Kolodziejczyk Dariusz. The Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania (ENG)
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
54 part one—chapter one
Astrakhan.’”
169
e term “serf” (xolop), used in Bahadır’s letter, cer-
tainly did not atter the addressee.
Quite expectedly, in the fall of 1518 the Tatars raided Volhynia,
and in the summer of 1519 nobody else but Bahadır Giray headed a
large raid into Poland-Lithuania.
170
Yet, the honeymoon between Mos-
cow and Qırq Yer did not last long. Not only did not Vasilij III help
Mehmed Giray to capture Astrakhan, but a new conict arose over
Kazan. In 1519, aer the death of Muhammed Emin, the son of Nur
Sultan and hence Mehmed Giray’s foster brother, a Muscovian client
Shah Ali was introduced on the Kazan throne. Shah Ali, who had ear-
lier been the khan of Kasimov (1516–1519), was the great grandson
of Küchük Muhammed and thus an hereditary enemy of the Giray
dynasty. Moreover, the new khan, perceived as a Muscovian puppet,
encountered opposition among numerous Kazan inhabitants who
asked the Crimean khan for intervention.
Realizing that a new confrontation with Muscovy required a recon-
cilement with Vilnius, in the fall of 1519 Mehmed Giray sent a courier
to Sigismund, declining any responsibility for Bahadır’s summer raid.
His diplomatic hypocrisy went so far that he claimed that Bahadır had
tried to restrain the unruly Tatars but had failed to. Sigismund, who
faced a pending war against the Teutonic Order, did not hold grudge
for long and even oered a renewal of the annual gis. Early in the
year 1520, Augustino de Garibaldis again arrived in Poland, and in
March 1520 a new royal envoy, Anikij Hornostaj, was dispatched to
the Crimea.
171
In October 1520, two instruments of peace were issued by Mehmed
Giray. e rst one, composed in Ruthenian, was a traditional yarlıq,
“granting” numerous lands to Lithuania, but also containing political
clauses like the yarlıqs from the years 1513–1517. In comparison with
169
[. . .] otcu svoemu volnomu čeloveku dones, čtoby menja xolopom i bratom sebe
učinil, tak esi k nam [. . .] prikazyval. [. . .] i volnoj čelovek car’ molvil: tolko zaxočet so
mnoju bratom byti, i on by šel so mnoju na Astarxan’; see Pamjatniki diplomatičeskix
snošenij, vol. 2, p. 609.
170
On this campaign and an unsuccessful eort to attack the invaders on their
way home, see Herbst, “Bitwa pod Sokalem 2 VIII 1519,” in: idem, Potrzeba historii,
vol. 2: 296; Jan Tyszkiewicz, “Sojusze nieprzyjaciół i bitwa pod Sokalem 2 sierpnia 1519
r.,” in: Afryka, Orient, Polska. Prace oarowane Profesorowi Andrzejowi Dziubińskiemu
w siedemdziesiątą rocznicę urodzin. Edited by S. Kuczyński, A. Rachuba, and
M. Tymowski (Warsaw, 2007): 145–153.
171
Pułaski, “Machmet-Girej,” pp. 318–326; on Anikij Hornostaj, see Document 19,
n. 4.
genghisid legacy: shaping eastern europe (1240–1523) 55
the yarlıq from 1517, the list of the “granted” lands contains minor
variations, due to careless copying rather than conscious decisions to
add or remove a given locality.
172
Only the introduction of Trubčevsk,
not mentioned in the earlier yarlıqs, probably reected the importance
of the region on the Desna river in territorial disputes between Lithu-
ania and Muscovy. As the anachronous language of the yarlıqs was
becoming unintelligible for the contemporaries, the scribe replaced the
Mongol term tümen with the Ruthenian term povet (“district”).
173
e political clauses of the yarlıq were much more specic than
those contained in the yarlıqs from 1513–1517. e khan promised
to assist Sigismund in recapturing the Lithuanian lands annexed by
Muscovy, but he simultaneously recalled a Lithuanian oer, reportedly
made in 1515, which proposed that future revenues from recaptured
lands would be equally shared between the allies.
174
Moreover, the khan
demanded that food expenses of Tatar reinforcements, sent to assist
Lithuania against Muscovy, should be covered from the royal trea-
sury. As Sheikh Ahmed was still considered dangerous for the Girays
aer almost two decades of imprisonment, one paragraph provided
that he should remain in Lithuanian custody until his death. e royal
gis, previously divided into semiannual installments, were thereaer
to be sent in just one installment by Pentecost. Referring to his son
Djalaleddin, who had died as a hostage in Vilnius in 1513, Mehmed
promised not to hold any grudge against Sigismund, but—unlike in
the previous yarlıqs—no mention was made of Djalaleddin’s replace-
ment, thus silently providing that the practice of hostage giving would
be discontinued. Moreover, the document stipulated that neither side
should treat the other side’s envoys as hostages and detain them longer
than two months. A paragraph referring to trade allowed the royal
172
Luc’k, Sokolec’, Braclav, Kačybej, Majak, and Kursk, which are listed in 1517,
are absent in 1520. In return, Volodymyr, Karaul, Černihiv, Novhorod-Sivers’kyj, and
Ryl’sk reappear in 1520. e omission of Sokolec’, situated in the Polish Crown, as
well as the province of Podolia that had been listed in earlier documents, might have
reected their conscious removal like in the earlier case of Kamjanec’ (see above);
however, unlike Kamjanec’, both Sokolec’ and Podolia reappeared in the following
yarlıqs.
173
For instance, the “tümen of Jagoldaj” became Egoldaev’ povet. On the problems
with the old Ruthenian term belcy, encountered already in 1517, see Document 18,
n. 5.
174
A provision to pay the khan a special tax from the lands recaptured from Mus-
covy was already entered in the document from 1507, but it did not stipulate that this
tax would amount to as much as one-half of their revenues.
56 part one—chapter one
subjects to extract and import salt on the condition that they paid
taxes, and authorized the royal merchants “from the Grand Duchy of
Lithuania, the Polish Crown, and Germany”
175
to freely travel in the
khan’s domains, granting them a reduction of tolls from seven to three
percent ad valorem. In return, the khan asked the king to reduce by
half the toll paid be the Crimean merchants in Poland-Lithuania.
176
Like in the year 1514, a separate document, referred to as şartname,
was issued for the Polish Crown. is time it was composed not in
Italian, but in Khwarezmian Turkic, and provided with a Ruthe-
nian translation.
177
Interestingly, it was addressed not only to King
Sigismund, but to his Polish councilors, of whom eight were men-
tioned by names and/or functions,
178
notables, and common subjects
as well. Invoking the initiators of the ancient friendship, the şartname
referred to Jagiełło rst and only then to Vytautas, in consistence with
Mengli’s document for Poland from 1514, but unlike the yarlıq issued
for Lithuania, which again referred only to Vytautas. e “Polish”
document repeated the clauses already contained in the “Lithuanian”
yarlıq, referring to the preservation of mutual friendship, the detain-
ment of Sheikh Ahmed, the payment of the royal gi (referred to by
the Turkish term bölek) in one annual installment by Pentecost, the
prohibition to detain the envoys of the other side for more than two
months, and the stipulation that Polish merchants should pay the toll
(referred to as tamġa, i.e., the stamp fee) amounting to three percent
of the value of their merchandise, and not more. Like in 1514, the
khan explained that although he regarded Lithuania and Poland as one
country, he issued a separate document regarding the Polish Crown
on the request of the other side:
As you have sent asking us for a şartname for your country [yurt] of
Poland, we have sent you our present şartname for your country of
Poland [. . .]. For us, these two countries of Lithuania and Poland are
[like] one. Whoever is an enemy to Lublin, L’viv, Kamjanec’ [of] Podolia,
175
On the meaning of the term “Germany,” cf. n. 135 above.
176
See Document 19.
177
See Document 20 (along with Appendix for the Ruthenian translation). Henryk
Jankowski describes the language of this document as Khwarezmian, i.e., pre-Chagatay,
inuenced by Crimean Tatar. I would like to warmly thank Prof. Jankowski for his
comments regarding the linguistic aspects of the Crimean documents.
178
ose mentioned by names—three clergymen and ve laymen—were probably
known in the Crimean chancery as signatories of a previous document sent to the
khan, perhaps the now lost royal instrument from 1516 issued in Latin on behalf of
the Polish Crown.
genghisid legacy: shaping eastern europe (1240–1523) 57
Medžybiž, Xmil’nyk, Letyčiv, Zin’kiv, Bučač, Belz, Sokal’, Przemyśl,
Chełm, Skala, and your other towns and villages of Poland, and all your
numerous people and dominions, will be our enemy as well; [and] who-
ever contemplates enmity against these two countries, Poland and Lithu-
ania, we will be his enemies.
e list of Polish towns, enclosed in the document, was probably fur-
nished by the royal side and referred to the territories that were most
exposed to Tatar raids. From among the listed towns, six were situated
in the palatinate of Podolia (Kamjanec’, Medžybiž, Xmil’nyk, Letyčiv,
Zin’kiv, and Skala),
179
four in the palatinate of Ruthenia (L’viv, Bučač,
Przemyśl, Chełm),
180
two in the palatinate of Bełz (Belz, Sokal’),
181
and
only one further to the west, in the palatinate of Lublin (Lublin). Of the
aforementioned towns, only three are situated in present-day Poland
(Przemyśl, Chełm, and Lublin), while the remaining ten are today in
the Ukraine.
182
Both documents of Mehmed Giray introduced political changes
unfavorable for the royal side: the stipulation that Tatar reinforce-
ments should be nanced from the royal treasury and that future rev-
enues from the provinces recaptured from Muscovy should be shared
between Vilnius and Qırq Yer, the abolition of the hostage institu-
tion that—at least in theory—secured Lithuania from Tatar raids, and
the provision to send the gis to the khan in one installment, due
by Pentecoste and not St. Martin’s Day, i.e., by the earlier deadline.
Apart from the last provision, hardly realizable for the always cash-
hungry royal treasury,
183
the new provisions admittedly reected more
179
In Polish Kamieniec Podolski, Międzybóż, Chmielnik, Latyczów, Zinków, and
Skała.
180
e two former (Lwów and Buczacz in Polish) belong today to the Ukraine and
the two latter (Peremyšl’ and Xolm in Ukrainian) to Poland; all these towns belonged
to medieval Ruthenia and had mixed population composed of Catholic Poles and
Germans, Orthodox Ruthenians and Greeks, Jews, Armenians, and others.
181
In Polish Bełz and Sokal.
182
is explains a mistaken assumption sometimes encountered in scholarly lit-
erature that the Tatar term körel (< Ruth. korol’ < Pol. król) referred only to the
present-day western Ukraine and not the entire Kingdom of Poland; see for instance
Edmond Schütz, “Eine armenische Chronik von Kaa aus der ersten Häle des 17.
Jahrhunderts,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae [hereaer, AO
ASH] 29 (1975): 133–186, esp. pp. 164–165. Although the Tatars rarely reached
further northwest than Lublin and their interest was focused on southeastern, pre-
dominantly Ruthenian provinces of the Polish Crown, the term referred to the whole
Kingdom of Poland.
183
For instance, in 1514 Sigismund had to rely on private moneylenders while gath-
ering money to be sent to the khan; cf. Pułaski, “Machmet-Girej,” p. 284.
58 part one—chapter one
pragmatism, as nobody could ever expect that the Tatars would assist
the king to recapture his lost provinces for free. On the other hand,
the favorable provisions regarding trade seemed to reect Mehmed
Giray’s genuine interest to develop commercial relations. is interest
was apparently motivated by scal reasons.
Both Crimean instruments were issued on 21 October 1520 in
Ferahkerman (i.e., Perekop), in the name of the khan, his sons,
184
nota-
bles, and subjects. e documents referred to the collective oath taken
by the khan and his retinue members in the presence of the royal
envoy Anikij Hornostaj, the khan’s Christian councilor Augustino de
Garibaldis,
185
and two Crimean envoys, who were to deliver the docu-
ments to Sigismund: Evliya Mirza from the Shirin clan
186
and a certain
Ibrahim Bey.
For unknown reasons, the embassy reached the Polish court only in
April 1521, when Sigismund was in Toruń (orn), negotiating a peace
with the Teutonic Order. Disregarding the stipulation that the envoys
should not be detained longer than two months, the king decided to
detain Evliya, assuming that the sole presence of a prominent member
of the Shirin clan in Poland-Lithuania would be the best guaranty of
peace.
187
Only in 1522, the envoy was sent back to the Crimea aer he
took a solemn oath during the Diet in Hrodna.
188
In fact, the risk of a Tatar attack against Poland-Lithuania in 1521
was not unlikely, but Mehmed Giray had other concerns. Earlier that
year, the young Ottoman sultan, Suleyman, invited the khan to sup-
port his planned invasion of Hungary by attacking Poland. Since the
king of Hungary, Louis II, was Sigismund’s nephew, the sultan feared
a Polish assistance to Hungary and wanted to prevent it by using the
Tatars. Mehmed Giray politely refused providing several reasons:
184
e only son mentioned by name was Bahadır Giray, who in 1519 replaced his
uncle, Ahmed Giray, as the qalga aer the latter had rebelled against Mehmed Giray
and had been killed.
185
Augustino de Garibaldis was apparently singled out from among those present
in order to render the khan’s engagements more trustworthy. Augustino was person-
ally known to Sigismund, with whom he also shared common religion.
186
For more biographical details on Evliya, the son of Devletek and grandson of
Eminek, see Document 19, n. 9.
187
See Sigismund’s correspondence with Lithuanian councilors, quoted in Pułaski,
“Machmet-Girej,” pp. 335–336.
188
e text of the oath has been recorded and is preserved; see Document 21. e
Diet in Hrodna (Pol. Grodno) was held in February and March 1522.
genghisid legacy: shaping eastern europe (1240–1523) 59
1) the Polish king (Lėh qıralı) was already the khan’s tributary and
paid an annual poll tax required from the indels by the Muslim
law (cizya; in the same letter also referred to as harac), amounting
to 15,000 orins;
2) a prominent member of the Shirin clan, Evliya Mirza, had been
detained by the Poles as a hostage; if Poland was attacked, he would
be executed and the khan would face a Shirin rebellion;
3) the old enemy of the khan, Sheikh Ahmed, was detained by the
Polish king; if the khan attacked the king, Sheikh Ahmed would be
set free and disturb the order in the khan’s domains;
4) aer the death of Muhammed Emin, the khan of Kazan, its inhab-
itants had asked Mehmed Giray to appoint a new khan; in accor-
dance with their wish, he had sent his younger brother, Sahib
Giray, but the Muscovian ruler had invaded Kazan, persecuting
the Muslims, constructing churches, and promoting indelity;
therefore, the khan decided to send a rescue expedition; his war-
riors already le and it would be too late to return them and send
against Poland;
5) if the khan set out against Poland, the Kazakh nomads, who had
recently invaded the Nogay pasturelands on the Volga,
189
might
unite with the khan of Astrakhan, who was the ancient enemy of
the Girays, and invade the Crimea.
Of the ve excuses provided by Mehmed Giray, all but one were pre-
tended. Firstly, the payment of annual gis, referred to as bölek in
the khan’s instrument sent to Sigismund, but conveniently dressed in
a Muslim gown in the khan’s letter to the sultan, had not protected
Poland-Lithuania from Tatar raids in the previous years. Secondly, in
the spring of 1521, when both the Kazan and the Hungarian campaigns
were being decided, Mehmed Giray could not know that Evliya Mirza
would be detained by Sigismund. irdly, the detainment of Sheikh
Ahmed in Lithuania, though always considered as dangerous to the
Crimea, had not prevented Mehmed Giray from his recent alliance
with Muscovy in 1518. Finally, if a campaign against Poland-Lithuania
exposed the unprotected Crimean peninsula to a nomad invasion, a
189
In 1519 the Kazakhs invaded the lands on the lower Volga, which had been
earlier inhabited by the Nogays; see Trepavlov, Istorija Nogajskoj Ordy, p. 158.
60 part one—chapter one
campaign against Muscovy posed a similar danger and yet, this argu-
ment did not discourage Mehmed Giray from his plans.
190
Only one argument was true, namely the khan’s plan to introduce
his brother to the throne of Kazan. Having concluded the peace with
the Polish king and turned down the invitation of the Ottoman sul-
tan, who was too busy conquering Belgrade and Rhodes to promptly
react, in the years 1521–1523 Mehmed Giray realized his great plan to
rebuild the Genghisid empire in Eastern Europe. Not by accident, he
was the only khan in the history of the Giray dynasty, who adopted
the pompous title of “the padishah of the Kipchak Steppe and all the
Mongols.”
191
In 1521, Sahib Giray ascended the throne of Kazan while
a large Tatar army besieged Muscow, whose inhabitants, deserted
by their ruler, had to ransom their lives and freedom by promising
obedience to the khan. In 1522, Mehmed Giray even contemplated a
restoration of the independent Duchy of Rjazan’ in order to weaken
Muscovy.
192
His plan to restore the Golden Horde under the rule of the
Girays was completed in 1523, when his troops conquered Astrakhan
and his son, Bahadır Giray, was introduced to its throne.
193
However, the success was transient. Already on the eve of the con-
quest of Astrakhan, a domestic conspiracy developed in the Crimea.
It was headed by the Shirin clan leaders, but also joined by mem-
bers of other clans, who feared of Mehmed’s ambitions. Evliya Mirza,
for whose life the khan ostensibly worried when he was detained by
Sigismund, proved ungracious and joined the conspiracy aer his
return. e Shirins declared their obedience to Sa‘adet Giray, the
khan’s younger brother kept as a hostage in Istanbul, and asked for
an Ottoman intervention. In their letter to the Porte, they accused
Mehmed Giray of pro-Shiite and pro-Persian sympathies—a very
190
For Mehmed Giray’s letter to Suleyman, declining the latter’s invitation to attack
Poland, see Le khanat de Crimée, pp. 110–117; it is also edited separately in Chan-
tal Lemercier-Quelquejay, “Les khanats de Kazan et de Crimée face à la Moscovie
en 1521, d’après un document inédit des Archives du Musée du Palais de Topkapı,”
Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 12 (1971): 481–490.
191
Deşt-i Qıpçaq barça Moġul padişahı; see Document 20. Oleksa Hajvoronskyj
took the title “padishah of all the Mongols” (Rus. padišax vsex Mogulov) as a motto
for the chapter on Mehmed Giray in his book on the Giray dynasty; cf. idem, Poveliteli
dvux materikov, vol. 1, p. 119.
192
On his correspondence with Sigismund, referring to the heir to the Rjazan’ throne
who had taken refuge in Lithuania, see Pułaski, “Machmet-Girej,” pp. 345–348.
193
See Zajcev, Astraxanskoe xanstvo, p. 91.
genghisid legacy: shaping eastern europe (1240–1523) 61
serious accusation in the eyes of an Ottoman sultan.
194
Yet, even before
Suleyman had time to react, Mehmed Giray and his son Bahadır were
killed in ambush at the hands of the Nogays.
Conclusion
e developments of the initial decades of the 16th century demon-
strated the limits of territorial growth of both the Giray khanate and
the Jagiellonian kingdom. e eorts of Mehmed Giray to rebuild the
Golden Horde were eectively frustrated in 1523 by his own subjects,
the inhabitants of claimed territories, and the neighboring rulers. On
their part, the Jagiellonians, who had lost almost one third of Lithua-
nia already by 1503, in addition lost Smolensk in 1514. Fearing a Mus-
covian-Habsburg encirclement, in 1515 Sigismund appeased Emperor
Maximilian by ceding his eventual rights to the thrones in Buda and
Prague in favor of the House of Austria. When in 1526 Sigismund’s
nephew, Louis II, perished in the battle of Mohács, the alleged Jagiel-
lonian empire in Central Europe ceased to exist.
In the nineteenth century, aer both Poland-Lithuania and the
Crimean Khanate had disappeared from the political map of Europe in
result of the Russian expansion, Polish historiography began to obses-
sively look for a “point of no return,” when the last obtacles to Mus-
covy’s further growth had been removed. Many Polish historians, who
in the era of nationalism easily appropriated the tradition of a sepa-
rate Lithuanian statehood, cherished the eastern expansion of Algirdas
and Vytautas, and condemned the passivity of Casimir and Alexander,
who had let down their allies from the Great Horde in 1480 and 1502.
Consequently, they also blamed early modern Crimean and Polish-
Lithuanian statesmen for their “inadequate” cooperation against the
rise of Muscovy. Yet, such condemnations seem both anachronous
and unrealistic.
Most of the lands, claimed by the Girays, consisted of barely inhab-
ited steppes. It was the home of the Tatar cavalry, formidable in raids,
pillages, and eld battles, but hardly useful for besieging and garri-
soning fortresses that were indispensable to really control a claimed
194
For the letter of the Shirin leaders, see Le khanat de Crimée, pp. 106–110. It
was addressed to the Crimean prince but its contents, especially regarding the Shiite
sympathies of the khan, were intended for the Ottoman audience.
62 part one—chapter one
territory. e only settled and urbanized areas of the region were situ-
ated along the middle Volga and in the south of the Crimean pen-
insula. Yet, the former was situated beyond an eective reach for a
dynasty based in the Crimea, and the latter, at least its larger part, was
controlled by the Ottomans, who had annexed the southern shores
of the Crimea in 1475. In eect, the Crimean largest commercial and
maritime center of Caa did not belong to the khans. All this severely
limited the economic and political potential of the Khanate.
e demographic and economic potential of Poland, and even of
less urbanized Lithuania, was incomparably higher. Yet, one can trace
some striking parallels. e largest city of 16th-century Poland was
not Cracow, and certainly not Warsaw, but the Baltic city of Danzig
(Pol. Gdańsk) with a predominantly German population. Unlike the
Crimean khans in Caa, the Polish kings had a say in Danzig, which
formally belonged to them since 1466, but their rights were limited by
the city’s impressive autonomy. Relaxed taxation and extensive privi-
leges, enjoyed by the subjects of the Jagiellonian double monarchy,
increased its attractiveness in the eyes of neighbors, especially if the
latter faced an immediate danger from another direction. is explains
the spectacular acts of obedience, addressed to King Casimir from
such distant centers as Caa and Velikij Novgorod, whose inhabit-
ants acknowledged the Jagiellonian suzerainty respectively in 1462 and
1470. Yet, the same factors that determined Casimir’s attractiveness as
a patron, also limited the eective means at his disposal. Contrarily to
the wishful thinking of his nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics,
Casimir had neither scal nor military means to face Mehmed II in
1475, and Ivan III in 1471, when these neighboring monarchs subju-
gated his imagined distant domains.
Having stressed the weakness of early modern states in Eastern
Europe and the limits of their eective range, one must also appre-
ciate their durability and lasting traces le until today. Neither of
the discussed states should be identied with a modern nation. For
instance, in the light of the sources invoked in the present volume, it
is worth reminding of the oen forgotten role of Tatar settlers in the
southern expansion of both Muscovy and Lithuania. While Ivan III
settled Tatars in Kasimov on the Oka, Vytautas and Casimir settled
the followers of Tokhtamısh on the Sula (Hlyns’k), the followers of
Ulug Muhammed on the Sejm and Donec (the tümen of Jagoldaj), and
the followers of Seyyid Ahmed on the Dnieper (the so-called people
of Semen Olelkovyč). Yet, with time, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
genghisid legacy: shaping eastern europe (1240–1523) 63
with its own institutions and state tradition provided a base for the
development of modern nations, not just the Lithuanians, but also
the Belarusians and Ukrainians. When we read the yarlıq, granted by
Mengli Giray to Sigismund in 1514, Polack, Vicebsk, Kiev, Smolensk,
Brjansk, and Kursk are listed together. Today Polack and Vicebsk
belong to Belarus, Kiev to the Ukraine, and Smolensk, Brjansk, and
Kursk to Russia. One explanation might be that already in 1514 a state
border separated the rst three towns, which were ruled from Vilnius,
from the remaining three, which were ruled from Moscow. ough
this border underwent several changes and ceased to exist in 1772,
when all the six towns were united in the Russian Empire, it proved
to be stable enough to shape linguistic and identity variations used by
the 19th-century nation builders.
Analogously, the national identity of the Crimean Tatars, develop-
ing in the 19th-century Russian Empire, was embedded in the tradi-
tion of the Giray khanate, founded four centuries earlier. e existence
of the Crimean Tatar nation today, in spite of the 19th-century expul-
sions and 20th-century deportations, is the best proof of the durability
of this state project.