Volume 11, Nº 4 (2023)

Research objectives: To establish whether Hülegü brought gunpowder from China during his military operation in the Middle East in 1256–1260 and whether his army used gunpowder weapons against the Hashashi/Hashashin castles.

Research materials: The article’s author examines Islamic and Chinese sources mentioning Hülegü’s military campaign from Mongolia to the Middle East and weapons used by the Mongolian army.

Results and novelty of the research: Most researchers agree that the Mongols used gunpowder weapons adapted from the Chinese in their East Asian military expeditions, such as in China, Japan, Korea, and Java. However, it is still debated whether the Mongols used gunpowder and gunpowder weapons in their military campaigns in the West. Some researchers state that the Mongols did not use gunpowder in the European campaign and that naphtha was the main incendiary they used in the Middle East campaign. Few studies examine whether the Mongols carried gunpowder to the West.

Islamic source writers described China’s novel weapons and chemicals in more familiar terms, such as naphtha. Especially when the information given by Hamdallah Mustawfi, Ata-Malik Juvayni, and Qutb al-din Shīrāzī about the Mongol Siege of Maymun-Diz in 1256 is compared with the Chinese military manual Wujing Zongyao, it is evident that the Mongols transported ballistas with three bows called "ox crossbow" from China. It turns out that these ballistas fired "rocket-assisted arrows". These arrows carried paper tubes filled with gunpowder, which would increase their range to reach the mountain fortress of Maymun-Diz, and bombs covered with cartons, bamboo, ceramic, or metal which would set fire to the defenders of the fort. These ballistas are referred to as baban in Armenian sources and as "naphtha tools" in the Mongols’ siege of Baghdad. The most original aspect of the present article is the hypothesis that the information in Mustawfi’s work regarding the presence of "blue poison" in the arrows fired by the Mongols at the Maymun-Diz referred to black powder. “Blue poison, made up of particles”, was one of the ways by which Mustawfi expressed black powder.

The purpose of the study: To consider how monumental architecture, in particular memorial buildings, reflected the changes in society associated with the adoption of Islam in the Golden Horde and ties with other Muslim states.

Research materials: Mausoleums which are the most numerous objects of monumental architecture explored throughout the territory of the Golden Horde. The paper considers both archaeological sites and various images of mausoleums: drawings of the 18th–19th centuries, and photographs of the late 19th – early 20th centuries.

Results and scientific novelty: On the basis of building technology in the Golden Horde, two areas of architecture are distinguished – building from brick (fired and raw) and building from stone. An analysis of the planning, construction techniques, architectural details of the mausoleums, and construction equipment leads to the conclusion that several directions can be traced in the composition of the Golden Horde memorial architecture. The influence of the Central Asian school associated with the construction of fired and raw bricks was very significant. The architectural forms of brick mausoleums, distributed mainly in the steppe zone, find direct analogies among the monuments of Central Asia, primarily Khorezm. In the monuments made in the technique of stone construction, the influence of Asia Minor and Transcaucasia can be traced. It is expressed both in the architectonics of buildings and in the use of certain building techniques. The Golden Horde tower mausoleums, most likely, were exact copies of those in Asia Minor and Azerbaijan. Along with the forms of memorial buildings typical for the Muslim world, there were buildings of archaic appearance in the ulus of Jochi. Pyramidal mausoleums were built there, the shape of which the researchers deduce from the tomb structures in the form of barrows; these can be associated with the Turkic memorial buildings of the 9th–11th centuries.

The purpose of the study: The work is part of the authors’ research aimed at preparing a collection dedicated to the Tatar versions of the “Idegey”epos. It is aimed at reviewing and systematizing archival and published versions of the Tatar version of the dastan, “Idegey”, introducing unexplored variants into scientific circulation, compiling a complete list of texts, and providing their structural and textual analysis.

Research materials: Archival and published versions of the Tatar dastan of “Idegey”. Information from literary and historical sources, along with scientific research, was used. The works of famous folklorists are involved, including studies on the dastan “Idegey” by famous folklorists Nigmat Hakim and Naki Isanbet.

The scientific novelty of the study is due to the fact that on the basis of the study of archival materials, a review of all the variants known to us and a comparative analysis of individual episodes and motives were made. Based on the analysis, the changes to which the variants were subjected, the transformation of individual motifs, and all kinds of variations of the latter, the degree of preservation of dastan records from different times was revealed.

The results of the study and its scientific novelty: the paper proves that the Tatar versions of the dastan about Idegey and Toktamysh were widely spread among the Tatars of the Volga-Urals, western Siberia, and the Crimea as is evidenced by the wide variability of the works. However, the main part of the variants came to us fragmentarily, in a strongly truncated form, and by the time they were fixed, with the exception of the variants recorded by V.V. Radlov and N. Hakim, the named genre ceased to exist in a living natural form. Despite this, the Tatar versions of the dastan “Idegey”, unlike the other Turkic versions which came through the works of ethnographers and historians, are undoubtedly more extensive and numerous, recorded in the original version or preserved in manuscripts in the Tatar language.

Purpose of the study: To analyze the text and present a translation of the latifeh anecdote about the clever vizier of the Kazan Khan.

Research materials: The archive of Rizaetdin Fakhretdin.

Results and scientific novelty of the study: the study is based on the publication and translation of the text, an anecdote – latifeh – about the clever vizier of the Kazan Khan who escaped death with the help of a cunning reading of an unvoiced Persian text in Arabic. The latifeh has been preserved in the archive and with a high degree of probability belongs to the pen of a very prolific poet and highly educated representative of the Muslim clergy of the Volga-Ural region, 'Ali Chokry ((1827/28–1889). The list presented for research is currently stored in the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy Sciences in St. Petersburg. It is in its composition that the published anecdote is stored. This anecdote about “Sonkor-bik Kalanis” is also of Persian origin, since it arose in a Turkic environment where Farsi was well known. Perhaps it refers to the era of the Kazan Khanate, but we have no information about the existence in that state of the position of vizier under the khan. However, as an example of playing on words of an anecdotal nature, this story could well have appeared in the Volga region in the early Middle Ages. After all, it is based on the difference in reading the Arabic language and Turkic speech recorded in Arabic script. The Turks and Arabs faced this problem as soon as Islam penetrated the Turkic environment and their acquaintance with the Koran began. Thus, the “Latifeh about the Kazan Khan and his Vizier” is not just an interesting and funny anecdote, but an instructive philological puzzle that came to the mind of a sophisticated connoisseur of the three major languages of Islam – Arabic, Farsi, and Turkic.

Purpose: To identify the main evolution stages of the status of the settlement of Chingi-tura as the political center of the Tyumen Khanate.

Research materials: The work was carried out on the basis of an analysis of published sources (chronicles, embassy documents, letters, contracts, travelers’ notes, cartography data, and results of archaeological excavations).

Results and scientific novelty. In historical research, largely under the influence of various editions of the so-called “Siberian chronicles,” there is a traditional concept about the connection of Chingi-tura, first of all, with the activities of the princes from the Taibugid dynasty. The city practically stopped existing with their departure to Isker-Siberia. However, a more comprehensive approach to sources, including archaeological ones, allows for considering this issue in a different way.

The formation of the city (taking into account the specifics of applying this term to Siberian realities), was associated specifically with the Ulus of Jochi, dating back to the last quarter of the 13th century when the population changed there and Chingi-tura became one of the centers on the Transural trade route. The economic and possibly administrative significance of Chingi-tura in the 13th–14th centuries became the basis for its political rise in the first third of the next century. It appeared to be the center that attracted those Shibanids who would fight for uniting all lands of that dynasty’s representatives into a single state. Moreover, until the end of 1420 the city was under the control of representatives of the Burkut tribe whose history is obviously connected with the Siberian Taibugids. Only after 1431, in the time of Abu-l-Khair, did Chingi-tura receive the status of a throne place (Tyumen of Russian sources) which is a reasonable basis to refer to the state as the Tyumen Khanate. For a long time, the specificity of the city was determined by the fact that it was located on the northern border of this steppe state, something which greatly complicated its development.

Also, contrary to the established historiographic tradition, it can be said that Chingi-tura was not abandoned after the death or murder of the Tyumen Khan Ibrahim (Ibak) no later than 1495. The collapse of the city is associated with the crisis of the Tyumen Khanate itself in late 1510. Despite the apparent decrease of its importance, the city continued to exist and play a certain role in the political ideology of Khan Kuchum, a grandson of Ibrahim. It was finally abandoned by the Tatars after Yermak’s campaign. Owing to this, by 1586, the time of the construction of Russian Tyumen nearby, it was already called as “an empty settlement”. Further understanding of Chingi-tura role in the history of the Siberian statehood of the Shibanids is impossible without the urgent continuation of archaeological excavations of the settlement remains that have survived to this day.

Research objectives: The first aim of this study, which deals with the supply process of the eunuchs, who formed the backbone of the harem organization in the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate, is to determine how the career of the eunuchs began in the palace of the sultan or the khan.

Research materials: The main sources of data for this research are documents held within the Department of Ottoman Archives of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey Directorate of State. Upon these documents, Ottoman and Crimean chronicles of the period were examined and evaluated.

Research and novelty of the research: Both the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate established harem organizations and started employing eunuchs soon after the foundation of the state. These people, who were called eunuchs or castrates and had lost their masculinity due to natural or unnatural causes, were the backbone of the harem organization. It was found that the main method for supplying eunuchs to the harem was purchasing them from specialized merchants. Both states made efforts to identify children who had lost their masculinity due to natural causes and employ them in the harem. More over, in a very rare event in Ottoman history, Gazanfer and Cafer Aghas volunteered to be castrated out of a desire to be close to the Sultan during the reign of Selim II. The Ottoman administration paid special attention to social as well as physical characteristics of the eunuchs to be employed, and, for example, preferred that they learn Turkish in the Ottoman harem, under their own supervision. It was also observed that the Crimean Khanate attached great importance to the harem organization as in the Ottoman Empire. However, it has been revealed that the institutionalization in the harem organization was underdeveloped than in the Ottoman harem and that at least some of the eunuchs were part of the khan's entourage and moved away from the palace when the khan was dethroned. It’s also been revealed that sometimes the information in the primary sources contradicts with the documents produced by the bureaucracy of the period. It’s been determined that a special emphasis was placed on the shaping of the eunuchs with the Ottoman high culture, and those who somehow lost their manhood, even if they were Muslims, lost their individual identity and were transformed into an officer belonging to the state.

The purpose of the study. The purpose of our research is to study the genesis of Naki Isanbet’s comedic text “Jiran chichan belan Karachach sylu” (“Red-haired chichyan and Black-haired beauty”, 1942).

Materials and methods of research: The material for the study was preserved in the archives of Naki Isanbet’s “Red-haired chichyan and Black-haired beauty” comedy versions. Its study allows us to reconstruct the nature of the author’s idea. The study was conducted using genetic, cultural-historical, and comparative research methods, the choice of which is determined by the nature of the analyzed text.

The novelty of the research consists in a comprehensive study of the history of the creation and existence of this comedy in Tatar culture and the identification of its role in popularizing information about the Golden Horde among the Tatars.

Research results. Naki Isanbet’s comedy “Jiren chichan belan Karachach sylu” (“Red-haired chichyan and Black-haired beauty”, 1942) is a vivid evidence of the valorization of national cultural values during the Great Patriotic War. During the short period the playwright managed to perpetuate national images of heroes on the stage: Idegey, Tulyak, Jiren chichyan and Karachech sylu. Their roots go back to the glorious history of medieval Tatar states. During the Great Patriotic War, the voices of Jiren chichyan and Karachech sylu (14th century) were heard from the Tatar stage, and people got acquainted with the instructions of Jamukha chichyan (12th century). The performance and the work were banned by censorship. The work was published in 1963 and returned to the stage in 1999 (directed by Farid Bikchantaev).

In 2023, it will be ten years since the release of the first issue of our journal, “Golden Horde Review”. The decision to publish a special periodical was made by the Academic Council of the Marjani Institute of History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences on April 16, 2013. During this past period of the journal’s activity, the editors managed to intensify research on the history of the Golden Horde and the Tatar Khanates, popularize Turkic-Tatar history at the international level, and introduce new sources into scientific circulation. From the first issues, the publication acquired a high degree of scientific interest; the magazine has managed to gain popularity among a wide audience of researchers and interested readers.

Over the ten years of its activity, the journal has received a worthy assessment from the Russian and international scientific community, has achieved high quality publications, and has consistently increased its rating in leading scientometric databases. The journal is included in the List of peer-reviewed scientific journals and publications of the Higher Attestation Commission for the publication of the main scientific results of dissertations. In 2017, the Golden Horde Review journal was included in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) on the Web of Science Core Collection platform and the international SCOPUS database. The publication is also included in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Indexing in scientometric databases significantly increases the accessibility, popularity, and citations of the journal. Today, the scientific journal, “Golden Horde Review,” is one of the most popular and authoritative scientific publications among specialists in this field, as evidenced by the active participation of historians from many countries around the world in the scientific activities of the journal.