Moscow and the Horde. Gorsky A.

Anton Gorsky’s book covers two and a half centuries-from the appearance in the 70s of the XIII century of the Moscow principality to the cessation at the beginning of the 16th century of the existence of the Big Horde. The contrast between the position of these two state formations at the beginning and at the end of their simultaneous existence is striking. At the end of the XIII century, on the one hand is a small principality in the basin of the Moscow River, on the other - a huge power spread out in the steppes from the Danube to the Irtysh. At the beginning of the 16th century, the principality became the largest state of Europe, and the great power disappeared, leaving behind several tens of thousands of people rushing along the steppe. The book consistently sets out the history of Moscow-Horde relations and in an unexpected perspective-exclusively on the basis of Russian, Horde, Lithuanian, Crimean Tatar, Arabic and Persian sources-nodal moments of Russian history are shown, including the circumstances of liberation from the Horde dependence.

Anton Gorsky - Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Department of History of Russia until the 19th century History Faculty of Moscow State University.