780 years ago, in March 1239, one of the Horde troops with a "spear" took Pereyaslavl Yuzhny, which was one of the strongest fortresses of Russia on the southern borders.
Formerly well fortified Pereyaslavl Yuzhny (Russian) was a reliable guard of the capital city of Kiev on the very edge of the Polovtsian steppes. Located on the Trubezh River, a tributary of the Dnieper, at the confluence of the Alta River, the city, protected by high ramparts, a deep ditch and powerful oak walls, for a long time protected South Russia from the Polovtsian raids. Pereyaslavl became famous as the capital city of the famous warrior prince Vladimir Monomakh.
For centuries, Russia was either reconciled or at war with the steppe. Therefore, the border town-fortress Pereyaslavl lived in an atmosphere of constant danger. Its fortifications were part of the famous ancient Serpent Shafts, built by the Proto-Slavs-Rus in the period from the II century BC. NS. to VII century BC NS. In the region of Pereyaslavl, which stood on the border of the forest and the steppe, from year to year there were numerous battles of Russian heroic outposts with Polovtsian "raids".
Background
After the "round-up" and the bloody assault on Kozelsk in the spring of 1238, the Horde continued fighting against the Circassians, Alans and Polovtsians. Russian chronicles report practically nothing about this. There are only brief reports by Eastern authors about these events. And the battles in the steppe were really big and dramatic. Horde people smashed city after city, destroyed entire clans and tribes, conquered others.
Batu's troops directed the first blow to the south. A large host, led by princes Mengu and Kadan, went to the land of the Circassians, beyond the Kuban. In several fierce battles, the Circassians were defeated. However, the Horde did not succeed in completely suppressing the militant Circassian tribes, the hostilities in the North Caucasus continued further.
Almost simultaneously, the Horde again clashed with the Polovtsy, the warriors of the southern Russian steppes. In 1237, the Horde army was able to defeat part of the Polovtsian clans and push them back beyond the Don. But numerous Polovtsian tribes were still strong and continued to fight. To reach the borders of South Russia, the Horde troops had to fight the Polovtsian squads. A large army headed by Berke moved against the Polovtsians. The Polovtsian steppe became the arena of a brutal war. The Polovtsi were defeated in several stubborn battles. Their princes Arjuman, Kuranbas and Kanerin fell in the battles. The once rich and populous Polovtsian land was destroyed and bled. The Polovtsi were finally defeated and conquered. Part of the Polovtsian princes and clans fled to the west. But the bulk of the population became in the future the basis for the population of the Golden Horde.
The war with the Polovtsy on the tribes of the North Caucasus demanded from the "Tatar" army, weakened by the winter campaign to North-Eastern Russia, a great exertion of forces. As a result, the Horde command did not have troops for campaigns in other directions. Russia, thanks to the desperate resistance of the Polovtsy, Alans and Circassians, received a short respite. Russian chroniclers reported that in 1238 "that summer everything was quiet and peaceful from the Tatars."
Defense of Kozelsk. Miniature from the Russian chronicle
Campaigns of 1239
However, having secured the rear, the Horde in 1239 renewed the onslaught on Russia. Initially, they were limited to short strikes against Russian cities on the borderlands in order to expand the zone of influence and eliminate possible centers of resistance. In the winter of 1239, the troops of Guyuk, Mengu, Kadan and Buri moved north to the lands of the Mordovian tribes and the Murom principality. The Mordovian tribes rebelled and refused to obey the Horde. Batu's troops pacified the Mordovian land with fire and sword. They also defeated the Russian cities of North-Eastern Russia, which escaped ruin during the invasion of 1237-1238. So, Murom, Gorodets, Nizhny Novgorod and Gorokhovets were defeated. The Horde devastated the lands along the Klyazma and Nizhnyaya Oka, their separate detachments reached the Volga.
That same winter, another "Tatar" army again devastated the Ryazan land, which had not yet recovered from the previous pogrom. Ryazan principality was again put on fire: "When the Tatars came to Ryazan, they captured it all." Obviously, after the recent terrible and merciless battles, Ryazan was still restored and could not offer strong resistance this time.
The Horde sent their next blow to Pereyaslavl Russky - a fortress on the borders of Southern Russia, the capital of the Pereyaslavl principality. This was the front line of the ancient capital of Russia - Kiev. The city had a strong fortress - "Detinets", its ramparts consisted of wooden log cabins filled with earth and stones, lined with adobe bricks from the outside. Above the ramparts stood strong palisades - "fence". Two stone churches strengthened the Kremlin's defenses. There is an opinion that there were stone walls in Pereyaslavl. The fortified "roundabout city", which had its own ramparts, adjoined the Kremlin. In addition, the city was protected from three sides by water barriers - the Trubezh and Alta rivers, and from the fourth, northern - by a deep ditch.
The Horde reached Pereyaslavl in late February or early March 1239. Russian chronicles do not report any details of the siege and assault. It is only known that the Russian city was taken by a decisive assault - “taken with a spear”, on March 3, 1239. Obviously the assault was well organized. The Horde found a weak spot and took Pereyaslavl regardless of losses. In addition, the city could not have a strong squad, it was mainly defended by local militias. The Pereyaslavl principality then belonged to the Vladimir-Suzdal princes. The last Pereyaslavl prince before the invasion was Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich. Before the invasion of the Horde, he returned to the north, took part in the battle on the river. City. Thus, the Pereyaslavl principality was left without a prince and a strong squad. The main forces of the Vladimir-Suzdal land were defeated, so Pereyaslavl Yuzhny was left without protection and did not become a serious obstacle for the "Tatars".
Most of the city's population was killed and taken away to the full. The Suzdal chronicler reports: "The Tatars of Pereyaslavl-Russky took and killed the bishop, and beat people, and burned the hail with fire, and took a lot of people." The Pereyaslavl land was destroyed: the Horde also took and burned other cities and settlements of the principality. Pereyaslavl Russky could not recover from this defeat for a long time. Soon the principality became part of the Golden Horde. Many people from Pereyaslav left their native lands, went to the north, to the Chernigov-Seversky lands.
Thus, the Horde, before a new large campaign against South Russia, secured their rear - the Polovtsian land and eliminated the last islets of unconquered lands in the north - Mordovian land, Murom, cities on the Klyazma and Pereyaslavl Russky - an advanced fortress on the way to Kiev.
Source: V. Kargalov. Mongol-Tatar invasion of Russia. M., 2015
The myth of the "Tatar-Mongols"
Within the framework of the "classical" version of history, created by the German-Romanesque historical school, a myth was created about the "Mongols from Mongolia" who conquered a significant part of Eurasia, including Russia and the "Tatar-Mongol yoke". But - it is a “black myth” formed with the aim of distorting and destroying the true history of Rus-Russia and the Russian super-ethnos (super-ethnos of the Rus).
In particular, the Polovtsy and Horde were not Turks or Mongols. The lands of the ancient "Great Scythia" from the Danube, Dnieper, Don and Volga to the Tien Shan, the borders of China and India from ancient times were controlled by Caucasians (representatives of the white race), Indo-Europeans-Aryans, the same Rus-Aryans, like the Rus-Rusich-Russians Ryazan, Novgorod, Pereyaslavl Russian and Kiev. According to the testimony of contemporaries, the Polovtsians were fair-haired, light-eyed, freely communicated with the Russians of Kiev, Chernigov and Pereyaslavskaya Rus, willingly became related with them. The Polovtsian princes entered into alliances or fought with the Russians, like the Russian princes with each other, and also ravaged cities and lands. The Polovtsi differed from the Rus of Suzdal and Kiev only in that they preserved the steppe lifestyle of the Aryan-Scythians, in contrast to the inhabitants of Northern Russia, who became farmers. They were also pagans - "filthy", and led a "Cossack way of life" - more mobile, mobile, were very warlike.
There is no evidence of the Türkic-speaking of the Polovtsians. Just according to the "European tradition", the history, which was corrected in the interests of the Romanovs' house, everyone who lived in the southern Russian steppes, to the south and east of the Rurik power, was considered "Turks", "Tatars" and "filthy".
A similar picture is for the Horde-"Tatars". These were Rus-Aryans of the Scythian world, direct heirs of Great Scythia, an ancient northern civilization, which originates in the legendary Hyperborea. They controlled the forest-steppe zone from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean, the borders of China and Japan. Thus, the "Mongolian Horde" is a Scythian-Siberian-Volga clan-horde of pagan Rus who lived in the forest-steppe zone from the Southern Urals to Altai and the Volga region. In their movement, they conquered included in the Horde-Rod and other tribes, including the Volgary-Bulgars (the future Volga Tatars).
There were no Mongols in Russia. Mongols are Mongoloids. In the Russian land of that era, there are no mass graves of Mongoloids. There are no signs of Mongoloidism and the local population, the Russians. Although, with such a large-scale invasion, they should have remained: Mongoloid is dominant, overwhelming. But in Russian burial grounds from the time of the Horde there are Caucasians.
In addition, Mongolia of that period simply could not create a world empire, create an invincible army of millions, which conquered China, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Iran, and Russia. The Mongol tribes were then at a low level of development of spiritual and material culture - like the Indian tribes of North America during their conquest by Europeans. Savages simply could not become invincible warriors, skillful gunsmiths, engineers in one generation. Wild Mongolia could not put up an army of hundreds of thousands of fighters to conquer the world. This requires a powerful material base, an ancient military tradition. All the great empires in the history of mankind - Assyria, Macedonia, Rome, the Napoleonic Empire, the Russian Empire, the Second and Third Reichs, the USA - had a powerful industrial and material base.
No amount of iron discipline will make the mass of savages an army of conquerors. The myth of the "Tatar-Mongol invasion and horde" was created in Rome to hide the true history. Knowledge, information is power. Later, this myth was consolidated by historians of the German-Romanesque "classical" school. The true history of mankind, Russia, the super-ethnos of the Russians was rewritten in their own interests by the masters of the West, while in Russia this Western surrogate was adopted. It is easier to govern a people who are fooled, deprived of origins, roots, and lead them to the slaughter.
