How long did mongols control russia

The armies looted and razed the cities, slaughtered the people, and took many as prisoners and slaves. The Mongols eventually captured, sacked, and destroyed Kiev, the symbolic center of Kievan Russia. Only outlying northwesterly principalities such as Novgorod, Pskov, and Smolensk survived the onslaught, though these cities would endure indirect subjugation and become tributaries of the Golden Horde. Perhaps a decision by the Russian princes to make peace could have averted this.

However, that was not the case and for their miscalculations, Russia would be forever changed in terms of its religion, art, language, government, and political geography. With the initial Mongol onslaught, many churches and monasteries were looted and destroyed while countless adherents to the church and scores of clergy were killed; those who survived often were taken prisoner and enslaved Dmytryshyn, The mere shock of the force and size of the Mongol army was devastating.

The distress was just as political and economic in nature as it was social and spiritual. The Mongol forces claimed that they were sent by God, and the Russians believed that the Mongols were indeed sent by God as a punishment for their sins. The Russian people would eventually turn inward, seeking solace in their faith and looking to the Orthodox Church for guidance and support.

The shock of being conquered by this steppe people would plant the seeds of Russian monasticism, which would in turn play a major role in the conversion of such people as the Finno-Ugrian tribes and the Zyrianians now known as the Komi , as well as the colonization of the northern regions of Russia Vernadsky, The humiliation suffered by the princes and the town assemblies caused fragmentation of their political authority.

This loss of political unity allowed the Church to rise as an embodiment of both religious and national identity while filling the gap of lost political identity Riasanovsky, While the church had been under the de facto protection of the Mongols ten years earlier from the census conducted under Khan Berke , this iarlyk formally decreed protection for the Orthodox Church.

More importantly, it officially exempted the church from any form of taxation by Mongol or Russian authorities Ostrowski, And permitted that clergymen not be registered during censuses and that they were furthermore not liable for forced labor or military service Hosking, As expected, the result of the iarlyk issued to the Orthodox Church was profound.

For the first time, the church would become less dependent on princely powers than in any other period of Russian history. The Orthodox Church was able to acquire and consolidate land at a considerable rate, one that would put the church in an extremely powerful position in the centuries following the Mongol takeover.

The charter of immunity strictly forbade both Mongol and Russian tax agents from seizing church lands or demanding any services from the Orthodox Church.

This was enforced by a simple penalty — death Vernadsky, Another prominent reason the church developed so quickly laid in its mission — to spread Christianity and convert those still practicing paganism in the countryside. To strengthen the internal structure of the Orthodox Church, metropolitans traveled extensively throughout the land to alleviate administrative deficiencies and to oversee the activities of the bishops and priests.

Moreover, the relative security economic, military, and spiritual surrounding hermitages lured peasants from the countryside. As this heightened urban development within the periphery of church properties destroyed the peaceful atmosphere the hermitage was originally established to give, members of the monastery would move further out into the wilderness to establish a new hermitage, beginning the process anew.

This system of founding religious settlements continued for some time and contributed to the augmentation of the Orthodox Church Vernadsky, One last significant change that occurred was the location of the center of the Orthodox Church.

Before the Mongols invaded Russian lands, Kiev was the ecclesiastical center. Following the destruction of Kiev, the Holy See moved to Vladimir in , and eventually to Moscow in Hosking, 72 , helping to bolster the importance of Moscow significantly. While the arts in Russia first suffered mass deportations of its artists, the monastic revival and the focus of attention that turned toward the Orthodox Church led to an artistic revival.

What defined the Russians — at this crucial moment when they were without a state — was their Christianity and ability to express their devout beliefs. It was during the second half of the Mongol rule in the mid-fourteenth century that Russian iconography and fresco painting began once again to flourish. Theophanes the Greek arrived in the late s. He decorated and worked on various churches throughout the land, especially in Novgorod and Nizhniy Novgorod. In Moscow, he painted the iconostasis for the Church of the Annunciation as well as worked on the Church of the Archangel Michael Martin, Iconography came to Russia from Byzantium in the tenth century, but the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century cut Russia off from Byzantium.

While the linguistic effects may seem at first trivial, such impacts on language help us to determine and understand to what extent one empire had on another people or group of people — in terms of administration, military, trade — as well as to what geographical extentthe impact included. Indeed, the linguistic and even socio-linguistic impacts were great, as the Russians borrowed thousands of words, phrases, other significant linguistic features from the Mongol and the Turkic languages that were united under the Mongol Empire Dmytryshyn, Listed below are a few examples of some that are still in use.

All came from various parts of the Horde. Listed below are a few common examples still found commonly in Russian. However, in Kievan Rus, a form of democracy did exist. It was essentially a forum for civic affairs to discuss and resolve problems. However, this democratic institution suffered severe curtailment under the Mongols. By far the most influential of the assemblies were in Novgorod and Kiev.

In Novgorod, a special veche bell in other towns, church bells were ordinary used for this purpose was created for calling the townspeople together for an assembly, and in theory, anyone could ring it. In the times after the Mongols had conquered the majority of Kievan Russia, veche s ceased to exist in all cities except Novgorod, Pskov, and others in the northwestern regions.

Veches in those cities continued to function and develop until Moscow itself subjugated them in the late fifteenth century. However, today the spirit of the veche as a public forum has been revived in several cities across Russia, including especially Novgorod. With most sense of cohesion destroyed by the Mongol Yoke, the population of Kievan Rus' scattered, becoming part of Lithuania, Poland, or the various principalities that sprang up in the northeastern area of the fragmented state.

Novgorod, in particular, endured as a vast, prosperous, freedom-loving city-state, the rival in size to Milan, Venice, Paris, or the commune towns of Tuscany. A fortunate location convenient to Baltic trade routes, and elected, and often charismatic, officials, such as Prince Aleksandr of Vladimir Nevskii , allowed its expansion to the Ural Mountains and offered protection against the worst features of Mongol rule. However, in a twist characteristic of Russian history, a small village founded in on the banks of the Moskva or Moscow River grew into a city, eclipsed its rivals, and became the center of the next powerful East Slavic state, Muscovy.

Geography, genes, and good luck account for Moscow's triumph in reunifying Russians under its aegis. The city was located near the headwaters of four important rivers - the Volga, Oka, Don, and Dniepr - and in the middle of the territory that once comprised Kievan Rus'; these characteristics facilitated trade, communication, and expansion.

Most rulers of Moscow were blessed with long reigns and ensured father-to-son inheritance of the throne, which brought stability and prevented the civil wars of succession that plagued many of their enemies.

Furthermore, generation after generation produced Muscovite heads of state who proved to be able administrators, diplomats, and warriors and who were ruthless in fulfilling the dynastic ambitions of their branch of the Rurikids. On a brighter note, the Mongols created a novel link between the East and the West, making the faraway culture an accessible point of interest to travelers such as Marco Polo.

The warriors also brought items such as paper, printing and compasses to the Europeans. Thus it was the Vikings who established the first Russian dynasty of princes. More than that, the words "Russia" and "Russian", strange though it may seem, are probably of Norman origin.

Some historians believe that the southern coast of Sweden from which Rurik came from was known as Ruslagen. That's why the author of the Primary Chronicle called the people living there the Ruses. But there are some historians who claim that the word "Russia" first appeared in the South, where the Ros River flows.

According to some Byzantine and Arabic sources, the word "Russia" already existed before the Viking arrival in It is impossible to say for sure how, when, and where the words "Russia" and "Russian" came from. Returning to the story of the princes: Oleg put his Slavic, Viking and Finnish forces together and with a large army headed for Kiev.

He proved himself to be not only a skillful warrior, but also a cunning man. Having arrived in Kiev, he ordered his men to hide under the boat and then told the town-dwellers that he was a merchant. When Askold and Dir, the Kievian rulers, came out to greet him, Oleg's warriors suddenly appeared and killed them. As for Oleg, he managed to seize power in Kiev, which he proclaimed the mother of Russian cities.

Thus he managed to integrate northern and southern centers of East Slavic culture and establish a state. One of the reasons the Mongol invasions where put to an end was because their great leader, Ogedei Khan, had died in This meant that the commanders of the different Mongol tribes had to come together to choose a successor.

Another reason why they ended their campaign might be that communication was becoming increasingly difficult, since information now had to travel from the far East of Asia all the way to places like Zagreb in Southeastern Europe.