Golden Horde

This article is about the Mongol khanate established in the 13th century. For other uses, see Golden Horde (disambiguation).

Great State
اولوغ اولوس
Ulug Ulus
1242–1502[1]
Flag of Golden Horde
Flag during the reign of Öz Beg Khan as shown in Dulcert's 1339 map (other sources claim that the Golden Horde was named for the yellow banner of the khan)[2]
Territories of Golden Horde as of 1300
Territories of Golden Horde as of 1300
StatusNomadic empire
Capital
Common languages
Religion
GovernmentSemi-elective monarchy, later hereditary monarchy
Khan 
• 1226–1280
Orda Khan (White Horde)
• 1242–1255
Batu Khan (Blue Horde)
• 1379–1395
Tokhtamysh
• 1459–1465
Mahmud bin Küchük (Great Horde)
• 1481–1502
Sheikh Ahmed
LegislatureKurultai
Historical eraLate Middle Ages
• Established
1242
• Blue Horde and White Horde united
1379
• Disintegrated into Great Horde
1466
1480
• Sack of Sarai by the Crimean Khanate
1502[1]
Area
1310[5][6]6,000,000 km2 (2,300,000 sq mi)
CurrencyPul, som, dirham[7]
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Mongol Empire
Cuman-Kipchak Confederation
Volga Bulgaria
Uzbek Khanate
Qasim Khanate
Genoese Gazaria
Astrakhan Khanate
Kazakh Khanate
Crimean Khanate
Khanate of Sibir
Nogai Horde
Khanate of Kazan
  1. ^ Official language since the inception of the Golden Horde, used in chancery.
  2. ^ Especially the western Kipchak dialects, this language spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of the Black Sea steppe who were non-Mongol Turks, and those in the Khan's army. Shift from Mongol to Turkic occurred in the 1350s, or earlier, also used in chancery.

The Golden Horde, self-designated as Ulug Ulus (lit. 'Great State' in Kipchak Turkic),[8] was originally a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire.[9] With the division of the Mongol Empire after 1259, it became a functionally separate khanate. It is also known as the Kipchak Khanate or the Ulus of Jochi,[a] and replaced the earlier, less organized Cuman–Kipchak confederation.[10]

After the death of Batu Khan (the founder of the Golden Horde) in 1255, his dynasty flourished for a full century, until 1359, though the intrigues of Nogai instigated a partial civil war in the late 1290s. The Horde's military power peaked during the reign of Uzbeg Khan (1312–1341), who adopted Islam. The territory of the Golden Horde at its peak extended from Siberia and Central Asia to parts of Eastern Europe from the Urals to the Danube in the west, and from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea in the south, while bordering the Caucasus Mountains and the territories of the Mongol dynasty known as the Ilkhanate.[10]

The khanate experienced violent internal political disorder known as the Great Troubles (1359–1381), before it briefly reunited under Tokhtamysh (1381–1395). However, soon after the 1396 invasion of Timur, the founder of the Timurid Empire, the Golden Horde broke into smaller Tatar khanates which declined steadily in power. At the start of the 15th century, the Horde began to fall apart. By 1466, it was being referred to simply as the "Great Horde". Within its territories there emerged numerous predominantly Turkic khanates. These internal struggles allowed Moscow to formally rid itself of the "Tatar yoke" at the Great Stand on the Ugra River in 1480, which traditionally marks the end of Mongol rule over Russia.[11] The Crimean Khanate and the Kazakh Khanate, the last remnants of the Golden Horde, survived until 1783 and 1847 respectively, when they were conquered by the expanding Russian state.

  1. ^ Halperin 1987, p. 78.
  2. ^ Zahler, Diane (2013). The Black Death (Revised ed.). Twenty-First Century Books. p. 70. ISBN 978-1-4677-0375-8.
  3. ^ a b c Kołodziejczyk (2011), p. 4.
  4. ^ Mustafayeva, A. A.; Aubakirova, K. K. (June 2021). "The language situation and status of the Turkic language in the Egyptian Mamluk state and Golden Horde". Journal of Oriental Studies. 97 (2): 17–25. doi:10.26577/JOS.2021.v97.i2.02. ISSN 2617-1864. Retrieved 1 September 2021.
  5. ^ Turchin, Peter; Adams, Jonathan M.; Hall, Thomas D (December 2006). "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires". Journal of World-Systems Research. 12 (2): 222. ISSN 1076-156X. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  6. ^ Rein Taagepera (September 1997). "Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities: Context for Russia". International Studies Quarterly. 41 (3): 498. doi:10.1111/0020-8833.00053. JSTOR 2600793.
  7. ^ Fedorov-Davydov, German A. "The Monetary System of The Golden Horde". Translated by L. I. Smirnova (Holden). Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  8. ^ "The History and Culture of the Golden Horde (Room 6)". Saint Petersburg: The State Hermitage Museum. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  9. ^ Perrie, Maureen, ed. (2006). The Cambridge History of Russia. Vol. 1: From Early Rus' to 1689. Cambridge University Press. p. 130. ISBN 978-0-521-81227-6.
  10. ^ a b "Golden Horde". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Also called Kipchak Khanate Russian designation for Juchi's Ulus, the western part of the Mongol Empire, which flourished from the mid-13th century to the end of the 14th century. The people of the Golden Horde were mainly a mixture of Turkic and Uralic peoples and Sarmatians & Scythians and, to a lesser extent, Mongols, with the latter generally constituting the aristocracy. Distinguish the Kipchak Khanate from the earlier Cuman-Kipchak confederation in the same region that had previously held sway, before its conquest by the Mongols.
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference Millar was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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