Kazan Khanate summary. Section VI. Kazan Khanate

KAZAN KHANISTRY, a feudal state in the Middle Volga and Kama regions (1438–1552), separated from the Golden Horde. It was formed on the territory of the Volga Bulgaria from the territories of the Bulgarian, Dzhuketau, Kazan and other principalities. Founder - Ulug-Muhammad. The capital of the Khanate is Kazan. There were over 700 settlements on the territory of the Kazan Khanate. Large cities: Alat, Archa, Kashan, Bolgar, Iski-Kazan, Laesh, Tetyushi, Challi - were the centers of the darug, economic, religious and cultural life of the population. They were led by emirs.

The Kazan Khanate was divided into darugs, which included dependent regions. Initially, there were 4 darugs: Alat, Arskaya, Galician, Zureiskaya and Nogai. Darugs were ruled by karachibeks or noble emirs, beks. Darugs were divided into uluses, which corresponded to territorial communities - jiens. At the head of the uluses were ulus, hundreds of emirs (khakims), murzas, foremen, and so on, who collected taxes, judiciary, recruited military militia and commanded them.

The supreme power belonged to the khans from the Jochi clan: until 1518, the khans were the descendants of Ulug-Muhammad, later - from the Kichi-Muhammad dynasty, in 1518-1552 (with interruptions) - from the Girey dynasty, in 1521-1551 (with interruptions) - Shiban, in 1552 - Ahmad. Khans could only be Chingizids who professed Islam. Formally, the khans were sovereign monarchs, their names were pronounced during the khutba prayer in mosques, they sealed all laws with their seal, and performed other state functions. In fact, power belonged to the divan, which consisted of representatives of the highest Tatar nobility; The decisive role was played by the Karachibeks from the ruling clans Shirin, Argyn, Baryn and Kipchak. The highest administrative and military power was exercised by the ulug karachibek, who was most often appointed from the representatives of the Shirin clan (Bulat Shirin, his son Nur-Ali).

The social organization of the nobility had a hierarchical system associated with the rights to land ownership (or the collection of a certain tax), for which their holders were obliged to serve their overlord. Possession was divided into conditional (suyurgal) and unconditional or partially unconditional (tarkhan) exemption from all or part of taxes and duties. The highest layer of the nobility was made up of the descendants of Jochi - oglans, sultans, beks, karachibeks and emirs, murzas, a layer of chivalry (chura) - bakhadurs (batyrs) and Cossacks. The most important matters in the state (the enthronement of khans, their deposition, declaration of war, conclusion of peace) were decided at meetings of the nobility - kurultais.

The main population consisted of a taxable class (kara halyk), who paid taxes to the khan or feudal lord. The main tax was yasak (yasak-kalan). In addition, land and income taxes and duties were levied), various duties were imposed: the supply of provisions to the troops, authorities, yamskaya and others. There were also a number of taxes on Muslims in favor of the clergy (gosher, zakat), tributes and jizya taxes paid by the dependent non-Muslim population. The number of taxes and duties reached 16; officials of more than 10 categories were in charge of their collection. The population of the regions dependent on the Kazan Khanate also paid duties, yasak in favor of the khan and individual feudal lords and performed various duties.

The army consisted of militias of various darugs and cities, personal detachments of the khan and the nobility, as well as troops of allies (30-50 thousand people). The backbone of the army was the nobility, which made up the cadres of military leaders and professional soldiers, mainly heavily armed cavalrymen (5-10 thousand people). The infantry played a supporting role in the battle. In field battles and in the defense of fortifications, firearms were used. During operations on the rivers, the combat and transport fleet was used. Operational and tactical military art was developed, maneuvers and envelopment of the enemy, active defense, alternating strikes of archers and heavy cavalry were used to break through the ranks of the enemy and his encirclement in a field battle. The Kazan khans made a number of major campaigns against neighboring lands, including the Russians (1445, 1448, 1505, 1521, 1523, 1536.

The main occupations of the population are agriculture (based on the three-field system and the steppe fallow), cattle breeding, beekeeping, and fishing. Craft industries developed in the cities - iron, weapons, pottery, jewelry, leather, woodworking and others. An important branch of the economy was trade, both local - with the Upper Kama region and the Southern Urals, and international - with Russia, the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus. The most important export items are furs, leather goods, honey, bread; imports - luxury goods, expensive weapons, fabrics, spices, livestock and more. The most famous fairs are Tashayak, on Gostiny Island, Arsk Field.

Construction and architecture reached a high level, as well as the skill of carvers who made tombstones with floral ornaments. We know about some monumental buildings - Dairov Bath, Kul Sharif Mosque, Otuchev Mosque, Nur-Ali Mosque - from written sources (Russian chronicles, A.M. Kurbsky's book "The Story of the Grand Duke of Moscow") and from archaeological excavations on the territory of the Kazan Kremlin. Archaeological excavations have found fragments of decorative decoration of buildings (carved alabaster slabs with arabesque patterns, details of architectural decorations made of carved stone), ceramic products (khums, jugs, bowls, plates with cut ornaments and underglaze painting), the remains of leather shoes.

Turkic-speaking (Tatars, Nogai, ancestors of modern Chuvash and Bashkirs) and Finno-Ugric (ancestors of modern Mari, Udmurts, Mordovians) peoples lived on the lands of the Kazan Khanate. The nobility was called Tatars, and the main population most often defined itself on a religious basis - Muslims. The most common (colloquial and official) language was Turkic (in the form of the Volga Turki), in which office work was carried out, diplomatic correspondence was conducted

The state religion in the Kazan Khanate was Islam (Hanafi madhhab). The clergy owned vast lands - waqfs. The head of the clergy was the seyid. The most famous seyyids are: Barash (1491-1507), Sheikh-Hussein (1512-1516), Beyurgan-seid (1546), Mansur (1546) and Kul Sharif (1552). All of them enjoyed great honor and respect, took part in the government and diplomatic negotiations of the Kazan khans. Sheikhs, qazis, mullahs, imams, hafiz carried out worship, as well as legal proceedings in civil cases throughout the country.

The clergy also had mektebs and madrasahs. Data have been preserved on the existence in Kazan at the Cathedral Mosque of a large madrasah and a library, which in 1552 was led by Kul Sharif. Many madrasahs had handwritten libraries, book scribes worked. The literacy and level of culture of the people are evidenced by inscriptions on preserved household items, tombstones. Tatar literature developed: Muhammadyar’s poems “The Gift of Husbands” (“Tөkhfәi mәrdan”) and “The Light of Hearts” (“Nury sodur”), the work of Sharifi Khajitarkhani (Kul Sharif?) “Message about the victory of Kazan” (“Zafar-name-i vilayet-i Kazan"), individual poems by the poets Kul Sharif, Muhammad-Amin, Garif-bek and others. There was a historiography that has come down to us in separate genealogies and in the folklore tradition (“Collection of Chronicles”, “Daftar-i Chingiz-name”).

The Kazan Khanate pursued an active foreign policy. After strengthening the internal situation, Ulug-Muhammad undertook a series of campaigns against the Moscow principality (1439, 1444). In 1445, his sons Mahmud and Yakub defeated the troops of Moscow Prince Vasily II in the battle near Suzdal, who was taken prisoner. He was forced to agree to an agreement, undertook to give a large ransom and pay an annual tribute. From about the same time, the name of Ulug-Muhammad was not mentioned in the sources. In 1445, his son Mahmud expelled the brothers Yakub and Kasim from Kazan and ruled until 1467. During his reign, peaceful relations were established with the Russian state and the administrative and political structure of the Kazan Khanate took shape. After the death of Mahmud in 1467, his eldest son Khalil became khan, in the same year Ibrahim took the throne, but a conspiracy was organized against him by the nobility, and the Meshchera specific prince Kasim was invited to the throne. With the support of Prince Ivan III of Moscow, Kasim undertook a campaign against Kazan in 1467, but was defeated. The Moscow-Kazan war (1467–1469 ended with the conclusion of peace, an exchange of prisoners took place. In the 1470s internal position The Kazan Khanate strengthened, it began to expand its possessions in the Upper Kama region and the Vyatka region (1478 campaign against the city of Khlynov). The retaliatory attacks of the Russian troops and ushkuiniki were repulsed in the same year.

After the death of Ibrahim (1479), internecine struggle began in the Kazan Khanate. Khan Ilgam (1479-1487), expelled the pretender to the throne, Sultan Muhammad-Amin. The latter, having enlisted the support of Moscow, started a war against Ilgam (campaign of 1482). In 1484-1485, Muhammad-Amin occupied Kazan, but was soon overthrown. In response, a campaign of Russian troops against Kazan was organized (1487), which ended with its capture after a long siege and the deposition of the khan. During the reign of Khan Muhammad-Amin (1487-1495), the Kazan Khanate was under the Moscow protectorate and pursued a common foreign policy with Moscow, in particular, fought against the Great Horde (1493). Muhammad-Amin limited the power of the divan, which caused an explosion of discontent among the nobility in 1495. He was expelled from the throne. Karachibeks Kul-Muhammad, Urak, Sadyr and Agish enthroned the Siberian prince Mamuk from the Shiban clan. But his reign did not satisfy the Karachibeks either, in 1496 the younger brother of Muhammad-Amin Abdul-Latif, who lived in Rus', was placed on the khan's throne. He also tried to limit the political influence of the nobility (in 1499 he suppressed a rebellion led by Karachibek Urak), which led to a conflict with the aristocrats. In 1502, Ulug Karachibek Kul-Muhammad deposed Abdul-Latif and, with the help of Russian ambassadors, achieved the return of Khan Muhammad-Amin to Kazan (1502). He managed to undermine the political (execution in 1502 Kul-Muhammad) and economic (changes in the system of land tenure) influence of the big nobility and strengthen the supreme power.

In 1505-1507, Muhammad-Amin inflicted two serious defeats on the Moscow troops near Kazan, concluded a number of peace agreements with Moscow (1507, 1508, 1512, 1516), restored equal and good neighborly relations between the Kazan Khanate and the Russian state. After the death of Muhammad-Amin (December 1518), in 1519, the divan, headed by Ulug Karachibek Bulat Shirin, elevated the Kasimov Khan Shah-Ali to the Kazan throne, promising to preserve the privileges of the nobility. However, the growing influence of Russian advisers in the khanate and attempts to limit the power of the Karachibeks caused a new conspiracy of the nobility and the expulsion of the khan.

In 1521, with the support of his mother, Queen Nur-Sultan, the Crimean Sultan Sahib Giray was elevated to the Kazan throne. The new khan, relying on an alliance with the Crimea, began active military operations against the Russian state: he made a victorious campaign against Moscow (1521) and forced her to pay tribute to the Kazan Khanate. In 1523, Sahib-Girey again started a war with Moscow and Astrakhan, but after the death of the Crimean Khan, he suddenly decided to return to the Crimea, placing his nephew Safa-Girey on the throne in 1524. With the support of the nobility (Bulat Shirin, emir Atuch (Otuch), atalik Talysh and others), in 1524 he organized a rebuff to the Russian army, in 1526–1528 he made peace with Moscow. In 1530, the Russian government broke the peace treaty and launched a campaign against Kazan. However, Kazanians, with the help of Nogai and Astrakhan troops, defeated the Russian regiments. The new strengthening of the Khan's power led to a revolt of the nobility, relying on the support of Moscow. In 1531 Safa Giray was expelled, his supporters were executed.

A pro-Moscow divan headed by khanbike Gauharshad, Bulat Shirin and Murza Kichi-Ali in 1531 invited the Kasimov Khan Jan-Ali to the Kazan throne, who, with the consent of the Moscow government, married Syuyumbika, the daughter of the Nogai Murza Yusuf. After the death of the Moscow prince Vasily III (1533), Moscow's influence sharply weakened, which caused a revolt of the nobility against the policy of the khan and his entourage. Bulat Shirin and Gauharshad overthrew Jan-Ali in 1535, Safa-Girey was again elevated to the throne, who, after the death of Jan-Ali, took Syuyumbike as his wife. Taking advantage of the internecine struggle in Moscow, Safa Giray organized a successful campaign against Rus' (1536-1537). As his power increased, the dissatisfaction of the aristocracy increased, which negotiated with Moscow to change the ruler in the khanate (1541 and 1545). In response to this, Safa-Giray executed some of the noble Kazanians, thereby opposing himself to the Kazan nobility; was overthrown as a result of a new conspiracy (led by Chura Narykov, Seyyid Beyurgan and Bek Kadysh). The Kazan uprising broke out in 1545-1546, the conspirators again invited Khan Shah Ali to the throne. Meanwhile, Safa-Girey fled to the Nogai biy Yusuf, having received an army from him, returned to Kazan and overthrew Khan Shah-Ali. The reign of Safa Giray (1546-1549) began with the execution of his opponents - Chura Narykov, Kadysh - and the coming to power of the Crimean and Nogai beks. After the death of Safa-Girey (March 1549), power passed to Utyamysh-Girey, his young son from Syuyumbike. She became regent under her son and relied on the support of the Crimean guards, led by the oglan Koshchak.

Taking advantage of the split among the Kazan nobility and the weakening of the Khan's power, the Moscow government began the Kazan campaigns of 1545-1552. After the unsuccessful direct military campaigns of Ivan IV against Kazan in 1551, at the mouth of the Sviyaga River, on the outskirts of the city, the fortress of Sviyazhsk was erected, which contributed to the transition to the side of the king of the population of the Mountain side, dissatisfied with the dominance of the Crimeans. The Syuyumbike government was isolated. She and her son tried to escape to the Nogai Horde, but were captured. Koshchak and his people were executed, Syuyumbike and Utyamysh-Girey were sent to Moscow. In 1551, with the support of the Kazan aristocracy: Oglan-Khudai-Kul, Karachibek Nur-Ali, Kul Sharif, Emir Baibars (son of Rasta) - Shah-Ali again ascended the throne. The Khan's decision to transfer the Mountainous Side to the Russian state caused discontent among the nobility. The Great Kurultai (September 14 (24), 1551) demanded that the Khan return it. Shah Ali did not want to fulfill this requirement and, with the support of the Russian garrison, began repressions against the nobility (the sons of Emir Rasta and 70 more beks were killed). After the deposition of Shah-Ali in 1552, the citizens of Kazan chose the embassy to take the oath to Tsar Ivan IV. This caused sharp dissatisfaction with part of the aristocracy and the population of the Kazan Khanate, which was used by the beks Islam Bey, Kebek and Alikey (sons of Naryk), who raised an uprising against the Russians. The Kazanians destroyed the garrison and started a war with Russia, inviting the Astrakhan sultan Yadygar-Muhammad (1552) to the throne. In 1552, a large campaign of Russian troops against Kazan was equipped. During the 49-day siege, the city was taken by storm (October 2 (13), 1552, the Kazan Khan was captured and taken to Moscow. However, the population of the Kazan Khanate did not accept the loss of their statehood and launched stubborn resistance to the invaders (Kazan War of 1552-1556 ) By 1557, the last centers of resistance were suppressed, the Kazan Khanate finally ceased to exist, and its territory became part of the Russian state and was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Order of the Kazan Palace. 1572-1573, 1581-1584) tried to restore their state.

Kazan Khanate(1438-1552) - a large feudal state with its capital in Kazan on the territory of the Volga-Kama Bulgar, from the Volga to Vyatka and from the Oka to the Kama, formed as a result of the collapse of the Golden Horde.

A large state association of the Golden Horde by the end of the 14th - in the first half of the 15th century. broke up into a number of separate states - the Nogai Horde, Crimean, Astrakhan, Kazan, Siberian and other khanates.

The ethnic composition of the Kazan Khanate was typical for the middle steppe of the Volga region - Kazan Tatars proper (descendants of the Volga Bulgars), Udmurts, Chuvashs, Maris, Bashkirs, Mordvins, etc.

The founder of the Kazan Khanate in 1438 is Ulu Muhammad Khan (a descendant of Jochi and Tokhtamysh), who overthrew his predecessor.

The khan possessed the highest state power, but his activity was limited to the "sofa" (council of large feudal lords). The ruling elite of the Kazan Khanate consisted of representatives of four feudal noble families - Shirin, Bargyn, Argyn and Kypchak. They were followed hierarchically by emirs, sultans and murzas.

The population of the Kazan Khanate was divided into "kara halyuk" (black people) - free peasants who paid yasyk (taxes) to feudal lords, "kul" - feudally dependent peasants, "chura" - prisoners of war and slaves.

The khan's army reached up to 60 thousand regular troops - the khan's guard, detachments of feudal lords and peasant militia.

In the second half of the 15th c. the strengthened Moscow principality begins an active struggle with the Kazan Khanate. In 1487, as a result of the campaign of Russian troops against Kazan, Ali Khan was overthrown, and his brother, Mohammed Emin, a protege of Moscow Prince Ivan III, was placed on the throne. Thus, the Kazan Khanate was placed in vassal dependence on the Moscow principality.

The Russian protectorate over the Kazan Khanate lasted until 1521, until representatives of the Girey dynasty of Crimean khans seized power in the Khanate as a result of a coup. After the death of Mohammed Emin (1518), his successor, the prince of the Moscow vassal of the Kasimov Khanate (on the territory of modern Ryazan region) Shah-Ali, in 1521, the brother of the Crimean Khan, Sahib Giray, overthrew. From this moment, a new milestone of the Kazan Khanate begins in a tough confrontation with the Grand Duchy of Moscow (the young Russian kingdom), until its conquest by Ivan IV the Terrible.

Immediately after the seizure of power, Sahib Giray entered into an alliance with the Crimean, Astrakhan khanates and the Nogai Horde, which relied on Turkey. In the same year, the Kazan and Crimean Tatars raided, devastating the outskirts of Moscow. In 1524, Safa Giray became Khan of Kazan, who officially recognized Kazan as a vassal of the Turkish sultan.

The Moscow government had a vital need to secure its existence in connection with the growing influence of Turkey and its vassals - the Crimean (in the south) and Kazan (in the east) khanates. In 1523, the fortified fortress of Vasilsursk was erected to defend against Tatar raids ( Nizhny Novgorod Region), and in 1551 - the Sviyazhsk fortress (the place where the Sviyaga River flows into the Volga) under the leadership of the Russian engineer Ivan Vyrodkov. They became strongholds in the fight against the Kazan Khanate. The military phase of the conquest of Kazan by the Moscow Principality was preceded by a long diplomatic preparation - Ivan IV the Terrible managed to split the ranks of the Muslim coalition of opposing ruling groups in the Tatar camp and win the Nogai Mirza Ismail to his side.

In 1552, having gathered a huge army (about 150 thousand), Ivan IV personally led the campaign against Kazan. Having advanced with an army to Tula after the call of the Turkish Sultan Suleiman II the Magnificent to help his Kazan ally, the Crimean Khan Davlet-Girey did not dare to openly clash with the main forces of the Russian troops and turned back.

In August of the same year, Ivan IV began the siege of Kazan. The siege was well planned. Under the leadership of I. Vyrodkov, complex siege structures were built; under the well-fortified walls of Kazan, earthen digs were brought and gunpowder was laid; advanced artillery was involved. The general assault on Kazan began on October 2, 1552 with the explosion of part of the city walls. Russian troops broke in and captured the city. Kazan fell, and the Kazan Khanate ceased to exist. The entire middle Volga region was annexed to the Russian kingdom.

In honor of the conquest of the Kazan Khanate in 1551-1556 in Moscow on Red Square, the Church of the Intercession was erected Holy Mother of God, known as St. Basil's Cathedral.

Kazan Khanate

The Kazan Khanate separated in 1438 from the Golden Horde on the territory of the former Volga-Kama Bulgaria, from Vyatka to the Volga, from the Oka to the Kama and the mouth of the Belaya. The supreme state power belonged to the khan. The founder of the dynasty of Kazan khans was Ulu Mohammed (ruled 1438-1445).

On South the lands of the Kazan Khanate reached the present city of Volgograd (on the right bank of the Volga).
In the north the border of the khanate went along the Pizhma River (from its mouth to the mouth of the Voya River), then along the Vyatka River, including the entire area of ​​the Kelmezi River and most of the Cheptsa River basin, as well as the upper reaches of the Kama River, not reaching a little .Kaya.
in the east The Kazan Khanate bordered on the Nogai Horde so that the latter included almost all of Bashkiria (within its modern borders - see below). History of Ufa;).
In the West the extreme point of the Kazan Khanate was the city of Vasilsursk and the border with the Russian state ran along the western bank of the Sura and Volga rivers.

Population The Kazan Khanate was made up of Kazan Bulgars and Chuvashs, who occupied the territory between the Volga and Kama rivers even before its conquest in the 13th century. Tatar-Mongols, as well as Finno-Ugric peoples: Mari, Udmurts, Mordovians. The main population in connection with the establishment of the Tatar dynasty of Khans of the Golden Horde on the Khan's throne gradually acquires the name "Tatars".
The bulk of the population consisted of free and dependent peasants who paid yasak and other taxes: land (er-hablyasy), lifting, or household (tyutyun-saki), rural (sala-kharaji) taxes, customs duties (kulush kultyka, badj) , food for passing officials (susun) and fodder for horses (gulufe). The main occupation of the population was agriculture. Handicrafts were developed in the cities. A significant role was played by trade with the Russian state, Siberia, the countries of the Caucasus and the East.

Formation of the Kazan Khanate

The formation of the Kazan Khanate was the result of those processes of weakening the Golden Horde that followed at the end of the 14th century. after strong military and foreign policy pressure on the Horde, first its western neighbor - the Muscovite state (Battle of Kulikovo, 1380), and then in 1389-1395. and eastern - the powers of Tamerlane, who completely defeated the Golden Horde and ruined its capital, Saray-Berke.
The military defeat was aggravated by the development of deep contradictions in the Horde at the turn of the XIV-XV centuries, expressed in a fierce struggle for power between Tokhtamysh, on the one hand, and Timur-Kutlu, Khan of the Trans-Volga Horde, supported by the Siberian Khan Shadibek, on the other. After the death of Tokhtamysh (1406x), the struggle between the heirs of these two dynastic branches sharply escalated.
At first, the sons of Tokhtamysh came to the throne of the Golden Horde, but they all ruled for a very short time. The most notable of them was Dzhelal-eddin, who ruled for the 2nd time since 1411 (the 1st time in 1407), when he made a coup, overthrowing his rival, the son of Khan Timur-Kutlu, with the help of the Lithuanian prince Vitovt.
Dzhelal-eddin managed to restore the dominance of the Tatars over Russia and force Vasily I Dmitrievich c 1412 again pay tribute to the Golden Horde. The son of Dzhelal-eddin, Ulu-Muhammed, who ascended the throne (for the 5th time) in 1428, also supported the sovereignty of the Horde in Russia, but in 1437 Kichi-Muhammed, the grandson of Tokhtamysh's rival, Khan Timur-Kutlu, was elevated to khanate . Thus, the throne of the Golden Horde has since been finally closed to the descendants of Tokhtamysh.
However, Ulu-Mohammed managed to negotiate with the new Khan of the Golden Horde on the allocation of a peripheral western ulus - the Crimean lands, to which he retired, thereby becoming the founder of the new Crimean Khanate. True, his stay in this new capacity in Crimea was extremely short-lived, since he immediately did not get along with the local feudal elite - the pro-Turkish Crimean Murzas, and therefore was expelled from Crimea in 1437.
Having left from there, however, not empty-handed, but at the head of a 3,000-strong army, Ulu-Mohammed invaded the Russian state, occupying the city of Belev in Zaokskaya Muscovy, trying to settle with his people on the sparsely populated lands between the actual Moscow and Crimean possessions. On December 5, 1437, the Khan utterly defeated the army sent by the Grand Duke of Moscow, who was instructed to expel Ulu-Mohammed from the borders of the Moscow state, in the so-called. Belevskoy battle and thus demonstrated both his military strength and outstanding military leadership.
Moving further east along the outskirts of the Moscow lands, Ulu-Muhammed, having passed the headwaters of the rivers Don, Voronezh, Tsna, Khopra, went to the Sura and then to the Volga in the region south of Kazan, deciding to tear away those possessions of the Golden Horde located along the Middle Volga, in Zasurye , which bordered on the Moscow Grand Duchy.
Ulu-Mohammed made Kazan, which arose in the middle of the 13th century, his capital. (c. 1261, according to other sources, almost 100 years earlier), and by that time it had become a significant trading center of the Volga region, despite the fact that the city was subjected to frequent devastation, including by Russian detachments (1399). V.V. Pokhlebkin points out that Ulu-Mukhammed moved Kazan to a new place on the Kazanka River, 5 km from its mouth, however, other researchers believe that a city already existed in the new place, the center of a small inheritance (for details, see the section below "Kazan").

Thus, in 1437-1438. a new Tatar khanate emerged from the Golden Horde, which received the name of Kazan. Since then, the Lower Volga part of the former Golden Horde began to be called the Sarai Horde (in contrast to the Great Horde, which claimed the political heritage of the Golden Horde) and increasingly lost its significance until it dissolved into the new Tatar state - the Astrakhan Khanate (1480).

32. Collectivization of agriculture in the TASSR and its consequences

By 1933, 25 percent of peasant farms in the republic were subject to amalgamation. However, the practice of collectivization turned out to be completely different from the initial ideas about it. She became solid and violent. The restructuring of the agrarian sector itself was objectively necessary.
On the eve of complete collectivization. Preparing for the Great Break. The basis of the agrarian sector of the country's economy was made up of small peasant farms, which had a semi-subsistence nature. They had limited opportunities to ensure a steady supply of raw materials for the developing industry, and food for the growing urban population.

At the very end of the 20s. in the republic there were about half a million peasant farms, including 110 thousand poor peasants, more than 370 thousand middle peasants and about 20 thousand, in the terminology of that time, kulak. Almost one fifth of these households did not have horses. In addition, there were 459 collective farms in the agricultural sector. They united only 2.5 percent of peasant farms and sowed only one percent of the sown area. Among the rural population of the republic, the specific Tatars were about 49 percent, Russians - more than 43, Chuvash - about 5, Mordovians - 1.4 percent, Udmurts - about one percent, Mari - 1.5 percent. The peasants, for a number of reasons, were in no hurry to join the collective farms.
At the turn of 1927-1928. a grain procurement crisis broke out in the country. Due to low purchase prices, the peasants began to hold onto their grain, and the following year, the pastures took the path of using emergency measures, forcibly seizing grain.

At the beginning of 1928, a strict grain procurement plan was launched in all the republics and regions. In the case of a geaz, a peasant was brought to court to hand over bread for virtually nothing. A quarter of the confiscated bread was received by the poor. In January-February, 533 people were convicted for abotage in Tatarstan. Extraordinary measures managed to ensure the implementation of the plan 112 percent.

At the beginning of January 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction”, and at the end of the same month another one “On measures for likkulak farms in areas of continuous colonization”. A course is being taken to "eliminate the kulach as a class." The confiscation of property from the kulaks and their eviction from the areas of all-round collectivization was allowed.
In January 1930 alone, more than 500 new collective farms were organized in the republic (by December 1, 1929, about 18 percent of peasant farms were collectivized in Tatarstan). In February, the plenum of the regional party committee gives instructions to unite 80 percent of farms into collective farms by spring, and all 100 percent in autumn. In the middle of the same month, the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Tatar ASSR adopted a resolution "On the liquidation of the kulaks as a class in Tataria" (the document repeated the provisions of the Central Committee resolution).

The number of collective farms grew gradually, the peasants were gradually drawn into a new rut. 1932-1933 were fruitful, and the concern for a piece of bread faded into the background. Peasant household plots were a great help. In the summer of 1933, the republic challenged the Eden-Volga Territory, the Dnepropetrovsk and Odessa regions of Ukraine to the competition.

Agriculture had to overcome the consequences of the "great turning point" for many years. One of the most negative consequences of the creation in the countryside of a rigidly regulated economy from above was the collapse of moral principles, the loss of a sense of the owner of the land. At the same time, the level of mechanization of agricultural labor increased, from the mid-30s. the ghost of hunger has ceased to hover over the village. Gradually, the conditions for the existence of the peasantry became more or less tolerable.

Similar information.

The question of when and by whom the Kazan Khanate was founded, for many years caused controversy among scientists. Russian historians of the past centuries, among them such well-known ones as A. Lyzlov, P. I. Rynkov, N. M. Karamzin, wrote that the Kazan Khanate was formed in 1437 by its khan Ulu-Mukhammed, expelled from the Golden Horde. At the same time, they were based on the messages of the Kazan History, a work of the 16th century written by a Russian priest who lived in captivity for 20 years in Kazan and was released in 1552 after the city was conquered by the troops of Ivan the Terrible. So, this author, who, when covering the early history of Kazan, used only oral, not very reliable information, wrote the following: Ulu-Muhammed, expelled from the Horde by his brother Kichi-Muhammed in 1437, went to Kazan, but found it empty after its capture by Russian troops back in 1392, he built the city in a new place and thereby laid the foundation for the formation new Horde- Kazan.

Even in such a small message, there are clearly several annoying mistakes: Kichi-Muhammed was never the brother of Ulu-Muhammed, they came from two branches of the Jochidrv dynasty. Ulu-Muhammed could not have gone to Kazan in 1437, because he was the Khan of the Golden Horde in 1438, which we saw above from the messages of Josifat Barbaro, who visited the Tatar lands at that time; according to chronicles, Kazan did not cease to exist after the events of the 1390s (then the Russian troops took Bulgar, Zhukotin, Kermenchuk and Kazan and, having received a large trophy and many captives, returned home). Archaeological research also indicates that Kazan continued to exist in the same place after the above events. Unfortunately, the mistakes of the author of "Kazan History" were repeated, in addition to the historians listed above, and other scientists. This point of view still exists to some extent.

However, in the middle of the last century, the largest researcher-orientalist, academician V.V. Velyaminov-Zernov, after carefully analyzing the entire set of historical sources that reported on historical events of the 30s and 40s of the 15th century, came to a different conclusion. He proved that Ulu-Muhammed, after leaving the center of the Golden Horde to the north with his army, stopped and lived not in Kazan, but in the old part of Nizhny Novgorod; The Kazan Khanate was founded by his eldest son Mahmutek in 1445.

However, everything is in order. The last Golden Horde Khan Ulu-Muhammed with his family and the remaining army in 1438 came to Belev, a small Russian town on the Oka - these lands were part of the Golden Horde. Here he thought to spend the winter, but the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily II wanted to get the khan out of there and sent a large army against him, which, however, was defeated by the Tatars. A year later, Ulu-Mohammed appeared under the walls of Moscow and, after standing there for 10 days, retreated. In the winter of 1445, he went to Murom, but could not take it and left. In the spring of the same year, the khan sent his army against the Grand Duke under the leadership of two sons - Makhmutek and Yakub. Vasily II went to meet them again with a large army, but was captured in the battle near Suzdal, and the princes took him to his father in Nizhny.

It should be said that even after the Battle of Belev, Ulu-Muhammed came to Nizhny Novgorod and settled there. Russian chronicles clearly testify to this: “From Belev, the tsar went to Novgorod to Nizhny Novgorod and set up Nizhnyaya Staraya Novgorod”; “from Novgorod from Nizhny from Stary go to Murom”; "Run back to the Lower Old, you live in it." As can be seen from these reports, Ulu-Muhammed did not live in Nizhny Novgorod itself, but in the old city. There is an opinion that before the foundation of the Russian city in 1221, there used to be a Bulgarian town there. It is likely that the former Golden Horde Khan used this former Muslim settlement as a temporary residence.

At the end of August 1445, Ulu-Muhammed and his sons moved from Nizhny Novgorod to Kurmysh, a small town in modern western Chuvashia. ("kurmish" translated from Tatar means strengthening). There, Vasily II received freedom from the khan and his eldest son Mahmutek. This is what the sources say. However, other princes could also play a role in this political act, for Vasily the Dark later appreciated their participation in his release from captivity and thanked them.

The name of Ulu-Muhammed is no longer mentioned in the sources after October of the same year. His sudden disappearance is to some extent reflected in the Kazan History report that Makhmutek killed his father and younger brother Yakub (or rather, Yusuf). Whether the khan was killed or he died a natural death remains a mystery, because there are no reports of this in other sources. But one thing is clear, that he left the historical arena, giving way to his eldest son.

There is a series of historical sources that briefly and clearly testify that Makhmutek actually killed the Kazan prince, took possession of the city and became the first khan (according to Russian chronicles, “king”) in Kazan. Let's leave the word to the sources themselves. Resurrection chronicle: « toesame autumn(1445. - R.F.), Tsar Mamotyak, Ulu-Magmet's son, took the city of Kazan, killed the patriarch of the Kazan prince Libei, and he himself sat down to reign in Kazan ”; Nikon chronicle: “And Tsar Mamutyak, having come from Kurmysh, took Kazan, and killed the Kazan prince Azy, and he himself reigned in Kazan, and from there began the kingdom of Kazan”; Genealogical book (Russian source, which also includes the "Genealogy of the Tatar kings"): "Ulu-Makhmet has a son Mamotyak, then the first king in Kazan." The Collection of Chronicles, compiled in the Tatar language in the city of Kasimov in 1602-1605, is largely consonant with these sources: "Ulug-Mukhamed Khan's son Mahmutek came to the country of Kazan."

These are the sources that clearly indicate that the first khan, the initial ruler of the Kazan Khanate, was Makhmutek, and no one else. Undoubtedly, Kazan had its own ruler before him, but he was not a khan, but only a prince, that is, the head of the Kazan principality, with the center first in Old Kazan, and later in New Kazan.

After the seizure of power by Mahmutek, i.e. Jochid, practically the new Khan of the Horde, the status of the Kazan Principality also changed. It ceased to be only a principality with local government, but became a separate state headed by a khan. It was during this period, that is, in the 30-40s of the XV century, that other Tatar khanates arose, formed after the final collapse of the Golden Horde.

It is quite natural that the next question arises: what about Ulu-Muhammed, whom a number of historians considered the first Khan of Kazan? As already noted, this misunderstanding is mainly due to the mistakes of the compiler of the Kazan History, which gradually became simply a tradition. However, it is of course impossible to cross out the name of Ulu-Muhammed from the history of the Kazan Khanate: it is with his arrival in the Middle Volga region that the historical events that predetermined the formation of a new Tatar state - the Kazan Khanate are connected. In addition, he is the ancestor of the dynasty of Kazan khans, which turned out to be the most stable, and it was she who ruled the state during the period of his power.

Finally, in connection with the events described above, it is necessary to draw the attention of students to one significant and fundamental issue. In the same "Kazan History" it is reported that 3,000 soldiers then came with Ulu-Muhammed. This is clearly an underestimated number. The army of the Golden Horde Khan, even during the period of the collapse of the state, when many military leaders and part of the army left him, could not have been such a meager number. And the events that took place then, known to us, indicate that Ulu-Mohammed still had considerable forces at his disposal. His army defeated the 40,000th army of Vasily II, and with a detachment of 3,000 soldiers, it was simply impossible to do this; it was also impossible to besiege Moscow with this army for 10 days just a year later, and in 1445 to defeat the Moscow army again and capture the Grand Duke himself. Considering all this, there is reason to say that the army of Ulu-Mohammed consisted of an incomparably larger number of soldiers than indicated in the Kazan History. If he defeated the Russian army of 40,000 soldiers, then it can be assumed that the khan's army was hardly smaller. Thus, the total number of the Tatar population of the Ulu-Muhammedov horde could be called within at least 200 thousand. To calculate the composition of the population of a state or city, if the number of their soldiers is known, this number is multiplied by five, because the family of each warrior (old people, women, children, etc.) consisted of an average of five people. This is accepted in the historical and ethnographic science.

Consequently, along with Ulu-Muhammed, a substantial amount of the Tatar population came to the Middle Volga region, which played a big role in the final formation of the Kazan Tatars.

§ 39. Territory and population. The first period of the existence of the Khanate

The Kazan Khanate occupied a fairly large territory of the northern zone of the former Golden Horde. In the east, its limits reached the Ural Mountains and bordered on the Siberian Khanate. In the southeast and south, vast steppes occupied by the Nogai Horde stretched. There were no definite boundaries here, for the steppe was occupied from time to time by one side or another, or even completely empty. But some conditional line could be drawn in the area of ​​the Samara River. The southernmost limits of the Khanate along the vast banks of the Volga stretched down the river almost to the limits of Sary-Tau (Saratov). The clearest was western border- this is the Sura River, beyond which there were already lands that were subordinate to the Russian state. In the north, the possessions of the Kazan Khanate extended at the level of the middle reaches of the Vyatka and Kama and almost bordered on the taiga zone.

The territory of the Kazan Khanate briefly described above was its common territory, the territory of the state, occupied, except for the Tatars, by other peoples who were subordinate to Kazan. The entry into the Kazan Khanate of a number of Turkic-speaking and Finno-Ugric peoples is reported in the sources. So, for example, in the Russian chronicles, when describing the campaign of the Moscow army against Kazan in 1469, the following episode is given: a prisoner who had escaped from Kazan came to the camp of the Russian army stationed on the Volga, and reported that “the tsar of Kazan Obreim (Ibrahim) with all his land, with Kama and Syplinsky and Kostyattska and Belovologskaya and Votyatskaya and Bakshyrskaya. Kama and Belovologskaya are lands higher along the Kama and along the Belaya (Agidel); Researchers identify the Syplinsky land with the current Tsipyinsky land in the north of Tatarstan in the Shoshma river basin; by Kostyattska one must mean the lands in the northeast, occupied by the Ishtyaks - Turkified Ugrians; Votyaks used to be called Udmurts, therefore, the Votyak land is Udmurt. The chronicler called the Bashkir land somewhat distortedly "Bakshyr". But Andrei Kurbsky, a participant in the capture of Kazan in 1552, one of the governors in the army of Grozny, defined the ethnic composition of the Kazan Khanate more clearly and specifically, completely understandable to the modern reader without any special comments: “besides the Tatar language, in that kingdom there are 5 different languages: Mordovian , Chuvash, Cheremis, Voitetsky, Abo Arsky (Udmurt), fifth Bashkir". It is not difficult to understand that the peoples who spoke these languages ​​are named here.

The peoples listed above, thus, were part of the Kazan Khanate. All of them, living in this state, paid tribute to him. However, such an obligation also fell on the main, indigenous population of the khanate - the Kazan Tatars (we will talk about tribute and other forms of taxes separately).

The Tatars occupied the main, central lands of the khanate - this is mainly the Order, that is, a rather vast area north of the Kama between the Volga and Vyatka. A significant part of the Tatar population also lived on the Mountain side - on the right bank of the Volga and in the Sviyaga basin, in its middle and lower reaches. Less populated were then the lands east of Vyatka on the Yelabuga side and, of course, the steppe Zakamye - there the Tatar settlements were located in stripes only along the banks of the Kama, Cheremshan and some small rivers in the northwestern part of the Zakama lowland.

The territory of residence of the main population of the Kazan Khanate is determined by the mapping of the Tatar villages of the 15th-16th centuries. Information about them was collected by the Kazan historian E. I. Chernyshev on the basis of data from scribe books of the mid-16th and early 17th centuries. According to these data, 700 villages are known, most of which correspond to the location of modern Tatar villages with the same historical names that were recorded more than four centuries ago. So, the predominant number of these monuments, namely 500 points, falls on the share of Order, 150 - the Mountain side, the rest are related to the regions east of Vyatka and northern Zakamye. Information about the settlements of the scribe books is supplemented by the found archaeological monuments: settlements, settlements, places of various finds, burial grounds, but most of all epigraphic objects, i.e. cemeteries with tombstones.

The land of the Kazan Khanate, occupying an extremely convenient and advantageous place in the combination of two largest rivers Eastern Europe, the Volga and the Kama, were distinguished by their exceptional natural wealth and amazing beauty. The forest-steppe Middle Volga plain alternating with plateaus, and in some places even high-mountain plateaus, high-yielding fields and forests rich in game, villages immersed in greenery in river valleys - all this was very attractive, and it was not in vain that foreigners who visited this land admired its beauty and wealth.

The above-mentioned author of the Kazan History, although he made mistakes in covering the ancient history of Kazan due to his lack of proper sources, left quite valuable information about that period of Kazan, of which he himself was a contemporary. What he saw with his own eyes and later described in a book is undoubtedly of interest. Here is how he described the Kazan land: “The place is deliberate and red Velmy(beautiful and very decent) and livestock, and bees, and all kinds of earthly seeds are born, and vegetables are abundant, and bestial, and fish, and there are many lands, as if (what) it is not powerful to find another such place throughout the Russian land of our land, nowhere is such a place like a place of beauty and fortress and human pleasing, we don’t (unknown), if (if) there will be in foreign lands. And it was not in vain that the ideologist of the Russian nobility of the 16th century, Ivan Peresvetov, in his “petitions”, that is, requests to Ivan the Terrible, called the Kazan Khanate “a great land under the paradise”, urging him to conquer it as soon as possible.

Speaking about the main Tatar population of the Kazan Khanate, which occupied the central lands of this state described above, special attention should be paid to the following. In the first period of the existence of the khanate, i.e. in the second half of the 15th century, as the name of its people, along with the ethnonym "Tatars" ("ethnonym" - the word is Greek and means the self-name of this or that people), the words “Bulgars” and “Besermens” were used in parallel. Undoubtedly, the Volga Bulgars left a big mark in the ethno-cultural formation of the Kazan Tatars, although this word was already used at that time purely traditionally. In Russian chronicles, even by the end of the 14th century, the former Bulgar lands were already called Tatar.

"Besermeny" is a somewhat distorted, chronicle form of "Busurman", that is, the Russian transcription of "Muslims", because the Tatars were Muslims. There was also a third name - "Kazans", which was used by the author of the "Kazan History" known to us in relation to the Tatars; although he called them Tatars, he used the name more after the city of Kazan. This is not surprising, because in antiquity and the Middle Ages the population of a state was often called by the name of the capital of this state (for example, the Romans, Muscovites). It was Muscovites that Western European travelers of the 16th-17th centuries called Russians.

Despite the alternation of the listed terms, the main name, the ethnonym of the Tatar population of Kazan, and other neighboring khanates, was "Tatars". The word "Tatars" as the name of the population of these states is clearly recorded in Russian historical sources (chronicles, chronicles, scribe, bit and boundary books, other documents); in the notes of Western European travelers and diplomats (Josifat Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini, 15th century, Sigismund Herberstein, 16th century, Adam Olearius, 17th century); in the surviving shert letters, i.e. sworn letters of some Tatar khans, for example, Kazan, Abdul-Latif, and Crimean, Mengli-Giray; in individual works of oral folk art.

In fairness, it should be noted that in the existing Tatar historical narratives and other works of the Old Tatar literature, the word “Muslims” is often used when talking about the Tatars of the period of the Kazan Khanate and even subsequent times. Undoubtedly, this is not an ethnonym, but a kind of religious term used as a counterbalance to “kafirs” (“infidels”), that is, to non-believers, in this case, Orthodox Christians. Therefore, it is quite logical and understandable to replace "Tatar" with "Muslim" in the national literature that was created during the period of forced baptism of the Tatars, and it sounds like a legitimate protest against Christianization in defense of Islam - the Islamic religion and culture. Consequently, the word "Muslims" in the Tatar works of the 15th - 18th centuries is not an ethnic name, but is used as respect for Islam, the Islamic religion - the way of life, the way of thinking of the Tatars for several centuries.

Representatives of some other peoples also lived in the Kazan Khanate, mainly in its capital Kazan, for example, Armenians and other Caucasians in the so-called Armenian Sloboda, in the area of ​​​​the famous Cloth Sloboda. There were especially many Russians: merchants, various employees at the courts of Moscow ambassadors and governors, armed detachments to protect them. There were more of them during the Russian protectorate in various years of the first half of the 16th century.

Thus, despite the fact that the Kazan Khanate was a multinational state, its main population was the Tatars.

§ 40. Economic life. Economy, craft and trade

The main type of economic activity of the population of the Kazan Khanate was agriculture. A steam system was used, rye, oats, barley, wheat, spelt, millet, buckwheat, peas, and lentils were sown. Agricultural machinery was associated with the previous one, known since the Bulgar times. In the chernozem regions of the northern Zakamye, in the Sviyaga basin and in the southern strip of Ordering, a saban plow, convenient for deep plowing, was used with a characteristic plowshare, cutter and policemen and with a two-horse team. In more northern regions, on podzolic soils, a plow with two iron coulters and a one-horse team was used. Both plowshares and coulters were found during excavations of the Urmatsky and some other settlements in the basins of Kazayka and Mesha, the Challyn settlement on the right bank of the Kama.

Cattle breeding played an important role in economic life. The valleys of the Volga, Kama and their tributaries, the wide lowlands near Kazan were rich in vast flood meadows with lush grass, where large herds of animals grazed - horses, cows, small cattle. Horse breeding was of particular importance; the predominant part of the first-class horses went to replenish the khan's army.

In addition to swift-footed horses, other breeds of horses were also bred - saddle, leash, cart horses that carried heavy wagons, as well as riding horses, which were successfully used for regular pit (postal) service. Horse meat was considered among the Tatars as a favorite and very healthy food product. In addition to horse meat, cattle breeders supplied meat and other animals - lamb, veal and beef: fresh and ice cream, dried and smoked.

Vast, often uninhabited forest spaces provided great opportunities for the development of various crafts, among which fur logging was of great importance. In addition to "expensive coons (martens) and squirrels", as A. Kurbsky wrote, they hunted beavers. The sources speak of beaver ruts - places where beavers lived and made their holes in forest rivers; they were given special permission. In addition to the most valuable fur, the beaver also gave the so-called beaver stream.

In the forests there were special beehives - natural apiaries with bee trees, which had hollows for a bee swarm. There they got honey, which was used both in natural and processed form, and even exported to other countries. Fishing was also of great importance. Valuable varieties of fish were caught in the Volga and Kama, including sturgeons. S. Herberstein wrote about "the most excellent fish, which include the beluga, and which are caught on the Volga on this and on the other side of Kazan." During the excavations of the Kazan Kremlin, Iski-Kazan and the already mentioned Challyn settlement, bones of sturgeon fish and large fishhooks often come across.

advanced agriculture and natural resources The regions provided great opportunities for the development of various crafts, supplying them with raw materials. Agriculture provided spinning plants (hemp, flax), while cattle breeding and hunting provided wool and furs. The economy then was subsistence, and almost the entire rural population was engaged in spinning, weaving and leather crafts. All the main varieties of good leather were produced: yuft, colored morocco, dense and thick sole leather. Rawhide was also widely used - a durable and indispensable material in the saddlery industry for the manufacture of horse harness and military equipment. Sheepskins were produced from the skins of domestic animals, and the forest industry produced expensive fur, which was also a valuable export product.

Vast forests were a source of the richest material - wood for the construction of houses, defensive fortifications of cities (towers, gates, palisades), mosques, mills, bridges, and other structures; wood was also an indispensable material in shipbuilding. The sources often talk about various vessels: plows, pauses, nasads. The former were light craft that carried people and assisted cargo ships in their passage through shallow waters. Among them, plows, for example, are called "greyhound" i.e. high-speed; there is also information about the “royal plow”, but the ships were heavy ships with a displacement of sometimes up to several hundred tons and served to transport large loads - they usually sailed along the Volga between Kazan and Astrakhan, making up large caravans.

In addition to carpentry and joinery, the construction of stone structures - khan's palaces and chambers, "murved", that is, brick and stone mosques, "golden-domed towers" - became widespread. Information about them is available in Russian chronicles, in the notes of eyewitnesses, scribe books in Tatar historical narratives. We will talk more specifically about architecture, including monumental architecture, when we talk about the culture of the Kazan Khanate, the existence of artisan masons is proved not only by reports of contemporaries about stone buildings in Kazan, but also by the presence of several religious buildings of the 16th century that have survived there, and also the foundations of mosques, mausoleums, dwellings revealed during excavations. Block stone, brick, cement, ornamented gypsum were used in the construction business.

In the Kazan Khanate, both in the city and in the countryside, stone carving was widely developed, which, in addition to construction and architecture, was expressed in the manufacture of large gravestones. Pottery production was even more massive and ubiquitous: the production of simple and artistic ceramics, which in shape and ornamentation resembles earthenware of the 13th-14th centuries, common on the territory of the former Volga Bulgaria, but more - on the lower Volga, in the Golden Horde cities proper. Naturally, the ceramics of the period of the Kazan Khanate has some of its own characteristics.

Blacksmithing and weaponry stood out in particular, because in general it is impossible to imagine the existence of a whole state without weapons, without tools, both agricultural and industrial, without the production of appropriate tools for the manufacture of these tools, in general, without metalworking, both black and non-ferrous. We must again mention archaeological finds: a wide variety of tools and weapons, numerous household items, blacksmith tools, including hammers, chisels, punches, blacksmith tongs, etc. During excavations, crucibles are often found, i.e. vessels made of refractory material for melting iron and other metals, not to mention the mass of iron chips and slags.

Various ornaments were made from precious and semi-precious metals. Craft centers for the manufacture of jewelry were not only cities, but also individual villages in the Order, which continued this tradition for a long time even after the conquest of Kazan. Undoubtedly, in addition to home production based on a natural form of management, there were real artisans, even craft associations in cities, whose products, especially jewelry, leather, among the latter the famous Kazan ichigi, occupied a worthy place in the foreign market.

The Kazan Khanate had a large international transit trade with a number of countries in Western and Eastern Eurasia. Even in the very initial period of the existence of this state, its capital Kazan established close trade and economic relations with several then well-known centers of the world market. Josephus Barbaro wrote (remember: this is the 40s - 50s of the XV century): “This is a trading city; from there they export a huge amount of furs that go to Moscow, Poland, Persia and Flanders.

Flanders- a county in the main lands of the modern Netherlands (Holland), Belgium and northern France; one of the most economically developed medieval states, famous for large-scale international trade and navigation.

Barbaro writes that Kazan receives these furs from the northern peoples who were subordinate to the Tatars, as well as from the Dzagataev (Burtases?) regions and from Mordovia. In general, there is a long tradition of very profitable transit trade here, the well-known centers of which in the Volga region at different times were Itil, Bulgar, Sarai. The most important trade routes connected in Kazan, here on the Volga, in Gostiny Dvor, every year in the middle of summer the largest international fair was held (“living room” means trade here).

In order to deprive the Tatars of important trading positions, in 1523 Vasily III forbade Russian merchants to go to this Kazan fair and founded a new one near Nizhny Novgorod, which later became known as Makaryevskaya. However, as S. Herberstein reports, Muscovy itself experienced great disadvantages from such a transfer. "For, he writes, the consequence of this was the high cost and lack of very many goods that were brought along the Volga from the Caspian Sea, from the market of Astrakhan, as well as from Persia and Armenia.

So, the geography of the international trade of the Kazan Khanate was quite extensive - from Flanders in the west to Persia in the east. Between them are Rus', and the peoples of the North, and the immediate neighbors of Kazan, and other Tatar khanates and principalities. The range of goods in this exchange was also rich: silk fabrics, Damascus steel, books, grapes, raisins, wine, oriental spices, and other overseas goods came from the east and south; from Rus' and from Western countries- cloth, paper, some types of weapons, individual household items, including needles and mirrors; the latter, perhaps already made of glass, are Italian. From the Finno-Ugric peoples of the North, as well as from Siberian khanates and there were expensive furs: sable, silver fox, ermine, arctic fox (certain varieties of furs, including beaver and marten, as already mentioned above, Kazan - the Tatars dressed at home). Part of the good horses and some types of small cattle came from the Nogai Horde and from the Bashkirs; from Astrakhan they received salt, expensive fish and caviar, watermelons.

Actually Tatar goods were: honey, bread, Kazan fish, jewelry, blacksmith, and pottery, expensive leather (yuft, morocco) and leather products, among them elegant women's boots; they also exported construction timber and other raw materials. In addition to international trade, there was, of course, domestic trade. In Kazan, other cities, in the centers of darugs and large villages, throughout the year on Fridays there was a brisk trade in a wide variety of goods - cattle, meat, grain, honey, wax, oil, raw and tanned skin and everything that is needed in the economy. farmer, cattle breeder and craftsman: sledges and carts, plows and plows, collars and arcs, shovels and pitchforks, saws and axes, sickles and scythes, boilers and buckets ... Here in a separate shop, jewelry is displayed: bracelets, rings, earrings, braids , necklaces; and there - embroidered velvet skullcaps and caps, patterned ichigi, soft chuvyaks, famous Kazan towels. A little further away - shops of coopers, potters, tinsmiths ...

Money played an important role in both foreign and domestic trade. The Kazan Khanate did not mint its own coins (the reasons for this have not yet been clarified), the former Golden Horde dirgems of the 20-30s of the 15th century circulated there.

§ 41. State government and social order

The Kazan Khanate was a medieval feudal state of the Eastern type. At the head of the state was a khan from the former Jochi dynasty. As in the old Golden Horde times, not a single person, not being a Jochid, had the right to the throne both in Kazan and in any other Tatar khanate. It is known that khans, like emperors, kings, kings, shahs, received the throne by inheritance. Undoubtedly, there were cases of appointment, even election of the monarch, when the dynasty ceased to exist due to the absence of an heir in all branches of this dynasty, or when the sovereign died without announcing his successor. Often there were cases when a king, tsar, khan was removed or even killed as a result of a coup d'état, palace intrigues, the struggle of various parties for power, etc. Or they were simply removed by foreign state interference in the internal affairs of this country, when it was depending on the state. This often happened to the Kazan khans during the periods of Moscow's political protectorate over Kazan at the end of the 15th and in various years of the first half of the 16th century. We will study such cases separately when we turn to the political history of the Kazan Khanate.

Under Kazan, as under any other Tatar khan, there was a divan, i.e., a state council of well-known Karacha-biys of the Golden Horde clans Shirin, Baryn, Argyn, Kipchak, representatives of the feudal nobility and major military leaders, as well as the highest clergy. Among the Karachi, the ulu (large) Karacha stood out - this is how Bulat Shirin, “Kazan big Karacha” and his son Nurali Shirin are named in the Russian chronicles. The feudal elite was represented by ulus emirs and beks; they were the leaders of military units in war time. They depended to a large extent on public policy both within the country and abroad. Among the higher clergy, a special place was occupied by the seid - the head of all the Muslims of Kazan and the Kazan land. Considering that Islam was the state religion in the Kazan Khanate, the role of the seid in the political and ideological life of the Tatars was enormous. And it is not for nothing that in the sources he is called the second person after the khan: even the khan, seeing the approach of the seid, dismounted from his horse and stood holding out his hand to him when he remained on the horse. Kazan seids were considered descendants of the Prophet Muhammad from his daughter Fatima and the first Caliph Ali.

The Khan's administration consisted of a fairly large number of members of the administrative apparatus and servants. There were various ranks at the court of the khans, among which the guardians dominated: finances, seals, keys, the khan's court, and the arsenal. There were high positions of the organizer of the khan's hunt, atalyk - the educator of the khan's children. There were a number of officials in the Chancellery of the Khanate, among whom the sources especially note those who performed responsible work in the field of foreign relations.

In addition to the leaders and servants of the central apparatus, there were a number of other positions that were responsible for a particular area of ​​political and economic management of the khanate. These are khakims and qadis, that is, judges who decide cases on the basis of Muslim law; ships, police, customs officials, officials at outposts, envoys, various commissioners. These positions are named in the label of Khan Sahib Giray of 1523 - many of them are almost identical to those that we already know from the labels of the Golden Horde khans Timur-Kutluk and Tokhtamysh.

In the label of Khan Sahib Giray, 13 types of duties are named, among which yasak, kalan, salyg have been going on since the Golden Horde period, and the all-Muslim tax kharaj has been known in the Volga region even since the time of Volga Bulgaria. Some forms of taxes and duties disappeared, but new ones appeared: village and land taxes, food and fodder for visiting officials, a tax on the number of houses.

In administrative terms, the khanate was divided into darugs (the Russian form of "road") - small uluses-regions that could be compared with later counties. Known are Alat, Arsk, Garech (“Galician” in the chronicles), Zurei, Nogai darugas, the centers of which were the cities of Alat, Arsk, Chelny (Tyaberdino-Chelny) and others.

It was noted above that the Kazan Khanate was a typical feudal state. This was expressed primarily in the presence there of those attributes that are inherent in the whole of medieval feudalism, primarily in the types of land tenure. There were three types. The first is the landownership of individuals, i.e., large feudal lords, who were called emirs or beks (“biy”). The second type of land tenure in the Kazan Khanate is the land tenure of the higher clergy. Finally, the third type is state land ownership: the state itself owned large, inviolable land and forest lands, the income from which went directly to the state treasury.

Large feudal lords were representatives of the highest genealogy of the nobility, owners of hereditary lands. As in the Golden Horde time, in case of war they became commanders of their ulus army, that is, the troops of a separate daruga, and by order of the khan they had to come with this army in full armor. Slightly lower in rank, but the most numerous, the main group of feudal lords, were murzas (“murza” literally means the son of an emir or bek). It must be assumed that the most influential of them also had the right to inherit land.

Soyurgal was a similar form of land ownership in the Kazan Khanate. We first met this Mongolian word, which meant the military fief right to dispose of land, in the chapter on the history of the Golden Horde. Here it is necessary to clarify that "linen" - this word is German and meant such land ownership, which was given by the head of state to his feudal vassal for military and administrative service.

And this form of award, which the feudal lord received with the right to be inherited for military service in favor of the state, determined the entire system of land tenure among the Kazan, and other Tatars. The soyurgal right to land is fixed in the label Sahib-Girey already mentioned, and it is repeated three times in the label of another Kazan khan - Ibrahim. Moreover, the latter begins with an appeal: “Ibrahim Khan is our soyurgal word”, which shows how great the importance of the soyurgal was in the entire feudal system and social system of the Kazan Khanate. The owner of the soyurgal not only used it for life and passed it on by inheritance, but this award gave the feudal lord huge privileges: no taxes were levied from him. Moreover, the soyurgal granted him the right of judicial-administrative immunity, i.e. civil immunity. Even the rent, which used to go to the state treasury, was collected by the holder of the soyurgal for his own benefit.

We must keep in mind that such, unprecedented privileges were given to the feudal lord only when he undertook to perform military or other important service in favor of his state. If in the future he forgot this sacred duty, then he was deprived of the rights he had received, that is, the soyurgal was taken away from him with all the ensuing consequences.

Dear Guys! In order not to leave you with any ambiguities, let's clarify one more thing. Soyurgal law is actually tarkhan law in the broad sense of the word, for soyurgal itself was formed from tarkhan awards. "Tarkhan" meant in general the land and property of the feudal lord in Central Asia, Transcaucasia, in the Golden Horde, and later in the Kazan and other Tatar khanates. Therefore, the labels of the Golden Horde, Kazan and Crimean khans are mainly called tarkhan, because they gave the tarkhan right, that is, the grant of the state for the full right to use land and property. In other words, the concept of "tarkhan" is broader than the concept of "soyurgal" - the latter meant a specific, military fief right of tarkhanism.

A step below the Murza was an oglan (lancer). If in the era of the Golden Horde, the khanzade prince was called an oglan, then during the period of the Kazan Khanate, its meaning narrowed somewhat - this is how service feudal lords-military leaders now began to be called; this is the type of "children of the boyars" in the Russian state in the XV - XVII centuries. We already know that in the Middle Ages there were no standing regular armies in modern concept- they were mostly militia, gathered in full strength in the event of large campaigns and wars. However, there were still some permanent units in the form of khan and princely squads or a military garrison, around which the entire army of the country then gathered. It was in such units that oglans served for a certain period. After serving this term, the oglans returned to their homes and received their well-deserved land.

Finally, at the lowest rung of the feudal hierarchy were the Cossacks. They formed the main core of the Khan's army in wartime and were divided into internal and external. The Cossacks occupied an intermediate position between the Tarkhan feudal lords and the bulk of the peasants. However, they constituted a very significant force on which the ruling elite relied in solving important state affairs. The Cossacks also received land for service in favor of the khan, that is, the state.

Ordinary people in the Kazan Khanate bore the usual name "keshelar" (people); in another way they were also called “kul” (hand), which meant a farmer, apparently dependent on the tarkhan. However, this dependence cannot be understood in the classical sense - in the sense of the serfdom of the peasants in the West and in Rus'. There are no documents testifying to serfdom in the Kazan or other Tatar Khanate, and even earlier in the Golden Horde. It is noteworthy that after the conquest of the Kazan Khanate, as a result of the Russian colonization of the region and the settlement of Russian landowners with their serfs there, the Tatars, with rare exceptions, did not become such - they were made mainly state peasants. This suggests that the serf system was not inherent in the Tatar world. Here, obviously, there were other forms of subordination and dependence, that is, not politically coercive, but economic. The exception was prisoners of war, who were called "chura" (the origin and meaning of this word has not yet been clarified).

§ 42. Warfare and weapons

Talking about the army and weapons of the Golden Horde, we have already covered some general issues organization of military affairs in medieval states, primarily in the Ulus of Jochi. The entire system of state administration and the social system of the Golden Horde formed the basis for the same aspects of the life of the subsequent Tatar khanates. The same can be said about the development of military affairs and weapons of the Kazan Khanate. Therefore, there is no need to repeat on such issues as the structure of troops, military discipline, the formation and maintenance of military formations, etc.

Undoubtedly, the military affairs of the Kazan Khanate was not a complete repetition of that of the Golden Horde. It absorbed a number of important elements of the military art of the Volga Bulgaria and other early medieval associations of the Middle Volga region. This is expressed in the considerable similarity of the fortifications and, in general, the defensive architecture of Bulgaria and the Kazan Khanate. True, the Tatar cities differed from the Bulgar ones in their significant openness. This means that only the political centers, i.e., the Kremlins of the cities of the Kazan Khanate (except for Kazan itself, already of the late period), were surrounded by defensive fortifications, and their main territories, i.e., the settlements, remained open, without walls.

It should be said that the system of defensive fortifications of cities, feudal castles and military fortresses of the Eastern European northern zone, that is, the Volga Bulgaria, the Russian state and the Kazan Khanate, was of the same type. This was justified by military requirements, based on the same natural conditions and landscape, as well as from the main building material of this Central European zone - the tree.

Let's mentally imagine these ancient fortifications. Here is the city, or rather, its Kremlin, surrounded by two rows of earthen ramparts and a moat between them; pass along the inner shaft

dit tyn in the form of a two-row wide wall of thick logs laid on top of each other; between the two walls for strength, small stones, broken bricks, baked clay and sand are covered. On the meanders of the ramparts, at a distance of an arrow from each other, there are fortress towers made of the same logs, and at the entrance to the city, on the section of the ramparts, there are powerful fortress gates guarded by armed guards. The guards also stand on the towers and in the openings of the walls, vigilantly observing through the archers, that is, windows in the walls, the surroundings. Along the second, outer shaft, there is a palisade of pointed and driven into the ground with the tip up, right next to each other, pegs-logs. The building material of this entire structure was oak, rare cases it was replaced by pine.

This was the general defense of the medieval cities of the Middle Volga region, including the later ones, located in Order-Iski-Kazan, Arsk, the mentioned town of Chelny. The remains of their fortifications in the form of earthen ramparts and ditches without wooden structures that have survived to this day have been partially studied archaeologically.

There is no doubt that the defensive system of Kazan itself was the same. Although the fortifications of the Tatar period were finally destroyed as a result of the conquest of the city in 1552, historical sources eloquently testify to this. "City Kazan,- wrote the author of "Kazan History", - very strong, velmi, and stands on a high spot, between the two rivers of Kazan and Bulak, and is fenced(fenced, surrounded) in 7 walls, in great and thick oak woods; cartilage is strewn inside the walls(coarse sand mixed with small pebbles) and sand and small stone. And the chronicles themselves often speak of Kazan fortifications of almost the same nature. “Fenced in 7 walls” cannot be understood in the sense of a seven-arcade wall, but must be imagined as wall openings between the largest gate towers.

The fortifications of Kazan were especially strong where the approach to the city remained the most open. For example, from the side of the Arsky field, along which it was possible to approach Kazan with a wide front, the thickness of the wall was 7 sazhens (14.91 m; in other places it had 4 sazhens, i.e. 8.52 m); the ditch behind the wall also had a depth of 7 sazhens and a width of 3 sazhens, i.e. 6.39 m.

In general, a powerful oak city wall with heavy gates and high towers was evidence of the high level of military engineering among the Tatars in the 15th-16th centuries. It was impossible to take this defense with an ordinary attack, and the governors of Ivan the Terrible had to spend a huge amount of gunpowder to blow it up. Then, after the fall of Kazan, the same Grozny was surprised at the power of these fortifications: “looking at the heights of the walls and places of assault, and seeing, you were surprised at the extraordinary beauty of the walls of the city’s fortress.” A powerful wall, especially from the side of the Arsk field and along Bulak, from where the main attacks were actually made and the strongest explosions were made, was built as early as 1530 by order of Khan Safa Giray.

Other cities also had strong fortifications. Here is a brief description of Arsk, where a large Russian army went on a campaign in September 1552 before the storming of Kazan: “That bo is an old prison, called Aresk, made like a city is solid, and with towers, and with loopholes, and many people live in it, and velmi bregut”. It is further said that the Russian governor, seeing the impossibility of taking the city with a simple attack (in addition to a strong defense and a large crowd of people, there were another 15,000 soldiers), he ordered to fire at him from cannons and squeakers. Only after such "artillery preparation" was it possible to take Arsk.

During the campaign in Zakazanie, the Russian regiments stumbled upon other Tatar fortifications. The Russian chronicler, speaking about this, was forced to note that "they have made great fortresses." Ivan the Terrible, in his speech at the Holy Cathedral in Moscow on the occasion of the capture of Kazan, said that he had placed many of his governors in Tatar cities and lands. It is not reported how many such cities there were, but such a statement of the tsar is, as it were, concretized in the Kazan History: it is stated there that the Russian troops took “in ten days 30 great and small prisons”. Only a small part of the settlements, which are the remains of these cities and fortresses, have survived - they are named above. The rest were destroyed in order to prevent the Tatars from defending themselves in them in the future; Subsequently, these settlements were completely built up or plowed up.

It is necessary to say a few words about the strength of the troops of the Kazan Khanate. In the stories about the Kazan war of 1552, Russian chronicles indicate 30,000 people as the main military force of the Tatars inside Kazan (the same number of militias under the leadership of Yaush and Yapancha princes were stationed east of the city). S. Herberstein also wrote about the 30,000 coins that the Kazan khan had at his disposal - this, of course, (earlier before the campaigns of Grozny (there is no information on this in the Tatar sources).

Such a number then firmly entered Russian and historical science in general. However, such a number of Tatar soldiers is suspicious in a more objective assessment of the situation at that time. We already know that the troops of the Crimean Khanate and the Nogai Horde had 300,000 people each. Could the Kazan Khanate, one of the largest and strongest associations, have the size of its army 10 times smaller than other Tatar states of that time? There can only be one answer - no! It should also be taken into account that in this army there were soldiers of other peoples who were part of the Kazan Khanate. In any case, the Mari (“Cheremis”) and Chuvashs, as skillful shooters, are definitely mentioned in the sources.

And further. In 1506, the Kazan army under the leadership of Khan Mohammed-Amin utterly defeated the army of Vasily III in 100,000 soldiers. The same Grand Duke in 1524 sent a 180,000-strong army to Kazan, which returned in disgrace, meeting strong resistance from the Tatars. Could all this be done with only thirty thousand warriors? Undeniably not!

We believe that 30,000 is only the size of the Kazan garrison, and not the entire militia army of the Khanate. The new Kazan Khan Yediger did not have time, and could not, assemble such an army during this most difficult period: after the emergence of the Russian fortress on Sviyaga, the entire Mountain side fell away, and Zakazanie was completely conquered shortly before the fall of Kazan, therefore, the capital was in the ring of encirclement. In their time, Ibrahim, Mohammed-Amin and Safa-Girey khans were able to gather an army from all the Kazan land, and it rebuffed the Russian campaign against Kazan in 1469, 1506, 1524, 1530, 1545.

The courage and valor of the Tatar warriors were not inferior to the military skill of their enemies. The Russian sources themselves, interested in promoting the greatness of Russian weapons and the Russian spirit, were forced to note the fearlessness of the Tatars in battles with the troops of the Moscow Grand Dukes. This is especially evident from their description of the events of 1506, 1524 and 1530 mentioned above, as well as earlier times, for example, the period of the reign of Ibrahim Khan. Tatar commanders were not deprived of military leadership talents both in an attacking battle and in other military maneuvers, using various tricks and tricks.

For a better idea of ​​the courage of the Tatar warrior of those times, here is one curious message from S. Gerberstein:

“Great dissimilarity and diversity exist among men both in other matters and in the conduct of war. It is the Muscovite who takes to flight as soon as possible, not thinking of any salvation other than that which he can receive in flight; overtaken or caught by the enemy, he does not defend himself and does not ask for forgiveness.

The Tartar, thrown off his horse, deprived of any weapons, besides being very seriously wounded, usually defends himself with his hands, feet, teeth, in general, as long as he can.

The armament of the Tatar army also met the requirements of the era. The main types of weapons were: arrows and spears, sabers and axes, maces and six-feathers, shields, helmets and chain mail. Most types of these weapons have been discovered archaeologically in the excavations of the fortifications mentioned above or in the form of random finds on the territory of the Kazan Kremlin; among the latter, chain mail, a helmet and a gilded iron shield of a Kazan commander and a separate saber are of particular value. Information about the types of weapons of both the period of the Golden Horde and the time of the Kazan Khanate also contains works of Tatar folklore and Russian sources.

Russian, Western European and Tatar historical sources also speak of the presence of firearms in Kazan - cannons and squeakers. In Russian and Soviet historical literature, it was customary to write that in the Kazan Khanate there was no

there were such weapons, and even if there were, then the Tatars themselves did not know how to use them. This is not true at all! Firearms in Eastern Europe first appeared in the Middle Volga region - in the city of Bulgar in the 70s of the XIV century. We have already spoken about the Iski-Kazan finds, which also testify to such weapons, above.

However, why didn't the Tatar cannons thunder in the tragic year of 1552? Firstly, the reserve of Kazan gunpowder was taken to Moscow by the Russian prince Serebryany during the capture of Syuyumbike just a year ago (see below). Secondly, the gunpowder accumulated after that destroyed Shah Ali on the instructions of Ivan the Terrible, when this traitor khan left Kazan in February 1552. He also poured tin into the barrels of Kazan cannons, in a word, eliminated the firepower of Kazan, fulfilling the will of his Moscow master.

The Kazan troops were also armed with warships. However, the whole state, through whose territory the Volga and Kama rivers, the largest in Europe, flowed, cannot be imagined without a military flotilla. Yes, and historical information indicates that the Tatars have military courts. Back in 1467, when Kasim Khan, with the support of a large Russian force, undertook a campaign against Kazan, on the other bank of the Volga near the mouth of the Sviyaga they were met by the Kazan Khan Ibrahim with a large army that had arrived there on ships. The annals say so: “Tatars from Kazan came to them (to the Russians and Kasim) in courts, and climbed ashore from the ships”; “Tatars left the courts”; “Tatars from Kazan left in the courts of many,” etc. And two years later, the military flotilla of the Tatars defeated a large army of Ustyugians near Kazan, which arrived on ships along the Vyatka and Kama. The Russians escaped with difficulty: according to the Russian chronicles, they, jumping from one ship to another, went ashore and ran away.

In general, Tatar warships participated in almost all subsequent battles in repelling the campaigns of Russian troops. So why, with a sufficiently high level of defensive architecture, the significance of the troops, the commander's abilities of military leaders, good armament, including firearms, and, moreover, in the presence of military courts, the Tatars were eventually defeated, and the Kazan Khanate ceased to exist? We have already partially answered this question, we will talk about the rest later, when assessing the dramatic events of the middle of the 16th century.

§ 43. Culture of the Kazan Khanate

In the Kazan Khanate, primarily in its capital Kazan, construction and architecture, including monumental, were widely developed. This is confirmed by eyewitness reports, data from scribe books of the middle of the 16th century, some outstanding architectural monuments that have been preserved on the territory of the Kazan Kremlin, as well as the foundations of the then buildings and some architectural details found there during archaeological research.

A. Kurbsky wrote about the Khan's palace that he was "very strong, between the chambers and stone mosques." The well-known Tatar historian of architecture, doctor of art F. Kh. Valeev believed that it was a two-story building with an arcade-gallery, that is, a long balcony on columns, and had similarities with similar structures in the Crimea and Turkey of that time. Kurbsky's words are well-known about "green high" "murovannye", that is, stone mosques with very high minarets, where, as he reports, their dead "kings" - khans were buried. And the author of the Kazan History, describing the interior decoration of the Muralei Mosque, which belonged to the above-mentioned famous Karacha-bey Nurali Shirin, noted that “on the royal tombs there are precious covers, seated with pearls and precious stones.”

The scribe books of 1563 - 1568 recorded several mosques on the territory of the Kremlin, preserved from destruction during the conquest of Kazan, among them the Muraleev named above and the mosque near the Khan's palace. The latter, apparently, was the Cathedral - this is the eight-minaret mosque, the existence of which was written by the largest Tatar historian of the last century Sh. Marjani on the basis of some national sources known to him. The famous Kazan historian M. G. Khudyakov made a quite reasonable assumption that this mosque served as a prototype for the Moscow St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square, built in 1555-1560 in honor of the capture of Kazan. The ninth, central dome of this temple, towering over the other eight, personified the victory of the cross over the crescent - the Russians over the Tatars in 1552. Information has been preserved that those eight domes taken from the Kazan Cathedral Mosque were then brought to Moscow on twelve carts.

The existence of monumental mosques not only in the Kremlin, but also in the city itself, in its suburbs, settlements, for example, in the settlement of Kuraishevo, even in rural Zakazanie, is evidenced by some data from scribe books and individual drawings of similar structures of a slightly later time. In addition to the Khan's palace and mosques, there were, especially on the territory of the Kazan Kremlin, other structures of brick and stone masonry. Various “chambers”, i.e. palaces, are often mentioned in the sources, among them is the same Nurali Shirin (“Muraleeva Chamber”).

An outstanding monument of religious architecture of the Kazan Khanate, preserved on the territory of the Kremlin of the city of Kazan, is the famous Syuyumbike Tower. There were many disputes among historians, architects, representatives of public circles about the time of construction, cultural affiliation and the purpose of this tower covered with legends, in other words, when, by whom and for what it was built. It goes without saying that the scope of a small section of a school textbook does not allow covering all these problems in its entirety. We are compelled to draw the attention of students only to the following.

There are no Tatar or Russian documents, other materials testifying to the construction of the Syuyumbike tower in one period or another. There are no Tatar ones because the archive of the Kazan Khanate, where such data could be, was taken to Moscow and its further fate is still unknown. Russian sources are silent about the construction of this tower already in the so-called Russian period, that is, in the second half of the 16th - 18th centuries, although the appearance of a number of major Russian monuments of this time is known for sure. These are the Cathedral of the Annunciation, the Spasskaya Tower and some other objects of the Kremlin (the second half of the 16th century), the Dryablovsky House (17th century), Peter and Paul Cathedral(XVIII century). If the Syuyumbike tower had been built in one of these periods, then it would have become known in the same way as the monuments just named. In addition, the construction of such a large, tallest building in Kazan, as this tower, would certainly have caused a resonance in the public opinion of one or another Russian period. However, the Russians never considered it their own, they never composed songs, legends, other works of folklore about it, they never worshiped it, they never consecrated it.

A whole galaxy of Russian historians and scientists of the last century and representatives of the Orthodox cult (K. I. Nevostruev, S. M. Shpilevsky, M. N. Pinegin, N. P. Zagoskin, P. E. Zarinsky, P. Nevzorov, etc.) , not to mention the Tatar historians-orientalists, especially noted that the Syuyumbike tower is the object of the utmost respect for it on the part of the Tatar, and not another people, that it was the Tatars who for centuries attached sacred significance to it. It should be emphasized that it is not by chance that she was named after the Muslim queen, who was a convinced and active fighter for the freedom and independence of her state, who was and remains the heroine of the Tatar people.

Finally, in terms of its architectural design, stylistic features, compositional techniques and design details, the Syuyumbike Tower is a pronounced monument of Tatar architecture. As one of the well-known connoisseurs of Russian and national architecture, Professor V. V. Egerev, rightly noted, the contrasting tiered and sharp gradation distinguish this tower (in this regard, it is close to the architectural style of the famous Black Chamber of the XIV century on the territory of the Bulgar settlement) from the monuments of Russian religious architecture with their smooth subordination of constituent parts.

What was this tower? Unfortunately, there is still no exact answer to this question. Some researchers consider it the minaret of the Nurali mosque connected to it, others - a grandiose tomb monument built by Syuyumbike over the ashes of her husband, Kazan Khan Safa Giray. It is quite possible that it was used as an observation post in difficult times for Kazan - in 1552 and in subsequent periods. It should also be noted that in 1991, by decision of the government of the Republic of Tatarstan, a crescent moon was restored on the Syuyumbike tower.

On the territory of the Kazan Kremlin, another monument of the religious architecture of the Tatars has been preserved - this is the building of the former Nurali Mosque, which has already been mentioned more than once (currently it is used as a dining room). For many years after the fall of Kazan, this old mosque served as an artillery depot, then it was turned into the Church of the Presentation, and in 1854 it was restored under the Palace Church, then it was significantly changed in its upper half. However, such bright elements of the national architecture of the facade of the second floor as the system and forms of colonnades between the windows with bevels in the upper part testify to the past Tatar times.

Archaeological data show that the architecture of Kazan was enriched with carved ornamentation, wall cladding with mosaic and majolica slabs, as well as patterned bricks and facing slabs with elegant ornaments. The excavation materials leave no doubt about the existence of craftsmen-artists in medieval Kazan, moreover, a whole school of these masters who made the above types of decoration for palaces, chambers, mosques, mausoleums and other structures.

Decor- the word is Latin and means a system for decorating a structure: its facade, that is, the front, front side, and the interior, in other words, the internal space of the building. The word "decor" is associated with decorative art, divided into monumental-decorative (decoration of works of architecture) and decorative-applied (creation of artistic objects for public and private life) art.

A mass type of craft, brought to the level of art, was stone carving. In addition to architecture, it has found a very wide application in the decoration of tombstones - epigraphic monuments of the second half of the 15th and especially the first half of the 16th centuries. These monuments differ from the epitaphs of an earlier time, i.e. from the Bulgar ones, by the richness and variety of motifs and patterns used in their carved decoration. Fine floral ornamentation and lush inscriptions amaze not only the average viewer, but also a fine connoisseur of medieval stone-cutting art.

Jewelery art reached the highest level of development, making various ornaments from precious metals in combination with semi-precious stones, i.e. precious stones. The works of the Tatar gold and silver craftsmen amazed the author of the Kazan History, who, describing the activities of Khan Mohammed-Amin, noted that “the tsar made himself precious crowns, and silver and gold vessels and dishes, and arranged the royal attire”. And when describing the events of subsequent times, he often talked about the great treasures of the Kazan khans and wealthy dignitaries. The Khan's treasury was enriched with the most valuable jewelry, as evidenced by the inventory conducted by Prince Vasily Serebryany in August 1551 during the arrest of Queen Syuyumbike: “... writing down the entire tsar’s treasury to the powder, and sealing the autocratic seal, and filling it to loading(loaded fully) 12 great boats(large river boats), gold and silver, and vessels of silver and gold, and decorated with beds and various robes of royal and military weapons of all kinds, and sent out from Kazan the former queen with the other governor to the new city (Sviyazhsk). From there they were sent to Moscow.

Unfortunately, it is still unknown where all these jewels taken from Kazan then are located in their entirety. Some of them then ended up in famous museums in Moscow and St. Petersburg: the State Armory in the Moscow Kremlin, the State historical Museum on Red Square, Museum of Russian Ethnography (former Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR in Leningrad). Among the most valuable finds stored in them is the famous “Kazan hat”, i.e. the crown of the Kazan khans, made of gold in the high filigree jewelry technique, combined with gems and trimmed with top quality sable fur; gold belt clasps and a silver amulet, also made in the technique of filigree combined with granulation. The State Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan has some samples of gold embroidery and gold buttons; in the same place - an ornamented brass jug (it was slightly damaged when it was removed from a dilapidated old house in Kazan).

The jewelry art of the Kazan Khanate found continuation and further development in the art of the Kazan Tatars of subsequent times, gaining truly world fame. The famous collar clasps and hasite, bracelets and earrings, braids and necklaces, plaques and brooches, amulets and cornets made of gold and silver in combination with crystal, turquoise, carnelian and other precious stones, in the manufacture of which such highly artistic types of jewelry technology as tuberculate were used. and flat filigree, granulation, inlay, glyptics, engraving, blackening on silver are unique masterpieces of folk art, a manifestation of the artistic and poetic thinking of the Tatar people.

In the Kazan Khanate, writing on the basis of Arabic graphics, which appeared in the region as early as the initial period of the Volga Bulgaria and became the basis of the charter in the Golden Horde, became quite widespread in the Kazan Khanate. They studied, as before, in a mekteb and a madrasah; probably the existence of a madrasah of a higher type, for example, the famous madrasah of Kul Sherif. Literacy was necessary primarily for representatives of the administration and the clergy, but among the population it was sufficiently widespread. Official documents of a foreign policy nature, business papers, labels, as well as epitaphs, letters, and poems were written in Arabic script.

Oriental poetry was widely known in Kazan and on Kazan soil. They read the magnificent works of Rudaki and Firdousi, Omar Khayyam and Maadi, Nizami and Saadi, their early poets: Balasaguni and Kul Gali, Kutbi and Saif Sarai, Kharazmi and Rabguzi ... New poets appeared in the Kazan Khanate, among them: Muhammad-Amin (aka khan, late 15th - early 16th centuries), Mukhammedyar, Emmi-Kamal, Garif-bek, Maksudi, Kul Sharif (aka famous Kazan seid, national hero of the Tatar people - first half of the 16th century). There were many other court and folk poets in Kazan. The pinnacle of the poetic heritage of the Kazan Khanate is the work of Muhammedyar, who in his poems “Tukhvai-mardan” (“Gift of Husbands” - 1539) and “Nury-sodur” (“Light of Hearts” - 1542) preaches kindness and justice, faithful service to the people:

Dare to do good, the time will come

And you will also know the taste of good...

Who is just and whose tongue is true,

He is neither in the eye nor in the hand is not crooked.

In the works of Muhammadyar, humanistic ideals are sung, great attention is paid to moral and ethical issues. Beautiful and melodious language of the poet:

Yarmukhamed, do you have a tongue,

Your tongue is a nightingale, and the world is a flower garden.

In addition to written literature, oral folk art also developed further. Legends and traditions about the emergence of Old and New Kazan are undoubtedly connected with this period by their origin. Literary critics date such epic works as "Alpamysh", "Chura-batyr", "Jik-Mergen", "Khaneke-Soltan bayty" and others to the same time. In the Kazan period, the heroic epic "Idegey" became widespread.

Both among the representatives of the upper class and among the people, vocal and instrumental music based on the pentatonic scale (a scale of five tones) was very popular. Tatar folk songs have deep roots and, of course, they were sung in this historical period as well. The Kazan chronicler tells how Kazanians in the besieged city played and sang their drawn-out songs. However, earlier he saw how Kazanians “rejoice and have fun”, “sing lovely songs”, “dance and play their own harp, and hit the harp to those who are hitting”. These songs and dances accompanied folk festivals on the Tsar's Meadow near Kazan, on the Arsk Field. The same thing happened, of course, in the villages. These were holidays of the type known to us jiins and sabantuis.

§ 44. The capital of the Khanate is the city of Kazan

Kazan, like many medieval cities, consisted of two parts - the Kremlin and the suburb. The Kremlin, the place of the khan's residence and administrative apparatus with a military garrison, in the 15th century occupied the northern, largest part of the modern Kremlin (up to the location of the Ministry of Health). It arose at the end of the 14th century and, having become the political center of the capital of the new state in the mid-40s of the 15th century, it significantly changed and improved. To the south-east of it, behind the ramparts, began the settlement - the place of life and activity of the artisan and merchant population, and other urban people. In fact, there were two settlements: the upper one, which occupied the territory from the Kremlin to the modern Universitetskaya Street, fenced off by a deep and wide ravine, along the bottom of which Kuibyshev Street currently runs; the lower settlement was located to the west of the upper one, that is, from the slope of the Kremlin hill and to the Bulak river, occupying the area of ​​modern Bauman, Ostrovsky and Pravobulachnaya streets.

Kazan in the first half of the 16th century, the last period of the existence of the Kazan Khanate, is one of the largest cities in Eastern Europe. Located on high hills, separated by deep ravines, Kazan was a heavily fortified and rather beautiful city with fortress walls, gate towers, high minarets of mosques and palaces on the mountain. Against the general background of the ancient city, the Kremlin stood out, in the northern part of which, at the highest place, was the Khan's palace, occupying the "Tsar's court" with some other chambers. This courtyard was enclosed by a high stone wall and served as the last place of refuge, the place of the last battle of the besieged in 1552: up to 10 thousand Kazanians gathered there. 12-15 years after the fall of Kazan, individual khan's chambers were turned into military warehouses and powder magazines, and at the beginning of the 18th century they became part of the commandant's house and soon disappeared altogether.

The well-known historian of Kazan of the last century K. F. Fuchs wrote in 1817 that the remains of the Khan's palace were finally broken in 1807. In 1845, the governor's palace was built in its place, which currently houses the residence of the President of the Republic of Tatarstan. A little to the south of the Khan's palace, apparently, on the site of the Annunciation Cathedral, the above-described Kazan eight-minaret Cathedral Mosque was located (Sh. Marjani called it the Kul Sharif Mosque). However, its location has not yet been precisely established and requires serious archaeological research.

The famous Kazan city gates have always aroused considerable interest among historians and, in general, lovers of antiquity.

There were 11 such gates, or rather, high fortress towers with wide passages in the lower part, in the then Kazan. They, like the fortress wall itself, were built of thick oak logs. After the fall of Kazan, in the process of building a new stone wall of the Kremlin, stone towers arose, but with new, Russian names. The largest of them were built on the site of the former Tatar ones.

The names of the Tatar gates are associated either with the roads that started from these gates (the road to Arsk went from the Arsk gates, from the Nogai gates to the Nogai Horde, etc.), or with the names of the largest personalities of that time. The latter, obviously, were directly related to the construction of these gates, for example, Muraleevy gates - on behalf of Nurali Shirin, Atalykovy - from the Tatar commander Atalik, also known for his active political life, Kebekovy - on behalf of Prince Kebek, mentioned more than once in the sources .

The gates along the Kremlin wall were located as follows. In the very north-western corner, not far from the modern bridge over the Kazanka, on the site of the current Taynitskaya tower, stood the Muraleev Gate. Further to the northeast, where the quadrangular nameless corner tower stands, there were the Elbugin Gates (it is customary to associate this name with the city of Alabuga-Yelabuga). On the eastern wall, from the side of modern Baturina Street, in the place of the round Dmitrievskaya Tower, there was the Sboilivye Gate - this is the Russian translation of the Tatar name, which, according to M. G. Khudyakov, meant “easily knocked down”, i.e., the most accessible during the assault. Obliquely from them on the opposite side, i.e. from the side of Bauman Street, where the quadrangular Transfiguration Tower was located, there were the Tyumen Gates - from there the road to Tyumen, the capital of the Siberian Khanate, began. To them, as well as to the Sboylivye Gates, that is, on both sides of the Kremlin, guard walls adjoined it, in other words, the walls surrounding the settlement - this was the city proper.

This city wall started from the Tyumen gates of the Kremlin and through the Atalykov gates, located at the foot of the mountain, approximately where the road past the monument to Musa Jalil now descends and goes to Bauman Street, went to Bulak. Walking along the right bank of the Bulak approximately to the area of ​​​​the modern Duslyk hotel and the Zdorovye combine, where the Crimean Gates stood, it turned southeast and adjoined the Nogai Gates, which stood at the intersection of Bauman and Universitetskaya streets. Further, the wall gradually went up the slope of the university mountain, fenced from the southeast, as already mentioned, by a large ravine, that is, the ravine along the bottom of which Rybno-Ryadskaya Street (now Kuibysheva) was built much later.

On the mountain, approximately where the university almost approaches the edge of this ravine, according to some researchers, there were the Upper Nogai Gates. From here, the wall gradually went downhill (past the "Old Clinic" - the former building of the Republican Clinical Hospital) along the same ravine and rested against the main Kazan Gates - "Tsareva", i.e. Khan's, located in the area of ​​​​the stop "Leninsky Garden" at the intersection Kuibyshev and Galaktionov streets. Further, the wall went in the direction of modern Pushkin Street to Svoboda Square, and on the outer side of the wall from the Khan's Gate a deep ditch was dug as a continuation of the natural ditch - "Rybno Ryadsky" ravine. The wall rested against the Arsky Gate, located at the intersection of Pushkin and Karl Marx streets. At this interval, the defensive fortifications of Kazan were especially powerful.

Further, the city fortifications turned to the northeast and north, and through the modern Freedom Square, Telman, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and Nagornaya streets again adjoined the Kremlin, to its Sboylivy Gate. At this distance, somewhere in the middle of Telman Street, stood the Kebekov Gate! Here, with this long wall, the Kazan Posad was fenced off, which was occupied by large area for those times and together with the Kremlin was a solid medieval city. According to A. Kurbsky, it was slightly smaller than Vilna (Vilnius).

However, ancient Kazan will seem even larger to us, if we take into account the settlements-villages adjacent to it. First of all, this is the Kuraishevo settlement on the left bank of the Bulak in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe modern streets of Kirov, Stolbov, Paris Commune and Galias-gar Kamal, on the site of the Senny Bazaar, famous in the Tatar world. Scribal books and Russian chronicles, among them the "Royal Book" - a particularly valuable source on the history of Kazan during the conquests of Ivan the Terrible - note the presence of the Otucheva mosque there, associated with the name of Prince Otuch (or rather, comfort). There is a quite reasonable opinion that it was a stone mosque, located on the site of the "Mosque of the Hay Bazaar", that is, in the recent past, the Kazan Cathedral Mosque. This speaks of deep religious and national traditions.

A small settlement, discovered archaeologically in 1950, was located not far from Kuraishev near the modern railway station. These were the settlements closest to the city, between which and the city, obviously, there were bridges across the Bulak. Sources note two water mills on Bulakev. Outside the city wall5 but directly under the Kremlin, on the right bank of the Bulak,.; there were some buildings, among them the white-stone "Dairova Bashg", which belonged to a certain rich man Tagir.

Significantly south of Kuraishev, on the eastern bank of the Lower Kaban, in the area of ​​the modern zoo on Khadi Taktash Street, there was the settlement of Kulmametovo. The name of the village of Ometyevo (Ametyevo) within the boundaries of the present city is also associated with the Tatar settlement that existed there during the period of the Kazan Khanate; according to legend, it was founded by a certain Ahmed. Legends have also been preserved about the existence of a suburban dacha of the Kazan khans on the site of the Bishop's dacha that later arose behind the Sredny Kaban lake, on its high, picturesque shore. It is said that there was a beautiful "Syuyum-bike garden" with summer buildings.

According to other legends, recorded by the professor of Kazan University N.F. Vysotsky in the last century, on the site of the Cloth Sloboda, during the period of the Kazan Khanate, there was an Armenian Sloboda; in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe public garden at the intersection of Sverdlov and Ulyanov streets, on the site of St. George's Church, there was an Armenian church. A little higher than the Cloth Bazaar, at the beginning of modern Kalinin Street, N.F. Vysotsky discovered 6 Armenian tombstones. It was a settlement founded by Armenian merchants who had profitable trade with Kazan, and through it with the northern peoples.

On the southwestern border of the former Admiralteyskaya Sloboda, in the old center of the current Kirovsky District, back in the period of the Kazan Khanate, there was a Tatar village of Bish-Balta (“Beshbolda” in Russian chronicles), which has retained its name to this day. Places to the west and south of Bish-Balta are also historical. So, near the mouth of the Kazanka, then called "Tiren Uzok" (Deep Canal), there was Bakaldinskaya wharf. Not far away was the famous Gostiny Ostrov, where an international fair was held annually in June. In general, these places have always been distinguished by their liveliness. In addition to trade, here, at the crossroads, they arranged meetings and farewells for distinguished guests, at other times there was an exchange of prisoners of war.

The appearance of the city was unique. Solid palaces and chambers, "golden-domed towers", soaring minarets of mosques, enclosed by a fortress wall with high battle towers, gave Kazan a unique look of an eastern city. Surrounded on all sides by water - a long chain of picturesque Kaban lakes, the winding Kazanka and the mighty Volga - the city looked amazingly beautiful, especially during the spring flood, when the wide floodplains of these rivers, having joined together, formed a wide expanse of water surface. In the early summer, wide water meadows were freed from under the water, according to the description of eyewitnesses, “great and spacious, and smooth, green and cheerful meadows”, which “have a lot of fun with grass and flowers with various colors”.

The very place where the city spread out was picturesque, with slopes of mountains and ravines covered with green grass. At the same time, the lower mules and lanes laid along the bottom of the ravines were covered with mud. in early spring and during the autumn rains; in some places there were puddles that never dried up. Such, for example, were the so-called "nasty" lakes (as they are called in Russian sources; the Tatar name is "Cherek kul", that is, Rotten Lake), located in a large depression running along modern Dzerzhinsky Street, starting from Leninsky Garden. Some historians believe that they are so named because the water flowed into them from the baths that stood at the upper lakes.

Unlike the Kremlin with its stone buildings, the settlement of Kazan was mostly wooden. There were several in the city big streets to which alleys adjoined. These main streets-roads remained later the main streets of the city. So, the central street of the Khan's Kremlin ran almost in the same place as the current Sheinkman Street. In the direction of modern Lenin Street, along the top of a long hillock, known in the historiography of Kazan under the name "Voskresensky hillock" (pre-revolutionary Voskresenskaya street), the main street of the upper tenement of ancient Kazan passed. Branching into two parts at the end, it went to the Khan and Nogai gates. Along the foot of this mound, between the Lower Nogai and Atalykov gates, there was a central street of the lower settlement, corresponding to the modern Bauman street. To each

the gates were the streets, passing outside the city into the big roads.

There were also underground passages in Kazan. Although not all legends about them reflect reality, one can speak with confidence about the existence of passages in the city center, especially under its kremlin or in the adjacent area from the side of the main street of the upper tenement, because they are recorded in chronicles and eyewitness reports. These sources testify to the presence of a hiding place dug by the besieged Kazanians under the Nurali tower to a spring on the banks of the Kazanka in the autumn of 1552. Some traces of underground passages and cellars were discovered at the end of the last century by professors of Kazan University N.P. Zagoskin and M.M. Khomyakov in the northern part of Voskresenskaya Street. These cellars and dungeons with old masonry walls were not connected with the foundations of Russian structures, therefore, they were more ancient, and in one of them, according to the stories of old residents, ancient Tatar coins and manuscripts were found earlier.

There were several cemeteries in medieval Kazan. We already know the message of A. Kurbsky about the tombs of Kazan khans in mosques - a similar burial rite was also inherent in Muslim culture (in the Middle Volga region it is also known from the monuments of the city of Bulgar). Separate burials were discovered by excavations of recent years near the Syuyumbike tower and at the site of the former Nurali mosque. A small cemetery was located on the south side of the then Gostiny Dvor, i.e., shopping malls on the site of the State Museum of the Republic - a tombstone of the Kazan prince Muhammad-Ali bek, who died in 1530 while defending the city, was found there. A more extensive cemetery was located much to the south, in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe public garden at the corner of Lenin and Lobachevsky streets, and the cemetery of the lower settlement, behind Bulak, at the intersection of 1atar-stan and Grazhdanskaya streets; epigraphic monuments of the first half of the 16th century are also known from there.

§ 45. Political history. Second half of the 15th century

The political situation in the khanate during this period depended mainly on its relations with the Russian state. Moreover, the conduct of the entire foreign and even domestic policy of Kazan was often determined by the desire of the Moscow grand dukes and was subordinate to the big policy of the Russian state.

It should be said that relations between Moscow and Kazan, especially since the late 60s of the XV century, were strained. Often they were solved with the help of military campaigns, organized mainly by Moscow rulers. The citizens of Kazan did not remain in debt either. These were complex relations, sometimes very dramatic, which eventually led to the fall of the Kazan Khanate, the loss of the statehood of the Tatar people.

The first period of existence of the Kazan Khanate, during the 20-year reign of Mahmutek (1445 - 1465), was peaceful and creative. There is not a single message in the sources that testifies to military clashes between Moscow and Kazan. On the contrary, their relationship was quite good neighborly. One document has been preserved since those years - a letter from the Moscow Metropolitan Jonah to the influential Kazan dignitary Shaptyak, in which the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in a humiliated tone, he asked his “friend,” as he called the Kazan citizen, to assist two of his confidants, whom he sent with gifts, before the khan. This document of 1455 shows how high the prestige of Kazan was then before the Moscow leadership.

Moreover, at that time, Moscow was paying Kazan "exit", i.e. tribute. The fact that the Russians paid tribute not only to the Great Horde, but also to the new state in the north, i.e., the Kazan Khanate, puzzled many Russian historians. In his famous work “Essays on the History of the Kazan Khanate” (Kazan, 1923), M. G. Khudyakov called this “exit” the indemnity that Moscow had to pay for the release of Grand Duke Vasily II from captivity after the famous battle near Suzdal in the summer of 1445 . Then a mutual agreement was drawn up. True, it was not officially brought to the attention of the Moscow public, but it found a certain reflection in the Russian chronicles. Unfortunately, the amount of this indemnity, or rather, the ransom, is not exactly indicated - some sources say "as much as it can", others say the amount is from 30 to 100 thousand rubles.

According to the same agreement, together with the Grand Duke, 500 Tatars then arrived in Moscow, who were appointed to various administrative posts in the capital and in other cities. Some of them were even determined by the rulers of individual cities. Then, and later, the Tatar princes and princes ruled such Russian cities as Serpukhov, Zvenigorod, Kashira, Yuryev, Surozhik, and in 1452 the second son of Ulu-Muhammed Kasim was presented with the so-called. Meshchersky town on the Oka River, renamed Kasimov in his honor.

However, Moscow paid the “exit” not only to Kazan, but also to the Crimea, Astrakhan, even Kasimov, who was actually on the rights of a specific principality of Russia, although officially it was called the khanate (“kingdom”). Moreover, the payment of tribute to the Kasimov khans continued even after the fall of Kazan. It is still difficult to explain, but the documents speak about it. And in the Russian cities mentioned above, which were ruled by people from Kazan and Kasimov, mosques have already begun to appear. In general, there has been a clear increase in Tatar influence on the political life of the Russian state.

All this caused extreme discontent in the then Russian society. In 1446, an anti-government conspiracy arose, led by influential boyars Dmitry Shemyako and Vasily Kosy. The Grand Duke was accused of bringing the Tatars to Rus' and giving them cities “for feeding”. Basil II was deposed and blinded (hence his nickname "Dark"). However, the Tatar army led by Kasim and Yakub moved in his defense, and in 1447 the Grand Duke was restored to the throne.

The mentioned treaty of 1445 gave the newly formed Kazan Khanate peace for the near future and great opportunities for strengthening the economy and military power. Over the 20-year period of its existence, by the end of the reign of Mahmutek, it turned into one of the strongest states of the then Central Eurasia. The geography and volume of international trade expanded, political power strengthened, the state structure finally took shape, and solid foundations were laid for the further development of material and spiritual culture.

Mahmutek left behind two sons - Khalil and Ibrahim. The eldest, Khalil, ruled for only two years. He had no children and after his sudden death Ibrahim (1467 - 1479) sat on the throne. It was one of the most powerful khans of Kazan, and the period of his reign was marked by the further development of the economy and military power states. Ibrahim Khan was practically the last head of this state in terms of the country's development in an ascending line. In general, the 35-year period of the existence of the Kazan Khanate under Mahmutek and Ibrahim remains one of the brightest periods in the history of the Tatar people and its statehood. Under Ibrahim, a new policy of the Russian state towards the Kazan Khanate began, which manifested itself in direct military interventions. But the Khan always gave a worthy rebuff to this.

If Vasily II was a prisoner, and then a tributary of the Tatars, besides, obviously, a rather mild person, not without certain democratic views, then his son, the Grand Duke of "All Rus'" Ivan III (1462 - 1505), was the complete opposite of him. The 42-year rule of this man - a cruel, powerful, but at the same time a talented politician and a major statesman - made it possible for Rus' to finally unite around one center, i.e. Moscow. It was during this period that the foundations were laid for the internal structure of the new, already more powerful Russian state and its foreign policy, which developed with obvious interference in the internal affairs of other countries. This was clearly manifested in the first place in relations with the Kazan Khanate.

Ivan III organized seven campaigns against Kazan: in 1467, 1469, 1478, 1482, 1484, 1485 and 1487 (the last one ended with the capture of the city). In essence, the entire spectrum of relations between the Russian state and the Kazan Khanate in the last quarter of the 15th century is associated with these campaigns.

A good reason was found to intervene in the affairs of the Kazan Khanate, whose power was growing before the eyes of the Moscow government: a small opposition of Kazan against Khan Ibrahim, led by Prince Abul-Mumin, secretly invited Kasim to become their khan. He was delighted with the prospect of seizing the throne of a more powerful state than his patrimony, but he perfectly understood that with his small forces from the "Gorodets", that is, Kasimov, Tatars, he could not defeat Ibrahim and turned to Ivan III for help. This played into the hands of the Grand Duke, and in September 1467 a campaign of the Kasimovites was organized, accompanied by a strong Russian army. However, the Kazan people did not even allow them to cross the Volga, and they turned back, having experienced many hardships on the way back. In the winter of the same year, Ibrahim made a retaliatory move, sending an army to Galich near Kostroma, but the Kazanians could not take the city and returned home. In turn, Ivan III sent a punitive expedition to the Volga, which, having visited the Mari land, robbed and killed civilians there, which is recorded in most Russian chronicles.

Kazan decided to take revenge for this: troops were sent towards the Russian border cities in several directions, which conducted their campaign with varying success - successfully in the north and with losses in the south. At this time, the Vyatka ushkuyniki attacked the eastern regions of the Khanate, simultaneously robbing merchant ships on Vyatka and Kama. Another army of Kazanians was sent there, which took Khlynov, the center of the Vyatka land, subordinate to Rus'. A Tatar governor was planted there.

In 1469, Moscow organized its own, that is, without the Kasimovites, a campaign against Kazan and again failed. The intentions of the Russians in two groups of troops - from Nizhny Novgorod along the Volga and from Ustyug by the northern route along Moloka, Vyatka and Kama with access to the Volga - to approach Kazan and surround it failed. The troops could not approach at the same time, and the Tatars defeated them one by one. This happened in May and June. Having met on the way back in Nizhny and significantly replenished their forces, these two groups again went to Kazan in September. However, the matter did not come to a battle - a peace treaty was concluded. It was needed not so much for Kazan as for Moscow: by that time, relations with the sovereign Novgorod Republic had escalated, and in the south a Lithuanian-Horde (Great Horde) alliance, which was very undesirable for Rus', had arisen.

In 1478, Ivan III made several trips to Novgorod and annexed it to the Russian state, thereby freeing his hands for further action against Kazan. Even in winter, the Tatars went to Khlynov, which began to show its independence, and returned from there with captives. This was the reason for the start of a new series of attacks on Kazan. A small campaign in the spring of the same year ended for them to no avail, although the previous contract 9 years ago was extended. Unfortunately, the sources are silent about its conditions, except that as early as 1469, the Kazan government agreed to release the Russian captives.

In 1479, Ibrahim Khan died, leaving five sons from two wives: Ilgam, Khuday-Kul and Melik-Tagir - from the first wife Fatima, Muhammad-Amin and Abdul-Latif - from the second, Nur-Saltan. By this time, two parties had already formed, which played a large role in determining the foreign policy of the Kazan Khanate. One of them, under the leadership of Fatima, headed to the East - the Nogai Horde and through it to Central Asia. The second, Nur-Saltanovskaya, was a supporter of an alliance with Moscow, moreover, she did this in order to preserve the independence of the state, maintaining peaceful relations with the Russians.

The eastern party won, and Ilgam sat on the throne, besides, he was the rightful heir. Nur-Saltan married the Crimean Khan Mengli-Giray, taking her infant son Abdul-Latif with her to Bakhchisaray. The eldest, 10-year-old Mohammed-Amin, was sent to Moscow and soon he was given the specific city of Kashira to manage.

Ilgam led the policy of his mother, which, naturally, was not to the liking of Ivan III. In 1482 he sent. the army to Kazan, by the way, for the first time armed with cannons, under the command of the German engineer of Greek origin Aristotle. The government of Ilgam, having learned about the arrival of this army in Nizhny, asked for peace, which was accepted by Moscow on favorable terms.

Ilgam did not have the qualities of a politician and statesman that were inherent in his father. It was during his reign that unrest began, and the Kazan Khanate entered the period of its fall. Of course, later there were periods of rise, a certain revival of the power of the state. But it was no longer able to regain that former power that characterized the era of Mahmutek and Ibrahim. Moscow's interference in Kazan affairs became more and more tangible. So, military detachments visited Kazan in 1484 and 1485, alternately replacing Muhammad-Amin and Ilgam on the throne. Finally, in 1487 another big campaign against Kazan took place. After an almost two-month siege, on July 9, the Russian army entered the city, and the pro-Moscow party deposed Ilgam and handed him over to the Moscow governors.

Khan, along with his mother, two wives, brothers and sisters, was taken to Moscow. Ilgam himself was exiled to Vologda, where he later died, the rest were sent to Kargolom on Beloozero, an ancient Russian city on Vologda land. Their fate also turned out to be sad. Queen Fatima and one of her sons, Melik-Tagir, died soon after. Two sons of Melik-Tagir were baptized and subsequently rendered various services to the Russian state. The second brother of Ilgam Khuday-Kul was also baptized under the name of Peter Ibragimovich; he was soon released from arrest and married the sister of Ivan III. The prince died in 1523, and his tomb is located in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin among the sarcophagi of Russian tsars and grand dukes.

Muhammad-Amin, who ruled the khanate until 1496 as a protege of Moscow, was placed on the Kazan throne. The Russian protectorate, which began after the capture of Kazan in 1487, became even stronger. Moscow openly began to dictate its will to Kazan, deciding even the question of whom to appoint her khan. The Eastern Party made an unsuccessful attempt to put an end to such dependence by inviting the Siberian prince Mamuk to the khans, but he did not find further support in the same party: its leader, the head of the Kazan government, Kel-Ahmed, betrayed his principles, adopted a Moscow orientation. Taking advantage of the temporary absence of Mamuk in Kazan, the city gates were closed in front of him, and he and his retinue went back to Siberia (for some reason he died on the way).

The leadership of Kazan decided to restore the dynasty of Ulu-Muhammed, but not in favor of Muhammad-Amin, with whom the same Kel-Ahmed had disagreements, but invited his younger brother Abdul-Latif, who at that time ruled Zvenigorod near Moscow. However, before that, the young prince was brought up in the Crimea, by his mother Nur-Saltan, which played a decisive role in shaping his views, in pursuing his policy in favor of the independence of the Kazan Khanate. He ruled for a little over five years (1497 - 1502) and was deposed by the Russian embassy, ​​which was sent to Kazan by Ivan III with the assistance of Kel-Ahmed.

Nur-Saltan, the mother of the last two Kazan khans from the clan of Ulu-Mohammed, was mentioned several times above. She played an outstanding role in the history of the Kazan Khanate, and the forty-year period from 1480 to 1520 is even called the Nur-Saltan era. The largest events of the Kazan-Crimean-Russian relations and the difficult period of the existence of the Kazan Khanate are associated with her name. In the difficult era of the Moscow protectorate, she showed great willpower and firmness of character in posing and solving a number of fundamental problems of Russian-Tatar relations. Thanks to her wisdom and perseverance, even her personal friendship with Sophia Paleolog, the wife of Ivan III, she made an invaluable contribution to the preservation of the Kazan Khanate as a state in the era of “gathering Russian lands”, the beginning of a new, pronounced great-power policy of the Muscovite state.

§ 46. Political history. First half of the 16th century

In 1502, Abdul-Latif was arrested, taken to Moscow and exiled to Beloozero, just as Ilgam had been treated in his time. Muhammad-Amin, who had previously been the ruler of Kashira and Serpukhov, was again placed on the Kazan throne. By this time, he had reached the age of 30, at one time, due to his high rank, he was even, albeit nominally, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army in the Lithuanian war.

Having become the Khan of Kazan for the second time (1502 - 1518), Muhammad-Amin changed his views, began to assess the political situation from a different point of view - from the standpoint of the further development of his state along an independent path. The sources claim that his new wife, the former wife of the late Ilgam Khan, played a big role in this (then there was such a custom: the widow of the deceased monarch was given for his brother, the new head of state. This was done, for example, with the widow of Qasim, passing her off as Mahmutek, the wife of Khalil Nur-Saltan was married to Ibrahim. The widow of the khan married a second, in other cases even a third time only for the khan, and if there were no brothers of the late husband, then for the ruler of another khanate. Therefore, the presence of two or even several wives among the Tatar khans should not surprise the modern reader, although such a custom existed in general in the medieval world). The widow of Ilgam, a patriot of the Kazan land and who, together with her first husband, endured the humiliation of exile, undoubtedly had big influence to the awakening of the national feelings of Mohammed-Amin. The fruits of maternal upbringing were not in vain - although Nur-Saltan already lived in the Crimea, she visited her children in Kazan and Russia from time to time.

Mohammed-Amin, being a smart and cunning politician, was secretly preparing for war, so that neither the Moscow rulers nor his worst enemy in Kazan, Kel-Ahmed, noticed this. By the way, the latter - the culprit of the deposition of Muhammad-Amin and Abdul-Latif and who played a very negative role in the political life of the Kazan Khanate - was arrested and executed in 1506.

Khan perfectly understood that the days of the decrepit Ivan III were numbered, that this once omnipotent monarch no longer represented a formidable force for him, and his son and successor Vasily III did not have the abilities of his father. Mohammed-Amin sent a 60,000-strong army towards Nizhny Novgorod. The Grand Duke heard the news about the crossing of the Tatars through the border Sura, and he sent a large army against them. However, the Kazanians at that time were already besieging Nizhny - they failed to take the city, and they returned back without meeting the Russians.

In October 1505, Ivan III died, and in April 1506, Vasily III sent an entire army of two large formations against the Kazan Khanate - ship and cavalry. On May 22, Mohammed-Amin defeated the ship army that had arrived earlier near Kazan, and a month later, on June 25, when the cavalry units had already approached, the entire united Russian army suffered a severe defeat. The Russian army, according to some Russian sources, consisted of 100,000 people. K. Marx, in his notes on the history of Russia, wrote about this war that "the Muscovites ... were so defeated near Kazan that only 7,000 were saved."

In a word, it was the biggest battle. Rus' has never known such a defeat since Genghis and Batu Khans. Contemporaries compared this battle with Kulikovo. The Tatars have undoubtedly taken revenge this time for their defeat 125 years ago. Vasily III was forced to draw up an agreement with Mohammed-Amin - "peace in the old days and friendship." As S. Herbershtein wrote a little later, "Kazan people have separated themselves from the sovereign of Moscow."

Mohammed-Amin agreed to the treaty and all its further political activity did not show any activity. Assessing this period of his reign, M. G. Khudyakov noted that, having won a brilliant victory over the Russians, Mohammed-Amin received an excuse before the Tatar public for his previous activities to please Moscow and his further life flowed calmly. In his last years, he fell ill with some kind of serious illness and died in 1518 at the age of about 48.

The Tatars again faced the question of the owner of the throne, because the family of Ulu-Mohammed stopped there: Ilgam and Melik-Tagir were no longer alive, Khuday-Kul became a Christian, but Abdul-Latif, who was in exile on Beloozero, a year before death of Mohammed-Amin, killed. True, Ibrahim Khan had several more daughters, among them the most famous was Gauharshad (Kovgarshad, according to Russian chronicles), she is also the daughter of Nur-Saltan, a future active participant in the struggle for the national independence of the Kazan Khanate. However, the question of her as the successor of her brother was not raised, because in those days women did not yet have the right to the throne. Then one could talk about Nur-Saltan herself, whose husband, i.e. the Crimean Khan Mengli Giray, died in 1515.

However, Nur-Saltan had two sons from Mengli-Girey, i.e. the brothers Muhammad-Amin and Abdul-Latifa are Muhammad-Girey and Sahib-Girey. Mohammed Giray after the death of his father became the Khan of the Crimea and he offered Vasily III to the Kazan throne of his brother. Moscow refused - it did not want a future strong Crimean-Kazan opposition. Vasily III had his own candidacy and he informed the Kazan government about it - he was the eldest son of the Kasimov Khan Sheikh-Auliyar Shah-Ali (Shigalei, according to Russian chronicles). The Grand Duke did not accidentally pick him up - Shah Ali grew up in Moscow and, accordingly, received a Great Russian upbringing, which played a role in his subsequent anti-Tatar activities.

Even before his departure for Kazan, Shah-Ali took an oath of allegiance to Russia in Moscow and sat on the Kazan throne in 1519 as a 13-year-old youth. According to the description of the Russian chronicler, he "was very strong in the eyes of a terrible and mercy face and body, had long ears hanging on his shoulders, a woman's face, a thick and haughty belly (belly), short legs, long steps, a bestial seat." S. Herberstein described him in much the same way when he saw Shah-Ali in Moscow in 1526. And it was not in vain that the same chronicler sarcastically remarked: “This is what they, the Tatars, purposely depicted the king as a mockery and ridicule of them.”

Shah-Ali was placed on the throne of Kazan by Moscow three times and actually expelled from there three times - he was so disgusting and unnecessary to the Kazan people. Even supporters of the pro-Moscow orientation did not like him - they simply tolerated it because Moscow itself gave it to them. He was also hated by the Crimeans: the clan of the Gireys and the clan of the Great Horde Akhmat, from where Shah Ali was from, had long been at enmity with each other, besides, Vasily III, having changed his word given to the Crimeans not to put this man on the Kazan throne, it was he who made him new head of the Kazan Khanate. The patience of the Crimeans snapped: after all, just a few years ago, Mohammed Giray, fulfilling an allied agreement with Russia, defeated the hostile Polish army. Thus, the Grand Duke thoroughly let down the Crimea.

And in the spring of 1521, accompanied by only 300 soldiers from the Crimea, Sahib Giray arrived in Kazan. This happened so unexpectedly that he entered the city completely unhindered. The Russian ambassador and governor were arrested, the property of all Russian and Kasimov merchants was confiscated, and Shah Ali's personal guard was almost killed. He miraculously escaped and, at the head of a small detachment, managed to escape to Moscow. The Russian protectorate, which lasted almost 35 years (1487 - 1520), ended. A new period began in the history of the Kazan Khanate, the period of the rise of national consciousness, the active struggle of the population of Kazan and the Kazan land against intervention.

The name of Sahib Giray is already known to students: it is with him that the only authentic document of the era of the Kazan Khanate, the Khan's label, is associated. Unlike his predecessor, Sahib-Giray was exceptionally good-looking, and this alone made a very good impression on the Kazan people after Kasimov's "handsome" had the honor of "guiding" them. In the same 1521, Sahib-Girey, together with Mohammed-Girey, started a war with Russia. The Crimean and Kazan troops united near Kolomna (before that, the Kazanians took Nizhny Novgorod), together they approached Moscow and surrounded it. A terrible panic began in the city, vividly described in Russian and Western European sources. The Grand Duke himself fled to Volokolamsk, leaving the defense of Moscow to his brother-in-law Pyotr Ibragimovich, that is, Khudai-Kul. The Russian government asked for peace, and the Grand Duke, returning to Moscow, was forced to sign an agreement that was humiliating for him - he recognized dependence on the Crimean Khan, agreeing to pay him the same tribute. The Kazan Tatars returned with great booty and gained complete independence from Moscow.

Returning to Kazan, the Tatars staged a pogrom against Russian merchants, many of them were killed, even the ambassador of Moscow was killed. This served as a pretext for Vasily III to new war against the Tatars. First, the fortress Vasil-gorod (Vasilsursk) was built closer to Kazan - it was built on the land of the khanate. This first step of the aggressive policy was condemned even in Moscow itself, but the Orthodox clergy supported the actions of the government, and Metropolitan Daniel said so: “We will take all the land of Kazan with that city.”

An unfavorable situation developed for Kazan: Mohammed-Girey, brother and ally of Sahib-Girey, suddenly died in the Crimea. The new Khan Saadet-Girey began negotiations with Moscow, insisting that she make peace with Kazan. Vasily III answered with a categorical refusal, and the campaign against the Tatars began again. Feeling the approach of danger, Sahib-Girey called his nephew Safa-Girey from the Crimea, and he went to Turkey to ask the Sultan for help in protecting Kazan. This is noted in some sources. However, the khan went to the Turks not so much for help for Kazan, but to get the Crimean throne. A few years later, he achieved the removal of Saadet Giray and became Khan. Crimea under the rule of Sahib Giray (1532 - 1551) experienced an era of prosperity. He was a highly educated man for his time and the largest statesman, a worthy successor to the powerful khans of the Golden Horde.

The 13-year-old Safa Giray sat on the Kazan throne. It was a difficult time: the Russian army was approaching, according to some sources, 150 thousand soldiers, and according to others - 180 thousand. However, various parts of this army again, as in 1469, 1506, approached Kazan at different times. The Tatars first defeated the advance detachment of their cavalry, and then the whole flotilla, 90 ships of which even fell into the hands of Kazan. In general, the campaign failed again and a peace treaty was drawn up again, according to which Vasily III recognized Safa-Girey as the Khan of Kazan.

The peace was short-lived - in 1530, the Russian army again approached Kazan. 30,000 Nogais and Astrakhans came to help Safe Giray. The Russians set fire to the settlement from the side of Bulak, but they could not take the city. Realizing that it was not so easy for them to defeat the Tatars, the Moscow leadership launched diplomacy - it was necessary to lure influential Tatar princes to their side and raise a rebellion against the khan. It was a rather unpleasant story, and a certain circle of the Kazan elite fell for this bait. Safa-Giray was deposed, and Moscow offered the same Shah-Ali as khan, but Kazan categorically rejected him. They settled on the candidacy of his brother Jan-Ali (Enalei, according to Russian chronicles), who, like Shah-Ali at various times, had previously been the Khan of Kasimov.

Jan-Ali ascended the Kazan throne in 1531 at the age of 15, but he was only nominally a khan: the country was ruled by a government headed by the already mentioned Gauharshad princess, the daughter of Ibrahim Khan and Nur-Saltan. Two years later, the young khan was married to 15-year-old Syuyumbika, the daughter of the Nogai prince Yusuf, for which the consent of the Russian government was required. It was a marriage of convenience - Moscow needed a reliable ally in the face of the Nogai Horde. However, Yusuf, realizing his mistake, became an opponent of an alliance with Russia.

After the death of Vasily III in 1535, Gauharshad, together with the famous Karacha-biy Bulat Shirin (some sources say that they later became spouses), led an active struggle against the Moscow protectorate. In the Resurrection Chronicle - one of the most authoritative medieval Russian sources - it says so: "Kovgarshad-tsarevna and Bulat the prince and all the land of Kazan betrayed the Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich." This was immediately followed by a coup: on September 25, 1535, Jan-Ali was killed and Safa-Girey was again invited as a khan. At the same time, successful military operations of the Tatars against Russia began in the directions of Nizhny Novgorod, Kostroma and Murom.

Meanwhile, big disagreements arose again in the leadership of Kazan - this time between Safa-Girey and Bulat Shirin, who was the organizer of the deposition of the khan in 1531. In 1541, there was a serious opposition to the khan, who turned to Moscow for help in removing Safa Giray. Russia began to prepare for war, but the Crimea intervened again, and the matter did not come to a battle. The position of Safa Giray was strengthened, and an agreement was drawn up between the two leading forces: the Khan and the opposition Shirin. Moreover, the parties either found a common language, or seriously diverged.

In 1545, taking advantage of another disagreement between the khan and the opposition, Moscow organized a new campaign against Kazan. As has happened more than once, the Russians approached in two ways: along the Volga from Nizhny and along the Vyatka from the north. The meeting with the Volga detachment did not bring good luck to the Kazanians, but they defeated the late Vyatka army. Khan accused the opposition of being the culprits of the Russian campaign against Kazan, arrests and executions began. Gauharshad and Bulat the Prince left the historical arena. Although they fought for the independence of the khanate, which was especially evident in the deposition of the Moscow protege Jan-Ali, they could not achieve unity of forces in the state.

A year later, a new opposition to the khan arose, led by the princes Buyurgan and Chura Narykov. Safa Giray was again overthrown, while the Crimeans were pogromized. Khan went to the Nogai Horde, from there to Astrakhan; returned with a new detachment, but could not take Kazan and went back to the Nogais. Shah-Ali was invited by Kazan Khan for the second time. However, the puppet of Kasimov managed to “rule” only 1 month: Safa-Girey came with a significant army from Nogai and freely entered Kazan. Shah Ali was able to escape this time as well. Arrests began in Kazan, Chura Narykov and his associates were executed. The pro-Russian party practically ceased to exist, the coalition government fell. Peaceful relations were restored between Moscow and Kazan.

§ 47. The conquest of the Kazan Khanate

In March 1549, at the age of 39, Safa Giray died suddenly, without having time to announce his successor. He had several wives and four sons. Two adults then lived in the Crimea and one of them, Bulyak-Girey, after the death of his father was invited by the khan to Kazan, but this candidacy was rejected by the Kazan people themselves. Another son of Safa-Girey, from a Russian wife, did not have the right to the throne, and the youngest son, Utyamish-Girey, who was only two years old, remained. He was chosen as the new Khan of Kazan, appointing his mother Syuyumbike as regent.

The name of Syuyumbike is well known to students, but many still do not know its history. The fact that she was the daughter of the Nogai prince Yusuf, we have already said above. Yusuf also came from a clan glorified by Idegei: he was the great-grandson of Nuretdin, the youngest son of Idegei, therefore, the latter was the ancestor (father of great-grandfather) Syuyumbike. In this respect, Syuyumbike and Nur-Saltan were even relatives: grandfather Nur-Saltan and great-great-grandfather Syuyumbike were brothers, sons of Idegei.

Syuyumbike arrived in Kazan in August 1533 and was taken away in August 1551... her late child Utyamish-Girey was born. Despite the fact that Syuyumbike was the youngest among the other wives of Safa Giray, she was considered the eldest in her position, for she was his beloved wife. According to the Russian chronicles, she was “very red and wise,” that is, very beautiful and wise. There is no need to talk about Tatar legends and bytes on this account - her beauty and nobility are sung in them. The name Syuyumbike in the history of the Tatar people is a symbol of a fighter for freedom and independence.

And now let us briefly turn to the events of the very last period of the existence of the Kazan Khanate, which left a tragic mark in the history of the Tatar people, an unhealed wound in their soul.

A government was formed in Kazan, headed by the Crimean oglan Kuchak, the head of the garrison. The fact that civil and military power was concentrated in the hands of one person must have played a big role in this most difficult period. However, the government was created only three months after the death of Safa Giray. Thus, precious time was lost to mobilize the army and bring it to combat readiness. The Moscow leadership, meanwhile, was preparing for new campaigns against Kazan.

From the end of the 1540s, the well-known in history “Kazan campaigns of Ivan the Terrible” began, led by Ivan IV himself, when he came of age, and in 1547, for the first time in the history of the existence of the Russian state, he was declared king (all rulers before him, as we know, bore the title "Grand Duke"). The ideological mentors of the young king, who played a decisive role in the formation of his extreme militancy and predatory views, were two people. One of them is Metropolitan Macarius, who is also the head of the tsarist government, that is, the second person in the state after the tsar. His other ideological leader is Ivan Peresvetov, already named above, who in his letters to the tsar and journalistic writings constantly urged him to conquer the Kazan Khanate. As the prominent Russian-Soviet historian, banned during the years of Stalinism, Academician M. N. Pokrovsky, I. Peresvetov rightly emphasized, “demanded conquests. First of all, the conquests of Kazan, and then in general an offensive, aggressive war.

Ivan the Terrible was distinguished by his immoral life and misanthropic actions, and the Russian people themselves suffered first of all from the system of terror he created. In relation to the peoples he conquered, he pursued a policy of extermination. It began precisely with his Kazan campaigns, which led to the conquest and liquidation of the Kazan Khanate.

So the events unfolded in the following order. At the end of 1548, the tsar, together with the metropolitan, went on a campaign against the Tatars, but it was so unorganized that it dragged on until the beginning of March 1549, and the “commanders” returned to Moscow empty-handed. They repeated the campaign in the winter of 1550, again led by the tsar himself and ... again unsuccessfully - again, like last time, mudslides, rains, “warmth”, “great phlegm” began, as Russian chronicles note with regret. Here, of course, not "warmth" and not "phlegm" are to blame, but the mediocrity of the organizers is to blame. However, the Kazan government, despite the fact that the Russian army stood idle near Kazan for 13 days, was unable to take any serious measures to strike at the enemy.

After these unsuccessful campaigns in Moscow, a broad and serious program was drawn up for the conquest of the Kazan Khanate. Experts in military affairs of that time, government and church leaders participated in its development with the invitation of specialists from Western Europe, as well as those Kazan defectors who knew well the strengths and weaknesses of the military-state structure of the Kazan Khanate. The army was improved (by the way, they used the example of the Crimea and Turkey in organizing advanced corps and called them streltsy), reinforced artillery, with inspection and the close participation of German and British demolitionists, engineering troops were created to blow up the impregnable walls of Kazan.

One of the major achievements of the military-strategic plan for the conquest of the Kazan Khanate was the construction on its land, just 30 km from Kazan itself, of the Sviyazhsk fortress as a strong stronghold in an offensive operation. Sviyazhsk was built in the shortest possible time - in just 28 days from May 24, 1551, for which pre-prepared parts of the future fortress were brought from Uglich along the Volga. Sviyazhsk became not only the strongest stronghold for that time, a convenient base for the army in the field, but also a kind of military-political center of the Mountain side, that is, a good half of the khanate in the west. The isolation of the Mountain side deprived the Kazan Khanate of significant economic and human (primarily military) resources in the upcoming war. The construction of this stronghold gave the Russians great opportunities to occupy the main river (Volga, Kama, Sviyaga, Vyatka) and land routes, thus blocking the capital, in which a serious political crisis was brewing.

A great opposition arose to Kuchak, and an obvious coup was being prepared. Kuchak escaped with a small detachment, but was caught by the Russians at the mouth of the Vyatka and sent to Moscow, where he was publicly executed. A new government was formed in Kazan, headed by Khudai-Kul (this is not Pyotr Ibragimovich, but another person) and Nurali Shirin, the son of Bulat Shirin, known to us. An embassy was sent to Moscow with the terms of a truce. The Russian government demanded that Khan Shah-Ali be accepted to Kazan, and Syuyumbike and his son should be sent to Moscow. If the Kazanians failed to comply with this condition, Moscow threatened to terminate the agreement and immediately send troops to Kazan.

Syuyumbike understood the complexity of the situation: the khanate was split into two parts, almost all the main routes to the capital were controlled, and there was practically no possibility of gathering a militia army. Being still inexperienced in public administration, she believed that the Moscow leadership would not send troops to Kazan in the event of her capture and appointment as Shah Ali Khan, and sacrificed herself in order to preserve the state. Her move could be called exceptionally wise if she was dealing with a normal, civilized opponent. And the enemy deceived her: contrary to his promises, a year later he conquered Kazan. Prince Serebryany, trusted by the Russian Tsar, arrived in Kazan and took away Syuyumbike and Utyamish-Girey with a huge wealth of the state.

Syuyumbike was forever separated from her people, her homeland, and finally with her only child and was forcibly married to the same Shah-Ali when he became the Kasimov Khan after the fall of Kazan. The last years of her life were spent in great grief and suffering. In the letters of her father Yusuf to Ivan the Terrible, with legal claims and great resentment, it is said that Shah Ali tortured her. And her son Utyamish-Girey was baptized under the name Alexander, lived until 1564 and died at the age of 18 (the causes of his death are not known). He was buried, like Khudai-Kul, that is, Peter Ibragimovich, in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.

So, the Kazan throne for the third time was given to Shah-Ali - the same freak-politician hated by the Kazan Tatars, freak-man, "Russian protege", by K. Marx's definition.

The Tatar community reacted violently to the separation of the Mountain Side at the congress-kurultai, which took place on August 14, 1551, on the day of Shah Ali's arrival. Despite the strong objection of Kazan to the seizure of this territory, Moscow did not make any concessions, referring to the "will of God" in this matter. Under the threat of the outbreak of war, the Tatars were forced to sign an agreement, after which the western half of the khanate went to Russia. Moscow set extremely stringent demands for the release of all Russian prisoners, "forgetting" about the Tatar slaves in Russia. Unrest began among the Tatars, a conspiracy arose against Shah Ali and the Moscow envoys, but it was liquidated by the treachery and betrayal of the Khan. In the center of Kazan, Russian archers staged a real massacre - more than 70 Tatars were killed, among them prominent princes and military leaders.

Moscow decided to take tough measures: to replace Shah Ali with a Russian governor, to tear away the eastern half of the khanate to Russia. This issue was discussed in the tsarist government in the presence of the Tatar ambassadors detained there, including Nurali Shirin. They decided to leave the Kazan Khanate with autonomous rights, replacing the khan with the governor of Moscow, freeing all Russian prisoners, but not changing the internal structure of the khanate and returning the Mountain side to it. Tatar ambassadors were actually forced to sign this agreement.

In February 1552, the Russian ambassador Alexei Adashev arrived in Kazan to depose the khan, who demanded from Shah Ali permission to enter the city of the Russian governor and surrender Kazan to him. Shah Ali refused to open the city gates to the Moscow army, but abdicated and left for Moscow, fulfilling the will of Ivan the Terrible - to destroy the Kazan artillery arsenal. He took with him a large number of hostages - more than 80 Tatar princes and murzas. On March 9, the Russian governor Semyon Mikulinsky left Sviyazhsk for Kazan, accompanied by a reinforced army, taking with him the Tatar hostages brought there by Shah Ali on his way to Moscow. But Kazanians closed the gates in front of him. The spirit of liberty returned to the city, Moscow's plan to make the Kazan Khanate a province of Russia collapsed. The viceroy went back together with the hostages (they were liquidated later). A provisional government headed by Prince Chapkun Otuch was organized in Kazan.

The new government resolutely set itself the goal of organizing the struggle for national independence. The archers who remained in the city were killed. They sent an invitation to the khans to the Astrakhan prince Yadiger, who was at that time in the Nogai Horde. At the same time, the Mountain side was recaptured with successful military operations, except for Sviyazhsk. In early March, 30-year-old Yadiger arrived in Kazan and took the throne. The Tatars perked up, an upbeat, patriotic mood reigned in the city.

Moscow finally moved to decisive action. The 150,000-strong Russian army, led by the tsar, went to Kazan in June and arrived in Sviyazhsk in early August. On August 23, the army of Ivan the Terrible crossed the Volga and besieged Kazan with significantly superior forces, in addition, it had 150 cannons and a specially trained group of demolition miners led by the English engineer Butler (the great Russian chemist Kazanian A. M. Butlerov goes back to him in his ancestry) .

The first sortie of the Kazanians took place on August 23 - the Tatars hit the front lines of the enemy and retreated without breaking through them, due to the incomparably larger number of Russians. A few days later, a whole army formation of Prince Gorbaty-Shuisky liquidated an army of suburban Tatar militia, led by Yaush and Yapancha. Another detachment with fighting reached Arsk and, as we already know, returned from there with rich booty and a large number of prisoners. The unfortunate were tied to pegs in front of the city fortifications and forced to ask their relatives to surrender to the Russians.

Meanwhile, the ring around Kazan was shrinking more and more, and there was a great danger of breaking through the defenses at the main Kazan gates - Khan and Ar. There was an explosion of the wall between them, but the defenders quickly eliminated the gap in the fortifications. On September 5, an underground passage was blown up under the Muraleeva Tower, leading to the only remaining spring with clean water. The besieged were forced to take water from the "filthy" lakes, as a result of which an epidemic began among some of the townspeople. On September 30, the Russians staged another explosion at the Arsky Gates, but Kazan again did not let them into the city. The envoys of Grozny appealed to the besieged with a demand to surrender, but were resolutely refused. The Tatars swore to defend their city, their land to the last drop of blood.

On October 2, a general offensive against Kazan was scheduled. On the eve of a strong artillery preparation. Nobody slept that night: the Kazanians were preparing for the last, decisive battle with the enemy, the Russians took up their offensive positions in anticipation of a general signal to attack. And just before dawn, two powerful explosions occurred at the same time at the Atalykov and Nogai gates - in total 48 large barrels of gunpowder were laid there. Two huge breakthroughs appeared in the city fortifications, which could no longer be restored, and a horde of Russian soldiers rushed into the city through them. A terrible battle began. However, the numerical superiority was clearly on the side of the enemy, and he increasingly began to push the besieged.

But here the victory almost tipped in favor of the Tatars: the Muscovites began to rob houses, crates, barns, and real looting began. Seeing all this and experiencing a powerful upsurge of strength, the Tatars attacked the enemy. With a cry of "flog, flog!" (as it is reported in the annals) the Russians began to flee. However, Ivan the Terrible brought his 20,000-strong reserve into battle, and besides, taking the "sacred" banner in his hands, he himself stood at the Khan's Gate, inspiring his falcons to fight for the "holy" cause. Fresh Russian force began to push the Tatars to the Kremlin.

Here the last battle took place. The defenders of the city were headed by Yadiger Khan and Kul Sharif, the head of all the Muslims of the country. Seid fell heroically in battle, by noon Yadiger was taken prisoner. The last stronghold of the Kazanians was the "Tsar's Dvor", where up to 10 thousand surviving Tatar warriors gathered. Suddenly, women from the Khan's palace stepped forward, but the enemies did not spare them either. The last 6,000 Tatars broke through from the fortress to Kazanka, but met with new forces from the Kurbsky formation. Only a small part of the Kazanians were able to cross the Kazanka and go into the forests.

Massacre began in the city. Russian sources (Royal Book, Nikonovskaya and other Chronicles, Kazan History) report that the men were killed, and the women and children were handed out to Russian soldiers. Tatar blood flowed like a river, it was difficult to pass through the many lying corpses. The banks of the Kazanka under the Kremlin, pits, ravines, and ditches of defensive fortifications were filled with them; in places their heaps reached the height of the city walls. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, Ivan the Terrible rode into the city on horseback, for which they had difficulty clearing a passage only a hundred steps long from the Muraley Gates to the Khan's Palace. Kazan fell, the Kazan Khanate ceased to exist. The last Kazan Khan, Yadiger, was taken to Moscow and baptized under the name of Simeon. The government and the army were destroyed, all state structures were liquidated. Gorbaty-Shuisky, governor of Moscow, was placed in charge of Kazan. However, the Tatars and other peoples of the Kazan Khanate did not stop the struggle for their independence, although it has now acquired a spontaneous character - the form popular struggle. Ordering, the Gornaya side and the Mari region were engulfed in uprisings, the general leadership of which was taken over by Prince Mamysh-Berdi. He chose the well-fortified Chalymsky town on the high left bank of the Volga on the Mari land as his headquarters. A fortress also appeared on the Arskaya side, in the upper reaches of the Mesha River.

The rebels initially achieved significant success - they defeated and destroyed government troops sent against them from Kazan and Sviyazhsk. Ali-Akram, Syuyumbike's brother, was invited from Saraichik to become khan. His father, Prince Yusuf, known to us, gathered a 100,000-strong army to help the Kazanians, but the head of the Nogai principality Ismail intervened, bribed before the conquest of the Kazan Khanate by the Moscow government in order to eliminate the Kazan-Nogai coalition. Ismail threatened Yusuf with war, and the help of the Nogais, which, together with the Kazanians themselves, could restore the Kazan Khanate, did not take place.

Meanwhile, Moscow began punitive actions against the rebels. Throughout the summer of 1553, along the banks of the Volga, Kama, Vyatka and Sviyaga, military units led by Adashev, Mikulinsky, Sheremetyev, Morozov, Kurbsky, left a bloody trail in the Kazan events of 1552. These troops captured and killed Tatars, Maris, Chuvashs, robbed and burned villages, and generally terrorized the population of the entire Kazan land. As the well-known Russian historian S. M. Solovyov later noted, in the winter of 1554 alone, the punishers “terribly devastated the whole country, went up the Kama for 250 miles, captured 6,000 men, 15,000 women and children.”

The people's war during 1554-1555 went on with varying success. However, later, the Mstislavsky detachment staged a new devastation, capturing and executing thousands of people. In the spring of 1556, Morozov's army surrounded the Chalymsky town and repeated the Kazan version of the blasting of 1552 there. The fortress fell, Ali-Akram was killed, and Mamysh-Berdi was sent to Moscow under heavy escort and executed there. The Kazan Khanate, which had recovered to some extent, was finally liquidated. But the people's war for freedom and independence did not stop.

Now let's try to briefly list the main reasons for the defeat of the Tatars in 1552:

1. The presence of an adversary of the Kazan Khanate in the face of the Russian state, whose general aggressive policy, since the 40s of the 16th century, has acquired the form of expansionist, conquest wars in the east under extremely hostile attitude militant church to the Muslim Tatars (“basurmans”, “antichrists”, “wicked”, “filthy”, “tatarva”, “Kazan abomination”, etc.).

2. The absence of the militia army of the Kazan Khanate, i.e., the army of the whole country, the general mobilization of which became impossible after the emergence of the Sviyazhsk fortress with the simultaneous rejection of the western half of the state and the blocking of the main water and land roads of the entire Kazan land, which ultimately led to the isolation of the capital states.

3. The liquidation of the artillery arsenal of Kazan at the decisive moment in the defense of the city and the khanate, carried out at the behest of the tsarist government.

4. The lack of unity among the Tatars themselves, especially in the leadership of the country, during the crucial period of protecting the integrity of the state in the late 40s and early 50s. The anti-people, anti-state policy of Shah Ali, Kel-Ahmed, the Nogai prince Ismail, and other traitors, created and constantly supported by the government of Ivan the Terrible and the authorities of the autocratic-church ideology.

5. Active diplomatic and other work of Moscow in order to prevent the creation of the Kazan-Nogai, Kazan-Crimean and Kazan-Siberian coalitions in the common struggle against invasion from the West. The weakness of Kazan diplomacy in this regard, in search of new allies both outside the state and within the country. The insufficient activity of even some well-known statesmen (Bulat and Nurali Shirin, Gauharshad, Boyurgan, Chura Narykov, Kuchak, etc.) in creating the unity of political and social forces, the lack of cohesion between the work of the khan's apparatus and the government.

§ 48. Brief history of other Tatar khanates

The largest late medieval Tatar state was Crimean Khanate. Even before the separation of the Crimean Khanate proper in the disintegrating Golden Horde, there was a struggle for power between Ulu-Mohammed, who owned Saray with the adjacent Volga lands, and Davlet-Berdi, with the region Crimean peninsula and Black Sea lands. The victory was won by Ulu-Muhammed, but he had another opponent - Kichi-Muhammed, who managed to force his older namesake to go north. Kichi-Mohammed achieved significant success in public administration as a khan, but not of the Golden Horde, which had finally disintegrated by that time, but of its direct successor to the Great (Great) Horde with the subordination of Crimea to it. He drove out his longtime rival Seyid-Ahmed, who seized power in the Crimea after Davlet-Berdi, but a new opponent appeared - Hadji Giray, the son of the former Golden Horde Khan Gias ad-din, who in 1434 tried to secure the Crimea for himself, but failed and went to Lithuania.

And now Hadji Giray reappeared on the historical arena. He was supported by the feudal aristocracy of the most noble families of Crimea and the entire Golden Horde Shirinov, Baryn, Argynov, Kipchak, who sought to turn Tavria (Crimea) into an independent state. This recently powerful economic region of Central Eurasia, which played a huge role in the system of the largest international trade, although it began to lose its former power during the collapse of the Golden Horde, still remained a solid economic base with big cities. The Tatar aristocracy of Crimea was supported in turn by the Grand Duke of Lithuania Casimir, and Hadji Giray in 1443 sat on the Tauride throne. Since that time, the existence of the Crimean Khanate as an independent state begins.

Hadji Giray ruled the Crimean Khanate until his death in 1446, and the period of his reign was the time of the emergence and formation of a new late medieval Tatar state in the west. He founded the dynasty of the Gireys (it would be more correct to say: the clan of the Gireys of the Jochid dynasty) as the only and stable dynasty of the Tatar khanates. She ruled Crimea until its annexation by the Russian state in 1783, that is, for 340 years. It was the most long-term state among all the Tatar khanates. After Hadji-Girey, his eldest son Nur-Davlet received the throne, but he stayed as khan for only two years and in 1468 was replaced by his brother Mengli-Girey. The reign of the latter turned out to be the longest - about 45 years with interruptions between 1468 and 1475 and continuously from 1475 to 1515 - and Mengli Giray became one of the most powerful khans not only of Crimea, but of the entire Tatar world.

The initial period of the reign of Mengli-Giray, until 1475, was unsuccessful for him: he had quite a few brothers and other relatives, who led the fight against him. Haydar, who led this strife, forced him to leave the throne, and Mengli Giray was forced to seek refuge with the Genoese. Taking advantage of internal strife, the Christians then took power over Kaffa, Mangup and other southern Crimean cities.

Turkey decided to intervene in this matter, and its Sultan Mohammed II in 1475 sent his vizier Kedyuk-Ahmed Pasha to the Crimea with a large army. The Turks quickly took possession of these cities, captured the Christian rulers and sent them to Constantinople (Istanbul). Among the captives was Mengli Giray, who at that time was in Kaffa under the protection of the Italians. The Sultan ordered the execution of all Crimeans, but at the last moment he spared the young khan, giving him high honor. The Crimean patron of Mengli-Girey, the great Emir Emenek-bek, took care of his protégé with the Sultan, and Mengli-Girey was sent to the Crimea with all honors, accompanied by an army. He was received with the same honor in his homeland and put on the throne for the second time... The Arab author of the 16th century, al-Jannabi, who transmitted this story, called Mengli Giray one of the best sovereigns of the Turkic world.

Having regained the khan's throne with the help of the Ottoman sultan, Mengli Giray had to recognize Turkish patronage over himself, and a Turkish protectorate over the country. However, this did not prevent him from drawing up an agreement with Ivan III. Undoubtedly, he maintained very close relations with the Kazan Khanate, in this he was helped by his wife, the former Kazan queen Nur-Saltan, already well known to us. In general, Mengli Giray was an experienced politician and his long stable rule of Crimea played a very positive role in the political and economic life countries.

Naturally, like many major rulers, Mengli Giray used all possible means of political struggle in order to strengthen his state. In 1502, he defeated the Great Horde, the enmity between which and the Crimea had been going on since the initial period of the reign of Kichi-Muhammed and Hadji Giray. Mengli annexed most of its territory to his state, and it was after this that the number of Tatars in the Crimean Khanate greatly increased, far surpassing the Genoese, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Goths, etc. living there.

Mengli Giray pursued an energetic domestic and foreign policy, developed the country's economy, paid much attention to construction, founded new cities. Under him, the capital of the khanate was transferred from Isk-Crimea to Bakhchisaray, built under Hadji Giray. The Khan's Palace in Bakhchisarai has almost completely survived to this day. The palace itself with the Jami (Cathedral) Mosque, the Golden Cabinet of the Khans, the Coffee Room, the Fruit Gazebo, the Falcon Tower, the "Fountain of Tears" sung by A. S. Pushkin, and other no less interesting objects still amaze with their magnificent architectural design, aesthetically decorated interiors of halls and chambers, medieval mystery...

Famous ancient and medieval cities continued to exist in the Crimea, which are known to us from the previous chapter: Su-Dag (Sudak, Soldaya), Kherson (Sary-Kirman), Mangup (Gothia), Kefe (Kaffa), Balaklava (Chembalo), Iski- Crimea (Sol-Khat), Chufut-Kala (Kyryk-Er). New ones arose, among them the named Bakhchisaray, Gezlev (Evpatoria), Ak-Mechet, or Soltan-Saray (Simferopol), Or-Kapusy (Gate of the moat - Perekop), Yangi-Kala (New City), the former, but greatly changed Yalita ( Yalta) and others. Crimea has been a land of high urban culture since antiquity, and remained so during the periods of the Golden Horde and the Crimean Khanate. Tunmann, a professor at the University of Gaul in Saxony, who had vast information about the Crimean Khanate and who himself visited it in the mid-70s of the 18th century, i.e., in the last period of the existence of the state, recorded 48 districts there, headed by cities and large settlements, separately 9 cities and 1399 villages (this is much more than in the Kazan Khanate).

All these cities, villages and nomad camps occupied a large territory. In addition to the Crimea itself, the khanate included: the vast Dnieper and Buzhsky steppes of the Northern Black Sea region, fenced off from the north by Russian and Polish-Lithuanian possessions; the western lands between the Dniester and the Danube called Budzhak (Bessarabia) is the westernmost region of the former Golden Horde; eastern lands in the Kuban basin, including the Taman Peninsula, headed by the city of Taman (former Tamatarkha) and a number of other medieval cities and fortresses, many of which also continued to exist from the period of antiquity.

All these ancient, richest lands belonged to the Crimean Khanate. If in the south, on the Crimean peninsula, especially in its coastal part, there were the largest port cities, centers of large sea and caravan trade, centers of crafts and urban civilization, the northern zone was mainly occupied by the steppe. In medieval Arabic geography, according to tradition, it was also called Desht-i-Kipchak, or simply Desht (Steppe). The soil of these lands, according to eyewitnesses, was one of the most fertile, where grass grew taller than human growth, and all the air was saturated with a pleasant smell. There lived countless steppe animals, among which one could even meet herds of wild horses.

This steppe zone of the khanate in the Crimea itself was called Nogai and consisted of two parts: Eastern Nogai in the Dnieper region and Western - in the interfluve of the Bug and Dniester. Thunmann says that the steppe Tatars "are called Nogai after the name of the famous commander of the same name, who founded his own, but short-lived state in these places at the end of the thirteenth century." This story is known to students from the initial period of the Golden Horde, when the temnik Nogai tried to separate the western lands from the Jochi Ulus, but was defeated in a battle with Khan Toktai. And in Western European geographical maps of the 16th - 17th centuries, this whole steppe, and further east to Yaik, including the Nogai Horde, is called Tartaria - the words "Tatars" and "Tataria" in the west were also written with a "p" in the middle.

The steppe Tatars were engaged in cattle breeding (bred horses, large and small cattle, camels), agriculture (sowed millet, barley, buckwheat), hunting and trade - they sold bread, honey, wax, wool, furs and skins of wild and domestic animals to the south and some other goods. They lived in strong steppe yurts and dwellings, appearance somewhat differed from the southern Tatars by an admixture of Mongoloidity. By religion they were Sunni Muslims, but they also preserved many pagan rites.

Sunnis- the most numerous followers of the teachings of Islam. Their main difference from the Shiites, followers of the second, less common direction, is their non-recognition of the possibility of mediation between Allah and people after the death of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. There are a number of other differences between Sunnis and Shiites: in the solution of legal issues, in the nature of the holidays, in the details of prayer and ritual. Among the main signs of belonging to Sunnism is considered, for example, the recognition of the legitimacy of all four of the first caliphs - Abu Bekr, Omar, Osman and Ali (Shiites recognize only Ali). Sunnis include about 80% of all Muslims in the world, including Tatars (Iranians, Iraqis and Azerbaijanis are Shiites).

According to the German traveler N. Kleeman, who visited the Crimea in the late 1760s, there were 500,000 Tatars in Eastern Nogai (there were 400,000 of them on the Crimean peninsula). Unfortunately, there is no exact information about their numbers in other territories - only about the Tatars of the Burdzhuk side it is said that they can field up to 40,000 soldiers (in terms of population, this is 200,000). This is already more than a million, but taking into account the population of Western Nogai and the densely populated Kuban with the Taman Peninsula, the total number of Crimean Tatars could then be about two million.

The head of state was the khan, who had a divan (council) of representatives of the highest titled nobility. Among them, the most influential, both in the former Golden Horde and in other Tatar khanates, were the Shirin, Baryn, Argyn, Kipchak clans (in the Crimea, Argyn and Kipchak later fell out and the Mansur clans from the Mangyt and Suchuvud tribe appeared). The most powerful was the Shirin clan, which kept its special residence in Iski-Krym; at the state council, the opinion of the Shirinsky bek had the greatest weight, sometimes his word meant more than the word of the khan himself.

Here, as well as in the Golden Horde, there was the position of bekleri-bek, however, unlike the previous Persian form, he was called in Tatar: bekler run, i.e. the same prince of princes, grand prince. The highest feudal level was called "kyrym bekleri" (Crimean princes), these are, in essence, ulus emirs, heads of districts. The rank below was murzas (nobles) - the children of princes. The prince of the blood of the Girey family, that is, the prince, was called the sultan.

Of the highest government positions, besides bekler run, were: kalga-sultan - in the role of commander of the entire army; kaymakan - governor of the khan in his absence; mufti - the head of all the Muslims of the country and the head of the qadis, that is, judges who decided cases on the basis of Sharia law. As you can see, in the feudal hierarchy, in the system of state positions, there are similarities with other Tatar khanates and the former Golden Horde, at the same time new titles and terms appeared.

The army of the Crimean Khanate was also a militia. This is clearly seen from the words of the mentioned Thunmann: "Every Tatar is a soldier(i.e., liable for military service). Khan only needs to indicate the place of gathering, and they are from all sides. He further says that "it is difficult to find a lighter cavalry than the Crimean Tatar." The combat readiness of the Crimean army is well known. So, in 1687 and 1689, they defeated the Russian army when it twice went on a campaign to the Crimea; the second time it had a population of 150 thousand people. Such a major defeat of the Russians was the reason for the resignation of the government of Prince Golitsyn. The Crimeans also bravely fought in the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774.

The reason for the forced annexation of the Crimean Khanate to the Russian state in 1783 is by no means the military weakness of the Crimea, but the so-called. Kuchuk-Kainarji peace, drawn up in 1774 between Russia and Turkey after the above-mentioned war. Türkiye was then defeated and practically gave Crimea, its vassal, to Russia.

small Kasimov Khanate was formed as a buffer principality between Moscow and Kazan in 1452, when the second son of Ulu-Muhammed Kasim received from the Moscow Grand Duke Vasily II as an award for his military service the Meshchersky town on the Oka, later renamed in his honor into the city of Kasimov. In essence, the khanate was created by Moscow as a stronghold for the struggle against Kazan, and it was not for nothing that the Moscow rulers later appointed as khans to Kazan some princes from the Meshchera they liked, for example, Shah-Ali, Jan-Ali. In Kasimov itself, there was no dynasty of rulers of its own; khans, who often did not have any relationship with each other, were simply appointed by the "center".

Kasimov, as a Meshchersky (Mishar) town, was previously inhabited by immigrants from the Golden Horde - the "Gorodets" Tatars, who were joined by the Tatars from the army of Kaeim, who passed to him as part of the army of his father Ulu-Muhammed after his death in 1445. The urban population - mostly serving Tatars - were in the service of the Russian state; part was engaged in trade and crafts. The rural agricultural population after the liquidation of the khanate in 1681 was assigned to the category of state peasants.

The descendants of the population of the Kasimov Khanate - modern Kasimov Tatars - live in the old, Tatar part of the city of Kasimov, Ryazan Region, and in nearby villages. They speak the so-called. middle, that is, the Kazan-Tatar dialect of the Tatar language with a significant admixture of Mishar words; profess Islam, have a general Tatar material and spiritual culture with separate local features. Monuments of monumental architecture of the period of the Kasimov Khanate are the Minaret of the Khan's mosque of the XV century located on the territory of the city of Kasimov (the mosque itself and the remains of the nearby Khan's palace were destroyed in the XVIII century; at the same time, a new mosque was built on the site of the old one, next to the minaret, a new mosque); The mausoleum of Shah Ali with the tombstones of the Khan himself preserved inside. and his associates, XVI century; Mausoleum of Avgan-bek, XVII century.

Siberian Khanate It was founded in 1429 under Mahmutek, the son of Hadji-Mohammed from the dynasty, or rather, the Shaybanid clan of the Golden Horde Jochid dynasty. Shaiban was the brother of Batu Khan, who gave him an ulus in Western Siberia between the Urals and the Irtysh - in this territory the Siberian Khanate arose. If earlier the Tatars of this ulus were engaged in cattle breeding and taiga hunting in the northern forest zone, then the period of the Khanate is characterized by the spread of agriculture and urban culture. Known, for example, is the ancient city of Isker (Iski-Yir, that is, the Old Land in the sense of the old city), the capital Chingi-Tura (later Tyumen) and Kashlyk, as well as Tabul (Tobolsk), Tontur, Kasim-Tura and others. The data of archaeological research and the ruins of medieval buildings that have survived until the last century testify to the presence in the cities of stone architecture, various types of crafts, and jewelry art. International trade was conducted with the West (Kazan Khanate, Rus') and the East (up to China). The main export of such trade was expensive furs and coats.

After the conquest of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, the turn came to Siberia. Ivan the Terrible entrusted this mission to the Cossack ataman Yermak, who had been outlawed by the tsar himself: Yermak sent the gold he had stolen from the Urals to the tsar and was forgiven. Moreover, the Terrible sent to him, at his request, a large reinforcement, and the conquest of Siberia began. The last Siberian Khan Kuchum waged a long and exhausting struggle to preserve his state. Yermak died in the war with the Tatars, but the attack on Siberia continued with new forces. Kuchum was defeated in 1598 in the last war with the Russian governors. The Siberian Khanate was conquered, and, as K. Marx correctly noted later, “this is how the foundation of Asiatic Russia was laid.”

Siberian Tatars live in their historical homeland - Western Siberia: in the Tyumen, Tomsk and Novosibirsk regions. They speak the East Siberian dialect of the Tatar language, they are Muslims by religion; are divided into three ethno-territorial groups - Tobolsk, Baraba and Tomsk, with slight differences in culture and language.

Astrakhan Khanate It was founded in 1459 by Mahmud, the eldest son of Kichi-Muhammed, who laid the foundation for the local dynasty of rulers of the new Tatar state on the Lower Volga. The territory was poorly populated, the main occupations of the population were nomadic cattle breeding, as well as melon growing, fishing and hunting. The only city and capital of the khanate was Astrakhan - a former Golden Horde city called Hadjitarkhan with the right to mint Jochid coins. Located at the confluence of the Volga and the Caspian, Astrakhan was a major center of transit international trade and was famous as the "great Tatar market".

The foreign policy of the Khanate depended at first on the Great Horde, later on the Nogai Horde and the Crimean Khanate. After the conquest of Kazan, in 1554, the Russian army occupied Astrakhan, deposing Khan Yamgurchey and placing Dervish-Ali on the throne as a vassal of Ivan the Terrible. Dervish-Ali in 1556 tried to withdraw from the subordination of Moscow, the Russians repeated the campaign and finally conquered the khanate.

Now on the territory of the former Astrakhan Khanate, along with other peoples, Astrakhan Tatars live, direct descendants of the population of the former Khanate. Their language is very close to the language of the Middle Volga Tatars with elements of the modern Nogai language, their religion is Islam, they are divided into small groups of Yurt, Kundra and Karagash Tatars.

Nogai Horde as an independent principality, it began to stand out from the Golden Horde even under Idegei at the turn of the 14th - 15th centuries; finally took shape under his successor, the youngest son Nuretdin in 1420-1430. It occupied a vast territory of nomadic steppes from the Volga to the Irtysh south of the Kazan and Siberian khanates. The main population was Nogai Tatars from the Mangyt and Kungrat clans, as well as some other related tribes who were engaged in nomadic cattle breeding, primarily horse breeding, as well as handicraft production, trade, and partly agriculture. The capital was the city of Saraichik - the former center of the Golden Horde, located in the lower reaches of the Yaik River and was a major trading point on the caravan route from Central Asia to the Crimea and to the centers of other Tatar khanates.

After the fall of Kazan and Astrakhan, the Nogai Horde broke up into several uluses. Their population migrated to North Caucasus and later submitted to the Russian state. They currently live in the North Caucasus, calling themselves Nogais, however for a long time they retained the ethnonym "Tatars" (Tatars-Nogai), as the self-name of the population of the former Tatar principality. There were very close ethno-political and cultural ties between the Nogai Horde and almost all the Tatar khanates. The Nogai Tatars of the 15th-16th centuries were the most important component in the formation of the Kazan, Crimean and Astrakhan Tatars. From the Nogai Horde came the national heroes of the Tatar people Idegei and Syuyumbike, the famous Kazan and Crimean queen Nur-Saltan.

Big Horde, also known as the Great, was formed as the direct successor of the Golden Horde in 1433 under the known to us Kichi-Muhammed and Seid-Ahmed. The struggle between them ended in the victory of Kichi-Mohammed, who is considered the founder of the Great Horde. It was a large nomadic state located on the vast steppes between the Volga and the Dnieper, but the residence of its khans, especially in winter, was in the city of Azak. The Italian Iosifat Barbaro, living in this city until 1452, wrote mainly about the Tatars of the Great Horde.

The state was significantly strengthened during the reign of Akhmat (1459 - 1480), the son of Kichi-Mukhammed and the brother of the founder of the Astrakhan Khanate, Mahmud. With a 100,000-strong army, Akhmat made an attempt to restore the former power of the Tatars over Moscow: in 1476 he sent a message to Ivan III demanding payment of an annual tribute, but was refused, although the Grand Duke recognized himself as a vassal of the Khan two years earlier and promised to pay tribute . In 1480, the troops of the parties met on the Ugra, a tributary of the Oka (according to Russian chronicles, "The Great Standing on the Ugra"). The Tatar cavalry, unsuccessfully trying to cross the river, retreated into the steppes.

The Great Horde existed until 1502, when it was dealt the last blow by Mengli Giray, annexing its main population and western lands to the Crimea. The rest of the Greater Horde Tatars became part of the population of the Astrakhan Khanate and the Nogai Horde.