Russia under the Old regime

THE GENESIS OF THE PATRIMONIAL STATE IN RUSSIA

cultivating land in the Oka-Volga region, not to speak of those on distant Novgorodian territories, were reasonably safe from them. The appearance in the winter of 1236-7 of Mongol horsemen deep in the forest zone caused, therefore, a shock that has never been quite erased from the collective consciousness of the Russian people. These were forward patrols of a large army headed by Baty, the grandson of Genghis Khan, who had received in inheritance as his share of the global Mongol empire all territories lying in the direction of the setting sun. Baty's men were no mere band of marauders engaged in a hit-and-run raid; they were a superb military force come to conquer and stay. Their main army penetrated the Russian forest in the spring of 1237 '^e a darkness chased by a cloud', in the words of an Arab who saw them strike elsewhere. In 1237-8 and then again in 1239-41 they ravaged Russian cities and villages, massacring all who dared to resist them. Of the major cities only Novgorod escaped destruction thanks to the spring floods which made impassable to the Mongol cavalry the swampy approaches to it. Having burned Kiev to the ground, the invaders moved westward. They would probably have conquered western Europe as well, were it not that in the summer of 1242, while encamped in Hungary, news reached them of the Great Khan's death, whereupon they headed back to Mongolia never to return.

North-east Russia and Novgorod now became tributary states of one branch of the Mongol empire, the so-called Golden Horde, whose centre was at Sarai on the Lower Volga. (Lithuania with its sizeable Russian population escaped this fate.)* The Mongols were not interested in land, least of all in forest; they wanted money and recruits. Rather than occupy Russia, as they had done in the richer and more civilized China and Iran, they imposed on it a tribute. In i257,using imported Chinese experts, they conducted the first general census of the Russian population, on the basis of which they apportioned the tribute obligations. The basic taxable unit, as in China, was the household. In addition, a turnover tax (tamga) was imposed on all commodities exchanged in trade. Each city had to accommodate Mongol officials and their armed guards whose job it was to collect the tribute, turn over taxes and recruits (mostly children) and to keep an eye on their master's interests. There was nothing to restrain these consuls and their guards from abusing the population. Russian chronicles are filled with accounts of barbarities perpetrated by them. The population sometimes rebelled (e.g. 1257-9 m Novgorod and 1262 in several of the cities), but such

The force which subjugated Russia was led by Mongols but its rank and file consisted mostly of Turkic peoples commonly known as Tatars. The Golden Horde gradually became Turkicized or 'Tatarized', and for this reason one often speaks of the 'Tatar yoke'.