Russo-Kazan Wars
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Russo-Kazan Wars | |||||||||
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St. Basil's Cathedral is a monument to the Russian conquest of Kazan in 1552 | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
Pro-Russian factions of Kazan Khanate |
Khanate of Kazan Supported by: Crimean Khanate Nogai Horde Khanate of Bukhara | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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The Russo-Kazan Wars was a series of wars fought between the
General
Before it separated from the Golden Horde, the Kazan region was part of Volga Bulgaria (c. 630–1240) and then the Bulgar Ulus of the Golden Horde (c. 1240–1438). They adopted Islam in 921, 67 years before Russia became Christian. The boundary between Muscovy and Kazan was near Nizhny Novgorod, about half way between the two cities. The land east of Nizhny Novgorod was fairly difficult. When the Tatars attacked they would first hit Nizhny Novgorod and then move on Murom, Ryazan, and other places, only twice approaching Moscow. When the Russians attacked they would usually send two armies, one down the Volga and one over land. As Muscovy grew stronger, fighting shifted eastward. Before 1552 the Russians made no attempt to conquer Kazan and contented themselves with maintaining a pro-Russian khan. A pro-Russian khan meant peace and an anti-Russian khan meant independence and war. Kazan never established a stable dynasty. Pro-Russian khans often came from the Qasim Khanate while anti-Russian khans were brought in from Crimea and other khanates. There were usually pro- and anti-Russian factions, but they seem to have been temporary and unstable.
Wars of Vasily II
In 1437, the khan of Kazan,
The campaign of 1445 was disastrous for Muscovy and had major repercussions in Russian politics. Hostilities broke out when Khan
A new army was mustered and marched towards Suzdal, where they met the Russian generals who had surrendered Nizhny to the enemy after setting the fortress on fire. On 6 June 1445, the Russians and the Tatars clashed in the Battle of Suzdal near the walls of St. Euphemius Monastery. The battle was a resounding success for the Tatars, who took Vasily II prisoner. It took four months and an enormous ransom to recover the monarch from captivity.[2]
Wars of Ivan III
Qasim War (1467–1469)
A fragile peace was broken in 1467, when Ibrahim of Kazan came to the throne and Ivan III of Russia supported the claims of his ally or vassal Qasim Khan. Ivan's army sailed down the Volga, with their eyes fixed on Kazan, but autumn rains and rasputitsa ("quagmire season") hindered the progress of Russian forces. When frosty winter came, the Russian generals launched an invasion of the northern Vyatka Region. The campaign fell apart for lack of unity of purpose and military capability.
The following year, the Russians set out from
In 1469, a much stronger army was raised and, sailing down the Volga and the Oka, linked up in Nizhny Novgorod. The Russians marched downstream and ravaged the neighbourhood of Kazan but did not dare to lay siege to the Tatar capital because Qasim's widow had pledged to negotiate an advantageous peace with Ibrahim (her son). In the meantime, the units from Yaroslavl and Veliky Ustyug vainly attempted to win Vyatka to the Russian side. After negotiations were broken, the Tatars clashed with the Russians in two bloody but indecisive battles.
In autumn 1469 Ivan III launched a third invasion of the khanate. The Russian commander, Prince Daniil Kholmsky, besieged Kazan, cut off water supplies, and compelled Ibrahim to surrender. Under the terms of the peace settlement, the Tatars set free all the ethnic Christian Russians they had enslaved in the forty previous years.
Siege of Kazan (1487)
The Vyatka Region remained the principal bone of contention between Kazan and Moscow for decades to come. In 1478, shortly before his death, Ibrahim devastated the region. In revenge, Ivan III sent his generals to sack the neighbourhood of Kazan. At that time Ibrahim died and was succeeded by
In 1484 Russia placed Moxammat Amin on the throne, but within a year Ilham regained power. In 1487 Ivan again found it prudent to intervene in Kazan affairs and replace Ilham with Moxammat Amin. Prince Kholmsky sailed down the Volga from Nizhny Novgorod and laid siege to Kazan on 18 May. The city fell to the Russians on 9 June. Ilham was sent in chains to Moscow before being imprisoned in Vologda, while Moxammat Amin was proclaimed the new khan.[4] In reference to this victorious campaign, Ivan III proclaimed himself "Lord of Volga Bulgaria".[citation needed]
Battles of Arsk Field (1506)
The last war of Ivan's reign was instigated by Ilham's widow, who married Moxammat Amin and persuaded him to assert his independence from Moscow in 1505. The rebellion broke out into the open on Saint John's Day, when the Tatars massacred Russian merchants and envoys present at the annual Kazan Fair. A huge army of the Kazan and
Ivan's death prevented hostilities from being renewed until May 1506, when Prince Fyodor Belsky led Russian forces against Kazan. After the Tatar cavalry attacked his rear, many Russians took flight or drowned in the Foul Lake (22 May). Prince
Wars of Vasily III
A new massacre of Russian merchants and envoys residing in Kazan took place in 1521. Vasily III was so enraged that he forbade his subjects to visit the Kazan Fair again. Instead, the famous
In 1524, Prince
Prince Belsky returned to the walls of Kazan in July 1530. The khan had fortified his capital and built a new wall, yet the Russians set the city ablaze, massacring their rivals utterly (according to Russian chronicles) and causing their enemy,
Russian chronicles record about forty attacks of Kazan khans on the Russian territories (mainly the regions of
Wars of Ivan IV
While Ivan IV was a minor, border skirmishes continued unabated, but the leaders of both powers were reluctant to commit their troops to open conflicts. In 1536, the Russians and Tatars were on the brink of a new war and met near
These reverses undermined Safa Giray's authority in Kazan. A pro-Russian party, represented by
In 1551, detailed schemes for the eventual conquest of Kazan started to be aired. The tsar sent his envoy to the Nogai Horde and they promised to maintain neutrality during the impending war. The Ar begs and Udmurts submitted to Russian authority as well. In 1551, the wooden fort of Sviyazhsk was transported down the Volga from Uglich all the way to Kazan. It was used as the Russian place d'armes during the decisive campaign of 1552.
Conquest of Kazan (1552)
On 16 June 1552 Ivan IV led a 150,000-strong Russian army from Moscow towards
The conquest of Kazan had as its primary effect the assertion of Moscow's control over the Middle Volga. The Bashkirs accepted Ivan IV's authority two years later. The tsar celebrated his victory over Kazan by building several churches with oriental features, most famously Saint Basil's Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow. The siege of Kazan forms the subject of the longest poem in the Russian language, Mikhail Kheraskov's epic Rossiada (1771–1779).
After the fall of Kazan a
See also
- List of Mongol and Tatar raids against Rus'
Notes
- ISBN 9789027926784.
- ^ Martin 1995, p. 243
- ^ Fennell 1962, p. 22
- ^ Bosworth 2007, p. 280
- ^ Solovʹev 1976, p. 87
- ^ The Full Collection of the Russian Annals, vol.13, SPb, 1904
- ISBN 9781780969848. Retrieved 2015-11-03.]
The next day, 31 August, the Russians began to excavate four mine galleries simultaneously. The work was done under the supervision of a foreign engineer, Nemchin Rozmysl.
[permanent dead link - ^
Худяков, М. Г. (1923). "Война за независимость. Падение ханства" [The war for independence. Fall of the Khanate.]. Очерки по истории Казанского ханства [Notes on the history of the Khanate of Kazan] (in Russian). Moscow: ИНСАН, Совет по сохранению и развитию культур малых народов (published 1991). p. 151. ISBN 5-85840-253-4. Retrieved 2015-11-03.
Русское правительство позаботилось о том, чтобы поставить осадное дело наравне с западно-европейской техникой, и руководителем минных подкопов был, по преданию, английский инженер по фамилии Бутлер. [The Russian administration took pains to establish a siege capability on a par with West-European technology, and, according to tradition, the leader of the mining operations was an English engineer with the surname Butler.]
- ^ "Kazan Falls to Ivan the Terrible | History Today". www.historytoday.com. Retrieved 2023-07-10.
- Republic of TatarstanAcademy of Sciences. Institution of the Tatar Encyclopaedia. 2002.
References
- Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (2007), Historic cities of the Islamic world, ISBN 978-90-04-15388-2
- Martin, Janet (1995), Medieval Russia 980-1584, ISBN 0-521-36832-4
- Fennell, John Lister Illingworth (1962), Ivan the Great of Moscow, Macmillan Publishers
- Solovʹev, Sergeĭ Mikhaĭlovich (1976), History of Russia: The age of Vasily III, Academic International Press, ISBN 0-87569-066-1
Further reading
- Трофимов В. Поход на Казань, ее осада и взятие в 1552 г. Kazan, 1890.
- Коротов И.А. Иван Грозный. Военная деятельность. Moscow, 1952.
- Казанская история. Moscow-Leningrad, 1954.