Russia

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The Mongol Invasion

In 1223 the Mongol armies of Genghis Khan invaded the southeast. The Polovtsy sent for help from the Russian princes, who came to their aid against this common, greater foe. In the Battle of the Kalka River (now Kal’mius River), the Polovtsy-Russian coalition was routed. After his victory, however, the Mongol khan recalled his armies to Asia and they retreated as rapidly as they had come. For 14 years, the Mongols made no move in the direction of Russia. Then, in 1237, Genghis Khan’s grandson Batu Khan led an army back to eastern Russia. On their northward march, Batu’s forces captured and destroyed most of the major cities in the Vladimir-Suzdal’ region.

The difficult terrain of the forests and swamps south of Novgorod halted the Mongol sweep, and Batu Khan was forced to change the direction of his march, moving to the southwest. Kyiv desperately tried to defend itself, but the city was destroyed by Batu’s army in 1240. The invaders came to be generally known in Russia as the Tatars, after the Turkic-speaking people who comprised a prominent part of the Mongol forces. The Mongols ravaged Poland and Hungary and progressed as far east as Moravia. In 1242 Batu established his capital at Sarai on the lower Volga (near modern Volgograd) and founded the khanate known as the Golden Horde, which was virtually independent of the Mongol Empire.

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Ethnic Changes

In addition to the havoc it created in Russia at the time, the Mongol invasion had a long-term influence on later Russian history. Mongol rule increased Russia’s isolation from Europe, and Tatar customs, laws, and government also had an influence on Russia. During the Mongol era the East Slavs evolved into three distinct groups. One group, culturally influenced by the Poles and Lithuanians, eventually became known as White Russians, or Belorussians (Belarusians). A second group, formed of the Slavic population from Kyiv and adjacent areas, became known as Little Russians (Malorussians) and later as Ukrainians. Those who lived in the northeast became known as the Great Russians.

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Tribute to the Khanate

Although the Mongols did not attack Novgorod, northwestern Russia was menaced by invaders from the west during the same time period. The Swedes descended from the Baltic and sought to penetrate the territories of Novgorod. In 1240 a Swedish army landed on the banks of the Neva River, and Prince Alexander of Novgorod led a Russian army to meet them. The prince so completely defeated the Swedes that he became known as Alexander Nevsky, meaning 'Alexander of the Neva.' Two years later the Teutonic Knights, a religious military order of Germans, advanced from the west. Alexander led his troops to meet the Germans, crossing the frozen Lake Peipus, and routed them. Faced with continuing danger in the west and unwilling to risk Tatar invasion from the south, Alexander adopted a policy of loyal submission to the Golden Horde and conciliation with the khan. In accordance with Tatar wishes, Alexander journeyed to Sarai to secure permission to rule from the khan. The Tatars made Alexander ruler of Kyiv, Vladimir, and Novgorod. Most of the other Russian princes followed Alexander’s example, paying tribute and considering themselves vassals of the khan.

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F

The Growing Importance of Moscow

The town of Moscow, in the principality of Vladimir, occupied a favorable geographical position in the center of Russia and on the principal trade routes. In 1263 Alexander Nevsky gave Moscow to his youngest son, Daniel. Moscow, also known as Muscovy, was made a separate principality in 1301. Daniel was first in a line of powerful Muscovite princes, astute rulers who worked closely with the khans. As Mongol favorites they gradually extended their lands by annexing surrounding territories, retaining the city of Moscow as their capital. In 1328 the khan named Daniel’s son, Ivan I, grand prince of Muscovy. During Ivan’s reign the head of the Russian church, then called the metropolitan, moved from the town of Vladimir to Moscow. With the sanction of the church, the Muscovite grand princes began to organize a new Russian state with themselves as rulers.

Meanwhile, internal dissension rocked the Golden Horde. In the mid-14th century, a series of ineffectual rulers gained control of the khanate and the turmoil weakened their ability to collect tribute from the Russian princes. During the reign of Grand Prince Dmitry (1359-1389), Mamay Khan launched a military expedition to collect unpaid taxes. Dmitry and his army defeated Mamay’s troops in 1380 at the Battle of Kulikovo, although Mamay’s successor sacked Moscow two years later.

Not until the reign of Ivan III Vasilyevich (1462-1505), or Ivan the Great, did Muscovy throw off all control by the Golden Horde and establish itself as the dominant power in northern Russia. In 1478 Muscovy annexed Novgorod, with its huge territories and lucrative fur trade. Two years later Muscovy stopped paying tribute to the Golden Horde, which ultimately disintegrated into a number of separate, weaker khanates. Tver’, Muscovy’s traditional regional rival, was finally absorbed in 1485. After the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the Russian rulers began calling themselves tsars, a term Russians had previously used to describe the Byzantine emperor and the Tatar khan. However, the term tsar did not become the official title of the Russian ruler until the 16th century.

Muscovy’s increasing power and its position as the last surviving Orthodox state broadened its rulers’ horizons and ambitions. Internally, the power of the tsar grew at the expense of the boyars (Russian nobles). The great increase in the state’s territory encouraged the development of a small but effective Muscovite bureaucracy that was loyal to the tsars alone. The tsars confiscated privately held lands in the conquered principalities and gave these estates to cavalrymen who pledged continual military service in return. In the 16th century the streltsy, a regular infantry corps armed with firearms, was formed. The tsars now had an army of their own and were no longer dependent on the military forces raised by the boyars.

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Ivan the Terrible

These practices continued during the reign of Ivan IV Vasilyevich, also known as Ivan the Terrible, who became grand prince of Muscovy in 1533. Ivan conquered and absorbed the Tatar khanates of Kazan’ and Astrakhan’ in the 1550s. During his reign Russia also began the conquest of Siberia, originally conducted by Yermak, a Cossack adventurer. Russia also established commercial contacts with England through the perilous White Sea trade route. Ivan IV imported foreign technical and professional experts, a practice continued by subsequent Russian monarchs. However, the tsar’s attempt to seize Livonia and establish Russian control over part of the Baltic coastline failed in the face of Polish and Swedish resistance, and also seriously overstrained Russian resources. Furthermore, Ivan IV became mentally unstable; his increasingly maniacal domestic policies resulted in the murder of part of the aristocratic elite and the devastation of a number of regions. During Ivan’s reign the Crimean Tatars began to make destructive raids into Russian territory in search of slaves, for whom there was an insatiable market in the Middle East. All of these factors worsened the acute economic crisis that Ivan IV bequeathed to his heirs upon his death in 1584.

Ivan’s son, Fyodor I, was sickly and feeble-minded, and his brother-in-law, Boris Godunov, dominated the court during Fyodor’s reign. Fyodor died without an heir in 1598, and the Assembly of the Land (zemsky sobor)—a council that represented the aristocracy, chief towns, and the church—met to choose his successor. The assembly settled on Boris Godunov.

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