Some Observations about the “Golden Horde Heritage” in the History of Russia
The problem of the “Golden Horde heritage” in the history of Russia, the technology of incorporation of believers to other confessions into the Orthodox Russian State continue to be topical issues of Russian historiography. The reference to the works of researchers and the analysis of sources allow us to express doubt about the conditionality of Russian expansion in the eastern and southern directions by the desire to possess the former possessions of the Jochi Ulus to increase its prestige. Russia’s foreign policy in the eastern and southern directions was primarily related to the current needs of the state. The skillful use by the Russian government of the Tatar technologiesof exercising power, understandable to the conquered peoples who were previously under the rule of the Jochids, contributed to the fairly rapid spread among most of them of ideas about their Russian citizenship and about the Russian monarch as their legitimate sovereign. A significant role in spreading the idea of the Russian monarch as a legitimate sovereign among new subjects was played by a stratum of “service Tatars” (“sluzhilye tatary”). The special position of the Crimean Khanate among other Tatar yurts, due tothe Ottoman protectorate, prolonged the existence of this state, but did not save it from Russian annexation. The fall of the Crimean Khanate was not predetermined initially, but the situation that developed by the end of the 18th century made it inevitable.