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Golden Horde

1242–1502 Turkicized Mongol khanate

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Map of the Golden Horde (with text)
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Through Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Mongols

It originally consisted of the lands bequeathed to Jochi (d. 1225). It grew greatly in size under Batu Khan, the founder of the Blue Horde. After Batu's death in 1255, his dynasty flourished for a full century, until 1359, though the intrigues of Nogai instigated a partial civil war in the late 1290s. The Horde's military power peaked during the reign of Özbeg Khan (1312–1341), who adopted Islam. The territory of the Golden Horde at its peak extended from Siberia and Central Asia to parts of Eastern Europe from the Urals to the Danube in the west, and from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea in the south, while bordering the Caucasus Mountains and the territories of the Mongol dynasty known as the Ilkhanate.

The khanate experienced a period of great political instability known as the Great Troubles (1359–1381), before it briefly reunited under Tokhtamysh (1381–1395). However, soon after the 1396 invasion of Timur, the founder of the Timurid Empire, the Golden Horde broke into smaller khanates which declined steadily in power.

By the start of the 15th century, the Horde had begun to fall apart. By 1466, it was being referred to simply as the "Great Horde". Within its territories there emerged numerous predominantly Turkic khanates. These internal struggles allowed Moscow to formally rid itself of the "Tatar yoke" at the Great Stand on the Ugra River in 1480, which traditionally marks the end of Mongol rule over Russia. The Crimean Khanate and the Kazakh Khanate, the last remnants of the Golden Horde, survived until 1783 and 1847 respectively, when they were conquered by the expanding Russian state.

Name

The self-designation of the state was Ulugh Ulus or Ulugh Orda (lit. 'Great State'). As the state disintegrated, the definition of the term was narrowed to the rump state that existed in the Volga region known as the Great Horde. After its final disintegration in 1502, the name was adopted by the Crimean Khanate, which considered itself the heir to the Golden Horde.

The name Golden Horde is a partial calque of the Russian term Zolotaya Orda (Золотая Орда), which is itself supposedly a partial calque of the Turkic term Altan Orda (lit. 'Golden Camp' or 'Golden Horde'). In this process, Zolotaya was translated as "Golden", while Orda was transliterated as "Horde". The appellation Golden is said to have been inspired by either the golden color of the tents the Mongols lived in during wartime, by an actual golden tent used by Batu Khan or Özbeg Khan, or by the riches of the khan. The color gold also denoted imperial status, while other colors referred to directions.

The Russians used the term Orda, derived from the word ordo, which the Mongols used to refer to a mobile camp, to denote the seat of the khan. Depending on the time period, the Volga–Ural region has been referred to by various names, including Orda ("Horde"), Zolotaya Orda ("Golden Horde") and Bolshaya Orda ("Great Horde"), in addition to "Jochid Ulus", named after Jochi. The English word horde, in the sense of a large (and often threatening) group, emerged later, metaphorically extended from the reputation of the Mongol hordes.

It was not until the 16th century that Russian chroniclers begin explicitly using the term Zolotaya Orda to refer to this particular successor khanate of the Mongol Empire. The first known use of this term, in 1565, in a Russian chronicle called the History of Kazan, applied it to the ulus of Batu, centered on Sarai. In the earliest Russian chronicles that mention the Golden Horde, the state had no official name; instead, various expressions were used, such as "Tatars". In contemporary Persian, Armenian and Muslim writings, and in the records of the 13th and early 14th centuries such as the Yuanshi and the Jami' al-tawarikh, the khanate was called the Ulus of Jochi ('realm of Jochi' in Mongolian), Dasht-i-Qipchaq (Persian: دشت قپچاق, 'Qipchaq Steppe') or Khanate of the Qipchaq, and Comania or Cumania. Modern historians use the names Golden Horde and Qipchaq or Kipchak Khanate.

The eastern or left wing (or "left hand" in official Mongol-sponsored Persian sources) was referred to as the Blue Horde in Russian chronicles and as the White Horde in Timurid sources (e.g. Zafar-Nameh). Western scholars have tended to follow the Timurid sources' nomenclature and refer to the left wing as the White Horde. However, Ötemish Hajji (fl. 1550), a historian of Khwarazm, referred to the left wing as the Blue Horde, and since he was familiar with the oral traditions of the khanate, it seems likely that the Russian chroniclers were correct, and that the khanate itself referred to its left wing as the Blue Horde. The khanate apparently used the term White Horde to refer to its right wing, which was situated in Batu's home base in Sarai and controlled the ulus. The designations Golden Horde, Blue Horde, and White Horde have not been encountered in the sources of the Mongol period.

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