The Mongol conquest of the Rus’ principalities
is dramatic and well-known. However, the end of Mongol rule over what is today the Russian
Federation cannot be reduced to a single event, but a centuries long process of political,
economic, military and even environmental shifts wherein the Golden Horde and its successors
gradually ceded control to the rising power of Moscow. In this video we will see how
this process took place across centuries. And don’t let control over your digital life
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code “kingsandgenerals” at checkout. After Mongol rule was firmly established over the
western steppes and Rus’ principalities by the 1240s, the successors of Batu were unassailable.
While sometimes presented as outside or even independent of the Golden Horde, the Rus’
principalities were the khan's total vassals, providing tax, tribute and
soldiers as the khan required, and each Rus’ prince had to receive confirmation
for his right to rule from the khan’s yarliq. Firmly supported by both the Rus’ princes and the
Orthodox Church, after the 1250s there was minimal resistance to Mongol authority in the Rus’ lands.
Yet the Rus’ were but one of the subjects of the Jochid khan, and not where his attention was most
directed, for they continued to live as nomads. Mongol rule reorganized the society in
the steppes. They brutally enforced a new organization, where all the peoples of the steppe
were divided into uluses, or patrimonial peoples. Grouped into units of 1,000 and further
subdivided, all of these uluses were allotted to the new Mongol elite; the altan urag, the princes
of the line of Chinggis Khan, and the noyad, the military leadership. Each ulus was given
its own grazing grounds and natural resources; transfer between units was forbidden, and they
were forbidden to use another ulus’ resources. The revenues from the uluses, in the form
of the products of their herds, went to the Jochid khans. In this way the Mongol rule over
the steppe was maintained and the Chinggisid elite spread amongst the Turkic population.
It proved a remarkably effective system for maintaining stability and preventing native
rebellion. The Jochid khan in this way could keep track of his manpower and resources of the
khanate, and trade could travel easier without fear of being raided by a Qipchap chief. Another
byproduct was the steady growth in the population of the steppe and the Rus’ principalities.
Under Jochid rule numerous settlements were established; over 100 are known archeological and
from written sources. While many of these must have been initially quite humble, and the capital
of Sarai at its inception perhaps just thousands of felt tents, gers, as the population grew,
nomadic encampments turned into permanent cities, with rectangular districts of suburbs and
craftsmen emanating from central squares. The archeological remains of the largest of these,
Sarai al-Jadid, stretches for 7 kilometers along the Akhtuba River, and at its height in the mid
14th century may have held some 75,000 people. The thirteenth century was a
climatic optimum in the steppe, of warm and wet temperatures. Political stability
allowed an expansion in agricultural production to supply these massive cities. In addition
to the millions of sheep, goats, cattle and horses the nomads supplied cities with, so too
were more lands cultivated. Various kinds of wheat and millet were extensively cultivated in
the Ukrainian steppes, and the Golden Horde was a primary regional exporter. Slaves and horses
were also important exports for the Jochid state; the excellence of the Jochid horses saw
many thousands sold yearly from the Rus’ to India. The Golden Horde was further
enriched by the great overland trade. Wares from China and Egypt are found in the
remains of Horde cities, and industries within these cities developed around supporting and
providing for the merchants who led this caravan trade across the Mongol Khanates. Jochid Khans
encouraged trade through low customs duties, and transplanting Rus’ and Qipchaps to
rivers to permanently man ferry crossings. The Golden Horde’s golden age was reached in the
first half of the fourteenth century, during the thirty year reign of Khan Özbeg. In the final
years of his life the good fortune of the Jochid khanate began to ebb. Environmental data indicates
a steady decrease in precipitation in the steppe beginning in 1280 and dropping precipitously after
1320. In already dry steppe grasslands, this led to less productive pastures and desertification.
For an economy and population that still relied on their great herds of livestock, an upset to
the steppe biome pushed many into destitution, and sought shelter in the Horde’s great cities.
Further woes came as the Caspian Sea rose; the Italian geographer Marino Sanuto wrote in
1320 that it rose by hand’s breadth every year. Low lying farmland and communities
in the Volga Delta were destroyed, driving yet more people to the cities.
The disintegration of the Ilkhanate and Chagatai Khanate in the 1330s unraveled the overland trade
which had helped enrich the Jochid’s cities. The greatest disaster came just after Özbeg’s
death, when the Black Death struck. Overpopulated and undersupplied cities were ravaged;
in Crimea, one source speaks of 85,000 dying of plague there. It was there in 1343 that
Özbeg’s son Jani Beg, while besieging Caffa, infamously is alleged to have thrown plague bodies
into the city, which brought it to Europe. Rounds of plague would strike repeatedly for the
remainder of the Horde’s history. The nomadic population suffered less than the urban, while
the steppe itself could act as a barrier; the plague only came to the Rus’ lands in the 1350s,
from contacts with Europe rather than the Horde. On Jani Beg Khan’s death in 1357, the dynasty’s
luck ran out. In quick succession his sons killed each other and by the start of the 1360s the line
of Batu was extinguished. The door was opened to any claimant descended from Jochi. During the
next twenty years, over 25 men claimed the throne; some are only known from coinage minted in their
name. Some ruled little more than weeks, until pushed out by another contender or power broker;
of these, the most famous was the general Mamai, who from his base in Crimea became the
most powerful individual kingmaker. While the Jochid wasted their energies in two
decades of anarchy, its hold over the border regions weakened. Lithuania seized the far west,
taking Kiev and pushing to the Black Sea coast; the eastern wing of the ulus became independent.
In the Rus’ lands, princes stopped making the treks to the Horde for confirmation. The Rus’
princes grew bolder, and the Prince of Moscow, previously the Khan’s favourite tax-collector,
grew in might, culminating in Prince Dmitri’s victory over Mamai at Kulikovo in 1380,
when Mamai came to chastise Dmitri for his failures to provide tribute. Shortly after,
Toqtamish, a descendant of Jochi’s son Tuqa-Temür, succeeded in overcoming Mamai and the other
khanmakers, and re-established central authority. Angered at the Rus’ princes’ tardiness
with in-person submissions and tribute, Toqtamish took his army into the Rus’
lands, sacking Moscow in 1382 and sending Dmitri Donskoi fleeing. The battle of Kulikovo,
despite its standing in Russian popular memory, did not alter the dynamic between the Rus’ and
the Horde. Yet Dmitri’s policies over his reign solidified Moscow as one of the most preeminent
cities of the Rus’. On his death in 1389 his son was accepted as Grand Prince with little issue,
though the Rus’ were still vassals of the khan. Toqtamish enacted reforms to strengthen his power,
combat inflation and reset the Horde’s diplomacy. To the Mamluks, Ottomans,
Jalayirids and Moghulistan he renewed friendly relations while in the west
made Lithuania and Moldova vassals of the Horde. His vision was a renewal of the preeminence
of the Golden Horde; not only did he seek to revive the overland trade routes, which had
further been undone by fall of the Yuan, but he also presented himself as the heir to Chinggis
Khan. His pretensions put him on a collision course with the master of Central Asia and his
former ally, the great conqueror Aksak Temür; Tamerlane. Toqtamish wanted Khwarezm and the
Caucasus back under Jochid suzerainty; Tamerlane desired both. The two great generals went to war
in 1391 and 1395, and narrowly was Tamerlane the victor. Over 1395 Tamerlane systematically sacked
the major cities of the Horde. The destruction ensured the near total dismantling of the urban
economy and overland trade through the steppe. After Tamerlane’s withdrawal, Toqtamish and his
sons could not overcome the Horde’s new master, Edigü. As he was not a descendant of Chinggis
Khan, Edigü could not become khan, but as beylerbeyi empowered by Tamerlane he controlled
the succession. For the next two decades Edigü reduced the khans to puppets, removing those
who challenged him and had some success in strengthening the Horde, even retaking Khwarezm
after Tamerlane’s death and besieging Moscow in 1408. Some economic recovery is indicated
from the restarting of mints in major cities. To help legitimize himself he also furthered
conversion to Islam of the Horde’s nomadic population, continuing the process begun by
Özbeg. But Edigü’s power was never secure; rival factions put up their own khans, and the
sons of the late Toqtamish continued to fight him. In 1419 Edigü was finally killed by one
who had been declared khan, and with him died the final figure who had the capability of
holding together the Horde’s constituent parts. The 1420s saw another decade of khans who ruled
only briefly, and often at the same time. The situation stabilized slightly over the 1430s
and 40s into three main powers; Abu’l Khayr Khan in the east, Küchük Muhammad in the Volga
steppe, and Sayyid Ahmed west of the Don River. Küchük Muhammad’s nearly twenty year reign
is when scholarship and the Rus’ sources call the state the Great Horde. The Rus’, who spent
most of these years locked in their civil wars, still paid tribute to the Khan of the Great Horde.
Each khan saw himself as the legitimate ruler, and new claimants continued to arise. One Khan, Ulugh
Muhammad, made himself independent at Kazan after being ousted from Sarai; on the Ural River emerged
the Nogai Horde under the descendants of Edigü; when Küchük Muhammad’s son Mahmud was ousted by
his brother, Mahmud’s heirs took over Astrakhan; and in 1442, Crimea and the surrounding steppes
came under the rule of Sayyid Ahmad’s nephew, Hajji Giray, establishing Crimea’s long ruling
Giray Dynasty. Hajji Giray, and his son Mengli Giray, dedicated their lives to fighting the
heirs of Küchük Muhammad, the khans of the ever declining Great Horde. In a twenty year struggle,
Küchük Muhammad’s son Ahmad Khan enjoyed few successes, overrelying on useless Polish allies
and denied tribute by the Russian Grand Princes. Ivan III continued the domination of Moscow over
the other principalities and like his predecessors recognized the overlordship of the Khan, though
maintained diplomacy with the other emerging khans. From the 1440s onwards Rus’ tribute to the
Horde lagged, and in 1471 Ivan ceased it algother. Ahmad Khan frequently sent messengers demanding
its resumption, or for Ivan to come and reaffirm his submission in person. The ever more frustrated
Ahmad Khan, who had aborted a march on Moscow in 1472, ordered another attack in 1480 in
cooperation with his Polish ally Casimir IV. Ivan marched against him, and the armies
faced off across the Ugra River over the summer and into the autumn. Ahmad waited in vain
for Casimir, who never arrived. Arrows were shot, arquebuses were fired; Ivan worried the river
would freeze and allow Ahmad free passage. Ahmad retreated first, downtrodden his ally had
failed to show, and was murdered the next year. So ended the Great Stand on the Ugra River,
a glorified staring contest. Only centuries later did Rus’ chronicles see it as
marking the independence of the Rus’. It did not directly affect either
parties’ standing. Twenty years later, Ivan sent a message to Ahmad’s son and successor,
Shaykh Ahmad Khan, inquiring about resuming their earlier relationship in the midst of a
fierce round of struggle with Lithuania, while tribute, under different names,
would continue to the Crimean Khans. After Ahmad Khan’s death, his sons attempted to
act as co-rulers but were soon at each other’s throats. Shaykh Ahmad emerged the victor, with
futile dreams of reuniting the Horde. His cousin in Astrakhan defied him; Ivan III of Moscow
allied with Mengli Giray of Crimea against him; efforts to bring Lithuania into a military
alliance failed. Rounds of plague and bad seasons brought further misery; harsh winters and poor
grazing killed thousands of livestock every year of the 1490s. Famine weakened his forces,
destroyed his herds and caused thousands to flee to neighbouring khanates. Shaykh Ahmad led his
underfed and weakened army in one last gamble, seeking to push west of the Dnieper
for greener pasture in winter 1501. Trapped by a vicious snowstorm, his demoralized
army suffered for months, and many deserted to Mengli Giray. Already depressed from the
failure of the Lithuanians to arrive, Shaykh Ahmad watched the last of his brothers fall
ill and die. As Mengli Giray summoned the entirety of his forces, the last of Shaykh Ahmad’s will
broke when his own wife abandoned him with much of his family and remaining troops. When Mengli Giray
met Shaykh Ahmad near the Dnieper in June 1502, the Khan of the Great Horde was caught with a
paltry 20,000 men. Chased from the field, his ordu looted, Shaykh Ahmad Khan spent most of the next
twenty years in Lithuania a political prisoner. So, according to traditional
scholarship, did the humiliating career of the final Khan of the Golden Horde end.
Historians like Leslie Collins have demonstrated, though, how Mengli Giray began to style
himself as Great Khan of the Great Horde; a claim recognized in diplomacy by his
Ottoman overlord, the Rus’, the Poles and Lithuanians. It seems to contemporaries,
the Great Horde did not end in 1502; the throne was simply taken by another branch
of the dynasty, as it had been dozens of times before, only now based in Crimea. The power of
the Giray Khans grew considerably, and by 1520s Mengli’s son, Mehmed, raised candidates
onto the thrones of Kazan and Astrakhan. The brief rise was cut short by Mehmed’s death
by Nogais, launching a succession struggle that led to the Ottomans taking greater
control over the Crimean succession. Meanwhile the alliance with Moscow frayed, and the
Princes of Moscow, particularly Ivan IV and his crusade-minded advisers, were now masters of the
Rus’ and were eager to gain access to the Volga trade, taking advantage of the weakness of the
Volga Khanates. In 1552 the first khanate, Kazan, fell to Ivan’s armies; Astrakhan followed in 1554.
The powerful Crimean Khan Devlet I Giray sought to halt Moscow’s expansion, with yearly
raids and in 1571, even succeeded in capturing and burning down Moscow, but this was followed
by a humiliating defeat the next year. The Crimean Khans reluctantly ceded control of
the former Golden Horde to Moscow, which soon stretched deep into Siberia. Over a century
of continuous warfare had left the Russians nothing but depopulated, weakened khanates to
pick off one by one; only to the south did the Crimean Khan’s armies stop Russian expansion.
Not until 1783 was the Khanate finally annexed, thus ending the last vestige of the Golden
Horde, and the Mongol Empire. More videos on the Mongol history on the way, so make sure you
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