4.26 Europe: a.d. 1201 to 1300  (Page 14/14)

During the summer of 1239 the Mongols rested in the western Ukraine while fresh herds of horses were brought in from Mongolia. In the following winter all surrounding nomad nations were taken and plundered. Prisoners of Cumans, Circassians and Alans almost outnumbered their Mongol captors and most were sold into slavery, chiefly to the new sultan of Egypt to augment his Turkoman army. By 1240 the completion of the Russian invasion was initiated with the destruction of Cherigov and then Kiev. From there it was on to Poland and Hungary as detailed in the paragraphs above on CENTRAL EUROPE and the SOUTHERN BALTIC AREA.

After the Mongols withdrew from Europe upon the death of the Great Khan, life in Russia was reduced to a barbarous level and to add insult to injury, the Mongols left power- ful revenue collecting agents and a pattern of ruthless terror and efficient extortion. (Ref. 8 ) Batu went back to Sarai on the Volga, 60 miles south of Astrakhan, where his brother, Sinkur, had been left in command. Here Batu established his capital and remained to organize a new empire. Subedei and the other princes went back to Mongolia. Sarai was soon to be a capital which rivalled Karakorum, itself, and Batu's empire subsequently became known as the "Golden Horde". When Batu died in 1258, his brother Berke, a Moslem, took control and started a type of civil war against another Mongolian army headed by Hulegu, in the mid-east. Thus the great Mongol domain began to fragment. Many of Berke's soldiers were Mamluks up from Egypt. At the end of the century Berke and his successor, Mangu-Temur, granted high estates to their noyans (commanders) and reinforced the feudalism that was to paralyze Russia for the next 600 years. (Ref. 27 ) In the final divisions, the Khanate of the Golden Horde included western and southern Russia; the Khanate of the White Horde occupied the area about the Aral Sea; and the Cheibanid Khanate (from Khan Cheiban) was located north of the White Horde. (Ref. 137 )

The Mongols had made peace with the Russian Church, protected her property and personnel and in return the church preached submission to the Asians. The church became immensely rich while the people, as a whole, remained beaten, humbled, stagnant and poor. Kiev never recovered sufficiently to resume leadership and control passed from the Ukraine to "Great Russia" around Moscow and the upper Volga. The first chapter of Russian statehood, characterized by a blend of Norse politics and Byzantine religious and cultural influence, had come to an end. (Ref. 135 )

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