Book Review: Pochekaev R.Yu. Iz vassalov v syuzereny. Rossiyskoe gosudarstvo i nasledniki Zolotoy Ordy [From Vassals to Overlords. The Russian State and the Heirs of the Golden Horde]

Abstract

The development of the post-Horde’s research in recent years requires the summari­zing of intermediate results and the formulation of new research problems. In his latest monograph “From Vassals to Overlords. The Russian State and the Heirs of the Golden Horde”, Roman Pochekaev offered his vision of the solutions to several key problems. The book contains essays on the history of relations between the Moscow State and various Turkic and Mongol states, and then those between the Russian Empire and the Kazakh Khanate. This review is limited to the first part of the monograph and focuses on the relations of the Muscovite State with the Turko-Mongol states in the 15th–17th centuries. This section is divided into three chapters, “The Redistribution of the Inheritance of the Golden Horde”, “The Establishment of Inter-state Relations in the New Conditions”, and “Political and Legal Realities on the Post-Horde’s Space through the Eyes of Foreign Contemporaries”. Each chapter consists of several essays on a single problem. However, not all assumptions were equally worked out. The present review focuses on the criticism of the “weak” (in the opinion of the reviewer) areas of the research. To list these “weaknesses” – first, the uneven degree of the study of the source material. Secondly, not all the proposed hypotheses have a solid documentary base. However, the book also contains successful solutions. The author’s historical and legal essays are of great interest, although it is regrettable that they are based on limited material. It is possible that an analysis of the legal practices of the post-Horde’s states would be more fruitful, especially the development of a methodology for studying legal conflicts in Kasimov and more widely among the Moscow service Tatars: which rules of law were used? Was it the Russian law, the Sharia, or customary law? It is a pity that these questions have found too little space within the book. Despite the serious intention to summarize the accumulated information, the task of creating a holistic generalizing work on the history of the post-Horde’s political space was not fulfilled, although a step forward toward that goal has been made.