16d: The Mongol Occupation

The Golden Horde was a group of Mongol horsemen who swept in from the Far East in the mid 1230s AD. They conquered almost all of Kievan Rus, dominating it for more than two centuries. But they neither golden in color nor a motley crue of wild men. The Mongol civilization equated the color gold with the direction west  - hence the term "golden." "Horde" is the Mongols' own word for a military force, which found its way into the Russian language as "orda," and from there into the English word for an out of control barbarian mob. The Mongols were neither barbarians nor out of control. They were ferocious, highly disciplined horsemen, who traveled quickly and stoped at nothing to crush their enemies.

Under the leadership of Genghis Khan (1162-1228), the Mongols swept out of Mongolia and into China. At the same time, Genghis sent different hordes in other directions - toward Egypt, toward Byzantium, toward Persia, toward Hungary, and - in 1223 - toward Rus. Led by Genghis Khan's grandson, Batu Khan, the Golden Horde (that is, the Western Force) won a decisive battle against a group of Rus armies, only to be called back to help with the conquest of China. In 1235, Genghis's successor Ogodai Khan sent Batu west with roughly 130,000 men. By 1236 Batu's forces reached the Volga River. By late 1237, Batu began picking off the great cities of Kievan Rus one by one. Moscow was sacked and burned in January 1238. The capital city of Vladimir was captured and razed to the ground in February 1238. Kiev finally fell by storm in 1240. The only major city to avoid the doom, despair and agony of Mongol conquest was Great Novgorod, which was farther northwest than the Mongols cared to go. The Mongols then turned west to overrun Poland and Hungary. In 1241 Batu was planning attacks on Austria, Germany, and Italy when he was called home to participate in electing Ogodai Khan's successor. By 1242 the Golden Horde's age of conquest was - fortunately for Western civilization - over once and for all.

Yet the Golden Horde (or the Kipchaks, as they were also known) were not interested in occupying their new conquests. Fearsome and bloodthirsty as they had been during wartime, they pursued a "hands off" policy. The Rus princes were allowed to rule their individual cities more or less as they pleased - provided they had paid their taxes, furnished troops for Mongol army, and paid personal homage to the Great Khan, all the way in Karakorum.  Although the Mongols contributed little, if anything, to Russian culture, they tolerated Russian ways, even allowing the Orthodox church to name a bishop for their capital city of Sarai. Perhaps they believed that permitting religious freedom would make the Russians less likely to rise up. Whatever the reason, the Orthodox faith welded the Russian people together and preserved the remaining scraps of Kievan Rus culture. As the Mongol Empire began to fall apart, the Golden Horde loosened its hold somewhat. After a while, the Mongols allowed the Russian to collect the all-important taxes themselves. A letter of patent called the "yarlyk" was granted to one or another of the princes of Rus, making him the Great Khan's chief tax collector. The holder of the yarlyk automatically received the title Grand Prince and the right to use Mongol troops against tax cheats - or any other Rus prince who displeased him.

Because Great Novgorod had avoided capture by the Golden Horde, their government was able to develop in its own way. In 1136, the boyars there felt grim. Their Kiev-appointed prince had got them mad at him. The merchants soon agreed and told the prince he'd need to leave from their neighborhood, which he did as fast as he could, ending Kievan rule in Novgorod for good. The city's name became from that day forth, Great Novgorod, Republic of the North. Back in 862, Novgorod had summoned Rurik the Varangian to be its leader. Although it soon afterward took second place to Kiev, Novgorod still controlled a wide territory in far northwestern Rus - so remote that the Mongols left it alone. Novgorod was unique for another reason: it was run by a democratic assembly called the veche. The veche elected a city manager from the local nobility. The veche also elected a prince to lommand Novgorod's army. When the Golden Horde invaded in 1236, the prince of Novgorod was nineteen-year-old Alexander of Vladimir. Although the Mongols weren't interested in Novgorod, the Swedes were very interested. In 1240, Alexander defeated a Swedish army on the frozen Neva River, thereby earning the name Alexander of the Neva - or Alexander Nevsky.  In 1242 Alexander drove off an invasion by the Teutonic Knights. For all of his bravery, though, Alexander also knew which fights not to pick.  He would not be drawn into war with the Mongols, believing that Rus was too weak and too divided.  For his wisdom, awarded the yarlyk in 1252. This honor allowed Alexander to call himself Grand Prince of Vladimir; it also enabled the town of Vladimir to remain comparatively untouched by the Mongol occupation.

Alexander Nevsky was right. Thanks to the practice of appanage, Rus was in fact too weak to rise up against the Mongols.  Simply put, appanage meant that a principality passed from father to eldest son, with each of the other sons given an "appanage" carved out of the principality - usually a less important town with its surrounding area.  Each of these appanage princes, naturally, took himself very seriously and carved appanages out of his lands for his younger sons. One result was a crazy quilt - as you can see from the map - of appanage princes who could barely pay their own upkeep, let alone pay their taxes to the Khan at Sarai.  In many cases, princes transferred their land to the Russian Orthodox Church to avoid paying taxes altogether. Following the Mongol principle of "divide and conquer," the Golden Horde was happy to watch the princes bicker, even if it made the Orthodox Church into a major landholder. As the Mongol empire started to fall apart, the future was bright for a Russian principality which could keep from being chopped to bits through the appanage process. And down by the Moscow River, such a principality was being established.