Russia under the Old regime

59

conqueror and most likely to request from him a iarlyk for Vladimir. For unknown reasons the Mongols entrusted Vladimir to Nevsky's younger brother, issuing him instead a charter for Kiev and Novgorod. But Nevsky did not give up. He bided his time and ten years later in 1252, succeeded in persuading the khan to reverse himself. With a Mongol force which the khan placed at his disposal he captured Vladimir, unseated his brother, and assumed the title of Great Prince. His subsequent behaviour fully justified the Mongols' confidence in him. In 1257-9 ne stamped out popular uprisings against Mongol census-takers which had broken out in Novgorod, and a few years later he did so again in several other rebellious cities, all of which must have pleased his masters. After Nevsky's death (1263) the Mongols several times took Vladimir from his descendants, investing with it, in turn, the princes of Tver, Riazan and Nizhnii Novgorod; but his offspring always recaptured it and in the end made Vladimir and the title of Great Prince the hereditary property (votchina) of their house.

Nevsky and his descendants owed their success to the adoption of a shrewd political strategy vis-a-vis the conqueror. The Golden Horde, whose servants they were, had been formed from an association of nomadic tribes and clans which Genghis Khan had fused to wage warfare. Even after it had become a large state with a numerous sedentary population, it lacked the necessary apparatus to administer a country as vast and sparsely populated as Russia. Their tax collectors (basqaqs) and census-takers accompanied by military retainers were very unpopular and provoked many uprisings which, brutally as the Mongols suppressed them, kept on recurring. If Russia had been as rich and civilized as China or Persia, the Mongols undoubtedly would have occupied it and assumed over it direct rule. But since this was not the case, they had no incentive to move into the forest; they much preferred to remain in the steppe with its excellent pastures and profitable trade routes. At first they experimented with Muslim tax-farmers, but this method did not work, and eventually they concluded that the job could best be done by the Russians themselves. Nevsky and even more his successors met this need. They assumed on behalf of the Horde the principal administrative and fiscal responsibilities over Russian territories, as compensation for which they gained for their principalities relative freedom from Mongol interference and for themselves influence at Sarai; the latter proved an immensely valuable weapon with which to undermine rival princes. As long as the money kept on being accurately delivered and the country remained reasonably peaceful, the Mongols had no reason to tamper with this arrangement.

In the policy of collaboration, no one excelled the branch of Nevsky's family ensconced in what in the thirteenth century was the insignificant