Yes, we are the Scythians! Yes, Asians are us
With slanting and greedy eyes!
Not so long ago, "VO" hosted a series of materials about written historical sources dedicated to the Mongol conquests of the 13th century. Judging by the comments, topics related to the Mongol campaigns are of immeasurable interest. Therefore, I decided, within the framework of a small article based on research in modern historiography, to highlight the issue of the influence of the Tatar-Mongol yoke on the evolution of state institutions in Russia.
The above quote perfectly characterizes those complexes and unscientific layers associated with the "eastern" roots of Russia, with myths about the influence of external institutions on the development of the Russian state.
But this is by no means a claim to the poet, who, through artistic means, tried to express his vision of the post-revolutionary situation in Russia and the world.
The reason for the lag
The Tatar-Mongol yoke is blamed for Russia's lagging behind, which turned Russia from a European state into a part of the Mongol empire, introducing an Asiatic type of government and the despotism of tsarist power. Thus, the writer of detectives B. Akunin, developing this "hypothesis", writes about the European path of development interrupted by the Mongols, and, contrary to the opinions of the two "respected historians" cited by him (S. Solovyov and S. Platonov), summarizes:
"However, it seems to me a more fair judgment that Muscovite Rus is not a continuation of the ancient Russian state, but the essence of a different entity, which possessed fundamentally new features."
Our topic is related to another conclusion of the writer, so often found in non-scientific literature:
"For more than two centuries, Russia was part of the Asian state."
And further:
"It is enough to look at the atlas to make sure that the borders of modern Russia coincide with the contour of the Golden Horde rather than with Kievan Rus."
By the way, if the author had looked at the atlas of the USSR, he would have found there a complete coincidence of the western borders of the Union with Ancient Russia, including the territories of the Finnish (Estonia) and Baltic tribes (Lithuania, Latvia) tributaries of the ancient Russian principalities and princes. Moreover, if we look at the map of the United States, we find that it miraculously ("what a commission, creator!") Coincides with the Indian territories and lands (native Americans). Does this mean that the United States belongs to the Indian or Aleutian "civilization"? Does it mean that Belgium and France are African countries, since their African possessions exceeded the area of the metropolises? Do we classify Britain as an Indian civilization on the grounds that since the nineteenth century. they had one monarch, and Spain certainly must be attributed to the Muslim civilization, since the Iberian Peninsula was occupied by the Arabs and Moors for seven centuries: from the 8th to the 15th century?
What actually happened in the XIII century, after the invasion, I will use this phrase, accepted in historiography, Tatar-Mongols? How did the ancient Russian institutions change and what system of eastern government was adopted in Russia?
To do this, we will look at two key issues: "taxes" and governance.
Tribute
The key issue of "interaction" between the Russian principalities and the Mongol conquerors was the issue of the payment of tribute.
Tribute is a kind of "indemnity", but not a one-time, unlike indemnity, but payment on an ongoing basis: an extraordinary constant collection of material values without interfering with the state and economic structure of tributaries, in our case, Russia.
The structure of levying tribute was not new for Russia, on the one hand, but levying on an ongoing basis, yes, even on a huge scale, was a significant "innovation" that seriously influenced the economic and political development of Russian volosts: the Horde "levy" imposed on polls for the entire population, became a source of mass impoverishment of free communes, deprived of incomes and princes. If the princes of North-Eastern Russia had the opportunity to collect additional tributes from foreigners (Finno-Ugric peoples), then in the south and west of Russia such an opportunity was excluded, which, in general, led to the defeat of the Rurikids from the princes of Lithuania.
The key point: before the Mongol invasion, the free majority of the "husbands" of Russia did not pay tribute!
I repeat, it should be clearly understood that a tribute is not a collection or tax, relatively proportionate to the possibilities of management, but an excessive, often undermining the foundations of management and very existence (family life), "indemnity": vae victis!
Its meaning was lucidly "explained" in 390 BC. NS. the leader of the Gauls, Bren to the Romans, when he added his sword to the scales to the contribution paid and agreed on by weight: vae victis - "woe to the conquered."
However, Prince Igor, by the same right, tried to increase the tribute from the Drevlyans in 945, but the Drevlyans, in the presence of a "small squad" at the prince, doubted the expediency of paying it.
As for the situation after the Mongol invasion, the Moscow princes constantly argued over the reduction of tribute, and in a number of periods (the end of the 14th century) they generally ignored payments.
Payments formed an "economic" hierarchy, where the recipient of the tribute was the "tsar", previously for the Russians "tsar" was only in Constantinople. The "Tsar" of the Mongols, like the former "Tsar", continued to stand outside the Russian political organization. The real collectors were the Russian princes (from the end of the 13th - the beginning of the 14th century), and not the Tatar-Mongol representatives.
True, as you know, the Tatar-Mongols tried to apply the "traditional" methods of collecting tribute for themselves: firstly, they appointed Baskaks, secondly, they tried to stabilize receipts through tax farmers (Muslim merchants), and thirdly, to calculate the number - to conduct a census tributaries. But faced with huge, armed resistance from Russian cities and the "desire" of the princes to collect tribute themselves, they stopped at the latter: from the middle of the fourteenth century. the Baskaks disappeared completely, the collection of the Tatar "exit" was carried out by the Russian princes.
Thus, such an important component of the state as the collection of taxes was completely absent in the relationship between the Russian principalities and the Horde, unlike England after the conquest of it by William in 1066, where most of the land was distributed to vassals, a census of the tax population took place (Book of the Last Judgment) and the population was taxed: England became the state of William, and Russia?
State structure of Russia on the eve of the invasion
The historiography of this issue is about 300 years old. At the beginning of the twentieth century, after the work of N. P. Pavlov-Sil'vansky, but especially after the Marxist formation theory became decisive in historical science, Ancient Russia was attributed to the feudal formation, of course, this did not happen in an instant, there were discussions, controversy, but the postulate of Pavlov-Silvansky, defining early feudalism in Russia from about the end of the 15th century, was "antiquated", contrary to historical sources, up to the 9th century. The development of historical theoretical thought, since the end of the 60s of the twentieth century, made it possible to say that there is no need to talk about any feudalism for Ancient Rus, especially for the pre-Mongol period (I. Ya. Froyanov, A. Yu. Dvornichenko, Yu. V. Krivosheev, V. V. Puzanov and others)
Volost or city-state
So, part of modern historiography, based on the analysis of sources, classifies all Old Russian volosts as the structure of pre-class "republics" - city-states, as the most famous of the textbooks, Novgorod or Pskov. The collapse of the "empire of Rurikovich" occurred as a result of the fall of the tribal system and the transition to a territorial community. On the territory of Eastern Europe, in the struggle against the hegemony of Kiev and among themselves, separate, Russian volosts or independent "principalities" were formed. Russia on the eve of the Mongol invasion consisted of completely separate states: volosts or principalities. The Mongol defeat of the cities dealt a blow to the "democratic" structure of the volosts, but did not cancel it. Throughout the thirteenth century in the cities there are veche that "solve", it should be especially noted, sometimes, as before spontaneously, various key issues of the life of the community and volost:
• The parish continues to remain a single whole organism without division into cities and villages. When we say townspeople, people, community members - we mean all residents of the parish, without division.
• Actually, the city is a large village, where most of the inhabitants are associated with agriculture, even if they are artisans.
• The struggle continues between volosts - city-states for seniority in the region or for withdrawal from subordination:
Of course, the ruined and border volosts had no time for a struggle between themselves, as it was in the 12th and early 13th centuries. between Russian lands. While the regions not affected or weakly affected by the Mongol invasion continued the war for tributes on the borders (Smolensk, Novgorod, Polotsk, Volyn, etc.), entering into a struggle among themselves and with new contenders for border tributes (Germans, Lithuanian tribal union). Rostov, who surrendered to the Mongols and thus preserved his community, and hence the city militia, began to strengthen in the Northeast. As soon as the Mongols left, all the old scores and grievances surfaced again, the struggle of the princes continued for the "golden table" of Kiev, a city whose state was already at the beginning of the 13th century. was far from the "capital" city, by that time more than once subjected to defeat by other cities and their princes. Alexander Yaroslavovich Nevsky, who received Kiev as an inheritance, sent the governor there.
• In Russia there are no antagonistic classes, sharply opposing each other: feudal lords and serfs, cities and villages. For example, any free person with certain skills and qualities: strength, courage, courage can become a professional warrior, a vigilante. This is not yet a closed corporation of warriors-feudal lords, and being in the squad often does not give any advantages to the “husband” -communicator.
• Social movements are a struggle of “parties” in a city-state, and not a confrontation between the rich and the poor, the noble and the “black” people. The struggle of parties for their interests: someone stands for one prince, someone for another, at the head of the "parties", "streets" or "ends" are the leader-boyars, etc.
The Tatar-Mongol invasion caused serious damage to the zemstvo, "democratic" structure of the Russian volost, undermining its economic and military foundations, but did not cancel it.
Modern vision of the armament of the Russian and Mongolian warriors. XIV century. Museum "The Word about Igor's Regiment". Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. Yaroslavl. Photo by the author
Prince
1. In the XII - early XIII centuries. the functions of the prince in relation to the urban community (city-state or parish) were defined as the role of the executive branch. Having a prince in the city-state was the most important component of the political system, the prince during this period, with many specific moments of public power, also remains an integral figure of political life. Moreover, the strengthening of one or another prince, described in the annals, can, in part, be viewed through the struggle between the younger and older cities, for the right to be the main city in the region. And the cities, of course, supported their prince, as they opposed the princes appointed by him as the elders of the cities in the region or from Kiev, during the formation of city-states. They tried to "educate" the prince in their own city. Veche was active throughout Russia. It was a time of power, and the formed city-states, and their city regiments were more than princely squads. Do not forget that the city-dweller husband, although he was most often engaged in rural labor, also spent a lot of time on campaigns: the struggle between the volosts goes on non-stop. Of course, sometimes famous princes, due to their personal character (and not political law), could behave arbitrarily, but the cities tolerated this for the time being. With the younger cities or having an advantage in power, the princes could not reckon with. The princes could have their own interests or their own tributes, as, for example, it was in Smolensk in relation to tributaries in Latvia: the business was a prince, and the city did not have this income and did not support him in this, and the forces of the squad were obviously not enough.
Let us repeat, the community paid the prince for the execution of the court and the organization of campaigns for tribute, both against foreign neighbors and against neighboring volosts, in order to obtain the main surplus product for the people of the community: tribute, booty and slaves (servants) and slaves-fisk (smerds).
2. The prince, on the eve of the Mongol invasion, is a leader, military leader, judge, head of the executive branch. There is no need to talk about any monarchy or the beginnings of monarchism either for the pre-Mongol period, or for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The beginning of monarchical tendencies can only be discerned at the very end of the fifteenth century.
After the Mongol invasion, the princes, as representatives of the Russian volosts, were forced to go to the Horde to, in modern terms, determine the conditions for the interactions of tributary relations between Russia and the Horde, the reverse side of these "trips" was the fact that the Mongols, in order to stabilize the "-dani, and within the framework of their idea of the system of government, strengthen the power of the princes in the volosts:
The Mongols dealt with Russian princes and "represented" their place in the Russian hierarchy, proceeding from their ideas (mentality), the mentality of the steppe warrior people, where the military leader possessed unconditional, despotic power. Russian princes were initially forced to accept these rules of the game, and gradually "fit" into this structure. Moreover, it became profitable for them, since now it was less possible to reckon with the volost community, and to "stand" on the city through not complicated maneuvers with the city veche and other princes, often opponents-pretenders, but thanks to the "external approval" - the khan shortcut. In the political struggle for power, the princes even used Tatar-Mongol detachments against "their" Russian volosts, although back in the XIII-XIV centuries. Seimas (Congresses) of princes and cities gathered, sometimes with the participation of the Tatars.
The Tatars, playing on the contradictions of the Russian princes, skillfully ruled and played them off. But, in the end, this policy will lead to the fact that the princes of Moscow will gather around them the Russian lands and overthrow the power of the Horde.
The city community (volost) could no longer so easily show the prince to the “clear path” (to expel him). With the khan's label, the princes could now act by force, often Tatar force, with greater confidence. Moreover, the military forces of many volosts, consisting of free citizens, the very "regiments", perished in the battles, which significantly weakened the city-states militarily and then politically.
Thus, during the XIV-XV centuries. there is an evolution, within a similar period in other European countries, by the concentration of power in the person of one person - the prince. A military-service or early feudal state is being formed on the basis of an agreement between the prince and all free: communities and individuals on terms of service. All European states passed this way, often, like Russia, under the influence of external threats and there is nothing specific here: France in the VIII-IX centuries. under pressure from Arabs, Avars, Saxons and Vikings; Germanic states in the 9th-10th centuries in clashes with the Hungarians, Western Slavs and Normans; Anglo-Saxon states in the 9th-10th centuries, fighting off the Scots and Scandinavians.
Thus, we can conclude that the Tatar-Mongol invasion and the subsequent tributary dependence of the Russian lands, as well as periodic Tatar pogroms, caused enormous damage to the economic and cultural forces of the country, not counting human losses, nevertheless, the Russian lands:
• retained their independence and social structure;
• unambiguously continued social development within the framework of, if you will, the “European” way;
• unlike non-Chinese and Chinese states on the territory of modern China and Central Asian countries, Iran, which became provinces of the Mongol empire, Russia retained its independence, was able to recover and throw off the external yoke, and had no resources, even a catastrophically devastated China;
• The nomadic state stood outside Russia, side by side, but outside, unlike Bulgaria, Greece and the Balkan Slavs, who became the provinces of the Ottoman state, where the yoke was infinitely more severe and intolerable.
Output. The "nomadic empire" of the Mongols, after the defeat of the Russian principalities, made changes in the fiscal and economic orders in Russia, but could not and did not make changes in the systems of government of the Russian volosts. Russian state and public institutions continued to develop within the framework of a natural, organic process.
