Mongol Yoke Saved Russia from Being ‘Swallowed Up’ by Europe, Olovintsov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 9 – For almost 500 years, Russians have routinely blamed the Mongol yoke for keeping their country from developing; but in fact, Anatoly Olovintsov says, that rule had overwhelmingly positive consequences because it prevented Russia from being “swallowed up” by Europe and thus losing its distinctive culture.

            Olovintsov, a Russian scholar who specialized on Chingiz Khan and is a follower of the ideas of Eurasian thinks like the late Lev Gumilyev says that no one can deny that the Mongol conquest was destructive of many Russian lives but that everyone must admit that it played a key and overwhelmingly positive role in Russian history (centrasia.org/newsA.php?st=1591711500).

            As Gumilyev pointed out, Olovintsov says, among those who fought alongside Aleksandr Nevsky against the Teutonic knights and papal forces were Kazakhs who came from the horde. They thus “defended Rus from an advance from the West, and specifically from Lithuania, as a shepherd preserves his flock from wolves.” 

            In a 4300-word essay on the contributions of the Mongol yoke to Russia, Olovintsov devotes particular attention to G.V. Vernadsky’s 1925 essay, “The Two Triumphs of Aleksandr Nevsky.” The Russian Eurasian argued that “the main danger for Orthodoxy and the uniqueness of Russian culture came from the Wests and not from the East, from Latinism and not from Mongolism.”

            “Mongolism brought slavery to the body,” Vernadsky said, “but not to the spirit. Latinism in contrast threatened to deform the spirit itself.” 

            For this reason, Olovintsov says, another Eurasian, Petr Savitsky, was right when he argued that “without the Tatar influence, there wouldn’t be a Russia;” and Gumilev was correct when he said that “thanks to the Tatars, statehood was established in Russia.” Had they not played that role, Russia would have never been allowed by the West to arise.

            And he cites with approval the conclusion of Valery Zakharov, a present-day Russian scholar, who argues that Russia was not a defensive shield for Europe against the Mongols but rather “the Mongol ulus saved the young Rus from being swallowed up by Europe” and losing its distinctive nature.

            The Mongols protected Orthodoxy more than the Soviets did, Olovintsov says; and they played a role in defending other Russian institutions as well.  He points out that the first use of the term “Tatar yoke” was not even by a Russian: it was by a Polish official, whose words were then picked up in Europe before coming to Russia.

            “It turns out,” the writer says, “that the Russian princes did not know that they were under ‘the Tatar yoke’” at the time of the Mongol advance and rule. Instead, they became allies and the Mongols allowed the Russians to retain their culture and religion.  Blaming them for Russia’s problems now is absurd. Many intervening rulers are responsible, he concludes.