Catastrophe, Pax Mongolica, and Globalization

chapter 32 Catastrophe, Pax Mongolica, and Globalization

Despite claims to the contrary, the Mongols first appeared in Eastern Europe in 1219, not in 1222. Because the easternmost Cuman tribes, the Ölbäri, had offered asylum to rebels defeated sometime between 1217 and 1219, Chinggis Khan ordered his general Sübedei to hunt down the traitors and to punish their protectors. In 1219, the Mongol troops entered the lands between the Volga and the Ural rivers, where the Ölbäri lived. They defeated and killed the rebels, but nothing is known about clashes with the eastern Cumans.1 Together with Jebe, another trusted Mongol general, Sübdei led the army that returned to the steppe lands of Eastern Europe in 1223. At the end of their campaign against the Khwarazmshah, the two generals asked the permission of Chinggis Khan to undertake a reconnaissance raid into the lands farther to the west. They attacked Azerbaijan and Georgia and, in 1222 crossed the Caucasus into the Kuban steppe lands. Sübedei and Jebe managed to lure the local Cumans away from their alliance with the local Alans, which they promptly defeated, before crushing the Cumans as well.2 The Mongol armies moved swiftly across the steppe lands to the east from the Sea of Azov, managed to cross somehow the Kerch Strait, and took Sudak in the Crimea (Fig. 32.1).3 None of those move- ments caught the attention of the Rus’ princes, despite the fact that by the 13th century, there were commercial relations with the Crimea, while the Cumans had become a familiar presence in the military and political life of Rus’.4 The most important Cuman chieftain in the Donets region, Kuthen, immediately requested the assistance of his father-in-law, the Grand Prince Mstislav III (1212–1223), who convoked his Rurikid relatives in Kiev. Several offered their assistance, but not the most powerful in Rus’ at the time, the princes of Vladimir- Suzdal’ (see chapter 14).5

1 Pylypchuk, “Mongol’skoe zavoevanie kochevii,” pp. 259–73. According to Allsen, “Prelude,” p. 8, the Ölbäri may have settled in the region at some point during the early 12th century. For claims that the Mongols appeared in Europe only in the 1220s, see Claverie, “L’apparition”; Pylypchuk, “Pershe mongol’s’ke vtorgnennia.” For a portrait of Sübedei, see May, “Sübedei.” 2 Pylypchuk, “Pervoe vtorzhenie,” pp. 325–31; Zimonyi, Medieval Nomads, pp. 325–26. According to Sabitov, “K voprosu,” pp. 67–68, some Cumans submitted willingly to Mongol rule. 3 Bubenok, “Otnositel’no mongol’skogo prisutstviia.” Sudak had earlier (in 1221 or 1222) been conquered by the Seljuks. The reason for the Mongol attack must be that the city was con- trolled by the Cumans (Spinei, The Romanians, pp. 148–49). 4 Pylypchuk, “Kypchaky.” 5 No less than 16 Rus’ princes participated in the campaign (Astaikin, “‘Ne uspesha’,” p. 9).

figure 32.1 Principal sites mentioned in the text (medieval names in italics)