Brief message about the Crimean Khanate. Crimean Khanate: geographical location, rulers, capitals. Annexation of the Crimean Khanate to Russia. Socio-political structure of the Crimean Khanate
The right to the Crimean peninsula has long been disputed by various empires and peoples. In the 17th century, a series of wars were fought over these lands between the great powers of Eastern Europe, namely the Ottoman Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia. During this period, the Crimean Khanate, one of the successor states of the Golden Horde and a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, played a decisive role in assisting the Ottoman military campaigns against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and later against the growing power of Russia.
These territories have attracted settlers since early centuries: the favorable climate and strategically advantageous location attracted leading civilizations such as Greece, Byzantium, and the Roman Empire. From the villages of these great civilizations, little remains on the peninsula except ruins, perhaps the cities of the Genoese republic.
In the middle of the 13th century, the Tatar-Mongol yoke came to this region, and the territories were inhabited by people who, despite their nomadic lifestyle, settled here to take advantage of the resources and engage in agriculture.
Formation of the Crimean Khanate
The Tatars immediately occupied the main city of Solkhat and left there the khan's governors, or emirs. The city was renamed Crimea, after which the surrounding territories began to be called that way. In 1420, the Golden Horde split into several parts, this served as the impetus for the formation of a new administrative entity.
The origins of the Crimean Khanate can be traced back to approximately 1443, when Hadji the First Giray, one of the failed pretenders to the role of Khan of the Golden Horde, managed to seize power over Crimea and neighboring territories. He was the immediate heir of Genghis Khan and founded a dynasty that ruled in Crimea for almost three hundred years. The capital of the Khanate was called the city of Bakhchisarai.
The numerous Tatar cavalry - sources give different figures, from 80,000 to 200,000 people - had the advantage of surprise and mobility, and moreover, in the privileged position that the alliance with the Ottoman Empire gave them to the Tatars' campaigns against European states for the purpose of plunder, but became commonplace, and the capital of the Crimean Khanate was a large slave market. Men captured in raids on Rus' were sold to galleys, and girls were sold to eastern harems.
Despite mutual military assistance, Ottoman-Tatar relations had a serious drawback, which consisted of different territorial and strategic goals. This fact made itself felt in the middle of the 17th century.
History of the Crimean campaigns
The army of the Crimean Tatars reached its apogee at the beginning of the 16th century; the most notable victory was the defeat of the Golden Horde in 1502. Since, in connection with this, the territories of Rus' began to rapidly expand and the border of the Russian state was steadily moving towards the Tatar ones, the Crimean Khanate considered Rus' as its strongest rival. Despite the fact that it played into their hands that Muscovy could not establish an alliance with.
The Ottomans, on the contrary, did not consider Rus' a threat, showing indifference to the fears of the Tatars. They called the commonwealth of the Polish and Lithuanian kings their main enemy. It must be taken into account that the Ottoman Empire collaborated with the Crimean Khanate solely out of its own interests - to use them as protection against foreign invasions in the Balkans. They did not intend to enter into a long-term conflict, considering it unnecessary and expensive.
The situation changed in 1654, when the Don Cossacks united with the Moscow state. This could become a threat to the political influence of the Ottomans and Tatars. Also, the rapid increase in the number of Russians in these territories gave rise to the organization of a military campaign to expel them.
In 1678, a large Ottoman army, supported by Tatar cavalry, besieged the strategically important city of Chikhrin. Russian attempts to liberate the city failed and they were forced to make an agreement with the Turks. The Russians were driven back. And the Ottoman army returned to the Polish border, where a long war was fought.
Soon after this war, the Ottoman Empire was destroyed. The Crimean Khanate weakened without its ally, which Peter I did not fail to take advantage of.
After two failed invasions of the Crimean lands, Peter the Great attacked the Ottoman fortress of Azov in the immediate center of the Crimean Khanate and captured it in 1669. This marked the beginning of a new era in the Khanate's relations with Russia. The Russians stopped paying tribute to the Crimean Khan and founded new settlements, which then became the foundation for building a navy.
One of the reasons why the Russian army could freely penetrate the lands of the Tatars was that the Khanate's cavalry was increasingly subject to Cossack raids. This severely depleted the Khanate's resources and population in the border regions.
After this there were also campaigns of 1735-1739, the war between Russia and Turkey of 1768-1774. The military achievements of the Russian commanders made it possible to sign the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty, which removed the Crimean Khanate from the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
Crimea is part of Russia
After the abdication of the last Crimean Khan, Shahin Giray, and his execution in 1783, the dynasty was interrupted. Catherine II the Great sanctioned a manifesto according to which Kuban, the Taman Peninsula and Crimea became one of the territories of the Russian Empire.
The power of the Russian state at that time was so great that the Ottoman state did not even have the idea of rebelling against the recognition of Crimea as Russian territory.
After the annexation of Crimea, the Russian Empire tried to assimilate the Tatar people into Russian society. But despite the fact that the Crimean Tatar battalion was even created to protect the sovereign, during the Crimean War unconfirmed doubts arose about the Tatars’ devotion to the empire. Because of this, the Tatar people were evicted inland, and later many of them emigrated to Turkey.
The origins of the Crimean Khanate can be traced back to approximately 1443. However, the Crimean Khanate did not remain independent for long. After the death of Hadji Giray in 1466, his two sons began a civil war for the right to ascend the khan's throne.
As a result of the Mongol-Tatar conquests in the 13th century. A huge feudal state of the Golden Horde (Ulus Juchi) arose, the founder of which was Batu Khan.
In 1239, during the Mongol-Tatar expansion to the west, the Crimean Peninsula with the peoples living there - Kipchaks (Cumans), Slavs, Armenians, Greeks, etc. - found itself occupied by the Genghisid troops. From the end of the 13th century. Feudal rule was established in Crimea, dependent on the Golden Horde.
At the same time, in the 13th century, with the participation of the crusaders, colony-cities (Kerch, Sugdeya (Sudak), Chembalo (Balaclava), Chersonese, etc.) of Italian (Genoese and Venetian) merchants arose en masse on the territory of the Crimean peninsula. In the 70s of the 13th century. with the permission of the Great Mongol Khan himself, the large Genoese colony of Kafa (modern Feodosia) was founded. There was a constant struggle between the Genoese and Venetian merchants for control and influence over the Italian colonies of Crimea. Timber, grain, salt, furs, grapes, etc. were exported from the colonies. The Tatar feudal nobility conducted an active trade in slaves through the Italian colonies. The Italian cities in Crimea were in vassal dependence on the Tatar feudal lords and paid them tribute, being subject to repression by the latter in case of resistance.
At the beginning of the 15th century, with the support of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Hadji Giray (founder of the dynasties of the Crimean and later Kazan khans) seized power in Crimea and declared himself khan. He was virtually independent of the Golden Horde, in which, due to dynastic feuds between the Chinggisids, the process of disintegration had already begun. The year of foundation of the independent Crimean Khanate in historiography is considered to be 1443. The Lower Dnieper region also became part of the Khanate. The largest and most influential Crimean uluses were the uluses of the families Kipchak, Argyn, Shirin, Baryn and others. The main activity of the Crimean feudal lords was horse breeding, cattle breeding and slave trading.
Vassal dependence on the Ottoman Empire.
After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Turks occupied the Balkan Peninsula and captured the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits. The Republic of Genoa was bound by allied obligations with Byzantium. After the fall of the main citadel of the once powerful Byzantine Empire, all Italian colonies in Crimea were under the threat of occupation by the Ottomans.
In 1454, the Turkish fleet approached the Crimean Peninsula, bombarded the Genoese colony of Akkerman and besieged Cafa from the sea. The Crimean Khan immediately met with the admiral of the Sultan's fleet; he concludes an agreement with the Ottomans and announces joint action against the Italians.
In 1475, the Turkish fleet again besieged Cafa, bombarded it and forced the Genoese to surrender the city. After this, the Turks captured the entire coastal strip of Crimea, including part of the Azov coast, declared it the possessions of the Turkish Sultan, transferred power to the Turkish Pasha and transferred significant military forces to the sanjak (military-administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire) newly proclaimed by the Turks on the coast of Crimea with its center in Kafe .
The northern part of the steppe Crimea and the territories in the lower reaches of the Dnieper came into the possession of the Crimean Khan Mengli Giray (1468–1515), who became a vassal of the Turkish Sultan. The capital of the Crimean Khanate was moved to Bakhchisarai.
Union with the Grand Duchy of Moscow. XV century
This period in the history of the Crimean Khanate during the reign of Mengli Giray is associated with the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Taking advantage of the hostile relations between the Crimean Khanate and the White Horde, the Moscow Grand Duke Ivan III entered into an alliance with Mengli Giray. The latter in 1480 sent his army to the possessions of the Polish king Casimir IV, who was an ally of the White Horde Khan Akhmat, who marched with an army against Moscow, thereby preventing the coalition of the Polish-Lithuanian state and the White Horde in the war with the Great Moscow Principality. As a result of the successful allied actions of Mengli Giray, the Moscow principality was finally freed from the Tatar yoke and began to create a centralized state.
Confrontation with the Russian kingdom. 16th – first half of the 17th centuries.
The Ottoman Empire's capture of the southern coast of Crimea created a serious threat to Rus' from the Crimean Tatar khans, who carried out predatory raids, capturing slaves for the huge Turkish slave market. In addition, the Kazan Khanate became a support for Turkey and the Crimean Khanate in their further expansion against the Russian principalities, especially after the accession to the Kazan throne of a representative of the Girey dynasty of khans, who were the conductors of Turkey’s foreign policy aggressive plans. In this regard, subsequent relations between Rus' (later the Russian Empire) and the Crimean Khanate were openly hostile.
The territories of Russia and Ukraine were constantly attacked by the Crimean Khanate. In 1521 the Krymchaks besieged Moscow, and in 1552 - Tula. Attacks by the Crimean Khan on the young Russian Empire became more frequent during the Livonian War (1558–1583). In 1571, the Crimean Khan Devlet Giray I besieged and then burned Moscow.
After the death of the Russian Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible, the outbreak of long-term unrest and Polish intervention, the Crimean khans aggravated the situation with constant raids on Russian territories, devastation and the kidnapping of a huge number of people for subsequent sale into slavery in the Ottoman Empire.
In 1591, Russian Tsar Boris Godunov repelled another attack on Moscow by the Crimean Khan Gazi Giray II.
During the Russian-Polish War of 1654–1667, the Crimean Khan took the side of the Ukrainian Hetman Vygovsky, who went over with part of the Cossacks to the side of the Polish-Lithuanian state. In 1659, at the Battle of Konotop, the combined troops of Vygovsky and the Crimean Khan defeated the advanced elite detachments of the Russian cavalry of princes Lvov and Pozharsky.
In the second half of the 17th century, during the Russian-Turkish War of 1676–1681 and the Chigirin campaigns of the Turkish Sultan of 1677–1678 in Right Bank and Left Bank Ukraine, the Crimean Khanate took an active part in the war with Russia on the side of the Ottoman Empire.
Expansion of Russia in the Crimean direction in the second half of the 17th - first half of the 18th centuries.
In 1687 and 1689, during the reign of Queen Sophia, two unsuccessful campaigns of Russian troops to Crimea were carried out under the leadership of Prince V. Golitsyn. Golitsyn's army approached Perekop along the steppe previously scorched by the Tatars, and was forced to return back.
After the accession of Peter I to the throne, Russian troops carried out a series of Azov campaigns and in 1696 stormed the Turkish, well-fortified fortress of Azov. Peace was concluded between Russia and Turkey. The independence of the Crimean Khanate in the sphere of foreign policy was significantly limited - the Crimean Khan was prohibited by agreement from making any raids on territories controlled by the Russian Empire.
Khan Devlet Giray II, finding himself in a difficult situation, tried to provoke the Turkish Sultan, inciting him to war with Russia, which was busy solving its northern problem in the war with the Kingdom of Sweden, but aroused the Sultan’s anger, was removed from the Khan’s throne, and the Crimean army was dissolved.
The successor of Devlet Giray II was Khan Kaplan Giray, appointed by the Sultan. However, in view of Russia's serious successes in the Northern War, the Ottoman Sultan Ahmad III again places Devlet Giray II on the Crimean throne; arms the Crimean army with modern artillery and allows negotiations with the Swedish king on a military alliance against Russia to begin.
Despite the betrayal of the Zaporozhye Sich under the leadership of Hetman Mazepa, and the latter’s request to accept Right Bank Ukraine as the citizenship of the Crimean Khan, Russian diplomacy worked perfectly: through persuasion and bribery of Turkish ambassadors, they managed to persuade the Sultan not to go to war with Russia and refuse to accept the Zaporozhye Sich into the Crimean Khanate .
Tensions continued to rise between the Ottoman and Russian empires. After the victorious Battle of Poltava in 1709, Peter I demanded that the Sultan hand over the Swedish king Charles XII, who had fled to Turkey, threatening, otherwise, to build a number of fortified fortresses along the border with the Ottoman Empire. In response to this ultimatum of the Russian Tsar, in 1710 the Turkish Sultan declared war on Peter I; This was followed in 1711 by the very unsuccessful Prut campaign of Russian troops. The Crimean Khan with his 70 thousand army took part in the war against the Russian Tsar on the side of the Turks. The fortified fortress of Azov and the coast of the Azov Sea were returned to Turkey. However, already in 1736, the Russian army under the command of Field Marshal Minikh invaded the territory of the Crimean Peninsula and captured the capital of the Khanate, Bakhchisarai. An epidemic that broke out in Crimea forced the Russian army to leave the peninsula. The following year, 1737, the Russian army of Field Marshal Lassi crossed Sivash and again captured the peninsula. However, Russian troops failed to gain a foothold in Crimea this time either.
Conquest of the Crimean Khanate by the Russian Empire in the second half of the 18th century.
During the next Russian-Turkish war of 1768–1774, in 1771 the Russian army under the command of Prince Dolgorukov again occupied the entire Crimea. Sahib Giray II is appointed Khan instead of Maksud Giray Khan, who fled to Istanbul. In 1774, the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty was concluded between Russia and Turkey, according to which the Crimean Khanate was freed from vassal dependence on the Turkish Sultan, and Russia received the right to retain the fortresses of Yenikale, Kerch, Azov and Kinburn. Despite its formal independence, the Crimean Khanate turned from a vassal of the Turkish Sultan into a state association dependent on the Russian Empress.
In 1777, the commander of the Russian army, Field Marshal Rumyantsev, elevated Shagin Giray to the khan's throne. However, in 1783, the last khan of the Crimean Girey dynasty abdicated the throne, and the once powerful Crimean Khanate ceased to exist, finally becoming part of the Russian Empire. Shagin Giray flees to Istanbul, but is soon executed by order of the Turkish Sultan.
In 1797, Russian Emperor Paul I established the Novorossiysk province, which included the Crimean peninsula.
Thus, the Crimean Khanate is the last major state formation that arose after the Great Mongol-Tatar conquest of Eastern Europe by the Genghisids in the 13th century. and the collapse of the Golden Horde. The Crimean Khanate lasted for 340 years (1443–1783).
In March 2014, Ukraine lost control over the territory of the Crimean Peninsula, and after a referendum, the unilaterally proclaimed Republic of Crimea became part of the Russian Federation. The next stage in the most complex history of state formations on the territory of the peninsula has ended. Interest in the past has increased again, fueled by both supporters of the annexation of Crimea to Russia and opponents of it.
One of the variants of government structure is called the Crimean Khanate, which existed until the end of the 18th century for three centuries.
Remnant of a great empire
But a long time will pass, the military campaigns of 1735-39 and the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-74 will be carried out. Military successes of troops under the command of Kh.A. Minikha, P.P. Lassi, P.A. Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky, A. Orlov made it possible to conclude the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty in 1774, which removed the Crimean Khanate from Turkish rule and secured Russia’s right to free navigation in the Black Sea.
The last Crimean Khan
Shahin Giray was the name of the last legitimate ruler of the Crimean Khanate. The history of the Girey dynasty ended in the 90s of the 18th century. It ended with internecine wars between the heirs of the dynasty - Bahadir, Arslan and Shahin Giray. With the support of Russian troops, Shahin suppressed an armed uprising against his government, but he was unable to gain popular support. With the complete financial bankruptcy of the state and growing hatred of his person, in 1783 Shahin Giray abdicated the throne and was subsequently executed in Turkey.
Annexation of Crimea
On April 8, 1783, Empress Catherine II issued a manifesto according to which Kuban, the Taman Peninsula and Crimea were part of the Russian lands. The power of the empire was such that in 1791 in Iasi the Ottoman state did not even think of protesting against the recognition of Crimea as Russian possession.
The difficult fate of an entire people
The history of the Crimean Khanate left its mark on the fate of an entire people. The fate of the Crimean Tatar ethnic group is full of difficult turns and difficult periods both in the distant past and in modern history. After the annexation of Crimea, the Russian state tried to assimilate the Tatars into Russian society. The Crimean Tatar battalion was formed as a personal guard for the kings, and the government helped populate the desert lands of Taurida.
But at the same time, at the beginning of the Crimean War, unfounded doubts arose about the loyalty of the Tatars, which led to the eviction of the Crimeans inland and the subsequent increase in emigration of the Crimean Tatars to Turkey. A similar story, in a more severe version, was repeated in the 20th century, under Stalin. In those events we see the roots of today’s difficult situation with the population who consider themselves indigenous to the Crimean peninsula.
Crimean issue
Today the word “Crimea” is again heard in different languages, and again Russia is resolving the Crimean issue. Among the participants in the events there is no such state as the Crimean Khanate, but the history of its rise and fall may be relevant for those who make current world politics.
In the middle of the 15th century, when the Golden Horde, weakened by civil strife, began to disintegrate, the Crimean yurt turned into an independent khanate. It was formed after a long struggle with the Golden Horde by Hadji Giray, the first Crimean Khan, founder of the famous Giray dynasty, which ruled Crimea for more than three hundred years. The Crimean Khanate, in addition to the Crimean Peninsula, included the Dnieper and Azov regions.
Under the second Crimean Khan Mengli-Girey (1466-1515), the city of Bakhchisarai, the capital of the Crimean Khanate, was founded. Khan Adil-Sahib-Girey in the middle of the 16th century finally moved the khan’s residence to Bakhchisarai, where the khan’s palace was built. The name of the city Bakhchisarai translates as “palace in the garden”. In total, in the entire history of the Crimean Khanate there were 44 khans.
Having freed itself from the Golden Horde, the Khanate already in 1478 fell into vassal dependence on Ottoman Turkey.
Taking advantage of the internecine struggle for power between the sons of Hadji Giray, the Turkish Sultan invaded Crimea in 1475. The Turks captured Kafa, Sogdaya (Sudak), all Genoese settlements and fortifications of the southeastern and southern coasts.
The peninsula was surrounded by a chain of Turkish fortresses: Inkerman (formerly Kalamita), Gezlev (Evpatoria), Perekop, Arabat, Yeni-Kale. The cafe, renamed Keffe, became the residence of the Sultan's governor in Crimea.
Since 1478, the Crimean Khanate officially became a vassal of the Ottoman Porte and remained in this capacity until the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace of 1774. Turkish sultans confirmed or appointed and removed Crimean khans.
And yet the Khanate did not lose its statehood, and the khans sometimes pursued a policy independent of the Porte and actively participated in the events taking place in Eastern Europe.
After the Turks captured Constantinople and the Genoese possessions in the Crimea, the peninsula lost its former importance in the trade of Western Europe with the countries of the East. The position of a vassal of Turkey aggravated the economic and political backwardness of the Crimean Khanate.
The Crimean feudal lords preferred to look for a way out of the difficult economic situation in beshbash - predatory raids on neighboring countries to seize booty and wealth. The slave trade in the Khanate, which began with Mengli Giray, turned into a trade, and Crimea became the largest international slave market. True, starting from the fifteenth century, the Zaporozhye Sich became a serious obstacle to raids not only on Ukrainian, but also on Moscow and Polish lands.
The heyday of the Crimean Khanate occurred at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th century. At this time, culture and art noticeably developed in the Khanate. Architecture has reached a high level. Beautiful mosques, fountains, and water pipelines were built, for which many European, especially Italian, architects were involved.
The main fortress at the entrance to the peninsula was Perekopskaya, which was the gateway to Crimea. The functions of protecting Crimea were performed by the fortress cities of Arabat and Kerch. The trading ports were Gezlev and Kafa. Military garrisons (mostly Turkish, partly local Greeks) were also maintained in Balaklava, Sudak, Kerch, and Cafe.
The state religion on the territory of Crimea was Islam, and shamanism dominated among the Nogai tribes. According to Sharia, every Muslim must participate in wars with infidels. Military activity was mandatory for both large and small feudal lords.
The entire period of the 15th - 18th centuries was a time of almost continuous border conflicts and wars. Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and other countries were constantly in a state of great tension, since not only the border lands, but also the deep territories of the states were threatened by the possibility of a Tatar invasion. The Turkish government often sent janissary troops and artillery to strengthen the military power of the Tatar army.
The devastating Tatar-Turkish attacks increased from year to year. So, for example, if from 1450 to 1586 there were 84 Tatar attacks on Ukrainian lands, then from 1600 to 1647 - over 70. The objects of Turkish-Tatar attacks were, first of all, cities and towns on the territory of Ukraine.
In the summer of 1571, all Crimean forces led by Khan Davlet-Girey marched on Moscow. Tsar Ivan the Terrible and his corps of guardsmen barely escaped capture. Khan positioned himself near the walls of Moscow and set fire to settlements. Within a few hours, a huge fire destroyed the city. Losses among residents were enormous. On the way back, the Tatars plundered 30 cities and districts, and more than 60 thousand Russian captives were taken into slavery.
Relations with Crimea were extremely difficult for European countries, since in addition to military methods - raids, wars, the rulers of Crimea often resorted to the Golden Horde practice of collecting tribute from nearby territories. (In the first half of the 17th century, the Russian state alone spent up to 1 million rubles for these purposes. (With this money, four cities could be built annually.)
After the annexation of Crimea to Russia (1783), the entire Muslim population of the peninsula began to be called “Tatars”. By the 80s of the 18th century, there were about 500 thousand Crimean Tatars.
What does the average person in the former Russian Empire know about the Crimean Khanate? That in Crimea there was a certain state of the Crimean Tatars, ruled by khans and completely dependent on the Ottoman Empire. That in Feodosia (then Cafe) under the Crimean Khanate there was the largest market with slaves from Ukraine and Muscovy captured by the Crimeans. That the Crimean Khanate fought for many centuries with the Moscow state, and later with Russia, and was eventually conquered by Moscow. It's all true.
But it turns out that the Crimean Khanate not only fought and traded Slavic slaves. There were times when Muscovy and the Crimean Khanate were in a friendly strategic alliance, their rulers called each other “brothers,” and the Crimean Khan even played a very significant role in the liberation of Rus' from the Tatar-Mongol yoke, although he was part of the Horde. But little is known about this in Russia.
So, in our review, little-known facts regarding the history of the Crimean Khanate, through the pages of a new fundamental publication published in Ukraine.
Crimean khans
- successors of Genghis Khan
Founder of the Crimean Khanate Hadji Giray (Reigned 1441-1466).
This portrait in black and white illustrates Oleksa Gaivoronsky’s study “Lords of Two Continents”; this book will be discussed below.
The actual portrait image of the khan is surrounded by some symbols. Here's what Gayvoronskiy writes about these symbols on his blog haiworonski.blogspot.com (where this color illustration was published):
"Oak. Symbolizes the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where the founder of the Khan dynasty of Crimea was born and lived for a long time. (His family was there in exile - Website note)
Owl. One of the symbols of the Geray family. European heraldic directories of the 17th-18th centuries. more than once they indicate a black owl on a yellow background as the coat of arms of the rulers of the Crimea, dating back to Genghis Khan.”
The illustrations here and below show some portraits of the Crimean khans for the multi-volume “Lords of Two Continents” by Oleksa Gaivoronsky.
Gaivoronsky pointed out, speaking about this series, made for his multi-volume work by the Kyiv artist Yuri Nikitin:
“Four of the nine portraits (Mengli Giray, Devlet Giray, Mehmed II Giray and Gazi II Giray) are based on Ottoman miniatures and European engravings of the 16th century depicting the listed rulers.
The remaining five images are a reconstruction created by the artist taking into account the author’s recommendations, which took into account rare descriptions of the appearance of this or that khan in written sources, and the appearance of his closest relatives captured in medieval graphics, and sometimes indirect data about the Mangyt (Nogai) or Circassian his mother's origins. The portraits do not claim to be documentary authenticity. The purpose of the portrait series is different: to become a decoration of the book and turn the list of khan’s names into a constellation of bright individual images.”
In 2009, the Kiev-Bakhchisarai publishing house "Oranta" published the second volume of Oleksa Gaivoronsky's multi-volume historical study "Lords of Two Continents." (The first volume was published there in 2007 and preparations are underway for the publication of the third volume. In total, according to the Ukrainian mass media, five volumes are planned).
Oleksa Gaivoronsky’s book is a rather unique publication. It is impossible to remember more similar studies in Russian, which would describe in such detail the history of the Crimean Khanate and its ruling dynasty. Moreover, this was done without the usual view of events from the “Moscow side”, which is usual for Russian-language books that describe the history of the Crimean Khanate.
The book was written, one might say, from the “Crimean side”. Oleksa Gaivoronsky is the deputy director for scientific affairs of the Bakhchisarai Khan's Palace Museum in Crimea. As he himself says in the preface to his book: “This book is about Crimea and for Crimea, but it may also be interesting on the other side of Perekop.” Written with sympathy towards the Crimean Khanate state and its dynasty of Gerays (who actually created the Crimean Khanate and ruled it until it was subjugated to Russia), the book, despite some of its bias noted above, is nevertheless an outstanding scientific work. And what is also important: the essay is distinguished by good, easy language.
Why the name: “Lords of Two Continents”? And here we finally move on to the exciting topic of the history of the Crimean Khanate based on the materials of Gaivoronsky’s multi-volume work.
We will present several short excerpts from this publication, which is still in print, in this review.
“Lords of two continents” is part of the title of the Crimean khans, which completely sounds like “Khakan of two seas and Sultan of two continents.”
But one should not think that the Crimean khans, when they chose such a title for themselves, were possessed by delusions of grandeur. Despite the fact that at times the Crimean Khanate included not only Crimea, but even extended to Tula, and taking into account dependent territories, extended to Lvov, and at some points in history included Kazan, it certainly could not be called a state of two continents . But this is not just a matter of vanity. The Crimean khans, and in modern Russia this is a little-known fact, were the legal successors to the power of Genghis Khan. This is how Oleksa Gaivoronsky writes about this in her book (The spelling of proper names and titles is given in the author’s version):
“The layer of Mongols - conquerors, as contemporaries wrote, within a few decades completely disappeared among the conquered Turkic peoples. It is not surprising that the empire of Genghis Khan almost immediately after the death of its founder split into several separate states, which, in turn, continued to fragment further. One of these fragments turned out to be the Great Horde (Great Ulus, Ulus of Batu Khan), which owned Crimea.
Despite the fact that the Mongols very quickly disappeared from the main stage of history, they left their system of government as a legacy to the conquered peoples for a long time.
Similar principles of statehood existed among the ancient Turks centuries before Genghis Khan adopted these customs and united the entire Kipchak Steppe under his rule. (Kypchaks (also called Cumans) are a Turkic-speaking nomadic people who, during their dawn, occupied vast territories from Hungary to Siberia. Ancient Rus' either conflicted with them or entered into an alliance - Note site).
The cornerstone of this power (Genghisid) system was the sacred status of the ruling dynasty and the indisputable authority of the supreme ruler - the kagan (khakan, great khan). This largely explains why in those states that arose from the ruins of the empire, the dynasties of the descendants of Genghis, the last guardians of the Mongolian political traditions among foreign subjects (Turks, Iranians, Indians, etc.), were firmly entrenched in power for a long time. There is nothing strange in this: after all, the situation when the ruling dynasty differs in origin from the people under its control and cultivates the ideals of its distant ancestors is common in world history.
Mongolian state customs did not have much in common with the traditions of the Crimean Tatar people, who, thanks to the geographical isolation of the peninsula and as Islam spread among its inhabitants, was formed in the Crimea from new settlers Kipchaks, old-timers Kipchaks and inhabitants of the mountainous regions - descendants of the Scythian-Sarmatian, Gothic-Alan and the Seljuk population. (Sarmatians and Scythians are related pastoral Iranian-speaking tribes, Goth-Alans are tribes of Germanic origin, Seljuk Turkic people. Note site).
Nevertheless, it was on (these Mongolian state) customs that the power rights of the Gerays were based and their foreign policy was largely built - after all, the laws of Genghis were the highest authority for their opponents in the struggle for the independence of Crimea: the last khans of the Great Horde, whose capital stood on Lower Volga (The famous Horde city of Sarai-Batu. Note website). No matter how different Crimea and the Horde Volga region were from each other, their rulers spoke the language of the same symbols and ideas.
The main rival of the house of Geray was the house of Namagan - another Genghisid branch that occupied the Horde throne in the last decades of the existence of the united Ulus Batu. The dispute between two dynasties over Crimea culminated in the victory of the Gerays: in the summer of 1502, the last Horde ruler, Sheikh Ahmed, was overthrown from the throne by Mengli Geray.
The winner did not limit himself to the military defeat of his opponent and, in accordance with custom, also appropriated to himself all the regalia of power of the defeated enemy, proclaiming himself the Khan of not only the Crimea, but also the entire Great Horde. Thus, the Crimean Khan formally inherited the rights to all the former Horde possessions - the same “two seas” and “two continents” that were imprinted in his new title.” End of quote.
A little about what the Horde was like at that time, the ruler of which was the Crimean Khan. First of all, we note that by the time the Crimean Khan achieved the status of ruler of the entire Great Horde, the Horde had long been split into sovereign uluses. But, despite the fragmentation of the Horde, Sheikh-Ahmed, defeated by Mengli Geray, was the last Horde ruler, on whom the Russian state de jure recognized political dependence.
Sheikh-Ahmed's father Khan Akhmat (also spelled Akhmad, Akhmed, or Akhmet) became famous for leading the last campaign of the Golden Horde against Rus' in history. During this campaign in 1480, the so-called “standing on the Ugra River”, when the Golden Horde ruler did not dare to start a battle with the Russian troops advancing towards him, he broke camp and went to the Horde - and it was then that, according to Russian historiography, the Golden Horde yoke over Russia ended. However, already under Sheikh Ahmed in 1501-1502, Tsar Ivan III, busy with the war with Lithuania, expressed his readiness to admit his dependence and resumed paying tribute to the Horde. Sources note that this step was a diplomatic game, since at the same time Moscow was inclined to attack the Crimea Horde. But formally, Sheikh Ahmed is the last Horde khan whose dominance was recognized by Rus'.
Sheikh-Amed ruled the Horde state, but not the great Golden Horde, which was once headed by Batu, Tokhtamysh and other powerful khans, but only its fragment - the so-called. Great Horde. The Golden Horde became the “Big” Horde, because By that time, new Turkic states had broken away from the Horde rule - the former appanages of the Golden Horde: the Tatar Siberian Khanate and the Nogai Horde (from a people close to modern Kazakhs), as well as Crimea.
The state of the Great Horde was founded by Sheikh-Ahmed’s brother Seyid Akhmed, who became the Horde khan after the murder of the unlucky “Ugrin stalent” Khan Akhmat. Returning from the Ugra after a campaign, the “Ugrin stander” Khan Akhmat was captured in his tent and killed by a detachment led by the Siberian Khan Ivak and the Nogai Bey Yamgurchi.
A the Crimean khans, after defeating Sheikh Amed, gained high status and title.
A similar title of rulers of “two seas and continents” was also borne, as Gaivoronsky writes, by “Byzantine emperors and Ottoman sultans, who meant by “two continents” and “two seas” Europe and Asia, the Black and Mediterranean seas.
In the title of the Crimean Khan, the continents remained the same, but the list of seas changed: these are the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, along the shores of which the possessions of Ulus Batu Khan once stretched. And in 1515, 13 years after the defeat of Sheikh-Amed, the Crimean Khan Mehmed I Giray, son of Mengli Giray, even took for himself the title “padishah of all the Moguls (Mongols)”, focusing not on the greatness of the Golden Horde khans Batu and Tokhtamysh, but on himself Genghis Khan. After all, the Golden Horde was once identified as the ulus of Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis Khan.
Crimean Khanate
- the state of the Horde, which was against the Horde
In the illustration from Oleksa Gaivoronsky’s blog: portrait of the Crimean Khan Mengli I Giray (Reigned 1466, 1468-1475, 1478-1515).
Gaivoronsky explains the symbolism of the portrait this way: “Hand on a sword. The victory of Mengli Geray in 1502 over the last Horde khans put an end to the existence of the Volga Horde. The Crimean Yurt formally became the legal successor of the Golden Horde Empire;
The design of the painting includes larks on nests as elements. Larks making nests (as a sign of spring) are mentioned in a letter from Mengli Giray, which the khan wrote on the eve of his speech against his Horde rivals in 1502.”
Despite the fact that the Crimean khans achieved t Itul, which gave them the right to be considered the ruler of the steppes, they were not delighted with the remnants of the Horde hordes.
As Oleksa Gaivoronsky notes in her book, the Crimean Khanate saw the main threat to its security from the steppes - residents of the former Golden Horde Ulus A:
“The foreign policy activities of the Crimean Khanate convincingly show that the Gerais did not set themselves the task of seizing and retaining foreign territories. Crimea was famous as a serious force, capable of inflicting destructive military blows - however, deliberately seeking to weaken the neighboring powers that were currently the most powerful, the Crimean khans showed no interest in conquering lands and expanding their own borders. The motives of their struggle for the Horde inheritance were different.
If you look at Crimea from the outside, especially from the “Slavic coast”, then in the 15th-16th centuries it looked like a formidable, inaccessible fortress, from the attacks of the garrison of which it was possible to defend only with varying degrees of success. However, the picture seen from such a perspective is incomplete, because when looking from Perekop from their side (the Perekop Isthmus connects Crimea with the mainland. The main border fortress of the Crimean khans, Or-Kapy (“gate to the moat”) was located there. Note site) the Crimean khans were well aware of the vulnerability of their state - another thing is that the threat to it at that time came not from the Slavic North (which only much later could pose a danger to the Crimea), but from the Horde East.
Truly right (ancient Arab historian) al-Omari noted that “the earth prevails over natural features”: The Gerai, whose distant ancestors, the Genghisids, came to rule the Crimean country as conquerors, repeated the experience of all the previous rulers of Taurica and themselves began to fear the nomads of the Great Steppe , just as the Bosporan kings feared the Huns... Nomads of the Volga and Caspian regions invaded the Crimea almost every decade in 1470-1520; the Crimean khans barely managed to hold back this onslaught in 1530-1540, and were still forced to stand ready to repel it in the mid-1550s.
After all, it was there, in the steppe nomads of the Horde, that for decades there was a fierce struggle for power, exhausting the Crimea with leapfrogs of rulers and a constant change of waves of armed strangers hiding on the peninsula after being expelled from the Horde capital or preparing to rush to the Volga; the house of Namagan ruled there, challenging the Gerays' supremacy over the Crimea; From there, devastating raids were carried out on the peninsula, whose small territory a thousand-strong detachment of nomads could devastate in a matter of days. Examples of such raids were not limited to the era of Timur-Lenk and the Horde turmoil: nomads of the Volga and Caspian regions invaded Crimea almost every decade in the 1470-1520s; the Crimean khans barely managed to hold back this onslaught in the 1530s and 1540s, and were still forced to stand ready to repel it in the mid-1550s.
The view of the Crimean Khanate as a victim of steppe raids is an unusual perspective, but it is fully confirmed in sources known to any specialist at. Moreover, the foreign policy activities of the Crimean rulers of that era were largely devoted to the defense of Crimea from the threat from the Steppe.
Direct armed struggle with the rulers of the steppe powers could not fully ensure the security of Crimea, because to establish direct military control over the gigantic spaces of the former empire, the Crimean khans simply did not have sufficient human resources - even despite the fact that they deliberately resettled a considerable part of the Horde uluses they conquered. The rulers of Crimea had to choose a different path and call for help that ancient political tradition, the power of which was recognized by all the former subjects of the Horde: the inviolability of the power of the Supreme Khan-Genghisid over the entire multitude of individual hordes, tribes and uluses. Only another Genghisid could challenge the throne of the Great Khan, and for the rest of the population, including the noble class, it was considered unthinkable not to recognize this power.
In this light, the main task of the Crimean khans was to remove the rival Genghisid family from the Horde throne and take its place themselves. It was possible to finally defeat the Horde only by becoming its ruler; and only this measure, and not military actions, would guarantee the inviolability of the Gerais' possessions.
Such formal supremacy over all the peoples of the former Horde Empire no longer meant either “colonial” rule, or even economic exploitation in the form, for example, of collecting tribute. It only provided for the recognition by subjects of dynastic seniority and the nominal patronage of the supreme ruler, and this, in turn, ensured peace between the overlord and his vassals - the very peace that the Gerai so desperately needed, who sought to secure their land from raids and protect their power dynasty from the encroachments of other Chingizind families.
This struggle between the Crimean and Horde lines of the Genghisids lasted for many decades.
It did not end with the defeat of Sheikh-Ahmed and continued in the rivalry of two families for influence in those states of the Volga region that arose after the Ulus of Vagu: in Khadzhi-Tarkhan (in Russian transcription Astrakhan - Note.. At times achieving significant success in this struggle, the Gerai a year after year they were approaching their goal. But soon a third force intervened in the dispute between the two Genghisid clans and resolved it in its favor,” writes Gaivoronsky.
From the Crimean Khanate with love for Russia,
as well as other interesting features of the foreign and domestic policy of Crimea at that time
In an illustration from Oleksa Gaivoronsky’s blog: Devlet I Giray (Reign 1551-1577).
Gaivoronsky about the motives of the ornament of this portrait - sad motives directly related to Muscovy:
"Bent cypresses. The motif was taken from the tombstones of the Khan cemetery. Symbolizes the loss of two Volga khanates: Kazan and Khadzhi-Tarkhan (Astrakhan), conquered by Moscow during the reign of this khan.
Scroll in hand. Ineffective negotiations with Ivan the Terrible about the return of the Volga khanates.
Talking about the series of khan portraits for the book “Lords of Two Continents” and the exhibition “Chingizids of Ukraine” organized on July 1-9, 2009 in Kiev with the display of these paintings, Oleksa Gaivoronsky quotes in her blog an excerpt from an article by Ute Kilter in the Ukrainian newspaper “Den” ( No. 119 of July 14, 2009) with responses to the exhibition. And there again the theme of the Crimean Khanate and Muscovy sounds.
The newspaper writes:
“So Dmitry Gorbachev, art critic, consultant at Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctions, emphasizes:
“We can apply to the exhibition a term that we find in the Russian writer Andrei Platonov - “national egoism.” A very necessary, productive thing. For Russians this is Russian-centrism, for Ukrainians it should have their own angle of view. The project “Chingizids of Ukraine” demonstrates a Crimea-centric view. Sometimes he, too, goes “over the edge,” for example, when Tugaibey is proclaimed a hero of the Ukrainian people (Tugaibey is a Crimean dignitary who, on behalf of the Crimean Khan, helped the Zaporizhian Cossacks of Khmelnitsky with his military unit in the fight against the Poles. Note site). But Ukrainians really appreciated and resorted to the help of the Crimean Tatars, who were first-class warriors. They had an unrivaled 300,000-strong cavalry that moved with lightning speed. The Ukrainian Cossacks also learned this style from the Tatars.
Moscow has a completely different attitude towards this story: they don’t like to remember that back in 1700 Moscow was legally a vassal of the Crimean Khanate. Crimean Tatars are an enlightened nation. I felt this when I saw a letter from medieval Bakhchisarai, written to Sweden in Latin. The culture of the Crimean Khanate was high and influential. It is extremely important that both the exhibition and Oleksa Gaivoronsky’s books reveal this to Ukrainian society. They make us realize the kinship of our peoples and history. What is important here is the skill with which (artist) Yuri Nikitin uses the styles of Turkic and Persian miniatures, creating character portraits. The images of the Gerais here are interesting both in form and content. The double portrait of Mehmed III and Hetman Mikhail Doroshenko, who died during the liberation of this khan from captivity, opens our eyes to the twinning of not only rulers, but also our peoples.”
On closer examination, the foreign policy of the Crimean Khanate also turns out to be far from the stereotypical views that exist about this state formation in Russia. Sometimes Crimean politics even amazes with its nobility. Let's give a few examples from Gaivoronsky's book.
Here is the development of the already mentioned plot with “standing on the Ugra River”. The historical fact is that Russian troops won a bloodless victory at Ugra, which led to the end 300 year old Mongol-Tatar yoke over Russia, including due to the fact that the Polish-Lithuanian king Casimir, blocked by the troops of the Crimean Khanate, did not come to the aid of the Golden Horde Khan Akhmat. So The Crimean Khanate turned out to be a participant in the liberation of Rus' from the Horde yoke. Without Casimir's troops, Akhmat did not risk entering the battle, which he could have won. Although after the death of Akhmet at the hands of the Siberian Khan and the Nogai Bey, the Crimean Khanate also acted as a “Good Samaritan” for his sons, but it received black ingratitude in response in the form of a Golden Horde raid on Crimea.
Oleksa Gaivoronsky mentions all this in the fragment we provide below (we left the spelling of proper names unchanged):
“The sons of the deceased khan - Seyid-Ahmed, Murtaza and Sheikh-Ahmed - found themselves in dire straits. Now that their troops had fled, they had to be wary of any gang of robbers, of which there were quite a few roaming the steppes at that time. The main Horde bey, Temir from the Mangyt clan, led the princes to Crimea to ask for help from (Crimean Khan) Mengli Geray.
The bey’s calculations turned out to be correct: the Crimean ruler hospitably greeted the wanderers and, at his own expense, provided them with horses, clothes and everything they needed. Khan hoped that he could make yesterday’s enemies his allies and even accept them into his service - but that was not the case: having regained their strength in the Crimea, the refugees left Mengli Giray and, with all the donated goods, went to the steppes. Khan started to chase after the ungrateful guests, but managed to detain only one Murtaza, who now turned from a guest into a hostage.
In place of the deceased Ahmed (Akhmat), his son, Seid-Akhmed II, became the Horde khan. Under the pretext of releasing Murtaza from Crimean captivity, he began to gather troops for a campaign against Mengli Giray. True, Seyid-Ahmed was very afraid that the Ottomans would come to the aid of Mengli Giray, and therefore he tried to find out in advance how many Turkish troops were now stationed in Crimea. Apparently, intelligence reported that the Ottoman garrison in Kef was small and there was nothing to fear. In addition, just recently, in 1481, Mehmed II died, and instead of a ferocious conqueror who terrified neighboring countries, the Ottoman Empire was ruled by his son Bayezid II, a kind-hearted and peace-loving man. Having received this encouraging information, Seyid-Ahmed and Temir moved into battle.”
Here we will interrupt the quote from Oleks Gaivoronsky. To make a few more clarifications. Turkish troops invaded Crimea and brought it under their influence a decade earlier. At the same time, the Crimean Khan continued to rule the internal regions of Crimea, and the coast, including Kafa (in another transcription - Kefe) (present-day Feodosia), was directly controlled by the Turks.
Initially, the Turkish sultans did not interfere in the internal politics of the Crimean Khanate and issues of succession to the throne, but later, when the Crimean Tatar nobility began to appeal to them when choosing new khans, the rulers in Istanbul became more and more involved in the internal affairs of the Crimea. This ended a century later with the almost direct appointment of the Crimean khans from Istanbul.
But why do we, when talking about issues of succession to the throne, talk about elections? The point is that in TO The Roman Khanate had a kind of democracy. What then had an analogue from neighboring powers, perhaps, only in Poland - both the Ottoman Empire and Muscovy could not boast of democracy. The nobility of the Crimean Khanate had the right to vote in the election of the khan. The only restriction is that you can only choose from the Gerai dynasty. Over the 300 years of the state’s existence, 48 khans replaced the Crimean throne, most of whom ruled for 3-5 years. Some khans were called upon to rule again by the nobility. Of course, the opinion of Istanbul was of great importance, but without the approval of his policies by the local nobility, the khan could not rule for long - he was overthrown. To ascend the throne, the khan required the sanction of a large divan (a Council of representatives of the nobility who were not appointed by the khan, but were members of the divan by birthright. During the election of the khan, elected representatives from the common people also sat in the divan). WITH The khan shared his power with the so-called. Kalga - the highest official of the state and a kind of junior khan, who had his own separate capital in the city of Ak-Mosque ("White Mosque" - present-day Simferopol).
So the Crimean Khanate was distinguished by a fairly democratic structure. At the same time, the khan’s government was accustomed to coexistence on the peninsula with other state entities. Before the arrival of the Turks, part of the peninsula was occupied by the Orthodox state of Theodoro, and Feodosia and the adjacent coast were ruled by Genoa.
Now let’s return to Gaivoronsky’s book and, using the same historical plot as an example, let’s see how the Crimean Khanate fought the Horde and helped Moscow. We stopped at how the son of the last khan of the Golden Horde attacks Crimea:
“The attack of the Horde troops on the Crimea was so strong that Mengli Giray could not hold his position and, wounded, fled to the Kyrk-Er fortress.
Murtaza was released and joined his brother. The goal of the campaign was achieved, but Seid-Ahmed did not want to stop there and decided to conquer Crimea. Apparently, the Horde was unable to take Kyrk-Er, and Seid-Akhmed, plundering the villages oncoming, headed towards Es-ki-Kyrym. He besieged the city, but the old capital firmly held the offensive, and it was possible to take it only by cunning: Seyid-Ahmed promised that he would not cause any harm to the residents if they stopped resisting and let him in. The townspeople believed him and opened the gates to him. As soon as the khan achieved his goal, he renounced the oath he had taken - and the Horde army plundered the city, exterminating many of its inhabitants.
Intoxicated by success, Seyid-Ahmed decided to follow this with a lesson to the Turks, demonstrating to the new Sultan who was the true owner of the Black Sea lands. A huge Horde army approached Kefa. Confident of his superiority, Seyid-Ahmed sent a messenger to the Ottoman governor Kasym Pasha with a demand to lay down his arms and surrender Kefa to the Horde...
But the Horde warriors, standing on the seashore under the walls of Kefe, had not previously encountered heavy artillery, and the sight of the thundering (Turkish) cannons made a very strong impression on them. The retreat turned into a hasty flight...
Mengli Giray with his beys rushed in pursuit of the retreating enemy. The Horde army, frightened by the Ottomans, now became an easy target for the Crimeans, who managed to recapture from Seyid-Akhmed all the booty and prisoners he had captured in the Crimea.
The danger passed, and the Ottomans showed that they could provide Crimea with invaluable assistance in defense against Horde raids. And yet, the very fact of the invasion, albeit successfully repelled, could not help but instill anxiety in the khan for the future of the country: it was obvious that the new generation of rulers, the Namagans, had entered into a fierce struggle with the Gerays for the Crimea and would not so easily give up their intentions. It was difficult for Mengli Geray to fight them alone, and he began looking for allies.
Having lost its own outskirts, the Horde also lost its former Slavic vassals. The loss of Ukraine and its transition to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was recognized by Tokhtamysh. As for the Grand Duchy of Moscow, it too was successfully moving towards liberation from Horde rule, as evidenced by the recent failure of Ahmed. The fight against a common enemy, Sarai, made Crimea and Moscow allies, and Mengli Giray, who had long been trying to establish contacts (with the Moscow ruler) Ivan III, continued the negotiations interrupted (several years earlier) by the Turkish invasion. Soon the khan and the grand duke pledged to each other to jointly fight against Ahmed and then his sons.
From the point of view of Crimea, this union meant that Moscow recognized the Crimean Khan as the ruler of the entire Great Horde and became a formal citizen of him, shedding dependence on Sarai. Having inherited the traditional Horde supremacy over the Moscow Grand Duke, Mengli Giray renounced the privileges that humiliated his ally: he freed Ivan from paying tribute and began to call him “his brother” in letters. The sensitive issue of the title was very important for Ivan III, because the khan, as a representative of the ruling dynasty, would have the right to call the Horde vassal a “serf,” but instead recognized the Moscow ruler as his equal, which greatly strengthened Ivan’s authority among his neighbors.
In the illustration from the book by Oleksa Gaivoronsky: The Crimean Khanate surrounded by neighboring states and territories at the beginning of the 16th century.
In the illustration from the book by Oleksa Gaivoronsky: The Crimean Khanate surrounded by neighboring states and territories at the beginning of the 16th century. Our comment on this map.
First, a little about the Crimean names, and then, based on this map, we will characterize some of the states and territories indicated here.
The self-name of the Crimean Khanate is “Crimean Yurt” (from the Crimean Tatar Qırım Yurtu), which means “Crimean rural encampment”.
According to research, the name “Crimea” comes from the Turkic “kyrym”, which means “fortress”, or from the Mongolian “herem” - “wall”, “rampart”, “embankment”, “my hill”.
After the Mongol conquest of the peninsula, which previously bore the name “Tavria” (in Greek, “country of the Tauri” in honor of the semi-mythical people), the word “Crimea”, before becoming the name for the entire peninsula, was assigned to the settlement of Eski-Kyrym (“Old Kyrym” ), or simply Kyrym, who served as one of the Mongol-Tatar headquarters.
In passing, we note that, as Oleksa Gaivoronsky notes, the Mongols occupied only a small percentage in the ranks of the Mongol-Tatar conquerors. They mainly represented the command staff. The basis of the army was made up of Turkic tribes.
In Crimea, the Mongol-Tatars met, along with other peoples, a Genoese trading post-colony in Feodosia, which survived the Mongol conquest.
Europeans and Mongol-Tatars lived peacefully together in the city of Eski-Kyrym. It was divided into Christian and Muslim parts. The Genoese called their part Solkhat (from Italian “furrow, ditch”), and the Muslim part of the city was called Kyrym proper. Later, Eski-Kyrym became the capital of the Crimean yurt, which was still dependent on the Mongols. Kyrym (which still exists today as the small sleepy town of Old Crimea, where, with the exception of an old mosque, almost nothing else remains from the period of the Mongol conquest) is located on a flat plain, part of the steppe Crimea, several tens of kilometers from the sea.
It was the openness of the city of Kyrym from all sides that forced the Crimean khans to move the capital to the village of Salachik - to a mountain valley at the foot of the ancient mountain fortress of Kyrk-Er. Later, another new khan's capital, Bakhchisarai, was built there, which was the main city of the Crimean Khanate before the annexation of Crimea to Russia.
In Bakhchisarai (translated as “garden palace”), the Khan’s palace built in the Ottoman style is still preserved (an earlier version of the palace of the Crimean khans, but in the Mongolian style, was burned by the Russians during one of the campaigns of the tsarist army in Crimea).
As for the ancient fortress of Kyrk-Er, you can read more about it and the mysterious Karaite people (the so-called modern Khazars) who inhabited it in another material - “Modern Khazars - the Crimean Karaites” on our website. By the way, the status of the Karaites in this fortress was one of the specific features of the Crimean Khanate.
Also on the map we see that part of the Crimean Peninsula is painted in the same color as the territory of the Ottoman Empire. In 1475, the Ottomans occupied the coast of Crimea, defeating the Genoese state formation in Feodosia (under the Ottomans, called Kafa (Kefe), as well as destroying the Orthodox principality of Theodoro (Gothia), which had existed since Byzantine times. These two states recognized the supremacy of the Crimean Khan, but within their own the territories were independent.
Inset: Southern Crimea before 1475: Shown here are the territories of the Genoese Colony (in red) with the cities of Feodosia and Soldaya (present-day Sudak), as well as the territory of the Principality of Theodore (in brown) and the disputed territory between them, passing from hand to hand (in red). brown stripes).
On the large map we see the Kazan yurt, the Nogai Horde, as well as the Khadzhi-Tarkhan yurt (i.e. the Astrakhan Khanate, where the old Horde capital Sarai was located) - independent fragments of the Golden Horde, which periodically recognized the power of the Crimean Khan.
The territories colored in stripes on the map are lands without a specific status, previously part of the Golden Horde, which were disputed by neighboring countries during the period under review. Of these, Moscow at that time was able to finally secure the territory around Chernigov, Bryansk and Kozelsk.
An interesting state formation indicated on the map was the Kasimov Yurt, a microscopic state artificially created by Muscovy for representatives of the Kazan ruling house, led by Kasim, who had defected to Moscow. This yurt, which existed from 1446 to 1581, was an entity completely dependent on the Moscow rulers with a Russian population and a Muslim dynasty of local princes.
On the map we also see a thick light brown line - it marks the western border of the Horde territory during the existence of the Golden Horde. Wallachia and Moldova, indicated on the map, were colonies of the Ottoman Empire for the period under review.
True, the agreement with Ivan cost the khan his ancient, hereditary friendship with Casimir, because Muscovy, which had long encroached on the lands of Lithuanian Rus, was an implacable enemy of Lithuania. Trying to find justice for Ivan, the king started negotiations on an anti-Moscow alliance with the Horde khans.
This new policy was a big mistake for the Polish-Lithuanian ruler: the weakening Horde did nothing to help him in the fight against Moscow’s claims, but the rapprochement with Sarai for a long time put the king at odds with a much more valuable ally - Crimea.
Preparing his fateful campaign of 1480, which was mentioned above. Ahmed asked Casimir for help, and he promised to send him Lithuanian forces for a joint attack on the enemy.
Casimir's troops were already preparing to come to the aid of the Horde - but Mengli Giray threw Crimean troops towards them, and instead of marching on Moscow, the Lithuanians had to defend their possessions. This was the reason for the defeat of Ahmed, who, without waiting for the allies to arrive, did not dare to fight the Russians alone and retreated back to meet his death.
Assessing the success of this Crimean campaign, Ivan III steadily insisted that the khan not give up the fight against Lithuania and strike his next blow at the very center of Lithuanian Rus' - Podolia or Kyiv. Mengli Giray agreed that Casimir should be warned against friendship with Saray, and ordered his troops to prepare for a campaign along the Dnieper.
Mengli Giray approached Kyiv on September 10, 1482. The khan did not approach the fortress, much less storm it: in this case, it would not have been difficult for the Kyiv governor to fire at the advancing army from cannons and repel the attack. Therefore, keeping the main forces at a distance from the fortifications, the Crimean warriors set fire to the wooden residential areas surrounding the fortress on both sides and, retreating slightly, began to wait for the fire to do its job. The flames quickly engulfed the dilapidated buildings, spread inside the fortified citadel - and Kyiv fell without any battle.
Crimean troops entered the defeated city and collected rich booty there, and then the khan led his people home.
Mengli Geray immediately reported the victory to his Moscow ally and sent him as a gift two precious trophies from the famous Cathedral of St. Sophia of Kyiv: a golden sacrament cup and a golden tray for worship. Having dealt Kazimir a crushing blow with someone else's hands, Ivan sincerely thanked Mengli Geray for his loyalty to his word.
The king could not repay the khan with a retaliatory blow and preferred to settle the matter peacefully. However, he did not miss the opportunity to sharply offend his Crimean neighbor, asking him through ambassadors: they say, there are rumors that he is fighting with Lithuania on the orders of Moscow? The lunge hit the target. Mengli Geray was indignant: does the Moscow prince, his subject, have the right to command the khan?! The dispute was limited to this, and Casimir took up the task of restoring the destroyed city.”
In general, this is how the Moscow state and the Crimean Khanate were friends. But when Crimea became excessively powerful, Moscow, as Gaivoronsky writes, became more friendly with the Nogai, setting them against Crimea. Relations between Moscow and the Crimean Khanate finally deteriorated due to the issue of Kazan. The Crimean khans seated their candidates on the khan’s throne there, Moscow put its own... Gaivoronsky notes:
“The Grand Duchy of Moscow, which itself had been a Horde vassal for a long time, also entered the struggle for the lands of the Volga region. Its strategy was very different from that of Crimea, because Moscow’s goal was classic territorial expansion. Not being Genghisids, the Moscow rulers, naturally, could not claim dynastic seniority among the local rulers, and therefore, unlike the Gerais, they did not strive for the formal subordination of the Volga khanates, but for their complete liquidation and the annexation of their territories to their state. At first, the Moscow rulers chose the tactic of supporting the weakening house of Namagan in its resistance to the Gerays, and then decided on a direct armed seizure of the khanates of the Volga and Caspian regions.”
And in conclusion of this review of the book by Oleksa Gaivoronsky another interesting fact. It was the founder of the dynasty of the Crimean khans, Hadji Giray, who returned the territory of the former Kievan Rus as a gift to the Christian world.
This was done around 1450, when neighboring Muscovy was still under the Horde yoke. The Crimean Khan, nominally claiming power over the entire Golden Horde, in gratitude to the Polish-Lithuanian state for support when he was an exile in Lithuanian lands, signed a decree at the request of the Lithuanian ambassadors, presenting the whole of Ukraine to the Lithuanian Grand Duke and the Polish King Casimir: “Kiev with all income, lands, waters and property”, “Podolia with waters, lands from this property”, then listing a long list of cities of the Kiev region, Chernigov region, Smolensk region, Bryansk region and many other edges up to Novgorod itself, which Hadji Giray on behalf of the conquered by him The horde was inferior to its friendly neighbor.
Let us only note that Khan Tokhtamysh had previously promised to transfer Ukraine to Lithuania.
Gaivoronsky writes: “Of course, the Horde had no influence in these lands for a long time, and the act of Hadji Geray was symbolic. Nevertheless, such symbols were of great importance at that time. It was not in vain that Casimir turned to Hadji Geray for such a document: after all, Lithuania had a dispute with Muscovy over some of these lands, and since Moscow was still formally subordinate to the Horde throne, the khan’s label could become a full-fledged argument in favor of Casimir in this dispute.
So the khan, who, for the sake of the security of his own state, defended neighboring Ukraine year after year from the attacks of another contender for the Horde throne: finally confirmed the liberation of this land from the long-term rule of the Horde. It remains to be recognized that Hadji Giray fully deserved the fame of “guardian of the peace of Ukrainian lands” that was assigned to him in history.” It is worth noting that during the period under review, there were several khans in the Golden Horde claiming the throne, and Hadji Giray was only one of them.
But Oleksa Gaivoronsky notes: “Having defeated the Horde Khan (his rival), Hadji Giray did not take the dangerous path that his predecessors usually followed: he did not go to the Volga to fight for Sarai. Without a doubt, Hadji Geray remembered well how many (appanage) khans of past years, having set their sights on the Volga capital, got bogged down in an endless struggle and died ingloriously in its whirlpool. Satisfied with what he already had, Hadji Giray abandoned the dangerous pursuit of illusory glory and returned from the Dnieper to his Crimea.” Let us add on our own behalf, he returned to Crimea and became the founder of the ruling dynasty of the Crimean Khanate - a state that lived for more than 300 years.
