When was the liberation of Rus' from the Tatar yoke. Liberation from the Mongol-Tatar yoke
The date of the liberation of Rus' from the Tatar-Mongol yoke is traditionally considered to be 1480 and this event is associated with the Standing on the Ugra. However, in reality everything was much more complicated. The struggle of the Russian people with the conquerors, which began already in the middle of the 13th century, produced its results: during the 13th - 15th centuries, the forms of dependence of Rus' on the Horde gradually changed towards weakening, and in the 15th century this dependence was reduced mainly to the payment of tribute, while in At the end of the 14th and 15th centuries there were long periods of time when tribute was not paid at all and Muscovite Rus' was actually an independent state. In addition, the data from the sources at our disposal allows us to assert that the cessation of tributary dependence, and therefore the liberation of Rus', occurred somewhat earlier than 1480.
In the first century of the yoke, the fight against the Tatar-Mongols took place in the form of popular uprisings and individual cases of armed confrontation with the Horde on the part of the princes. However, in conditions of overwhelming military superiority of the Tatar-Mongols and the lack of unity of the Russian principalities, such actions, even if they ended successfully (such as the uprising of 1262 or the defeat of the Tatar detachment by Dmitry Pereyaslavsky in 1285), could not lead to liberation, and even such goals Our princes, apparently, did not set themselves the task; the cases of armed resistance to the Tatars, with rare exceptions, were associated with princely civil strife. However, already at the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th century, significant results were achieved, the situation began to change: by the end of the 13th century, the collection of tribute passed to the Russian princes, and the Baskaks disappeared. In the last quarter of the 14th century, a radical change occurred in the relations between Rus' and the Horde; the national liberation struggle of Rus' against the Mongol-Tatars, unlike the previous period, took on an organized character and had as its goal complete liberation from foreign domination. The strengthening of the Moscow principality and the favorable foreign policy situation associated with long-term civil strife in the Horde allowed Moscow to refuse to pay tribute in 1374, in 1377-1378 a series of battles with the Horde took place, and finally, in 1380, the Russian people won the Great Victory on the Kulikovo Field. And even despite the fact that in 1383 Moscow, in connection with the invasion of Tokhtamysh and the defection of neighboring principalities to the Horde, was forced to temporarily resume the payment of tribute, the significance and results of the Kulikovo Victory and the struggle that preceded it were enormous: the most severe forms were finally a thing of the past dependencies of Rus' associated with the assertion of the power of the Russian princes by the khan's labels, the great reign was established for the Moscow princes, i.e. in fact, the yoke was reduced mainly to the irregular payment of tribute. In addition, tributary dependence was restored for a fairly short period of time, until 1395, when, taking advantage of the defeat of the Horde by Tamerlane, the Moscow Principality again stopped paying the “exit” and even took offensive actions against the Horde, so in 1399 Moscow troops made a successful campaign against the lands, were part of the Golden Horde. Thus, Muscovite Rus' entered the 15th century as an independent state, completely free from Horde domination.
Naturally, the Horde could not come to terms with the loss of power over Russia, and in 1408 the Horde ruler Edigei launched a large-scale invasion, but failed. Despite the significant damage caused by the destruction of a number of cities of the Moscow principality, Edigei failed to take the capital and force Vasily I to resume paying tribute. From the message sent by Edigei to Vasily the following year, you can get information about the relationship between Rus' and the Horde at the beginning of the 15th century: the Grand Duke’s trips to the Horde stopped: “So Temir-Koutlui sat on the kingdom, the sovereign became Oulousu, so from those places you did not have a king in the horde, you did not know the king, neither the princes, nor the older boys, nor the younger ones, you did not send anyone. So that kingdom passed, and then Shadibik reigned for 8 years: you never visited him like that again, you didn’t send a son or a brother with anyone. Shadibikov’s kingdom passed away like that, and now Bolat sat on the kingdom, already reigning for the third year: you have never been the same, neither son nor brother nor the oldest boyar.”(Novgorod IV Chronicle. PSRL. T. 4 http://psrl.csu.ru/toms/Tom_04.shtml),; at the same time, sometimes Moscow even tried to use the horde for its own foreign policy purposes, for example, in the period 1404-1407, Moscow promised to resume paying tribute, but in reality did not pay it ( “Why do you send complaints and letters of complaint to us every time, but you tell us so hard that “you’ve exhausted all your souls, and there’s no way out”? Otherwise, before this, we did not know your oulos, only we heard; and what about your orders or your letters to us, then you lied to us all; and what did you have in your treasure from every village, a ruble dried up for two, and where did you put the silver?”(Novgorod IV Chronicle. PSRL. T. 4), used (in 1407) mercenary Tatar troops to fight Lithuania. However, in 1412, Vasily Dmitrievich made a trip to the Horde, accompanied by the payment of tribute. The reason for the change in Moscow's policy was the unfavorable political situation. Soon after the invasion of Moscow, Edigei, having failed to achieve his goals through military means, restored the independence of the Nizhny Novgorod principality, annexed to Moscow in 1392. In 1410, Nizhny Novgorod and Tatars plundered Vladimir. Military actions against the Nizhny Novgorod princes undertaken the following year were unsuccessful; the Moscow army was defeated. The need to return the Nizhny Novgorod land to the rule of Moscow was the reason for the resumption of relations with the Horde. However, there was no return to the times of the 13th-14th centuries: the great reign remained with the Moscow princes, in foreign policy matters Moscow acted completely independently, while showing open disobedience to the will of the khan, for example, not achieving the return of Nizhny Novgorod during his trip to the Horde , Vasily I in 1414 nevertheless restored control over the Nizhny Novgorod land, forcibly removing the Nizhny Novgorod prince from power, despite the fact that the latter received the khan's label.
There is no exact data on how regularly tribute was paid after 1412. Indirect confirmation that Muscovite Rus', at least in the second half of the 20s and until the beginning of the 30s of the 15th century. did not pay the “exit” may be the Tatar raids on Galich and Kostroma in 1429 and the campaign against the Horde of Moscow troops in 1431. Although it is possible that these Tatar attacks could be ordinary predatory raids carried out without the sanction of the khan, while some or invasions similar to Edigeev or Tokhtamyshev, which were undertaken by the Tatars in the event of Moscow’s refusal to pay tribute, sources do not report. But on the other hand, it is also possible that due to the almost constant strife of the Horde, the khans simply did not have the opportunity to organize a large-scale invasion, and it is likely that in the years 1413-1430, tribute was either not paid at all, or was paid rarely and irregularly .
What is known for certain is that the payment of tribute resumed after 1431, when the son and brother of Vasily I, Vasily II Vasilyevich and Yuri Dmitrievich, competing for the grand-ducal throne, tried to win over the khan, visited the Horde, and continued in the 30-50s XV century, despite the collapse of the unified Horde state. In the 30s, civil strife once again resumed in the Horde, which ultimately led to its collapse: the independent Kazan Khanate, the Crimean Khanate, the horde of Said-Ahmad, and the Siberian Khanate were formed. The Great Horde becomes the largest state entity - the “legal successor” of the former Golden Horde. Thus, as during the “great turmoil” of the 14th century, very real prerequisites were created for the complete liberation of Rus' from the remnants of Horde dependence, but this did not happen, the reason for which was the long-term civil strife in the Moscow principality, called the “feudal war.” Only united Rus' was able to successfully resist the Horde, but in the absence of unity and internecine war, dependence on the Horde continued to persist. As for the trip to the Horde of Vasily II and his uncle Yuri Dmitrievich in 1431-1432 and the dispute between them about the label, at first glance it may seem that it is no different from the trips of Russian princes to the Horde of the 13th-14th centuries, but unlike those times when princes were obliged to appear in the Horde at the request of the khan, the reason for visiting the horde in 1431-1432 was not the will of the Horde ruler, but the initiative of the warring princes themselves, each of whom, in the conditions of the struggle for power, hoped to find an ally in the person of the khan. As you know, Yuri Dmitrievich failed to achieve a great reign with the help of the Tatars; Khan Ulu-Muhammad chose to give the label to Vasily II. However, no one had taken into account the will of the khan for a long time, so immediately upon returning to Rus', Vasily II violated the khan’s order and took away from Yuri the city of Dmitrov, given by the khan to Yuri, and Yuri himself overthrew Vasily in 1433. Thus, even during the feudal war, the situation continued to persist in which Rus'’s dependence on the Horde was expressed exclusively in the payment of tribute. In addition, in the 40s, due to the collapse of the Horde, Muscovite Rus' had to deal with several Tatar hordes, paying tribute to some khans and repelling the raids of others. After the overthrow of Ulu-Mukhamed, tribute was paid to the Great Horde of Kichi-Mukhamed; as a result of the defeat in 1445 from Ulu-Mukhamed, who founded the independent khanate, and the capture of Vasily II, the latter was forced to pay tribute to the Kazan Khan, but dependence on Kazan did not last long: under 1447 there are information about the payment of the “exit” to Said-Ahmad, and in 1448 about repelling the invasion of the Kazan Tatars on Vladimir and Murom; in the same 1448, tributary relations with the horde of Said-Ahmad ended, while the latter repeatedly (in 1449, 1451, 1454, 1455, 1459) launched attacks on the Principality of Moscow, which were successfully repelled by Russian troops. The armed clashes of 1448-1459 with the hordes of Ulu-Muhamed and Said-Ahmad are proof of the absence of tributary relations with these state entities. However, based on this, it is not necessary to draw a conclusion about the end of the Horde yoke. The fact is that the sources do not mention any military clashes with the Great Horde of Kichi-Mukhamed, and therefore it can be argued that tribute was paid to the Great Horde in the period from 1448 to 1459.
However, in the next decade the situation changes. In 1459, Russian troops defeated Said-Akhmad's horde, soon the state itself ceased to exist, Said-Akhmad was captured in Lithuania and died there, and in 1460 the chronicles report an attack on Ryazan by the Greater Horde troops. It should be borne in mind that starting from 1456, the Ryazan Principality, formally continuing to remain an independent great principality, was actually annexed to Moscow, the young Ryazan prince was in Moscow, and Ryazan itself was ruled by Moscow governors. So the attack on Ryazan was also a hostile action against the Principality of Moscow. In this regard, it can be assumed that in 1459, after eliminating the danger from Said-Akhmad, Vasily the Dark broke off relations with Kichi-Mukhamed, which was the reason for the Tatars’ campaign against Ryazan. However, another explanation for this event is also possible: it is known that after the death of Kichi-Mukhamed, his two sons Mahmud, who was the khan during the invasion of Ryazan, and Akhmat (the same “hero” of the stand on the Ugra) remained. In the chronicles, the khan who led the campaign against Ryazan is called in one case “Akhmut”, and in another - Mehmet”, i.e. It is not clear who was the organizer of this invasion: if Mahmud, who was khan at that time, then in this case the reason for the invasion could well have been Moscow’s refusal to pay tribute, but if it was Akhmat’s raid unauthorized by the khan, then we can talk about the cessation of paying tribute in 1459-1460. premature. Thus, the question of whether tribute was paid at the end of the reign of Vasily II the Dark remains open. But already from the beginning of the independent reign of Ivan III, one can confidently assert the end of tributary relations, evidence of which is the failed invasion of 1465: “That same summer, the godless Tsar Mahmut went to the Russian land with the entire Horde and ended up on the Don. By the grace of God and His Most Pure Mother, King Azigirei came to him and took him and the Horde. And we began to fight among ourselves, and so God delivered the Russian land from the filthy ones.”(Nikon Chronicle. PSRL. T. 12, pp. 116-117 http://psrl.csu.ru/toms/Tom_12.shtml)
At the same time, this chronicle message contains an important detail that the khan went to Rus' “with the entire horde,” from which it becomes clear that this was not just a raid, but an all-Horde large-scale action, the reasons for which were nothing other than non-payment of the “exit” “It’s impossible to explain. Then the Tatars failed to carry out their plans, the Great Horde army was suddenly attacked by the Crimeans and defeated, and Mahmud was soon overthrown by Akhmat. And although there were no major Horde invasions until the end of the 60s, nevertheless, the danger from the Great Horde remained: in 1468. There were Tatar attacks on the southern outskirts of Rus', therefore, in the second half of the 60s, tribute was not paid, and Rus' was in a state of war with the Horde. However, there is information about the resumption of tributary relations in the early 70s. The Vologda-Perm Chronicle, when describing the Standing on the Ugra, explaining the reasons for Akhmat’s campaign in 1480, provides important information that allows us to establish the date of the final termination of the payment of tribute: “Ivan Delya’s tongue came, but because of his lies, he doesn’t come to me, and doesn’t hit me with his forehead, and THE NINE YEAR HAS NOT GIVEN ME A WAY OUT”(Vologda-Perm Chronicle. PSRL. T. 26. http://psrl.csu.ru/toms/Tom_26.shtml).
Consequently, in 1470-1471, after a long break, tribute was paid again. What caused such an unexpected decision of Ivan III. The answer lies in the difficult situation related to the relations of Muscovite Rus' with Novgorod and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It is known from the chronicles that in 1470 a Lithuanian ambassador arrived to Akhmat with a proposal for a joint Lithuanian-Tatar campaign against Rus'. In addition, it was at this time that important events took place in Novgorod, which ultimately led to the Battle of Shelon and the subordination of the Novgorod Republic to Muscovite Rus'. Considering that the threat of both an attack by the Tatars and a joint Lithuanian-Tatar invasion was quite real, it can be assumed that Ivan III chose not to risk it and decided to pay tribute, thereby protecting Rus' from a possible attack, since the invasion of the Tatars, while The main military forces of Muscovite Rus' were involved in the Novgorod campaign, creating a serious danger for the Moscow Principality. An indirect confirmation of this is the chronicle message about the presence of the Russian ambassador Grigory Volnin at Akhmat in 1472, whose tasks probably included the delivery of tribute to the Horde, as well as an attempt to thwart the plans of the Lithuanian-Tatar campaign against Rus'. In fact, this payment of tribute had little in common with the usual practice of tributary relations between Rus' and the Horde, in fact being a diplomatic move in order to prevent the invasion of the Horde at a time unfavorable for Moscow. And as subsequent events showed, Ivan III managed to achieve his goals: in 1471, during the war with Novgorod, when the military-political situation was favorable to the Tatars, the invasion did not take place, most likely as a result of the “exit” being paid in a timely manner.
However, it was still not possible to avoid the invasion. Considering that since the beginning of the reign of Ivan III, Rus' stopped paying tribute and was a completely independent state, the Horde understood that it was possible to restore long-lost power over Russia only as a result of inflicting a decisive military defeat on Moscow. And in 1472, the second, after 1465, large-scale invasion of the Great Horde followed. From July 29 to August 1, the confrontation lasted, thanks to the courage of the defenders of Aleksin, who died but did not surrender, the warriors of the governors Peter Chelyadnin and Semyon Beklemishev, the princes Vasily Mikhailovich Vereisky and the brother of Ivan III Yuri Vasilyevich, who stopped the onslaught of the superior forces of the Horde at the crossing of the Oka River, and the timely With the concentration of the main Russian forces, which reliably covered the Oka line, Akhmat’s invasion ended in complete failure. “For this reason, the Tatars went on board the river to Otsa with much strength and rushed all into the river, wanting to come to our side, since there was no army in that place, bringing our own people to a deserted place. But only Pyotr Fedorovich and Semyon Beklemishev stood there with a small group of people, and many Tatars wandered towards them. They began to shoot with them and fought with them a lot, and they already had few arrows, and they thought of running. And at that time, Prince Vasily Mikhailovich came to them with his regiment, and therefore the regiment of Prince Yuryev Vasilyevich came; At that same hour, Prince Yuri himself came after them, and thus began to defeat the Christians over the Tatars.”(Simeonovskaya Chronicle. PSRL vol. 18, p. 242) http://psrl.csu.ru/toms/Tom_18.shtml Rus' won not only a military but also a political victory: it was from 1472 that the payment of tribute finally stopped, therefore then, in 1472, and not in 1480, and the final liberation of Rus' from Horde dependence took place. As for the famous “standing on the Ugra”, this was just an attempt by Akhmat to restore the already overthrown yoke. Having failed to achieve in 1474-1476. By diplomatic means of his goals, in 1480 Akhmat, who by this time had managed to temporarily subjugate the Uzbek and Astrakhan khanates, organized a new invasion, which was the last attempt of the Great Horde to regain long-lost power over Russia, but as we know, it also ended in nothing.
The process of liberation from Tatar-Mongol rule was long and went through several stages. The “first liberation” occurred already in 1374 during the “reconciliation with Mamai,” and although in 1383 tributary relations with the Horde were temporarily resumed, in 1395 the independence of Muscovite Rus' was restored for a fairly long period, until 1412. In fact, the period of the late XIV - early XV was a turning point in the national liberation struggle of the Russian people, as a result of which there was liberation from the most severe forms of dependence associated with the complete control of the Horde of the internal political life of Rus', and the final liberation from the yoke, expressed in the XV century in mainly in the payment of tribute, it became only a matter of time. The long-term civil strife within the Moscow principality delayed the moment of liberation, but after its cessation, Moscow again in 1462 (and possibly in 1459) stopped paying tribute. The last time tribute was paid was in 1470-1471, and in 1472 Rus' was finally freed from the remnants of Horde dependence.
However, with all the power of the army and the splendor of the khan's court, the Golden Horde was not an independent state politically, but formed part of a single empire ruled from Karakorum.
Obedience consisted of the obligatory transfer to Karakorum of a portion of all collected taxes and tribute. To accurately establish this amount, special officials, the so-called “chislenniks,” were sent to census the population. In Rus', “numerals” appeared in 1257. The khans of the Golden Horde did not have the right to confirm Russian grand dukes on the Vladimir throne, but could only appoint holders of lower ranks. That is why the Russian princes Yaroslav and his son Alexander Nevsky were forced to make a long journey from Rus' to Mongolia. The capital of the Golden Horde was Sarai (near modern Astrakhan).(3)
Real terror was used against the Russian princes, which was supposed to intimidate them and deprive them of even the thought of opposing the ruler of Sarai. Many Russian princes were killed, in particular, in 1387 Mikhail Yaroslavich Tverskoy was killed. In Rus', punitive detachments of the Golden Horde appeared every now and then. In a number of cases, the intimidated Russian princes themselves brought tribute to the khan’s headquarters.
When merciless military pressure was replaced by no less heavy, but more sophisticated economic pressure, the Tatar-Mongol yoke in Rus' entered a new stage.
In the spring of 1361, a tense situation developed in the Golden Horde. The situation was aggravated by civil strife, the struggle for dominance between individual khans. Mamai became one of the central figures in the Golden Horde during this period. Pursuing an energetic policy, he was able to achieve the liquidation of all the isolated feudal lords of the territory that belonged to them. A decisive victory was needed, which would not only guarantee the unification of the state, but also provide a greater opportunity to manage vassal territories. There were not enough resources and strength for such a decisive turn. Mamai demanded both from the Grand Duke of Moscow Dmitry Ivanovich, but was refused. Rus' began to prepare for the fight against Mamai.
Despite all the terrible hardships, losses and losses, the Russian farmer, with his hard work, created the material basis for consolidating forces for liberation from Tatar-Mongol oppression. And finally, the time came when the united regiments of northeastern Rus', led by the Grand Duke of Moscow Dmitry Ivanovich, entered the Kulikovo field. They challenged the Tatar-Mongol rule and entered into open battle with the Horde.(5)
The growing power of northeastern Rus' was demonstrated already in 1378, when on the Vozha River (a tributary of the Oka) the Grand Duke of Moscow defeated a large Mongol-Tatar detachment and captured prominent military leaders of Mamai. In the spring of 1380, having crossed the “great” Volga, Mamai and his hordes invaded the Eastern European steppes. He reached the Don and began to wander in the area of its left tributary - the Voronezh River, intending to go to Rus' closer to autumn. His plans were of a particularly sinister nature: he wanted to carry out not just a raid for the purpose of robbery and increasing the size of the tribute, but to completely capture and enslave the Russian principalities.(1)
Having learned about the impending threat, Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich hastily took measures to strengthen Moscow, Kolomna, Serpukhov and other cities. Moscow becomes the organizing center for preparing resistance to the new invasion. Soon numerous princes and governors of the nearest principalities arrive here.
Dmitry Ivanovich energetically began to form the Russian army. An order was sent out to assemble in Kolomna on August 15.
- On August 18, Dmitry Ivanovich visited the Trinity-Sergius Monastery and received the blessing of Abbot Sergius of Radonezh for the battle with the Horde. This elder, the founder of the monastery, who with his ascetic life gained enormous authority among various segments of the population, played a prominent role in the social and spiritual life of Rus'.
- On August 27, the army left Moscow for Kolomna, where a combined arms review took place, at which a governor was assigned to each regiment. The Grand Duke takes his first decisive step towards the enemy - he crosses the Oka River - the main southern defensive line of Rus' against the nomads.
Conducting constant reconnaissance, the Russians were well aware of the location and intentions of the enemy. Mamai, believing in his complete superiority, made a serious miscalculation in this regard. He was taken by surprise as his plans were thwarted by the quick actions of the Russians.
It is unclear how many warriors gathered. According to prof. ON THE. Khotinsky, set out in the book “History and Geography of the Battle of Kulikovo” (5), ancient written sources brought to us opposite information on this matter: from the clearly exaggerated figure of 400 thousand to 150 thousand fighters. Probably, a more realistic number of troops was indicated by A.N. Tatishchev, estimating it at approximately 60 thousand people. (5) Most modern military historians are inclined to the same opinion, determining the total number of Russian troops at 50-60 thousand warriors. The Horde regiments apparently numbered 80-90 thousand soldiers. Regiments of almost all the principalities of North-Eastern Rus' came to the Kulikovo field.
Mamai's army of thousands was defeated in 1380 on the Kulikovo Field. Rus' celebrated victory. However, two years later, the Golden Horde Khan Tokhtamysh, at the head of a huge army, unexpectedly attacked Rus', which had not yet fully recovered from the consequences of the Battle of Kulikovo. The Horde were able to capture Moscow. On August 26, 1382, Moscow was completely ruined and devastated.
After the capture of Moscow, Tokhtamysh's hordes scattered throughout the area, plundering and killing, burning everything in their path. But this time the Horde did not rampage for long. In the Volokolamsk region, they were unexpectedly attacked by Prince Vladimir Andreevich with an army of seven thousand. The Tatars ran. Having received a message about the strength of the Russian army, and remembering the lesson of the Battle of Kulikovo, Tokhtamysh began to hastily go south.
From that time on, the Horde began to fear an open clash with the Russian army and began to act with great cunning and caution, trying in every possible way to inflame the internecine struggle of the Russian princes. The heavy burden of tribute, although in a smaller volume than Mamai demanded, again fell on Rus'. But the fruits of victory in the Battle of Kulikovo were not completely lost. Thanks to this victory, Mamai’s plan for the complete enslavement of Rus' was not carried out either by him or by the subsequent rulers of the Horde. On the contrary, from that time on, the centripetal forces in the unification of the Russian principalities around Moscow became increasingly stronger. After the Battle of Kulikovo, Rus' strengthened its faith in its national strength, which played an important role in its final victory over the Horde.
From that time on, the Russians stopped looking at the Horde as an irresistible force, as an inevitable and eternal punishment of God. Dmitry Ivanovich, nicknamed “Donskoy” for his victory in the Battle of Kulikovo, led a generation of people who overcame the age-old fear inspired by Batu’s invasion. And the Horde themselves, after the Battle of Kulikovo, stopped looking at the Russians as unrequited slaves and gift-givers.(1)
After the Battle of Kulikovo, Rus' irreversibly began to strengthen, its dependence on the Horde weakened more and more. Already Dmitry Donskoy emphasized his independence from the khan’s will and, violating the order established by the Horde, in his spiritual testament he transferred the right to the great reign of Vladimir to his eldest son Vasily Dmitrievich.
Since then, a method of transferring supreme power in northeastern Rus', independent of the Horde, has become the hereditary right of the Moscow princely family. A strong and experienced enemy was crushed on the Kulikovo Field. Although the Horde continued their campaigns of conquest later, they were never able to fully recover from the defeat in the Battle of Kulikovo. Its consequences largely determined the future fate of the horde. 1395 is practically the last year of the existence of the Golden Horde. The agony of the collapse of this once powerful state lasted until the middle of the 15th century.
In place of the Golden Horde, new political formations appeared. 200 years later, after the creation of the Golden Horde by Batu Khan, it broke up into the following components: the Great Horde, the Astrakhan Khanate, the Kazan Khanate, the Crimean Khanate, the Siberian Khanate, and the Nogai Horde. They all existed separately, fighting and making peace with each other and with their neighbors. The history of the Crimean Khanate, which ceased to exist in 1783, lasted longer than others. This was the last fragment of the Golden Horde that came from the Middle Ages into modern times.(5)
For Rus', the victory on the Kulikovo Field over a strong and cruel enemy was of great importance. The Battle of Kulikovo not only significantly enriched the Russian army with military-strategic experience of major battles, but also affected the entire subsequent political history of the Russian state. The victory on the Kulikovo Field cleared the way for national liberation and consolidation of Rus'.
In the 12th century, the Mongol state expanded and their military art improved.The main occupation was cattle breeding; they bred mainly horses and sheep; they did not know agriculture.
They lived in felt tents-yurts; they were easy to transport during distant nomads. Every adult Mongol was a warrior, from childhood he sat in the saddle and wielded weapons. A cowardly, unreliable person did not join the warriors and became an outcast.
In 1206, at a congress of the Mongol nobility, Temujin was proclaimed Great Khan with the name Genghis Khan.
The Mongols managed to unite hundreds of tribes under their rule, which allowed them to use foreign human material in their troops during the war. They conquered East Asia (Kyrgyz, Buryats, Yakuts, Uighurs), the Tangut Kingdom (southwest of Mongolia), Northern China, Korea and Central Asia (the largest Central Asian state of Khorezm, Samarkand, Bukhara). As a result, by the end of the 13th century, the Mongols owned half of Eurasia.
In 1223, the Mongols crossed the Caucasus ridge and invaded the Polovtsian lands. The Polovtsians turned to the Russian princes for help, because... Russians and Cumans traded with each other and entered into marriages. The Russians responded, and on the Kalka River on June 16, 1223, the first battle of the Mongol-Tatars with the Russian princes took place. The Mongol-Tatar army was reconnaissance, small, i.e. The Mongol-Tatars had to scout out what lands lay ahead. The Russians simply came to fight; they had little idea what kind of enemy was in front of them. Before the Polovtsian request for help, they had not even heard of the Mongols.
The battle ended with the defeat of the Russian troops due to the betrayal of the Polovtsians (they fled from the very beginning of the battle), and also due to the fact that the Russian princes were unable to unite their forces and underestimated the enemy. The Mongols offered the princes to surrender, promising to spare their lives and release them for a ransom. When the princes agreed, the Mongols tied them up, put boards on them, and sitting on top, began to feast on the victory. Russian soldiers, left without leaders, were killed.
The Mongol-Tatars retreated to the Horde, but returned in 1237, already knowing what kind of enemy was in front of them. Batu Khan (Batu), the grandson of Genghis Khan, brought with him a huge army. They preferred to attack the most powerful Russian principalities - Ryazan and Vladimir. They defeated and subjugated them, and in the next two years - all of Rus'. After 1240, only one land remained independent - Novgorod, because Batu had already achieved his main goals; there was no point in losing people near Novgorod.
The Russian princes were unable to unite, so they were defeated, although, according to scientists, Batu lost half of his army in Russian lands. He occupied Russian lands, offered to recognize his power and pay tribute, the so-called “exit.” At first it was collected “in kind” and amounted to 1/10 of the harvest, and then it was transferred to money.
The Mongols established a yoke system in Rus' of total suppression of national life in the occupied territories. In this form, the Tatar-Mongol yoke lasted 10 years, after which Prince Alexander Nevsky proposed a new relationship to the Horde: Russian princes entered the service of the Mongol Khan, were obliged to collect tribute, take it to the Horde and receive there a label for the great reign - a leather belt. At the same time, the prince who paid the most received the label for reign. This order was ensured by the Baskaks - Mongol commanders who walked around the Russian lands with their troops and monitored whether the tribute was collected correctly.
This was a time of vassalage of the Russian princes, but thanks to the act of Alexander Nevsky, the Orthodox Church was preserved and the raids stopped.
In the 60s of the 14th century, the Golden Horde split into two warring parts, the border between which was the Volga. In the left-bank Horde there were constant strife with changes in rulers. In the right-bank Horde, Mamai became the ruler.
The beginning of the struggle for liberation from the Tatar-Mongol yoke in Rus' is associated with the name of Dmitry Donskoy. In 1378, he, sensing the weakening of the Horde, refused to pay tribute and killed all the Baskaks. In 1380, commander Mamai went with the entire Horde to Russian lands, and a battle took place on the Kulikovo field with Dmitry Donskoy.
Mamai had 300 thousand “sabers”, and since The Mongols had almost no infantry; he hired the best Italian (Genoese) infantry. Dmitry Donskoy had 160 thousand people, of which only 5 thousand were professional military men. The main weapons of the Russians were metal-bound clubs and wooden spears.
So, the battle with the Mongol-Tatars was suicide for the Russian army, but the Russians still had a chance.
Dmitry Donskoy crossed the Don on the night of September 7-8, 1380 and burned the crossing; there was nowhere to retreat. All that remained was to win or die. He hid 5 thousand warriors in the forest behind his army. The role of the squad was to save the Russian army from being outflanked from the rear.
The battle lasted one day, during which the Mongol-Tatars trampled the Russian army. Then Dmitry Donskoy ordered the ambush regiment to leave the forest. The Mongol-Tatars decided that the main forces of the Russians were coming and, without waiting for everyone to come out, they turned and began to run, trampling the Genoese infantry. The battle turned into a pursuit of a fleeing enemy.
Two years later, a new Horde came with Khan Tokhtamysh. He captured Moscow, Mozhaisk, Dmitrov, Pereyaslavl. Moscow had to resume paying tribute, but the Battle of Kulikovo was a turning point in the fight against the Mongol-Tatars, because dependence on the Horde was now weaker.
100 years later, in 1480, the great-grandson of Dmitry Donskoy, Ivan III, stopped paying tribute to the Horde.
Khan of the Horde Ahmed came out with a large army against Rus', wanting to punish the rebellious prince. He approached the border of the Moscow principality, the Ugra River, a tributary of the Oka. Ivan III also came there. Since the forces turned out to be equal, they stood on the Ugra River throughout spring, summer and autumn. Fearing the approaching winter, the Mongol-Tatars went to the Horde. This was the end of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, because Ahmed's defeat meant the collapse of Batu's power and the gaining of independence by the Russian state.
The Tatar-Mongol yoke lasted 240 years.
o (Mongol-Tatar, Tatar-Mongol, Horde) - the traditional name for the system of exploitation of Russian lands by nomadic conquerors who came from the East from 1237 to 1480.
This system was aimed at carrying out mass terror and robbing the Russian people by levying cruel exactions. She acted primarily in the interests of the Mongolian nomadic military-feudal nobility (noyons), in whose favor the lion's share of the collected tribute went.
The Mongol-Tatar yoke was established as a result of the invasion of Batu Khan in the 13th century. Until the early 1260s, Rus' was under the rule of the great Mongol khans, and then the khans of the Golden Horde.
The Russian principalities were not directly part of the Mongol state and retained the local princely administration, the activities of which were controlled by the Baskaks - the khan's representatives in the conquered lands. The Russian princes were tributaries of the Mongol khans and received from them labels for ownership of their principalities. Formally, the Mongol-Tatar yoke was established in 1243, when Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich received from the Mongols a label for the Grand Duchy of Vladimir. Rus', according to the label, lost the right to fight and had to regularly pay tribute to the khans twice annually (in spring and autumn).
There was no permanent Mongol-Tatar army on the territory of Rus'. The yoke was supported by punitive campaigns and repressions against rebellious princes. The regular flow of tribute from Russian lands began after the census of 1257-1259, carried out by Mongol “numerals”. The units of taxation were: in cities - yard, in rural areas - “village”, “plow”, “plough”. Only the clergy were exempt from tribute. The main “Horde burdens” were: “exit”, or “tsar’s tribute” - a tax directly for the Mongol khan; trade fees (“myt”, “tamka”); carriage duties (“pits”, “carts”); maintenance of the khan's ambassadors (“food”); various “gifts” and “honors” to the khan, his relatives and associates. Every year, a huge amount of silver left the Russian lands as tribute. Large “requests” for military and other needs were periodically collected. In addition, the Russian princes were obliged, by order of the khan, to send soldiers to participate in campaigns and in round-up hunts (“lovitvahs”). In the late 1250s and early 1260s, tribute was collected from the Russian principalities by Muslim merchants (“besermen”), who bought this right from the great Mongol Khan. Most of the tribute went to the Great Khan in Mongolia. During the uprisings of 1262, the “besermans” were expelled from Russian cities, and the responsibility for collecting tribute passed to the local princes.
Rus''s struggle against the yoke became increasingly widespread. In 1285, Grand Duke Dmitry Alexandrovich (son of Alexander Nevsky) defeated and expelled the army of the “Horde prince”. At the end of the 13th - first quarter of the 14th century, performances in Russian cities led to the elimination of the Baskas. With the strengthening of the Moscow principality, the Tatar yoke gradually weakened. Moscow Prince Ivan Kalita (reigned in 1325-1340) achieved the right to collect “exit” from all Russian principalities. From the middle of the 14th century, the orders of the khans of the Golden Horde, not supported by a real military threat, were no longer carried out by the Russian princes. Dmitry Donskoy (1359-1389) did not recognize the khan's labels issued to his rivals, and seized the Grand Duchy of Vladimir by force. In 1378, he defeated the Tatar army on the Vozha River in the Ryazan land, and in 1380 he defeated the Golden Horde ruler Mamai in the Battle of Kulikovo.
However, after Tokhtamysh’s campaign and the capture of Moscow in 1382, Rus' was forced to again recognize the power of the Golden Horde and pay tribute, but already Vasily I Dmitrievich (1389-1425) received the great reign of Vladimir without the khan’s label, as “his patrimony.” Under him, the yoke was nominal. Tribute was paid irregularly, and the Russian princes pursued independent policies. The attempt of the Golden Horde ruler Edigei (1408) to restore full power over Russia ended in failure: he failed to take Moscow. The strife that began in the Golden Horde opened up the possibility for Russia to overthrow the Tatar yoke.
However, in the middle of the 15th century, Muscovite Rus' itself experienced a period of internecine war, which weakened its military potential. During these years, the Tatar rulers organized a series of devastating invasions, but they were no longer able to bring the Russians to complete submission. The unification of Russian lands around Moscow led to the concentration in the hands of the Moscow princes of such political power that the weakening Tatar khans could not cope with. The Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III Vasilyevich (1462-1505) refused to pay tribute in 1476. In 1480, after the unsuccessful campaign of the Great Horde Khan Akhmat and “standing on the Ugra,” the yoke was finally overthrown.
The Mongol-Tatar yoke had negative, regressive consequences for the economic, political and cultural development of the Russian lands, and was a brake on the growth of the productive forces of Rus', which were at a higher socio-economic level compared to the productive forces of the Mongol state. It artificially preserved for a long time the purely feudal natural character of the economy. Politically, the consequences of the yoke were manifested in the disruption of the natural process of state development of Rus', in the artificial maintenance of its fragmentation. The Mongol-Tatar yoke, which lasted two and a half centuries, was one of the reasons for the economic, political and cultural lag of Rus' from Western European countries.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources.
Today the Holy Church has established the celebration of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God in memory of the salvation of Russia from the invasion of Khan Akhmat in 1480.
This event went down in history under the name “The Great Stand on the Ugra River.” In 1476, Khan of the Great Horde Akhmat sent an embassy to Moscow, headed by Akhmet Sadyk, with a formidable demand to completely restore tributary relations.
Realizing that a negative answer meant war, Grand Duke John III played for time; negotiations took a long time.
There is information that Ivan III made the final decision under the influence of his wife, the Byzantine princess Sophia Fominichna Paleolog, who allegedly angrily told her husband: “I married the Grand Duke of Russia, not a Horde slave.”
At a meeting with the ambassadors, John III tore up the khan's letter, broke and trampled under his feet the basma (a box filled with wax with an imprint of the khan's heel, issued to the ambassadors as a credential). The prince ordered the ambassadors to be killed, except for one, whom he released and said: “Go and tell the khan: what happened to his basma and the ambassadors will happen to him if he does not leave me alone.”
In 1480, countless hordes of Khan Akhmat rushed to Moscow. Akhmat's troops moved freely across Lithuanian territory and, accompanied by Lithuanian guides, through Mtsensk, Odoev and Lyubutsk to Vorotynsk.
Here the khan expected help from Casimir IV, but he never received it. The Crimean Tatars, allies of Ivan III, distracted the Lithuanian troops by attacking Podolia. Knowing that Russian regiments were waiting for him on the Oka, Akhmat decided, after passing through Lithuanian lands, to invade Russian territory across the Ugra River.
John III, having received information about such intentions, sent his son Ivan and brother Andrei the Lesser to Kaluga and to the banks of the Ugra. To prevent an attack from the rear, the Tatars ravaged the area of the upper reaches of the river. Oka for 100 km, inhabited by Russians, capturing the cities: Mtsensk, Odoev, Przemysl, Old Vorotynsk, New Vorotynsk, Old Zalidov, New Zalidov, Opakov, Meshchevsk, Serensk, Kozelsk. Khan Akhmat's attempt to cross the river failed. Ugru in the Opakov settlement area, it was also repulsed.
The two armies met on the Ugra River, the left tributary of the Oka. On June 23 (July 6, new style), 1480, Grand Duke John III arrived to the army in Kolomna and stayed there continuously until September 30. On the same day, the miraculous icon of the Vladimir Mother of God, whose intercession was associated with the salvation of Rus' from the troops of Tamerlane in 1395, was brought from Vladimir to Moscow.
All of Moscow, meanwhile, prayed to its Intercessor, the Most Holy Theotokos, for the salvation of the Orthodox capital. Metropolitan Gerontius and the confessor of the Grand Duke, Archbishop Vassian of Rostov, supported the Russian troops with prayer, blessing and advice. The Metropolitan wrote a conciliar message to the prince, in which he called on him to courageously stand against the enemy, trusting in the help of the Mother of God.
No one wanted to attack first, skirmishes occurred, there was a battle in the lower reaches of the river, but both troops - Russian and Tatar - still occupied their positions on different banks of the Ugra. Several months passed in minor skirmishes and diplomatic negotiations, and autumn arrived. At the beginning of November, John III gave the order to retreat to winter quarters at Borovsk. On the banks of the Ugra he left a guard to monitor the Tatars. However, the Tatars, instead of attacking the Russians, as Moscow military leaders feared, fled themselves.
On the morning of November 11 (24), the guards saw that the right bank of the Ugra was empty. The Tatars secretly withdrew from their positions at night and went south. The rapid retreat of the Tatars looked more like flight. And soon Khan Akhmat was killed in the Horde. Historians explain the flight of the Tatars by the fact that Akhmat received news of the raid of the Russians and their allies on the Horde abandoned by Akhmat, the onset of cold weather, etc.
Russian Orthodox people saw in this fact the special protection of the Heavenly Lady of the Russian land - both armies almost simultaneously (within two days) turned back without bringing the matter to battle.
The Ugra River was called by our ancestors “the belt of the Most Holy Theotokos.”
“Let the frivolous not boast of the fear of their weapons,” the chronicler wrote, “No! Not weapons and not human wisdom, but the Lord has now saved Russia.” Thus, without any battle, the Mongol-Tatar yoke ended in Rus'.
In honor of this event, on June 23 (July 6, new style), the celebration of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God was established with a religious procession to the Sretensky Monastery.
Troparion to the Icon of the Mother of God of Vladimir
Today the most glorious city of Moscow is shining brightly,as if I have perceived the dawn of the sun, O Lady,
Your miraculous icon,
to her now we flow and pray. We cry to you:
Oh, wonderful Lady Theotokos!
Pray from You to Christ our God incarnate,
may this city deliver
and all Christian cities and countries are unharmed from all the slander of the enemy,
and He will save our souls, for He is Merciful
