How many yoke was. What was covered by the Tatar-Mongol yoke? So was there a Tatar-Mongol yoke in Russia

Classical, that is, recognized modern science the version of the "Mongol-Tatar invasion of Russia", "Mongol-Tatar yoke" and "liberation from the Horde tyranny" is well known, but it will be useful to refresh your memory once again. So ... At the beginning of the 13th century, in the Mongolian steppes, a brave and devilishly energetic tribal leader named Genghis Khan gathered a huge army from the nomads, welded together by iron discipline, and set out to conquer the whole world, "to the last sea."

After conquering the closest neighbors, and then capturing China, the mighty Tatar-Mongol horde rolled westward. Having traveled about five thousand kilometers, the Mongols defeated the state of Khorezm, then Georgia, in 1223 they reached the southern outskirts of Russia, where they defeated the army of Russian princes in a battle on the Kalka River. In the winter of 1237, the Mongol-Tatars invaded Russia with their entire innumerable army, burned and ravaged many Russian cities, and in 1241, in fulfillment of the precepts of Genghis Khan, they tried to conquer Western Europe - they invaded Poland, the Czech Republic, in the south-west reached the shores of the Adriatic Sea, but turned back, because they were afraid to leave in their rear the ruined, but still dangerous for them Russia. And the Tatar-Mongol yoke began. The huge Mongol empire, stretching from Beijing to the Volga, hung like an ominous shadow over Russia. The Mongol khans issued labels to the Russian princes for reigning, attacked Russia many times in order to plunder and plunder, and repeatedly killed Russian princes in their Golden Horde. It is necessary to clarify that there were many Christians among the Mongols, and therefore individual Russian princes established rather close, friendly relations with the Horde rulers, even becoming their brothers. With the help of the Tatar-Mongol detachments, other princes were kept on the "table" (ie on the throne), solved their purely internal problems and even collected tribute for the Golden Horde on their own. Having strengthened over time, Russia began to show its teeth. In 1380, the Grand Duke of Moscow Dmitry Donskoy defeated the Horde Khan Mamai with his Tatars, and a century later, in the so-called "standing on the Ugra", the troops of the Grand Duke Ivan III and the Horde Khan Akhmat met. The opponents camped for a long time on different sides of the Ugra River, after which Khan Akhmat, finally realizing that the Russians had become strong and he had every chance of losing the battle, gave the order to retreat and took his horde to the Volga. These events are considered "the end of the Tatar-Mongol yoke".

Today, a lot of information has accumulated indicating that the so-called "Tatar-Mongol yoke" is a delusion of today's historians, since the Tatar-Mongols were not nomadic peoples who came from Asia, but Russians. The Mongoloids of the Tatar-Mongols began to be considered only in the 17th century, possibly due to the deliberate falsification of the historians of Peter I. The evidence that the Tatar-Mongols are Russians is as follows.

Sources about the "yoke"

The term "Tatar-Mongol yoke" itself, however, is not found in Russian chronicles. All the so-called "defeats and sufferings" of the Russian people from the Mongols are described in the following entry (Hearts from strong bulat. Collection of Russian chronicles and literary monuments.):

Oh, the bright light and beautifully decorated Russian land! You are famous for many beauties: you are famous for many lakes, locally revered rivers and springs, mountains, steep hills, high oak forests, clean fields, wonderful animals, various birds, countless great cities, glorious villages, monastery gardens, temples of God and formidable princes, honest boyars and many nobles. You are filled with everything, Russian land, about the Christian Orthodox faith!

From here to the Ugrians and to the Poles, to the Czechs, from the Czechs to the Yatvingians, from the Yatvingians to the Lithuanians, to the Germans, from the Germans to the Karelians, from the Karelians to Ustyug, where the filthy Toyimichi live, and beyond the Breathing Sea; from the sea to the Bulgarians, from the Bulgarians to the Burtases, from the Burtases to the Cheremis, from the Cheremis to the Mordtsy - everything with God's help was subdued by the Christian people, these filthy countries obeyed the Grand Duke Vsevolod, his father Yuri, Prince of Kiev, his grandfather Vladimir Monomakh, with which the Polovtsians scared their little children. And the Lithuanians did not appear from their swamps, and the Hungarians strengthened the stone walls of their cities with iron gates so that the great Vladimir would not conquer them, and the Germans were glad that they were far away - across the blue sea. Burtases, Cheremis, Vyada and Mordovians fought for the Grand Duke Vladimir. And the Emperor of Constantinople, Manuel, out of fear, sent great gifts to him so that the Grand Duke Vladimir would not take Constantinople from him.

And in those days - from the great Yaroslav, and to Vladimir, and to the current Yaroslav, and to his brother Yuri, Prince of Vladimir, trouble fell on Christians and the Monastery of the Caves of the Most Holy Theotokos was lit by the nasty.

This text is called "The Word about the death of the Russian Land" and is a fragment of a work that has not come down to us about the Tatar-Mongol invasion. But this text is unnecessarily meager, and no foreign invasion is at all guessed in it.

Part of this document was destroyed (possibly later by Romanov historians who created falsifications). However, this does not assert that the continuation of the document is also about the capture of Russia by the Mongols. And under the word "filthy" can be designated as peasants, pagans, and simply neighboring peoples.

Appearance "Tatar-Mongol"

There are also doubts that the people who attacked Russia were precisely the Asian Mongols. For example, the Mongoloid appearance of the head of the nomads Genghis Khan, described in a fairly “historically young” portrait, now kept in Taiwan, raises doubts. Ancient sources portray Chingiz as tall, long-bearded, with "lynx", green-yellow eyes. Persian historian Rashidad-Din (contemporary of the "Mongol" wars) writes that in the family of Genghis Khan, children "were born mostly with gray eyes and blond". G.E. Grumm-Grzhimailo mentions the "Mongolian" legend, according to which the ancestor of Chingiz in the ninth tribe of Boduanchar is blond and blue-eyed! And the same Rashid ad-Din also writes that the very generic name Borjigin, assigned to the descendants of Boduanchar, just means Gray-Eyed!

By the way, Batu's appearance is drawn in the same way - fair-haired, light-bearded, light-eyed ... The author of these lines lived his entire adult life not so far from the places where he allegedly "created his innumerable army of Genghis Khan." By the way, there are no names "Batu" or "Batu" in any language of the Mongolian group. But "Batu" is in Bashkir, and "Basty", as already mentioned, is in Polovtsian. So the very name of Chingizov's son did not come from Mongolia.

I wonder what his fellow tribesmen wrote about their glorious ancestor Genghis Khan in "real" present-day Mongolia? The answer is disappointing: in the 13th century, the Mongolian alphabet did not yet exist. Absolutely all the chronicles of the Mongols were written not earlier than the 17th century. And, consequently, any mention of the fact that Genghis Khan really left Mongolia will be no more than a retelling of ancient legends written down three hundred years later ... suddenly find out that your ancestors, it turns out, once passed with fire and sword to the very Adriatic ...

It is also mysterious that not a single contemporary of those events is able to find the Mongols. They simply do not exist - black-haired, slant-eyed people, those whom anthropologists call "Mongoloids". It was possible to trace only the traces of two Mongoloid tribes that certainly came from Central Asia - the Jalair and Barlas. But they did not come to Russia as part of the army of Chingiz, but to Semirechye (the region of present-day Kazakhstan). From there, in the second half of the 13th century, the Jalair migrated to the region of present-day Khujand, and the Barlas migrated to the valley of the Kashkadarya River. From the Semirechye they came to some extent Turkic in the sense of the language. In the new place, they were so already Turkified that in the XIV century, at least in the second half of it, they considered the Turkic language their native language "(from the work of B.D. Grekov and A.Yu. Yakubovsky" Russia and Golden Horde "(1950). Just as there was no assimilation of the Russian peoples by the Mongoloids, which should have been manifested in 300 years!

Beginning in the 80s of the 16th century, a purposeful and unstoppable movement of Russians to the east began, beyond the Urals - "walking to meet the sun." It would be logical to assume that on this path stretching for thousands of kilometers, the pioneering Cossacks will stumble upon at least some traces of the great empire of the Mongol khans, stretching from the eastern coast of China to the borders of Poland ...

Not the slightest trace of the empire! Cities disappeared somewhere, the magnificent "Yamskaya tract" thousands of kilometers long, along which messengers from Russia allegedly rushed to Karakorum, disappeared somewhere. Not the slightest material traces of anything remotely resembling a state. Moreover, the local population for some reason does not know at all, does not remember either the great capital Karakorum, which once flourished in the Mongol steppes, or the great emperors, whose power supposedly extended over half the world. The Manchus who rule in Northern China are well remembered and well known - this is a concrete, customary evil, adversaries who are still organizing raids. But for some reason no one is able to remember Batu and Genghis Khan ... Interestingly, nowhere from the Urals to Lake Baikal the Cossacks do not even meet the semblance of a state or cities! Only the "Kuchumov kingdom" on the territory of the present Tyumen region remotely resembles the embryo of the state, and its capital Isker, a small fortification, with a great stretch can go out of the city.

It is curious that on all ancient miniatures the Tatar-Mongols are indicated with a Russian appearance. On the lower miniatures "Standing on the Ugra" and "Taking Kozelsk" the appearance of the attackers is by no means Mongoloid.

Interestingly, in the Western European miniature "The Death of Genghis Khan", Genghis Khan falling from the saddle is depicted in a helmet that is extremely reminiscent of Boleslav's helmet - it was then that they were worn in Poland, and in Russia, and throughout Europe. By the way, practically all Russian old miniatures depict "Tatars", which in appearance and weapons can hardly be distinguished from Russian warriors.

Let's leave aside the question of composition - since it was not the duke who killed the Tatar, but the Duke's Tatars, the image should have been somewhat different. Take a closer look at the "Tatar" trampled by the noble ducal foot. A completely Russian face, a Russian caftan, a thick Russian beard, a Russian hat, which the archers later wore. In the hands of the "Tatar" is not a curved and narrow Central Asian saber, but a weapon called "Elman", once taken over by the Russians from the Turks. Sabers of this type, changing, were in service with the Russian cavalry for a long time, even during the time of Paul 1. In addition, similar weapons were used by the Germans and Italians (a falcione-type cutter made in Brescia in the 16th century).

How many Tatars were there?

Pre-revolutionary historians argued that there were half a million nomads, but such an army could hardly feed its horses, overcoming such distances. No matter how hardy the horses are, they would often starve to death. Each nomad had 2-3 horses, plus carts. No grass would have sufficed to feed the rear ranks of the horsemen - the front ranks had to gobble up all the fields like locusts. Apparently, the version of such a number of nomads was compiled by historians who had no idea about nomadic life.

Modern historians claim that there were 30 thousand Tatar-Mongols. But this is not enough - such a number of nomads would hardly have been able to conquer a number of countries. This is too little to conquer almost all of Eurasia.

In addition, there are no known cases in history that forced the nomadic peoples to unite in an army, pull to the other end of the world and easily capture many countries. Usually, nomadic peoples that do not have a territorial connection keep in small groups, occasionally attacking their neighbors. It is doubtful that Genghis Khan was able to rally the wild nomadic peoples and force them to conquer the world - this meant that they had to abandon the nomadic life. Very strange motives appeared among the nomads - to abandon their families, and for some reason to go far away to conquer the lands they hardly needed.

It is also surprising that the Tatar-Mongols perfectly adapted to combat conditions: they fought in the winter, and in the thickets, which, it would seem, nomadic life does not have. Moreover, they were not such "wild" peoples - they used siege weapons, battering rams, and, according to some reports, even "Greek" fire! Some sources describe them as excellent navigators (allegedly the Mongolian navy in the 13th century fired at the ships of the ancient Japanese with something like rockets). And if we also consider their ability to tact, iron discipline ... More like a well-armed European state. By the way, in many early images of the Mongols, they were depicted in chain mail.

Symbiosis of Russians and Tatars.

For some reason, Russians and, especially Christians, are constantly fighting in the Tatar-Mongols. For example, in the battle on Kalka (where, by the way, the word "Mongols" is never mentioned in the annals), the Russian princes who held the defense against the Tatars surrendered when a certain Ploskinya (the name is clearly Russian), who came out of the "Mongol", kissed the pectoral cross, inviting the princes to surrender, promising that they would be spared. In Sarai the Great there were Christian churches, and at the "khan's headquarters" there was an Orthodox bishop.

There are a number of chronicles of those times about the Polovskoy prince Basty, who adopted Christianity, which sheds light on the Tatar-Mongol people. the unification of the Russian principalities.

As official history teaches us, Vsevolod the Big Nest was the first to try to unite the Russian lands around his principality, i.e. Vladimir Suzdalsky. He took possession of Vladimir and ascended to the grand princely table, went on campaigns against the Volga Bulgarians and Mordovians, on Ryazan, subjugated Kiev, Chernigov and Galich. What is "Batu Khan" doing a quarter of a century after Vsevolod's death? Imagine going on campaigns against the Volga Bulgarians and Mordovians, subjugating Ryazan, Kiev, Chernigov and Galich, taking possession of Vladimir, and then ... passes the label to the great reign to Vsevolod's grandson Alexander Nevsky.

With the arrival of the Tatar-Mongols, Russia for some reason, on the contrary, intensified. The turmoil that had existed before the Mongols and the struggle of the princes for power subsided - order appeared. A prince who ruled Russia was elected, who received a label to reign in the Horde.

In 1242, under Alexander Nevsky, the Order of the Teutons was easily repulsed, which indicated the excellent condition of the Russian troops ..

Too much and often wrote about how Russian princes and "Mongol khans" became brothers, relatives, sons-in-law and father-in-law, how they went on joint military campaigns.

Russians on the side of the Mongols in his ranks

In Poland, on the side of the Mongols, there was the Kiev tysyak Demetrius, which is directly indicated by the Russian chronicles. After the capture of the city of Vladimir, the Mongols left Prince Yaroslav to reign there, who distributed the surrounding cities to his brothers - it is strange that the nomads entrusted him with such power.

Not only Russian warriors fought on the side of the Tatar-Mongols. And the Tatar-Mongols often fought on the side of the Russians.

Alyn - "Horde Murza". Mentioned in the annals as a participant in the campaign of Prince Andrey Gorodetsky against Prince Dmitry Pereyaslavsky. Yektyak - "Tsarevich of Kazan". In 1396 he commanded a part of the troops of the Suzdal prince Simeon during the attack of the latter on the Murom separatists. Kavgady - "Horde official" participates in the campaign of the Gorodets prince against Pereyaslavsky (1281). He persuades Prince Mikhail of Tverskoy to cede the great reign to Prince of Moscow Yuri Danilovich (1317), commands part of the Moscow army during the attack on Tver. Attends the trial of the Russian princes over Mikhail Tverskoy. Mengat - "Voivode Batyev". In 1239 he tried to persuade the Kiev prince Mikhail to surrender the city without a fight - and after the killing of his ambassadors by the Kievites, he left the city. Nevryuy - "Tatar Tsarevich". He commanded the troops of Alexander Nevsky, sent against the prince's brother Andrei, who was trying to unleash another strife. In 1296/1297, according to the Nikon, Simeon and Laurentian chronicles, he held a princely congress.

There were oddities with the tax collectors. For some reason, yasak collectors appeared only 19 years after the “conquest” of Rus by the Tatars. The pickers were often beaten by the Russians, but the Mongols, for some reason, were very calm about this - apparently, the pickers were also Russians. Most likely, the so-called Baskaki are ordinary tax collectors of the state.

It is also interesting that on the one hand, Russia seems to be a "vassal" of the Golden Horde. On the other hand, the Russians suddenly attack the Volga Bulgaria, i.e. part of the Golden Horde and force the local city to take a vassal oath! Rather, it looks like Russia and the Horde were one state.

The kings of the Horde were called khans or kagans. Russian princes were often called this way before the advent of Christianity. "And faith in all languages ​​extended to our Russian language and praise to OUR KAGAN VOLODIMIR, from him the baptism bykh" - so Metropolitan Hilarion called Prince Vladimir. LN Gumilev wrote: "KHANAMI were the rulers of Avars, Bulgarians, Hungarians and even Russes: this title was held by Vladimir Saint, Yaroslav the Wise and, finally, his grandson - Oleg Svyatoslavich"

A number of undeservedly forgotten historians of the 17th century (for example, AI Lyzlov in his work "Scythian History") generally indicate that the Tatars are a European people, akin to the Slavs. And Genghis Khan was only the founder of the Trans-Volga Horde (whose borders stretched from the Sea of ​​Azov to the Caspian, but not Asia). There is no mention of the campaigns of the Mongols in China, Georgia, and Asia in general. Only campaigns to India, more precisely to Persia, are described (for some reason, according to this information, India was at Euphrates, perhaps this is due to the fact that the word indé meant that both outside - outside, and India meant neighboring states).

By the way, historians of that time do not mention Nestor's chronicle at all, which only confirms rumors that this chronicle is falsification, and is the disinformation work of the Peter the Great historian Miller, who encroached on many historical works of that time. And Tatishchev tried to prove that his fellow historians who created the “classical version” of the Tatar-Mongols are wrong, but his conclusions were called “heresy”.

Curiously, there are passages in Lyzlov's book that allow us to say with a high degree of confidence that Great Tartary, aka the Trans-Volga Horde, was called a long time ago ... China! And Afanasy Nikitin clearly distinguished between China ** and China: "And from China to China to go by land for six months, and by sea for four days."

Even N.A. Morozov, in the 6th volume of his work "Christ", began to scrupulously check the "ancient" Chinese astronomical chronicles, allegedly dating back to 2650 BC, and found out the most curious things. The Chinese, it turned out, do not have documents written earlier than the 16th century AD. Moreover, they have no descriptions of astronomical instruments, and no traces of ancient observatories have been found in China. For the first time, Chinese lists of the appearance of comets were published by Europeans in the 18th-19th centuries, these lists bear clear traces of rewriting from each other and, as Morozov pointed out, they were supplemented by the Europeans themselves, that is, European scientists replenished Chinese sources with European materials, "adjusting the problem to the answer." ... For example, the "emperors Zhao-Le-Di, Wen-Di and Da-Di", who supposedly ruled in one year, are in fact the Clear-Ardent King, Literary King and Great King. And the name U-Di means ... "war king." Which is more like a long list of one person's titles.

The parallels between the Roman Empire and China are sometimes amazing.

The beginning of the 3rd century. AD: The Roman Empire ceases to exist in internecine wars. The time has come for "soldier emperors". In those same years in China ... the Han empire perishes in internecine wars, "illiterate, morally decayed soldiers came to power."
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Imperial Empire: in the middle of the III century. AD power in Rome passes to a relative of the emperor Caracalla Julia Mesa, whose reign is called "bloody". In the end, she is killed. In those same years in China ... the wife of one of the emperors, "energetic and fierce", came to power. He rules, shedding blood to the right and to the left. In the end, she is killed.

The beginning of the IV century. AD: The Roman Empire is divided into Eastern and Western. In those same years, the Jin Empire in China was divided into two parts - Eastern and Western.

The Roman Empire is at war with the Huns. China in the same years - with the Xiongnu.

V century AD: The Western Roman Empire was conquered by the Germans and the Huns. Chinese Western Liang ... conquered by the Xiongnu. And in Rome, and in China on the throne at this time, "a very young emperor."

This is what happened in China since 1722 "The Manchu rulers formed a special committee to compile the history of the previous Ming dynasty ... The opposition could not come to terms with such an interpretation of the history of the fallen dynasty, so" private "stories of the Ming dynasty appeared ...

The rulers responded with executions, imprisonment, exile ... Books that were disagreeable to the government were confiscated. There were 34 seizures between 1774 and 1782. From 1772 a collection of all printed books ever published in China was undertaken. The collection lasted 20 years, 360 people were involved in the analysis and processing of the collected material. A few years later, 3457 titles were issued in a new edition, and the remaining 6766 were described in the catalog. In fact, it was a grandiose operation to confiscate books and an equally grandiose operation to falsify texts. In the new editions that came out, all unwanted passages were removed, even the titles of books were changed. "(" World History "in 10 volumes, prepared by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.)

And in the 60-70s of the last century, Archimandrite P.I. Kafarov, head of the Russian Orthodox mission in Beijing. Being keenly interested in the history of China and the legends of the Great Wall, he diligently, for a long time looks for it ... and does not find it! The wall of China in its present form was created under Mao Tse-Tung, before that there were several earthen ramparts.

So the Mongols did not take "China". More precisely, perhaps, they took, but not that one, not the Chin empire, but China of the “golden horde”.

The city of Karakum is the capital of the empire of Genghis Khan. The "classical" theory of the Mongol-Tatar empire places it somewhere in the Mongol steppes. The word Karakum itself is Turkic and in translation it can mean “northern Crimea”. Here are the travel notes of the monk Guillaume Rubruck, a member of the embassy to the "great khan of the Mongols", sent by the French king Louis Saint (1253). He travels to Karakorum ... through the Black Sea, Taurida and the Don steppes. Returns - through Derbent and Armenia. An absolutely normal direction if the Karakorum is located somewhere on the Volga or in the Northern Crimea. If Karakorum is in the Mongolian steppes, you will never get there by such a road.

Invasion of Europe.

In March 1241, the "Tatars" invaded Europe, the territory of Poland in two large groups, captured Sandomierz, Wroclaw and Krakow, where they perpetrated robberies, murders and destruction. After the Silesian detachments were defeated near Opolje, both wings of the Tatars united and moved to the town of Legnica, where on April 9 they were barred from the road with an army of ten thousand, Henry II the Pious, Duke of Silesian, Lesser Poland and Greater Poland. A battle ensued in which the Poles suffered a crushing defeat. The Mongols won with some strange smoke, possibly with Greek fire.

"And when they saw a Tatar running out with a banner - and this banner had the form of an" X ", and on top of it was a head with a long beard trembling, filthy and stinking smoke from the lips that was letting out on the Poles - everyone was amazed * and horrified, and who rushed to run wherever they could, and so were defeated "- from Lyzlov.

After the victory in Poland, the "Tatar" cavalry turns south, goes to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia and Dalmatia. Until the end of 1242, regardless of losses, the "Tatars" break through to the Adriatic Sea, and, in the end, come to its shores. They pass through the Czech Republic almost without fighting, they do not stay in Hungary for a particularly long time. "Tatar" cavalry rushes to the Adriatic.

Neither in Poland, nor in the Czech Republic, nor in Hungary, nor in Croatia, nor in Dalmatia - the "Tatars" make no attempts to somehow subjugate the country. They do not levy a tribute to anyone, do not bother to put their administration in prison, do not lead anyone to a vassal oath. There is no smell of conquest here - we have a purely military campaign, the actions of which for some reason coincided with the actions of Frederick II Hohenstaufen, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation and the king of Sicily (the Sicilian kingdom then included Southern Italy). For some reason, the "wild" Mongols allied with Frederick II in his war against Pope Gregory X. Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary - all three countries defeated and devastated by the "Tatars" - were firm supporters of the pope in the conflict between Pope and Frederick.

In Europe at that time, it was widely believed that Frederick II ... secretly got in touch with the "Tatars" and tried with their help to crush the papal power! After the Russians returned home to Russia in 1242. the crusaders attacked, and against Frederick the "crusader army" also moved, which stormed the capital, the city of Aachen, to crown their emperor there.

By the way, medieval Western Europe ... for some reason was convinced of the existence in the east of a huge kingdom of a certain Christian ruler "Presbyter John", whose descendants in Europe were the khans of the "Mongol Empire"!

This conviction was held extremely firmly - for more than two hundred years, persisting as far back as the 15th century! Many European chroniclers "for some reason" identified Presbyter John with Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan, by the way, "for some reason" was also called "King David."

"Someone Philip, prior of the province of the Holy Land of the Dominican Order," writes a modern historian, "taking wishful thinking, wrote to Rome that Christianity reigns everywhere in the Mongol East." Why - "wishful thinking"? And so it was. The "Mongolian East" was Russia, a completely Christian country. "This belief persisted for a long time and became an integral part of the geographical theory of the late Middle Ages."

Interestingly, "Presbyter John" maintained a particularly warm and trusting relationship with Frederick II Hohenstaufen! Thus, he became the only one of European monarchs, who did not feel the slightest alarm at the news of the invasion of "Tatars" in Europe. The only one who corresponded with the "Tatars" - Frederick II, as our reconstruction shows, led military operations with them against the Pope.

And a certain Abbot Odo from the monastery of Saint-Remy in Reims (1118-1151) wrote to his friend Count Thomas that he was in Rome when the patriarch from the kingdom of Presbyter John was there.

Conclusions: Too many coincidences, or rather, mutually confirming evidence. Combined with the thesis that no Mongols from Central Asia ever appeared in Russia, and the "Horde" was nothing more than a Russian army, information about the "kingdom of Presbyter John" just becomes the final touch of the picture. There is no other way to explain why Europe did not doubt the reality of the "Kingdom of John" for more than two hundred years. It can be assumed that in Western Europe XIII-XV centuries. did not know much about what was happening in the REMOTE regions like India, Indochina, Indonesia.

The "Tatar-Mongols" were the Russians and a number of peoples living in the western Black Sea region, in the Caucasus. The state of Genghis Khan was located between the Azov and Caspian seas, and in fact was the heiress of Khazaria. Tatar-Mongols are European peoples with a European appearance (with rare exceptions). There was no yoke - just order was established in Russia after internecine wars for power between the principalities. Tatar-Mongol "invasions" took place only in cases of separatism of any principalities. And the Baskaks were just ordinary civil servants.

Capital Tatar state The Karakum was located, apparently, somewhere near the Black Sea and Crimea.

Most of the Tatar-Mongol troops included Russians. For comparison, the troops of Batu (Basti's Polovtsian) were 600,000 people ("150,000 Tatars, 450,000 other infidels and Christians")

Russia and the Horde were essentially one state with common goals. Batu's policy coincided with the policy of Vsevolod Big Nest and Alexander Nevsky, perhaps Baty is Vsevolod (and later Alexander was attributed to him). On the territory of the Horde there were Christian churches, perhaps Judaism, left over from Khazaria, was also widespread.

Territory Kievan Rus It was often called Moscow Tataria, the territory of the former Khazar Kaganate - Free Tataria, from where, by the way, the Cossack horsemen came, on which speculations about nomadic tribes were based (among the "Tatar-Mongols", for example, the leaders were called Vatamans!). The territory of Asia was often called Great Tataria, sometimes Siberian Tataria, part of the territory - Chinese Tataria, which will be indicated on the lower maps. Many ancient maps have survived, proving that Russians were called Tatars. On them, the territory of Russia is indicated as Tataria (Tartaria). And the word Mongolia most likely comes from the word Mogolia (indicated on the maps). Perhaps that is why the territory of Russia was indicated in the Bible as the land of Magog.

On many ancient maps, it was not Tatar-Mongolia that was indicated, but Tartar-Mogolia, and often Moscow Tataria (Kievan Rus) was designated separately.

The Tatar-Mongols allied with Frederick II in his struggle against the Pope. Under Peter I, the work of German historians was carried out under the leadership of Miller, who, apparently, decided to erase the evidence of the formidable state of Russia-Horde (Tartary) and attribute their exploits to wild nomadic peoples. At the same time, the chronicles of Nestor are created (or distorted), other sources are destroyed. IN different time this aroused the indignation of such historians as Tatishchev and Lomonosov. Even the works of the latter were rewritten by Miller.

However, the delusion, despite the obvious evidence, still remains in our heads.

How historiography is written.

Unfortunately, there is no analytical review of the history of historiography yet. It's a pity! Then we would understand how historiography for the health of the state differs from historiography for its repose. If we want to glorify the beginning of the state, we will write that it was founded by a hardworking and independent people who enjoy the well-deserved respect of their neighbors.
If we want to sing him a requiem, then let's say that it was founded by a wild people living in dense forests and impassable swamps, and the state was created by representatives of a different ethnic group, which came here precisely because of the inability of local residents to equip a distinctive and independent state. Then, if we sing the eulogy, we will say that the name of this ancient formation was clear to everyone, and has not changed to this day. On the contrary, if we bury our state, we will say that it was named for an unknown reason, and then changed its name. Finally, in favor of the state in the first phase of its development, there will be an assertion of its strength. Conversely, if we want to show that the state was so-so, we must show not only that it was weak, but also that an unknown in ancient times and a very peaceful and small people could conquer it. It is on this last statement that I would like to dwell.

- This is the name of a chapter from the book of Kungurov (KUN). He writes: “The official version of ancient Russian history, composed by Germans who were discharged from abroad to St. Petersburg, is built according to the following scheme: Russian state, created by alien Varangians, crystallizes around Kiev and the middle Dnieper region and bears the name of Kievan Rus, then evil wild nomads come from somewhere from the East, destroy the Russian state and establish an occupation regime called the "yoke". Two and a half centuries later, the Moscow princes cast off the yoke, collect the Russian lands under their rule and create a powerful Muscovy, which is the legal successor of Kievan Rus and rid the Russians of the "yoke"; for several centuries in Eastern Europe there has been an ethnically Russian Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but it is politically dependent on the Poles, and therefore cannot be considered a Russian state, therefore, the war between Lithuania and Muscovy should be viewed not as civil strife between Russian princes, but as a struggle between Moscow and Poland for the reunification of Russian lands.

Despite the fact that this version of history is still recognized as official, only "professional" scientists can consider it reliable. A person who is accustomed to thinking with his head will doubt this very much, if only because the history of the Mongol invasion has been completely sucked out of his thumb. Until the 19th century, the Russians did not even suspect that they were allegedly once conquered by the Trans-Baikal savages. Indeed, the version that a highly developed state was completely crushed by some wild steppe, unable to create an army in accordance with the technical and cultural achievements of that time, looks delusional. Moreover, such a people as the Mongols was not known to science. True, the historians were not at a loss and announced that the Mongols are the small nomadic people of Khalkha living in Central Asia ”(KUN: 162).

Indeed, all great conquerors are well known. When Spain had a powerful fleet, a great armada, Spain captured a number of lands in North and South America, and today there are two dozen Latin American states. Britain, as ruler of the seas, also has or has had many colonies. But today we do not know a single colony of Mongolia or a state dependent on it. Moreover, apart from the Buryats or Kalmyks, who are the same Mongols, not a single ethnic group of Russia speaks Mongolian.

“The Khalkhs themselves learned that they were the heirs of the great Genghis Khan only in the 19th century, but they did not object - everyone wants to have great, albeit mythical, ancestors. And in order to explain the disappearance of the Mongols after their successful conquest of half of the world, a completely artificial term "Mongolo-Tatars" is introduced into use, which means other nomadic peoples allegedly conquered by the Mongols, who joined the conquerors and formed a certain community in them. In China, foreign-speaking conquerors turn into Manchus, in India - into Mughals, and in both cases they form ruling dynasties. In the future, however, we do not observe any Tatars-nomads, but this is because, as the same historians explain, that the Mongol-Tatars settled on the lands they conquered, and partially went back to the steppe and disappeared there completely without a trace ”(KUN: 162- 163).

Wikipedia about the yoke.

This is how Wikipedia interprets the Tatar-Mongol yoke: “The Mongol-Tatar yoke is a system of political and tributary dependence of the Russian principalities on the Mongol-Tatar khans (until the beginning of the 60s of the XIII century, the Mongol khans, after the khans of the Golden Horde) in the XIII-XV centuries. The establishment of the yoke became possible as a result of the Mongol invasion of Russia in 1237-1241 and took place for two decades after it, including in the undeveloped lands. In North-Eastern Russia it lasted until 1480. In other Russian lands, it was liquidated in the XIV century as they were absorbed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland.

The term "yoke", meaning the power of the Golden Horde over Russia, is not found in Russian chronicles. It appeared at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries in Polish historical literature. It was first used by the chronicler Jan Dlugosz ("iugum barbarum", "iugum servitutis") in 1479 and the professor of the University of Krakow Matvey Mekhovsky in 1517. Literature: 1. Golden Horde // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary: In 86 volumes (82 vols. and 4 additional). - SPb .: 1890-1907.2. Malov N. M., Malyshev A. B., Rakushin A. I. "Religion in the Golden Horde". The word formation "Mongol-Tatar yoke" was first used in 1817 by H. Kruse, whose book in the middle of the 19th century was translated into Russian and published in St. Petersburg. "

So, for the first time this term was introduced by the Poles in the XV-XVI centuries, who saw in the relations of the Tatar-Mongols to other peoples a "yoke". The reason for this is explained by the second work of 3 authors: “Apparently, the Tatar yoke was first used in Polish historical literature of the late 15th - early 16th centuries. At this time at the borders Western Europe an active foreign policy is pursued by a young Moscow state, freed from the vassal dependence of the Golden Horde khans. In neighboring Poland, there is an increased interest in history, foreign policy, armed forces, national relations, internal structure, traditions and customs of Muscovy. Therefore, it is no coincidence that for the first time the phrase Tatar yoke was used in the Polish chronicle (1515-1519) by Matvey Mekhovsky, professor at the University of Krakow, court physician and astrologer of King Sigismund I. The author of various medical and historical works, spoke enthusiastically about Ivan III, who threw off the Tatar yoke considering this to be his most important merit, and, apparently, a global event of the era ”.

Mention of the yoke among historians.

Poland's attitude towards Russia has always been ambiguous, and its attitude towards its own fate has always been extremely tragic. So they could exaggerate the dependence of some peoples on the Tatar-Mongols. And then 3 authors continue: “Later, the term Tatar yoke is also mentioned in the notes about the Moscow war of 1578-1582, compiled by the secretary of state of another king Stephen Batory - Reingold Heydenstein. Even Jacques Margeret, a French mercenary and adventurer, an officer in the Russian service and a person far from science, knew what was meant by the Tatar yoke. This term was widely used by other West European historians of the 17th-18th centuries. In particular, the Englishman John Milton and the Frenchman De Tu were familiar with him. Thus, for the first time the term Tatar yoke was probably introduced into circulation by Polish and Western European historians, and not by Russians or Russian "

For now, I will interrupt the quotation in order to draw attention to the fact that foreigners write about the "yoke" first of all, who really liked the scenario of weak Russia, which was captured by the "evil Tartars". While Russian historians did not know anything about this yet

"IN. N. Tatishchev did not use this phrase, perhaps because, when writing the History of Russia, he mainly relied on early Russian chronicle terms and expressions, where it is absent. IN Boltin had already used the term Tatar rule, and M., M., Shcherbatov believed that liberation from the Tatar yoke was a great achievement of Ivan III. N.M., Karamzin found in the Tatar yoke both negative - the tightening of laws and customs, a slowdown in the development of education and science, and positive aspects - the formation of autocracy, a factor in the unification of Russia. Another phrase, the Tatar-Mongol yoke, also, most likely, comes from the vocabulary of Western, and not domestic researchers. In 1817, Christopher Kruse published an Atlas on European History, where he first introduced the term Mongol-Tatar yoke into scientific circulation. Although, this work was translated into Russian only in 1845, but already in the 20s of the XIX century. Russian historians began to use this new scientific definition. Since that time, the terms: Mongol-Tatars, Mongol-Tatar yoke, Mongol yoke, Tatar yoke and Horde yoke have traditionally been widely used in Russian historical science. In our encyclopedic publications, under the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Russia of the 13th-15th centuries, we mean: the system of rule of the Mongol-Tatar feudal lords, with the help of various political, military and economic means, with the goal of regular exploitation of the conquered country. Thus, in European historical literature, the term yoke denotes domination, oppression, slavery, bondage, or the power of foreign conquerors over the defeated peoples and states. It is known that the Old Russian principalities were subject to the Golden Horde economically and politically, and also paid tribute. The Golden Horde khans actively intervene in the policy of the Russian principalities, which they tried to tightly control. Sometimes, the relationship between the Golden Horde and the Russian principalities is characterized as a symbiosis, or a military alliance directed against the countries of Western Europe and some Asian states, first Muslim, and after the collapse Mongol Empire- Mongolian.

However, it should be noted that if theoretically the so-called symbiosis, or military alliance, could exist for some time, then it was never equal, voluntary and stable. In addition, even in the developed and late Middle Ages, short-term interstate alliances were usually formalized by contractual relations. Such, equal allied, relations between the fragmented Russian principalities and the Golden Horde could not exist, since the khans of Ulus Jochi issued labels for the rule of the Vladimir, Tver, Moscow princes. Russian princes were obliged, at the request of the khans, to send troops to participate in the military campaigns of the Golden Horde. In addition, using the Russian princes and their army, the Mongols make punitive campaigns against other rebellious Russian principalities. The khans summoned princes to the Horde in order to issue a label to reign alone, and to execute or pardon those who were unwanted. During this period, the Russian lands were actually under the rule or yoke of Ulus Jochi. Although, sometimes the foreign policy interests of the Golden Horde khans and the Russian princes, for various reasons, could somehow coincide. The Golden Horde is a chimera state in which the elite are conquerors, and the lower strata are conquered peoples. The Mongolian Golden Horde elite established power over the Polovtsy, Alans, Circassians, Khazars, Bulgars, Finno-Ugric peoples, and also placed the Russian principalities in a rigid vassal relationship. Therefore, we can assume that the scientific term yoke is quite acceptable to denote in the historical literature the nature of the power of the Golden Horde established not only over the Russian lands. "

Yoke as the Christianization of Rus.

Thus, Russian historians really repeated the statements of the German Christopher Kruse, while they did not subtract such a term from any chronicle. Not only Kungurov drew attention to the strangeness in the interpretation of the Tatar-Mongol yoke. This is what we read in the article (TAT): “Such a nation as the Mongolo-Tatars does not exist, and did not exist at all. The Mongols and Tatars are related only by the fact that they roamed the Central Asian steppe, which, as we know, is large enough to accommodate any nomadic people, and at the same time give them the opportunity not to intersect on the same territory at all. The Mongol tribes lived in the southern tip of the Asian steppe and often hunted for raids on China and its provinces, which is often confirmed by the history of China. Whereas other nomadic Türkic tribes, called Bulgars (Volga Bulgaria) from the Pokonese centuries in Russia, settled in the lower reaches of the Volga River. In those days in Europe they were called Tatars, or Tat Aryans (the strongest of the nomadic tribes, unbending and invincible). And the Tatars, the closest neighbors of the Mongols, lived in the northeastern part of modern Mongolia, mainly in the area of ​​Lake Buir-Nor and up to the borders of China. There were 70 thousand families, which made up 6 tribes: Tatars-tutukulyut, Tatars-alchi, Tatars-chagan, Tatars-Kuin, Tatars-terat, Tatars-barkuy. The second parts of the names, apparently, are the self-names of these tribes. There is not a single word among them that would sound close to the Turkic language - they are more consonant with Mongolian names. Two kindred peoples - Tatars and Mongols - fought for a long time with varying success for mutual extermination, until Genghis Khan seized power in all of Mongolia. The fate of the Tatars was a foregone conclusion. Since the Tatars were the murderers of Genghis Khan's father, exterminated many tribes and clans close to him, constantly supported the tribes opposing him, “then Genghis Khan (Tei-mu-Chin) ordered a general beating of the Tatars and not one left alive to that limit, which is determined by law (Yasak); to kill women and small children, and cut the wombs of pregnant women in order to completely destroy them. … ”. That is why such a nationality could not threaten the freedom of Russia. Moreover, many historians and cartographers of that time, especially Eastern European ones, “sinned” to name all indestructible (from the point of view of Europeans) and invincible peoples, Tat Aryans, or simply TatArie in Latin. This can be easily traced from ancient maps, for example, Map of Russia 1594 in Gerhard Mercator's Atlas, or Maps of Russia and TarTaria of Ortelius. Below you can view these maps. So what can we see from the newfound material? And we see that this event simply could not happen, at least in the form in which it is transmitted to us. And before moving on to the narration of the truth, I propose to consider a few more discrepancies in the "historical" description of these events.

Even in the modern school curriculum, this historical moment is briefly described as follows: “At the beginning of the 13th century, Genghis Khan gathered a large army of nomadic peoples, and subjecting them to strict discipline, he decided to conquer the whole world. Having defeated China, he sent his army to Russia. In the winter of 1237, the Mongol-Tatars army invaded the territory of Russia, and after defeating the Russian army on the Kalka River, went further, through Poland and the Czech Republic. As a result, having reached the shores of the Adriatic Sea, the army suddenly stops, and without completing its task turns back. From this period, the so-called "Mongol-Tatar Yoke" over Russia begins.
But wait, they were going to conquer the whole world ... so why not move on? Historians replied that they were afraid of an attack from the back, broken and plundered, but still strong Russia. But this is just ridiculous. Plundered state, will run to defend other people's cities and villages? Rather, they will rebuild their borders, and wait for the return of the enemy troops, so that they can fight back fully armed. But the oddities don't end there. For some unimaginable reason, during the reign of the House of Romanov, dozens of chronicles describing the events of the “times of the Horde” disappear. For example, "The Lay of the Death of the Russian Land", historians, believe that this is a document from which everything was carefully removed, which would testify to the Yoke. They left only fragments telling about some kind of "misfortune" that befell Russia. But there is not a word about the "Mongol invasion". There are many more oddities. In the story "about the evil Tatars" the khan from the Golden Horde orders the execution of the Russian Christian prince ... for refusing to worship the "pagan god of the Slavs!" And some chronicles contain amazing phrases, for example, such as: "Well, with God!" - said the khan and, crossing himself, galloped to the enemy. So what really happened? At that time, a “new faith” was already flourishing in Europe, namely, the Faith in Christ. Catholicism was widespread everywhere, and ruled everything from the way of life and order, to the state system and legislation. At that time, crusades against gentiles were still relevant, but along with military methods, "tactical tricks" were often used, akin to bribery of powerful persons and persuading them to their faith. And after gaining power through the purchased person, the conversion of all his "subordinates". It was precisely such a secret crusade that was then carried out to Russia. Through bribery and other promises, the ministers of the church were able to seize power over Kiev and surrounding areas. Just relatively recently, by the standards of history, the baptism of Rus took place, but history is silent about the civil war that arose on this basis immediately after the forced baptism. "

So, this author interprets the "Tatar-Mongol yoke" as civil war imposed by the West, during the real, Western baptism of Russia, which took place in the XIII-XIV centuries. This understanding of the baptism of Rus is very painful for the ROC for two reasons. The date of the baptism of Rus is considered to be 988, not 1237. Due to the shift in the date, the antiquity of Russian Christianity is reduced by 249 years, which reduces the "millennium of Orthodoxy" by almost a third. On the other hand, the source of Russian Christianity is not the activity of Russian princes, including Vladimir, but the Western crusades, accompanied by a massive protest of the Russian population. This raises the question of the legitimacy of the introduction of Orthodoxy in Russia. Finally, the responsibility for the "yoke" in this case is transferred from the unknown "Tatar-Mongols" to the very real West, to Rome and Constantinople. And the official historiography on this issue turns out to be not a science, but a modern pseudo-scientific mythology. But let's return to the texts of the book by Alexei Kungurov, especially since he examines in great detail all the inconsistencies official version.

Lack of writing and artifacts.

"The Mongols did not have their own alphabet and did not leave a single written source" (KUN: 163). Indeed, this is extremely surprising. Generally speaking, even if the people do not have their own written language, then for state acts they use the writing of other peoples. Therefore, the complete absence of state acts in such a large state as the Mongol Khanate during its heyday causes not just bewilderment, but doubt that such a state ever existed. “If we demand to present at least some material evidence of the long existence of the Mongol empire, then archaeologists, scratching the back of their heads and chuckling, will show a pair of half-rotten sabers and several female earrings. But do not try to find out why the remains of sabers are "Mongol-Tatar", and not Cossack, for example. Nobody will explain this to you for sure. At best, you will hear the story that the saber was dug up at the place where, according to the ancient and very reliable chronicle, there was a battle with the Mongols. Where is that chronicle? God knows her, has not reached our days, but the historian N. saw her with his own eyes, who translated it from Old Russian. Where is this historian N.? Yes, for two hundred years since he died - modern "scientists" will answer you, but they will certainly add that the works of N are considered classical and are not subject to doubt, since all subsequent generations of historians wrote their works based on his works. I am not laughing - this is approximately the case in the official historical science of Russian antiquity. Even worse - armchair scientists, creatively developing the legacy of the classics of Russian historiography, in their puffy volumes have made such nonsense about the Mongols, whose arrows, it turns out, pierced the armor of European knights, and battering guns, flamethrowers and even rocket artillery made it possible to take by storm for several days powerful fortresses, which raises serious doubts about their mental usefulness. It seems that they do not see any difference between a bow and a crossbow loaded with a lever ”” (KUHN: 163-164).

But where could the Mongols have encountered the armor of European knights and what do Russian sources say about this? “And Vorogi came from the Overseas, and they brought faith in alien gods. With fire and sword, they began to plant an alien faith to us, Sprinkle gold and silver on the Russian princes, bribe their will, and lead them astray. They promised them an idle life, full of riches and happiness, and forgiveness of any sins, for their dashing deeds. And then Ros broke up, into different states. The Russian clan retreated to the north to the Great Asgard, And they named their state after the names of the gods of their patrons, Tarkh Dazhdbog the Great and Tara, his Sister Light-wise. (They named it Great Tartaria). Leaving the foreigners with the princes bought in the principality of Kiev and its environs. Volga Bulgaria, too, did not bow before the enemies, and did not begin to accept their faith as her own. But the principality of Kiev did not live in peace with TarTaria. They began to conquer the Russians with the fire and sword of the earth and impose their alien faith. And then the army of war rose to the fierce battle. In order to keep their faith and win back their lands. Both old and young then went to Ratniki in order to restore order to the Russian Lands. "

And so the war began, in which the Russian army, the lands of Great Aria (Tat'Aria), defeated the enemy, and drove him from the lands of the primordial Slavic. It drove the alien army, with their fierce faith, from their stately lands. By the way, the word Horde, translated by the initial letters of the Old Slavic alphabet, means Order. That is, the Golden Horde is not a separate state, it is a system. "Political" system of the Golden Order. Under which Princes reigned on the ground, planted with the approval of the commander-in-chief of the Defense Army, or in one word they called him KHAN (our defender).
This means that there was not more than two hundred years of oppression, but there was a time of peace and prosperity for Great Aria or Tartaria. By the way in modern history there is also confirmation of this, but for some reason no one pays attention to it. But we will definitely turn, and very intent ...: Doesn't it seem strange to you that the battle with the Swedes takes place right in the middle of the invasion of the "Mongolo-Tatars" to Russia? Blazing in fires and plundered by the Mongols, Russia is attacked by the Swedish army, which is safely drowning in the waters of the Neva, and the Swedish crusaders never encounter the Mongols. And the Rusichi, who defeated the strong Swedish army, lose to the Mongols? In my opinion, this is just nonsense. Two huge armies at the same time are fighting on the same territory and never intersect. But if we turn to the ancient Slavic chronicle, then everything becomes clear.

Since 1237, the Host of Great Tartaria began to recapture their ancestral lands, and when the war came to an end, the representatives of the church who were losing power asked for help, and the Swedish crusaders were sent into battle. Since it was not possible to take the country by bribery, it means that they will take it by force. Just in 1240, the army of the Horde (that is, the army of Prince Alexander Yaroslavovich, one of the princes of the ancient Slavic family) faced in battle with the army of the Crusaders, which had come to the rescue of its henchmen. Having won the battle on the Neva, Alexander received the title of Nevsky prince and remained to reign Novgorod, and the Horde army went on to expel the foe from the Russian lands completely. So she drove the "church and alien faith" until she reached the Adriatic Sea, thereby restoring her original ancient borders. And having reached them, the army turned around and again left not north. Having established a 300 year peace period ”(TAT).

Fantasies of historians about the power of the Mongols.

Commenting on the lines quoted above (KUN: 163), Aleksey Kungurov adds: “This is what Doctor of Historical Sciences Sergei Nefyodov writes:“ The main weapon of the Tatars was the Mongol bow, “saadak” - it was thanks to this New Weapon that the Mongols conquered most of the promised world. It was a complex killing machine, glued together from three layers of wood and bone and wrapped in sinews to protect it from moisture; gluing was carried out under pressure, and drying lasted for several years - the secret of making these bows was kept secret. This bow was as powerful as a musket; an arrow from it pierced any armor 300 meters away, and it was all about the ability to hit the target, because the bows did not have a sight and shooting from them required many years of training. Possessing this all-crushing weapon, the Tatars did not like to fight hand-to-hand; they preferred to fire at the enemy with bows, dodging his attacks; this shelling sometimes lasted for several days, and the Mongols took out their sabers only when the enemies were wounded and fell from exhaustion. The last, "ninth" attack was carried out by "swordsmen" - warriors armed with curved swords and, together with horses, covered with armor of thick buffalo skin. During major battles, this attack was preceded by shelling from "fire catapults" borrowed from the Chinese - these catapults fired bombs filled with gunpowder, which, exploding, "burned through the armor with sparks" (NEF). - Aleksey Kungurov comments on this passage as follows: “The funniest thing here is not that Nefyodov is a historian (this brotherhood has the wildest idea of ​​natural science), but that he is also a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences. Well this is how much it is necessary to degrade the mind in order to flog such nonsense! Yes, if a bow shot at 300 meters and at the same time pierced any armor, then a firearm simply did not have a chance to be born. The American M-16 rifle has an effective firing range of 400 meters with an initial bullet speed of 1000 meters per second. Further, the bullet quickly loses its lethality. In reality, aimed firing from the M-16 with a mechanical sight is ineffective for more than 100 meters. At 300 meters, even from a powerful rifle, only a very experienced shooter is capable of shooting accurately without an optical sight. And the scientist Nefyodov weaves nonsense about the fact that Mongolian arrows not only flew aiming at a third of a kilometer (the maximum distance at which champions-archers shoot at competitions is 90 meters), but also pierced any armor. Rave! For example, a good chain mail cannot be pierced even at close range from the most powerful bow. To defeat a soldier in chain mail, a special arrow with a needle tip was used, which did not pierce the armor, but, with a successful coincidence, passed through the rings.

In physics at school I had grades of no more than three, but I know very well from practice that an arrow fired from a bow is imparted with the effort that the muscles of the arms develop when it is pulled. That is, with about the same success, you can take an arrow with your hand and try to pierce at least an enamel basin with it. In the absence of an arrow, use any pointed object like a half of a tailor's scissors, an awl or a knife. How is it going? Do you believe historians after that? If they write in their dissertations that the short and thin Mongols pulled bows with an effort of 75 kg, then I would award the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences only to those who can repeat this feat on defense. Though there will be fewer parasites with scientific titles. By the way, modern Mongols have no idea about any Saadaks - the superweapons of the Middle Ages. Having conquered half the world by them, for some reason they completely forgot how to do it.

With battering machines and catapults it is even easier: one has only to look at the drawings of these monsters, as it becomes clear - these multi-ton objects cannot be moved even a meter, since they will get bogged down in the ground even during construction. But even if at that time there were asphalt roads from Transbaikalia to Kiev and Polotsk, how would the Mongols drag them for thousands of kilometers, how did they ferry them across large rivers like the Volga or the Dnieper? Stone fortresses ceased to be considered impregnable only with the invention of siege artillery, and in previous times, well-fortified cities were taken only by starvation ”(KUN: 164-165). - I think this criticism is excellent. I will also add that, according to the works of Ya.A. Koestler, there were no reserves of saltpeter in China, so they had nothing to stuff the powder bombs with. In addition, gunpowder does not create a temperature of 1556 degrees, at which iron melts in order to "burn through the armor with sparks." And if he could create such a temperature, then the "sparks" would first of all burn guns and guns at the moment of the shot. It is very funny to read that the Tatars were shooting and shooting (the number of arrows in their quiver, apparently, was not limited), and the enemy was exhausted, and the skinny Mongol warriors shot the tenth and hundredth arrows with the same fresh forces as the first, without getting tired. Surprisingly, even rifle shooters get tired when shooting while standing, and the Mongol archers did not know this state.

At one time, I heard from lawyers the expression: "Lies like an eyewitness." Now, probably, based on the example of Nefedov, an addition should be proposed: "Lies like a professional historian."

Mongols are metallurgists.

It would seem that it is already possible to put an end here, but Kungurov wants to consider several more aspects. “I don't know much about metallurgy, but I can still estimate very approximately how many tons of iron are needed to equip at least a 10,000-strong Mongolian army” (KUN: 166). Where did the figure 10 thousand come from? - This is the minimum size of the troops with which you can go on a campaign of conquest. Gaius Julius Caesar with such a detachment could not capture Britain, but when he doubled the number, the conquest of foggy Albion was crowned with success. “Actually, such a small army could not conquer China, India, Russia and other countries in any way. Therefore, historians, without trifling, write about the 30-thousand-strong horse horde of Batu, sent to conquer Russia, but this figure seems absolutely fantastic. Even if we assume that the Mongol warriors had leather armor, wooden shields, and stone arrowheads, then iron is still required for horseshoes, spears, knives, swords, and sabers.

Now it is worth considering: how did the wild nomads know the high iron-making technologies at that time? After all, the ore still needs to be mined, and for this to be able to find it, that is, a little understanding of geology. Are there many ancient ore mines in the Mongolian steppes? Do archaeologists find many remains of forges there? They, of course, are still magicians - they will find anything where they need it. But in this case, nature itself made the task extremely difficult for archaeologists. Iron ore on the territory of Mongolia, even today it is not mined (although small deposits in recent times open) ”(KUHN: 166). But even if the ore was found, and the furnaces for smelting existed, the labor of metallurgists would have to be paid, and they themselves would have to live settled. Where are the former settlements of metallurgists? Where are the waste rock heaps (waste heaps)? Where are the remnants of finished goods warehouses? None of this has been found.

“Of course, you can buy weapons, but you need money, which the ancient Mongols did not have, at least they are completely unknown to world archeology. And they could not have, since their economy was not marketable. Weapons could be exchanged, but where, with whom, and for what? In short, if you think about such trifles, then Genghis Khan's campaign from the Manchurian steppes to China, India, Persia, the Caucasus and Europe looks like sheer fantasy ”(KUN: 166).

This is not the first time I have come across such "punctures" in mythological historiography. As a matter of fact, any historiographical myth is written in order to cover up the real fact like a smoke screen. This kind of camouflage works well in cases where secondary facts are masked. But it is impossible to disguise the advanced technologies, the highest at that time. It's like a criminal over two meters tall to put on someone else's costume and mask - he is identified not by his clothes or face, but by his exorbitant height. If during the specified period, that is, in the XIII century, Western European knights had the best iron armor, then it will not work in any way to attribute their urban culture to the steppe nomads. In the same way, as the highest culture of Etruscan writing, where the Italic, Russian, stylized Greek alphabets and the Runica were used, it is impossible to ascribe to any small people such as Albanians or Chechens, which, perhaps, did not exist at that time.

Forage for the Mongolian cavalry.

“For example, how did the Mongols cross the Volga or the Dnieper? You can't cross a two-kilometer stream by swimming, you can't wade. There is only one way out - to wait for winter to cross the ice. It was in the winter, by the way, that in Russia they usually fought in the old days. But in order to make such a long transition during the winter, it is necessary to prepare an enormous amount of forage, since although the Mongol horse is capable of finding withered grass under the snow, for this it needs to graze where there is grass. In this case, the snow cover should be small. In the Mongolian steppes, winters are just little snow, and the grass stand is quite high. In Russia, the opposite is true - the grass is high only in floodplain meadows, and in all other places it is very thin. Snowdrifts are such that the horse, not only finding grass under it, will not be able to move in deep snow. Otherwise, it is not clear why the French lost all their cavalry when retreating from Moscow. They ate it, of course, but they ate the already fallen konyazh, because if the horses were well-fed and healthy, the uninvited guests would use them in order to escape as soon as possible ”(KUN: 166-167). - Note that it is for this reason that summer campaigns have become preferable for Western Europeans.

“Oats are usually used as fodder, and a horse needs 5-6 kg per day. It turns out that the nomads, preparing in advance for a campaign beyond the distant lands, sowed the steppe with oats? Or did they carry hay with them on carts? Let's make simple arithmetic operations and calculate what preparations the nomads had to make in order to go on a long trip. Let's say that they have gathered an army of at least 10 thousand mounted soldiers. Each warrior needs several horses - one specially trained combatant for combat, one for marching, one for a convoy - to carry food, a yurt and other supplies. This is at least, but we must also take into account that some of the horses will fall on the way, there will be combat losses, therefore a reserve is needed.

And if 10 thousand horsemen go in marching formation even across the steppe, then when the horses graze, where the soldiers will live - will they rest in the snowdrifts, or what? On a long hike, you cannot do without food, fodder and a convoy with warm yurts. You need more fuel to cook your food, but where can you find firewood in the treeless steppe? The nomads drowned their yurts, sorry, with poop, because there is nothing else. It stank, of course. But they are used to it. You can, of course, fantasize about the strategic procurement of hundreds of tons of dried shit by the Mongols, which they took with them on the road, going to conquer the world, but I will give this opportunity to the most stubborn historians.

Some clever people tried to prove to me that the Mongols did not have a wagon train at all, which is why they were able to show phenomenal maneuverability. But how, in this case, did they carry the loot home - in their pockets, or what? And where were their battering tools and other engineering devices, and the same maps and food supplies, not to mention their environmentally friendly fuel? Not a single army of the world ever did without a convoy if it was going to make a transition lasting more than two days. The loss of the convoy usually meant the failure of the campaign, even if there was no battle with the enemy.

In short, according to the most modest estimates, our mini-horde should have at least 40 thousand horses at its disposal. From the experience of mass armies of the XVII-XIX centuries. it is known that the daily requirement for forage of such a herd will be at least 200 tons of oats. It's just one day! And the longer the trip, the more horses should be involved in the wagon train. A medium-sized horse is capable of pulling a cart with a weight of 300 kg. This is if on the road, and off-road in packs is two times less. That is, in order to provide our 40,000-strong herd, we need 700 horses per day. A three-month hike will require a wagon train of almost 70 thousand horses. And this crowd also needs oats, and in order to feed 70 thousand horses carrying fodder for 40 thousand horse-drawn horses, it will take more than 100 thousand horses with carts for the same three months, and these horses, in turn, want to eat - it turns out a vicious circle " (KUHN: 167-168). - This calculation shows that intercontinental, for example, from Asia to Europe, horseback trips with a full supply of food is fundamentally impossible. True, here are the calculations for the 3-month winter campaign. But if the campaign is carried out in the summer, and you move in the steppe zone, feeding the horses with pasture, then you can go much further.

“Even in summer, the cavalry never did without fodder, so a Mongol campaign against Russia would still require logistical support. Until the twentieth century, the maneuverability of troops was determined not by the speed of horse hooves and the strength of the soldiers' legs, but by the dependence on carts and the capacity of the road network. The cruising speed of 20 km per day was very good even for the average division of the Second World War, and german tanks when paved highways allowed them to blitzkrieg, they wound on tracks for 50 km a day. But in this case, the rear inevitably lagged behind. In ancient times, in off-road conditions, such indicators would be simply fantastic. The textbook (SVI) reports that the Mongolian army passed about 100 kilometers a day! Yes, you can hardly find people who are the worst versed in history. Even in May 1945, Soviet tanks, making a march from Berlin to Prague along good European roads, could not break the "Mongol-Tatar" record "(KUHN: 168-169). - I believe that the very division of Europe into Western and Eastern was made not so much from geographical as from strategic considerations. Namely: within each of them, military campaigns, although they require supplies of fodder and horses, but within reasonable limits. And the transition to another part of Europe already requires the exertion of all state forces, so that the military campaign affects not only the army, but develops into patriotic war requiring the participation of the entire population.

The food problem.

“What did the riders themselves eat on the way? If you chase a herd of lambs, then you will have to move with their speed. During the winter, there is no way to get to the nearest hearth of civilization. But nomads are unpretentious people, they got by with dried meat and cottage cheese, which they soaked in hot water. Whatever one may say, a kilogram of food per day is necessary. Three months of travel - 100 kg of weight. In the future, you can slaughter wagon horses. At the same time, savings will come out on forage. But not a single convoy can move at a speed of 100 km per day, especially off-road. " - It is clear that this problem mainly concerns uninhabited areas. In populous Europe, the winner can take food from the vanquished

Demographic problems.

“If we touch upon the issues of demography and try to understand how the nomads were able to field 10 thousand warriors, given the very low population density in the steppe zone, then we will bury ourselves in another insoluble riddle. Well, there is no such thing as a population density in the steppes higher than 0.2 people per square kilometer! If we take the mobilization capabilities of the Mongols for 10% of the total population (every second healthy man is from 18 to 45 years old), then to mobilize a 10-thousandth horde, it will be necessary to comb the territory of half a million square kilometers. Or let's touch on purely organizational issues: for example, how the Mongols collected taxes on the army and recruiting, how did military training take place, how was the military elite brought up? It turns out that, for purely technical reasons, the Mongol campaign against Russia, as it is described by "professional" historians, was impossible in principle.

There are examples of this from relatively recent times. In the spring of 1771, the Kalmyks who roamed the Caspian steppes, annoyed by the fact that the tsarist administration had significantly curtailed their autonomy, together withdrew from their place and moved to their historical homeland in Dzungaria (the territory of modern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Okrug in China). Only 25 thousand Kalmyks who lived on the right bank of the Volga remained in place - they could not join the others due to the opening of the river. Out of 170 thousand nomads, only about 70 thousand reached their goal in 8 months. The rest, as you might guess, died on the way. The winter crossing would be even more disastrous. The local population greeted the settlers without enthusiasm. Who will find traces of Kalmyks in Xinjiang now? And on the right bank of the Volga today, 165 thousand Kalmyks live, who switched to a sedentary lifestyle during the period of collectivization in 1929-1940, but did not lose their original culture and religion (Buddhism) ”(KUN: 1690170). - This last example amazing! Almost 2/3 of the population, which had good carts in the summer and slowly, perished on the way. Even if the losses of the regular army were less, say, 1/3, then instead of 10 thousand troops, less than 7 thousand people will reach the goal. It may be objected that they were driving the conquered peoples ahead of them. So I counted only those who died from the difficulties of the transition, and there were also combat losses. Defeated enemies can be driven away when the winners are at least twice the number of defeated ones. So if half of the army dies in battle (in fact, the attackers die about 6 times more than the defenders), then the surviving 3.5 thousand can drive no more than 1.5 thousand prisoners in front of them, who in the first battle will try run across to the side of the enemies, strengthening their ranks. And an army of less than 4 thousand people is hardly capable of advancing with battles further into a foreign country - it's time for him to return home.

Why do we need a myth about the Tatar-Mongol invasion?

“But the myth of the terrible Mongol invasion is cultivated for some reason. And why, it's easy to guess - virtual Mongols are needed solely to explain the disappearance of the equally phantom Kievan Rus along with its original population. Say, as a result of Batu's invasion, the Dnieper region was completely depopulated. And what for, I ask, was it for the nomads to destroy the population? Well, they would impose a tribute, like everyone else - at least some benefit. But no, historians in chorus convince us that the Mongols completely ruined the Kiev region, burned the cities, exterminated the population or took them prisoner, and those who were lucky enough to survive, smearing their heels with lard, fled without looking back into the wild forests to the northeast, where time created a powerful Muscovy. One way or another, but the time before the 16th century seems to fall out of the history of Southern Russia: if anything, historians mention anything about this period, it is the raids of the Crimeans. Only on whom did they raid, if the Russian lands were depopulated?

It cannot be that for 250 years in the historical center of Russia no events have taken place at all! However, no epoch-making events have been recorded. This caused heated debate among historians when controversy was still allowed. Some put forward hypotheses about the general flight of the population to the northeast, others believed that the entire population died out, and a new one came from the Carpathians in the following centuries. Still others expressed the idea that the population did not run anywhere, and did not come from anywhere, but simply sat quietly in isolation from the outside world and did not show any political, military, economic, demographic or cultural activity. Klyuchevsky promoted the idea that the population, frightened to death by the evil Tatars, left their habitable places and went partly to Galicia, and partly to the Suzdal lands, from where they spread far to the north and east. Kiev, as a city, according to the professor, has temporarily ceased to exist, having reduced to 200 houses. Solovyov argued that Kiev was completely destroyed and for many years it was a heap of ruins where no one lived. In the Galician lands, then called Little Russia, refugees from the Dnieper, they say, slightly pollinated, and after returning several centuries later to their autochthonous territory already as Little Russians, they brought there a peculiar dialect and customs acquired in exile ”(KUN: 170-171).

So, from the point of view of Aleksey Kungurov, the myth about the Tatar-Mongols supports another myth - about Kievan Rus. So far I do not consider this second myth, but I admit that the existence of the vast Kievan Rus is also a myth. However, let us listen to this author to the end. Perhaps he will show that the myth of the Tatar-Mongols is beneficial to historians for other reasons.

Surprisingly fast delivery of Russian cities.

“At first glance, this version looks quite logical: evil barbarians came and destroyed a flourishing civilization, everyone was killed and driven to hell. Why? But because they are barbarians. What for? And Batu was in a bad mood, maybe his wife gave him horns, maybe a stomach ulcer tortured him, so he was angry. The scientific community is quite satisfied with such answers, and since I have nothing to do with this very community, I immediately want to argue with the luminaries of historical "science."

Why, one wonders, did the Mongols totally clean up the Kiev region? It should be borne in mind that the Kiev land is not some insignificant outskirts, but allegedly the core of the Russian state according to the version of the same Klyuchevsky. Meanwhile, Kiev in 1240 was surrendered to the enemy in a few days after the siege. Are there any similar cases in history? More often we will meet reverse examples, when they gave everything to the enemy, but fought for the core to the last. Consequently, the fall of Kiev seems absolutely incredible. Before the invention of siege artillery, a well-fortified city could only be taken by starvation. And it often happened that the besiegers fizzled out faster than the besieged. History knows cases of very long-term defense of the city. For example, at the time Polish intervention during the Time of Troubles, the siege of Smolensk by the Poles lasted from September 21, 1609 to June 3, 1611. The defenders capitulated only when the Polish artillery pierced an impressive opening in the wall, and the besieged were exhausted to the extreme by hunger and disease.

The Polish king Sigismund, struck by the courage of the defenders, let them go home. But why did the people of Kiev surrender so quickly to the wild Mongols who did not spare anyone? The nomads did not have powerful siege artillery, and the battering weapons with which they allegedly destroyed fortresses were stupid inventions of historians. It was physically impossible to drag such a device to the wall, because the walls themselves always stood on a large earthen rampart, which was the basis of the city fortifications, and a moat was arranged in front of them. It is now generally accepted that the defense of Kiev lasted 93 days. The well-known writer-fiction writer Bushkov makes snide remarks about this: “Historians are a little cunning. Ninety-three days is not a period between the beginning and end of the assault, but the first appearance of the "Tatar" army and the capture of Kiev. First, the "Batu voivode" Mengat appeared at the Kiev walls and tried to persuade the Kiev prince to surrender the city without a fight, but the Kievites killed his ambassadors, and he retreated. And three months later, Batu came. And in a few days he took the city. It is the interval between these events that other researchers call the "long siege" (BUSH).

Moreover, the story of the rapid fall of Kiev is by no means unique. According to historians, all other Russian cities (Ryazan, Vladimir, Galich, Moscow, Pereslavl-Zalessky, etc.) usually held out for no more than five days. Surprisingly, Torzhok defended for almost two weeks. Little Kozelsk allegedly set a record, having held out for seven weeks under siege, but fell on the third day of the assault. Who will explain to me what kind of superweapon the Mongols used to take fortresses on the move? And why was this weapon forgotten? In the Middle Ages, throwing machines - vices - were sometimes used to destroy city walls. But in Russia there was a big problem - there was nothing to throw - boulders of a suitable size would have to be dragged along.

True, the cities in Russia in most cases had wooden fortifications, and theoretically they could be burned. But in practice in winter it was difficult to do, because the walls were watered from above with water, as a result of which an ice shell formed on them. In fact, even if a 10,000-strong nomadic army came to Russia, no catastrophe would have happened. This horde would simply melt in a couple of months, taking a dozen cities by storm. The losses of the attackers in this case will be 3-5 times higher than those of the defenders of the citadel.

According to the official version of history, the northeastern lands of Russia suffered from the adversary much more, but for some reason no one thought to scatter from there. And vice versa, they fled to where the climate is colder, and the Mongols were more disgraceful. Where is the logic? And why was the "scattered" population until the 16th century paralyzed by fear and did not try to return to the fertile lands of the Dnieper region? The Mongols have long gone cold, and the frightened Russians, they say, were afraid to show their nose there. The Crimeans were not at all peaceful, but for some reason the Russians were not afraid of them - the Cossacks on their seagulls descended the Don and the Dnieper, unexpectedly attacked the Crimean cities and staged cruel pogroms there. Usually, if some places are favorable for life, then the struggle for them is especially fierce, and these lands are never empty. The conquerors are replaced by conquerors, those are displaced or assimilated by stronger neighbors - the issue here is not in disagreements on some political or religious issues, but in the possession of territory ”(KUN: 171-173). - Indeed, the situation is completely inexplicable from the point of view of the collision of steppe dwellers and townspeople. It is very good for a slanderous version of the historiography of Russia, but it is completely illogical. While Alexey Kungurov notices all the new aspects of the absolutely incredible development of events from the standpoint of the Tatar-Mongol invasion.

Incomprehensible motives of the Mongols.

“The historians do not explain at all the motives of the mythical Mongols. Why did they participate in such grandiose campaigns? If in order to impose a tribute on the conquered Russians, then why the hell did the Mongols raze 49 of 74 large Russian cities to the ground, and the population was slaughtered almost to the root, as historians say? If they destroyed the natives because they liked the local grass and a milder climate than in the Trans-Caspian and Trans-Baikal steppes, then why did they leave for the steppe? There is no logic in the actions of the conquerors. More precisely, it is not in the nonsense composed by historians.

The primary cause of the belligerence of peoples in ancient times was the so-called crisis of nature and man. With the overpopulation of the territory, society, as it were, pushed young and energetic people outward. They will conquer those lands of their neighbors and settle there - good. They will die in the hearth - also not bad, because there will be no "extra" population. In many ways, this can explain the belligerence of the ancient Scandinavians: their meager northern lands could not feed the multiplying population and that remained to live by robbery or to be hired to serve as foreign rulers in order to engage in the same robbery. The Russians are lucky - the surplus population has been rolling back south and east for centuries up to the Pacific Ocean. In the future, the crisis of nature and man began to be overcome through a qualitative change in agricultural technologies and the development of industry.

But what could have caused the militancy of the Mongols? If the population density of the steppe dwellers exceeds the permissible limits (that is, there is a shortage of pastures), some of the shepherds will simply migrate to other, less developed steppes. If the nomads there are not happy with the guests, then there will be a small massacre, in which the strongest will win. That is, the Mongols, in order to get to Kiev, would have to master the vast expanses from Manchuria to the northern Black Sea region. But even in this case, the nomads did not pose a threat to the strong civilized countries, because not a single nomadic people ever created their own statehood and did not have an army. The maximum that the steppe inhabitants are capable of is to raid a border village with the aim of robbery.

The only analogue of the mythical warlike Mongols is the 19th century Chechen herders. This people is unique in that robbery has become the basis of its existence. The Chechens did not even have a rudimentary statehood, lived in clans (teips), did not engage in agriculture, unlike their neighbors, did not possess the secrets of metal processing, and even mastered the most primitive crafts. They posed a threat to the Russian border and communications with Georgia, which became part of Russia in 1804, only because they supplied them with weapons and supplies, and bribed the local princelings. But the Chechen robbers, despite their numerical superiority, could not oppose the Russians with anything except the tactics of raids and forest ambushes. When the latter's patience ran out, the regular army under the command of Yermolov quickly carried out a total "cleansing" North Caucasus, having driven the abreks into the mountains and gorges.

I am ready to believe in a lot, but I categorically refuse to take the ravings of the evil nomads who destroyed Ancient Russia seriously. All the more fantastic is the theory of the three-century "yoke" of the wild steppe dwellers over the Russian principalities. Only the STATE can exercise dominion over the conquered lands. Historians generally understand this, and therefore invented a kind of fabulous Mongol Empire - the largest state in the world in the entire history of mankind, founded by Genghis Khan in 1206 and including the territory from the Danube to the Sea of ​​Japan and from Novgorod to Cambodia. All empires known to us were created for centuries and generations, and only the greatest world empire was allegedly created by an illiterate savage literally by wave of his hand ”(KUHN: 173-175). - So, Alexey Kungurov comes to the conclusion that if there was a conquest of Russia, it was carried out not by the wild steppe people, but by some powerful state. But where was its capital?

The capital of the steppe people.

“If there is an empire, then there must be a capital. The fantastic city of Karakorum was appointed to be the capital, the remains of which were explained by the ruins of the Erdeni-Dzu Buddhist monastery at the end of the 16th century in the center of modern Mongolia. On what basis? And so the historians wanted it. Schliemann dug up the ruins of a small ancient city, and announced that it was Troy ”(KUHN: 175). I have shown in two articles that Schliemann dug up one of the temples of Yar and took its treasures for the trail of ancient Troy, although Troy, as shown by one of the Serbian researchers, was located on the shores of Lake Skoder (the modern city of Shkoder in Albania).

“And Nikolai Yadrintsev, who discovered an ancient settlement in the Orkhon valley, declared it Karakorum. Karakorum literally means "black stones" Since there was a mountain range not far from the place of discovery, it was given the official name Karakorum. And since the mountains are called Karakorum, then the settlement was given the same name. Here is such a compelling rationale! True, the local population had never even heard of any Karakorum, but called the Muztag ridge - Ice Mountains, but this did not bother scientists at all ”(KUN: 175-176). - And rightly so, because in this case the “scientists” were looking not for the truth, but for confirmation of their myth, and geographical renaming is very conducive to this.

Traces of a grand empire.

“The largest world empire left the least traces of itself. Or rather, none at all. She, they say, disintegrated in the XIII century into separate uluses, the largest of which was the Yuan Empire, that is, China (its capital Khanbalik, now Aekin, allegedly was at one time the capital of the entire Mongol Empire), the Ilkhan state (Iran, Transcaucasia, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan), Chagataisky ulus (Central Asia) and the Golden Horde (the territory from the Irtysh to the White, Baltic and Black seas). This historians cleverly came up with. Now any shards of pottery or copper jewelry found in the vastness from Hungary to the coast of the Sea of ​​Japan can be declared traces of the great Mongolian civilization. And find And announce. And they will not blink an eye at the same time ”(KUN: 176).

As an epigraphist, I am primarily interested in written monuments. Did they exist in the Tatar-Mongol era? Here is what Nefyodov writes about this: "Having made Alexander Nevsky the Grand Duke of their own free will, the Tatars sent Baskaks and censors to Russia -" and the accursed Tatars began to travel through the streets, rewriting Christian houses. " It was a census that was being carried out at that time throughout the vast Mongol Empire; the members of the ranks drew up register-defters in order to collect the taxes established by Yelyu Chu-tsai: land tax, "kalan", poll tax, "kupchur", and the tax on merchants, "tamga" "(NEF). True, in the epigraphy the word “tamga” has a different meaning, “generic signs of property,” but that’s not the point: if there were three types of taxes, drawn up in the form of lists, then something must have been preserved. - Alas, there is none of this. It is not even clear what typeface all this was written in. But if there are no such special marks, then it turns out that all these lists were written in Russian, that is, in Cyrillic. - When I tried to find articles on the Internet on the topic "Artifacts of the Tatar-Mongol yoke", I came across a judgment that I reproduce below.

Why are the chronicles silent?

"During the mythical" Tatar-Mongol yoke ", according to official history, a decline has come in Russia. This, in their opinion, is confirmed by the almost complete absence of evidence of that period. Once, talking with a lover of the history of my native land, I heard from him a mention of the decline that reigned in this area during the "Tatar-Mongol yoke". As evidence, he recalled that a monastery once stood in these places. First, it should be said about the area: the river valley with hills in the immediate vicinity, there are springs - an ideal place for a settlement. And so it was. However, the annals of this monastery mention the nearest settlement only a few tens of kilometers away. Although between the lines you can read that closer people lived, only "wild". Reasoning on this topic, we came to the conclusion that due to ideological motives, the monks mentioned only Christian settlements, or during the next rewriting of history, all information about non-Christian settlements was erased.

No, no, sometimes historians unearth settlements that flourished during the “Tatar-Mongol yoke”. Which forced them to admit that, in fact, the Tatar-Mongols were quite tolerant of the conquered peoples ... “However, the lack of reliable sources about the general prosperity in Kievan Rus does not give rise to doubts in the official history.

In fact, apart from the sources of the Orthodox Church, we do not have reliable data about the occupation by the Tatar-Mongols. In addition, the fact of the rapid occupation of not only the steppe regions of Russia (from the point of view of the official history of the Tatar-Mongols - steppe people), but also wooded and even swampy territories is quite interesting. Of course, the history of military operations knows examples of the rapid conquest of the marshy forests of Belarus. However, the Nazis bypassed the swamps. But how Soviet army who carried out a brilliant offensive operation in the swampy part of Belarus? This is so, however, the population in Belarus was needed to create a bridgehead for subsequent offensives. They simply chose to step on the least expected (and therefore guarded) area. But most importantly, the Soviet army relied on local partisans, who thoroughly knew the area even better than the Nazis. But the mythical Tatar-Mongols who have done the unthinkable, immediately conquered the swamps - they abandoned further offensives ”(STR). - Here an unknown researcher notes two curious facts: already the monastery chronicle considers as a populated area only the one where the parishioners lived, as well as the brilliant orientation of the steppe inhabitants among the swamps, which should not be characteristic of them. And the same author also notes the coincidence of the territory occupied by the Tatar-Mongols with the territory of Kievan Rus. Thus, he shows that in reality we are dealing with a territory that has undergone Christianization, regardless of whether it was in the steppe, in forests or in swamps. - But back to the texts of Kungurov.

Religion of the Mongols.

“What was the official religion of the Mongols? - And choose whichever one you like. Allegedly, Buddhist shrines were found in the Karakorum "palace" of the great khan Ugedei (the heir of Genghis Khan). In the capital of the Golden Horde, Saray-Batu, they find mainly Orthodox crosses and breast icons. Islam established itself in the Central Asian possessions of the Mongol conquerors, and Zoroastrianism continued to flourish in the South Caspian. The Khazars-Jews also felt free in the Mongol Empire. Various shamanistic beliefs have survived in Siberia. Russian historians traditionally tell tales that the Mongols were idolaters. Say, they made Russian princes a "head ax" if they, coming for a label for the right to rule in their lands, did not worship their filthy pagan idols. In short, the Mongols did not have any state religion. All empires had, but the Mongolian did not. Everyone could pray, whoever he liked ”(KUN: 176). - Note that there was no religious tolerance either before or after the Mongol invasion. Ancient Prussia with the Baltic people of Prussians inhabiting it (relatives in the language of Lithuanians and Latvians) were wiped out by the German knightly orders just because they were pagans. And in Russia, not only Vedists (Old Believers), but also early Christians (Old Believers) began to be persecuted as enemies after Nikon's reform. Therefore, such a combination of words as "evil Tatars" and "religious tolerance" is impossible, it is illogical. The division of the greatest empire into separate regions, each with its own religion, probably indicates the independent, independent existence of these regions, united into a gigantic empire only in the mythology of historians. As for the finds of Orthodox crosses and breast icons in the European part of the empire, this suggests that the "Tatar-Mongols" spread Christianity and eradicated paganism (Vedism), that is, there was a forced Christianization.

Cash.

“By the way, if Karakorum was the Mongolian capital, then there must have been a mint in it. It is believed that the monetary unit of the Mongol Empire was gold dinars and silver dirhams. For four years, archaeologists have been digging in the ground on Orkhon (1999-2003), but not like the mint, they did not even find a single dirham and dinar, but they dug up a lot of Chinese coins. It was this expedition that discovered traces of a Buddhist shrine under the palace of Ogedei (which turned out to be much smaller than expected). In Germany, about the results of excavations, a solid tome "Genghis Khan and his legacy" has been published. This is despite the fact that archaeologists have not found any traces of the ruler of the Mongols. However, it does not matter, everything that they found was declared the legacy of Genghis Khan. True, the publishers prudently kept silent about the Buddhist idol and about Chinese coins, but they filled most of the book with abstract arguments of no scientific interest ”(KUHN: 177). - A legitimate question arises: if the Mongols made three types of census, and they collected tribute, then where was it kept? And in what currency? Was everything translated into Chinese money? What could they buy in Europe?

Continuing the theme, Kungurov writes: “In general, ALL OVER Mongolia found only a few dirhams with Arabic inscriptions, which completely excludes the idea that this was the center of a certain empire. “Scientists” -historians cannot explain this, and therefore they simply do not touch upon this issue. Even if you grab the historian by the lapel of his jacket, and look intently into his eyes, ask about it, he will portray a fool who does not understand what this is about ”(KUHN: 177). - I will interrupt the citation here, because this is how archaeologists behaved when I made my report in the Tver Museum of Local Lore, showing that there is an INSCRIPTION on the chaste-stone donated to the museum by local historians. None of the archaeologists approached the stone and felt the letters cut out there. For to come up and feel the inscription meant for them to sign a long-term lie about the lack of their own written language among the Slavs in the pre-Cyrillic era. This was the only thing they could do to protect the honor of the uniform (“I don't see anything, I don't hear anything, I won't tell anyone,” as the popular song says).

“There is no archaeological evidence of the existence of an imperial center in Mongolia, and therefore, as arguments in favor of a completely delusional version, official science can only offer a casuistic interpretation of the works of Rashid al-Din. True, they cite the latter very selectively. For example, after four years of excavations in Orkhon, historians prefer not to recall that the latter writes about the walking of dinars and dirhams in Karakorum. And Guillaume de Rubruk reports that the Mongols knew a lot about the Romans' money, which filled their budget bins. They now also have to keep quiet about this. It should also be forgotten that Plano Carpini mentioned how the ruler of Baghdad paid tribute to the Mongols in Roman gold solidi - besants. In short, all the ancient witnesses were wrong. Only modern historians know the truth ”(KUN: 178). - As you can see, all ancient witnesses indicated that the "Mongols" used European money that circulated in Western and Eastern Europe. And they did not say anything about Chinese money from the "Mongols". Again, we are talking about the fact that the "Mongols" were Europeans, at least in economic terms. No pastoralist would dream of compiling lists of landowners that pastoralists did not have. And even more so - to create a tax on merchants who were wandering in many eastern countries. In short, all these population censuses, very expensive shares, with the aim of taking a STABLE TAX (10%), are betrayed not by greedy steppe dwellers, but by scrupulous European bankers, who, of course, collected taxes calculated in advance in European currency. They didn't need Chinese money.

“Did the Mongols have a financial system, without which, as you know, no state can do? Did not have! Numismatists do not know any specific Mongolian money. But, if desired, any unidentified coins are declared as such. What was the name of the empire's currency? Yes, it was not called in any way. Where was the imperial mint, treasury? And nowhere. It seems that historians wrote something about the evil Baskaks - collectors of tribute in the Russian uluses of the Golden Horde. But today the ferocity of the Baskaks seems quite exaggerated. It seems like they collected tithes (one tenth of the income) in favor of the khan, and every tenth young man was recruited into their army. The latter should be considered a gross exaggeration. After all, the service in those days did not last a couple of years, but probably a quarter of a century. The population of Russia in the 13th century is usually estimated at at least 5 million souls. If every year 10 thousand recruits come to the army, then in 10 years it will swell to completely unimaginable sizes ”(KUHN: 178-179). - If 10 thousand people are called up annually, then in 10 years it will turn out to be 100 thousand, and in 25 years - 250 thousand. Was the state at that time able to feed such an army? - “And if we take into account that the Mongols shaved into the service not only Russians, but also representatives of all other conquered peoples, then a million-strong horde would turn out, which not a single empire could either feed or arm in the Middle Ages” (KUN: 179). - That's it.

“But where the tax went, how the accounting was carried out, who was in charge of the treasury, scientists cannot really explain anything. Nothing is known about the counting system, measures and weights used in the empire. It also remains a mystery for what purposes the huge Golden Horde budget was spent - the conquerors did not build palaces, cities, monasteries, or navies. Although not, other storytellers claim that the Mongols had a fleet. They, they say, even conquered the island of Java, and almost captured Japan. But this is such an obvious nonsense that it makes no sense to discuss it. At least, until at least some traces of the existence of steppe cattle-breeders-seafarers on the earth are found ”(KUHN: 179). - As Aleksey Kungurov examines various aspects of the Mongols' activities, one gets the impression that the Khalkha people, appointed by historians to the role of world conqueror, were the least suitable for fulfilling this mission. How did the West carry out such a blunder? - The answer is simple. All Siberia and Central Asia on the European maps of that time was called Tartary (as I showed in one of my articles, it was there that the Underworld, Tartarus was moved). Accordingly, the mythical "Tatars" are located there. Their eastern wing also extended to the Khalkha people, about which few of the historians knew anything at that time, and therefore anything could be attributed to him. Of course, Western historians did not foresee that in a couple of centuries the means of communication would develop so strongly that through the Internet it would be possible to receive any latest information from archaeologists, which, after analytical processing, would be able to refute any Western myths.

The ruling layer of the Mongols.

“What was the ruling stratum in the Mongol Empire? Any state has its own military, political, economic, cultural and scientific elite. The ruling stratum in the Middle Ages is called the aristocracy, the current ruling class is usually called the vague term "elite". One way or another, but the state elite must be, otherwise there is no state. And the Mongolian occupiers had a tense relationship with the elite. They conquered Russia and left the Rurik dynasty to rule it. They themselves, they say, went to the steppe. There are no such examples in history. That is, there was no state-forming aristocracy in the Mongol Empire ”(KUN: 179). - The latter is extremely surprising. Take, for example, the huge preceding empire, the Arab Caliphate. There was not only religions, Islam, but also secular literature. For example, the tales of a thousand and one nights. There was a monetary system, and Arab money has long been considered the most popular currency. And where are the legends about the Mongol khans, where are the Mongolian tales of the conquests of distant Western countries?

Mongolian infrastructure.

“Even today, any state cannot be established if it does not have transport and information connectivity. In the Middle Ages, the lack of convenient means of communication absolutely ruled out the possibility of the functioning of the state. Therefore, the core of the state was formed along river, sea, and much less often land communications. And the Mongol Empire, the greatest in the history of mankind, did not have any means of communication between its parts and the center, which, by the way, did not exist either. More precisely, it seemed to be, but only in the form of a camp, where Genghis Khan left his family during the campaigns ”(KUN: 179-180). In this case, the question arises, how did the state negotiations take place at all? Where did the ambassadors of sovereign states live? Really at the military headquarters? And how could you keep up with the constant transfers of these rates during military operations? And where was the state chancellery, archives, translators, scribes, heralds, treasury, premises for stolen valuables? Did you also move along with the Khan's headquarters? - This is hard to believe. - And now Kungurov comes to a conclusion.

Did the Mongol Empire exist?

“Here it is natural to ask the question: was there even this legendary Mongol Empire? Was! - historians will shout in chorus and as evidence they will show a stone turtle of the Yuan dynasty in the vicinity of the modern Mongolian village of Karakorum or a shapeless coin of unknown origin. If this seems unconvincing to you, historians will authoritatively add a couple of clay shards dug up in the Black Sea steppes. This will surely convince the most inveterate skeptic ”(KUHN: 180). - The question of Alexey Kungurov has been asking for a long time, and the answer to it is quite natural. No Mongol Empire ever existed! - However, the author of the study is concerned not only with the Mongols, but also with the Tatars, as well as the attitude of the Mongols to Russia, and therefore he continues his story.

“But we are interested in the great Mongol empire insofar as. Russia was allegedly conquered by Batu, the grandson of Genghis Khan and the ruler of the Jochi ulus, better known as the Golden Horde. From the possessions of the Golden Horde to Russia is nevertheless closer than from Mongolia. During the winter, from the Caspian steppes, you can get to Kiev, Moscow and even Vologda. But the same difficulties arise. First, horses need fodder. Horses can no longer get withered grass in the Volga steppes with a hoof from under the snow. Winters are snowy there, and therefore local nomads in their winter quarters prepared stocks of hay in order to hold out in the most difficult time. Oats are needed for the army to move in winter. No oats - no opportunity to go to Russia. Where did the nomads get their oats?

The next problem is roads. From time immemorial, frozen rivers have been used as roads in winter. But the horse needs to be shod so that it can walk on the ice. On the steppe, she can run barefoot all year round, and on ice, stone deposits or a frozen road, a bare horse, and even with a rider, cannot walk. In order to shoe the hundreds of thousands of battle horses and transport mares required for the invasion, you need more than 400 tons of iron alone! And after 2-3 months you need to shoe the horses again. And how many forests need to be cut down in order to prepare 50 thousand sledges for the convoy?

But in general, as we found out, even in the event of a successful march to Russia, the 10,000-strong army will find itself in an extremely difficult situation. Supply at the expense of the local population is almost impossible, it is absolutely unrealistic to pull up reserves. We have to conduct grueling assaults of cities, fortresses and monasteries, incur irreparable losses, going deeper into enemy territory. And what is the point in this deepening, if the invaders left behind a devastated desert? What is the general purpose of the war? Every day the invaders will be weaker and weaker, and by the spring they have to leave for the steppe, otherwise the opened rivers will lock the nomads in the forests, where they will die of hunger ”(KUN: 180-181). - As you can see, the problems of the Mongol Empire are manifested on a smaller scale in the example of the Golden Horde. And further Kungurov considers a later Mongolian state - the Golden Horde.

Capitals of the Golden Horde.

“There are two known capitals of the Golden Horde - Saray-Batu and Saray-Berke. Even the ruins have not survived to this day. Historians found the culprit here too - Tamerlane, who came from Central Asia and destroyed these very flourishing and populated cities of the East. Today archaeologists are excavating at the site of the supposedly great capitals of the great Eurasian empire only the remains of adobe huts and the most primitive household utensils. Everything valuable, they say, was plundered by the evil Tamerlane. Tellingly, archaeologists do not find the slightest traces of the presence of Mongolian nomads in these places.

However, this does not bother them at all. Since traces of Greeks, Russians, Italians and others were found there, then the matter is clear: the Mongols brought craftsmen from the conquered countries to their capital. Does anyone doubt that the Mongols conquered Italy? Read carefully the works of "scientists" - historians - it says that Batu reached the coast of the Adriatic Sea and almost as far as Vienna. Somewhere there he caught the Italians. And what does the fact that Saray-Berke is the center of the Sarsk and Podonsk Orthodox dioceses say? This, according to historians, testifies to the phenomenal religious tolerance of the Mongol conquerors. True, in this case it is not clear why the Golden Horde khans allegedly tortured several Russian princes who did not want to give up their faith. The Grand Duke of Kiev and Chernigov Mikhail Vsevolodovich was even canonized for refusing to worship the sacred fire and was killed for disobedience ”(KUN: 181). Again, we see a complete inconsistency in the official version.

What was the Golden Horde.

“The Golden Horde is the same state invented by historians as the Mongol Empire. Accordingly, the Mongol-Tatar "yoke" is also an invention. The question is who invented it. It is useless to look for references to "yoke" or mythical Mongols in Russian chronicles. "Evil Tatars" are mentioned in it quite often. The question is, who did the chroniclers mean by this name? Either it is an ethnic group, or a way of life or an estate (akin to the Cossacks), or this is the collective name of all the Turks. Perhaps the word "Tatar" means an equestrian warrior? There are a great many Tatars: Kasimov, Crimean, Lithuanian, Bordakovs (Ryazan), Belgorod, Don, Yenisei, Tula ... just listing all kinds of Tatars will take half a page. The annals mention service Tatars, baptized Tatars, godless Tatars, sovereign Tatars and Basurman Tatars. That is, this term has an extremely broad interpretation.

Tatars, as an ethnic group, appeared relatively recently, three hundred years ago. Therefore, an attempt to apply the term "Tatar-Mongols" to modern Kazan or Crimean Tatars is a fraud. There were no Kazan Tatars in the XIII century, there were Bulgars who had their own principality, which historians decided to call the Volga Bulgaria. There were no Crimean or Siberian Tatars then, but there were Kipchaks, they are Polovtsians, they are Nogais. But if the Mongols conquered, partially annihilated, the Kipchaks and periodically fought with the Bulgars, then where did the Mongol-Tatar symbiosis come from?

No newcomers from the Mongolian steppes were known not only in Russia, but also in Europe. The term "Tatar yoke", meaning the power of the Golden Horde over Russia, appeared at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries in Poland in propaganda literature. It is believed that it belongs to the pen of the historian and geographer Matthew Mekhovsky (1457-1523), professor at the University of Krakow ”(KUN: 181-182). - Above, we read the news about this both on Wikipedia and in works three authors(SVI). His "Treatise on the Two Sarmatians" was considered in the West to be the first detailed geographical and ethnographic description of Eastern Europe up to the meridian of the Caspian Sea. In the preamble of this work, Mekhovsky wrote: “The southern regions and coastal peoples up to India were discovered by the king of Portugal. Let the northern lands with the peoples living near the Northern Ocean to the east, discovered by the troops of the Polish king, will now become known to the world ”(KUN: 182-183). - Very interesting! It turns out that Russia had to be discovered by someone, although this state existed for several millennia!

“How dashing! This enlightened husband equates the Russians with African blacks and American Indians, and attributes fantastic services to the Polish troops. The Poles have never reached the coast of the Arctic Ocean, long ago explored by the Russians. Only a century after the death of Mekhovsky during the Time of Troubles, some Polish detachments prowled through the Vologda and Arkhangelsk regions, but these were not the troops of the Polish king, but ordinary robber bands that robbed merchants on the northern trade route. Therefore, one should not take seriously his insinuations that the backward Russians were conquered by quite wild Tatars ”(KUHN: 183) - It turns out that Mekhovsky's work was a fantasy that the West did not have the opportunity to verify.

“By the way, Tatars are the European collective name for all Eastern peoples. And in the old days it was pronounced as "tartars" from the word "tartar" - the underworld. It is quite possible that the word "Tatars" came to the Russian language from Europe. At least, when European travelers called the inhabitants of the lower Volga Tatars in the 16th century, they did not really understand the meaning of this word, and even more so they did not know that for Europeans it means “savages who escaped from hell”. The binding of the word "Tatars" of the Criminal Code to a certain ethnic group begins only in the 17th century. Finally, the term "Tatars", as a designation of the Volga-Ural and Siberian sedentary Turkic-speaking peoples, was established only in the twentieth century. The word formation "Mongol-Tatar yoke" was first used in 1817 by the German historian Hermann Kruse, whose book was translated into Russian in the middle of the 19th century and published in St. Petersburg. In 1860, the head of the Russian ecclesiastical mission in China, Archimandrite Palladiy, acquired the manuscript of The Secret Legend of the Mongols, making it public. No one was embarrassed that the "Tale" was written in Chinese. It is even very convenient, because any inconsistencies can be explained by erroneous transcription from Mongolian to Chinese. Mo, Yuan is a Chinese transcription of the Chingizid dynasty. And Shutsu is Kublai Khan. With such a "creative" approach, as you might guess, any Chinese legend can be declared even the history of the Mongols, even the chronicle of the Crusades "(KUN: 183-184). - It is not in vain that Kungurov mentions a clergyman from the Russian Orthodox Church, Archimandrite Pallady, hinting that he was interested in creating a legend about the Tatars based on Chinese chronicles. And it is not in vain that he throws the bridge to the crusades.

The legend about the Tatars and the role of Kiev in Russia.

“The beginning of the legend of Kievan Rus was laid by the Synopsis, published in 1674 - the first textbook on Russian history known to us. This book was reprinted more than once (1676, 1680, 1718 and 1810) and enjoyed great popularity until the middle of the 19th century. Innocent Gizel (1600-1683) is considered to be its author. Born in Prussia, in his youth he came to Kiev, converted to Orthodoxy and tonsured a monk. Metropolitan Peter Mogila sent the young monk abroad, from where he returned as an educated person. He applied his scholarship in a tense ideological and political struggle with the Jesuits. He is known as a literary theologian, historiographer and theologian ”(KUN: 184). - When we talk about the fact that in the 18th century Miller, Bayer and Schloetzer became the "fathers" of Russian historiography, we forget that a century earlier, under the first Romanovs and after Nikon's reform, a new Romanov historiography under the name "Synopsis", that is, a summary, was also written by a German, so there was already a precedent. It is clear that after the eradication of the Rurik dynasty and the persecution of the Old Believers and Old Believers, Muscovy needed a new historiography, whitewashing the Romanovs and denigrating the Rurikids. And it appeared, although it did not come from Muscovy, but from Little Russia, which since 1654 became part of Muscovy, although spiritually adjacent to Lithuania and Poland.

“Gisel should be considered not only a church figure, but also a political one, for the church Orthodox elite in the Polish-Lithuanian state was an integral part of the political elite. As a protege of Metropolitan Peter Mogila, he maintained active ties with Moscow on political and financial issues. In 1664 he visited the Russian capital as part of the Little Russian embassy of the Cossack foreman and clergy. Apparently, his works were appreciated, since in 1656 he received the rank of archimandrite and abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, keeping it until his death in 1683.

Of course, Innokenty Gizel was an ardent supporter of the annexation of Little Russia to Great Russia, otherwise it is difficult to explain why the tsars Alexei Mikhailovich, Fyodor Alekseevich and the ruler Sofya Alekseevna were very kind to him, did not give him valuable gifts. So, it is "Synopsis" that begins to actively popularize the legend of Kievan Rus, the Tatar invasion and the struggle against Poland. The main stereotypes of ancient Russian history (the founding of Kiev by three brothers, the vocation of the Varangians, the legend of the baptism of Rus by Vladimir, etc.) are laid down in a slender row in the Synopsis and are accurately dated. Somewhat strange to today's reader will seem perhaps a hundred story of Gisel "On the freedom or liberty of Slavic". - “The Slavs, in their courage and courage, struggle hard day by day, fighting against the ancient Greek and Roman Caesars, and always receiving a glorious victory, in all kinds of freedom to live; I helped the great Tsar Alexander the Great and his father Philip to incite the power under the power of this Light. With the same, glorious for the sake of the deeds and labors of the military, Alexander gave the Tsar Slav a graft or a letter on parchment in gold, written in Alexandria, liberties and the land were affirmed to them, before the Nativity of Christ the year 310; and Augustus Caesar (in his own Kingdom the King of glory Christ the Lord was born) are not daring to fight with the free and strong Slavs ”(KUN: 184-185). - I will note that if the legend about the foundation of Kiev was very important for Little Russia, which, according to it, became the political center of all ancient Russia, in light of which the legend of the baptism of Kiev by Vladimir grew to the approval of the baptism of All Russia, and both legends, thus, carried a powerful political meaning promotion of Little Russia to the first place in the history and religion of Russia, the quoted passage does not carry such pro-Ukrainian propaganda. Here, apparently, we have an insert of traditional views on the participation of Russian soldiers in the campaigns of Alexander the Great, for which they received a number of privileges. Here are also examples of the interaction of Russia with the politicians of late antiquity; later historiography of all countries will remove any mention of the existence of Russia in the specified period. It is also interesting to see that the interests of Little Russia in the 17th century and now are diametrically opposed: then Gizel argued that Little Russia is the Center of Russia, and all events in it are epoch-making for Great Russia; now, on the contrary, it is being proved that the Outskirts are independent of Russia, the connection between the Outskirts and Poland, and the work of the first President of the Outskirts Kravchuk was called “Outskirts - e such a state”. Allegedly independent throughout its history. And the Outskirts Ministry of Foreign Affairs asks Russians to write "In the Outskirts" and not "ON the Outskirts", distorting the Russian language. That is, in this moment qiu power is more satisfied with the role of the Polish periphery. This example clearly shows how political interests can change the country's position by 180 degrees, and not only abandon claims to leadership, but even change the name to a completely discordant one. Modern Gisel would try to connect the three brothers who founded Kiev with Germany and the Germanic Ukrainians, which had nothing to do with Little Russia, and the conduct of Christianity in Kiev - with the general Christianization of Europe, allegedly having nothing to do with Russia.

“When an archimandrite, treated kindly at court, undertakes to compose history, it is very difficult to regard this work as an example of an unbiased scientific research... Rather, it will be a propaganda treatise. And a lie is the most effective method of propaganda if a lie can be introduced into the mass consciousness.

It is "Synopsis", which was published in 1674, that the honor of becoming the first Russian MASS print edition belongs. Up to early XIX century the book was used as a textbook on Russian history, but in total it withstood 25 editions, of which the last took place in 1861 (the 26th edition was already in our century). From the point of view of propaganda, it is not important how Gisel's work corresponded to reality, it is important how firmly it was rooted in the consciousness of the educated stratum. And it is firmly rooted. Considering that "Synopsis" was actually written by order ruling house The Romanovs were officially imposed, it could not have been otherwise. Tatishchev, Karamzin, Shcherbatov, Solovyov, Kostomarov, Klyuchevsky and other historians brought up on the Giselian concept simply could not (and hardly wanted to) critically interpret the legend of Kievan Rus ”(KUN: 185). - As you can see, a kind of "Short Course of the CPSU (b)" of the victorious pro-Western Romanov dynasty was the "Synopsis" of the German Gisel, who represented the interests of Little Russia, which had recently become part of Russia, which immediately began to claim the role of a leader in the political and religious life of Russia. So to speak, out of rags - yes to riches! It was this peripheral newly acquired part of Russia as a historical leader that suited the Romanovs, as well as the tale that this weak state was beaten by equally peripheral steppe inhabitants from the Underworld - Russian Tartary. The meaning of these legends is obvious - Russia was allegedly flawed from the beginning!

Other Romanov historians about Kievan Rus and Tatars.

“The court historians of the 18th century, such as Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer, August Ludwig Schlözer and Gerard Friedrich Miller, did not contradict the Synopsis. So tell me, if you please, how could Bayer have been a researcher of Russian antiquities and the author of the concept of Russian history (gave rise to the Norman theory), when in 13 years of his stay in Russia he did not even learn Russian? The latter two were co-authors of an obscenely politicized Norman theory, proving that Russia acquired the features of a normal state only under the leadership of the true Europeans Rurik. Both of them edited and published the works of Tatishchev, after which it is difficult to say what remains of the original in his works. At least, it is known for sure that the original of Tatishchev's "History of Russia" disappeared without a trace, and Miller, according to the official version, used some "drafts", which are also unknown to us now.

Despite constant conflicts with colleagues, it was Miller who formed the academic framework of official Russian historiography. His main opponent and ruthless critic was Mikhail Lomonosov. However, Miller managed to take revenge on the great Russian scientist. And how! The “Ancient Russian History” prepared by Lomonosov for publication was never published through the efforts of his opponents. Moreover, the work was confiscated upon the death of the author and disappeared without a trace. A few years later, only the first volume of his monumental work was printed, prepared for publication, as it is believed, personally by Müller. Reading Lomonosov today, it is absolutely impossible to understand what he argued so fiercely with the courtiers of the Germans - his "Ancient Russian History" was sustained in the spirit of the officially approved version of history. There are absolutely no contradictions with Müller on the most controversial issue of Russian antiquity in Lomonosov's book. Therefore, we are dealing with forgery ”(KUN: 186). - Brilliant conclusion! Although another thing remains unclear: Soviet authority was no longer interested in glorifying one of the republics of the USSR, namely the Ukrainian one, and belittling the Turkic republics, which just fell under the understanding of Tartaria or Tatars. It would seem that it was high time to get rid of the forgery and show the true history of Russia. Why, in Soviet times, Soviet historiography adhered to the version pleasing to the Romanovs and the Russian Orthodox Church? - The answer lies on the surface. Because the worse the history of Tsarist Russia was, the better the history of Soviet Russia was. It was then, at the time of the Rurikovich, it was possible to call foreigners to rule a great power, and the country was so weak that it could be conquered by some Tatar-Mongols. In Soviet times, it seems that no one was called from anywhere, and Lenin and Stalin were natives of Russia (although in Soviet times no one would dare to write that Rothschild helped Trotsky with money and people, the German General Staff for Lenin, and Yakov Sverdlov was responsible for communication with European bankers). On the other hand, one of the employees of the Institute of Archeology in the 90s told me that the color of pre-revolutionary archaeological thought did not remain in Soviet Russia, archaeologists of the Soviet cut were very much inferior in their professionalism to pre-revolutionary archaeologists, and they tried to destroy the pre-revolutionary archaeological archives. - I asked her in connection with the excavations of the archaeologist Veselovsky of the Kamennaya Mogila caves in Ukraine, for for some reason all the reports on his expedition were lost. It turned out that they were not lost, but deliberately destroyed. For the Stone Tomb is a Paleolithic monument, in which there are Russian inscriptions in runic. And on it a completely different history of Russian culture looms. But archaeologists are part of the collective of historians of the Soviet era. And they created no less politicized historiography than the historians in the service of the Romanovs.

“It only remains to state that the editorial staff of Russian history that is used today was composed exclusively of foreign authors, mostly Germans. The works of Russian historians who tried to resist them were destroyed, and falsifications were released under their name. One should not expect that the gravediggers of the national historiographic school have spared the primary sources that are dangerous to them. Lomonosov was horrified when he learned that Schlötser had gained access to all the ancient Russian chronicles preserved at that time. Where are those chronicles now?

By the way, Schlötser called Lomonosov "a gross ignoramus who knew nothing but his chronicles." It is difficult to say why there is more hatred in these words - to the stubborn Russian scientist who considers the Russian people the same age as the Romans, or to the chronicles that confirmed this. But it turns out that the German historian who received the Russian chronicles at his disposal was not guided by them at all. He revered the political order above science. Mikhail Vasilyevich, when it came to the hated nemchure, was not shy in expressions either. About Schlözer we have heard such a statement from him: “... what disgusting dirty tricks such a beast allowed to them will not wander in Russian antiquities” or his head, gives obscure, dark, incomprehensible and completely wild answers. "

How long will we dance to the tune of the "stoned idol priests"? " (KUHN: 186-187).

Discussion.

Although on the topic of the mythological nature of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, I read the works of L.N. Gumilyov, and A.T. Fomenko, and Valyansky and Kalyuzhny, but no one wrote so vividly, in detail and convincingly before Alexei Kungurov. And I can congratulate "our regiment" of researchers of non-politicized Russian history that it has more with one bayonet. Note that he is not only well-read, but also capable of a remarkable analysis of all the absurdities of professional historians. It is professional historiography who comes up with bows that shoot at 300 meters with the destructive power of a modern rifle bullet, it is she who calmly appoints backward herders who did not have statehood, the creators of the largest state in the history of mankind, it is they who suck out of the finger huge armies of conquerors that cannot be fed nor move several thousand kilometers. The illiterate Mongols, it turns out, compiled land and capitation lists, that is, they conducted a population census on the scale of this huge country, and also kept a record of trade income even from wandering merchants. And the results of this huge work in the form of reports, lists and analytical reviews disappeared somewhere without a trace. It turned out that there is not a single archaeological confirmation of the existence of both the capital of the Mongols and the capitals of the uluses, as well as the existence of Mongolian coins. Even today, the Mongolian tugriks are an inconvertible currency.

Of course, the chapter touches upon many more problems than the reality of the existence of the Mongol-Tatars. For example, the possibility of disguise due to the Tatar-Mongol invasion of the real forced Christianization of Russia by the West. However, this problem requires much more serious argumentation, which is absent in this chapter of Alexei Kungurov's book. Therefore, I am in no hurry to draw any conclusions in this regard.

Conclusion.

Nowadays, there is only one justification for supporting the myth of the Tatar-Mongol invasion: it not only expressed, but expresses today the point of view of the West on the history of Russia. The West is not interested in the point of view of Russian researchers. It will always be possible to find such "professionals" who, for the sake of self-interest, career or fame in the West, will support the myth generally accepted and fabricated by the West.

The Mongol-Tatar yoke is the period of the capture of Rus by the Mongol-Tatars in the 13-15th centuries. The Mongol-Tatar yoke lasted for 243 years.

The truth about the Mongol-Tatar yoke

The Russian princes at that time were in a state of enmity, so they could not give a worthy rebuff to the invaders. Despite the fact that the Polovtsians came to the rescue, the Tatar-Mongol army quickly seized the advantage.

The first direct clash between the troops took place on the Kalka River, on May 31, 1223, and was quickly lost. Even then it became clear that our army would not be able to defeat the Tatar-Mongols, but the enemy's onslaught was held back for quite a long time.

In the winter of 1237, a purposeful invasion of the main troops of the Tatar-Mongols into the territory of Russia began. This time the enemy's army was commanded by the grandson of Genghis Khan - Batu. The army of nomads managed to move quickly enough deep into the country, plundering the principalities in turn and killing all who tried to resist on their way.

The main dates of the capture of Russia by the Tatar-Mongols

• 1223 year. The Tatar-Mongols approached the border of Russia;
• May 31, 1223. First battle;
• Winter 1237. The beginning of a targeted invasion of Russia;
• 1237 year. Ryazan and Kolomna are captured. The Ryazan principality fell;
• March 4, 1238. Grand Duke Yuri Vsevolodovich was killed. The city of Vladimir is captured;
• Autumn 1239. Chernigov is captured. The Chernigov principality fell;
• 1240. Kiev is captured. The Kiev principality fell;
• 1241 year. Galicia-Volyn principality fell;
• 1480 Overthrow of the Mongol-Tatar yoke.

The reasons for the fall of Russia under the onslaught of the Mongol-Tatars

• lack of a unified organization in the ranks of Russian soldiers;
• numerical superiority of the enemy;
• the weakness of the command of the Russian army;
• poorly organized mutual assistance on the part of scattered princes;
• underestimation of the forces and numbers of the enemy.

Features of the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Russia

In Russia, the establishment of the Mongol-Tatar yoke began with new laws and orders.

Vladimir became the actual center of political life, it was from there that the Tatar-Mongol khan exercised his control.

The essence of the management of the Tatar-Mongol yoke was that the Khan handed over a label to reign at his own discretion and completely controlled all the territories of the country. This intensified the enmity between the princes.

The feudal fragmentation of territories was encouraged in every possible way, as this reduced the likelihood of a centralized revolt.

The population was regularly charged tribute, the "Horde exit". The collection of money was carried out by special officials - Baskaks, who showed extreme cruelty and did not shy away from abductions and murders.

Consequences of the Mongol-Tatar conquest

The consequences of the Mongol-Tatar yoke in Russia were terrible.

• Many cities and villages were destroyed, people were killed;
• Agriculture, handicrafts and arts fell into decay;
• Feudal fragmentation increased significantly;
• The population has dropped significantly;
• Russia began to lag noticeably behind Europe in development.

End of the Mongol-Tatar yoke

Complete liberation from the Mongol-Tatar yoke took place only in 1480, when Grand Duke Ivan III refused to pay money to the horde and declared the independence of Russia.

When historians analyze the reasons for the successes of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, they name the presence of a powerful khan in power as one of the most important and significant reasons. Often, the khan became the personification of strength and military power, and therefore, both Russian princes and representatives of the yoke themselves were afraid of him. What khans left their mark on history and were considered the most powerful rulers of their people.

The most powerful khans of the Mongol yoke

During the entire existence of the Mongol Empire and the Golden Horde, many khans were replaced on the throne. Especially often the rulers changed during the period of the great hush, when the crisis forced the brother to go against the brother. Various internecine wars and regular military campaigns have confused the family tree of the Mongol khans a lot, but the names of the most powerful rulers are still known. So, which khans of the Mongol Empire were considered the most powerful?

• Genghis Khan because of the mass of successful campaigns and the unification of lands into one state.
• Batu, who managed to completely subjugate Ancient Russia and form the Golden Horde.
• Khan Uzbek, under whom the Golden Horde reached the greatest power.
• Mamai, who managed to unite the troops during the great hush-up.
• Khan Tokhtamysh, who made successful campaigns against Moscow, and returned Ancient Russia to the servitude territories.

Each ruler deserves special attention, because his contribution to the history of the development of the Tatar-Mongol yoke is enormous. However, it is much more interesting to tell about all the rulers of the yoke, trying to restore the family tree of the khans.

Tatar-Mongol khans and their role in the history of the yoke

The name and years of the khan's reign	His role in history
Genghis Khan (1206-1227)	And before Genghis Khan, the Mongol yoke had its own rulers, but it was this khan who managed to unite all the lands and make amazingly successful campaigns against China, North Asia and against the Tatars.
Ogedei (1229-1241)	Genghis Khan tried to give the opportunity to rule to all his sons, therefore he divided the empire between them, but it was Ogedei who was his main heir. The ruler continued his expansion to Central Asia and North China, strengthening his position in Europe.
Batu (1227-1255)	Batu was only the ruler of the Jochi ulus, which was later called the Golden Horde. However, the successful Western campaign, the expansion of Ancient Rus and Poland, made Batu a national hero. He soon began to spread his sphere of influence throughout the territory. Mongolian state, becoming an increasingly authoritative ruler.
Burke (1257-1266)	It was during the reign of Berke that the Golden Horde almost completely separated from the Mongol Empire. The ruler focused on urban planning, improving the social status of citizens.
Mengu-Timur (1266-1282), Tuda-Mengu (1282-1287), Tula-Bugi (1287-1291)	These rulers did not leave a big trace in history, but they were able to further isolate the Golden Horde and defend its right to freedom from the Mongol Empire. The tribute from the princes of Ancient Rus remained the basis of the Golden Horde's economy.
Khan Uzbek (1312-1341) and Khan Janibek (1342-1357)	Under Khan Uzbek and his son Janibek, the Golden Horde flourished. The donations of the Russian princes increased regularly, urban planning continued, and the inhabitants of Sarai-Batu adored their khan and literally worshiped him.
Mamai (1359-1381)	Mamai had nothing to do with the legitimate rulers of the Golden Horde and had no connection with them. He seized power in the country by force, seeking new economic reforms and military victories. Despite the fact that Mamai's power grew stronger every day, problems in the state were growing due to conflicts on the throne. As a result, in 1380 Mamai suffered a crushing defeat from the Russian troops on the Kulikovo field, and in 1381 he was overthrown by the legitimate ruler Tokhtamysh.
Tokhtamysh (1380-1395)	Perhaps the last great khan of the Golden Horde. After the crushing defeat of Mamai, he managed to regain his status in Ancient Russia. After the campaign against Moscow in 1382, tribute payments were resumed, and Tokhtamysh proved his power superiority.
Kadir Berdi (1419), Hadji-Muhammad (1420-1427), Ulu-Muhammad (1428-1432), Kichi-Muhammad (1432-1459)	All these rulers tried to establish their power during the state disintegration of the Golden Horde. After the start of the internal political crisis, many rulers were replaced, and this also influenced the deterioration of the country's situation. As a result, in 1480, Ivan III managed to achieve the independence of Ancient Russia, throwing off the shackles of centuries-old tribute.

As is often the case, a great state falls apart due to a dynastic crisis. Several decades after the liberation of Ancient Rus from the hegemony of the Mongol yoke, the Russian rulers also had to go through their dynastic crisis, but this is a completely different story.

o (Mongol-Tatar, Tatar-Mongol, Horde) - the traditional name for the system of exploitation of Russian lands by nomads who came from the East from the East from 1237 to 1480.

This system was intended to carry out mass terror and robbery of the Russian people by levying cruel extortions. She acted primarily in the interests of the Mongol nomadic military-feudal nobility (noyons), in favor of which the lion's share of the collected tribute came.

The Mongol-Tatar yoke was established as a result of the invasion of Khan Batu in the 13th century. Until the early 1260s, Russia was ruled by the great Mongol khans, and then by the khans of the Golden Horde.

The Russian principalities were not directly part of the Mongolian state and retained the local princely administration, whose activities were controlled by the Baskaks - representatives of the khan in the conquered lands. Russian princes were tributaries of the Mongol khans and received from them labels for the possession of their principalities. Formally, the Mongol-Tatar yoke was established in 1243, when Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich received a label from the Mongols to the Vladimir Grand Duchy. Russia, according to the label, lost the right to fight and had to pay tribute to the khans twice annually (in spring and autumn).

There was no permanent Mongol-Tatar army on the territory of Russia. The yoke was supported by punitive campaigns and repressions against the rebellious princes. The regular flow of tribute from the Russian lands began after the census of 1257-1259, carried out by the Mongolian "censors". The units of taxation were: in cities - a yard, in rural areas - "village", "plow", "plow". Only the clergy were exempted from tribute. The main "Horde burdens" were: "exit", or "tsar's tribute" - a tax directly for the Mongol khan; trade fees ("myt", "tamka"); transportation duties ("yam", "carts"); the maintenance of the khan's ambassadors ("feed"); various "gifts" and "honors" to the khan, his relatives and associates. Every year, a huge amount of silver went from the Russian lands in the form of 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 ("catchers"). In the late 1250s - early 1260s, Muslim merchants ("bessermen") collected tribute from the Russian principalities, 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 "besermen" were expelled from Russian cities, and the duty of collecting tribute passed to the local princes.

The struggle of Rus against the yoke acquired ever greater breadth. In 1285, Grand Duke Dmitry Alexandrovich (son of Alexander Nevsky) defeated and expelled the army of the "Horde Tsarevich". At the end of the XIII - the first quarter of the XIV century, performances in Russian cities led to the elimination of Basque people. With the strengthening of the Moscow principality, the Tatar yoke is gradually weakening. The Moscow prince Ivan Kalita (reigned in 1325-1340) achieved the right to collect "output" from all Russian principalities. From the middle of the XIV 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 Vladimir Grand Duchy 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 the campaign of Tokhtamysh and the capture of Moscow in 1382, Russia was forced to again recognize the power of the Golden Horde and pay tribute, but already Vasily I Dmitrievich (1389-1425) received the Vladimir great reign without the khan's label, as "his fiefdom." Under him, the yoke was nominal. Tribute was paid irregularly, the Russian princes pursued an independent policy. 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 for Russia the possibility of overthrowing the Tatar yoke.

However, in the middle of the 15th century, Moscow Russia 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 could no longer lead the Russians to complete submission. The unification of the Russian lands around Moscow led to the concentration in the hands of the Moscow princes of such political power, which the weakening Tatar khans could not cope with. Great Moscow Prince Ivan III Vasilievich(1462-1505) in 1476 refused to pay tribute. In 1480, after the unsuccessful campaign of the Khan of the Great Horde 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 Russian lands, was a brake on the growth of the productive forces of Russia, which were at a higher socio-economic level in comparison with the productive forces of the Mongolian state. It artificially preserved the purely feudal natural character of the economy for a long time. In political terms, the consequences of the yoke were manifested in the violation of the natural process of the state development of Russia, 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 lagging behind Russia from Western European countries.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources.