Zolotoordynskoe obozrenie=Golden Horde Review

8–31

Authors: Tishin V.V., Nanzatov B.Z.

Research objectives: This article discusses issues related to the historical geography of the carriers of the Tatar ethnonym in Inner Asia from the eighth to the twelfth century. The focus of this article is devoted to the analysis of toponymy mentioned in historical sources in connection with Tatars. Research materials: Monuments of the ancient Turkic runic script, containing a reliable mention of the Tatar ethnonym, as well as Chinese historical texts were used in this study as the main sources. The Mongolian “Secret History of the Mongols” of the thirteenth century and Rashīd al-Dīn al-Ṭabīb’s “Jāmī al-Tawārīkh” of the early fourteenth century were used for the interpretation of certain events. The authors inevitably turned to the linguistic data provided by the fund, primarily, of the Turkic and Mongolian languages, in the process of considering particular issues. Results and novelty of the research: The article discusses eleven place names, connected in one way or another with the mention of Tatars. The authors managed to find and justify an adequate interpretation for seven of these names and propose two completely new identifications. Of particular novelty, according to the authors, we now have every reason to acknowledge the mention of the Kerulen (Mong. Kherlen) River in reference to the Tatars in the monuments of the ancient Turkic runic script.

51–66

Authors: Pochekaev R.Yu.

Objective: A study of the Golden Horde historical sources of the mid-fourteenth century containing information on the history of law and trials in the Golden Horde, providing a comparison of the actions of the Golden Horde authorities with similar actions taken in other countries of that time. This includes a general assessment of the standards of the Golden Horde proceedings in the period under study. Research materials: The Golden Horde historical sources, namely, legal documents from the so-called “Venetian collection”, along with other sources from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries related to the proceedings of damages at the international level, including acts of the Venetian colonies of the Black Sea and medieval Rus’ian charters. Novelty of the research: This study is the first attempt both at a historical and legal analysis of the Golden Horde sources containing information about trials, as well as a comparative analysis of the actions of the judiciary at different stages of civil litigation which included international participation in the Golden Horde and contemporary states. Research results: The author reconstructed the main stages of the civil process in the Golden Horde (from filing a lawsuit to a court decision) and revealed the specifics of a particular case in connection with the participation of a foreign element, in addition to its public and legal nature (the lawsuit was not against private individuals, but against the state, i.e. the Venetian Republic). The author established that all procedural actions performed by the Golden Horde authorities in the course of the proceedings, as well as those to ensure the enforcement of the decision, had analogues in the procedural practice of other states that had interests in the Black Sea in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Accordingly, the author concluded there existed a high level of judicial practice in the Golden Horde, including elements which derived from foreign experience.

87–106

Authors: Bulanin D.M.

Research objectives: On one hand, to determine the purpose of the image of Alexander the Great in the earliest versions of The Tale of the Battle with Mamai. On the other hand, the goal here is to determine its function along with other symbolic images in Russian historical narratives of the epoch, i.e. in the tales which appeared after the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. To establish patterns and paradoxes of typological exegesis, which used to be practiced by the compilers of the texts. This exegesis consisted in the projection of contemporary events on crucial events and prominent heroes from the distant past. The authors preferred to compare the phenomena, which were essential within providential vision of the history. Research materials: A diptych consisting of the Serbian Alexandria and The Tale of the Battle with Mamai, which was composed under its influence, is viewed against the background of a whole set of the texts written in the same chronological period. Among them are The Tale on the Campaign against Novgorod in 1471, The Tale on the Capture of Tsargrad by the Turks, Kazan History, and finally, a series of sixteenth-century literary pieces dedicated to Russian–Tatar relations in historical retrospection (entries of the Nikonian Chronicle, cycle of writings glorifying Michael of Chernigov, including The Praise by Leo the Philologist, The Vita of Euphrosyne of Suzdal, The Tale of Mercury of Smolensk, and The Tale about the Destruction of Ryazan by Batu). Results and novelty of the research: For the first time, the mechanism of typological exegesis, practiced by Russian writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, is systematically analyzed. This exegesis used to be applied in order to interpret the most important facts in the past and contemporary history of mankind. It consisted of arranging them as a series of time horizons correlated with each other. As a chronological beginning, the author chose the fall of Byzantium in 1453, a catastrophe which required radical changes in the Christian view of universal development and which stimulated a sense of historical dynamics. The authors of historical narratives analyzed in the study invariably gave preference to the symbolic interpretation of events and heroes over their literal interpretation. This strategy often led to ambivalence in the ethical and political evaluation of the relevant personalities. The idea of history, which was adopted by the medieval writers and which held a kind of fatalism, introduced an element of uncertainty in the strict separation of positive and negative heroes inherent to medieval literature. Characters in the texts often lent each other their attributes, including traditional comparisons with prominent people from the past, historical as well as mythological. A typical example of such uncertainty in the distribution of characteristics is the use of the image of Alexander the Great, an ideal ruler against which later rulers were compared. In The Tale of the Battle with Mamai, Dimitri Donskoy and Mamai, the antagonist characters, are both compared to this king of Macedon. On the symbolic level they become equal.

127–146

Authors: Avakov P.A., Bespyatykh Yu.N.

Research objective: An introduction to the scholarly circulation of a unique document of 1736 and the evaluation of its informative potential as a source on the history of the Crimean Khanate. Along the way, the authors reconstruct the circumstances of the creation of the document and the factors that determined its semantic focus and content. Research materials: An archived original of the document, first translated from German and accompanied by external and internal criticism on a wide range of contemporary sources and more recent studies. Results and novelty of the research: The account of the French consul, A. Yavorka, was recorded in the camp of the Russian army in the Crimea on the order of Field Marshal, Count B.Ch. Münnich. Thematically it is divided into three sections: an autobiographical story, intelligence information, and general geographic information. Being a clerical document, this source also fits into the wide context of foreign narratives about the Crimean Khanate. The account by A. Yavorka contains new information about his biography, the reaction of the Crimean elite to the invasion by the Russian army, the position of the Christian subjects of the Khan in wartime, the representatives of the Giray’s family, and the economy of the Crimean Khanate. Verification of the data in comparison with evidence from other sources suggests a high degree of reliability regarding the document under study. At the same time, the information of A. Yavorka about the structure of the nobility of the Crimean Khanate is not quite accurate, which is explained by the rather superficial acquaintance of the diplomat with this segment of public life in his host country.

167–184

Authors: Atygayev N.A., Hanayi O.

Research objectives: To discuss the most interesting (from the point of view of the authors) information about the Syr Darya River contained in historical and geographical literature from the fifteenth to nineteenth century. Research materials: This work is based primarily on the earlier works of Muslim historians and geographers. These are the famous texts of such authors of the Middle Ages as Hafiz-i Abru, Sharaf ad-Din Yazdi, Nizam ad-Din Shami, Zahir ad-Din Babur, Fazlallah ibn Ruzbihan Isfahani, Abu l-Gazi Khan, Mahmud ibn Wali, and others. The authors also used Russian archival documents, information provided by the Dutch researcher Nikolaas Witsen, cartographic materials, and works of scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Results and novelty of the research: Some new information about the Syr Darya River is introduced into scholarly circulation. The Syr Darya is one of the major (in length and water content) rivers of Central Asia. It flows through the territory of modern Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. However, the largest part of the river is located in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The Syr Darya is one of the most frequently mentioned hydronyms in the historical and geographical works of the late Middle Ages and the Modern Age. In many works, early or later, it is referred to as the Seykhun or Saykhun River, although other names of the river are also found in the sources. Some medieval scholars believed that the Syr Darya (Seykhun) was one of the rivers mentioned in the hadith of the prophet. The Syr Darya was a natural border between different regions of Central Asia. The river is often mentioned in Muslim sources in connection with the military and political events taking place in Central Asia. Sources also note the richness of the Syr Darya’s fauna, especially the diversity of its ichthyofauna. In general, historical materials show the importance of the Syr Darya in the history of the peoples of Central Asia.

200–205

Authors: Mustakimov I.A.

This article analyzes Dr. Márton Vér’s book dedicated to the study and publication of documentary sources related to the functioning of the postal service of the Mongol Empire. The pan-Eurasian network of couriers and postal stations, unprecedented in size and efficiency, became one of the most important imperial institutions of the Chinggisids. This book, published in the Berliner Turfantexte series, contains texts and English translations (with detailed commentary) of 63 ancient Uighur documents of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, 18 of which are published for the first time. Mostly preserved in the Berlin Turfan collection, these unique texts were discovered in the Turfan region and in the vicinity of Dunhuang. Comprising a range of administrative records and other documents with links to the postal system, they provide multiple snapshots of its operation at local and regional level. Their study allows us to consider the postal system from new positions, since previously, when covering the history of the postal system, researchers focused on narrative sources. Documentation related to the postal service in the Turfan region was published in both Turkic (Uyghur) and Mongolian languages. Large differences in the form of Uyghur and Mongol decrees and orders of the end of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, according to the fair remark of Dr. Vér, indicate the parallel existence of at least two clerical traditions here. Studying the language of Uyghur documents allowed the author of the work under review to clarify the meaning of some key terms related to the postal service. The book ends with indexes, a bibliography, a list of abbreviations, concordances of published documents, and a table of measures and weights from the Mongol period. It was suggested that it would be appropriate to publish facsimiles of documents along with the typed Uyghur text in the future. Some shortcomings of the selected transcription and some inconsistency in the chronological characteristics of Uyghur sources were pointed out too. However, the comments made do not affect the scholarly significance of the peer-reviewed work. The monograph will be of interest to specialists in the field of Turkology, Mongolian studies, medieval history of Eurasia, and especially to those investigating the history of the Mongol Empire. In particular, the conclusions and advances of the Hungarian scholar will be useful in analyzing Turkic documentary sources of the Golden Horde and post-Golden Horde times.