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Kipchak Khanate Synopsis
1236-1480

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 http://holmogor.livejournal.com/5441927.html

Posting Introduction

The offered modification of the article addresses some social aspects of the Kipchak Khanate, frequently overshadowed by political play and internecine strife. Notably, the conventional term “Golden Horde” refers only to the western wing of the Kipchak Khanate state, it was once an honorable moniker for the seat of the Western Wing ruler that has fossilized in Russian language, and is ambiguously applied to both the whole state and to its western part; the English term “Golden Horde” is an English calque incorrectly applied to the whole Juchi Ulus and its successor Kipchak Khanate. The British Encyclopedia correctly prefers the name Kipchak Khanate.
Kipchak Khanate Synopsis
1236-1480

Kipchak Khanate, Juchi Ulus, called by the Slavic and Russian sources “Golden Horde”, was a feudal state founded in the first half of the 13th c. by Juchi-Khan's son Batu-Khan in Khorezm and North Caucasus, and Eastern Europe. In 1236-1255 Baty conquered the Itil Bulgars territories, N.Pontic steppe, Crimea,  Rus principalities, and Western Siberia. In the middle of the 14th c. the Kipchak Khanate was one of the largest countries in Europe and Asia. Its southern territories included Tabriz (modern Iran), the northern territories included  Rus principalities, Itil Bulgars and Bashkiria, in the west it included modern Moldova to the Danube and Danube Bulgaria, and in the east to the rivers Ob and Irtysh. Under Orda-Khan's grandson Köchü-Khan, the domain of the Juchi Ulus included the territory of Ghazna and Bamiyan (Northern Afganistan).

Kipchak Khanate Extent of the Siberian part
State flag with tamga  
 

In the Kipchak Khanate and Eastern sources the Juchid state was usually denoted by the term “ulus”, with the addition of an epithet or the name of the ruler: “Ulug ulus” (Great Ulus), “Ulus Juchi”, “Ulus Berke”. In the western sources it was called “Tataria”, Tartaria”, and “Kipchak Khanate” or “Kipchak”. The word “horde” designated the capital of the ruler. The combination “Golden Horde” (Altyn Ordu, in Persian sources “Urdu-i Zarrin") for “golden ceremonial chadyr (tent)” is found in the sources in relation to the residence of Chengis-Khan and Guyuk-Khan, and in the 14th c. to the residence of Chengisids, including the ruler of the Ulus Juchi Uzbek-Khan. The list of the Kipchak Khanate rulers numbers a line of 63 Khans, 12 of them were Great Khans ruling both Eastern/(White Horde) and Western (Blue Horde) Wings (Kanats), the ruler of the Western (Blue Horde) Wing served as viceroys of the Great Khan: Batu-Khan was a viceroy of the Great Khan Ordu-Khan in the Western (Blue Horde) Wing. According to the Lateral Order of Succession, on the death of his senior brother Ordu-Khan (1251), Batu-Khan advanced to the position of the Great Khan (1251-1255), and Sartaq-Khan advanced to the position of the Western (Blue Horde) Wing Viceroy Khan position. Within his wing, the Khan had full autonomy and unlimited power, checked only by the Great Khan as a matter of deference. The dependencies within his wing were ruled by the Wing Khan, thus the Rus Principalities had to deal exclusively with the Western Wing administration, and the Slavic appellation “Golden Horde” applied exclusively to the Western Wing of the Kipchak Khanate.

The Khan's power was unlimited. Besides the members of his house (sons, brothers, and nephews), the Khan was surrounded by main members of the Kipchak Khanate's nobility - Beks (Noyons). Beklyare Bek (Prince of Princes) headed state affairs, Viziers headed separate departments. To the cities and uluses were sent Darugachis, their main duty was to monitor collection of taxes and duties. Along with Darugachis were appointed army commanders - Baskaks. The state structure had a semi-military character. The order of succession was Lateral Succession.

The most important positions were held by members of the ruling dynasty, the Princes (Oglans), who were allotted  control over ulus subdivisions in the Kipchak Khanate, and headed the troops. The Beks (Noyons) and Tarkhans constituted major military command staff: Tumans (10,000), Millenaries (1000), Centurions (100), and Bakauls (officials in charge of military supplies, payroll, booty, etc.). The state was located in a very convenient location of the state: through it ran the trunk-line of the ancient Silk Road caravan trade, it was close to the other Mongolian states. To the Sarai-Batu were coming with their goods merchants from distant Egypt, Central Asia, Caucasus, Crimea, Volga Bulgar, Rus principalities, Western Europe, and India. The Khans patronized trade and crafts. On the banks of the Itil (Volga), Yaik (Ural), in the Crimea and other territories were built cities.

The remnants of the first capital of the Kipchak Khanate Sarai-Batu (“Batu City") near a modern village Selitrennoe strike with their size. They run along the left bank of the Akhtuba (a channel of Itil), spread out over numerous hills, for more than 15 km. The city was founded between 1242 and 1254 and has grown very quickly. At the beginning of the 14th c. it was a capital with continuous rows of houses, mosques (13 mosques were Cathedral mosques), palaces with the walls shining with mosaic decorations, with ponds filled with clear water, with large markets and warehouses. On the highest hill above the Akhtuba bank  stood the Khan's palace. The Khan's palace was decorated with gold, so later the Russian historians composed a legend explaining why in Russian the Kipchak Khanate state was called Golden Horde. Still today in the area near the village Selitrennoe can be found tiles with bright oriental ornaments, coins minted in the13th-14th centuries, ceramic fragments, fired clay water pipes, etc. The city had ceramic, foundry, jewelry, etc. workshops.

Sarai had ethnically diverse population and numerous faiths. The ruling Mongol conquerors were a small minority of the population. They dissolved in the mass of the conquered people, mostly Türkic, first of all Kipchaks. The cultural belt on the lower Itil was so close to the steppes that it easily combined the sedentary and nomadic economies. The main population of the cities and steppes were Kipchaks. In the steppe also ruled a traditional law, all land was distributed by the elected local chieftain who led the ordinary nomads. That system preceded the appearance of the Rus and Kipchak Khanate states by many centuries, and with interruptions and distortions it outlived both of them, reaching the times of zemstvo (local self-rule) in the 19th c. and kolkhoz (collective farm) in the 20th c. In the Middle Asia, peasantry continued to live with a  system of feudal economy brought about by the Samanids. According to the fake Russian historiography, all medieval cities located on the banks of the Itil and its channels were flooded and residents had to abandon them. History knows differently: buildings were ransacked, deconstructed, everything of value was taken for the construction of the neighboring Russian fortresses and farms of half-of-the-millennium  influx of settlers.

Until the early 14th c. the main religion among the Mongol tribes was their traditional ancestral religion Tengriism, for historical reasons syncretized with Buddhism, Manichaeism, and Nestorian Christianity. They shared Tengriism with most of the Eurasian Türkic tribes. The Middle Asian and western Türkic tribes mostly professed Islam, which took root in the 8th-10th centuries in the Middle Asia and Itil Bulgaria, and European-style Christianity, which was proselytized and  imposed on them in the 8th-12th centuries. The traditional Mongolic and Türkic religious tolerance and open-minded tendency to syncretism dominated religious attitudes, everyone was free to profess their religion, and the religious institutions were protected and free from taxation. Sarai was a home to the Christian bishopric subordinated along with other Eastern European churches to the Byzantine Orthodox hierarchy, the Khanate and its capital had substantial Jewish population and institutions. The wealth of the religious denominations survived to the time of the Russian conquest in the 16th-17th centuries.

The Kipchak Khanate flourished in trade, economic, political, and ideological terms. The European countries, under severe stress from the threats to their very existence and independence from the  nomadic conquerors, turned to their most potent weapon, religious counterattack, already successfully tested for suppression of the European peoples. The Kipchak Khanate was inundated with Byzantine Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christian missionaries and emissaries. The Kipchak Khanate remained mostly Islamic, with prominent Muslim centers in the Bulgaria, Crimea, Caucasus, Khorezm, and in most of the Middle Asia. In the history of Kipchak Khanate, religion has played an important role, but not as a means of political unification of the state on a new ideological platform, but as a mobilizing force, first of the national liberation movement against political dependence, and then of the colonial wars.

From 1257 to 1266 Berke-Khan ruled the Kipchak Khanate, during that period Islam was universally accepted by the ruling elite. By that time, the Islam leadership was overtaken by the Türkic people. Then, the center of Islam was in Cairo in Egypt, that was the time of the “shadow” Abbasid Caliphate, Egypt was ruled by Mamluks, mostly Türkic-led army primarily of the Bulgars and Kipchaks, brought to the various Islamic dynasties as military recruits, and pretentiously translated with nonsensical term “slaves”, although an armed slave would always rule his inept master. Egypt and its dependent Syria was ruled by the Mamluk Sultan Baibar  (1260–1277). In 1262 Berke-Khan send an embassy to the Sultan Baibars, to notify him that the ruling dynasty of the Kipchak Khanate accepted Islam.

Mengu-Timur ben (son of) Tukan ben Batu ben Juchi (1266-1282) was the first Juchi Ulus ruler, who proclaimed himself a head of independent Kipchak Khanate. Mengu-Timur coins were minted only in his name, and with his personal tamga   at all four mints, in Bulgar, Crimea, Sarai, and Khorezm_, and with Arabic legend. The first extant yarlyk (certificate) for freeing the Rus Church from tribute to the Kipchak Khanate was written in the name of Mengu-Timur, who was a Tengrian. The Rus clergy were exempt from military service, and insulting Orthodox religion (inclusive by the Muslims) was punishable by death. Muslim merchants were not appointed as tax collectors for the Rus peasants. In 1261, Metropolitan Cyril founded an Orthodox diocese in Sarai. The Sarai Orthodox bishop Afinogen was appointed a head of the Tatar mission to Constantinople.

During the reign of  Uzbek-Khan (1312 to 1342) the Muslim religion spread. In that period in the Kipchak Khanate were build mosques and madrasas, the state was rising to its rightful place in the Muslim world. A notable traveler and historian of that time Ibn Arabshah wrote: “Sarai has become a focus of science and a fountain of benefactors, and in a short time there assembled a good and healthy portion of scientists and celebrities, linguists and artists, all kinds of deserving people, the likes of which has not collected neither in the crowded parts of Egypt, nor in its villages.” With the spread of Islamic religion, in the country began growing sciences: mathematics and astronomy, history and geography, medicine and philosophy. Especially rapidly began progressing linguistics.

The Mongol documentation at first used the Uigur script, written in columns left to right. Eastern Europe had numerous entrenched scripts and literature traditions, associated with the religious and ethnic cultures. In the steppes were different versions of the Türkic runiform scripts, the Arabic script predominated in the Islamic centers, were used versions of the Greek script, especially its Slavic version Cyrillic, the Armenian script was used in the Caucasus and Armenian diaspora and its neighbors elsewhere, the Georgian script was used in the Caucasus within and without Georgia, Jews and Khazars used ancient Hebrew alphabet. The adoption of Islam by the ruling dynasty facilitated the spread of the Arabic script across the nation. The domes, gates, doors, most important public buildings carried citations from the Koran and excerpts from the eastern classical literature. The Arabic script was used even on everyday objects like dishes. Books were written by hand using reeds and bird feathers, in the Itil region were gradually introduced metal styluses for writing, including for copying the Koran.

Bulgars and Kipchaks, and probably all other Türkic people continued the ancient Scythian and Türkic tradition of installed gravestones over kurgan burials. Adoption of Christianity and Islam impacted the form of the tombstones, but the Tengrian traditions of the kurgan burials lingered on, and were syncretized with both new religions. The tombstones became inscribed in the local scripts and languages, the Arabic script inscriptions precipitously replaced the older forms, carrying citations from the Koran, the name of the deceased, the time of his death, and good wishes. The tombstone inscriptions continued the carved image traditions, and added the raised letters form.

Most of the Türkic population in the Kipchak Khanate were Bulgars and Kipchaks. In the period from the 7th c. until the 10th c. the ancient Ogur languages of the Bulgars, Huns, Akathyrs, Scythians, and other Türkic peoples were gradually replaced by the Oguz languages of the migrants from the Middle and Central Asia, and it is believed that after the 10th c. the Oguz-type languages ​​came to dominate the Eastern Europe. The very first Bulgar literary works of the 8th -9th cc. were already written in the Uighur-Oguz type Türki language. Soon enough, the Kipchak language became a literary and state language, called Türki (Türki Tele). Since then, most languages of the Türkic peoples drew closer and are often mutually understood without translation.

Although in the Kipchak Khanate religion was at times used as a political tool, it never reached the malicious nature suffered in the Christian and Islamic dominions. The Tengrian traditions largely mitigated hate and greed that drove the spread of the “world” religions, and the non-hierarchical and communal Tengrian model prevented creation of self-perpetuating domineering and autocratic religious hierarchy, ensuring a relative tolerance of the Khanate's version of Islam. Tengrianism has not been fully stamped out, and in the Khanate endured the influence of the old beliefs, including among people and the Juchid aristocracy.

In the capital of the Kipchak Khanate the Sarai-city peacefully coexisted theologians of different madhhabs (doctrines), such as Maliki and Shafi'i and various Sufi communities.

After the disastrous reign of Tohtamysh (1378–1397) started a fragmentation of the Kipchak Khanate.  In the 15th c., the Kipchak Khanate broke into Kazan Khanate (1438), Crimean Khanate (1443), Nogai Horde (ca. 1445), Astrakhan Khanate (1459), Great Horde Khanate (1466), and Siberian Khanate (1490). During the extended time period, when internecine bedlam confused everybody, the poor Russians did not know who to report to, and finally decided that they must live on their own. Out of caution, however, they continued minting silver and copper coins with the Kipchak Khanate insignia for some more time after the dissolution of the Kipchak Khanate.

Last bilingual Tatar-Rus coin
struck in Novgorod 1470s-1480
Denga of Moscow, 1470s-1480s
The Arabic legend reads "This is a denga of Moscow"
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10/1/2012
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