The fall of Constantinople as the starting point of the confrontation between Russia and Turkey
The prayer performed for the first time after an 86-year break in Hagia Sophia with the participation of Erdogan on July 24, 2020 became a visible demonstration of the revival of neo-Ottoman and pan-Turkist ambitions by the Turks
Foreplay, or non-academic interest
In the context of the revival of Ankara's neo-Ottoman and pan-Turkic ambitions (I wrote about them several years ago, see: Erdogan accelerates) the past of Russian-Turkish relations is of far more than just academic interest.
In general, they history It is customary for us to perceive in the context of the brilliant victories of the Russian weapons in the era of Catherine II, her “Greek Project”, as well as the events that took place a century later, although much less striking.
And here what is known from school comes to mind: the military successes achieved thanks to Lieutenant General M.D. Skobelev and Adjutant General I.V. Gurko were in the shadow of unjustifiably high losses at Plevna and diplomatic defeat at the Berlin Congress.
Let me clarify: it’s all the more offensive because it could have been avoided. Instead, they came up with an excuse in the form of a non-existent (it still doesn’t exist) united West, supposedly acting as a consolidated diplomatic front against Russia.
And the fears of St. Petersburg about a possible repetition of the Crimean War scenario in 1878 seemed like a death knell for common sense. the war.
Rome's heritage dispute
However, Russian-Ottoman relations have a deeper history. They began with the fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453. More precisely: it became the starting point of future conflicts between two powers that saw themselves as heirs of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Entry of Mehmed II into Constantinople. Picture J-J. Benjamin-Constant
The latter’s possessions during its heyday extended to the Balkans (Romanians, there, still consider themselves descendants of the Romans), Transcaucasia and the Black Sea region, that is, to regions that, as Russia and the Ports expanded, found themselves in the sphere of geopolitical interests of both powers, predetermining the inevitability of military confrontation between them.
Regarding the Roman heritage. Let me remind you that Ivan III was married to the niece of the last Byzantine (the term “Byzantium” was introduced into scientific circulation relatively late: in 1557 by the German historian I. Wolf) Emperor Constantine XI.
In turn, Mehmed II asserted his kinship with the Komnenos dynasty (ruled from 1057 to 1185) and took the title Kaiser i-Rum.
Actually, this is precisely why the Ottomans for quite a long time refused to consider the Austrian and Russian monarchs as emperors, and they pointedly sent some minor pasha to negotiate with the first. We are, of course, talking about diplomatic incidents that occurred before the 19th century.
In Russia, the Turks agreed to see an empire only in 1739, recognizing the corresponding title for Anna Ioannovna when signing the Belgrade Peace. By the way, it cannot be called a diplomatic triumph for St. Petersburg, given the obvious military successes - the capture of Azov, Ochakov and the occupation of Crimea.
But all these victories were nullified by Vienna. Initially our ally. She conducted the campaign unsuccessfully, being defeated by the Turks at Grotzke in 1739 and agreeing to conclude a separate peace.
Not Ugra, but Oka: the end of the yoke
The second milestone, which brought closer the collision of the then truly Sublime Porte and the nascent Russian kingdom, was 1472.
That year, the Moscow army of Grand Duke Ivan III, who was called the Terrible, repelled – let me clarify: by its very presence, since it did not involve a battle – an invasion on the Oka River. armies Khan of the Great Horde Akhmat, putting an end to vassal dependence on…
Here it is difficult to say from whom. For the Golden Horde collapsed in 1459, and Moscow was not in vassal dependence on the Kazan Khanate, much less on the Astrakhan Khanate.
With the Crimeans in general, Ivan III was in an allied relationship on the basis of mutual enmity towards Akhmat, whose khanate was the same fragment of the Golden Horde as those mentioned in the paragraph above.
However, Akhmat did not accept the new balance of power in the region and sought to regain control over Crimea (he succeeded for a short time) and force Moscow to pay tribute again.
Solving these two problems would significantly replenish Sarai's budget and hypothetically give impetus to the resuscitation of the Golden Horde. But both were unfeasible in the long term. Akhmat did not defend the capital, which was devastated by the Vyatka ushkuyniki in 1471.
No, the Great Horde in the early 1470s still posed a threat to Bakhchisarai and Moscow, but still it was already dying out and was an ephemeral formation, held together by the military-administrative talent and will of Akhmat, in any case doomed after his death to be quick and final decay
And even if Ivan III had either lost the battle - had the khan decided to enter it - on the Oka, or had simply conceded and resumed paying tribute, this could not have lasted long. The greatness of the Jochi ulus is a thing of the past. And at the end of the 15th century, the Great Horde no longer had a military-political future.
Ivan III tramples the Khan's charter. Painting by A. D. Kivshenko. Judging by the behavior of the Grand Duke while standing on the Ugra River, it is unlikely that he actually allowed himself such a demarche in relation to the royal ones - and Akhmat at that time was perceived by the Moscow elite under this title - ambassadors
As for Crimea, from the second half of the mentioned century it fell into the orbit of Istanbul’s interests and in 1478 recognized its dependence on it.
So Akhmat could not gain a foothold on the peninsula for long. Unless he recognized himself as a vassal of the Sultan. However, this step on his part seemed unlikely: the khan clearly underestimated the power of the Porte, sending a message to Mehmed II in the form of a label.
In addition, Akhmat’s ambitious plans in the West were adjusted by the need to solve difficult problems in the East, requiring significant military efforts, due to the khan’s desire to also regain control over Khorezm, which once belonged to the Golden Horde, disputed by the descendants of Jochi’s fifth son, Shiban (the powerful Uzbek Shibanid family).
Akhmat, in turn, was a direct descendant of Jochi’s thirteenth son, Tuk-Timur. The question of when the line of Batu’s direct descendants ended on the Khan’s throne is debatable in science.
By the way, a small step away from the topic: contrary to popular belief, the founder of the Golden Horde himself never bore the title of khan, for his life path fell under the reign of four khans: Genghis, Ugede, Guyuk, Mongke; Moreover, the third was Batu’s personal enemy, and the fourth was his protege.
Accordingly, the combination “Batu Khan” is rather ridiculous. This is the same as if in the above-mentioned Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878. The commander of the Rushchuk detachment, Tsarevich Alexander, the future III, was called emperor, under Alexander II, who was still in good health at that time.
The first khan of the Golden Horde, which became independent from the Mongolian state in 1269, was Mengu-Timur, the grandson of Batu; the last one was Akhmat’s father Kichi-Muhammad. Actually, after his death, the Golden Horde disintegrated.
But we return to 1472, to the banks of the Oka. Having stood on one of them, Akhmat did not dare to fight.
The Polish chronicler Jan Dlogusz vividly wrote about the significance of the strategic victory for Moscow:
“Having overthrown the barbarian yoke, (Ivan III - I.Kh.) freed himself with all his principalities and lands, which he threw over the whole of Muscovy for a long time.”
Eight years later, the tireless Akhmat’s attempt to force Moscow to restore the format of relations that existed during the Golden Horde ended in defeat.
Although Ivan III was ready to give in and resume paying tribute: in the North-East of Rus', the inertia of perceiving the khan as a legitimate overlord remained. And the very idea of changing the balance of forces in the confrontation between the Great Horde and Moscow in favor of the latter was difficult to fit into the minds of both the Grand Duke and part of his entourage.
The mood of Ivan III was changed by the Rostov Archbishop Vassian (Rylo), who wrote him the famous “Message to the Ugra”. It was after him that the Golden Horde khans stopped being called kings in the chronicles.
Before us is one of those cases when the Orthodox Church played an important political role in Russian history.
In November 1480, the Horde left for the steppes, and in January of the following year, the last outstanding khan from the Juchids was killed. The curtain has finally fallen on the history of the Golden Horde.
With the death of Akhmat, the need for a Moscow-Bakhchisarai union disappeared. On the contrary, it marked the beginning of a centuries-long feud that lasted until the mid-1769th century. – the Krymchaks made their last raid on Russia in XNUMX.
Pandora's Box
Actually, why, having raised the topic of the origins of the confrontation between Russia and the Ports, did we pay so much attention to some details of the stand on the Oka and Ugra? Because the Great Horde represented a kind of buffer on the path to the realization of the geopolitical ambitions of the two powers that laid claim to the heritage of the Eastern Roman Empire. Its collapse led to the opening of a kind of Pandora's box of future Russian-Turkish conflicts.
Another buffer between Moscow and Istanbul was Emir Timur, who ravaged Yelets in 1395, and seven years later with the Battle of Ankara, which almost brought the Porte to the brink of destruction. Moreover, the victory was won over one of the best commanders of the late Middle Ages - Bayazid I, who defeated the Serbs on the Kosovo field in 1389 and the crusaders at Nikopol in 1396.
Captivity of Bayezid I by Timur. Painting by S. Khlebovsky
Porto was literally saved by the death of the Iron Lame in 1405. The Turks quickly regained their strength and resumed expansion, the peak of which in Europe was the two sieges of Vienna in 1529 and 1683.
Yes, here I apologize to the readers, but I cannot help but take a significant step away from a topic that is very interesting from a cultural point of view. Only thirteen years passed between the battles of Kosovo and Ankara, but the Serbs, who fought to the death in the first battle with Bayezid I, in the second were the only ones who did not abandon him in the face of obvious defeat and death.
Poppel's mission, or the unfulfilled dream of the Moscow kingdom
The confrontation with the strongest military power of that time prompted the Holy Roman Empire to look for allies, among whom at one time Ivan III was considered, to whom Frederick III sent an embassy led by Nikolai Poppel in 1489 with a proposal to accept the royal title, as well as join fight against the Turks.
However, Grozny refused. Firstly, the royal title was lower than the imperial one and, in fact, meant recognition, albeit formal, of vassalage to the Habsburgs, and also created the preconditions for pressure, at least in the future, on Moscow from the papacy, given the agreement signed by Frederick III in 1448 Vienna Concordat, which expanded the rights of the Catholic Church in the empire.
Secondly, Ivan III saw his primary foreign policy task not as the fight against the Ottoman threat - which was still quite ephemeral during his reign - but at the conquest of the lands that he considered his own from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. We are talking about the southwestern and western Russian principalities, in the pre-Mongol period, with the exception of Polotsk, ruled by the house of Rurikovich.
In this regard, the main geopolitical opponent of Ivan III was not the Porte, but the Kingdom of Poland, which stood behind the Lithuanians. And here there were certain points of rapprochement with the Habsburgs, taking into account their difficult relations with the Jagiellons.
Ultimately, the anti-Ottoman alliance between Russia and the Holy Roman Empire did not take place. Largely due to the absence, at the end of the 15th century, of Moscow and Istanbul’s territorial claims to each other, and geopolitical interests in the historical period of time we are considering were still only approaching the point of intersection.
Although, after Bakhchisarai recognized its dependence on Istanbul, and also taking into account Moscow’s desire to bring Kazan under control - the task was solved for some time by capturing the city by Russian troops in 1487 - the conflict became inevitable.
Pleshcheev's mission, or the tale of an undiplomatic diplomat
However, at the end of the 15th century. both powers were still eyeing each other, taking their starting positions in a future confrontation.
Ivan III even sent an embassy to Sultan Bayezid II. But the choice of the head of the mission was not entirely successful: Mikhail Pleshcheev rather unceremoniously violated diplomatic etiquette, refusing to accept the robe and money for his maintenance given to him, and ignored the invitation to a dinner party.
As a result, he was even temporarily imprisoned. However, they were quickly released, and Bayazid II still received Pleshcheev, presenting him with letters for Ivan III. By the way, Pleshcheev will not be the first to mark his unceremoniousness in Istanbul. The same adjutant general, Prince A.S. Menshikov, also did something strange in the Ottoman capital, on the eve of the Crimean War.
An interesting question is about the reasons for Pleshcheev’s undiplomatic behavior. On the one hand, they lie on the political plane - the boyar followed the instructions of Ivan III not to bend his knees before the Sultan.
But there were cultural reasons, as well as those lying in the sphere of religion and mythology. We’ll talk about them, as well as the first military conflict between Russia and the Porte, in the next article. Let's start with the date - 1492.
It was seen in Rus' as the last one in earthly history, and the Church did not even compile Paschal after the indicated year...
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