When the Tatar Mongol yoke ended. How did the Tatar-Mongol yoke end?

Controversy over the 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 our school history course, the prevailing point of view is still the following:

In the first half of the 13th century, Russia was invaded by the Tatars, who came to Europe from Central Asia, in particular China and Central Asia, which they had already conquered by this time. The dates are precisely known to our Russian historians: 1223 - Battle of Kalka, 1237 - fall of Ryazan, 1238 - defeat of the united forces of the Russian princes on the banks of the City River, 1240 - fall of Kyiv. 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 eventually 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, Rus' for the first time since the invasion of Batu Khan gathered forces and gave battle to the Tatar Horde on the Kulikovo field, in which Dmitry Donskoy defeated the temnik Mamai, but from this defeat all the Tatar-Mongols did not happen at all, this was, so to speak, a won battle in lost war. Although even the traditional version of Russian history says that there were practically no Tatar-Mongols in Mamai’s army, only local nomads from the Don and Genoese mercenaries. By the way, the participation of the Genoese suggests the participation of the Vatican in this issue. Today, in known version the history of Russia began to be added, as if new data, but intended to add credibility and reliability to the already existing version. In particular, there are extensive discussions about the number of nomadic Tatars - Mongols, the specifics of their martial art and weapons.

Let's evaluate the versions that exist today:

I suggest starting with a very interesting fact. Such a nationality as Mongol-Tatars does not exist, and did not exist at all. Mongols And Tatar The only thing in common 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 at the southern tip of the Asian steppe and often raided China and its provinces, as the history of China often confirms to us. While other nomadic Turkic tribes, called from time immemorial in Rus' Bulgars (Volga Bulgaria), settled in the lower reaches of the Volga River. In those days in Europe they were called Tatars, or TatAriev(the strongest of the nomadic tribes, unbending and invincible). And the Tatars, nearest neighbors 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 of them, making up 6 tribes: Tutukulyut Tatars, Alchi Tatars, Chagan Tatars, Queen Tatars, Terat Tatars, Barkuy Tatars. The second parts of the names are apparently the self-names of these tribes. There is not a single word among them that sounds close to Turkic language- they are more consonant with Mongolian names.

Two related peoples - the Tatars and the Mongols - waged a war of mutual destruction for a long time with varying success, until Genghis Khan did not seize power throughout Mongolia. The fate of the Tatars was sealed. Since the Tatars were the killers of Genghis Khan’s father, destroyed many tribes and clans close to him, and constantly supported the tribes opposing him, “then Genghis Khan (Tei-mu-Chin) ordered a general slaughter of the Tatars and not one to be left alive until the limit determined by law (Yasak); so that women and small children should also be killed, and the wombs of pregnant women should be cut open in order to completely destroy them. …”.

That is why such a nationality could not threaten the freedom of Rus'. Moreover, many historians and cartographers of that time, especially Eastern European ones, “sinned” to call all indestructible (from the point of view of Europeans) and invincible peoples TatAriev or simply in Latin TatArie.
This can be easily seen 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 “Mongol-Tatar yoke” existed on the lands inhabited by the ancestors of the modern East Slavic peoples - Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians. Allegedly in the 30s - 40s of the 13th century, the ancient Russian principalities were subjected to a Mongol-Tatar invasion led by 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 the canonical version does not directly confirm the fact of the conquest of the northeastern ancient Russian principalities by the Mongol-Tatar invaders - supposedly these principalities found themselves in vassal dependence on the Golden Horde (the state formation that occupied large territory in the southeast of Eastern Europe and Western Siberia, founded by the Mongol 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 “under the arm” of Batu and his Golden Horde.

However, historical information is known that the personal guard of Khan Batu consisted exclusively of Russian soldiers. A very strange circumstance for the lackey vassals of the great Mongol conquerors, especially for the newly conquered people.

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

Some sources also claim that Tatar mothers in the Golden Horde frightened their naughty children with the name of Alexander Nevsky.

As a result of all these inconsistencies, 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 mid-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 nomadic tribes (later called Tatars), reached the northeastern ancient Russian principalities, they actually entered into quite bloody military clashes with them. But Khan Batu did not achieve a crushing victory; most likely, the matter ended in a kind of “battle draw.” And then Batu proposed an equal military alliance to the Russian princes. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why his guard consisted of Russian knights, and why Tatar mothers frightened their children with the name of Alexander Nevsky.

All these scary stories about the “Tatar-Mongol yoke” were composed much later, when the Moscow kings 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, subordinating them to strict discipline, decided to conquer the whole world. Having defeated China, he sent his army to Rus'. In the winter of 1237, the army of “Mongol-Tatars” invaded the territory of Rus', and subsequently defeating the Russian army on the Kalka River, went 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 didn't they go further? Historians answered that they were afraid of an attack from behind, defeated and plundered, but still strong Rus'. But this is just funny. Will the plundered state run to defend other people's cities and villages? Rather, they will rebuild their borders and wait for the return of the enemy troops in order to fight back fully armed.
But the weirdness doesn't end there. For some unimaginable reason, during the reign of the House of Romanov, dozens of chronicles describing the events of the “time of the Horde” disappear. For example, “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land,” historians believe that this is a document from which everything that would indicate the Ige was carefully removed. They left only fragments telling about some kind of “trouble” that befell Rus'. But there is not a word about the “invasion of the Mongols.”

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

At that time, the “new faith” was already flourishing in Europe, namely Faith in Christ. Catholicism was widespread everywhere, and ruled everything, from the way of life and the system, to political system and legislation. At that time, crusades against infidels were still relevant, but along with military methods, “tactical tricks” were often used, akin to bribing authorities and inducing them to their faith. And after receiving power through the purchased person, the conversion of all his “subordinates” to the faith. It was precisely such a secret crusade that was carried out against Rus' at that time. Through bribery and other promises, church ministers were able to seize power over Kiev and nearby regions. Just relatively recently, by the standards of history, the baptism of Rus' 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 the Vorogs came from overseas, and they brought faith in alien gods. With fire and sword they began to implant in us an alien faith, shower the Russian princes with gold and silver, bribe their will, and lead them astray from the true path. They promised them an idle life, full of wealth and happiness, and remission of any sins for their evil deeds.

And then Ros broke up into different states. The Russian clans retreated to the north to the great Asgard, and named their state after the names of their patron gods, Tarkh Dazhdbog the Great and Tara, his Sister the Light-Wise. (They called her the Great TarTaria). Leaving the foreigners with the princes purchased in the Principality of Kiev and its environs. Volga Bulgaria also did not bow to its enemies, and did not accept their alien faith as its own.
But the Principality of Kiev did not live in peace with TarTaria. They began to conquer the Russian lands with fire and sword and impose their alien faith. And then the military army rose up for a fierce battle. In order to preserve their faith and reclaim their lands. Both old and young then joined the Ratniki in order to restore order to the Russian Lands.”

And so began the war, in which the Russian army, the lands Great Aria (motherArias) defeated the enemy and drove him out of the original Slavic lands. It drove away the alien army, with their fierce faith, from its stately lands.

By the way, the word Horde translated by initial letters ancient Slavic alphabet, means Order. That is Golden Horde, it's not separate state, this is a build. "Political" system of the Golden Order. Under which the Princes reigned locally, planted with the approval of the Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Army, or in one word they called him HAN(our defender).
So it wasn’t like two hundred extra years oppression, but there was a time of peace and prosperity Great Aria or TarTaria. By the way, in modern history There is also confirmation of this, but for some reason no one pays attention to it. But we will definitely pay attention, and very closely:

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 Mongol invasion to Rus' in 1237-1241 and occurred for two decades after it, including in lands that were not devastated. In North-Eastern Rus' 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 courage in battle. (Wikipedia)

Don’t you think it’s strange that the battle with the Swedes is taking place right in the middle of the invasion? Mongol-Tatars"to Rus'? Burning in fires and plundered " Mongols"Rus is attacked by the Swedish army, which safely drowns in the waters of the Neva, and at the same time the Swedish crusaders do not encounter the Mongols even once. And those who win are strong Swedish army Are the Russians losing to the Mongols? In my opinion, this is just nonsense. Two huge armies are fighting on the same territory at the same time and never intersect. But if you turn to the ancient Slavic chronicles, then everything becomes clear.

Since 1237 Rat Great TarTaria began to win back their ancestral lands, and when the war was coming to an end, the losing representatives of the church 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) clashed in battle with the army of the Crusaders, who came to the rescue of their minions. Having won the Battle of the Neva, Alexander received the title of Prince of the Neva and remained to rule Novgorod, and the Horde Army went further to drive the adversary out of 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 went north again. Having installed 300 year period of peace.

Again, confirmation of this is the so-called end of Yig « Battle of Kulikovo"before which 2 knights took part in the match Peresvet And Chelubey. Two Russian knights, Andrei Peresvet (superior light) and Chelubey (beating the 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, restored with the money of the same “Churchmen” who nevertheless penetrated Rus' from the dark, albeit more than 150 years later. It will be later, when all of Rus' is plunged 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 take on the form we know.

By the way, this is not the first time that the Slavic army defends its lands and expels infidels from its 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 that crossed half the world and redrew the world map was so easily broken by an 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. These are precisely our territories that originally belonged to the Slavs, and where to this day the remains of civilization are found EtRusskov.

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

So how did it happen that even now we don’t know our history? It's very simple. The Europeans, trembling with fear and horror, never ceased to be afraid of the Rusichs, even when their plans were crowned with success and they enslaved the Slavic peoples, they were still afraid that one day Rus' would rise up and shine again with its former strength.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Peter the Great founded the Russian Academy of Sciences. Over the 120 years of its existence, there were 33 academic historians in the historical department of the Academy. Of these, only three were Russians (including M.V. Lomonosov), the rest were Germans. It turns out that the history of Ancient Rus' was written by the Germans, and many of them did not know not only the way 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 Rus', 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 Rus' 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 Rus' published by Miller are 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 of the reader.

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

One of the main moments in the history of ancient Rus' is this
called Tatar-Mongol conquest Horde. Traditionally
it is believed that the Horde came from the East (China? Mongolia?),
captured many countries, conquered Rus', swept to the West and
even reached Egypt.

But if Rus' had been conquered in the 13th century with any
was on the sides - or from the east, as modern
historians, or from the West, as Morozov believed, then they should
remain information about the clashes between the conquerors and
Cossacks who lived both on the western borders of Rus' and in the lower reaches
Don and Volga. That is, exactly where they were supposed to pass
conquerors.

Of course, in school courses Russian history strengthens us
they convince 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
Don. However, it is known, although this is usually not mentioned in textbooks,
- that, for example, the Don Cossack state existed STILL IN
XVI century, had its own laws and history.

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

Thus,<>, - no matter where she came from, -
moving along the natural path of colonization and conquest,
would inevitably have to come into conflict with the Cossacks
regions.
This is not noted.

What's the matter?

A natural hypothesis arises:
NO FOREIGN
THERE WAS NO CONQUEST OF Rus'. THE HORDE DIDN'T FIGHT WITH THE COSSACKS BECAUSE
THE COSSACKS WERE AN COMPONENT PART OF THE HORDE. This hypothesis was
not formulated by us. It is substantiated very convincingly,
for example, A. A. Gordeev in his<>.

BUT WE ARE SAYING SOMETHING MORE.

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

According to our hypothesis, modern terms ARMY and WARRIOR,
- Church Slavonic in origin, - were not Old Russian
terms. They came into constant use in Rus' only with
XVII century. And the old Russian terminology was: Horde,
Cossack, khan

Then the terminology changed. By the way, back in the 19th century
Russian folk proverbs 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 on
Kuban - Hanskaya village. Let us remember that Karakorum is considered
THE CAPITAL OF GENGIZ KHAN. At the same time, as is well known, in those
places where archaeologists are still persistently searching for Karakorum, there is no
For some reason there is no Karakorum.

In desperation, they hypothesized that<>. This monastery, which existed back in the 19th century, was surrounded
an earthen rampart only about one English mile long. Historians
believe that the famous capital Karakorum was located entirely on
territory subsequently occupied by this monastery.

According to our hypothesis, the Horde is not a foreign entity,
captured Rus' from the outside, but there is simply an Eastern Russian regular
army, which was an integral part of the ancient Russian
state.
Our hypothesis is this.

1) <>IT WAS JUST A WAR PERIOD
MANAGEMENT IN THE RUSSIAN STATE. NO ALIENS Rus'
CONQUERED.

2) THE SUPREME RULER WAS THE COMMANDER-KHAN = TSAR, AND B
IN THE CITIES WERE SITTING CIVIL GOVERNORS - PRINCE WHO WERE DUTY
WERE COLLECTING TRIBUTE IN FAVOR OF THIS RUSSIAN ARMY, FOR ITS
CONTENT.

3) THUS, THE ANCIENT RUSSIAN STATE IS REPRESENTED
A UNITED EMPIRE, IN WHICH THERE WAS A STANDING ARMY CONSISTED OF
PROFESSIONAL MILITARY (HORDE) AND CIVILIAN UNITS THAT DID NOT HAVE
ITS REGULAR TROOPS. SINCE SUCH TROOPS WERE ALREADY PART OF THE
COMPOSITION OF THE HORDE.

4) THIS RUSSIAN-HORDE EMPIRE EXISTED SINCE THE XIV CENTURY
UNTIL THE BEGINNING OF THE 17TH CENTURY. HER STORY ENDED WITH A FAMOUS GREAT
THE TROUBLES IN Rus' AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 17TH CENTURY. AS A RESULT OF THE CIVIL WAR
RUSSIAN HORDA KINGS, THE LAST OF WHICH WAS BORIS
<>, — WERE PHYSICALLY EXTERMINED. AND THE FORMER RUSSIAN
THE ARMY-HORDE ACTUALLY SUFFERED DEFEAT IN THE FIGHT WITH<>. AS A RESULT, POWER CAME TO Rus' ON FUNDAMENTAL
NEW PRO-WESTERN ROMANOV DYNASTY. SHE SEIZED POWER AND
IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCH (FILARET).

5) A NEW DYNASTY WAS NEEDED<>,
IDEOLOGICALLY JUSTIFYING ITS POWER. THIS NEW POWER FROM THE POINT
THE VIEW OF THE PREVIOUS RUSSIAN-HORDA HISTORY WAS ILLEGAL. THAT'S WHY
ROMANOV NEEDED TO RADICALLY CHANGE THE COVERAGE OF THE PREVIOUS
RUSSIAN HISTORY. WE NEED TO GIVE THEM THEM THEIR DESTINATION - IT WAS DONE
COMPETENTLY. WITHOUT CHANGING MOST OF THE ESSENTIAL FACTS, THEY COULD BEFORE
UNRECOGNITION WILL DISTORT ENTIRE RUSSIAN HISTORY. SO, PREVIOUS
HISTORY OF Rus'-HORDE WITH ITS CLASS OF FARMERS AND MILITARY
THE CLASS - THE HORDE, WAS DECLARED BY THEM AN ERA<>. AT THE SAME TIME, THEIR OWN RUSSIAN HORDE-ARMY
TURNED, UNDER THE PENS OF ROMANOV HISTORIANS, INTO MYTHICAL
ALIENS FROM A DISTANT UNKNOWN COUNTRY.

Notorious<>, familiar to us from Romanovsky
history, was simply a GOVERNMENT TAX inside
Rus' for maintenance Cossack army- Hordes. Famous<>, - every tenth person taken into the Horde is simply
state MILITARY RECRUITMENT. It’s like conscription into the army, but only
from childhood - and for life.

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

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

1. Genghis Khan

Previously, in Rus', 2 people were responsible for governing the state: Prince And Khan. The prince was responsible for governing the state in peacetime. The khan or “war prince” took the reins of control during war; in peacetime, the responsibility for forming a horde (army) and maintaining it in combat readiness rested on his shoulders.

Genghis Khan is not a name, but a title of “military prince,” which, in the modern world, is close to the position 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 he who is usually discussed when they talk about Genghis Khan.

In 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 completely fits the description Slavic appearance(L.N. Gumilyov - “Ancient Rus' and the Great Steppe.”).

In modern “Mongolia” there is not a single folk epic that would say that this country once in ancient times conquered almost all of Eurasia, just as there is nothing about the great conqueror Genghis 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” had created the Great Empire in his time, which they were very surprised and happy about. . The word "Mughal" has Greek origin, and means "Great". The Greeks used this word to call our ancestors – the Slavs. It has nothing to do with the name of any people (N.V. Levashov “Visible and Invisible Genocide”).

3. Composition of the “Tatar-Mongol” army

70-80% of the army of the “Tatar-Mongols” were Russians, the remaining 20-30% were made up of other small peoples of Rus', in fact, the same as now. This fact is clearly confirmed by a fragment of the icon of Sergius of Radonezh “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?

Note the drawing of the tomb of Henry II the Pious, who was killed on the Legnica field. The inscription is as follows: “The figure of a Tatar under the feet of Henry II, Duke of Silesia, Cracow and Poland, placed on the grave in Breslau of this prince, killed in the battle with the Tatars at Liegnitz on April 9, 1241.” As we 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, Khanbalyk” (it is believed that Khanbalyk is supposedly Beijing). What is “Mongolian” and what is “Chinese” here? Once again, as in the case of the tomb of Henry II, before us are people of a clearly Slavic appearance. Russian caftans, Streltsy caps, the same thick beards, the same characteristic blades of sabers called “Yelman”. The roof on the left is an almost exact copy of the roofs of old Russian towers... (A. Bushkov, “Russia that never existed”).

5. Genetic examination

According to the latest data obtained as a result of genetic research, it turned out that Tatars and Russians have very close genetics. Whereas the differences between 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 - it’s like two different worlds...” (oagb.ru).

6. Documents during the period of the Tatar-Mongol yoke

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

7. Lack of objective evidence confirming 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 there are many fakes designed to convince us of the existence of a fiction 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 announced as “an excerpt from a poetic work that has not reached us intact... About the Tatar-Mongol invasion”:

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

There is not even a hint of the “Tatar-Mongol yoke” in this text. But this “ancient” document contains the following line: “You are filled with everything, Russian land, O Orthodox Christian 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 certain conquerors.”

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

The result was summed up by Izmailov:

“The historical period, which is commonly 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 for their reign from them, but this is ordinary feudal rent. At the same time, the Church flourished in those centuries, and beautiful white stone churches were built everywhere. What 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.”

Historian Lev Gumilyov, from the book “From Rus' to Russia”, 2008:
“Thus, for the tax that Alexander Nevsky undertook to pay to Sarai, Rus' received a reliable, strong army that defended not only Novgorod and Pskov. Moreover, the Russian principalities that accepted an alliance with the Horde completely retained their ideological independence and political independence. This alone shows that Rus' was not
a province of the Mongol ulus, but a country allied with the Great Khan, which paid some tax for the maintenance of the army, which it itself needed.”

When historians analyze the reasons for the success of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, among the most important and significant reasons they name the presence of a powerful khan in power. Often the khan became the personification of strength and military might, and therefore he was feared by both Russian princes and representatives of the yoke itself. Which khans left their mark on history and were considered the most powerful rulers of their people.

The most powerful khans of the Mongol yoke

During the entire existence of the Mongol Empire and the Golden Horde, many khans changed on the throne. Rulers changed especially often during the Great Zamyatna, when the crisis forced brother to go against brother. Various internecine wars and regular military campaigns have confused the family tree of the Mongol khans, but the names of the most powerful rulers are still known. So, which khans of the Mongol Empire were considered the most powerful?

• Genghis Khan because of the mass of successful campaigns and the unification of lands into one state.
• Batu, who managed to completely subjugate Ancient Rus' and form the Golden Horde.
• Khan Uzbek, under whom the Golden Horde achieved its greatest power.
• Mamai, who managed to unite the troops during the great turmoil.
• Khan Tokhtamysh, who made successful campaigns against Moscow and returned Ancient Rus' to the captive territories.

Each ruler deserves special attention, because his contribution to the history of the development of the Tatar-Mongol yoke is enormous. However, it is much more interesting to talk about all the rulers of the yoke, trying to restore the family tree of the khans.

Tatar-Mongol khans and their role in the history of the yoke

As often happens, a great state falls apart due to a dynastic crisis. Several decades after the liberation of Ancient Rus' from the hegemony of the Mongol yoke, the Russian rulers also had to endure their own dynastic crisis, but that is a completely different story.

Already at the age of 12 the future Grand Duke married, at the age of 16 he began to replace his father when he was absent, and at 22 he became the Grand Duke of Moscow.

Ivan III had a secretive and at the same time strong character (later these character traits manifested themselves in his grandson).

Under Prince Ivan, the issue of coins began with the image of him and his son Ivan the Young and the signature “Gospodar” All Rus'" As a stern and demanding prince, Ivan III received the nickname Ivan the Terrible, but a little later this phrase began to be understood as a different ruler Rus' .

Ivan continued the policy of his ancestors - collecting Russian lands and centralizing power. In the 1460s, Moscow's relations with Veliky Novgorod became strained, whose residents and princes continued to look west, towards Poland and Lithuania. After the world failed to establish relations with the Novgorodians twice, the conflict reached a new level. Novgorod has secured support Polish king and Prince Casimir of Lithuania, and Ivan stopped sending embassies. On July 14, 1471, Ivan III, at the head of an army of 15-20 thousand, defeated the almost 40 thousand army of Novgorod; Casimir did not come to the rescue.

Novgorod lost most of its autonomy and submitted to Moscow. A little later, in 1477, the Novgorodians organized a new rebellion, which was also suppressed, and on January 13, 1478, Novgorod completely lost its autonomy and became part of Moscow State.

All unfavorable princes and boyars Novgorod Principality Ivan settled throughout Rus', and the city itself was populated by Muscovites. In this way he protected himself from further possible revolts.

“Carrot and stick” methods Ivan Vasilievich gathered under his rule Yaroslavl, Tver, Ryazan, Rostov principality, as well as Vyatka lands.

The end of the Mongol yoke.

While Akhmat was waiting for Kazimir’s help, Ivan Vasilyevich sent sabotage squad under the command of the Zvenigorod prince Vasily Nozdrovaty, who went down the Oka River, then along the Volga and began to destroy Akhmat’s possessions in the rear. Ivan III himself moved away from the river, trying to lure the enemy into a trap, as in his time Dmitry Donskoy lured the Mongols into the Battle of the Vozha River. Akhmat did not fall for the trick (either he remembered Donskoy’s success, or he was distracted by sabotage behind him, in the unprotected rear) and retreated from Russian lands. On January 6, 1481, immediately upon returning to the headquarters of the Great Horde, Akhmat was killed by the Tyumen Khan. Civil strife began among his sons ( Akhmatova's children), the result was the collapse of the Great Horde, as well as the Golden Horde (which formally still existed before that). The remaining khanates became completely sovereign. Thus, standing on the Ugra became the official end Tatar-Mongolian yoke, and the Golden Horde, unlike Rus', could not survive the stage of fragmentation - several states that were not connected with each other later emerged from it. Here comes the power Russian state started to grow.

Meanwhile, the peace of Moscow was also threatened by Poland and Lithuania. Even before standing on the Ugra, Ivan III entered into an alliance with Crimean Khan Mengli-Gerey, enemy of Akhmat. The same alliance helped Ivan in containing pressure from Lithuania and Poland.

In the 80s of the 15th century, the Crimean Khan defeated the Polish-Lithuanian troops and destroyed their possessions in the territory of what is now central, southern and western Ukraine. Ivan III entered the battle for the western and northwestern lands controlled by Lithuania.

In 1492, Casimir died, and Ivan Vasilyevich took the strategically important fortress of Vyazma, as well as many settlements in the territory of what is now Smolensk, Oryol and Kaluga regions.

In 1501, Ivan Vasilyevich obliged the Livonian Order to pay tribute for Yuryev - from that moment Russian-Livonian War temporarily stopped. The continuation was already Ivan IV Grozny.

Until the end of his life, Ivan maintained friendly relations with the Kazan and Crimean khanates, but later relations began to deteriorate. Historically, this is associated with the disappearance of the main enemy - the Great Horde.

In 1497, the Grand Duke developed his collection of civil laws called Code of Law, and also organized Boyar Duma.

The Code of Law almost officially established such a concept as “ serfdom", although the peasants still retained some rights, for example, the right to transfer from one owner to another in St. George's day. Nevertheless, the Code of Law became a prerequisite for the transition to an absolute monarchy.

On October 27, 1505, Ivan III Vasilyevich died, judging by the description of the chronicles, from several attacks of stroke.

Under the Grand Duke, the Assumption Cathedral was built in Moscow, literature (in the form of chronicles) and architecture flourished. But the most important achievement of that era was liberation of Rus' from Mongol yoke.

The Russian principalities before the Tatar-Mongol yoke and the Moscow state after gaining legal independence are, as they say, two big differences. It will not be an exaggeration that one Russian state, whose direct heir is modern Russia, formed during the period of the yoke and under its influence. The overthrow of the Tatar-Mongol yoke was not only the cherished goal of Russian identity during the second half of the 13th-15th centuries. It also turned out to be a means of creating a state, national mentality and cultural identity.

Approaching the Battle of Kulikovo...

Most people’s idea of ​​the process of overthrowing the Tatar-Mongol yoke comes down to a very simplified scheme, according to which, before the Battle of Kulikovo, Rus' was enslaved by the Horde and did not even think about resistance, and after the Battle of Kulikovo, the yoke lasted another hundred years simply due to a misunderstanding. In reality, everything was more complicated.

The fact that the Russian principalities, although they generally recognized their vassal position in relation to the Golden Horde, did not stop trying to resist, is evidenced by a simple historical fact. Since the establishment of the yoke and throughout its entire length, about 60 major punitive campaigns, invasions and large-scale raids of Horde troops on Rus' are known from Russian chronicles. Obviously, in the case of completely conquered lands, such efforts are not required - this means that Rus' resisted, resisted actively, for centuries.

The Horde troops suffered their first significant military defeat on the territory controlled by Rus' about a hundred years before the Battle of Kulikovo. True, this battle took place during the internecine war for the grand-ducal throne of the Vladimir principality, which flared up between the sons of Alexander Nevsky . In 1285, Andrei Alexandrovich attracted the Horde prince Eltorai to his side and with his army went against his brother Dmitry Alexandrovich, who reigned in Vladimir. As a result, Dmitry Alexandrovich won a convincing victory over the Tatar-Mongol punitive corps.

Further, individual victories in military clashes with the Horde occurred, although not too often, but with stable consistency. Distinguished by his peacefulness and penchant for political decisions all questions Moscow Prince Daniil Alexandrovich, youngest son Nevsky, in 1301 he defeated the Mongol detachment near Pereyaslavl-Ryazan. In 1317, Mikhail Tverskoy defeated the army of Kavgady, which was attracted to his side by Yuri of Moscow.

The closer to the Battle of Kulikovo, the more confident the Russian principalities became, and unrest and unrest were observed in the Golden Horde, which could not but affect the balance of military forces.

In 1365, the Ryazan forces defeated the Horde detachment near the Shishevsky forest; in 1367, the Suzdal army won a victory at Pyana. Finally, in 1378, Dmitry of Moscow, the future Donskoy, won his dress rehearsal in the confrontation with the Horde: on the Vozha River he defeated an army under the command of Murza Begich, a close associate of Mamai.

Overthrow of the Tatar-Mongol yoke: Great Kulikovskaya battle

It is unnecessary to talk once again about the significance of the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, as well as to retell the details of its immediate course. From childhood, everyone knows the dramatic details of how Mamai’s army pressed on the center of the Russian army and how, at the most decisive moment, the Ambush Regiment hit the Horde and their allies in the rear, turning the fate of the battle. It is also well known that for Russian self-awareness it became an event of great importance when, for the first time after the establishment of the yoke, the Russian army was able to give a large-scale battle to the invader and win. But it is worth remembering that the victory in the Battle of Kulikovo, with all its enormous moral significance, did not lead to the overthrow of the yoke.

Dmitry Donskoy managed to take advantage of the complex political situation in the Golden Horde and embody their leadership abilities and the fighting spirit of their own army. However, just two years later, Moscow was taken by the forces of the legitimate khan of the Horde, Tokhtamysh (Temnik Mamai was a temporary usurper) and almost completely destroyed.

The young Principality of Moscow was not yet ready to fight on equal terms with the weakened but still powerful Horde. Tokhtamysh imposed an increased tribute on the principality (the previous tribute was retained in the same amount, but the population actually decreased by half; in addition, an emergency tax was introduced). Dmitry Donskoy undertook to send his eldest son Vasily to the Horde as a hostage. But the Horde had already lost political power over Moscow - Prince Dmitry Ivanovich managed to transfer power by inheritance independently, without any label from the khan. In addition, a few years later Tokhtamysh was defeated by another eastern conqueror, Timur, and for some period Rus' stopped paying tribute.

In the 15th century, tribute was generally paid with serious fluctuations, taking advantage of increasingly constant periods of internal instability in the Horde. In the 1430s - 1450s, the Horde rulers undertook several ruinous campaigns against Rus' - but in essence these were just predatory raids, and not attempts to restore political supremacy.

In fact, the yoke did not end in 1480...

In school exam papers on the history of Russia, the correct answer to the question “When and with what event did the period of the Tatar-Mongol yoke in Rus' end?” will be considered “In 1480, Standing on the Ugra River.” In fact, this is the correct answer - but from a formal point of view, it does not correspond to historical reality.

In fact, in 1476, the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III refused to pay tribute to the Khan of the Great Horde, Akhmat. Until 1480, Akhmat dealt with his other enemy, the Crimean Khanate, after which he decided to punish the rebellious Russian ruler. The two armies met at the Ugra River in September 1380. The Horde's attempt to cross the river was stopped by Russian troops. After this, the Standing itself began, lasting until the beginning of November. As a result, Ivan III was able to force Akhmat to retreat without unnecessary loss of life. Firstly, there were strong reinforcements on the way to the Russians. Secondly, Akhmat’s cavalry began to experience a shortage of fodder, and illnesses began in the army itself. Thirdly, the Russians sent a sabotage detachment to the rear of Akhmat, which was supposed to plunder the defenseless capital of the Horde.

As a result, the khan ordered a retreat - and this ended the Tatar-Mongol yoke of almost 250 years. However, from a formal diplomatic position, Ivan III and the Moscow state remained in vassal dependence on the Great Horde for another 38 years. In 1481, Khan Akhmat was killed, and another wave of struggle for power arose in the Horde. In the difficult conditions of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Ivan III was not sure that the Horde would not be able to mobilize its forces again and organize a new large-scale campaign against Rus'. Therefore, being effectively a sovereign ruler and not paying more Horde tribute, for diplomatic reasons in 1502 he officially recognized himself as a vassal of the Great Horde. But soon the Horde was finally defeated by its eastern enemies, so that in 1518 all vassal relations, even at the formal level, between the Moscow State and the Horde were terminated.

Alexander Babitsky

How historiographies are written.

Unfortunately, there is no analytical review on the history of historiographies yet. What a pity! Then we would understand how the historiography for the state’s toast differs from the historiography for its repose. If we want to glorify the beginning of the state, we will write that it was founded by hardworking and independent people who enjoy the well-deserved respect of their neighbors.
If we want to sing a requiem for him, then we will say that it was founded by wild people living in dense forests and impassable swamps, and the state was created by representatives of a different ethnic group, who came here precisely because of their inability local residents to establish a unique and independent state. Then, if we sing a eulogy, we will say that the name of this ancient formation was clear to everyone, and has not changed to this day. On the contrary, if we bury our state, we will say that it was called unknown what, and then changed its name. Finally, in favor of the state in the first phase of its development will be a statement of its strength. And vice versa, if we want to show that the state was so-so, we must show not only that it was weak, but also that it was able to be conquered by an unknown in ancient times, and very peace-loving and small people. It is this last statement that I would like to dwell on.

– This is the name of a chapter from Kungurov’s book (KUN). He writes: “The official version of ancient Russian history, composed by Germans discharged from abroad to St. Petersburg, is built according to the following scheme: a single Russian state, created by the alien Varangians, crystallizes around Kyiv and the middle Dnieper region and bears the name of Kievan Rus, then from somewhere with Evil wild nomads come from the East, destroy the Russian state and establish an occupation regime called “yoke”. After two and a half centuries, the Moscow princes throw off the yoke, gather Russian lands under their rule and create a powerful Moscow kingdom, which is the legal successor of Kievan Rus and frees the Russians from the “yoke”; for several centuries in Eastern Europe there has been an ethnically Russian Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but politically it is dependent on the Poles, and therefore cannot be considered a Russian state; therefore, the wars between Lithuania and Muscovy should be considered not as civil strife between Russian princes, but as a struggle between Moscow and Poland for the reunification of Russian lands.

Despite the fact that this version of history is still recognized as official, only “professional” scientists can consider it reliable. A person who is accustomed to thinking with his head will very much doubt this, if only because the story of the Mongol invasion has been completely sucked out of thin air. Until the 19th century, Russians had no idea that they had allegedly once been conquered by Transbaikal savages. Indeed, the version that a highly developed state was completely destroyed by some wild steppe inhabitants, unable to create an army in accordance with the technical and cultural achievements of that time, looks delusional. Moreover, such a people as the Mongols were not known to science. True, historians were not at a loss and declared that the Mongols were a small nomadic people Khalkha, living in Central Asia” (KUN: 162).

Indeed, all the great conquerors are known by comparison. When Spain had a powerful fleet, a great armada, Spain captured a number of lands in North and South America, and today there are two dozen Latin American states. Britain, as the mistress of the seas, also has or had a lot of colonies. But today we do not know a single colony of Mongolia or a state dependent on it. Moreover, except for the Buryats or Kalmyks, who are the same Mongols, not a single ethnic group in Russia speaks Mongolian.

“The Khalkhas themselves learned that they were the heirs of the great Genghis Khan only in the 19th century, but they did not object - everyone wants to have great, albeit mythical, ancestors. And in order to explain the disappearance of the Mongols after their successful conquest of half the world, a completely artificial term “Mongol-Tatars” is introduced into use, which means other nomadic peoples allegedly conquered by the Mongols, who joined the conquerors and formed a certain community among them. In China, foreign conquerors turn into Manchus, in India - into Mughals, and in both cases they form ruling dynasties. In the future, however, we do not observe any Tatar nomads, but this is because, as the same historians explain, the Mongol-Tatars settled on the lands they conquered, and partially went back to the steppe and disappeared there completely without a trace” (KUN: 162- 163).

Wikipedia about the yoke.

Here is how Wikipedia interprets the Tatar-Mongol yoke: “The Mongol-Tatar yoke is a system of political and tributary dependence of the Russian principalities on the Mongol-Tatar khans (before the early 60s of the 13th century, the Mongol khans, after the khans of the Golden Horde) in the 13th-15th century centuries. The establishment of the yoke became possible as a result of the Mongol invasion of Rus' in 1237-1241 and occurred for two decades after it, including in unravaged lands. In North-Eastern Rus' it lasted until 1480. In other Russian lands it was liquidated in the 14th century as they were absorbed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland.

The term “yoke,” meaning the power of the Golden Horde over Russia, does not appear in Russian chronicles. It appeared at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries in Polish historical literature. The first to use it were chronicler Jan Dlugosh (“iugum barbarum”, “iugum servitutis”) in 1479 and professor at the University of Krakow Matvey Miechowski in 1517. Literature: 1. Golden Horde // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes. and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg: 1890-1907.2. Malov N. M., Malyshev A. B., Rakushin A. I. “Religion in the Golden Horde.” The word formation “Mongol-Tatar yoke” was first used in 1817 by H. Kruse, whose book was translated into Russian and published in St. Petersburg in the mid-19th century.”

So, this term was first introduced by the Poles in the 15th-16th centuries, who saw a “yoke” in the Tatar-Mongol relations with other peoples. The reason for this is explained by the second work of 3 authors: “Apparently, the Tatar yoke first began to be used in Polish historical literature of the late 15th - early 16th centuries. At this time on the borders Western Europe The young Moscow state, freed from the vassal dependence of the Golden Horde khans, is pursuing an active foreign policy. In neighboring Poland there is an increased interest in history, foreign policy, the armed forces, national relations, internal structure, traditions and customs of Muscovy. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the first word combination Tatar yoke was used in the Polish Chronicle (1515-1519) by Matvey Miechowski, professor at the University of Krakow, court physician and astrologer of King Sigismund I. The author of various medical and historical works spoke enthusiastically about Ivan III, who threw off the Tatar yoke , considering this his most important merit, and apparently a global event of the era.”

Mention of the yoke by historians.

Poland's attitude towards Russia has always been ambiguous, and its attitude towards its own fate as extremely tragic. So they could completely exaggerate the dependence of some peoples on the Tatar-Mongols. And then 3 authors continue: “Later, the term Tatar yoke is also mentioned in notes on the Moscow War of 1578-1582, compiled by the secretary of state of another king, Stefan Batory, Reinhold Heidenstein. Even Jacques Margeret, a French mercenary and adventurer, an officer in Russian service and a person far from science, knew what was meant by the Tatar yoke. This term was widely used by other Western European historians of the 17th-18th centuries. In particular, the Englishman John Milton and the Frenchman De Thou were familiar with him. Thus, for the first time the term Tatar yoke was probably introduced into circulation by Polish and Western European historians, and not by Russian or Russian ones.”

For now, I will interrupt the quotation to draw attention to the fact that, first of all, foreigners write about the “yoke”, who really liked the scenario of weak Rus', which was captured by the “evil Tatars”. While Russian historians still knew nothing about this

"IN. N. Tatishchev did not use this phrase, perhaps because when writing Russian History he mainly relied on early Russian chronicle terms and expressions, where it is absent. I. N. Boltin already used the term Tatar rule, and M., M., Shcherbatov believed that liberation from the Tatar yoke was a huge achievement of Ivan III. N.M., Karamzin found in the Tatar yoke both negative aspects - the tightening of laws and morals, the slowdown in the development of education and science, and positive aspects - the formation of autocracy, a factor in the unification of Rus'. Another phrase, Tatar-Mongol yoke, also most likely comes from the vocabulary of Western rather than domestic researchers. In 1817, Christopher Kruse published an Atlas on European history, where he first introduced the term Mongol-Tatar yoke into scientific circulation. Although this work was translated into Russian only in 1845, it was already in the 20s of the 19th century. domestic historians began to use this new scientific definition. Since that time, the terms: Mongol-Tatars, Mongol-Tatar yoke, Mongol yoke, Tatar yoke and Horde yoke, have traditionally been widely used in Russian historical science. In our encyclopedic publications, the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Rus' of the 13th-15th centuries is understood as: a system of rule by the Mongol-Tatar feudal lords, using various political, military and economic means, with the goal of regular exploitation of the conquered country. Thus, in European historical literature, the term yoke refers to domination, oppression, slavery, captivity, or the power of foreign conquerors over conquered peoples and states. It is known that the Old Russian principalities were subordinated to the Golden Horde economically and politically, and also paid tribute. The Golden Horde khans actively interfere in the politics of the Russian principalities, which they tried to strictly control. Sometimes, the relationship between the Golden Horde and the Russian principalities is characterized as a symbiosis, or a military alliance directed against the countries of Western Europe and some Asian states, first Muslim, and after the collapse of the Mongol Empire - Mongolian.

However, it should be noted that even if theoretically the so-called symbiosis, or military alliance, could exist for some time, it was never equal, voluntary and stable. In addition, even in the era of the developed and late Middle Ages, short-term interstate unions were usually formalized by contractual relations. Such equal-allied relationships between the fragmented Russian principalities and the Golden Horde could not exist, since the khans of the Ulus of Jochi issued labels for the rule of the Vladimir, Tver, and Moscow princes. Russian princes were obliged, at the request of the khans, to send troops to participate in the military campaigns of the Golden Horde. In addition, using the Russian princes and their army, the Mongols carried out punitive campaigns against other rebellious Russian principalities. The khans summoned the princes to the Horde in order to issue one with a label to reign, and to execute or pardon those who were undesirable. During this period, the Russian lands were actually under the rule or yoke of the Ulus of Jochi. Although sometimes outwardly political interests The Golden Horde khans and the Russian princes, due to various circumstances, could coincide in some ways. The Golden Horde is a chimera state in which the elite are conquerors, and the lower strata are conquered peoples. The Mongolian Golden Horde elite established power over the Cumans, Alans, Circassians, Khazars, Bulgars, Finno-Ugric peoples, and also placed the Russian principalities in strict vassalage. Therefore, it can be assumed that the scientific term yoke is quite acceptable to denote in historical literature the nature of the power of the Golden Horde established not only over the Russian lands.”

Yoke as Christianization of Rus'.

Thus, Russian historians actually repeated the statements of the German Christopher Kruse, while they did not read such a term from any chronicle. It was not only Kungurov who drew attention to the oddities in the interpretation of the Tatar-Mongol yoke. This is what we read in the article (TAT): “Such a nationality as the Mongol-Tatars does not exist, and never existed at all. The only thing the Mongols and Tatars have in common 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 at the southern tip of the Asian steppe and often raided China and its provinces, as the history of China often confirms to us. While other nomadic Turkic tribes, called Bulgars (Volga Bulgaria) from time immemorial in Rus', settled in the lower reaches of the Volga River. In those days in Europe they were called Tatars, or TatAryans (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 of them, making up 6 tribes: Tutukulyut Tatars, Alchi Tatars, Chagan Tatars, Queen Tatars, Terat Tatars, Barkuy Tatars. The second parts of the names are apparently the self-names of these tribes. There is not a single word among them that sounds close to the Turkic language - they are more consonant with Mongolian names. Two related peoples - the Tatars and the Mongols - fought a war of mutual extermination for a long time with varying success, until Genghis Khan seized power throughout Mongolia. The fate of the Tatars was predetermined. Since the Tatars were the murderers of Genghis Khan’s father, exterminated many tribes and clans close to him, and constantly supported the tribes opposing him, “then Genghis Khan (Tey-mu-Chin) ordered a general massacre of the Tatars and not leave even one alive to that extent, which is determined by law (Yasak); so that women and small children should also be killed, and the wombs of pregnant women should be cut open in order to completely destroy them. …” That is why such a nationality could not threaten the freedom of Rus'. Moreover, many historians and cartographers of that time, especially Eastern European ones, “sinned” to call all indestructible (from the point of view of Europeans) and invincible peoples TatAriev or simply in Latin TatArie. This can be easily seen in ancient maps, for example, the Map of Russia 1594 in the Atlas of Gerhard Mercator, or the Maps of Russia and TarTaria by Ortelius. Below you can view these maps. So what can we see from the newfound material? What we see is that this event simply could not have happened, at least in the form in which it is conveyed to us. And before moving on to the narration of the truth, I propose to consider a few more inconsistencies in the “historical” description of these events.

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, subordinating them to strict discipline, decided to conquer the whole world. Having defeated China, he sent his army to Rus'. In the winter of 1237, the army of “Mongol-Tatars” invaded the territory of Rus', and subsequently defeating the Russian army on the Kalka River, went 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 began.
But wait, they were going to conquer the whole world... so why didn't they go further? Historians answered that they were afraid of an attack from behind, defeated and plundered, but still strong Rus'. But this is just funny. Will the plundered state run to defend other people's cities and villages? Rather, they will rebuild their borders and wait for the enemy troops to return in order to fight back fully armed. But the weirdness doesn't end there. For some unimaginable reason, during the reign of the House of Romanov, dozens of chronicles describing the events of the “time of the Horde” disappear. For example, “The Tale of the Destruction of the Russian Land,” historians believe that this is a document from which everything that would indicate the Ige was carefully removed. They left only fragments telling about some kind of “trouble” that befell Rus'. But there is not a word about the “invasion of the Mongols.” There are many more strange things. In the story “about the evil Tatars,” the khan from the Golden Horde orders the execution of a Russian Christian prince... for refusing to worship the “pagan god of the Slavs!” And some chronicles contain amazing phrases, for example: “Well, with God!” - said the khan and, crossing himself, galloped towards the enemy. So, what really happened? At that time, the “new faith” was already flourishing in Europe, namely Faith in Christ. Catholicism was widespread everywhere, and governed everything, from the way of life and the system, to the state system and legislation. At that time, crusades against infidels were still relevant, but along with military methods, “tactical tricks” were often used, akin to bribing authorities and inducing them to their faith. And after receiving power through the purchased person, the conversion of all his “subordinates” to the faith. It was precisely such a secret crusade that was carried out against Rus' at that time. Through bribery and other promises, church ministers were able to seize power over Kiev and nearby regions. Just relatively recently, by the standards of history, the baptism of Rus' took place, but history is silent about the civil war that arose on this basis immediately after the forced baptism.”

So, this author interprets the “Tatar-Mongol yoke” as a civil war imposed by the West, during the real, Western baptism of Rus', which took place in the 13th-14th centuries. This understanding of the baptism of Rus' is very painful for the Russian Orthodox Church for two reasons. The date of the baptism of Rus' is usually considered to be 988, and not 1237. Due to the shift in date, the antiquity of Russian Christianity is reduced by 249 years, which reduces the “millennium of Orthodoxy” by almost a third. On the other hand, the source of Russian Christianity turns out to be not the activities of Russian princes, including Vladimir, but the Western crusades, accompanied by mass protests of the Russian population. This raises the question of the legitimacy of the introduction of Orthodoxy in Rus'. Finally, responsibility for the “yoke” in this case is transferred from the unknown “Tatar-Mongols” to the very real West, to Rome and Constantinople. And official historiography turns out to be not science on this issue, but modern pseudo-scientific mythology. But let’s return to the texts of Alexei Kungurov’s book, especially since he examines in great detail all the inconsistencies with the official version.

Lack of writing and artifacts.

“The Mongols did not have their own alphabet and did not leave a single written source” (KUN: 163). Indeed, this is extremely surprising. Generally speaking, even if a people does not have its own written language, then for state acts it uses the writing of other peoples. Therefore, the complete absence of state acts in such large state how the Mongol Khanate in its heyday evokes not just bewilderment, but doubt that such a state ever existed. “If we demand to present at least some material evidence of the long existence of the Mongol Empire, then archaeologists, scratching their heads and grunting, will show a pair of half-rotten sabers and several women’s earrings. But don’t try to figure out why the remains of sabers are “Mongol-Tatar” and not Cossack, for example. Nobody can explain this to you for sure. At best, you will hear a story that the saber was dug up at the site where, according to an ancient and very reliable chronicle, there was a battle with the Mongols. Where is that chronicle? God knows, it has not survived to this day, but the historian N. saw it with his own eyes, who translated it from Old Russian. Where is this historian N.? Yes, it’s been two hundred years since he died - modern “scientists” will answer you, but they will certainly add that N’s works are considered classic and cannot be doubted, since all subsequent generations of historians wrote their works based on his works. I’m not laughing - this is approximately how things stand in the official historical science of Russian antiquity. Even worse - armchair scientists, creatively developing the legacy of the classics of Russian historiography, wrote in their plump volumes such nonsense about the Mongols, whose arrows, it turns out, pierced the armor of European knights, and battering guns, flamethrowers and even rocket artillery made it possible to take by storm for several days powerful fortresses, that this raises serious doubts about their mental capacity. It seems that they do not see any difference between a bow and a crossbow loaded with a lever” (KUN: 163-164).

But where could the Mongols encounter the armor of European knights and what do Russian sources say about this? “And the Vorogs came from overseas, and they brought faith in alien gods. With fire and sword they began to instill in us an alien faith, shower the Russian princes with gold and silver, bribe their will, and lead them astray from the true path. They promised them an idle life, full of wealth and happiness, and remission of any sins for their evil deeds. And then Ros broke up into different states. The Russian clans retreated to the north to the great Asgard, and named their state after the names of their patron gods, Tarkh Dazhdbog the Great and Tara, his Sister the Light-Wise. (They called her the Great TarTaria). Leaving the foreigners with the princes purchased in the Principality of Kiev and its environs. Volga Bulgaria also did not bow to its enemies, and did not accept their alien faith as its own. But the Principality of Kiev did not live in peace with TarTaria. They began to conquer the Russian lands with fire and sword and impose their alien faith. And then the military army rose up for a fierce battle. In order to preserve their faith and reclaim their lands. Both old and young then joined the Ratniki in order to restore order to the Russian Lands.”

And so the war began, in which the Russian army, the land of the Great Arya (Aryan), defeated the enemy and drove him out of the primordially Slavic lands. It drove away the alien army, with their fierce faith, from its stately lands. By the way, the word Horde, translated according to the initial letters of the ancient 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 the Princes reigned locally, planted with the approval of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Defense, or in one word they called him KHAN (our defender).
This means that there were not more than two hundred years of oppression, but there was a time of peace and prosperity of the Great Aria or TarTaria. By the way, modern history also has confirmation of this, but for some reason no one pays attention to it. But we will definitely pay attention, and very closely...: Doesn’t it seem strange to you that the battle with the Swedes is taking place right in the middle of the “Mongol-Tatars” invasion of Rus'? Rus', blazing in fires and plundered by the “Mongols,” is attacked by the Swedish army, which safely drowns in the waters of the Neva, and at the same time the Swedish crusaders do not encounter the Mongols even once. And the Russians, who defeated the strong Swedish army, lose to the Mongols? In my opinion, this is just nonsense. Two huge armies are fighting on the same territory at the same time and never intersect. But if you turn to the ancient Slavic chronicles, then everything becomes clear.

From 1237, the Army of the Great TarTaria began to recapture their ancestral lands, and when the war was coming to an end, representatives of the church, losing power, requested help, and the Swedish crusaders were sent into battle. Since they failed to take the country by bribery, it means they will take it by force. Just in 1240, the army of the Horde (that is, the army of Prince Alexander Yaroslavovich, one of the princes of the ancient Slavic family) clashed in battle with the army of the Crusaders, who came to the rescue of their minions. Having won the Battle of the Neva, Alexander received the title of Prince of the Neva and remained to rule Novgorod, and the Horde Army went further to drive the adversary out of 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 went north. Establishing a 300-year period of peace” (TAT).

Fantasies of historians about the power of the Mongols.

Commenting on the lines quoted above (KUN:163), Alexey Kungurov adds: “This is what the doctor writes historical sciences Sergei Nefyodov: “The main weapon of the Tatars was the Mongolian bow, “saadak,” - it was thanks to this New Weapon that the Mongols conquered most of the promised world. It was a complex killing machine, glued together from three layers of wood and bone and wrapped with sinew to protect it from moisture; gluing was carried out under pressure, and drying continued for several years - the secret of making these bows was kept secret. This bow was not inferior in power to a musket; an arrow from it pierced any armor 300 meters away, and it was all about the ability to hit the target, because bows did not have a sight and shooting from them required many years of training. Possessing this all-destructive weapon, the Tatars did not like to fight hand-to-hand; they preferred to fire at the enemy with bows, dodging his attacks; this shelling sometimes lasted several days, and the Mongols took out their sabers only when the enemies were wounded and fell from exhaustion. The last, “ninth” attack was carried out by “swordsmen” - warriors armed with curved swords and, together with their horses, covered in armor made of thick buffalo leather. During major battles, this attack was preceded by shelling from “fire catapults” borrowed from the Chinese - these catapults fired bombs filled with gunpowder, which, when exploding, “burned through the armor with sparks” (NEF). – Alexey Kungurov comments on this passage as follows: “The funny thing here is not that Nefyodov is a historian (this brethren has the deepest understanding of natural science), but that he is also a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences. This is how much you have to degrade your mind to flog such nonsense! Yes, if a bow shot at 300 meters and at the same time pierced any armor, then firearms simply did not have a chance to appear. The American M-16 rifle has an effective firing range of 400 meters with a muzzle velocity of 1000 meters per second. Then the bullet quickly loses its damaging ability. In reality, targeted shooting from an M-16 with a mechanical sight is ineffective beyond 100 meters. Only a very experienced shooter can shoot accurately at 300 meters even from a powerful rifle without an optical sight. And the scientist Nefyodov weaves nonsense about the fact that Mongolian arrows not only flew accurately at a third of a kilometer (the maximum distance at which champion archers shoot in competitions is 90 meters), but also pierced any armor. Rave! For example, it will not be possible to pierce good chain mail even at point-blank range with the most powerful bow. To defeat a warrior in chain mail, a special arrow with a needle tip was used, which did not pierce the armor, but, under a successful combination of circumstances, passed through the rings.

In physics at school, I had grades no higher than three, but I know very well from practice that an arrow fired from a bow is imparted with the force that the arm muscles develop when it is pulled. That is, with approximately the same success, you can take an arrow with your hand and try to pierce at least an enamel basin with it. If you don't have an arrow, use any pointed object like half a pair of tailor's scissors, an awl or a knife. How are you doing? Do you trust historians after this? If they write in their dissertations that short and thin Mongols drew bows with a force of 75 kg, then I would award the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences only to those who can repeat this feat in defense. At least there will be fewer parasites with scientific titles. By the way, modern Mongols have no idea about any saadaks - a superweapon of the Middle Ages. Having conquered half the world with them, for some reason they completely forgot how to do it.

It’s even easier with battering machines and catapults: you just have to look at the drawings of these monsters, and it becomes clear that these multi-ton colossuses cannot be moved even a meter, since they will get stuck in the ground even during construction. But even if in those days there were asphalt roads from Transbaikalia to Kyiv and Polotsk, how would the Mongols drag them thousands of kilometers, how would they transport them across large rivers like the Volga or Dnieper? Stone fortresses ceased to be considered impregnable only with the invention of siege artillery, and in previous times well-fortified cities were only taken by starvation” (KUN: 164-165). – I think this criticism is excellent. I will also add that, according to the works of Ya.A. Koestler, there were no reserves of saltpeter in China, so they had nothing to stuff gunpowder bombs with. In addition, gunpowder does not create a temperature of 1556 degrees, at which iron melts in order to “burn through armor with sparks.” And if he could create such a temperature, then the “sparks” would primarily burn through cannons and rifles at the moment of firing. It is also very funny to read that the Tatars shot and shot (the number of arrows in their quiver, apparently, was not limited), and the enemy was exhausted, and the skinny Mongol warriors fired the tenth and hundredth arrow with the same fresh strength as the first, without getting tired at all. Surprisingly, even rifle shooters get tired when shooting while standing, and this condition was unknown to the Mongol archers.

At one time I heard the expression from lawyers: “He lies like an eyewitness.” Now, probably, using Nefyodov’s example, we should suggest the addition: “He lies like a professional historian.”

Mongols metallurgists.

It would seem that we can put an end to this, but Kungurov wants to consider several more aspects. “I don’t know much about metallurgy, but I can still very roughly estimate how many tons of iron are needed to arm at least a 10,000-strong Mongol army” (KUN: 166). Where did the figure of 10 thousand come from? – This is the minimum size of the army with which you can go on a campaign of conquest. Guy Julius Caesar with such a detachment was unable to capture Britain, but when he doubled the number, the conquest of Foggy Albion was crowned with success. “In fact, such a small army could not have conquered China, India, Rus' and other countries. Therefore, historians, without trifling, write about Batu’s 30,000-strong cavalry horde sent to conquer Rus', but this figure seems completely fantastic. Even if we assume that the armor Mongol warriors While the shields were made of leather, the shields were wooden, and the arrowheads were made of stone, iron was still required for horseshoes, spears, knives, swords, and sabers.

Now it’s worth thinking about: how did the wild nomads know the high iron-making technologies at that time? After all, the ore still needs to be mined, and for this to be able to find it, that is, to understand a little about geology. Are there many ancient ore mines in the Mongolian steppes? Do archaeologists find many remains of forges there? They, of course, are still magicians - they will find anything, wherever they need it. But in in this case Nature itself made the task extremely difficult for archaeologists. Iron ore is not mined in Mongolia even today (although small deposits have recently been discovered)” (KUN: 166). But even if ore was found and smelting furnaces existed, the metallurgists would have to be paid for their work, and they themselves would have to live sedentary lives. Where are the former settlements of metallurgists? Where are the waste rock dumps (heap waste heaps)? Where are the remains of the warehouses? finished products? None of this was found.

“Of course, weapons can be bought, but you need money, which the ancient Mongols did not have, at least they are completely unknown to world archeology. And they couldn’t have it, since their farm was not commercial. Weapons could be exchanged, but where, from whom and for what? In short, if you think about such little things, then Genghis Khan’s campaign from the Manchurian steppes to China, India, Persia, the Caucasus and Europe looks like complete fantasy” (KUN: 166).

This is not the first time I have come across this kind of “punctures” in mythological historiography. As a matter of fact, any historiographical myth is written in order to cover it up like a smoke screen. real fact. This kind of camouflage works well in cases where secondary facts are masked. But it is impossible to disguise advanced technologies, the highest at that time. It’s the same as putting on someone else’s suit and mask for a criminal taller than two meters—he is identified not by his clothes or face, but by his exorbitant height. If in the indicated period, that is, in the 13th century, Western European knights had the best iron armor, then it will in no way be possible to attribute their urban culture to the steppe nomads. Just like the highest culture of Etruscan writing, where Italic, Russian, stylized greek alphabets and Runitsa, it is impossible to attribute to any small people such as Albanians or Chechens, who, perhaps, did not exist in those days.

Forage for the Mongol cavalry.

“For example, how did the Mongols cross the Volga or the Dnieper? You can't swim a two-kilometer stream, you can't wade it. There is only one way out - wait until winter to cross the ice. It was in winter, by the way, that in Rus' they usually fought in the old days. But in order to make such a long journey during the winter, it is necessary to prepare a huge amount of forage, since although the Mongolian horse is capable of finding withered grass under the snow, for this it needs to graze where there is grass. In this case, the snow cover should be small. In the Mongolian steppes, winters have little snow, and the grass stand is quite high. In Rus', the opposite is true - the grass is tall only in floodplain meadows, and in all other places it is very sparse. The snowdrifts are such that the horse, let alone finding grass under it, will not be able to move through the deep snow. Otherwise, it is not clear why the French lost all their cavalry during the retreat from Moscow. They ate it, of course, but they ate already fallen horses, because if the horses were well-fed and healthy, then the uninvited guests would use them to quickly escape” (KUN: 166-167). – Let us note that it is for this reason that summer campaigns have become preferable for Western Europeans.

“Oats are usually used as fodder, of which a horse needs 5-6 kg per day. It turns out that the nomads, preparing in advance for a campaign to distant lands, sowed the steppe with oats? Or did they carry the hay with them on carts? Let's perform some simple arithmetic operations and calculate what preparations the nomads had to make in order to go on a long journey. Let's assume that they gathered an army of at least 10 thousand mounted soldiers. Each warrior needs several horses - one specially trained combatant for battle, one for marching, one for a convoy - to carry food, a yurt and other supplies. This is at least, but we must also take into account that some horses will fall along the way, and there will be combat losses, therefore a reserve is needed.

And if 10 thousand horsemen march in marching formation even across the steppe, then when the horses graze, where will the warriors live - rest in the snowdrifts, or what? On a long hike you cannot do without food, fodder and a convoy with warm yurts. You need more fuel to cook food, but where can you find firewood in the treeless steppe? The nomads drowned their yurts, sorry, with poop, because there was nothing else. It stank, of course. But they got used to it. You can, of course, fantasize about the strategic procurement of hundreds of tons of dried crap by the Mongols, which they took with them on the road when setting out to conquer the world, but I will leave this opportunity to the most stubborn historians.

Some smart guys tried to prove to me that the Mongols did not have a convoy at all, which is why they were able to show phenomenal maneuverability. But how did they take the loot home in this case - in their pockets, or what? And where were their battering guns and other engineering devices, and the same maps and food supplies, not to mention their environmentally friendly fuel? Not a single army in the world could ever do without a convoy if it was going to make a transition lasting more than two days. The loss of a convoy usually meant the failure of a campaign, even if there was no battle with the enemy.

In short, according to the most conservative estimates, our mini-horde should have at its disposal at least 40 thousand horses. From the experience of mass armies of the 17th-19th centuries. it is known that the daily feed requirement of such a herd will be at least 200 tons of oats. This is just in one day! And the more long journey, the more horses should be involved in the convoy. A medium-sized horse can pull a cart weighing 300 kg. This is on the road, but off-road in packs it’s half as much. That is, in order to provide for our 40,000-strong herd, we need 700 horses per day. A three-month campaign will require a convoy of almost 70 thousand horses. And this crowd also needs oats, and in order to feed 70 thousand horses carrying fodder for 40 thousand horses, more than 100 thousand horses with carts will be needed for the same three months, and these horses, in turn, want to eat - it turns out to be a vicious circle.” (KUN:167-168). – This calculation shows that intercontinental, for example, from Asia to Europe, trips on horseback with full stock provisions are fundamentally impossible. True, here are calculations for a 3-month winter campaign. But if the campaign is carried out in the summer, and you move in the steppe zone, feeding the horses with pasture, then you can advance much further.

“Even in the summer, the cavalry never did without forage, so the Mongol campaign against Rus' would still require logistical support. Until the twentieth century, the maneuverability of troops was determined not by the speed of horse hooves and the strength of soldiers’ legs, but by dependence on convoys and carrying capacity road network. The marching speed of 20 km per day was very good even for the average WWII division, and German tanks, when asphalt highways allowed them to carry out a blitzkrieg, they wound on tracks 50 km a day. But in this case, the rear inevitably lagged behind. In ancient times, in off-road conditions such indicators would have been simply fantastic. The textbook (SVI) reports that the Mongol army marched about 100 kilometers a day! Yes, it is hardly possible to find people who are the worst versed in history. Even in May 1945, Soviet tanks, making a forced march from Berlin to Prague along good European roads, could not break the “Mongol-Tatar” record” (KUN: 168-169). – I believe that the very division of Europe into Western and Eastern was made not so much for geographical, but for strategic reasons. Namely: within each of them, military campaigns, although they require supplies of fodder and horses, are within reasonable limits. And the transition to another part of Europe already requires the exertion of all state forces, so military campaign affects not only the army, but develops into Patriotic War, requiring the participation of the entire population.

Food problem.

“What did the riders themselves eat on the way? If you are chasing a flock of lambs, then you will have to move at their speed. During the winter there is no way to reach the nearest center of civilization. But nomads are unpretentious people; they made do with dried meat and cottage cheese, which they soaked in hot water. Whatever one may say, a kilogram of food a day is necessary. Three months of travel - 100 kg of weight. In the future, you can slaughter the baggage horses. At the same time, there will be savings on fodder. But not a single convoy can move at a speed of 100 km per day, especially off-road.” – It is clear that this problem mainly concerns uninhabited areas. IN densely populated Europe the winner can take food from the vanquished

Demographic problems.

“If we touch on demographic issues and try to understand how the nomads were able to field 10 thousand warriors, given the very low population density in the steppe zone, then we will run into another unsolvable mystery. Well, in the steppes there is no population density higher than 0.2 people per square kilometer! If we take the mobilization capabilities of the Mongols as 10% of the total population (every second healthy man from 18 to 45 years old), then to mobilize a horde of 10,000 people, it will be necessary to comb a territory of about half a million square kilometers. Or let's touch purely organizational issues: for example, how did the Mongols collect taxes on the army and recruit, how did military training take place, how was the military elite educated? It turns out that it’s purely technical reasons The Mongol campaign against Rus', as described by “professional” historians, was impossible in principle.

There are examples of this from relatively recent times. In the spring of 1771, the Kalmyks, who were roaming the Caspian steppes, annoyed that the tsarist administration had significantly curtailed their autonomy, unanimously left their place and moved to historical homeland to Dzungaria (the territory of modern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Okrug in China). Only 25 thousand Kalmyks who lived on the right bank of the Volga remained in place - they could not join the others due to the opening of the river. Of the 170 thousand nomads, only about 70 thousand reached the goal after 8 months. The rest, as you might guess, died on the way. The winter transition would be even more disastrous. The local population greeted the settlers without enthusiasm. Who will now find traces of Kalmyks in Xinjiang? And on the right bank of the Volga today live 165 thousand Kalmyks who switched to a sedentary lifestyle during the period of collectivization in 1929-1940, but who have not lost their original culture and religion (Buddhism)” (KUN: 1690170). – This last example is amazing! Almost 2/3 of the population, who walked slowly and with good convoys in the summer, died along the way. Even if the losses of the regular army were less than, say, 1/3, then instead of 10 thousand troops, less than 7 thousand people would reach the target. It may be objected that they drove the conquered peoples ahead of them. So I only counted those who died from the difficulties of the transition, but there were also combat losses. Defeated enemies can be driven back when the victors are at least twice as numerous as the vanquished. So if half the army dies in battle (in fact, about 6 times more attackers die than defenders), then the remaining 3.5 thousand can drive in front of no more than 1.5 thousand prisoners, who will try in the first battle run over to the side of the enemies, strengthening their ranks. And an army of less than 4 thousand people is unlikely to be able to advance further into a foreign country - it’s time for him to return home.

Why is the myth of the Tatar-Mongol invasion needed?

“But the myth of the terrible Mongol invasion is cultivated for some reason. And for what, it’s not difficult to guess - virtual Mongols are needed solely to explain the disappearance of the equally phantom Kievan Rus along with its original population. They say that as a result of Batu’s invasion, the Dnieper region was completely depopulated. Why the hell, one might ask, did the nomads want to destroy the population? Well, they would have imposed tribute like everyone else - at least there would have been some benefit. But no, historians unanimously convince us that the Mongols completely devastated the Kiev region, burned the cities, exterminated the population or drove them into captivity, and those who were lucky enough to survive, having greased their heels with lard, fled without looking back into the wild forests of the northeast, where Over time they created a powerful Moscow kingdom. One way or another, the time before the 16th century seems to fall out of the history of Southern Rus': if historians mention anything about this period, it is the raids of the Crimeans. But who did they raid, if the Russian lands were depopulated?

It cannot be that for 250 years no events took place at all in the historical center of Rus'! However, no epochal events were noted. This caused heated debate among historians when disputes were still allowed. Some put forward hypotheses about the general flight of the population to the northeast, others believed that the entire population died out, and new ones came from the Carpathians in the following centuries. Still others expressed the idea that the population did not flee anywhere, and did not come from anywhere, but simply sat quietly in conditions of isolation from outside world and did not show any political, military, economic, demographic or cultural activity. Klyuchevsky propagated the idea that the population, frightened to death by the evil Tatars, left their habitable places and went partly to Galicia, and partly to Suzdal lands, from where it spread far to the north and east. Kyiv, as a city, according to the professor, temporarily ceased to exist, having been reduced to 200 houses. Solovyov argued that Kyiv was completely destroyed and for many years it was a pile of ruins where no one lived. In the Galician lands, then called Little Russia, refugees from the Dnieper region, they say, became slightly Polish, and when they returned several centuries later to their autochthonous territory as Little Russians, they brought there a peculiar dialect and customs acquired in exile” (KUN: 170-171).

So, from the point of view of Alexei Kungurov, the myth about the Tatar-Mongols supports another myth - about Kievan Rus. While I am not considering this second myth, I admit that the existence of a vast Kievan Rus is also a myth. However, let's listen to this author to the end. Perhaps he will show that the myth of the Tatar-Mongols is beneficial to historians for other reasons.

Surprisingly fast surrender of Russian cities.

“At first glance, this version looks quite logical: evil barbarians came and destroyed a flourishing civilization, killed everyone and dispersed them to hell. Why? But because they are barbarians. For what? And Batu was in a bad mood, maybe his wife cuckolded him, maybe he had a stomach ulcer, so he was angry. The scientific community is quite satisfied with such answers, and since I have nothing to do with this very community, I immediately want to argue with the luminaries of historical “science”.

Why, one wonders, did the Mongols completely clear out the Kiev region? It should be taken into account that the Kiev land is not some insignificant outskirts, but supposedly the core of the Russian state, according to the same Klyuchevsky. Meanwhile, Kyiv was surrendered to the enemy in 1240 a few days after the siege. Are there similar cases in history? More often we will see opposite examples, when we gave everything to the enemy, but fought for the core to the last. Therefore, the fall of Kyiv seems completely incredible. Before the invention of siege artillery, a well-fortified city could only be taken by starvation. And it often happened that the besiegers ran out of steam faster than the besieged. History knows cases of very long defense of the city. For example, during the Polish intervention during the Time of Troubles, the siege of Smolensk by the Poles lasted from September 21, 1609 to June 3, 1611. The defenders capitulated only when Polish artillery made an impressive opening in the wall, and the besieged were extremely exhausted by hunger and disease.

The Polish king Sigismund, amazed by the courage of the defenders, let them go home. But why did the Kievans so quickly surrender to the wild Mongols, who spared no one? The nomads did not have powerful siege artillery, and the battering guns with which they allegedly destroyed fortifications were stupid inventions of historians. It was physically impossible to drag such a device to the wall, because the walls themselves always stood on a large earthen rampart, which was the basis of the city fortifications, and a ditch was built in front of them. It is now generally accepted that the defense of Kyiv lasted 93 days. The famous fiction writer Bushkov is sarcastic about this: “Historians are a little disingenuous. Ninety-three days is not the period between the beginning and end of the assault, but the first appearance of the “Tatar” army and the capture of Kyiv. First, “Batu Voivode” Mengat appeared at the Kyiv walls and tried to persuade the Kyiv prince to surrender the city without a fight, but the Kievans killed his ambassadors, and he retreated. And three months later “Batu” came. And in a few days he took the city. It is the interval between these events that other researchers call the “long siege” (BUSH).

Moreover, the story of the rapid fall of Kyiv is by no means unique. If you believe historians, then all other Russian cities (Ryazan, Vladimir, Galich, Moscow, Pereslavl-Zalessky, etc.) usually held out for no more than five days. It’s surprising that Torzhok defended itself for almost two weeks. Little Kozelsk allegedly set a record by holding out for seven weeks under siege, but falling on the third day of the assault. Who will explain to me what kind of superweapon the Mongols used to take fortresses on the move? And why was this weapon forgotten? In the Middle Ages, throwing machines - vices - were sometimes used to destroy city walls. But in Rus' there was a big problem - there was nothing to throw - boulders of the appropriate size would have to be dragged with you.

True, cities in Rus' in most cases had wooden fortifications, and theoretically they could be burned. But in practice, in winter this was difficult to achieve, because the walls were watered from above, resulting in the formation of an ice shell on them. In fact, even if a 10,000-strong nomadic army had come to Rus', no catastrophe would have happened. This horde would simply melt away in a couple of months, taking a dozen cities by storm. The losses of the attackers in this case will be 3-5 times higher than those of the defenders of the citadel.

According to the official version of history, the northeastern lands of Rus' suffered much more severely from the adversary, but for some reason no one thought of running away from there. And vice versa, they fled to where the climate was colder and the Mongols were more outrageous. Where is the logic? And why was the “fleeing” population, until the 16th century, paralyzed by fear and did not try to return to the fertile lands of the Dnieper region? There was no trace of the Mongols long ago, and the frightened Russians, they say, were afraid to show their noses there. The Crimeans were not at all peaceful, but for some reason the Russians were not afraid of them - the Cossacks on their seagulls descended along the Don and Dnieper, unexpectedly attacked Crimean cities and carried out brutal pogroms there. Usually, if some places are favorable for life, then the struggle for them is especially fierce, and these lands are never empty. The vanquished are replaced by conquerors, those are displaced or assimilated by stronger neighbors - the issue here is not disagreements on some political or religious issues, but rather the possession of territory” (KUN: 171-173). “Indeed, this is a completely inexplicable situation from the point of view of the clash between steppe dwellers and townspeople.” It is very good for a denigrating version of the historiography of Rus', but is completely illogical. While Alexey Kungurov is noticing more and more new aspects of the absolutely incredible development of events from the standpoint of the Tatar-Mongol invasion.

The unknown motives of the Mongols.

“Historians do not explain the motives of the mythical Mongols at all. Why did they participate in such grandiose campaigns? If in order to impose tribute on the conquered Russians, then why the hell did the Mongols raze 49 of 74 large Russian cities to the ground, and slaughter the population almost to the roots, as historians say? If they destroyed the aborigines because they liked the local grass and the milder climate than in the Trans-Caspian and Trans-Baikal steppes, then why did they go to the steppe? There is no logic in the actions of the conquerors. More precisely, it is not in the nonsense written by historians.

The root cause of the militancy of peoples in ancient times was the so-called crisis of nature and man. With the overpopulation of the territory, society seemed to push young and energetic people outside. If they conquer those lands of their neighbors and settle there - good. If they die in the fire, that’s also not bad, because there will be no “extra” population. In many ways, this is precisely what can explain the belligerence of the ancient Scandinavians: their stingy northern lands could not feed the increased population and they were left to live by robbery or be hired into the service of foreign rulers to engage in the same robbery. The Russians, one might say, were lucky - for centuries the excess population rolled back to the south and east all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Subsequently, the crisis of nature and man began to be overcome through qualitative changes in agricultural technologies and industrial development.

But what could have caused the belligerence of the Mongols? If the population density of the steppes exceeds acceptable limits (that is, there is a shortage of pastures), some of the shepherds will simply migrate to other, less developed steppes. If the local nomads are not happy with the guests, then a small massacre will occur in which the strongest will win. That is, in order to get to Kyiv, the Mongols would have to conquer vast areas from Manchuria to the northern Black Sea region. But even in this case, the nomads did not pose a threat to strong civilized countries, because not a single nomadic people ever created their own statehood or had an army. The maximum that the steppe inhabitants are capable of is to raid a border village for the purpose of robbery.

The only analogue to the mythical warlike Mongols is the Chechen cattle breeders of the 19th century. This people is unique in that robbery has become the basis of its existence. The Chechens did not even have rudimentary statehood, lived in clans (teips), did not practice agriculture, unlike their neighbors, did not possess the secrets of metal processing, and in general mastered the most primitive crafts. They posed a threat to the Russian border and communications with Georgia, which became part of Russia in 1804, only because they supplied them with weapons and supplies, and bribed local princes. But the Chechen robbers, despite their numerical superiority, could not oppose the Russians with anything other than the tactics of raids and forest ambushes. When the patience of the latter ran out, the regular army under the command of Ermolov quite quickly carried out a total “cleansing” of the North Caucasus, driving the abreks into the mountains and gorges.

I am ready to believe in many things, but I categorically refuse to take seriously the nonsense of the evil nomads who destroyed Ancient Rus'. All the more fantastic is the theory about the three-century “yoke” of wild steppe inhabitants over the Russian principalities. Only the STATE can exercise dominion over conquered lands. Historians generally understand this, and therefore they invented a certain fabulous Mongol Empire - the world’s largest state in the entire history of mankind, founded by Genghis Khan in 1206 and including the territory from the Danube to the Sea of ​​Japan and from Novgorod to Cambodia. All the empires known to us were created over centuries and generations, and only the greatest world empire was allegedly created by an illiterate savage literally with the wave of his hand” (KUN: 173-175). – So, Alexey Kungurov comes to the conclusion that if there was a conquest of Rus', then it was carried out not by wild steppe inhabitants, but by some powerful state. But where was its capital?

Capital of the steppes.

“If there is an empire, then there must be a capital. The fantastic city of Karakorum was appointed as the capital, the remains of which were explained by the ruins of the Buddhist monastery Erdene-Dzu of the late 16th century in the center of modern Mongolia. Based on what? And that’s what historians wanted. Schliemann dug up the ruins of a small ancient city and declared that this was Troy” (KUN: 175). I showed in two articles that Schliemann excavated one of the temples of Yar and took its treasures as a trace of ancient Troy, although Troy, as one of the Serbian researchers showed, was located on the shores of Lake Skoder ( modern city Shkoder in Albania).

“And Nikolai Yadrintsev, who discovered an ancient settlement in the Orkhon valley, declared it Karakorum. Karakorum literally means “black stones” Since there was mountain range, then it was given the official name Karakorum. And since the mountains are called Karakorum, then the city was given the same name. This is such a convincing rationale! True, the local population had never heard of any Karakorum, but called the ridge Muztag - Ice Mountains, but this did not bother the scientists at all” (KUN: 175-176). – And rightly so, because in this case the “scientists” were not looking for the truth, but confirmation of their myth, and geographical renaming greatly contributes to this.

Traces of a grandiose empire.

“The largest world empire left the least traces of itself. Or rather, none at all. It, they say, broke up in the 13th century into separate uluses, the largest of which became the Yuan Empire, that is, China (its capital Khanbalyk, now Aekin, was allegedly at one time the capital of the entire Mongol Empire), the state of the Ilkhans (Iran, Transcaucasia, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan), Chagatai ulus (Central Asia) and the Golden Horde (territory from the Irtysh to the White, Baltic and Black Seas). Historians cleverly came up with this. Now any fragments of ceramics or copper jewelry found in the expanses from Hungary to the coast of the Sea of ​​Japan can be declared traces of the great Mongolian civilization. And they find and announce. And they won’t blink an eye” (KUN:176).

As an epigraphist, I am primarily interested in written monuments. Did they exist in the Tatar-Mongol era? Here is what Nefyodov writes about this: “Having installed Alexander Nevsky as Grand Duke of their own free will, the Tatars sent Baskaks and Chisniki to Rus' - “and the accursed Tatars began to ride through the streets, rewriting Christian houses.” This was a census carried out at that time throughout the vast Mongol Empire; Clerks compiled defter registers to collect taxes established by Yelu Chu-tsai: land tax, “kalan”, poll tax, “kupchur”, and tax on merchants, “tamga”” (NEF). True, in epigraphy the word “tamga” has a different meaning, “tribal signs of ownership,” but that’s not the point: if there were three types of taxes, drawn up in the form of lists, then something certainly had to be preserved. - Alas, there is none of this. It is not even clear in what font all this was written. But if there are no such special marks, then it turns out that all these lists were written in Russian script, that is, in Cyrillic. – When I tried to find articles on the Internet on the topic “Artifacts of the Tatar-Mongol Yoke,” I came across a judgment that I reproduce below.

Why are the chronicles silent?

“During the time of the mythical “Tatar-Mongol yoke,” according to official history, decline came to Rus'. This, in their opinion, is confirmed by the almost complete lack of evidence about that period. Once, while talking with a history buff of my native land, I heard him mention the decline that reigned in this area during the time of the “Tatar-Mongol yoke.” As evidence, he recalled that a monastery once stood in these places. First, it should be said about the area: a river valley with hills in the immediate vicinity, there are springs - an ideal place for a settlement. And so it was. However, the chronicles of this monastery mention the nearest settlement only a few tens of kilometers away. Although you can read between the lines that people lived closer, only “wild ones”. Arguing on this topic, we came to the conclusion that, due to ideological motives, the monks mentioned only Christian settlements, or during the next rewriting of history, all information about non-Christian settlements was erased.

No, no, yes, sometimes historians excavate settlements that flourished during the “Tatar-Mongol yoke.” What forced them to admit that, in general, the Tatar-Mongols were quite tolerant of the conquered peoples... “However, the lack of reliable sources about general prosperity in Kievan Rus does not give reason to doubt the official history.

Actually, except for sources Orthodox Church we do not have reliable data about the occupation by the Tatar-Mongols. In addition, quite interesting is the fact of the rapid occupation of not only the steppe regions of Rus' (from the point of view of official history, the Tatar-Mongols are steppe dwellers), but also forested and even swampy territories. Of course, the history of military operations knows examples of the rapid conquest of the swampy forests of Belarus. However, the Nazis bypassed the swamps. But how Soviet army, who had a brilliant offensive operation in the swampy part of Belarus? This is true, however, the population in Belarus was needed to create a springboard for subsequent offensives. They simply chose to attack in the least expected (and therefore protected) area. But most importantly, the Soviet army relied on local partisans who thoroughly knew the area even better than the Nazis. But the mythical Tatar-Mongols, who did the unthinkable, immediately conquered the swamps - refused further attacks” (SPO). – Here the unknown researcher notes two curious facts: the monastery chronicle already considers as a populated area only the one where the parishioners lived, as well as the brilliant orientation of the steppe inhabitants among the swamps, which should not be characteristic of them. And the same author also notes the coincidence of the territory occupied by the Tatar-Mongols with the territory of Kievan Rus. Thus, he shows that in reality we are dealing with a territory that has undergone Christianization, regardless of whether it was in the steppe, in forests or in swamps. – But let’s return to Kungurov’s texts.

Religion of the Mongols.

“What was the official religion of the Mongols? - Choose any one you like. Allegedly, Buddhist shrines were discovered in the Karakorum “palace” of the Great Khan Ogedei (the heir of Genghis Khan). In the capital of the Golden Horde, Sarai-Batu, mostly Orthodox crosses and breastplates are found. Islam established itself in the Central Asian possessions of the Mongol conquerors, and Zoroastrianism continued to flourish in the South Caspian Sea. The Jewish Khazars also felt free in the Mongol Empire. A variety of shamanistic beliefs have been preserved in Siberia. Russian historians traditionally tell tales that the Mongols were idolaters. They say that they gave the Russian princes a “axe in the head” if they, coming for a label for the right to reign in their lands, did not worship their filthy pagan idols. In short, no state religion the Mongols did not. All empires had one, but the Mongolian one did not. Anyone could pray to whomever they wanted” (KUN:176). – Let us note that there was no religious tolerance either before or after the Mongol invasion. Ancient Prussia with the Baltic people of the Prussians (relatives in language to the Lithuanians and Latvians) who inhabited it, the Germanic knightly orders wiped off the face of the earth only because they were pagans. And in Rus', not only the Vedists (Old Believers), but also the early Christians (Old Believers) began to be persecuted after Nikon’s reform as enemies. Therefore, such a combination of words as “evil Tatars” and “tolerance” is impossible, it is illogical. The division of the greatest empire into separate regions, each with its own religion, probably indicates the independent existence of these regions, united into a giant empire only in the mythology of historians. As for the finds of Orthodox crosses and breastplates in the European part of the empire, this suggests that the “Tatar-Mongols” implanted Christianity and eradicated paganism (Vedism), that is, forced Christianization took place.

Cash.

“By the way, if Karakorum was Mongolian capital, then there must have been a mint in it. It is believed that the currency of the Mongol Empire was gold dinars and silver dirhams. For four years, archaeologists dug into the soil at Orkhon (1999-2003), but not like the mint, they didn’t even find a single dirham or dinar, but they dug up a lot of Chinese coins. It was this expedition that discovered traces of a Buddhist shrine under the Ogedei Palace (which turned out to be much smaller than expected). In Germany, a substantial tome “Genghis Khan and His Legacy” was published about the results of the excavations. This is despite the fact that archaeologists did not find any traces of the Mongol ruler. However, this does not matter, everything they found was declared the legacy of Genghis Khan. True, the publishers wisely kept silent about the Buddhist idol and Chinese coins, but filled most of the book with abstract reasoning that is of no scientific interest” (KUN: 177). – A legitimate question arises: if the Mongols carried out three types of censuses, and collected tribute from them, then where was it stored? And in what currency? Was everything really translated into Chinese money? What could you buy with them in Europe?

Continuing the topic, Kungurov writes: “In general, IN ALL of Mongolia, only a few dirhams with Arabic inscriptions were found, which completely excludes the idea that this was the center of some kind of empire. “Scientific” historians cannot explain this, and therefore simply do not touch upon this issue. Even if you grab a historian by the lapel of his jacket and ask about it, looking intently into his eyes, he will act like a fool who doesn’t understand what he’s talking about” (KUN:177). – I’ll stop quoting here, because this is exactly how archaeologists behaved when local history museum In Tver, I made my report, showing that there was an INSCRIPTION on the stone cup donated to the museum by local historians. None of the archaeologists approached the stone and felt the letters cut out there. For to come up and touch the inscription meant for them to sign a long-standing lie about the lack of their own writing among the Slavs in the pre-Cyril era. This was the only thing they could do to protect the honor of the uniform (“I don’t see anything, I don’t hear anything, I won’t tell anyone anything,” as the popular song goes).

“There is no archaeological evidence of the existence of an imperial center in Mongolia, and therefore, as arguments in favor of a completely crazy version, official science can only offer a casuistic interpretation of the works of Rashid ad-Din. True, they quote the latter very selectively. For example, after four years of excavations on the Orkhon, historians prefer not to remember that the latter writes about the circulation of dinars and dirhams in Karakorum. And Guillaume de Rubruk reports that the Mongols knew a lot about Roman money, with which their budget bins were overflowing. Now they also have to keep quiet about this. You should also forget that Plano Carpini mentioned how the ruler of Baghdad paid tribute to the Mongols in Roman gold solidi - bezants. In short, all the ancient witnesses were wrong. Only modern historians know the truth” (KUN:178). – As we see, all the ancient witnesses indicated that the “Mongols” used European money that circulated in Western and Eastern Europe. And they didn’t say anything about the “Mongols” having Chinese money. Again, we are talking about the fact that the “Mongols” were Europeans, at least in economic terms. It would not occur to any cattle breeder to compile lists of landowners that the cattle breeders did not have. And even more so - create a tax on traders, who in many eastern countries were wandering. In short, all these population censuses, very expensive actions, with the aim of collecting a STABLE TAX (10%) betray not greedy steppe dwellers, but scrupulous European bankers, who, of course, collected pre-calculated taxes in European currency. They had no use for Chinese money.

“Did the Mongols have a financial system, which, as you know, no state can do without? It wasn't! Numismatists are not aware of any specific Mongolian money. But any unidentified coins can be declared as such if desired. What was it called monetary unit empires? It wasn't called anything. Where was the imperial mint and treasury located? And nowhere. It seems that historians wrote something about the evil Baskaks - tribute collectors in the Russian uluses of the Golden Horde. But today the ferocity of the Baskaks seems very exaggerated. It seems that they collected tithes (a tenth of the income) in favor of the khan, and recruited every tenth youth into their army. The latter should be considered a great exaggeration. After all, service in those days lasted not a couple of years, but probably a quarter of a century. The population of Rus' in the 13th century is usually estimated at at least 5 million souls. If every year 10 thousand recruits come to the army, then in 10 years it will swell to completely unimaginable sizes” (KUN: 178-179). – If you call up 10 thousand people annually, then in 10 years you will get 100 thousand, and in 25 years – 250 thousand. Was the state of that time able to feed such an army? - “And if you consider that the Mongols recruited not only Russians, but also representatives of all other conquered peoples into service, you will get a million-strong horde that no empire could feed or arm in the Middle Ages” (KUN: 179). - That's it.

“But where the tax went, how the accounting was carried out, who controlled the treasury, scientists cannot really explain anything. Nothing is known about the system of counting, weights and measures used in the empire. It remains a mystery for what purposes the huge Golden Horde budget was spent - the conquerors did not build any palaces, cities, monasteries, or fleets. Although no, other storytellers claim that the Mongols had a fleet. They, they say, even conquered the island of Java, and almost captured Japan. But this is such obvious nonsense that there is no point in discussing it. At least until at least some traces of the existence of steppe herder-seafarers on the earth are found” (KUN: 179). – As Alexei Kungurov considers various aspects of the Mongols’ activities, the impression arises that the Khalkha people, appointed by historians to the role of world conqueror, are in the most minimum degree suitable for this mission. How did the West make such a mistake? – The answer is simple. All of Siberia and Central Asia on European maps of that time was called Tartary (as I showed in one of my articles, it was there that the Underworld, Tartarus, was moved). Accordingly, the mythical “Tatars” settled there. Their eastern wing extended to the Khalkha people, about whom at that time few historians knew anything, and therefore anything could be attributed to it. Of course, Western historians did not foresee that in a couple of centuries communications would develop so much that through the Internet it would be possible to receive any of the latest information from archaeologists, which, after analytical processing, would be able to refute any Western myths.

The ruling layer of the Mongols.

"What was ruling layer in the Mongol Empire? Any state has its own military, political, economic, cultural and scientific elite. The ruling layer in the Middle Ages is called the aristocracy, today ruling class It is customary to refer to the vague term “elite”. One way or another, there must be a government leadership, otherwise there is no state. And the Mongol occupiers had tensions with the elite. They conquered Rus' and left the Rurik dynasty to rule it. They themselves, they say, went to the steppe. There are no similar examples in history. That is, there was no state-forming aristocracy in the Mongol Empire” (KUN: 179). – The last one is extremely surprising. Let's take, for example, the previous huge empire - the Arab Caliphate. There were not only religions, Islam, but also secular literature. For example, tales of a thousand and one nights. There was a monetary system, and Arab money was long considered the most popular currency. Where are the legends about Mongol khans, where are the Mongolian tales about the conquests of distant Western countries?

Mongolian infrastructure.

“Even today, any state cannot exist if it does not have transport and information connectivity. In the Middle Ages, the lack of convenient means of communication absolutely excluded the possibility of the functioning of the state. Therefore, the core of the state developed along river, sea, and much less often land communications. And the greatest Mongol Empire in the history of mankind did not have any means of communication between its parts and the center, which, by the way, did not exist either. More precisely, it seemed to exist, but only in the form of a camp where Genghis Khan left his family during campaigns” (KUN: 179-180). In this case, the question arises, how did state negotiations take place in the first place? Where did the ambassadors of sovereign states live? Is it really at military headquarters? And how was it possible to keep up with the constant transfers of these rates during combat operations? Where was the state office, archives, translators, scribes, heralds, treasury, room for looted valuables? Did you also move with the Khan’s headquarters? – It’s hard to believe. – And now Kungurov comes to the conclusion.

Did the Mongol Empire exist?

“Here it is natural to ask the question: did this legendary Mongol Empire even exist? Was! - historians will shout in unison and, as evidence, will show a stone turtle of the Yuan dynasty in the vicinity of the modern Mongolian village of Karakorum or a shapeless coin of unknown origin. If this seems unconvincing to you, then historians will authoritatively add a couple more clay shards dug up in the Black Sea steppes. This will certainly convince the most inveterate skeptic” (KUN: 180). – Alexey Kungurov’s question has been asking for a long time, and the answer to it is quite natural. No Mongol Empire ever existed! – However, the author of the study is concerned not only about the Mongols, but also about the Tatars, as well as about the attitude of the Mongols to Rus', and therefore he continues his story.

“But we are interested in the great Mongol Empire because... Rus' was allegedly conquered by Batu, the grandson of Genghis Khan and the ruler of the Jochi ulus, better known as the Golden Horde. From the possessions of the Golden Horde to Rus' is still closer than from Mongolia. During the winter, you can get from the Caspian steppes to Kyiv, Moscow and even Vologda. But the same difficulties arise. Firstly, horses need fodder. In the Volga steppes, horses can no longer pick up withered grass from under the snow with their hoofs. The winters there are snowy, and therefore local nomads stocked up hay in their winter huts to survive during the most difficult times. In order for an army to move in winter, oats are needed. No oats - no opportunity to go to Rus'. Where did nomads get their oats?

The next problem is roads. From time immemorial, frozen rivers have been used as roads in winter. But a horse must be shod in order to be able to walk on ice. On the steppe it can run unshod all year round, but an unshod horse, and even with a rider, cannot walk on ice, stone deposits or a frozen road. In order to shoe the hundred thousand war horses and baggage mares needed for the invasion, more than 400 tons of iron alone is needed! And after 2-3 months you need to shoe the horses again. How many forests do you need to cut down in order to prepare 50 thousand sleighs for a convoy?

But in general, as we found out, even in the event of a successful march to Rus', an army of 10,000 would find itself in an extremely difficult situation. Supply at the expense of the local population is almost impossible, increasing reserves is absolutely unrealistic. We have to conduct grueling assaults on cities, fortresses and monasteries, and suffer irreparable losses while delving deeper into enemy territory. What is the point of this deepening if the occupiers left behind a devastated desert? What is the general purpose of war? Every day the invaders will become weaker, and by spring they must go to the steppes, otherwise the opened rivers will lock the nomads in the forests, where they will die of hunger” (KUN: 180-181). – As we see, the problems of the Mongol Empire are manifested on a smaller scale in the example of the Golden Horde. And then Kungurov considers the later Mongol state - the Golden Horde.

Capitals of the Golden Horde.

“There are two known capitals of the Golden Horde - Sarai-Batu and Sarai-Berke. Even their ruins have not survived to this day. Historians also found the culprit here - Tamerlane, who came from Central Asia and destroyed these most prosperous and populated cities of the East. Today, archaeologists are excavating on the site of the supposedly great capitals of the great Eurasian empire only the remains of adobe huts and the most primitive household utensils. Everything valuable, they say, was plundered by the evil Tamerlane. What is characteristic is that archaeologists do not find the slightest trace of the presence of Mongolian nomads in these places.

However, this does not bother them at all. Since traces of Greeks, Russians, Italians and others were found there, it means the matter is clear: the Mongols brought craftsmen from conquered countries to their capital. Does anyone doubt that the Mongols conquered Italy? Read carefully the works of “scientific” historians - they say that Batu reached the coast of the Adriatic Sea and almost to Vienna. Somewhere there he caught the Italians. And what does it mean that Sarai-Berke is the center of the Sarsk and Podonsk Orthodox diocese? This, according to historians, testifies to the phenomenal religious tolerance of the Mongol conquerors. True, in this case it is not clear why the Golden Horde khans allegedly tortured several Russian princes who did not want to renounce their faith. Grand Duke Kyiv and Chernigovsky Mikhail Vsevolodovich was even canonized for refusing to worship the sacred fire, and was killed for disobedience” (KUN: 181). Again we see a complete inconsistency in the official version.

What was the Golden Horde?

“The Golden Horde is the same state invented by historians as the Mongol Empire. Accordingly, the Mongol-Tatar “yoke” is also a fiction. The question is who invented it. It is useless to look for mentions of the “yoke” or the mythical Mongols in Russian chronicles. “Evil Tatars” are mentioned in it quite often. The question is, who did the chroniclers mean by this name? Either this is an ethnic group, or a way of life or class (akin to the Cossacks), or this is a collective name for all Turks. Maybe the word “Tatar” means a mounted warrior? There are a great many Tatars known: Kasimov, Crimean, Lithuanian, Bordakovsky (Ryazan), Belgorod, Don, Yenisei, Tula... just listing all kinds of Tatars will take half a page. The chronicles mention service Tatars, baptized Tatars, godless Tatars, sovereign Tatars and Basurman Tatars. That is, this term has an extremely broad interpretation.

The Tatars, as an ethnic group, appeared relatively recently, about three hundred years ago. Therefore, an attempt to apply the term “Tatar-Mongols” to modern Kazan or Crimean Tatars is fraudulent. There were no Kazan Tatars in the 13th century; there were Bulgars, who had their own principality, which historians decided to call Volga Bulgaria. At that time there were no Crimean or Siberian Tatars, but there were Kipchaks, they are Polovtsians, they are Nogais. But if the Mongols conquered, partially exterminating, the Kipchaks and periodically fought with the Bulgars, then where did the Mongol-Tatar symbiosis come from?

No newcomers from the Mongolian steppes were known not only in Rus', but also in Europe. The term “Tatar yoke,” meaning the power of the Golden Horde over Russia, appeared at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries in Poland in propaganda literature. It is believed that it belongs to the pen of the historian and geographer Matthew Miechowski (1457-1523), a professor at the University of Krakow” (KUN: 181-182). – Above, we read news about this both on Wikipedia and in the works of three authors (SVI). His “Treatise on the Two Sarmatias” was considered in the West the first detailed geographical and ethnographic description of Eastern Europe to the meridian of the Caspian Sea. In the preamble to this work, Miechowski wrote: “The southern regions and coastal peoples up to India were discovered by the king of Portugal. Let the northern regions with the peoples living near the Northern Ocean to the east, discovered by the troops of the Polish king, now become known to the world" (KUN: 182-183). - Very interesting! It turns out that Rus' had to be discovered by someone, although this state existed for several millennia!

“How dashing! This enlightened man equates Russians with African blacks and American Indians, and attributes fantastic merits to the Polish troops. The Poles never reached the coast of the Northern Arctic Ocean, long mastered by the Russians. Only a century after the death of Mekhovsky during the Time of Troubles, individual Polish detachments scoured the Vologda and Arkhangelsk regions, but these were not the troops of the Polish king, but ordinary gangs of robbers robbing merchants on the northern trade route. Therefore, one should not take seriously his insinuations about the fact that the backward Russians were conquered by completely savage Tatars” (KUN: 183) - It turns out that Mekhovsky’s writing was a fantasy that the West did not have the opportunity to verify.

“By the way, Tatars are the European collective name for all eastern peoples. Moreover, in the old days it was pronounced as “tartars” from the word “tartar” - the underworld. It is quite possible that the word “Tatars” came into the Russian language from Europe. At least, when European travelers called the inhabitants of the lower Volga Tatars in the 16th century, they did not really understand the meaning of this word, and even more so did not know that for Europeans it meant “savages who escaped from hell.” The association of the word “Tatars” by the Criminal Code with a specific ethnic group began only in the 17th century. The term “Tatars”, as a designation for the Volga-Ural and Siberian settled Turkic-speaking peoples, was finally established only in the twentieth century. The word formation “Mongol-Tatar yoke” was first used in 1817 German historian Herman Kruse, whose book in the mid-19th century was translated into Russian and published in St. Petersburg. In 1860, the head of the Russian spiritual mission in China, Archimandrite Palladius, acquired the manuscript of “The Secret History of the Mongols,” making it public. No one was embarrassed that “The Tale” was written in Chinese. This is even very convenient, because any discrepancies can be explained by erroneous transcription from Mongolian to Chinese. Mo, Yuan is a Chinese transcription of the Chinggisid dynasty. And Shutsu is Kublai Khan. With such a “creative” approach, as you might guess, any Chinese legend can be declared either the history of the Mongols or a chronicle of the Crusades” (KUN: 183-184). – It is not for nothing that Kungurov mentions a clergyman from the Russian Orthodox Church, Archimandrite Palladius, hinting that he was interested in creating a legend about the Tatars based on Chinese chronicles. And it’s not for nothing that he builds a bridge to the Crusades.

The legend of the Tatars and the role of Kyiv in Rus'.

“The beginning of the legend about Kievan Rus was laid by the “Synopsis” published in 1674 - the first educational book on Russian history known to us. This book was reprinted several times (1676, 1680, 1718 and 1810) and was very popular until the middle of the 19th century. Its author is considered to be Innocent Gisel (1600-1683). Born in Prussia, in his youth he came to Kyiv, converted to Orthodoxy and became a monk. Metropolitan Peter Mohyla sent the young monk abroad, from where he returned as an educated man. He applied his learning in a tense ideological and political struggle with the Jesuits. He is known as a literary theologian, historiographer and theologian” (KUN: 184). – When we talk about the fact that in the 18th century Miller, Bayer and Schlözer became the “fathers” of Russian historiography, we forget that a century earlier, under the first Romanovs and after Nikon’s reform, a new Romanov historiography under the name “Synopsis”, that is, the summary was also written by a German, so there was already a precedent. It is clear that after the eradication of the Rurikovich dynasty and the persecution of Old Believers and Old Believers, Muscovy needed a new historiography that would whitewash the Romanovs and denigrate the Rurikovichs. And it appeared, although it did not come from Muscovy, but from Little Russia, which since 1654 became part of Muscovy, although it was spiritually adjacent to Lithuania and Poland.

“Gisel should be considered not only a church figure, but also a political figure, for the Orthodox church elite in the Polish-Lithuanian state was an integral part of the political elite. Being a protégé of Metropolitan Peter Mogila, he maintained active ties with Moscow on political and financial matters. In 1664 he visited the Russian capital as part of the Little Russian embassy of Cossack elders and clergy. Apparently, his works were appreciated, since in 1656 he received the rank of archimandrite and rector of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, retaining it until his death in 1683.

Of course, Innocent Gisel was an ardent supporter of the annexation of Little Russia to Great Russia, otherwise it is difficult to explain why Tsars Alexei Mikhailovich, Fyodor Alekseevich and ruler Sofya Alekseevna were very favorable to him and more than once presented him with valuable gifts. So, it is “Synopsis” that begins to actively popularize the legend of Kievan Rus, the Tatar invasion and the fight against Poland. The main stereotypes of ancient Russian history (the founding of Kyiv by three brothers, the calling of the Varangians, the legend of the baptism of Rus' by Vladimir, etc.) are arranged in an orderly row in the Synopsis and are precisely dated. Perhaps Gisel’s story “On Slavic Freedom or Liberty” may seem somewhat strange to today’s reader. - “The Slavs, in their bravery and courage, strive hard day by day, also fighting against the ancient Greek and Roman Caesars, and always receiving a glorious victory, in all freedom alive; It was also possible for the great King Alexander the Great and his father Philip to bring the power under the rule of this Light. To the same, glorious for the sake of military deeds and labors, Tsar Alexander granted the Slavs a charter on gold parchment, written in Alexandria, approving liberties and land to them, before the Nativity of Christ, year 310; and Augustus Caesar (in his own Kingdom, the King of glory, Christ the Lord was born) did not dare to wage war with the free and strong Slavs" (KUN: 184-185). – I note that if the legend about the founding of Kyiv was very important for Little Russia, which according to it became the political center of all ancient Rus', in light of which the legend about the baptism of Kiev by Vladimir grew to the statement about the baptism of All Rus', and both legends thus carried a powerful the political meaning of promoting Little Russia to first place in the history and religion of Rus', then the quoted passage does not carry such pro-Ukrainian propaganda. Here, apparently, we have an insert traditional views for the participation of Russian soldiers in the campaigns of Alexander the Great, for which they received a number of privileges. Here are also examples of interaction between Rus' and the politicians of late antiquity; later, the historiographies of all countries will remove any mention of the existence of Rus' in the specified period. It is also interesting to see that the interests of Little Russia in the 17th century and now are diametrically opposed: then Gisel argued that Little Russia is the Center of Rus', and all the events in it are epoch-making for Great Rus'; now, on the contrary, the “independence” of the Outskirts from Rus', the connection of the Outskirts with Poland are being proven, and the work of the first President of the Outskirts, Kravchuk, was called “The Outskirts is such a power.” Supposedly independent throughout its history. And the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Outskirts asks the Russians to write “In the Outskirts”, and not “ON the Outskirts”, distorting the Russian language. That is, at the moment the Qiu power is more satisfied with the role of the Polish periphery. This example clearly shows how political interests can change the country’s position by 180 degrees, and not only abandon claims to leadership, but even change the name to a completely dissonant one. Modern Gisel would try to connect the three brothers who founded Kyiv with Germany and the German Ukrainians, who had nothing to do with Little Russia, and the introduction of Christianity in Kyiv with the general Christianization of Europe, which supposedly had nothing to do with Rus'.

“When an archimandrite, favored at court, undertakes to compose history, it is very difficult to consider this work as a model of unbiased scientific research. Rather, it will be a propaganda treatise. And lies - most effective technique propaganda, if the lie can be introduced into the mass consciousness.

It is “Synopsis”, which was published in 1674, that has the honor of becoming the first Russian MASS print publication. Until the beginning of the 19th century, the book was used as a textbook on Russian history; in total, it went through 25 editions, the last of which was published in 1861 (the 26th edition was already in our century). From the point of view of propaganda, it does not matter how much Giesel’s work corresponded to reality, what is important is how firmly it was rooted in the consciousness of the educated layer. And it took root firmly. Considering that “Synopsis” was actually written by order of the ruling house of the Romanovs and was officially imposed, it could not have been otherwise. Tatishchev, Karamzin, Shcherbatov, Solovyov, Kostomarov, Klyuchevsky and other historians, brought up on the Giselian concept, simply could not (and hardly wanted) to critically comprehend the legend of Kievan Rus” (KUN: 185). – As we see, a kind of “Brief course of the All-Russian Communist Party(b)” of the victorious pro-Western Romanov dynasty was the “Synopsis” of the German Gisel, who represented the interests of Little Russia, which had recently become part of Rus', which immediately began to claim the role of leader in the political and religious life of Rus'. So to speak, from rags to riches! It was this peripheral newly acquired part of Rus' that completely suited the Romanovs as a historical leader, as well as the story that this weak state was defeated by equally peripheral steppe inhabitants from the Underworld - Russian Tartaria. The meaning of these legends is obvious - Rus' was supposedly defective from the very beginning!

Other Romanov historians about Kievan Rus and the Tatars.

“The court historians of the 18th century, Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer, August Ludwig Schlözer and Gerard Friedrich Miller, also did not contradict the Synopsis. Tell me, please, how could Bayer be a researcher of Russian antiquities and the author of the concept of Russian history (he gave rise to the Norman theory), when during the 13 years of his stay in Russia he did not even learn the Russian language? The last two were co-authors of the obscenely politicized Norman theory, which proved that Rus' acquired the features of a normal state only under the leadership of true Europeans, the Ruriks. Both of them edited and published Tatishchev’s works, after which it is difficult to say what remained of the original in his works. At least, it is known for sure that the original of Tatishchev’s “Russian History” disappeared without a trace, and Miller, according to the official version, used certain “drafts” that are now also unknown to us.

Despite constant conflicts with colleagues, it was Miller who formed the academic framework of official Russian historiography. His most important opponent and ruthless critic was Mikhail Lomonosov. However, Miller managed to take revenge on the great Russian scientist. And how! Prepared by Lomonosov for the publication “Ancient Russian history"through the efforts of his opponents, it was never published. Moreover, the work was confiscated after the author’s death and disappeared without a trace. And a few years later, only the first volume of his monumental work was printed, prepared for publication, it is believed, by Muller personally. Reading Lomonosov today, it is completely impossible to understand what he argued so fiercely with the German courtiers - his “Ancient Russian History” was in the spirit of the officially approved version of history. There are absolutely no contradictions with Müller on the most controversial issue of Russian antiquity in Lomonosov’s book. Consequently, we are dealing with a forgery” (KUN: 186). - Brilliant conclusion! Although something else remains unclear: the Soviet government was no longer interested in exalting one of the republics of the USSR, namely the Ukrainian, and belittling the Turkic republics, which precisely fell under the understanding of Tartary or Tatars. It would seem that it was time to get rid of the forgery and show true story Rus'. Why, in Soviet times, did Soviet historiography adhere to the version pleasing to the Romanovs and the Russian Orthodox Church? – The answer lies on the surface. Because the worse the history of Tsarist Russia was, the better the history of Soviet Russia was. It was then, during the time of the Rurikovichs, that it was possible to call on foreigners to rule a great power, and the country was so weak that it could have been conquered by some Tatar-Mongols. In Soviet times, it seemed that no one was called up from anywhere, and Lenin and Stalin were natives of Russia (although in Soviet times no one would have dared to write that Rothschild helped Trotsky with money and people, Lenin was helped by the German general staff, and Yakov Sverdlov was responsible for communications with European bankers). On the other hand, one of the employees of the Institute of Archeology in the 90s told me that the flower of pre-revolutionary archaeological thought did not remain in Soviet Russia, Soviet-style archaeologists were very much inferior in their professionalism to pre-revolutionary archaeologists, and they tried to destroy pre-revolutionary archaeological archives. “I asked her in connection with archaeologist Veselovsky’s excavations of the Kamennaya Mogila caves in Ukraine, because for some reason all the reports about his expedition were lost. It turned out that they were not lost, but deliberately destroyed. For the Stone Grave is a Paleolithic monument in which there are Russian runic inscriptions. And according to it, a completely different history of Russian culture emerges. But archaeologists are part of the team of historians of the Soviet era. And they created no less politicized historiography than historians in the service of the Romanovs.

“It remains only to state that the edition of Russian history that is still in use today was compiled exclusively by foreign authors, mainly Germans. The works of Russian historians who tried to resist them were destroyed, and falsifications were published under their name. One should not expect that the gravediggers of the national historiographical school spared dangerous primary sources. Lomonosov was horrified when he learned that Schlözer had gained access to all the ancient Russian chronicles that had survived at that time. Where are those chronicles now?

By the way, Schlözer called Lomonosov “a rude ignorant who knew nothing except his chronicles.” It is difficult to say what there is more hatred for in these words - towards the stubborn Russian scientist who considers the Russian people to be the same age as the Romans, or towards the chronicles that confirmed this. But it turns out that the German historian who received the Russian chronicles at his disposal was not guided by them at all. He respected political order above science. Mikhail Vasilyevich, when it came to the hateful little thing, also did not mince words. About Schlözer we have come to the following statement of his: “... what kind of vile dirty tricks would such cattle, allowed to them, do in Russian antiquities” or “He is a lot like some idol priest who, having smoked himself with henbane and dope and quickly spinning on one leg, twisted his head, gives dubious, dark, incomprehensible and completely wild answers.”

How long will we dance to the tune of the “stoned idol priests”?” (KUN:186-187).

Discussion.

Although on the topic of the mythological nature of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, I read the works of L.N. Gumilyov, and A.T. Fomenko, and Valyansky and Kalyuzhny, but no one wrote so clearly, in detail and conclusively before Alexei Kungurov. And I can congratulate “our regiment” of researchers of non-politicized Russian history for having one more bayonet in it. I note that he is not only well-read, but also capable of a remarkable analysis of all the absurdities of professional historians. It is professional historiography that comes up with bows that shoot 300 meters with the lethal force of a modern rifle bullet; it is precisely this that calmly appoints backward herders who had no statehood as the creators of the largest state in the entire history of mankind; it is they who suck out huge armies of conquerors that are impossible to feed. , nor move several thousand kilometers. The illiterate Mongols, it turns out, compiled land and capitation lists, that is, they conducted a population census throughout this huge country, and also recorded trade income even from itinerant traders. And the results of this enormous work in the form of reports, lists and analytical reviews disappeared somewhere without a trace. It turned out that there is not a single archaeological confirmation of the existence of both the capital of the Mongols and the capitals of the uluses, as well as the existence of Mongol coins. And even today, Mongolian tugriks are a non-convertible monetary unit.

Of course, the chapter touches on a lot more problems than the reality of the existence of the Mongol-Tatars. For example, the possibility of masking the real forced Christianization of Rus' by the West due to the Tatar-Mongol invasion. However, this problem requires much more serious argumentation, which is absent in this chapter of Alexei Kungurov’s book. Therefore, I am in no hurry to draw any conclusions in this regard.

Conclusion.

Nowadays, there is only one justification for supporting the myth of the Tatar-Mongol invasion: it not only expressed, but also expresses today the Western point of view on the history of Russia. The West is not interested in the point of view of Russian researchers. It will always be possible to find such “professionals” who, for the sake of self-interest, career or fame in the West, will support a generally accepted myth fabricated by the West.