Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T16:22:51.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Tatar interpretation of the battle of Kulikovo Field, 1380: Rustam Nabiev

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Charles J. Halperin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although no contemporary Tatar source presented a Tatar view of the famous battle of Kulikovo Field in 1380 the modern Kazan’ Tatar historian Rustam Nabiev has published a major revisionist reinterpretation of the event based upon what he considers an objective analysis of fourteenth-century Rus'-Tatar history and relations. Nabiev concludes that the battle did not happen at all as narrated in Muscovite literary works of the Kulikovo Cycle. In reality Muscovite Grand Prince Dmitrii Ivanovich did not defeat Emir Mamai on the Don River; instead Dmitrii and his princely retinue participated in the defeat of Mamai by the army of Khan Tokhtamysh in the region of the Northern Donets and Kalka rivers. Nabiev's critique of the Russian national paradigm of the battle has some merit but it overlooks previous Western scholarship which had already made many of the same points, oversimplifies current Russian scholarship about the battle, and arbitrarily manipulates the sources to create a fantastic and fictitious scenario. Even so his views deserve to be refuted on scholarly grounds, not by an ad hominem dismissal as a reflection of “Tatar chauvinism.”

Keywords

NabievKulikovoMamaiDmitrii DonskoiTokhtamysh
Type
Special Section: Tatarstan: adjusting to life in Putin's Russia
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 4 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alef, Gustave. 1966. “The Adoption of the Muscovite Two-Headed Eagle: A Discordant View.” Speculum 41: 1–21.Google Scholar
Amel'kin, Andrei Olegovich, and Vasil'evich Seleznev, Iurii. 2011. Kulikovskaia bitva v sviditel'stvakh sovremennikov i pamiati potomkov. Moscow: Kvadriga.Google Scholar
Begunov, Iurii Konstantinovich, and Gabulla-Khamitovich Nurutdinov, Fargat. 2007. “Kulikovskaia bitva v svete Bulgarskikh istochnikov: otvet Rustamu Nabievu.” Sokrovishcha bulgarskogo naroda. vypusk 1, 196–260. Etnogenez. Istoriia. Kul'tura (St. Petersburg).Google Scholar
Dawson, Christopher, ed. 1966. Mission to Asia. Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Translated by a Nun of Stanbrook Abbey. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Derrick, Matthew. 2013. “The Tension of Memory: Reclaiming the Kazan Kremlin.” Acta Slavica Iaponica 33: 1–25.Google Scholar
De Weese, Devin A. 1994. Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde. Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Filjushkin, Alexander. 2008. Ivan the Terrible. A Military History. London: Frontline Books.Google Scholar
Gorskii, Anton Anatol'evich. 2000. Moskva i Orda. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 1975. “The Concept of the Russian Land from the Ninth to the Fourteenth Century.” Russian History 2: 29–38.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 1976. “The Russian Land and the Russian Tsar: The Emergence of Muscovite Ideology, 1380-1408”. Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 23: 7–103.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 1980. “The Concept of the ruskaia zemlia and Medieval National Consciousness from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Centuries.” Nationalities Papers 8: 75–86.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 1983. “The Defeat and Death of Batu.” Russian History 10: 50–65.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 1984a. “The Six-Hundredth Anniversary of the Battle of Kulikovo Field, 1380-1980, in Soviet Historiography.” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 18: 298–310.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 1984b. “The Tatar Yoke and Tatar Oppression.” Russia Mediaevalis 5: 20–39.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 1985. Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 1998-1999. “The East Slavic Response to the Mongol Conquest.” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 10: 98–117.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2000a. “The Kipchak Connection: The Ilkhans, the Mamluks, and Ayn Jalut.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 63: 229–245.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2000b. “The Missing Golden Horde Chronicles and Historiography in the Mongol Empire.” Mongolian Studies 23: 1–15.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2000c. “Muscovite Political Institutions in the Fourteenth Century.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 1: 237–257.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2001. “Text and Textology: Salmina's Dating of the ‘Chronicle Tales’ about Dmitry Donskoy.” Slavonic and East European Review 79: 248–263.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2003. “Ivan IV and Chinggis Khan.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 51: 481–497.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2004. “Omissions of National Memory: Russian Historiography on the Golden Horde as Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion.” Ab Imperio 3: 131–144.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2009a. “Paradigms of the Image of the Mongols in Medieval Russia.” In The Early Mongols: Language, Culture and History. Türnen nasulatugai. Studies in Honor of Igor de Rachewiltz on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday, vol. 173, edited by Volker Rabatzii, Alessandra Pozzi, Peter W. Geier, and John R. Krueger, 53-62. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Uralic and Altaic Series.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2009b. The Tatar Yoke: The Image of the Mongols in Medieval Russia. Corrected edition. Bloomington, IN: Slavica.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2010. “Rewriting History: The Nikon Chronicle on Rus’ and the Horde.” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 17: 11–26.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2011. “Stepennaia kniga on the Reign of Ivan IV: Omissions from Degree 17.” Slavonic and East European Review 89: 56–75.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2012. Tatarskoe igo. Obraz mongolov v srednevekevoi Rossii. Translated by M. E. Kopylova and edited by I. V. Seleznëv. Voronezh: Izdatel'stvo Voronezhskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2013a. “False Identity and Multiple Identities in Russian History: The Mongol Empire and Ivan the Terrible.” 1. “Anatolii Fomenko, the ‘New Chronology,’ and Russian History”; 2. “Who Was Not Ivan the Terrible, Who Ivan the Terrible Was Not”. In The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, 1–71. Number 2103. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh, Center for Russian and East European Studies.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2013b. “'No One Knew Who They Were': Rus’ Interaction with the Mongols.” In The Steppe Lands and the World Beyond Them. A Collection in Honor of Victor Spinei On His 70th Birthday, edited by Curta, Florin and Maleon, Bogdan-Petru, 77–87. Iasi: Editura universitatii “Alexander Ioan Cruz”.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2013c. “The Battle of Kulikovo Field (1380) in History and Historical Memory.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 14: 853–864.Google Scholar
Halperin, Charles J. 2014. “Iu.V. Seleznev's Contribution to the Study of the Juchid ulus.” Zolotoordynskoe obozrenie 2 (4): 74–94.Google Scholar
Henshall, Nicholas. 1992. The Myth of Absolutism. Change and Continuity in Early Modern European Monarchy. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Hunter, Shireen T., with L. Thomas, Jeffrey, and Melkishvili, Alexander. 2004. Islam in Russia. The Politics of Identity and Security. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward L. 2009. “Ivan III, Nikolai Karamzin, and the Legend of the ‘Casting Off of the Tatar Yoke’ (1480).” In The New Muscovite Cultural History. A Collection in Honor of Daniel B. Rowland, edited by Kivelson, Valerie, Petron, Karen, Shields Kollmann, Nancy, and Flier, Michael S., 237–251. Bloomington, IN: Slavica.Google Scholar
Langer, Lawrence. 2010. “War and Peace: Rus’ and the Mongols in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century.” In Everyday Life in Russian History: Quotidian Studies in Honor of Daniel Kaiser, edited by Marker, Gary M., Neuberger, Joan, Marshall, Poe, and Rupp, Susan, 187–201. Bloomington, IN: Slavica.Google Scholar
Langer, Lawrence. 2012. “For Want of Coin: Some Remarks on the Mongol Tribute and the Problem of the Circulation of Silver.” In Dubitando: Essays in Culture and History in Honor of Donald Ostrowski, edited by Brian J. Boeck, Russell E. Martin, and Rowland, Daniel B., 85–101. Bloomington, IN: Slavica.Google Scholar
Miller, David B. 1989. “Monumental Building as an Indicator of Economic Trends in Northern Rus’ in the Late Kievan and Mongol Periods, 1138-1462.” The American Historical Review 94: 360–390.Google Scholar
Miller, David B. 1990. “Monumental Building and its Patrons as Indicators of Economic and Political Trends in Rus', 900-1262.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 38: 321–355.Google Scholar
Nabiev, Rustam. 2000. “M. G. Safargaliev kak istorik Zolotoi Ordy,” Candidate's Dissertation, Kazan’ Gosudarstvennyi Universitet im. V. I. Ul'ianova-Lenina.Google Scholar
Nabiev, Rustam. 2003. Pravda o “Kulikovskoi bitve”. Kazan': Izdatel'stvo “Iman”. Accessed June 12, 2012. http://f33.ocoz.ru/blog/2011-06-29-70.Google Scholar
Nabiev, Rustam. 2010. Ob”edinenie Zolotoi Ordy Tokhtamysh-khanov i problema “Kulikovskoi bitvy”. Kazan': Iman.Google Scholar
Nabiev, Rustam. 2012a. Ekonomika Imperii Dzhuchikov XIV veka: rastvet “Zolotoi Ordy”. Saarbrucken: Lampert Academic.Google Scholar
Nabiev, Rustam. 2012b. Istoricheskie istochniki ob ekonomike Imperii Dzhuchidov XIV veka i ee nasledie. Kazan': Izdatel'stvo “Iaz”'.Google Scholar
Ostrowski, Donald. 1998. Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier 1304-1547. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ostrowski, Donald. September 2000. “Reply to Ryan.” Reviews in History. Accessed June 21, 2014. www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/129#author-response.Google Scholar
Paszkiewicz, Henryk. 1983. The Rise of Moscow's Power. Translated by P. S. Falla. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs.Google Scholar
Perfecky, George A., ed. 1973. The Galician-Volynian Chronicle. An Annotated Translation. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.Google Scholar
Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei 18, 1913. St. Petersburg: Arkheograficheskaia kommissiia.Google Scholar
Rudakov, Vladimir Nikolaevich. 2009. Mongolo-Tatary glazami drevnerusskikh knizhnikov serediny XIII-XV vv. Moscow: Kvadriga.Google Scholar
Seleznev, Iurii Vasil'evich. 2009. Elita Zolotoi Ordy. Kazan': Izdatel'stvo “Fen” Akademii Nauk Respubliki Tatarstan.Google Scholar
Seleznev, Iurii Vasil'evich. 2010. Russko-ordynskie konflikty XIII-XV vekov. Spravochnik. Moscow: Kvadriga.Google Scholar
Seleznev, Iurii. 2011. “Eshche raz o date vydachi khanom Tokhtamyshem tarkhannogo iarlyka Bek-Khadzhi.” Uchenye zapiski Kazanskogo universiteta, seriia gumanitarnye nauki, tom 153, kniga 3: 267–272.Google Scholar
Seleznev, Iurii Vasil'evich. 2013. Russkie kniaz'ia v sostave praviashchei elity Dzhuchieva ulusa v XIII-XV vekakh. Monografiia. Voronezh: Tsentral'no-Chernozemskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo.Google Scholar
Shnirelman, Victor A. 1996. Who Gets the Past? Competition for Ancestors Among Non-Russian Intellectuals in Russia. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.Google Scholar
Vernadsky, George. 1953. Russia and the Mongols. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Woodworth, Cherie. 2012. “Muscovy as a Clan-Based State.” In Dubitando.Studies in History and Culture in Honor of Donald Ostrowski, edited by Brian J. Boeck, Russell E. Martin, and Rowland, Daniel, 433–460. Bloomington, IN: Slavica.Google Scholar