Eastern Ukraine - Ukraine - page 448

Over time, Mongol leaders were gradually replaced by their Tatar colleagues and des-
cendants, and when the horde began to disintegrate in the 15th century, it divided into
several smaller khanates.
One of these - the Crimean Khanate - eventually became a client state of the
Constantinople-based Ottoman Turk Empire in 1475. The Crimean Tatars, as the people
of the khanate were known, made frequent slave raids into Ukrainian, Russian and Polish
territory until the 18th century. When Russia overran Crimea in 1783, it retaliated. The
Tatars suffered dreadfully and often have ever since. Reminders of their once-powerful
civilisation can be seen in Bakhchysaray, which since independence has become one of
Crimea's most interesting tourist attractions.
Roxelana, the powerful wife of Ottoman emperor Suleyman the Magnificent, was origin-
ally a Ukrainian slave from near Lviv, who was sold at Kaffa (today's Feodosiya) and
taken to 16th-century Turkey.
Galicia-Volynia
Meanwhile, from 1199 under the rule of Prince Roman Mstyslavych, the region of
Galicia-Volynia (most of present-day western, central and northern Ukraine, plus parts of
northeastern Poland and southern Belarus) became one of the most powerful within
Kyivan Rus. This enclave's geography differentiated it from the rest of the empire. It was
far enough west to avoid conquest by eastern invaders like the Mongols and more likely
to fall prey to its Catholic neighbours Hungary and Poland - or, later, Lithuania. More
densely populated than any other part of Kyivan Rus, it developed a rich agricultural so-
ciety.
Until 1340 Galicia-Volynia (also called Halych-Volhynia) enjoyed independent rule
under Roman, his son Danylo, grandson Lev and descendants, who kept the Mongols at
bay and helped Lviv and other cities to flourish. Political control was wrested from this
local dynasty by the Poles and Lithuanians in the 1340s, who split the kingdom between
them and used it as a base to expand eastwards into other areas of Ukraine, including Ky-
iv. However, its brief period of early self-determination seems to have left Galicia-
Volynia with a particularly strong taste for Ukrainian nationalism, which is still evident
today.
Neal Ascherson's Black Sea is a fascinating tale of the civilisation s - and barbarian s -
that jostled for supremacy around this coast, from prehistory's Scythians to multicultural
Odesa's 19th-century founders.