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Mongols' influence on primordial Russia has often been portrayed in negative
terms, particularly that dark era of most direct Mongol/Rus' contact commonly
referred to as the Tatar yoke. Although most historians would still admit
that Chinggis Khan's immediate impact on many pre-modern societies was
quite devastating, many now argue that the era of the Chinggisid successor
states was prosperous. For example, Janet Abu-Lughod in Before European
Hegemony: the World System A.D. 1250-1350 argued that the Mongols
helped bring about a century of unprecedented economic cohesion across
Eurasia. In a similar vein, Donald Ostrowski in Muscovy and the Mongols
discusses the influence of one Mongol successor state, the Qipchaq Khanate
(also commonly referred to as the Golden Horde), on the political life
of the pre-Russian state of Muscovy. In this impressive study, Ostrowski
questions predominant historiographical assumptions that Moscow derived
most of its societal influences from the second Rome in Constantinople.
He finds that most of the Byzantine influences were instead confined to
the ecclesiastical sphere and only superficially extended to temporal
affairs, which exhibited a marked Qipchaq influence.
Both
the title and the subtitle of this book are not appropriate labels of
its contents. The book is not concerned strictly with Muscovy's relationship
with "the Mongols," but primarily with this Muslim successor state that
consisted of many non-Mongol peoples and influences, particularly Turkic
and Islamic ones. The title also overlooks the still-prominent role in
Ostrowski's study of the Byzantine state to Muscovite organizational foundations.
The subtitle is also inappropriate given that this is not a truly cross-cultural
study in the vein of Masao Miyoshi's classic As We Saw Them: the first
Japanese Embassy to the United States or Jerry Bentley's Old World
Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times.
In both of these works, cross-cultural interactions imply a two-way exchange
of ideas and cultural information. The focus in Muscovy and the Mongols
is instead on which cultural influences were accepted and which discarded
by Muscovite society from these two outside sources.
The
introductory section highlights the various interpretations of foreign
influences on Muscovy's cultural and political life. Ostrowski divides
Eurasian and Russian historians into five main historiographical schools
of thought based on the influences that Muscovy received and from whom.
These groups include those who argue that Muscovy's society was "spontaneously
generated" (or "indigenously Russian"); those who see Rus' as deriving
exclusive influence from the Byzantine; a third group of "Eurasianists"
who see Muscovy as a sedentary deviation from steppe nomads or Mongols;
a fourth group who view this as a combination of Byzantine and nomadic
influence; and lastly those who see the Muscovites as a variant of European-modeled
states. Ostrowski argues that the most productive way of approaching this
issue is to avoid these five existing totalizing models. Instead, these
models should be both synthesized and given more case-by-case attention.
He further aims to portray Muscovy in a global context, rather than through
the lens of national histories, finding that Muscovy has for too long
been studied "'as a mere record of events occurring in isolation,' rather
than ïas an integral and important part of world history.'"(27)
The
heart of Muscovy and the Mongols consists of two parts. Part I,
titled "Mongol influence: what's what and what's not," examines a number
of facets of Muscovite society for Qipchaq influence, non-influence, or
the influence of others. The first area of interest was the administrative,
political, and military influence of the Mongols on Muscovy. Ostrowski
finds that the land-for-service administrative structure (called pomest'e)
that the Muscovites used was likely a cultural borrowing from the Qipchaq,
who had a similar conception derived from the Islamic iqta (land-grant
system). Military borrowings were also common, including the incorporation
of composite bows and Turkic short stirrups for the Muscovite cavalry.
Ostrowski argues that the seclusion of women in Muscovy was likely derived
from Byzantine influence rather than the Turkic Qipchaq state, though
he admits that the source information for the direct cultural transfer
of this practice is sketchy at best. He further dissociates Karl Wittfogel's
oriental despotism concept from Muscovy on two grounds: one being that
there were established limitations on the ruler's power in both Muscovy
and the Qipchaq, and secondly that the concept itself should be discredited
"as a means of criticizing other governments (that historians) did not
like." (107) Finally, Ostrowski tackles head-on the concept of the Tatar
yoke; the idea that Muscovite Rus' fell into an economic malaise following
Mongol domination that led to long-term economic woes. He argues that
this concept gained currency among both Russian nationalist scholars and
Marxist historians. Russian nationalists have latched onto this theory
in order to create an oppositional ïother' for Russia to overcome, while
Marxists have used the term to cast Rus' in a feudal stage of economic
development. Ostrowski emphasizes instead that the Mongol policing of
trade routes and the Pax Mongolica brought direct economic benefit
to Moscow's trade, making Muscovy a prominent commercial power by about
1450 CE.
Part
II is titled "Development of an anti-Tatar ideology in the Muscovite Church"
and is peripheral to the main discussion of this book, but is a nonetheless
interesting study. In this part, Ostrowski traces the historical development
of ideas like the Tatar yoke and of other disparaging views towards the
Mongols and finds that these ideas developed quite late, amidst the decline
of the Qipchaq and the rise to prominence of Muscovy. In fact, the Muscovite
church accepted the Qipchaq Khanate as their overlords from 1252-1448
and even saw "the Tatars (as) a benevolent rather than an oppressive force."
(145) Administration in the Muscovite church did not initiate attempts
"to vilify the Tatars and portray them as ïthe enemy'" until the middle
of the fifteenth century. (141) Development of an anti-Tatar line in Muscovite
ecclesiastical circles coincided with their creation of a "virtual past"
that established Muscovy as the historical and political successors of
both the Kievan Rus' and Byzantine states, thus distancing themselves
from their earlier-recognized Qipchaq roots. This historical propaganda
was carried out post-1448 in the portrayal of the Qipchaq khan, whom one
church official referred to in 1480 as "this godless and evil one who
calls himself a tsar." (164) Anti-Tatar propaganda intensified as the
Muscovite church strove to both distance itself from the Mongol khanate
and establish a historical heritage tied to the Byzantine state and their
basileus (emperor). The final two chapters of the book refute elements
of the "Third Rome" theory and the myth of the Tatar yoke, both of which
Ostrowski finds to be theories manufactured as part of a Muscovite anti-Tatar
propaganda campaign and products of radical historical revisionism.
Muscovy
and the Mongols has a lot to offer those specializing in this interesting
period in Eurasian history, or those with particular interest in Russia,
the Byzantine, or the Golden Horde. However, many world historians may
find its use limited in terms of student accessibility, though it could
be utilized in graduate seminars or as lecture preparation material in
Russian or Central Eurasian history courses. The book could prove useful
to instructors particularly for its discussion of historical concepts
like the Tatar yoke, the Third Rome, and oriental despotism, all of which
deserve closer historical scrutiny and invite a range of opinions and
interpretations. This highlights one of the main weaknesses and strengths
of the book: it reads as a collection of highly-focused and insightful
individual essays in need of more organic unity worthy of its promising
title.
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