Zolotoordynskoe obozrenie=Golden Horde Review

6-32

Authors: Khakimov R.S.

Researchers consider nomadic and sedentary cultures as evolutionary stages. The nomadic phase precedes a settled one as an inferior stage of civilization. The evolutionary view does not explain the combination of nomadic and settled cultures in the Golden Horde and the preservation of many features of nomadism in the future, up to the present day. A number of experts, in particular, Thomas Barfield believes that nomadic societies exist by levying tribute from the settled state, which raises doubts. The Eurasian nomadic civilization is associated with the organization of vital activity in the conditions of steppe climate zone requiring constant migrations aimed at producing a sufficient amount of livestock. Robbery and receiving tribute from other societies is not its main characteristic. More important for it is a specific arrangement of humans, animals, and vehicles allowing the movement of large numbers of people over long distances. The nomads were not so strongly tied to the land as sedentary people. The structure of society was not built according to a vertical hierarchy but on the clan system. The nomads provoked the Great Migration and created a number of nomadic empires as well as the Golden Horde, the top of nomadic civilization. The ability to integrate different peoples in the uniform State was associated with openness and toleration of nomadic culture. The nomads took advantage of warfare methods through mobility, effective combinations of weapons, horses, vehicles, and skills training of combat operations. Their army was not hired or regular but represented the people-army. The ability to effective warfare contributed to the nomadic expansion and exploration of the Eurasian space. The nomadic culture of the Golden Horde had its own characteristics associated with the conjunction of nomadic and settled population in the uniform State. Nomadism does not disappear as a culture and mentality over time. Large spaces and lack of federalization stimulate a return to the clan relations even today. Globalization, with its transparent boundaries, reproduces many of the elements of nomadism: mobility, openness, tolerance, non-hierarchical administrative system.

50-67

Authors: Hautala R.

The first mention of the Mongols appears in Latin sources in 1221. According to these sources, the Mongol army, which accomplished a number of conquests in Central Asia, Persia, and Transcaucasia, consisted of baptized nomads. Latin authors asserted that at the head of this army stood a certain David, “king of the Indies”, which sought to help the Middle Eastern Christians and “liberate” Jerusalem from Muslim rule. Undoubtedly, the Latin sources meant by the “deeds of king David” the first western campaign of the Mongols led by Genghis Khan, which began in 1219 and was directed against the Central Asian sultanate of Khwarezm. These Latin sources were written at the time, when the troops of Genghis Khan had already conquered Khwarezmian territory in Central Asia and began military actions in Khorasan, while the separate divisions of the Mongols led by Jebe and Subedei invaded Transcaucasia and inflicted the first serious defeat to the Christian kingdom of Georgia. Even though the later Oriental sources indicate the presence of certain baptized nomads in the Mongol army, at the moment it is known for certain that the bulk of the nomadic army of Genghis Khan did not adhere to the Christian religion and the Mongol divisions led by Jebe and Subedei were sent by Genghis Khan in the west in pursuit of the former Khwarezmian Sultan Muhammad rather than for the “liberation” of Jerusalem or provision of any tangible support to the Middle Eastern Christians. Thus, the early Latin information about the Mongols contains relatively accurate description of the western conquests of Genghis Khan, but represent a specific explanation for the Mongol expansion, which does not correspond to historical reality. This article represents an attempt to explain this distortion of reality. In the first part of the article, the author gives a brief description of the Latin sources containing information about the “king David’s” advance to the west. In the second part, the author attempts to find an explanation for the distortion of historical reality in Latin sources by considering the information of these sources in the ideological context of the Fifth Crusade.

95-105

Authors: Zainuddinov D.R.

The article deals with the problem of translation of Persian and Turkic lexical units in Arabic texts written between the 13th and 16th centuries. Author examines as an example an excerpt from the work of Ibn Khaldun (732/1332 – 808/1406) translated by V.G. Tiesenhausen. The author provides comments to the given translation and presents his own translation. The author also presents original analysis of the source both about the relations between Golden Horde and Constantinople and on the battle of Homs in 680 AH between Mangu Timur, son of Hulagu, and the Mamluk sultan al-Mansur. The author tries to prove that Mengu-Timur, son of Togan, did not participate in that war. This article also presents new sources of such authors as Yunini Kutb ad-din Musa ibn Muhammad (640/1242 – 726/1326), Yafi’I Abdulla ibn As’ad (698 – 768 AH) and bibliographic collection of al-Markisi Taki ad-din (died in 845 AH).

128-135

Authors: Akhmetzyanov M.I.

The article is aimed at studying the relationship between the modern Tatar publicistic and medieval written monuments of the Golden Horde, Crimea, and Kazan Khanate. Since the medieval Tatar written monuments are syncretic in content, they have the features of many types of genres of contemporary written document. In this case, the article sets the task to emphasize the similarity of these monuments with modern documents with publicistic content. As a result of research the author found that the medieval Tatar official yarlyks, charters and letters are the precursors of contemporary governmental letters and agreements. The only difference is that they are likely to reflect the official State ideology, whereas the modern Tatar publicistics reflect the public reaction to the news in the life of society.

146-158

Authors: Minnegulov Kh.Yu.

The Tatar verbal art of the 15th–18th centuries developed over more than three centuries and reflected, reflects very complicated, contradictory, and tragic periods in the history of the Tatar people. This is a time of the Golden Horde disintegration and formation on its vast territory of the Crimean, Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberian, Nogai, and Kasimov khanates. This is a time of establishing, rise, and conquest of the Tatar States. This is a time of severe colonial oppression, loss of a significant part of the spiritual and material values accumulated over the centuries. Moreover, at this stage of history, and especially after the elimination of Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, the population living in the Crimean khanate gradually begins to separate from the relatively uniform linguistic, cultural, and ethnic Tatar space due to the tangible Ottoman influence. Therefore, we should consider the verbal art of this era in three aspects and under three items: 1) Tatar literature of the Kazan khanate period (middle of the 15th – middle of the 17th centuries), including not only the Kazan khanate’s literature, but also of other Tatar States and, in particular, of the Astrakhan, Siberian, Nogai, Crimean, Kasimov khanates, as well as of the Great Horde; 2) Crimean Tatar verbal art of the 15th–18th centuries, that is, of the Crimean State including not only the Crimean peninsula, but also large areas of the Wes­tern Ciscaucasia, Northern Black Sea coast, as well as areas of the Azov region. Of course, this division of more than three centuries’ literary development is, to some extent, arbitrary. At the same time, it contributes to the formation of a certain idea about the Tatar verbal art’s development during the mentioned centuries.

178-206

Authors: Beisembiev T.K.

The article continues a series of Beisembiev’s publications [9; 13; 14] on “Jawāmi ul-Hikāyāt wa Lawāmi’ ul-Riwāyāt” by Sadid al-Din Muhammad al-‘Awfi (completed in the second quarter of the 13th century), the largest literary and historical prosaic work in Persian classical literature of pre-Mongol and Mongol periods. It contains a collection of over 2,100 stories (very poorly studied) on diverse subjects. Up to the present, a complete scholarly edition of this greatest historical source is not available. On the basis of all available publications and a manuscript copy of the early 14th century, Supplément Persan 95 (La Bibliothèque nationale de France), the author presents for the first time his Russian commented translation of 52 Awfi’s stories (hikayat) on the Ghaznavids, Samanids, Karakhanids, Seljukids and Khwa­rezmshahs and provides their interpretation. The titles of the stories, absent in the original, are invented by the translator. Each title is indicated by those number in parentheses, which is specified in the fundamental study on ‘Awfi by Muhammad Nizam ud-Din [40]. At the end of each story there is indicated, in square brackets, a bibliographical reference to the source, from which its translation was made. The “Repertoire” of ‘Awfi containing stories about the Samanids, Karakhanids, Seljukids and Khwarezmshahs is followed by a summarized table of all stories by ‘Awfi pertaining to these dynasties (totally 78 stories, from which 27 translated previously, with bibliographical notes to their publication). Analysis of the works on the dynasties in question by the famous academics (V.V. Bartold, V.A. Gordlevsky, C.E. Bosworth, S.G. Agadjanov, Z.M. Bu­niya­tov, N.N. Negmatov and B.D. Kochnev) shows that, unfortunately, none of them pay due attention to the valuable information of ‘Awfi. The author hopes that his publication will provide a deeper understanding in the study of Central Asian history as well as that of other regions in the pre-Mongol period.

215-219

Authors: Sayfetdinova E.G.

The International Scientific and Practical conference “Actual Problems of the Study and Preservation of the Islamic Legacy of the Crimea” dedicated to the 700th Anniversary of the Mosque of Uzbek khan (the oldest surviving mosque in the peninsula) has been held in Simferopol (Crimea) 14th–18th October 2014. The conference has been attended by scholars from both the regions of Russia and from near and far abroad.Conference was organized by the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Crimea, the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Crimea, Crimean Engineering and Pedagogical University, Tatar Museum of Art, Foundation for the Support of Islamic culture, science and education. After the end of sessions, there has been approved a resolution, which identified the key recommendations for the conservation of the cultural heritage of the Crimea.