To «Conquer Rome and Beyond Rome»: The Mongol Ideology of World Domination in Medieval Reality and Imagination, in: Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana, 2024, no. 1 (35), pp. 3-38. (original) (raw)
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The Mongol Empire in World History: The State of the Field
History Compass, 2013
The study of the Mongol Empire has made enormous strides in the past two decades, and its most notable impact is the shift of seeing the Empire not only in national or regional terms but from a holistic perspective, in its full Eurasian context. This focus, credited mostly to the works of Thomas T. Allsen, also means that the scholarly literature now gives more space to topics that interest world historians such as the cultural, economic, religious and artistic exchanges that prevailed in Mongol Eurasia, or the legacy that the Mongol Empire left for the early modern empires. Simultaneously, the Mongols' image begins to shift from the barbarian warriors obsessed with massacres and plunder, to the Mongols as active promoters of crosscultural connections, who even brought about the transition from the medieval to the modern world. The paper reviews the major trends in the study of the Empire from world history perspective and argues that the nomadic civilization of the Mongols should be taken into account in world history surveys.
The Mongol Invasions of Europe
The Mongol World, 2022
Drawing upon research carried out in several different languages and across a variety of disciplines, The Mongol World documents how Mongol rule shaped the trajectory of Eurasian history from Central Europe to the Korean Peninsula, from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth century. Contributing authors consider how intercontinental environmental, economic, and intellectual trends affected the Empire as a whole and, where appropriate, situate regional political, social, and religious shifts within the context of the broader Mongol Empire. Issues pertaining to the Mongols and their role within the societies that they conquered therefore take precedence over the historical narratives of those societies. Alongside the formation, conquests, administration, and political structure of the Mongol Empire, the second section examines archaeology and art history, family and royal households, science and exploration, and religion, which provides greater insight into the social history of the Empire-an aspect often neglected by traditional dynastic and political histories. With 58 chapters written by both senior and early-career scholars, the volume is an essential resource for all students and scholars who study the Mongol Empire from its origins to its disintegration and legacy.
Where Did the Mongol Empire Come From? Medieval Mongol Ideas of People, State and Empire
The Medieval Mongol ulus was a category of government that was turned into a 'community of the realm' and as such it was assumed to be 'a natural, inherited community of tradition, custom, law and descent', a 'people' or irgen. according to Mongolian language sources of the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries, 'Mongol' was the only contemporary ulus and irgen while all the other contemporary categories such as Kitat, Tang'ut and so on were described only as irgen. analysing this usage convention, this paper reconstructs medieval Mongol concepts of ulus, irgen and yeke ulus. The idea of ulus congruent with the Chinggisid state of 1206 was well established in pre-Chinggisid Mongolia. Indeed, the Mongol ulus of 1206 was a realisation and an embodiment of that idea, and was built upon the Kereyid state and her sphere of hegemony. as such, the Mongol ulus of 1206 was different and distinct from the Yeke Mongqol Ulus, the Mongol Empire. This finding not only renders the idea of the tribal origin of the Chinggisid state untenable, but also suggests that we must look at the legacies of previous state formations for the origin of the Chinggisid state.
A programme of terror and cruelty : aspects of Mongol strategy in the light of western sources
2007
At the beginning of the thirteenth century the Mongol emperor Chingiz-Khan mobilized a war-machine that succeeded, within the space of a few decades, in overwhelming the majority of the known world. In 1235 his third son and successor, Ogodei, launched a new attempt to realize his father's idea of Mongol worldconquest. He unleashed Mongol forces under the command of his nephew Batu, the son of Chingiz-Khan's eldest son Jochi, towards the west. 1 The strategic commander of the Mongol armies, however, was undoubtedly the experienced general Siibotei. 2 Between 1236 and 1240 the Russian principalities collapsed under the weight of successive Mongol attacks 3 and in the winter of 1240-1241 Batu 1 The plan to conquer the West was one of the main decisions of the quriltai of 1235. See Geheime Geschichte der Mongolen. M. Taube, ed., Munich 1989, § 270, 200-202; The History of the World-Conqueror by 'Ala ad-Din Ata-Malik Juvaini. Translated from the text of Mirza Muhammad Qazvini by J. A. Boyle with an Introduction by D. O. Morgan, Manchester 1997, 196-200 (henceforth: luvaini, History); The Successors of Genghis Khan Translated from the Persian of Rashid al-Din by J. A. Boyle, New York-London 1971, 54-56 (henceforth: Rashid, Successors)•, W. Abramowski, "Die chinesischen Annalen von Ögödei bis Güyük. Übersetzung des 2. Kapitels des Yüan-shih," Zentralasiatische Studien 10 (1976), 130. For the Mongol idea of world-conquest, cf. J. Masson Smith, "The Mongols and World-Conquest," Mongolica 5 (1994), 206-214. 2 Probably no Mongol general played a greater role than Sübötei in establishing and maintaining the early Mongol empire. He was destined to be the mastermind of this campaign because he had been-together with general Jebe-commander of those Mongol troops, which had undertaken a raid through Armenia, Georgia and Russia in the years 1220-24. Due to his successes he held the honorary title ba'atur ("valiant"). Cf.
Section: ‘The Mongol expansion to the West between 1219 and 1260’, 2022
The important reasons behind the Mongolian successful rise of its Empire between 1210 and 1227 has been already overviewed, analysed and exemplified in so many contributions that it is quite useless to pursue on this path. However, it seems that one path has been left aside, the diplomatic channels opened through Tibet, Tangut territories and Armenian kingdoms, precisely between the years 1210 and 1219. Obviously, this new horizon of Western and Eastern exchange of letters, delegations and confidential missions kept on long after that period but we would wish to bring some light on this particular chain of events which led Mongolia almost towards European medieval borders.. Indeed, one of the main purposes of the Mongolian advance in the West was the relative weakness of the Holy Byzantine Empire in the Central Eastern regions. Therefore, our paper explores the possibility of using early Armenian chronicles and French Oriental stories to explore important less known aspects of Genghis Khan's life and strategical choices.