Zolotoordynskoe Obozrenie (Dec 2016)
A New Book on the Law System of the Golden Horde: Pochekaev R.Yu. Legal Culture of the Golden Horde (Historical and Legal Essays) (Moscow: Yurlitinform, 2015. 312 p.)
Abstract
This book is a study at the intersection of such academic disciplines as general history, history of state and law and source study. The subcect of R.Yu. Pochevalev’s book appears very relevant since the interest of the scientific community and readership toward the Golden Horde and its role in the history of the Russian state remains traditionally high for several centuries. However, the author is trying to take a fresh look at this state and refute the stereotype of the Golden Horde as a some kind of bunch of nomads who lived only by plundering neighboring sedentary peoples. He succeeds in this by studying such an important part of the Golden Horde history as its law and legal culture. The book examines a number of questions on the history of state and law of the Golden Horde, which have not previously been the subject of a special study (for example, possessions of the Golden Horde in other uluses, dualism of power in different states, relations between authorities and traders, etc.). On some other issues that have already been studied by experts, he proposes new interpretations in the framework of historical and legal approach (for example, the causes of intestine strife in the Golden Horde in the mid-14th century, yarliks of the Golden Horde khans granted to the Russian Chruch, relations of the Golden Horde rulers and Italian colonies in the Northern Black Sea region). The author examines to a great extent the themes of state and legal regulation of economic relations: status of merchants in the Golden Horde and post-Golden Horde states, role of economic sanctions in the resolution of political conflicts. In other essays contained in the book, the author also emphasizes the role of the economic component of the political and legal relations. For example, R.Yu. Pochekaev convincingly shows that relations of the Golden Horde with other states of the Mongol Empire was based on the principle of mutual provision of possessions to the rulers of other states. The consequence of this was the acquisition of revenues: the Golden Horde khans received such incomes, for example, from China and Central Asia. Various taxation existed in nomadic and sedentary regions of the Golden Horde itself: thereby khans found a kind of compromise that allowed for the effective management of subjects with a different way of economy.
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