New Book: Roman Hautala. From “David, King of the Indies” to “Detestable Plebs of Satan”: An Anthology of Early Latin Information about the Tatar-Mongols (Kazan, 2015. 496 p.) »
At the end of 2015 Sh.Marjani Institute of History of AS RT published a new monograph by Roman Hautala in the framework of a special project «Textual Heritage» of Usmanov Center for Research on the Golden Horde and Tatar Khanates dedicated to publication and translation of a variety of medieval sour...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, Marjani Institute of History
2016-01-01
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| Series: | Золотоордынское обозрение |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://goldhorde.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/%D0%97%D0%9E-1-2016-229-232.pdf |
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| Summary: | At the end of 2015 Sh.Marjani Institute of History of AS RT published a new monograph by Roman Hautala in the framework of a special project «Textual Heritage» of Usmanov Center for Research on the Golden Horde and Tatar Khanates dedicated to publication and translation of a variety of medieval sources on the Golden Horde history. In his book Hautala presented major part of Latin sources containing early European information about the Tatar-Mongols and written in the period preceding the invasion of Hungary by nomadic army headed by Batu. Thus, the monograph contains historical documents and fragments of Latin chronicles, which were compiled before 1241. This anthology is aimed at presenting evolution of the European perception of the Tatar-Mongols gradually changing due to accumulation of fragmented information obtained from the East.
The monograph’s main section entitled “Sources” contains 91 fragments from Latin sources with information on the growing territorial expansion of the Mongol Empire. Each of these fragments contains, in turn, information about the author and circumstances of their compilation, original text with all significant discrepancies, and Russian translation with detailed comments. The “Sources” section is preceded by an introductory part containing a detailed analysis of the sources in the context of contemporary historical research. At the end of the monograph the author has placed Latin and Russian index of names and places, which facilitates the search for materials on a particular historical, geographical, or prosopographical topics.
The author classifies the presented information on the Tatar-Mongols according to two main geographical regions of its origin and subsequent arrival to Europe. Subsection “Mentions of the Mongol Expansion in Reports from the Middle East” contains the earliest information about the Tatar-Mongols during the period of Chinggis Khan’s campaign against Khwarezm and further conquest by the Mongol Empire of the Transcaucasian region. Next subsection “Information on the Relations between the Kingdom of Hungary and Cumans” provides information about intensification of the relations between the Árpád monarchy and neighboring nomads on the eve of the Tatar invasion. These relations had a direct impact on the course of the imminent attack of the army of Batu against Hungary and subsequent interactions between the ulus of Jochi and Kingdom of Hungary, which included in its structure a significant number of Cumans escaped the subordination to the Mongol Empire. The third and last subsection “Information on the Mongol Western Campaign” includes reports about the impending Tatar attack that arrived to Western Europe through the Hungarian Kingdom.
In each subsection the author arranged the sources in chronological order allowing to trace the process of accumulation of Western information about the Tatar-Mongols. In addition, this order also allows to trace the evolution of the perception of the Tatar-Mongols in the Latin world. In particular, the information received from the Middle East reflect the initial perception of the Tatar-Mongols as potential allies of the Christians in their fight against the Muslims of Syria and Egypt. Later, during the Mongol re-conquest of the Transcaucasian region, the Tatar-Mongols began to be depicted as “noble savages” who avoided “corrupting” influence of civilization, but were not deprived of sympathy toward Christianity. It was only due to the news of the persecution against Christians in the Middle East that the Tatar-Mongols came to be perceived the “devil incarnates”, performing, nevertheless, the role that was prepared for them in eschatological scenarios of Latin Christianity (this evolution has a direct impact on the choice of the title of this anthology). In turn, the information coming from the Kingdom of Hungary (that was not deprived of similar eschatological interpretations) contains more specific and realistic information about the Tatar-Mongols including detailed information on the warfare and composition of the nomadic army, which was approaching the eastern borders of the Latin World. |
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| ISSN: | 2308-152X 2313-6197 |