Ivan IV and the Tatars
Research objectives: To provide a comprehensive overview of Muscovite interaction with Tatars during Ivan IV’s reign, both with each successor state of the Jochid ulus and with Tatars who moved to Muscovy and entered Ivan IV’s service. Research materials: This study is based upon Russian sources fr...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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State Institution «Sh.Marjani Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences»
2021-03-01
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| Series: | Zolotoordynskoe Obozrenie |
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| Online Access: | http://goldhorde.ru/en/stati2021-1-9/ |
| Summary: | Research objectives: To provide a comprehensive overview of Muscovite interaction with Tatars during Ivan IV’s reign, both with each successor state of the Jochid ulus and with Tatars who moved to Muscovy and entered Ivan IV’s service.
Research materials: This study is based upon Russian sources from the reign of Ivan IV concerning the Tatars, including narratives such as chronicles and documentary evidence such as diplomatic reports.
Results and novelty of the research: Muscovite policy toward the Tatars did not derive from a single dominating motive, neither hostility, such as religious animosity toward Muslims or the drive for imperial territorial expansion, nor the desire to cooperate with Tatars for the sake of commerce or the need for steppe military allies. Ivan adapted his policies to individual circumstances, vassal puppet rulers or outright conquest as needed. Tatars from the vassal khanate of Kasimov helped Ivan conquer Kazan’ and Astrakhan’ and fight Crimea. Nogai merchants sold the Muscovite army horses. Muscovites possessed intimate knowledge of foreign Tatars, but also lived in close proximity to “native” Tatars who lived on Muscovite soil or traveled to Moscow as envoys or merchants. However expertise on the Tatars, borrowing Tatar institutions, enrolling Tatar servitors, and conquering successor states of the Golden Horde did not make Muscovy a successor state of the Golden Horde. Nevertheless the Tatars were a fact of life in Ivan IV’s Muscovy, as both allies and enemies. |
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| ISSN: | 2308-152X 2313-6197 |