Two Coups of 1545/46 in Kazan: The Question of the Configuration of Political Forces in the Early Years of the Kazan War

Abstract

Objective: A study of the main directions and results of the political struggle in the Khanate of Kazan in 1545–1546. Research materials: A wide range of published and archived sources: the Russian chronicles, books of official orders in the Russian state, ambassadorial documents, the Turko-Tatar narrative sources, historical acts. Results and novelty of the research: The study presents an analysis of the internal political situation in the Khanate of Kazan in the second half of the 1540s. The study involved sources of different origins: Russian (chronicles, acts, books of official orders) materials as well as those stemming from the Khanates of Kazan, Crimea, Nogai, and Astrakhan (historical narratives and ambassador documentation). This made it possible to reconstruct a balanced picture of the political struggle that unfolded in Kazan after the Russian campaign in the spring of 1545. A comprehensive review of the evidence of the sources does not provide grounds to prefigure it as a struggle among the Tatar nobility groups that took place in the capital of the Khanate of Kazan. On the contrary, there was unity of all segments of the population of Kazan in the fight against the usurper, Safa-Giray.