The Confrontation Between the Russian State and the Chingizid States: Macrosociological and Historical Aspects

Domestic history of the 13th-17th centuries contains important controversial aspects concerning, among other things, the problem of the confrontation between the Russian lands and the Chingizid states. The article focuses on the consequences of the collision of Russia with the Mongol Empire and its heirs - the Chingizid states. The authors believe that, in the 16th century, the Moscow state experienced a stage of high military tension, which was associated, among other things, with military operations against the Crimean, Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberian khanates. The high financial burden on the Russian principalities is emphasized due to tributary payments to the Golden Horde. The authors note the positive significance of the changes that took place in the military logistics of the Moscow state. The article examines the reasons for the effectiveness of the “cannon and musket revolutions” in the context of the confrontation between Moscow and the Chingizids. The “cannon and musket revolutions”, which were part of the “gunpowder revolution”, were not in themselves factors of the progress of society and an increase in its defense for Russia, they became such only in combination with socioeconomic, cultural, and spiritual changes. The Moscow principality managed to achieve national unity in the territories subject to it already at the end of the Mongol period. In many respects, the national unity of the Russians turned out to be due to the religion common to all the East Slavic lands, the disappearance of division into tribes in the Kiev period, the development of uniform methods of organizing economic activity and agricultural technologies. The Chingizid states outside Mongolia had an “alien” character, which ultimately led to disintegration in their societies, vivid examples of which are the rebellions in the Kazan and Crimean khanates, as well as in the Golden Horde itself. The authors emphasize that the liberation of Russia from long-term dependence on the Golden Horde was the result not so much of transformations in military affairs as the creation of a single Russian centralized state, the revival and further effective socioeconomic development of the Russian lands, the growth of agriculture and handicrafts, primarily metallurgical production, and national identity. Domestic history of the 13th-17th centuries shows that progress is not only the fruits of the work of various technologies, but a complex multifactorial process, including, first of all, successful economic development, a powerful centralized state, and the Russian national spirit, whose awakening is evidenced by the literary monuments of the Kulikovo cycle, the Tale of the Stand on the Ugra, and folklore tradition.

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