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Chapter 1 Russia and the Golden Horde The phrase “the Tatar Yoke,” universally applied to the 240 years of Mongol rule in Russia, conjures up images of barbaric Asiatic nomads engaged in cruel oppression and parasitic exploitation. This congeries of images resonates with the whole mythology, part of European tradition since classical times, of “barbarians” who are simultaneously dangerous and inferior.1 The consensus of traditional Russian historiography, both Imperial and Soviet, is entirely consistent with this simplistic vision. Some scholars have presumed that the Mongols exerted no influence on Russian history, others that their influence was purely deleterious. The general assumptions are that the Mongols wrecked the economy with their destruction of life and property and merciless extraction of revenue and troops; that their interference in the Russian principalities’ political affairs lowered political morality and fostered disunity; and that since the Mongols remained on the steppe, converted to Islam, and assimilated with the indigenous nomads rather than settling among the sedentary Christian Russians, no cultural exchanges took place.2 Critics seeking to explain failings of subsequent Russian or Soviet society often pointed to the Mongols. The Mongols had isolated Russia from Europe, cutting it off from the benefits of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Mongol economic exploitation had left Russia permanently backward and technologically stagnant. Worst of all, by reducing the Russian people to abject servility to absolute power, the Mongols created an “Asiatic” political culture preventing Russia from ever following the European path to democracy and industrial capitalism. The result was the survival of a Russian autocracy after the Tatars were overthrown and the eventual replacement of that regime by another equally repressive, namely the Bolsheviks. The immoral and deceitful policies, both foreign and domestic, of Imperial and Soviet regimes are simply 1 DeSinor, “The Barbarians,” Diogenes, 18 (1957), pp. 47–60. 2 Though outdated, the best surveys of the historiography are B. D. Grekov and A. Iu. Iakubovskii, Zolotoia orda i ee padenie (Moscow–Leningrad, 1950), pp. 247–61, and V. V. Kargalov, Vneshnepoliticheskie faktory razvitiia feodal´noi Rusi. Feodal´naia Rus´ i kochevniki (Moscow, 1967), pp. 219–55. 8 THE TATAR YOKE the legacy of the medieval Mongols.3 The most elaborate formulation of this line of argument is the theory of “oriental despotism.” This was an infection the Mongols contracted when they conquered China, and which was transmitted to Russia via the Golden Horde.4 The most metaphysical variant of this approach is that of the famous Eurasian school. Its adherents, believing autocracy congenital to the “Turanian” soul, did not disapprove of undemocratic forms of government and saw the Mongol period as the key to Russia’s manifest destiny. Geopolitical determinism dictated that the Russians, who were neither Europeans nor Asiatics, but Eurasians, would recreate the empire of Chingis Khan moving eastward just as the ancient conqueror had created it moving westward.5 The later works of George Vernadsky took a different approach . He saw autocracy as necessary to overthrow the Mongols but did not believe that this temporary need had forever dashed Russian democratic aspirations . This is a departure from Eurasianist dogma.6 The conception that the Mongols permanently altered Russian history for the worse is expressed in the famous nineteenth-century aphorism, “Scratch a Russian, find a Tatar!” In effect this is a double ethnic slur, attacking one hated people as resembling an even more hated people. The presumption in any case is that Russians act the way they do because they are no longer Europeans; centuries of rule by Asiatics have turned the Russians, too, into barbarians. 3 For example, B. Szczesniak, “A Note on the Character of the Tartar Impact upon the Russian Church and State,” Études slaves et est-européens, 17 (1972), pp. 92–98; Oscar Halecki, The Limits and Divisions of European History (New York, 1950); and Tibor Szamuely, The Russian Tradition (New York, 1975). 4 Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven, 1957), especially pp. 201–03, 219–25, on Russia, and Wittfogel, “Russia and the East: A Comparison and Contrast,” and “Reply,” Slavic Review, 22:4 (Dec., 1963), pp. 627–43, 656–62. 5 Otto Böss, Die Lehre den Eurasier: Ein Beitrag zur russischen Ideengeschichte des 20 J. (Wiesbaden, 1961); Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, “Prince N. S. Trubetskoy’s ‘Europe and Mankind,’” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, XIII (1964), pp. 207–20, and “The Emergence of Eurasianiam,” California Slavic Studies, 4 (1967), pp. 39–72; G. E. Orchard, “The...

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