At that time, the crusades against the Gentiles were still relevant, but along with military methods, they often used “ tactical tricks"Are akin to bribery of powerful persons and persuading them to their faith. And after gaining power through the purchased person, the conversion of all his "subordinates". It was precisely such a secret crusade that was then carried out to Russia. Through bribery and other promises, the ministers of the church were able to seize power over Kiev and surrounding areas. Just relatively recently, by the standards of history, the baptism of Russia took place, but history is silent about the civil war that arose on this basis immediately after the forced baptism. And the ancient Slavic chronicle describes this moment as follows:

« And Vorogi came from the Overseas, and they brought faith in alien gods. With fire and sword, they began to plant an alien faith to us, Sprinkle gold and silver on the Russian princes, bribe their will, and lead astray. They promised them an idle life, full of riches and happiness, and forgiveness of any sins, for their dashing deeds.

And then Ros broke up, into different states. The Russian clan retreated to the north to the Great Asgard, And they named their state after the names of the gods of their patrons, Tarkh Dazhdbog the Great and Tara, his Sister Light-wise. (They named it the Great Tartaria). Leaving foreigners with princes bought in the principality of Kiev and its environs. Volga Bulgaria, too, did not bow before the enemies, and did not begin to accept their faith as hers.
But the principality of Kiev did not live in peace with TarTaria. They began to conquer the Russians with the fire and sword of the earth and impose their alien faith. And then the army of war rose to a fierce battle. In order to keep their faith and win back their lands. Both old and young then went to Ratniki in order to restore order to the Russian Lands. "

And so the war began, in which the Russian army, the land Great Aria (father of the Arias) defeated the enemy, and drove him from the lands of the primordial Slavic. It drove the alien army, with their fierce faith, from their stately lands.

By the way, the word Horde is translated by drop caps Old Slavic alphabet, means Order. That is, the Golden Horde is not a separate state, it is a system. "Political" system of the Golden Order. Under which Princes reigned on the ground, planted with the approval of the Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Army, or in one word they called him KHAN(our defender).
So there was not more than two hundred years of oppression, but there was a time of peace and prosperity Great Aria or TarTaria... By the way, modern history also confirms this, but for some reason no one pays attention to it. But we will definitely reverse, and very intent:

The Mongol-Tatar yoke is a system of political and tributary dependence of the Russian principalities on the Mongol-Tatar khans (until the early 60s of the 13th century, the Mongol khans, after the khans of the Golden Horde) in the 13th-15th centuries. The establishment of the yoke became possible as a result of the Mongol invasion of Russia in 1237-1241 and took place for two decades after it, including in non-ravaged lands. In North-Eastern Russia it lasted until 1480. (Wikipedia)

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

Doesn't it seem strange to you that the battle with the Swedes takes place right in the middle of the invasion " Mongolo-Tatar"To Russia? Blazing in fires and plundered " Mongols"Rus, is attacked by the Swedish army, which is safely drowning in the waters of the Neva, and at the same time the Swedish crusaders never encounter the Mongols. And the victors are strong Swedish army Do Rusichi lose to the Mongols? In my opinion, this is just nonsense. Two huge armies at the same time are fighting on the same territory and never intersect. But if we turn to the ancient Slavic chronicle, then everything becomes clear.

Since 1237 Rat Great TarTaria began to recapture their ancestral lands back, and when the war came to an end, the representatives of the church who were losing the lay asked for help, and the Swedish crusaders were sent into battle. Since it was not possible to take the country by bribery, then they will take it by force. Just in 1240, the army Hordes(that is, the army of Prince Alexander Yaroslavovich, one of the princes of the ancient Slavic family) faced in the battle with the army of the Crusaders, who came to the rescue of their henchmen. Having won the battle on the Neva, Alexander received the title of Nevsky prince and remained to reign Novgorod, and the army of the horde went on to expel the foe from the Russian lands completely. So she persecuted "the church and the alien faith" until she reached the Adriatic Sea, thereby restoring her original ancient borders. And having reached them, the army turned around and again left the north. By setting 300 years of the world.

Again, this is confirmed by the so-called the end of the yoke « Battle of Kulikovo"Before which 2 knights participated in the match Peresvet and Chelubey... Two Russian knights, Andrei Peresvet (transcending the light) and Chelubey (beating with his forehead, Telling, narrating, asking) Information about which was cruelly cut out from the pages of history. It was Chelubey's loss that foreshadowed the victory of the army of Kievan Rus, rebuilt with the money of the same "Churchmen" who nevertheless penetrated from under the counter into Russia, albeit more than 150 years later. This is only later, when all of Russia plunges into the abyss of chaos, all sources confirming the events of the past will be burned. And after the Romanov family came to power, many documents will acquire the form we know.

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

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

So how did it happen that even now we do not know our history? Everything is very simple. Trembling with fear and horror, the Europeans never ceased to be afraid of the Rusichi, even when their plans were crowned with success and they enslaved the Slavic peoples, they were still afraid that one day Russia would rise and again shine with its former strength.

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

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

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

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

One of the highlights in the history of ancient Russia is the so-called Tatar-Mongol conquest by the Horde. Traditionally, it is believed that the Horde came from the East (China? Mongolia?), Captured many countries, conquered Russia, swept to the West and even reached Egypt.

But if Russia had been conquered in the XIII century from any side - either from the east, as modern historians assert, or from the west, as Morozov believed - then there should have been information about clashes between the conquerors and the Cossacks who lived both on the western borders of Russia, and in the lower reaches of the Don and Volga. That is, exactly where the conquerors had to go.

Of course, in the school courses in Russian history, we are strenuously convinced that the Cossack troops allegedly arose only in the 17th century, allegedly due to the fact that the slaves fled from the power of the landowners to the Don. However, it is known - although it is usually not mentioned in textbooks - that, for example, the Don Cossack state existed STILL in the 16th century, had its own laws and history.

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

Thus,<>- wherever it came from, - moving along the natural path of colonization and conquest, it would inevitably have to come into conflict with the Cossack regions.

This is not noted.

What's the matter?

A natural hypothesis arises:

THERE WAS NO FOREIGN CONQUEST OF RUSSIA. THEREFORE THE HORDE WAS NOT ATTENDED WITH THE COSSACKS, THAT THE COSSACKS WERE A PART OF THE HORDE. This hypothesis was not formulated by us. It is very convincingly substantiated, for example, by A.A. Gordeev in his<>.

BUT WE MAKE SOMETHING BIGGER.

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

According to our hypothesis, modern terms VOYSKO and VOYIN, Church Slavonic in origin, were not Old Russian terms. They came into constant use in Russia only from the 17th century. And the old Russian terminology was as follows: Horde, Cossack, Khan.

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

On the Don, there is still the famous city of Semikarakorum, and in the Kuban - the village of Khanskaya. Let's remind that Karakorum is considered the CAPITAL OF CHINGIZ-KHAN. At the same time, as is well known, in those places where archaeologists are still persistently looking for Karakorum, for some reason there is no Karakorum.

Desperate, they hypothesized that<>... This monastery, dating back to the 19th century, was surrounded by an earthen rampart only about one English mile long. Historians believe that the famous capital Karakorum was entirely located on the territory later occupied by this monastery.

According to our hypothesis, the Horde is not a foreign entity that seized Russia from the outside, but is simply an Eastern Russian regular army, which was an integral part of the ancient Russian state.

Our hypothesis is as follows.

1) <>IT WAS JUST A PERIOD OF MILITARY GOVERNANCE IN THE RUSSIAN STATE. NO FOREIGNERS CONQUERED RUSSIA.

2) THE COMMANDER-KHAN = TSAR WAS THE SUPREME RULER, AND IN THE CITIES CIVIL REGULARS WERE PRINCES WHO ARE OBLIGED TO
WE WERE COLLECTING Tribute FOR THE BENEFIT OF THIS RUSSIAN TROOP, FOR ITS CONTENT.

3) IN THIS WAY, THE ANCIENT RUSSIAN STATE IS REPRESENTED AS A UNIFIED EMPIRE, IN WHICH WAS A PERMANENT ARMY CONSISTING OF
PROFESSIONAL MILITARY (HORDE) AND CIVIL UNIT WITHOUT ITS REGULAR FORCES. BECAUSE SUCH TROOPS ALREADY INCLUDED IN
COMPOSITION OF THE HORDE.

4) THIS RUSSIAN-ORDIN EMPIRE EXISTED FROM THE XIV CENTURY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE XVII CENTURY. HER STORY ENDED WITH A FAMOUS GREAT
CONFUSION IN RUSSIA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XVII CENTURY. AS A RESULT OF THE CIVIL WAR, THE RUSSIAN HORDAN KINGS, THE LAST OF WHICH WAS BORIS
<>, - WERE PHYSICALLY EXPIRED. AND FORMERLY THE RUSSIAN VOYO-HORDE ACTUALLY HAS BEEN DEFEATED IN THE FIGHT WITH<>... AS A RESULT, A PRINCIPALLY NEW PRO-WESTERN ROMANOV DYNASTY COME TO POWER IN RUSSIA. SHE TOOK POWER IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCH (FILARET).

5) NEW DYNASTY REQUIRED<>, IDEOLOGICALLY JUSTIFYING ITS POWER. THIS NEW POWER WAS ILLEGAL FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE PREVIOUS RUSSIAN-ORDYN HISTORY. THEREFORE ROMANOVS REQUIRED IN THE ROOT TO CHANGE THE LIGHTING OF THE PREVIOUS
RUSSIAN HISTORY. WE SHOULD GIVE THEM WHAT IS DUE - IT WAS DONE WILL. WITHOUT CHANGING MOST OF THE FACTS IN SUBSTANCES, THEY COULD BE BEFORE
UNRECognizability to distort the entire Russian history. SO, THE PREVIOUS HISTORY OF RUSSIA-HORDA WITH ITS ESTABLISHMENT OF AGRICULTURAL
CONDITION - HORDE, THEY DECLARED THE ERA<>... WITH THIS OWN OWN RUSSIAN HORDE-MILITARY TURNED - UNDER THE PEN OF THE ROMANIAN HISTORIANS - INTO MYTHICAL ALIENS FROM A FAR UNKNOWN COUNTRY.

The notorious<>, familiar to us from Romanov's presentation of history, was simply a STATE TAX inside Russia for the maintenance of the Cossack army - the Horde. Famous<>, - every tenth person taken to the Horde is just a state MILITARY SET. It’s like a call to the army, but only from childhood - and for life.

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

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

1. Genghis Khan

Previously, in Russia, 2 people were responsible for governing the state: Prince and Khan... The prince was responsible for the administration of the state in Peaceful time... The khan or "military prince" took over the reins of control during the war, in peacetime he was responsible for the formation of the horde (army) and maintaining it in combat readiness.

Chinggis Khan is not a name, but the title of "military prince", which, in modern world, close to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Army. And there were several people who bore such a title. The most outstanding of them was Timur, it is about him that is usually talked about when they talk about Chinggis Khan.

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

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

2. Mongolia

The state of Mongolia appeared only in the 1930s, when the Bolsheviks came to the nomads living in the Gobi Desert and told them that they were the descendants of the great Mongols, and their "compatriot" created the Great Empire at one time, which they were very surprised and delighted with ... The word "Mogul" is of Greek origin and means "Great". This word the Greeks called our ancestors - the Slavs. It has nothing to do with the name of any people (NV Levashov "Visible and invisible genocide").

3. The composition of the army of "Tatar-Mongols"

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

4. What did the "Tatar-Mongols" look like?

Pay attention to the drawing of the tomb of Henry II the Pious, who was killed in the Legnica field. The inscription is as follows: "The figure of a Tatar under the feet of Henry II, Duke of Silesia, Krakow and Poland, placed on the grave in Breslau of this prince, who was killed in the battle with the Tatars at Lygnitz on April 9, 1241" As we can see, this "Tatar" has a completely Russian appearance, clothes and weapons. The next image shows "the khan's palace in the capital of the Mongol empire, Khanbalik" (it is believed that Khanbalik is supposedly Beijing). What is "Mongolian" and what is "Chinese" here? Again, as in the case of the tomb of Henry II, before us are people of a clearly Slavic appearance. Russian caftans, rifle caps, the same thick beards, the same characteristic saber blades called "Elman". The roof on the left is almost an exact copy of the roofs of old Russian towers ... (A. Bushkov, “Russia, which did not exist”).

5. Genetic examination

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

6. Documents during the Tatar-Mongol yoke

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

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

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

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

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

More opinions:

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

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

Izmailov summed up the result:

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

RIA Novosti http://ria.ru/history_comments/20101014/285598296.html#ixzz2ShXTOVsk

Historian Lev Gumilyov, from the book "From Russia to Russia", 2008:
“Thus, for the tax that Alexander Nevsky undertook to pay to Sarai, Russia received a reliable strong army, which defended not only Novgorod and Pskov. Moreover, the Russian principalities, which accepted an alliance with the Horde, fully retained their ideological independence and political independence. This alone shows that Russia was not
a province of the Mongol ulus, but a country allied to the great khan, paying some tax on the upkeep of the army, which she herself needed.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z_tgIlq7k_w?wmode=opaque&wmode=opaque

Khan Batu's campaign to Russia

Empire on a planetary scale

The topic of the Tatar-Mongol yoke still causes a lot of controversy, reasoning and versions. Was it or was not, in principle, what role did the Russian princes play in it, who attacked Europe and why, how did it end? Here is an interesting article on the topic of Batu's campaigns across Russia. Let's get some more information about all this ...

The historiography about the invasion of Mongol-Tatars (or Tatar-Mongols, or Tatars and Mongols, and so on, as you like) to Russia is over 300 years old. This invasion has become a generally accepted fact since the end of the 17th century, when one of the founders of Russian Orthodoxy, the German Innokenty Gisel, wrote the first textbook on the history of Russia - "Synopsis". According to this book, the Russians hammered their native history for the next 150 years. However, until now, none of the historians have taken the liberty of doing “ roadmap»Campaign of Khan Batu in winter 1237-1238 to North-Eastern Russia.

A little background

At the end of the 12th century, a new leader appeared among the Mongol tribes - Temuchin, who managed to unite most of them around him. In 1206, he was proclaimed at the kurultai (analogue of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR) by the All-Mongolian Khan under the nickname Genghis Khan, who created the notorious "state of nomads". Without wasting then not a minute, the Mongols began to conquer the surrounding territories. By 1223, when the Mongol detachment of the commanders Jebe and Subudai clashed with the Russian-Polovtsian army on the Kalka River, the zealous nomads managed to conquer territories from Manchuria in the east to Iran, the southern Caucasus and modern western Kazakhstan, defeating the state of Khorezmshah and conquering part of northern China along the way.

In 1227, Genghis Khan died, but his successors continued their conquests. By 1232, the Mongols reached the middle Volga, where they waged war with the nomadic Polovtsians and their allies - the Volga Bulgars (ancestors of the modern Volga Tatars). In 1235 (according to other sources - in 1236) at the kurultai, a decision was made on a global campaign against the Kipchaks, Bulgars and Russians, as well as further to the West. This campaign had to be led by the grandson of Genghis Khan - Khan Batu (Batu). Here it is necessary to make a digression. In 1236-1237, the Mongols, who by that time fighting in vast areas from modern Ossetia (against the Alans) to the modern Volga republics, they seized Tatarstan (Volga Bulgaria) and in the fall of 1237 they began to concentrate for a campaign against the Russian principalities.

In general, why the nomads from the banks of Kerulen and Onon needed the conquest of Ryazan or Hungary is not really known. All attempts by historians to laboriously substantiate such agility of the Mongols look rather pale. Regarding the Western campaign of the Mongols (1235-1243), they came up with a tale that the attack on the Russian principalities was a measure to secure their flank and destroy the potential allies of their main enemies - the Polovtsy (in part, the Polovtsians left for Hungary, while the bulk of them became the ancestors of modern Kazakhs). True, neither the Ryazan principality, nor the Vladimir-Suzdal, nor the so-called. The "Novgorod Republic" were never allies of either the Polovtsians or the Volga Bulgars.

Steppe Yubermensch riding a tireless Mongolian horse (Mongolia, 1911)

Also, almost all historiography about the Mongols does not really say anything about the principles of the formation of their armies, the principles of managing them, and so on. At the same time, it was believed that the Mongols formed their tumens (field operational formations), including from the conquered peoples, nothing was paid for the service of the soldier, they were threatened with the death penalty for any offense.

Scientists tried to explain the success of the nomads this way and that, but each time it turned out pretty funny. Although, in the end, the level of organization of the Mongol army - from intelligence to communications, could be envied by the armies of the most developed states of the 20th century (however, after the end of the era of miraculous campaigns, the Mongols - already 30 years after the death of Genghis Khan - instantly lost all their skills). For example, it is believed that the head of Mongolian intelligence, the commander Subudai, maintained relations with the Pope, the German-Roman emperor, Venice, and so on.

Moreover, the Mongols, naturally, during their military campaigns acted without any radio communications, railways, road transport, and so on. In Soviet times, historians interspersed the traditional by that time fantasy about the steppe yubermensch, who did not know fatigue, hunger, fear, etc., with the classical ritual in the field of the class-formation approach:

With a general recruitment into the army, every ten carts had to put up from one to three soldiers, depending on the need, and provide them with food. Weapons in peacetime were stored in special warehouses. It was the property of the state and was issued to the soldiers when they set out on a campaign. Upon returning from the campaign, each soldier was obliged to surrender his weapon. The soldiers did not receive salaries, but they themselves paid the tax with horses or other livestock (one head per hundred heads). In war, each soldier had an equal right to use the spoils, a certain part of which he was obliged to surrender to the khan. In the periods between campaigns, the army was sent to public works. One day a week was allotted for the service to the khan.

The organization of the troops was based on the decimal system. The army was divided into tens, hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands (tumyn or darkness), at the head of which were foremen, centurions and thousand. The chiefs had separate tents and a reserve of horses and weapons.

The main branch of the troops was the cavalry, which was divided into heavy and light. The heavy cavalry fought against the main forces of the enemy. Light cavalry carried out patrol service and conducted reconnaissance. She struck up a battle, frustrating enemy ranks with arrows. The Mongols were excellent horse archers. Light cavalry pursued the enemy. The cavalry had a large number of clockwork (spare) horses, which allowed the Mongols to move very quickly over long distances. A feature of the Mongolian army was the complete absence of a wheeled convoy. Only kibitki khan and especially noble persons were transported on carts ...

Each warrior had a file for sharpening arrows, an awl, a needle, threads and a sieve for sifting flour or filtering turbid water. The rider had a small tent, two rounds (leather bags): one for water, the other for steep (dried sour cheese). If food supplies ran out, the Mongols bled and drank the horses' blood. In this way, they could be content for up to 10 days.

In general, the very term "Mongolo-Tatars" (or Tatar-Mongols) is very bad. It sounds roughly like Croatian Hindus or Finno-Negroes in terms of its meaning. The fact is that the Russians and Poles, who faced nomads in the 15th-17th centuries, called them the same - Tatars. Later, the Russians often transferred this to other peoples who had nothing to do with the nomadic Turks in the Black Sea steppes. Europeans also contributed to this mess, who for a long time considered Russia (then Muscovy) Tartary (more precisely, Tartary), which led to very bizarre designs.

The French view of Russia in the middle of the 18th century

One way or another, that the "Tatars" who attacked Russia and Europe were also Mongols, the society learned only in early XIX century, when Christian Kruse published "Atlas and tables for reviewing the history of all European lands and states from their first population to our times." Then Russian historians happily picked up the idiotic term.

Particular attention should also be paid to the issue of the number of conquerors. Naturally, no documentary data on the size of the Mongol army has come down to us, and the most ancient and unquestioning source of trust among historians is the historical work of a team of authors led by an official of the Iranian state Hulaguids Rashid al-Din "List of Chronicles". It is believed that it was written at the beginning of the 14th century in Persian, however, it surfaced only at the beginning of the 19th century, the first partial edition in French was published in 1836. Until the middle of the 20th century, this source was not completely translated and published at all.

According to Rashid ad-Din, by 1227 (the year of Genghis Khan's death), the total number of the army Mongol Empire was 129 thousand people. If you believe Plano Carpini, then 10 years later the army of phenomenal nomads amounted to 150 thousand Mongols proper and another 450 thousand people recruited in a "voluntary-compulsory" manner from the subordinate peoples. Pre-revolutionary Russian historians estimated the size of Batu's army, concentrated in the fall of 1237 at the borders of the Ryazan principality, from 300 to 600 thousand people. At the same time, it seemed self-evident that each nomad had 2-3 horses.

By the standards of the Middle Ages, such armies look completely monstrous and implausible, it is worth admitting. However, to reproach pundits with fantasy is too cruel for them. Hardly any of them could have even imagined even a couple of tens of thousands of mounted warriors with 50-60 thousand horses, not to mention the obvious problems with managing such a mass of people and providing them with food. Since history is an inexact science, and indeed not a science at all, everyone can evaluate the runaway of fantasy researchers. We will use the now classic estimate of the size of Batu's army at 130-140 thousand people, which was proposed by the Soviet scientist V.V. Kargalov. His assessment (like everyone else, completely sucked from the finger, if we speak extremely seriously) in historiography, however, is prevalent. In particular, it is shared by the largest contemporary Russian researcher of the history of the Mongol Empire, R.P. Khrapachevsky.

From Ryazan to Vladimir

In the fall of 1237, Mongol troops, who fought all spring and summer in vast areas from North Caucasus, The Lower Don and up to the middle Volga region, pulled together to the place of general gathering - the Onuza River. It is believed that we are talking about the modern Tsna River in the modern Tambov region. Probably also some detachments of the Mongols gathered in the upper reaches of the Voronezh and Don rivers. There is no exact date for the start of the Mongols' uprising against the Ryazan principality, but it can be assumed that it took place in any case no later than December 1, 1237. That is, the steppe nomads with almost half a million herd of horses decided to go on a hike already in winter. This is important for our reconstruction. If so, then they probably should have been sure that in the forests of the Volga-Osk interfluve, still rather weakly colonized by the Russians by that time, they would have enough food for horses and people.

Along the valleys of the Lesnoy and Polny Voronezh rivers, as well as the tributaries of the Pronya River, the Mongolian army, moving in one or several columns, passes through the wooded watershed of the Oka and Don. The embassy of Ryazan prince Fyodor Yuryevich arrives to them, which turned out to be ineffectual (the prince is killed), and somewhere in the same region the Mongols meet the Ryazan army in the field. In a fierce battle, they destroy it, and then move upstream of the Pronya, plundering and destroying small Ryazan cities - Izheslavets, Belgorod, Pronsk, burned down Mordovian and Russian villages.

Here we need to make a small clarification: we do not have exact data on the population size in the then North-Eastern Russia, but if we follow the reconstruction of modern scientists and archaeologists (V.P. Darkevich, M.N. Tikhomirov, A.V. Kuza), then it was not large and, in addition, it was characterized by a low population density. For example, The largest city Ryazan land - Ryazan, counted, according to V.P. Darkevich, a maximum of 6-8 thousand people, about 10-14 thousand people could live in the agricultural district of the city (within a radius of up to 20-30 kilometers). The rest of the cities had several hundred people, at best, like Murom - up to a couple of thousand. Based on this, it is unlikely that the total population of the Ryazan principality could exceed 200-250 thousand people.

Of course, for the conquest of such a "proto-state" 120-140 thousand soldiers were more than an excessive number, but we will adhere to classic version.

On December 16, the Mongols, after a march of 350-400 kilometers (that is, the average daily crossing rate is up to 18-20 kilometers here), go to Ryazan and begin its siege - they build a wooden fence around the city, build stone-throwing machines with which they drive shelling of the city. In general, historians admit that the Mongols achieved incredible - by the standards of that time - success in the siege business. For example, the historian R.P. Khrapachevsky seriously believes that the Mongols were able to bungle any stone-throwing machines on the spot from an improvised forest in literally a day or two:

For the assembly of stone throwers, there was everything necessary - in the united army of the Mongols there were enough specialists from China and Tangut ..., and the Russian forests in abundance supplied the Mongols with wood for assembling siege weapons.

Finally, on December 21, Ryazan fell after a fierce assault. True, an inconvenient question arises: we know that the total length of the city's defensive fortifications was less than 4 kilometers. Most of the Ryazan soldiers died in the border battle, so there were hardly many soldiers in the city. Why did the giant Mongol army of 140 thousand soldiers sit for 6 days under its walls, if the ratio of forces was at least 100-150: 1?

We also do not have any clear evidence of what the climatic conditions were in December 1238, but since the Mongols chose the ice of the rivers as the way of movement (there was no other way to pass through the wooded area, the first permanent roads in North-Eastern Russia are documented only in the XIV century, all Russian researchers agree with this version), it can be assumed that it was already a normal winter with frosts, possibly snow.

The question of what the Mongolian horses ate during this campaign is also important. From the works of historians and modern studies of steppe horses, it is clear that they were talking about very unpretentious, small - up to 110-120 centimeters tall at the withers, bunks. Their main food is hay and grass (they did not eat grain). In natural habitat, they are unpretentious and hardy enough, and in winter, during tebenevka, they are able to break snow in the steppe and eat last year's grass.

On the basis of this, historians unanimously believe that due to these properties, the question of feeding the horses during the campaign in the winter of 1237-1238 to Russia was not raised. Meanwhile, it is not difficult to notice that the conditions in this region (the thickness of the snow cover, the area of herbage, as well as the general quality of phytocenoses) differ from, say, Khalkha or Turkestan. In addition, the winter tebenevka of steppe horses is the following: a herd of horses slowly, passing a few hundred meters a day, moves across the steppe, looking for dead grass under the snow. In this way, animals save their energy costs. However, in the campaign against Russia, these horses had to walk 10-20-30 or even more kilometers a day in the cold (see below), carrying a load or a warrior. Did the horses manage to replenish their energy costs under such conditions? Another interesting question: if Mongolian horses dug snow and found grass under it, then what should be the area of their daily foraging grounds?

After the capture of Ryazan, the Mongols began to move towards the Kolomna fortress, which is a kind of "gateway" to the Vladimir-Suzdal land. After passing 130 kilometers from Ryazan to Kolomna, according to Rashid ad-Din and R.P. Khrapachevsky, the Mongols were "stuck" at this fortress until 5 or even 10 January 1238 - that is, at least for almost 15-20 days. On the other hand, a strong Vladimir army is moving towards Kolomna, which, probably, the Grand Duke Yuri Vsevolodovich equipped immediately after receiving news of the fall of Ryazan (he and the Chernigov prince refused to help Ryazan). The Mongols send the embassy to him with a proposal to become their tributary, but the negotiations also turn out to be fruitless (according to Laurentian Chronicle- the prince nevertheless agrees to pay tribute, but still sends troops near Kolomna. It is difficult to explain the logic of such an act).

According to V.V. Kargalov and R.P. Khrapachevsky, the battle of Kolomna began no later than January 9th and lasted for 5 days (according to Rashid ad-Din). Here another natural question immediately arises - historians are sure that the military forces of the Russian principalities as a whole were modest and corresponded to the reconstruction of the era when an army of 1-2 thousand people was standard, and 4-5 thousand or more people seemed to be a huge army. It is unlikely that the Vladimir prince Yuri Vsevolodovich could collect more (if we make a digression: the total population of the Vladimir land, according to various estimates, varied within 400-800 thousand people, but they were all scattered over a vast territory, and the population of the capital city of the earth - Vladimir, even for the most daring reconstructions, it did not exceed 15-25 thousand people). Nevertheless, near Kolomna, the Mongols were shackled for several days, and the intensity of the battle shows the fact of the death of Chingizid Kulkan, the son of Genghis Khan. With whom did the gigantic army of 140 thousand nomads fought so fiercely? With several thousand Vladimir soldiers?

After the victory at Kolomna, either in a three- or five-day battle, the Mongols cheerfully move along the ice of the Moskva River towards the future Russian capital. They cover a distance of 100 kilometers in just 3-4 days (the average daily march rate is 25-30 kilometers): according to R.P. The nomads began the siege of Moscow on January 15 at Khrapachevsky (according to N.M. Karamzin, on January 20). The nimble Mongols took the Muscovites by surprise - they did not even know about the results of the battle at Kolomna, and after a five-day siege, Moscow shared the fate of Ryazan: the city was burned, all its inhabitants were exterminated or taken prisoner.

Again - Moscow at that time, if we take the data of archeology as the basis of our reasoning, was a completely tiny town. So, the first fortifications, built back in 1156, had a length of less than 1 kilometer, and the area of the fortress itself did not exceed 3 hectares. By 1237, it is believed that the area of fortifications had already reached 10-12 hectares (that is, about half of the territory of the present Kremlin). The city had its own posad - it was located on the territory of the modern Red Square. The total population of such a city hardly exceeded 1000 people. We can only guess what the huge army of Mongols, possessing supposedly unique siege technologies, was doing for five days in front of this insignificant fortress.

It is also worth noting here that all historians recognize the fact of the movement of the Mongol-Tatars without a convoy. Say, unpretentious nomads did not need it. Then it is not entirely clear how and on what the Mongols moved their stone-throwing machines, shells to them, forges (for repairing weapons, replenishing the loss of arrowheads, etc.), how they drove off prisoners. Since during the entire time of archaeological excavations on the territory of North-Eastern Russia not a single burial of "Mongol-Tatars" was found, some historians even agreed to the version that the nomads also took their dead back to the steppes (V.P. Darkevich, V. V. Kargalov). Of course, it's not even worth raising the question of the fate of the wounded or sick in this light (otherwise our historians will think of the fact that they were eaten, just kidding) ...

Nevertheless, after spending about a week in the vicinity of Moscow and plundering its agricultural contado (the main agricultural crop in this region was rye and partly oats, but the steppe horses perceived grain very badly), the Mongols moved on the ice of the Klyazma River (crossing the forest divide between this river and Moscow river) to Vladimir. Having traveled over 140 kilometers in 7 days (the average daily march rate is about 20 kilometers), the nomads on February 2, 1238 begin the siege of the capital of the Vladimir land. By the way, it is at this crossing that the Mongolian army of 120-140 thousand people "catches" a tiny detachment of the Ryazan boyar Yevpatiy Kolovrat, either 700 or 1700 people, against whom the Mongols - from impotence - are forced to use stone-throwing machines to defeat him ( it is worth considering that the legend about Kolovrat was recorded, according to historians, only in the 15th century, so ... it is difficult to consider it completely documentary).

Let's ask an academic question: what is, in general, an army of 120-140 thousand people with almost 400 thousand horses (and it is not clear if there is a train?), Moving on the ice of some river Oka or Moscow? The simplest calculations show that even moving with a front of 2 kilometers (in reality, the width of these rivers is much smaller), such an army in the most ideal conditions (everyone goes at the same speed, observing a minimum distance of 10 meters) stretches at least 20 kilometers. Considering that the width of the Oka is only 150-200 meters, then the gigantic army of Batu stretches for almost ... 200 kilometers! Again, if everyone walks at the same speed, keeping the minimum distance. And on the ice of the Moskva or Klyazma rivers, the width of which varies from 50 to 100 meters at best? 400-800 kilometers?

Interestingly, none of the Russian scientists over the past 200 years have even asked such a question, seriously believing that giant cavalry armies literally fly through the air.

In general, at the first stage of the invasion of Khan Batu into North-Eastern Russia - from December 1, 1237 to February 2, 1238, the conditional Mongol horse covered about 750 kilometers, which gives an average daily rate of movement of 12 kilometers. But if we exclude from the calculations, at least 15 days of standing in the Oka floodplain (after the capture of Ryazan on December 21 and the battle at Kolomna), as well as a week of rest and looting near Moscow, the pace of the average daily march of the Mongolian cavalry will significantly improve - up to 17 kilometers per day.

It cannot be said that these are some kind of record rates of the march (the Russian army, for example, during the war with Napoleon, made 30-40-kilometer daily marches), the interest here is that all this took place in deep winter, and such rates were maintained quite a long time.

From Vladimir to Kozelsk

On the fronts of the Great Patriotic War of the XIII century

Prince of Vladimir Yuri Vsevolodovich, having learned about the approach of the Mongols, left Vladimir, leaving with a small squad in the Volga region - there, in the middle of windbreaks on the river Sit, he set up a camp and awaited the approach of reinforcements from his brothers - Yaroslav (father of Alexander Nevsky) and Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich. There were very few soldiers left in the city, led by the sons of Yuri - Vsevolod and Mstislav. Despite this, the Mongols spent 5 days with the city, firing at it from stone throwers, taking it only after the assault on February 7. But before that small detachment nomads led by Subudai managed to burn Suzdal.

After the capture of Vladimir, the Mongol army is divided into three parts. The first and largest unit under the command of Batu goes from Vladimir to the northwest through the impassable forests of the Klyazma and Volga watershed. The first march is from Vladimir to Yuryev-Polsky (about 60-65 kilometers). Further, the army is divided - part goes exactly to the north-west to Pereyaslavl-Zalessky (about 60 kilometers), and after a five-day siege this city fell. What was Pereyaslavl then? It was a relatively small city, slightly larger than Moscow, although it had defensive fortifications up to 2.5 kilometers long. But its population also hardly exceeded 1-2 thousand people.

Then the Mongols go to Ksnyatin (about 100 kilometers more), to Kashin (30 kilometers), then turn to the west and move along the ice of the Volga to Tver (from Ksnyatin in a straight line a little more than 110 kilometers, but go along the Volga, everything turns out to be 250- 300 kilometers).

The second part goes through the dense forests of the watershed of the Volga, Oka and Klyazma from Yuryev-Polsky to Dmitrov (about 170 kilometers in a straight line), then after taking it to Volok-Lamsky (130-140 kilometers), from there to Tver (about 120 kilometers) , after the capture of Tver - to Torzhok (together with the detachments of the first part) - in a straight line it is about 60 kilometers, but, apparently, they walked along the river, so it will be at least 100 kilometers. The Mongols reached Torzhok already on February 21 - 14 days after leaving Vladimir.

Thus, the first part of the Batu detachment in 15 days travels at least 500-550 kilometers through dense forests and along the Volga. True, from here it is necessary to throw out several days of siege of cities and it turns out about 10 days of march. For each of which the nomads pass through the forests 50-55 kilometers a day! The second part of his detachment travels in aggregate for less than 600 kilometers, which gives an average daily march rate of up to 40 kilometers. Taking into account a couple of days for the siege of cities - up to 50 kilometers per day.

Near Torzhok, a rather modest city by the standards of that time, the Mongols were stuck for at least 12 days and took it only on March 5 (V.V. Kargalov). After the capture of Torzhok, one of the Mongol detachments advanced towards Novgorod for another 150 kilometers, but then turned back.

The second detachment of the Mongolian army under the command of Kadan and Buri left Vladimir to the east, moving along the ice of the Klyazma River. Having passed 120 kilometers to Starodub, the Mongols burned this city, and then “cut off” the wooded watershed between the lower Oka and the middle Volga, reaching Gorodets (this is still about 170-180 kilometers, if in a straight line). Further, the Mongolian detachments on the ice of the Volga reached Kostoroma (this is still about 350-400 kilometers), some detachments even reached Galich Mersky. From Kostroma, the Mongols of Buri and Kadan went to join the third detachment under the command of Burundai to the west - to Uglich. Most likely, the nomads moved along the ice of the rivers (in any case, let us remind you once again, this is so customary in Russian historiography), which gives another 300-330 kilometers of travel.

In early March, Kadan and Buri were already near Uglich, having covered in three weeks with a little up to 1000-1100 kilometers. The average daily pace of the march was about 45-50 kilometers among the nomads, which is close to the indicators of the Batu detachment.

The third detachment of Mongols under the command of Burundai turned out to be the "slowest" - after the capture of Vladimir, he set out for Rostov (170 kilometers in a straight line), then overcame more than 100 kilometers to Uglich. Part of Burundi's forces made a march to Yaroslavl (about 70 kilometers) from Uglich. In early March, Burunday unmistakably found the camp of Yuri Vsevolodovich in the Trans-Volga forests, whom he defeated in the battle on the Sit River on March 4. The transition from Uglich to the City and back is about 130 kilometers. In total, the Burundian detachments covered about 470 kilometers in 25 days - this gives us only 19 kilometers of an average daily march.

In general, the conditional average Mongolian horse clocked "on the speedometer" from December 1, 1237 to March 4, 1238 (94 days) from 1200 (the lowest estimate, suitable only for a small part of the Mongolian army) to 1800 kilometers. Conditional daily passage ranges from 12-13 to 20 kilometers. In reality, if we throw out standing in the floodplain of the Oka River (about 15 days), 5 days of storming Moscow and 7 days of rest after its capture, a five-day siege of Vladimir, as well as another 6-7 days for the siege of Russian cities in the second half of February, it turns out that the Mongolian horses for each of their 55 days of movement covered an average of 25-30 kilometers. These are excellent results for horses, given that all this happened in the cold, in the middle of forests and snowdrifts, with an obvious lack of food (the Mongols could hardly requisition a lot of food from the peasants for their horses, especially since the steppe horses did not eat practically grain) and hard work.

Mongolian steppe horse has not changed for centuries (Mongolia, 1911)

After the capture of Torzhok, the bulk of the Mongol army concentrated on the upper Volga in the Tver region. Then they moved in the first half of March 1238 on a wide front to the south in the steppe. The left wing, under the command of Kadan and Buri, passed through the forests of the Klyazma and Volga watershed, then went out to the upper reaches of the Moskva River and descended along it to the Oka. In a straight line, it is about 400 kilometers, taking into account the average pace of movement of impetuous nomads, this is about 15-20 days of travel for them. So, most likely, already in the first half of April, this part of the Mongolian army went into the steppe. We do not have information on how the melting of snow and ice on the rivers affected the movement of this detachment (the Ipatiev Chronicle only reports that the steppe inhabitants moved very quickly). There is also no information about what this detachment was doing the next month after leaving the steppe, it is only known that in May Kadan and Buri came to the rescue of Bat, who had been stuck near Kozelsk by that time.

Small Mongolian detachments, probably, as V.V. Kargalov and R.P. Khrapachevsky, stayed on middle Volga plundering and burning Russian settlements. How they came out in the spring of 1238 in the steppe is not known.

Most of the Mongol army under the command of Batu and Burundai, instead of the shortest path to the steppe, which the troops of Kadan and Buri passed, chose a very intricate route:

More is known about the Batu route - from Torzhok he moved along the Volga and Vazuz (a tributary of the Volga) to the interfluve of the Dnieper, and from there, through the Smolensk lands to the Chernigov city of Vshizh, lying on the banks of the Desna, writes Khrapachevsky. Having made a detour along the upper reaches of the Volga to the west and northwest, the Mongols turned south, and crossing the watersheds, went to the steppe. Probably, some detachments were marching in the center, through Volok-Lamsky (through the forests). Tentatively, the left edge of Batu has covered about 700-800 kilometers during this time, other detachments a little less. By April 1, the Mongols reached Serensk, and Kozelsk (chronicle Kozeleska, to be precise) - April 3-4 (according to other information - already March 25). On average, this gives us about 35-40 kilometers of daily march (and the Mongols are no longer walking along the ice of rivers, but through dense forests on the watersheds).

Near Kozelsk, where ice drift on Zhizdra could already begin and snow melting in its floodplain, Batu was stuck for almost 2 months (more precisely, for 7 weeks - 49 days - until May 23-25, maybe later, if we count from April 3, and according to Rashid ad-Din - generally for 8 weeks). Why the Mongols needed to besiege an insignificant, even by medieval Russian standards, town, which does not have any strategic importance, is not entirely clear. For example, the neighboring towns of Krom, Spat, Mtsensk, Domagoshch, Devyagorsk, Dedoslavl, Kursk were not even touched by the nomads.

Historians still argue on this topic, no sane argumentation is given. The funniest version was suggested by the folk-historian of the "Eurasian persuasion" L.N. Gumilev, who suggested that the Mongols took revenge on the grandson of the Chernigov prince Mstislav, who ruled in Kozelsk, for the murder of ambassadors on the Kalka River in 1223. It's funny that the Smolensk prince Mstislav Stary was also involved in the murder of the ambassadors. But the Mongols did not touch Smolensk ...

Logically, Batu had to hastily leave for the steppe, since the spring thaw and lack of fodder threatened him with a complete loss of at least "transport" - that is, horses.

The question of what the horses and the Mongols themselves ate, besieging Kozelsk for almost two months (using standard stone-throwing machines), none of the historians was puzzled. Finally, it is trite to believe that a town with a population of several hundred, even a couple of thousand people, a huge Mongol army, numbering tens of thousands of soldiers, and supposedly having unique siege technologies and equipment, could not take 7 weeks ...

As a result, near Kozelsk, the Mongols allegedly lost up to 4,000 people, and only the arrival of the troops of the Buri and Kadan in May 1238 from the steppes saved the situation - the town was taken and destroyed. For the sake of humor, it should be said that the former President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, in honor of the merits of the population of Kozelsk to Russia, awarded the settlement the title of "City of Military Glory." The humor was that archaeologists, for almost 15 years of searching, could not find unequivocal evidence of the existence of Kozelsk destroyed by Batu. You can read about the passions on this issue in the scientific and bureaucratic community of Kozelsk. http://www.regnum.ru/news/1249232.html

If we sum up the estimated data in a first and very rough approximation, it turns out that from December 1, 1237 to April 3, 1238 (the beginning of the siege of Kozelsk), the conditional Mongol horse traveled on average from 1700 to 2800 kilometers. In terms of 120 days, this gives an average daily transition in the range from 15 to 23 kilometers. Since the time intervals are known when the Mongols did not move (sieges, etc., and this is about 45 days in total), the scope of their average daily real march spreads from 23 to 38 kilometers per day.

In simple terms, this means more than intense stress on the horses. The question of how many of them survived after such transitions in rather harsh climatic conditions and an obvious lack of food is not even discussed by Russian historians. As well as the question of the actual Mongolian losses.

For example, R.P. Khrapachevsky generally believes that for the entire time of the Western campaign of the Mongols in 1235-1242, their losses amounted to only about 15% of their original number, while the historian V.B. Koscheev counted up to 50 thousand sanitary losses only during the campaign against North-Eastern Russia. However, all these losses - both in people and in horses, the brilliant Mongols promptly made up for at the expense of ... the conquered peoples themselves. Therefore, already in the summer of 1238, the armies of Batu continued the war in the steppes against the Kipchaks, and in 1241 Europe was invaded by whatever army, so Thomas of Splitsky reports that it had a huge number of ... Russians, Kipchaks, Bulgars, Mordovians, etc. NS. peoples. How many "Mongols" themselves were among them is not really clear.

http://masterok.livejournal.com/78087.html

Most history textbooks say that in the XIII-XV centuries Russia suffered from the Mongol-Tatar yoke. However, in recent years, more and more voices have been heard of those who doubt that the invasion took place at all? Have huge hordes of nomads really flooded the peaceful principalities, enslaving their inhabitants? Let's analyze the historical facts, many of which can be shocking.

Igo was invented by the Poles

The term "Mongol-Tatar yoke" itself was coined by Polish authors. Chronicler and diplomat Jan Dlugosz in 1479 called the time of the existence of the Golden Horde. It was followed in 1517 by the historian Matthew Mekhovsky, who worked at the University of Krakow. This interpretation of the relationship between Russia and the Mongol conquerors was quickly picked up in Western Europe, and from there it was borrowed by Russian historians.

Moreover, there were practically no Tatars in the Horde troops themselves. It's just that Europe knew the name of this Asian people well, and therefore it spread to the Mongols. Meanwhile, Genghis Khan tried to exterminate the entire Tatar tribe, defeating their army in 1202.

The first census of the population of Russia

The first population census in the history of Russia was conducted by representatives of the Horde. They had to collect accurate information about the inhabitants of each principality, about their class affiliation. The main reason such an interest in statistics on the part of the Mongols was the need to calculate the amount of taxes imposed on subjects.

In 1246, the census took place in Kiev and Chernigov, the Ryazan principality was subjected to statistical analysis in 1257, the Novgorodians were counted two years later, and the population of the Smolensk region - in 1275.

Moreover, the inhabitants of Russia raised popular uprisings and drove out from their land the so-called "besermen" who were collecting tribute for the khans of Mongolia. But the governors of the rulers of the Golden Horde, called Baskaks, lived and worked for a long time in the Russian principalities, sending the collected taxes to Saray-Batu, and later to Saray-Berk.

Joint hikes

The princely squads and Horde warriors often made joint military campaigns, both against other Russians and against the inhabitants of Eastern Europe. So, in the period 1258-1287, the troops of the Mongols and Galician princes regularly attacked Poland, Hungary and Lithuania. And in 1277, the Russians took part in the Mongol military campaign in the North Caucasus, helping their allies to conquer Alania.

In 1333, Muscovites stormed Novgorod, and the next year the Bryansk squad went to Smolensk. Each time the Horde troops took part in these internecine battles. In addition, they regularly helped the great princes of Tver, who were considered the main rulers of Russia at that time, to pacify the recalcitrant neighboring lands.

The bulk of the horde was made up of the Russians

The Arab traveler Ibn Battuta, who visited the city of Saray-Berke in 1334, wrote in his essay "A Gift to the Contemplators of the Wonders of Cities and Wonders of Wanderings" that there are many Russians in the capital of the Golden Horde. Moreover, they constitute the bulk of the inhabitants: both working and armed.

This fact was also mentioned by the White émigré author Andrei Gordeev in the book "History of the Cossacks", which was published in France in the late 1920s. According to the researcher, most of the Horde troops were the so-called Brodniks - ethnic Slavs who inhabited the Azov region and the Don steppes. These predecessors of the Cossacks did not want to obey the princes, so they moved south for the sake of a free life. The name of this ethnosocial group probably comes from the Russian word "wander" (to wander).

As is known from the chronicle sources, in the battle on Kalka in 1223, the rovers fought on the side of the Mongol troops, led by the voivode Ploskynya. Perhaps his knowledge of the tactics and strategy of the princely squads was of great importance for the victory over the combined Russian-Polovtsian forces.

In addition, it was Ploskynya who tricked the ruler of Kiev, Mstislav Romanovich, together with two Turov-Pinsk princes, and handed them over to the Mongols for execution.

However, most historians believe that the Mongols forced the Russians to serve in their army, i.e. the invaders forcibly armed the representatives of the enslaved people. It seems unlikely, though.

Marina Poluboyarinova, a senior researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in her book “Russian people in the Golden Horde” (Moscow, 1978), suggested: “The forced participation of Russian soldiers in the Tatar army probably stopped later. There were only mercenaries who had already voluntarily joined the Tatar troops. "

Caucasian invaders

Yesugei-bagatur, the father of Genghis Khan, was a representative of the Borjigin clan of the Mongolian tribe of Kiyat. According to the descriptions of many eyewitnesses, both he and his legendary son were tall, fair-skinned people with reddish hair.

The Persian scientist Rashid ad-Din in his work "Collection of Chronicles" (early XIV century) wrote that all the descendants of the great conqueror were mostly blond and gray-eyed.

This means that the elite of the Golden Horde belonged to the Caucasians. Probably, representatives of this race prevailed among other invaders.

There were few of them

We are accustomed to believe that in the XIII century Russia was overrun with countless hordes of Mongol-Tatars. Some historians speak of a 500,000-strong army. However, it is not. Indeed, even the population of modern Mongolia barely exceeds 3 million people, and if you take into account the cruel genocide of fellow tribesmen, organized by Genghis Khan on the way to power, the size of his army could not be so impressive.

It is difficult to imagine how to feed the half-million army, moreover, moving on horses. The animals simply would not have enough pasture. But every Mongolian horseman led at least three horses with him. Now imagine a 1.5 million herd. The horses of the warriors riding in the vanguard of the army would eat and trample everything they could. The rest of the horses would have starved to death.

According to the most daring calculations, the army of Genghis Khan and Batu could not exceed 30 thousand horsemen in any way. Whereas the population of Ancient Rus, according to the historian Georgy Vernadsky (1887-1973), before the invasion was about 7.5 million people.

Bloodless executions

People of the ignorant or disrespectful Mongols, like most peoples of that time, were executed by chopping off their heads. However, if the convicted person enjoyed authority, then his spine was broken and left to die slowly.

The Mongols were convinced that blood is the receptacle of the soul. Shedding it means complicating the afterlife path of the deceased to other worlds. Bloodless execution was applied to rulers, political and military leaders, shamans.

Any crime, from desertion from the battlefield to petty theft, could have served as a reason for the death sentence in the Golden Horde.

The bodies of the dead were thrown into the steppe

The method of burial of the Mongol also directly depended on his social status. Rich and influential people found peace in special burials, in which, along with the bodies of the dead, they buried valuables, gold and silver jewelry, and household items. And the poor and ordinary soldiers who died in battle were often simply left in the steppe, where their path of life ended.

In the harsh conditions of a nomadic life, consisting of regular clashes with enemies, it was difficult to arrange funeral rites. The Mongols often had to move on quickly, without delay.

It was believed that the corpse of a worthy person would be quickly eaten by scavengers and vultures. But if the birds and animals have not touched the body for a long time, by folk beliefs this meant that the soul of the deceased was considered a grave sin.