In the autumn of 1236, at the behest of the Great Khan's Nest, the Mongols embarked on a second expedition to the west, pointing directly at the vast lands of Eastern Europe. The expedition had a great impact on the Russians living in Eastern Europe, and after battus ended the western expedition, it established the Golden Horde in the Chincha steppe and the Gathering Place of the Russians, which ruled the Russians for more than two centuries, and the Russians called this history "Tatar shackles".
Mongol Expedition to the West
Later, with the rise of the Muscovite Principality, the Russians began to break away from the rule of the Golden Horde and annexed the territory of the Golden Horde, establishing a vast Tsarist Russia. In the time of Tsarist Russia, many Russian historians have overshadowed this period of history that was once ruled by the Mongols, and the history books have tried to avoid it, as if the Mongols have never appeared in the history of the Russians.
Until 1826 AD, the Russian Academy of Sciences had a special reward of 100 gold coins and began to solicit manuscripts from the world, so that scholars interested in the Golden Horde could talk about the influence of the Mongols on the Russians. However, the results of the call for papers were completely unsatisfactory, and at the end of the three-year deadline, the Russian Academy of Sciences, which initiated the call for papers, received only a less satisfactory manuscript in German.
The Russians are freed from the shackles of Tatars
However, after the end of this call for papers, a wave of research on the history of the Mongolian Western Expedition and the Golden Horde was set off in Russia, and Russian scholars began to study the influence of the Golden Horde on the Russians through some cultural relics and history books, and obtained many results. And during that period,
Russian scholars who study the history of the Golden Horde are also divided into two groups, with some believing that the Mongols had a negative influence on the Russians and the other believing that the Mongols paved the way for the rise of the Russians.
Scholars who believe that the Mongols had a negative impact on the Russians felt that the Mongol conquest brought a catastrophe to the Russians, with the slaughter of the inhabitants, the destruction of buildings, the looting of wealth, and the destruction of a large number of cultural relics and books. And all this has made the Russians, who were already less economically and culturally developed, more backward, thinking that without the arrival of the Mongols, the Russians might have risen ahead of time.
The Russian army was heavily influenced by the Mongols
Their opponents argue that the arrival of the Mongols exposed the Russians to the outside world and to the goods and institutions of Iran, China, and Central Asia, as evidenced by the discovery of fourteenth-century Chinese porcelain and Iranian currency in Russia. In addition, the Russians also absorbed the tactics of the Mongols and Turks during that period, which is why the armies of the Muscovite Principality and Tsarist Russia were gradually strengthened.
Just as the two factions were arguing, there was a new voice from a number of Russian scholars, represented by the Russian historian Bushkov, who they thought were so-called
The tatar shackles do not exist at all
, and it is believed that the Russians and Mongols jointly built the Golden Horde. For this reason, Bushkov also wrote a book called The Phantom of the Golden Horde, and in this book
Boldly assert that there was no Mongol invasion in Russia's history at all.
Kalmyk costumes
In his own writings, Bushkov argued:
In fact, the Mongols were relatives of the Russians, who had lived in Zavolzhiye on the right bank of the Volga River long before the Mongol Conquest and intermarried with the Russians. Therefore, the Mongols were not foreigners to the Russians, and the Akhma Khans and Mama Khans of the Golden Horde were not Mongol khans, they were Russian lords. The so-called Mongol sacking of Moscow and the confrontation on the Ugra River were not a struggle against foreign invaders, but only an internal conflict with Russia. ”
This statement of Bushkov can be described as unique, and caused an uproar in the Russian historical circles, due to the lack of historical data, people generally do not agree with Bushkov's statement.
Bushkov believes that the Mongols once lived in Zavolzhiya, Russia, referring to the Kalmyks, a branch of the Veyrat people, who still live in the Volga Valley today, but they only settled there in the seventeenth century.
Reference: A History of the Rise and Fall of the Golden Horde