French historian Marie Favero: This is how the Muslim Mongols changed Russia and the world

Contrary to the image of conquest and destruction attributed to the Mongols in the Middle Ages, the book of the French historian Marie Favero reveals that the legacy of a powerful Mongol state extended beyond the war, and left behind a vast development that resulted in a known modern world owed, in part, to the era of prosperity and commercial and intellectual exchange in Europe and Asia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

The Khanate: How the Mongols Changed the World, published in 2021 by Harvard University Press Belknab Publishing, provides a glimpse into the nomadic nature of the nomadic Mongols, who traveled vast distances and built developed societies in the western Eurasian steppes, which became one of the medieval civilizations in the region.

The Golden Horde Khanate controlled a giant area that stretched from Central Asia to Eastern Europe and included the Russian principalities and Siberia, and excelled in conquest, trade, co-opting local elites and collecting tribute, but was weak in written culture and architecture.

To this end, the author focuses on the influence of the Golden Horde on the course of history, particularly that of Russia. She argues that subordination to the Golden Horde Khanate was beneficial to Russia, which at the time was fragmented and mostly rural and poor, while the Mongols created for the Russians, according to Favero, "a kind of government commensurate with their political and economic specificities and cultural sensitivities."

The Khanate: How the Mongols Changed the World was published in 2021 by Belknab Publishing, part of Harvard University Press (Al Jazeera)

Al Jazeera Net conducted this interview with the author of the book Marie Favero, professor of history at the Paris Nanterre University and a member of the French Institute of Oriental Archeology previously.

• Explain how your interest in Russia and Islam led to in-depth research into the history of the Golden Horde Khanate, how it moved from France and Britain to Crimea and the Tatars?

I am French, born in Paris. She became interested in the Mongol Empire almost 20 years ago. I was studying history at the Sorbonne University in Paris and wanted to work on the Islamization of Russia.

I started reading an old Russian book on the "Golden Horde" (the only book we had in the library!) and was amazed to discover that the Mongols played such a major role in both Russian and Islamic history.

It was a completely new field for me, I had never heard of it before and I was immediately impressed. However, my supervisor at the university told me that it will be difficult because we do not have enough sources on the subject, so you need to master Russian historiography and you will have to travel to Ukraine, Russia and Central Asia.

It was difficult, but it didn't discourage me. Since then I have been gathering all the sources I can about the Golden Horde and have discovered a lot of evidence. There is a myth that nomadic culture must be mostly oral; but, on the contrary, the Golden Horde was a sophisticated and administratively complex empire.

The Golden Horde was a sophisticated and administratively complex empire

Its judicial system issued a documentary record called "Yarliq" (preserved written orders). The rulers (khans) were engaged in important diplomatic correspondence with the outside world. Much of these documents have been kept in Russian archives and are also kept in Simferopol, Venice, Genoa, Vienna, Warsaw and Istanbul. There are also important Arab sources, mostly from the Mamluk Sultanate.

• In your book, you dealt with the relationship between the Khanate of the Golden Horde and the construction of national systems and identity (especially Russian and possibly Ukrainian), how can this relationship be explained?

The Russian school has dominated this field since the nineteenth century, with huge publications every year on archaeology, numismatics and history. However, for Russian nationalist studies, the Golden Horde Khanate is an alien entity that has devastating effects on the formation of the Russian nation.

In the Soviet Union, this period was distorted and marginalized and was often simply erased from textbooks. Historians and archaeologists were not allowed to use the word Golden Horde. It was referred to as the "Tatar yoke". But the Tatars and other Muslims now living in the Russian Federation see the rule of the Golden Horde as a key formative period in their history.

In the Soviet Union, this period was distorted and marginalized and was often simply erased from textbooks. Historians and archaeologists were not allowed to use the word Golden Horde. It was referred to as the "Tatar yoke".

But the Tatars and other Muslims now living in the Russian Federation see the rule of the Golden Horde as a key formative period in their history.

The origins of Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Tatars and other Central Asian societies in their collective memory date back to the time when Baraka Khan (1257-1267) and Uzbek Khan (1312-1341) converted to Islam.

Historians agree that the Islam of the Eurasian steppe, Crimea, Ukraine and Eastern Europe is one of the most important legacies of the Golden Horde

Indeed, historians agree that the Islam of the Eurasian steppes, Crimea, Ukraine and Eastern Europe is one of the most important legacies of the Golden Horde.

Therefore, I argue that we need to move beyond Russian nationalist prejudices and ask new questions: How do we rethink the Golden Horde era within the framework of connected Russian history? What is the legacy of the last nomadic empire in western Eurasia? How does Russia come to terms with the Islamic dimension of its history? My book is an attempt to give some answers and show that we need to understand the history of the Golden Horde and the Tatars if we want to understand Russia and Ukraine.

• The big question is the title of the book "How did the Mongols change the world and form a kind of precursor to globalization and the modern world?"

In the second half of the thirteenth century, economic exchange intensified, annexing almost all of Eurasia. Historians used to call this unprecedented trade boom "the peace of Mongol domination" (Pax Mongolica). In my research, I re-analyze Mongol peace as a "Mongol exchange" which is a major historical phenomenon in world history.

Mongol exchange, in my opinion, goes beyond the separation between the Middle Ages and the modern. It bridges the gap between the Silk Road in the Old World and the Age of Exploration in the New World, and is a precursor to the Columbian exchange (named after Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of the New World) in the early sixteenth century.

The Golden Horde became the leader of the world economy at the end of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.

Another important feature of the Mongol exchange is that it led to the rise of northern Eurasia. As I explain in my book, the Golden Horde became the leader of the world economy at the end of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.

Its liberal (free and open) and integrative policies have intensified ties from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea and beyond, even China.

Its policies combined state control (treaties, currency issuance, taxation, road supervision) and free trade (fluidity in movement and partnerships, alliances based on common interest rather than ethnic or religious affiliation, low tax system).

The diplomatic agreements concluded by the Golden Horde with the Mamluks, as well as with the Byzantines and Italians, led to the development of the commercial, artistic, and intellectual fields.

For the first time, people and caravans were able to travel safely from Europe to the Middle East and China along land routes.

A complex system of currency exchange has been developed. Multilingual narratives were produced in the Volga Valley, Egypt, Central Asia and Yemen. Remarkably, during this period, we have not seen a clash between globalization and state-building.

The Golden Horde Khanate were the first Mongol leaders to convert to Islam and benefit from the most developed Islamic trade network in Eurasia in the early thirteenth century; this explains how the Golden Horde created favorable conditions for markets to flourish and how it participated in the creation of the largest integrated market in pre-modern history.

Finally, we must not forget that the Golden Horde Khanate were the first Mongol leaders to convert to Islam and benefit from the most developed Islamic trade network in Eurasia in the early thirteenth century; this contributes to explaining how the Golden Horde created favorable conditions for markets to flourish and how it participated in the creation of the largest integrated market in pre-modern history.

Lands ruled by the Golden Horde Khanate included Crimea and large parts of Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia and the Caucasus (Shutterstock)

• Mobile cities are not a military campaign, but they have nomadic features and are radically different from both ancient and modern states. What were the cities of the Khanate and Mongols like?

First, we need to revise the assumption that the Bedouins did not build cities. One of the most striking developments during the Golden Horde era is the tremendous prosperity of settlements on the banks of the Volga, the Don and other great river valleys, and in the Crimea. (Archaeologists have discovered more than 100 Golden Horde settlements of various sizes from mega-open-space cities to small villages.)

But this phenomenon was not a form of resettlement, as the leaders of powerful nomadic groups, meanwhile, were still migrating seasonally. Second, as I discovered in my research, the Mongols built cities but they were never as important as the mobile Khan tiles.

This court was called in the sources "Hashd/Khanate of the Golden Horde" and played the role of the capital even though it was a "mobile city".

Modern travelers attributed to the Khanate an impressive Bedouin organization of vast numbers of people and notables, their huge camps with their city-like facilities, a huge moving market, cattle herds, as well as a mobile administration, which included a minting workshop, a chancellery and a treasury with trustees and accountants. This organization radically differed from the stable forces.

Interestingly, the "Khanate/Hashd" appeared in all Western, Russian, Arabic and Persian languages in the thirteenth century. The word was used to express a new kind of force (without translation) and they had no other word to express it.

Another distinguishing principle of the Golden Horde is its ability to reconcile different religious communities, a governing policy known as "religious tolerance." According to this policy, the Mongols granted the clergy (Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, and Jews) tax-exempt status and military conscription.

• There is a common notion increasingly referred to these days as the Russian war on Ukraine escalates, that Russian tyranny is rooted in the Mongols' brutal history, but you refuse to consider the Mongols as barbarians and even consider them flexible and accepting pluralism, how so?

Contrary to popular view, Mongol political culture was not based on the concentration of power in the hands of the ruler; governance was a collective process involving extensive face-to-face negotiations with elites in the "grand groupings" (Kurultai). These political councils were the main governing institution of the Golden Horde.

The entire political elite, including women, was required to attend those councils to legitimize the Khan orders through consensus. Face-to-face consensus was a basic principle of steppe law.

Another distinguishing principle of the Golden Horde is its ability to reconcile different religious communities, a governing policy known as "religious tolerance." According to this policy, the Mongols granted the clergy (Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, and Jews) tax-exempt status and military conscription.

The Golden Horde combined a diverse Islamic heritage into a single community, linked Seljuk, Abbasid, Volga-Bulgarian and Central Asian Islamic practices, and fostered a sense of unity among disparate peoples.

This system was extremely beneficial to these different religious communities, especially since the financial benefits allowed them to establish new properties and build churches, mosques, synagogues, synagogues, monasteries, and madrasas.

The influence on Islam itself was significant, as the Golden Horde combined a diverse Islamic heritage into a single community, linked Seljuk, Abbasid, Volga-Bulgarian, and Central Asian Islamic practices, and fostered a sense of unity among disparate peoples. As you can see, this is very far from the current authoritarian and fanatical Russian regime.

• You see that grazing is not a primitive stage on the road to modernization, can you explain the idea?

We are talking about a different kind of system here, not a stable empire but a nomadic empire operating with a different spatial logic.

Only recently have historians begun to realize that nomads can create complex political structures and that their ambitions can extend beyond raiding and looting.

Ancient stereotypes of nomadism and plunder affect the study efforts of the Golden Horde, and many prevailing models continue to distort the work of historians: nationalist approaches with their teleological tendencies, the simplistic concept of nomadic feudalism seen as a reactionary stage in human economic development, and the assumption that nomads are "cultural importers" or, at best, "cultural intermediaries," rather than the main producers of their success, especially when it comes to the administration for which they supposedly needed to draw on the expertise of their settled subjects.

Pastoralism is not a primitive stage on the road to modernization; grazing is a different option, one that enabled the Mongols to form a unique imperial entity that does not emulate any stable model.

So, yes, pastoralism is not a primitive stage on the road to modernization; grazing is a different option, one that enabled the Mongols to form a unique imperial entity that does not emulate any stable model.

The Mangit, Nujeez, Tatar, Uzbek, Kazakh, and other heirs of the Golden Horde kept nomads alive and practiced their methods of consensus, lineage, hierarchical participation, and mobility, not because these peoples were traditionally restricted or ignorant of the methods of sedentary peoples, but because these methods proved effective.

If the Golden Horde Khanate is dropped on today's map, it will stretch across an area occupied by Ukraine, Bulgaria, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Russia.

Model of Saray Batu, the capital of the Golden Horde in Astrakhan, one of the cities of the Russian Federation (Shutterstock)

• Where can we find the remains of the heritage of the Golden Horde Khanate and its peoples? Especially with the increasing talk of Crimean Tatars in the context of the Russian war on Ukraine?

As I write in my book, if the Golden Horde is forgotten, it was also because it left very few visible architectural traces. Their many cities and religious buildings have left only a few monuments that you can visit today mainly in Crimea, Tatarstan, and Kazakhstan.

However, the legacy of the Golden Horde was much deeper and much larger. If the Golden Horde Khanate is dropped on today's map, it will stretch across an area occupied by Ukraine, Bulgaria, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Russia.

Its diplomacy and trade have reached Western Europe and North Africa; so its history is a common heritage that does not belong exclusively to the national narratives of any nation-state; it belongs to the history of the world.