Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
M
ONGOL
C
ONQUEST
AND
R
ULE
1240-1480
By the early decades of the 13th century the lands of Kievan Rus emerged as a
distinct cultural and political entity that was primarily agricultural, but with
important commercial connections to the Baltic and Black Seas. While the ruler
of Kiev held preeminent status, the Kievan territories were bound by a rela-
tively decentralized political structure built around princes charged with
defending their lands and administering justice aided by a council of indepen-
dent landowners. A common Slavic language and adherence to Eastern Ortho-
dox Christianity, which also linked them to the Byzantine world, further unified
the lands of Kievan Rus.
This world was shattered between 1237 and 1240 by the arrival of the Mon-
gols, a new and more ruthless group of invaders who would conquer and con-
trol most of the Russian lands for the next 250 to 300 years. Led by Batu Khan,
a grandson of the great conqueror Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan), Mongol
armies first appeared on the eastern banks of the Volga in 1236, after conquer-
ing China, Central Asia, Iran, and Transcaucasia over the previous three decades.
Already the ruler of the steppes north of the Aral Sea and Lake Balkhash, Batu
Khan had his armies penetrating further west and within four years had con-
quered the Volga Bulgarians and the politically fragmented Russian principali-
ties with the exception of Novgorod, capturing the great city of Kiev in December
1240.
On the eastern banks of the Volga, with its capital at Sarai, near modern-day
Astrakhan, Batu Khan established the Mongol state generally known as the
Golden Horde. From Sarai the Mongols ruled the Russian principalities through
a system of tribute. After about a century, the Mongol grip on its vassal states
began to weaken. During the 14th century, the western and southern Russian
principalities fell under the sway of the newly established Grand Duchy of
Lithuania.
Within the territory still held by the Golden Horde, the small principality of
Moscow absorbed many of its neighbors until it felt strong enough to challenge
the Horde. In 1380 the Muscovite prince Dmitrii Donskoi led a coalition of Rus-
sian princes to defeat the Tatars at the Battle of Kulikovo. The defeat was mostly
a harbinger of future changes, because it was not for another hundred years
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