“Power that did not generate income”: Seyyid Muhammad Riza about the Kazan Khanate

Abstract

The purpose of the study: Study the information of Seyyid Muhammad Riza about the Kazan Khanate. Research materials: “Seven planets in the news about the Tatar kings”, “Umdet alakhbar”, Russian chronicles, historical works, diplomatic documents, etc. Results and scientific novelty. In the essay “Seven Planets in the News of the Tatar Kings” by Seyyd Muhammad Riza, the history of the Crimean Khanate and CrimeanOttoman relations is presented in great detail. Against the background of the fact that the history of the Kazan Khanate is strongly intertwined with the history of the Crimean Khanate, the lapidary nature in the description of Crimean-Kazan relations and the history of the Kazan Khanate as a whole, looks very symptomatic. Based on a textual analysis of news about the Kazan Khanate and diplomatic documents, we came to conclusion that Seyyid Muhammad Riza deliberately “kept silent” about some important events in the history of the Crimean-Russian, Crimean-Kazan and Ottoman-Russian relations, so as not to raise “inconvenient” questions for Porta. It is important that the origins of this approach are found in the Ottoman policy itself at the end of the 15th and first half of the 16th centuries. The sultans did not show much interest in Kazan affairs and forwarded Аксанов А.В. «Не приносившая доход власть»: Сейид Мухаммад Риза… 23 all requests from Kazan citizens to Crimea. Obviously, the Ottomans’ policy of ignoring the “Kazan problem” was determined by their aspirations in the Central European Theater of military operations. In this vein, Sayyid Muhammad Riza's narrative appears to be an apologetics for Ottoman foreign policy.

Keywords

• seven planets in the news about the tatar kings
• seyyid muhammad riza
• kazan khanate
• crimean khanate
• tatars
• ottoman empire