Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]

The Impact of The Black Death On The Golden Horde PDF

Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1of 19

GOLDEN HORDE REVIEW. 2017. Vol. 5, no.

2 325

УДК 94(47).031 DOI: 10.22378/2313-6197.2017-5-2.325-343

THE IMPACT OF THE BLACK DEATH ON THE GOLDEN HORDE:


POLITICS, ECONOMY, SOCIETY, CIVILIZATION

Uli Schamiloglu
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, USA
uschamil@wisc.edu

Research objectives and materials: This essay offers an overview of the political,
economic, social, and cultural consequences of the Black Death (the epidemic of bubonic
plague cause by the bacteria Yersinia pestis) in the territories of the Golden Horde in the
14th–15th centuries. It considers the framework which has been developed for medieval
Europe and the Middle East. It considers whether there was a medieval growth in
population in the Golden Horde prior to the arrival of the Black Death in the mid-14th
century. It considers the level of depopulation and how it led to political instability. It notes
how bubonic plague was used as a weapon by the Mongol armies. It considers economic
consequences such as the decline in certain professions and crafts, the threat to the food
supply, and the rising cost of labor which led to inflation. It also considers the social crisis
brought about by the sudden death of substantial portions of the population.
Results and novelty of the research: The rise in urbanization in the 13th to mid-14th
century was followed by a collapse in the population and decline in urban centers beginning
in the second half of the 14th century. The Black Death also led to population pressure as
most sedentary centers declined, while at the same time certain sedentary areas escaped the
plague, as could many nomadic populations who were less susceptible to disease. It also
examines the decline in literary languages and the growth in religiosity. Finally, it considers
the recovery in the population beginning in the mid-15th century.
Keywords: Black Death, depopulation, political instability, economic crisis, social
crisis, deurbanization, literary languages, religiosity
For citation: Schamiloglu U. The Impact of the Black Death on the Golden Horde:
Politics, Economy, Society, Civilization. Zolotoordynskoe obozrenie=Golden Horde
Review. 2017. Vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 325–343. DOI: 10.22378/2313-6197.2017-5-2.325-343

This essay considers the question of the political, social, economic, and
cultural transformations in Central Eurasia as a result of the Black Death during the
time of the Golden Horde (13th–14th centuries). The Black Death was the second of
three major waves of deadly pandemic caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis. The
first wave was the Plague in the Time of Justinian from the mid-6th to the mid-8th
centuries [see my: 37]. The third wave was modern plague beginning in the late
19th century [for studies of modern plague see: 23]. The geographic point of origin
of the plague is now believed to have been the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The plague,
transmitted by rodents and fleas feeding on both rodents and humans, reached Lake
Isıq-köl in 1338–1339. Arab writers in the Middle East inform us that the disease
had begun in Central Asia and had been raging there for 15 years. The Russian
sources indicate that it struck the cities of the Golden Horde, including Saray and
Astrakhan. The disease then appeared in the Crimea in 1346 [for the sources see
my: 43; 52, p. 686–690; and 41]. From there the disease spread to Constantinople,
© Shamiloglu U., 2017
326 GOLDEN HORDE REVIEW. 2017. Vol. 5, no. 2

and from there to Alexandria in Egypt and Sicily in Italy [on the Black Death in
Constantinople see my: 42]. The disease spread widely across the Middle East,
Europe, and beyond. It ravaged these world regions in multiple waves for many
years, with waves of the Black Death continuing in the territories of the Golden
Horde apparently until the 15th century. In this essay I will take as my starting point
some of the topics considered by David Herlihy and other scholars for medieval
Europe and the Middle East [see 18; 6; 13; and 9]1 and explore additional topics
based upon my own research on the Golden Horde in order to offer some thoughts
in an attempt to provide a general overview of the political, economic, social, and
cultural legacy of the Black Death in the territories of the Golden Horde and its
successor states.
1. Earlier population growth vs. Black Death-era depopulation?
It is believed that in Western Europe population was on the rise prior to the
arrival of the Black Death in the mid-14th century. According to Herlihy, by 1300
many communities in medieval Europe had attained a large size: the population of
the region of Tuscany, for example, reached about two million inhabitants.
Scholars also believe that high prices for cereals and occurrences of famine in this
period also offer indirect evidence of overpopulation. In Languedoc there were 27
years of adequate food supply but 20 years of scarcity during the period 1302–
1348. In Northern Europe the period 1314–1317 was a period of famine known
traditionally as the “Great Hunger”. There was also famine in Florence in 1346–
1347 on the eve of the arrival of the Black Death: only 20% of the population had
access to bread, with the rest foraging in the countryside. Indeed, as Herlihy points
out, some scholars have considered what was to transpire upon the arrival of the
Black Death as a “Malthusian crisis” of overpopulation [see 18, p. 31–33. On the
crisis of the early 14th century see also the essays in 10].
Can we describe a parallel situation for the territory of the Golden Horde,
namely that it, too, was experiencing overpopulation in this period before the
arrival of the Black Death? It is difficult to make such a blanket statement. It does
appear that there was some significant nomadic population which arrived in the
western part of Central Eurasia from areas further to the east with the Mongol
conquests in the first half of the 13th century. Given the rich pasturage along the
lower Volga River and other river systems, perhaps this enabled a better-nourished
population to grow in number. We also have a sense of the growth of urban
centers, probably representing an expanding population as well.
With the arrival of the Black Death in the territories of the Golden Horde in
the 1340s – the precise chronology and paths of which may never be fully
elucidated – we must assume that there were very high levels of mortality in many
regions. If we consider the effects upon Western Europe, it will help us to imagine
what its impact might have been on Central Eurasia. As noted above, on the eve of
the Black Death the population of Tuscany had reached about two million
inhabitants. After the Black Death and everything else transpiring after its arrival,
Tuscany would not reach the level of population it had once had at the beginning of
the 14th century until after 1850. The demographic impact of the Black Death is
somewhat controversial, since in some areas there could have been mortality up to
1
Clearly there is a larger body of historical and interdisciplinary research on the Black
Death which I cannot cite here in full.
Uli Schamiloglu. The Impact of the Black Death on the Golden Horde... 327

90% while other areas nearby could have escaped its ravages altogether [see the
discussion in: 6, p. 245 ff.]. Many scholars believe that the population of Europe
declined by one-third in the initial period of roughly 1346–1350 [26, p. 149–150].
A higher estimate is offered by Benedictow, according to whom mortality from
plague reached 60% across Europe, with many communities wiped out completely
[see 6, p. 380–384].
It will prove next to impossible to find similar direct evidence for the
territories of the Golden Horde, but we can look for additional indirect evidence to
give a broader picture. A few Arabic sources I have already cited elsewhere give
some of the only estimates to be found in the sources for population dying during
the outbreak of the Black Death in the territory of the Golden Horde. The account
of Maqrīzī mentions depopulation in the steppe region prior to the arrival of the
Black Death in the Middle East [24, ii/3, p. 773–774; and 13, p. 40–41]. Ibn al-
Wardī writes that when the outbreak of disease arrived in the “land of Özbek”
(bilād Uzbak) in Racab 747/October–November 1346, the villages and towns were
emptied of their inhabitants. He also cites a report from a qādī in the Crimea
estimating 85,000 dead [14, especially p. 448]2. Additional supporting evidence
comes from the neighboring Russian territories to the west, with the Russian
chronicles reporting numerous occurrences of plague in cities throughout Russia
accompanied by a high rate of mortality [on the Black Death in Russia see: 50; 2;
22, especially p. 55–61; and 21; and 3, p. 12–15]. Indirect evidence is also
provided by the spike in the number of gravestones bearing Nestorian Turkic
inscriptions in the Syriac alphabet near Lake Isıq-köl and by a parallel spike in the
number of gravestones bearing Muslim Turkic inscriptions in the Volga Bulğarian
in Arabic script in the Middle Volga region (see below).
Based upon everything we know about Europe and the Middle East in this
period, the population lost must have been substantial – perhaps even extreme –
and it would not be until the mid- to late-15th centuries that we can see the outlines
of a rebound in population. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether the population
crisis of the 14th–15th centuries was strictly one of mortality (so death), or whether
it also involved a question of factors affecting fertility [see 18, p. 2].
2. Depopulation and political instability
The most visible and dramatic result of the rapid depopulation associated with
the Black Death was a disruption in the political system of the Golden Horde. The
political system of the Golden Horde was based upon a system of political and
marital alliances between a khan descended from Chinggis Khan and the leaders of
four high-status tribes. The leaders of these four “ruling tribes”, the four ulus beks
(known in the time of the khanates of the Later Golden Horde of the 15th–18th
centuries as the four qaraçı beys), formed a council of state involved in the
selection and sometimes the removal of the Chinggisid khan, as well other matters
of state [on this system see my: 46; 45; and 39]. The pattern of succession was
originally based upon “collateral succession”, with there being an expectation that
the sons of the first generation descended from Chinggis Khan might rule in
descending order based upon age. It is clear that in the succeeding generations this
principle (or cultural expectation) based upon genealogy endured to one degree or
2
For a reference to the original text of the Risāla in Ibn al-Wardī's Dīwān see: [14, p. 446
n. 16]; and the discussion of Ibn al-Wardī’s works in my: [43, p. 455 n. 17].
328 GOLDEN HORDE REVIEW. 2017. Vol. 5, no. 2

another, but in the Golden Horde it is clear that over time the tribal élite selected
the khan without adhering strictly to the original principle of succession. As a
result the line of succession appears to have shifted back and forth between lines of
descent more than once. Within the tribes themselves there was also a hereditary
leadership which appears to have passed from father to son (though it is not certain
whether it was also based upon the same principle of collateral succession).
What would have been the result of the waves of plague in the territory of the
Golden Horde beginning in the early 1340s? I must say that the most remarkable
aspect of the political system of the Golden Horde in the 1340s–1350s was the
unlikely extent to which it was actually politically stable. I would have expected
that the political system would have collapsed sometime earlier during the 1340s–
1350s. It is surprising for me that it was only after the death of Berdibek that the
political order in the Golden Horde seems not just to have collapsed, but to have
collapsed completely. Under what circumstances did both Canıbek (d. 1357) and
Berdibek (d. 1359) really die? Could they have fallen victim to the Black Death, as
had Grand Duke Simeon several years earlier? It is hard to be sure, but what
follows the death of Berdibek is the utter and complete collapse of political
stability in the territories of the Golden Horde.
Until 1359 it appears that there was an orderly, stable, well-functioning
political system in the territories of the Golden Horde. After 1359, with the
collapsed of centralized authority, the only word one can use to describe what is
going on in the territories of the Golden Horde is “anarchy”. We see in the sources
a succession of dozens of names in competition with one another such as Qulpa,
Nevruz, Xızr, Temür Xoca, Ordu Melik, Keldibek, Murad, Pulad, Aziz, Abdullah,
Hasan, and many, many others. Although the historiography is not clear on this, it
is clear that while some of them are Chinggisids, others are tribal leaders vying for
control of the Golden Horde in the west, so the ulus of Jöchi also known as the
White Horde. (As is well known, the term “Golden Horde” is a later term, probably
first used in the 16th century, which becomes the most widely-used appellation for
this state in modern scholarship.) At the same time figures from the eastern Blue
Horde would also vie for control over the White Horde.
How can we explain the mechanism by which the Black Death had such an
impact on the Golden Horde? The explanation for this lies in the system for orderly
succession which forms the basis of the political organization of the Golden Horde.
As noted above, the system of collateral succession formed the original basis of the
method for determining succession among the first generations of Chinggisids after
the death of Chinggis Khan. (Was the system of four ulus beks also underlying the
earliest quriltays choosing the successors to Chinggis Khan? We will never know.)
In succeeding decades it is clear that the same system of a khan plus four tribal
leaders was involved in choosing and removing the Chinggisid khans of the Golden
Horde. The most famous of these tribal leaders was Emir Noğay (d. 1299), though
he was certainly not the only tribal leader about whom we have knowledge based
on the sources. As waves of bubonic plague swept across the territories of the
Golden Horde – but especially beginning in 1359 – the political system of the
Golden Horde was disrupted. It appears that with the death of Berdibek – which
coincided with a period of a number of years in which the Black Death was very
active in the territories of the Golden Horde in the late 1350s–early 1360s – orderly
succession became impossible. Trying to acquire objective, current information
Uli Schamiloglu. The Impact of the Black Death on the Golden Horde... 329

about the proper genealogical order of succession between Chinggisids was


probably a hopeless task, since if one died before becoming khan his successors
could lose the right to become khan. But who knew who was alive and who was
dead? Each of the tribes also had its own internal leadership which must have faced
the same crisis of leadership as the Chinggisids. As a result, with the breakdown of
the political order, one person after another became selected and raised as khan,
and either died or was overthrown. It is possible that the four chief tribes could no
longer come together and function as a council of state. If the true power of the
khan rested in the marital relationships between the khan and his offspring and the
tribal leaders and their offspring, then this system was also disrupted for a long
period of time.
As a result, the western ulus of Jöchi (the White Horde) fell deeper and deeper
into anarchy. For some reason, the eastern ulus of Orda (the Blue Horde) seems to
have been affected less by the Black Death (possibly because it was more
nomadic), or else it simply was fortunate to have avoided the worst effects of
successive waves of bubonic plague. Another possibility is that it experienced
bubonic plague earlier and had already begun to recover demographically. What
we can see is that they were in a position to dominate the western territories until
those territories would begin to recover themselves in the mid-15th century.
In contrast, even though Grand Duke Simeon and other members of the ruling
élite also died of the Black Death in Moscow in 1353, we cannot say that Muscovy
and the other Russian principalities collapsed into anarchy. Quite the opposite.
Since the basis of the state was estates, not genealogy, the foundation of the
Russian principalities was not undermined. To the extent that depopulation
characterized the Russian principalities from the second half of the 14th century
until the later 15th century, the response was a centralization of political authority in
the hands of fewer individuals, culminating ultimately in the “gathering of the
Russian lands” under Ivan III (r. 1462–1505) [see especially the discussion in 2,
p. 37–38]. This meant an increasingly stronger Russian state confronting a series of
khanates in the 15th–16th centuries which were much smaller and weaker than the
earlier Golden Horde prior to its collapse in 1359.
3. Bubonic plague as biological warfare
An episode connected with the arrival of the Black Death in Kaffa is often
cited as the earliest example of the use of biological weapons in human warfare3.
After reaching the land of Özbek and striking the cities of the Golden Horde,
Yersinia pestis finally reached the Crimea, where the Italian commercial centers of
the Crimea became the point of transmission of the Black Death to the Middle East
and Europe. Italian merchants had been expelled from Tana (Azaq) in 1343, and
they were besieged in the fortified city of Kaffa in 1343 and again in 1345–1346.
According to one of the best known sources on the Black Death in Kaffa, the
Historia de Morbo by Gabriele de’ Mussis [see 17, p. 45–57; and the revised
translation in 7, especially p. 17–18, 20], countless numbers of Tatars (“Tartars”)
and Saracens became afflicted in 1346 with an illness that resulted in sudden death.
Large portions of these provinces, kingdoms, towns, and settlements were soon
stripped of their inhabitants. The illness spread among the Tatars while they were
3
On the development of a biological weapons program by the USSR utilizing smallpox
and other biological agents (including Yersinia pestis), see: [1].
330 GOLDEN HORDE REVIEW. 2017. Vol. 5, no. 2

holding under siege the Genoese colony of Kaffa (modern Feodosiya) in Crimea.
At that time Kaffa also included Italian merchants who had fled Tana, an Italian
colony on the mouth of the Don River. Unexpectedly thousands of Tatar soldiers
began to die with the sudden swelling of the armpit or groin followed by a fever.
Although the Tatar soldiers soon abandoned their siege, they began to place the
corpses onto catapults and launch the bodies of their comrades who had fallen
victim to the disease into the Genoese fortress of Kaffa. The Italians tried to dump
as many of the bodies as possible into the Black Sea, but the rotting corpses filled
the air with a stench and poisoned the water supply. Through their strong
resistance, and perhaps due to the weakened state of the blockading army, the
Genoese were able to lift the siege. Many Genoese then fled to Constantinople,
taking the infection with them. I have outlined elsewhere the equally catastrophic
effects of the Black Death on Anatolia and have proposed that the rise of the
Ottoman Empire can be explained as a consequence of the Black Death [see my
42]. By 1347, the plague had reached Italy and Egypt from Constantinople. Soon
the Black Death was raging throughout Europe and the Middle East.
4. Economic crisis
The sudden demographic crisis experienced by medieval European society had
profound economic consequences [for an overview of these consequences see for
example 5; 13, p. 255–280; 18, p. 39–57; and 9]. David Herlihy differentiates
between short-term and long-term effects of the Black Death. He sees the short-
term repercussion as a shock which was very disruptive for regular economic life
and interrupted routines of work and service4. Not only did the positions of those
who died in a wide range of jobs and professions remain unfilled because of the
deaths of the holders of these positions, others fled the town to the safety of the
countryside – as in Boccaccio’s Decameron – because people felt that they had no
better option for saving themselves. This led to many towns being emptied of their
population either because of the death of the population or flight. Those who
remained behind sometimes refused to carry out their jobs, choosing instead to
enjoy what they could of life before their turn to die arrived. In the countryside, as
described by Guillaume de Machaut in 1349, because of a huge loss in the
population (according to him, ninety-nine out of one hundred), there were not
enough people remaining to tend to large farms, nor could sufficient laborers be
found even at many times the pre plague salary. Fields went untilled, harvests
remained ungathered, and herds were left untended, resulting in feral herds.
The high rates of mortality led to a sudden increase in the demand for certain
professions. Gravediggers came into high demand. It is possible that prior to the
arrival of the Black Death gravediggers in Florence may not have been paid,
whereas after the arrival of the Black Death this was a paid job for which there was
a high demand. Physicians were also in high demand to treat the ill, as were clergy
to perform the rituals for the burial of the dead. As these professions were also
losing many highly-trained members to epidemic disease, their ranks were joined
by those who were less well trained or not trained at all. The Black Death similarly
cut short the careers of many skilled artisans and craftsmen whose ranks needed to
be replenished. Over the longer term, the skilled professions needed to bring in
4
I refer the reader to [18, p. 40 ff.] for a more complete discussion and references to the
sources.
Uli Schamiloglu. The Impact of the Black Death on the Golden Horde... 331

new members at a higher rate than before the Black Death, since the average length
of one’s career was now shorter. The rise in wages was a part of a general period of
inflation, with grain prices rising until they finally begin to diminish after 1375 or
1395. Meanwhile, as wages rose, agricultural rents fell. Herlihy suggests that cheap
land was substituted for expensive labor, leading for example to the expansion of
pasturage at the expense of cultivated fields.
How might we apply these insights on the economic impact of the Black Death
on medieval Europe to the history of the Golden Horde? We may safely assume
that the sedentary regions of the Golden Horde also experienced a similar fate. The
report estimating that 85,000 dead were dead in the Crimea suggests that the other
towns of the Golden Horde also suffered shock from high rates of mortality. We
have direct reports of other cities being struck, such as the report on the wave of
1364 originating in Saray [22, p. 57]. The kind of abundant detailed information
available for medieval Europe is simply not available, however, for the Golden
Horde. Yet there are some intriguing pieces of indirect evidence which fit the same
pattern as for medieval Europe.
I have noted that flight from cities was a common response to outbreaks of
plague in Europe. While in the Golden Horde we do not have direct evidence of
flight, the curious case of Gülistan may pose indirect evidence for disruption
caused by the Black Death. Mellinger believes that two types of Golden Horde
coinage, the first minted in Saray in the year 746/1345–6 (and continued from
752/1351–2 to 754/1353) and the second minted in 749/1348–9, reflect the havoc
caused by the Black Death in the Golden Horde. He also suggests that the
establishment of Gülistan as a mint site in 752/1351–2 might have been a response
to plague (a conclusion which both Mellinger and I have reached independently
from each other) [see 27, especially p. 178–180]. In such a case Gülistan, which
literally means “Rose Garden” (and the name of a popular romantic epic perhaps
first translated into Turkic in the Golden Horde)5 could be seen as a refuge parallel
to Boccaccio’s refuge in the countryside away from Florence.
The shock of the waves of Black Death in various years would have meant that,
as elsewhere in Europe, the tending of fields, the harvesting of crops, and the taking
care of herds could have been neglected. This would have affected the food supply of
the urban population and perhaps of the nomads as well. It should not come as a
surprise, therefore, that there are many reports of famine in this period in the Russian
sources [see the table in 22, p. 58–61]. In the towns we can also expect that there
would have been a need for more gravediggers, as well as pressure on healers and
Muslim clerics. The number of craftsmen and artisans would have diminished
greatly, too. While we do not have direct evidence for this, the fact that Volga
Bulğarian ceased to be written as a literary language after 1358 (see below) suggests
that the people who knew that language, or the scholars or clergy who could write the
texts for the grave markers on which these inscriptions were written, or perhaps the
stone carvers who would physically carve the stone grave markers were no longer in
adequate supply. Perhaps with the demand for labor, which was in short supply, there
were other urgent tasks which were tended to instead, or perhaps wages rose too high
for people to be able to afford grave markers.

5
This work is known from the translation by Seyf-i Serayi (a native of Saray) produced in
Mamlūk Egypt in 1391, see: [47].
332 GOLDEN HORDE REVIEW. 2017. Vol. 5, no. 2

At the same time it is not clear whether a comparison of the Golden Horde
with medieval Europe is more apt, or whether a comparison with medieval Egypt
would be more appropriate. In Europe high wages resulted in cheap land and an
increase in capital investment, as in oxen and seed being provided to
agriculturalists to make it more attractive for laborers to cultivate the land. In
contrast, medieval Egypt had a centralized landholding system with absentee
landlords living in the cities. The Egyptian system could not adapt to massive
depopulation and continued in crisis, while in England the localized rural
landholding system had recovered fully by 1500 [see 9]. Was the Golden Horde
system more like a centralized landholding system with absentee landlords, or was
it a more localized landholding system? This is a question which requires further
investigation.
Although we expect inflation, there are not many direct sources for this. Future
researchers may be able to reconstruct the history of prices in the territory of the
Golden Horde over the course of the 13th–15th centuries with a view to
understanding the impact of the Black Death on prices. This will prove notoriously
difficult, however, since the most abundant data is for the Italian colonies in the
Crimea, where the markets – which were subject to influences from all over the
Mediterranean – showed tremendous seasonal variation. According to Balard more
is known about the grain trade after 1350, which makes it more difficult to evaluate
the price of this commodity before and after the onset of the Black Death [on the
commerce in wheat in the Black Sea region and elsewhere, see 4, ii, p. 749–768].
The idea of inflation in the territories of the Golden Horde is, however, supported
by the numismatic evidence. I have proposed, with the assistance of my colleague
Leonard Nedashkovsky, that the lighter standard for the silver dirham introduced
as a part of the monetary reform of Toqtamış in 782/1380–1381 (which was first
put into effect in the Lower Volga region) can be considered direct evidence of
inflation in this period [see 36].
We should not forget that one of the big differences between the states of
Western Europe and the Golden Horde is that, even though it had significant
amounts of agricultural exports to the Italian maritime republics, the territory of the
Golden Horde was home to vast herds of horses, sheep, and other livestock which
were tended by nomadic herders. It is certainly a principle that nomads are less
susceptible to epidemic disease (though not immune to it), which is why we should
not be surprised after the collapse of the urban centers of the Golden Horde (see
below) there were still strong nomadic confederations. At the same time, if Western
Europe is to serve as a guide, the decline in the rural agricultural population would
have meant that less land was cultivated. This could have led to a greater exploitation
of formerly-tilled agricultural land by herds of animals tended by nomadic herdsmen,
or by local sedentarists for whom it was less labor-intensive to tend to herds of
animals than to cultivate large fields now laying fallow (see below).
5. Social crisis
There is no question that in medieval Europe the Black Death created a major
social crisis the likes of which had not been seen since the 6th–8th centuries6. As the
ravages of the Black Death continued, people stopped treating the sick and dying as
6
I refer the reader to [18, p. 59 ff.] for a more complete discussion and references to the
sources.
Uli Schamiloglu. The Impact of the Black Death on the Golden Horde... 333

human beings. The sick were treated “no better than dogs” or were sent to
pesthouses. There was a fear of transmission of disease from corpses and local
administrations punished those who hid the sick. The dead became an
overwhelming crisis, since towns and communities had difficulty dealing with the
large numbers of dead or even the expense of digging their graves. The diminishing
number of clergy meant that it was more difficult to offer the dead a proper burial.
The numerous corpses ended up being treated no better than goat carcasses. In the
longer term, the fact that in some parts of Europe the demographic structure of the
population changed, meant that an unusual number of younger persons and older
persons were left alive. This meant that the ratio of dependents to productive
workers increased, putting additional pressure on the main providers in the family.
Clearly some children must have been orphaned, while some elderly must have
been left without family members to care for them.
It is nearly impossible to document this range of issues for the territories of the
Golden Horde. It is clear, as with the report from the Crimea, that there were large
numbers of dead. The “weaponization” of the dead by the Mongols (see above)
seems to fit with the notion of corpses being treated like goat carcasses, but of
course this may reflect more on Mongol military tactics than on their becoming
inured to the death of civilians around them. As noted above in the section on the
economy, the end of gravestones with inscriptions in Volga Bulğarian could also
be linked to the inability of the Muslim population in the Middle Volga region to
properly bury its dead in the way it had been accustomed. At a higher level, namely
the level of the élite, the anarchy in the traditional political system of the Golden
Horde meant that the lines of the ruling families and the family lines of the tribal
leadership were disrupted, as we see in the sources (see above).
6. Urbanization and deurbanization
Although medieval Europe experienced a substantial decline in its population
as a result of the Black Death, we do not speak of the deurbanization of medieval
Europe, even though it appears that many villages were abandoned following the
Black Death [see 49, p. 52; and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandoned_village].
Clearly villages, towns, and urban centers were characteristic features of Europe’s
economy based upon a sedentary way of life and agriculture. In the Eurasian steppe
zone, however, it is clear that before the modern era this zone was not
characterized by villages, towns, and urban centers; rather this zone was
characterized by pastoral nomadism. Urban centers were characteristic of the
Crimea, Khwarezm, and the Middle Volga region, but the grasslands of the steppe
in which nomadic confederations dominated probably could not afford sufficient
security for the establishment of agricultural settlements. It is only with the
expansion of the Russian Empire in the modern period that we see the complete
agricultural colonization of this zone.
I argue elsewhere that the establishment of the Mongol World Empire created
a secure environment of merchants to travel across Eurasia. This is very clear from
the account of William of Rubruck, for example [28]. The Golden Horde also
provided security for the trade network known popularly in modern times as the
“Silk Road”. The communication network of the Mongol World Empire (cam)
required a regular network of manned stations for changing horses [see 29, p. 103–
107]. Merchants also had a need for regular stations or caravanserais, too. This
334 GOLDEN HORDE REVIEW. 2017. Vol. 5, no. 2

probably led to the development of a series of towns along transportation and trade
routes. With the ever-increasing volume in trade the Golden Horde élite beginning
with Batu Khan began to establish fixed cities at the southern and northern edges of
the annual migration route of his flocks, Saray Batu and probably Ükek,
respectively [see my 38]. Saray Batu and later Saray Berke became important
political, commercial, and cultural centers. An important description of various
urban centers in the Golden Horde in the 1330s is provided by Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, less
than a decade before the initial outbreaks of bubonic plague on the territories of the
Golden Horde in the early 1340s. With the increase in the export of grain to the
Italian maritime republics there was an expansion of agricultural production,
probably including in the steppe zone around Ükek, thanks to the security provided
by the Golden Horde. This necessarily meant an increase in the number of
agricultural settlements in this zone. Nedashkovsky also studies the towns
established in the region around Ükek (a suburb of present-day Saratov) [55; 30;
and 54]. This is also seen from a map of settlements established in the 13th–14th
centuries offered by Egorov [51, p. 232–233 (maps are between these pages)].
Given the paucity of sources for Golden Horde following the outbreak of the
Black Death, we can only state that there is direct and indirect evidence for the Black
Death visiting Khwarezm, the Crimea, Saray, Volga Bulğaria, and more generally
the towns and cities of the Golden Horde, as noted elsewhere. It is difficult to be
more specific, since our sources do not offer any more information about a wide
range of settlements, towns, and cities in the steppe zone. It is clear that settlements,
towns, and cities continued to exist in the traditional areas of sedentary habitation. In
the Middle Volga region, however, we do see is that 70 years after the apparent
decline or demise of Volga Bulğaria ca. 1358 (judging by the end of the Volga
Bulğarian inscriptions, see below), the Khanate of Kazan is established almost 100
km to the north of the site of the town known today as Bulgar. It is quite possible that
this is a case of the abandonment of the site of the former Volga Bulğarian town as a
political center for the region. It is not to be excluded that the reason for this was that
it was somehow “marked” as a place of death. In this case it would be comparable to
the settlements abandoned in medieval Europe.
In the steppe zone, itself, we can probably speak of destruction and
deurbanization, too. The great 17th century Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi offers
us a survey of the towns he visited during one of his visits to the territories of the
former Golden Horde in 1664 [16, vii, p. 473 ff.; and 15, vii, p. 368 ff.]. He often
repeats that Toqtamış had leveled whichever town he was describing at the moment
[16, vii, p. 479, 485, 488, 490, 492, 522, 566; and 15, vii, p. 371, 376, 378, 380,
402, viii, 23]. In his account Saray (probably Saray Batu, given its proximity to the
Caspian Sea) is still not very developed (hâlâ o kadar imar değildir) and is a poor
town of 9,000 ill-fated houses of wood with (thatched) rooves of rushes and reeds
(hepsi dokuz bin tahta, saz ve kamış ile örtülü uğursuz evlerden ibarettir).
Moreover they speak so many different languages that they must communicate
through interpreters, which also suggests that many of them had arrived there only
recently [16, vii, p. 479–480; and 15, vii, p. 372]. We also learn from his
description that significant numbers of nomads or semi-nomads live among what
Evliya Çelebi refers to as the “ruins” (harabeler) of this region. The general
impression one gets is that – considering that this is a period of time in which the
population has already recovered significantly – it is not a robust urban population.
Uli Schamiloglu. The Impact of the Black Death on the Golden Horde... 335

Even if we may question at times the reliability of Evliya Çelebi’s description, the
extent to which the urban tradition of this region declined compared to the time of
the visit of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa in the 1330s or indeed was disrupted is certainly a topic
which merits further study based upon the later sources.
7. Population pressure and migration
With the substantial depopulation across the territories of the Golden Horde
(which may not have been uniform, of course), we can see several phenomena
related to the movement of people to areas which were suddenly depopulated, or at
least politically and militarily weakened. The first example can be the expansion by
Lithuania to the south as far as the Black Sea. As Pelenski has demonstrated (though
without mentioning bubonic plague), Lithuania expanded its territories dramatically
in the 2nd third of the 14th century. It expanded into Belorussia and five Ukrainian
lands (the conquest of Chernigov in three stages beginning in 1345, Siveria, the
conquest of Kiev and the Kievan land by 1361–1363, Pereyaslavl following Kiev,
and major parts of Podolia in the first half of the 1360s) [32, especially p. 308].
Lithuania scored a major victory over the forces of the Golden Horde at the Battle of
the Blue Water (Sinyaya voda) in 1362 [32, p. 309–311]. Lithuania even established
control over the northern coast of the Black Sea under Witold (r. 1392–1430) [32,
p. 318]. This territorial expansion corresponds to the period of the ravages of the
bubonic plague, which certainly led to substantial depopulation and political
instability in the period which Pelenski calls the “Time of Troubles” in the Golden
Horde following the death of Canıbek Khan. It is possible that the Black Death may
not have affected Lithuania as profoundly as it did the territories of Russia and the
Golden Horde7. This is a topic meriting further consideration.
It is also possible that the territories of the eastern half of the Golden Horde (so
the Blue Horde) were not affected as profoundly as the western territories (so the
White Horde), or possibly that the eastern territories began to recover more rapidly.
The now-weakened Golden Horde begins to experience a series of attacks from the
east as Urus Khan and then later Toqtamış lead campaigns against the territories of
the western half of the Golden Horde [for a discussion of the sources for this
section see my 45, p. 179–204; 52, p. 690; 41, p. 113–114; and 39, p. 16–17]. Let
us leave aside for the moment the question of the origins of Toqtamış. As I have
argued elsewhere, we see from a later source that when Toqtamış is playing the
role of de facto or de jure ruler in the western territories in the 1380s and part of
the 1390s, he is supported by a confederation of four “ruling tribes” consisting of
the Şirin, Arğın, Barın, and Qıpçaq. It is significant that these four tribes migrated
to this territory at the end of the 14th century along with Toqtamış. The same four
tribes will later form the basis of the xanates of the Crimea, Kazan, and part of the
xanate of Kasimov. In order to appreciate the significance of this information, we
should consider that according to one source the four tribes of the nomadic “Great
Horde” of the 15th century were the Qıyat, Mangıt, Sicivut, and Qongrat. If we may
consider the nomadic Great Horde to be the last remnant of the earlier Golden
Horde (more accurately, the western White Horde) and its direct continuation, then
these four tribes (the Qıyat, Mangıt, Sicivut, and Qongrat) must also have been the
earlier tribes of the western territories of the Golden Horde (so the White Horde).
7
Benedictow suggest that the Black Death may have spread more slowly in the Baltic re-
gion, see: [6, p. 209–210].
336 GOLDEN HORDE REVIEW. 2017. Vol. 5, no. 2

This allows us a second example of population moving to an area depopulated by


the bubonic plague [cf. 26, p. 170–171].
The third and final example I would suggest would be the later movement of
Kipchak Turkic-speaking population into the Middle Volga region. If we may take
the Volga Bulğarian inscriptions as any indication, the dominant population of the
Middle Volga region spoke Volga Bulğarian, which belongs to the Western or
Bulğar branch of the Turkic languages whose sole modern relative is Chuvash. I
have noted elsewhere that it is also possible that Volga Bulğarian served the
purpose of a “religious” language for speakers of Kipchak Turkic languages and
perhaps even speakers of Turkic languages belonging to other branches of the
Turkic languages [44]. (We will never know for sure.) The fact that over the course
of the 15th–16th centuries we see the rise of a strong Kipchak Turkic-speaking
population, based upon the Kipchak Turkic language (Old Kazan Tatar) used in the
gravestones from this period and the official diplomatic correspondence of the
Khanate of Kazan, we can see that there was an in-migration of Kipchak Turkic
population, probably including nomadic Noğays. Not only would this be our third
example of a population moving into a region depopulated by bubonic plague, it
can also serve as an example of the phenomenon described by Herlihy of the
expansion of pasturage at the expense of cultivated fields. Of course, any nomadic
population moving to the Middle Volga region eventually sedentarized.
8. Cultural and technological regression
As I have argued elsewhere, I believe that we see the end of several Turkic
literary languages in the mid-14th century because of the Black Death. At the far
eastern edge of the territories of the Golden Horde, around Lake Isıq-köl there was a
community of Christian Turks using the Syriac alphabet to write funerary
inscriptions. The gravestones of the Nestorian gravesites around this site record that
an outbreak of plague took place there in 1338–1339 [for a description of these
inscriptions and further bibliography see 48]. During these two years there is an
unusually high number of gravestones, with some of the gravestones recording that
the person buried there had died of plague [see 58, especially p. 305–305; 12; 11,
p. 31–38]. There is a second peak in the number of gravestones in 1341, which
probably reflects a second wave of plague, even though this fact is not mentioned in
the gravestones [this is pointed out by 11, p. 39–40]. I have proposed that the fact
that the Syriac Turkic inscriptions largely disappear after this period is a result of
plague [see my 44, especially p. 161–162]. The corpus described by Xvol’son for the
years 1226–1373 included at least 37 inscriptions for the period 1338–1339, while
for the period 1342–1373 there was only one recorded for 1347, after which the next
and final inscription is from 26 years later [see 58, p. 306]8. According to Thacker,
the earliest of these inscriptions dates from 1186 and the last from 1345 [48, p. 99].
Taking more recent finds into account, Klein states that the gravestones date from
1250–1342, except in Almalıq (along the Kazakh-Chinese border in the region of
Taldıqorğan), where the last inscriptions are from the 1370s [20, especially p. 214].
The second language to disappear as a result of the Black Death was Volga
Bulğarian, a Western Turkic language whose sole surviving relative is Chuvash.
Volga Bulğarian is known from the inscriptions on gravestones from the Middle

8
A large portion of the corpus is undated.
Uli Schamiloglu. The Impact of the Black Death on the Golden Horde... 337

Volga region beginning in the 13th century [on these inscriptions see 35; and 57. On
the relationship between Volga Bulgarian and Chuvash see also 34, p. 13–123; and
33]. The earliest inscription in Volga Bulğarian in the city of Bulğar itself dates from
1271, while the last ones date from 1356 [53, p. 120]. In addition to inscriptions in
Volga Bulğarian there were also funerary inscriptions in a Standard Turkic dialect
which may be considered as a precursor of the modern Kazan Tatar language in the
Middle Volga region [see 56, p. 5–15]9. In a parallel to the situation a number of
years earlier near Lake Isıq-köl, there is a peak in the number of gravestones with
inscriptions in Volga Bulğarian and Standard Turkic in 1357 and 135810. After 1358
there are no new inscriptions or any other text written in Volga Bulğarian, with only
a limited number of inscriptions in Standard Turkic in the years following this date
[see for example the two inscriptions dated 1382 and 1399 in 56, nos. 18, 19]. There
is furthermore a general decline in the number and variety of gravestones in this
region after 1358 [see the discussion in 53, p. 120–126].
I will offer one final example, namely the disruption in the literary language of
the Golden Horde after 1358. The last work in the literature of the Golden Horde
was the Nehc ül-feradis. Already in the 19th century Şihabeddin Mercani described
a manuscript of the Nehc ül-feradis (now lost) copied in Saray in 749/1358. That
manuscript attributed the work to one Mahmud born in Bulğar, who found refuge
in Saray, and whose family name (nisba), Kerderī, linked him with the city of
Kerder in Xwarezm. Another manuscript says that the author died three days after
March 25, 1360. The manuscript edited by Eckmann et al. was completed on 6
Cumādā I, 761/March 25, 1360, indicates the various sources on which it was
drawn, and finally refers to the author as Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Xusrev el-
Xorezmi [8, p. 95; and 31, p. 309. See also 25, p. 8]. After the death of this author
in 1360, we do not see another literary or religious work produced in the language
of the Golden Horde, only funerary inscriptions. Instead, we do not see new literary
or religious works until those written in Chaghatay and produced in Central Asia in
the early 15th century.
All of this may be taken as evidence to suggest that, as is the case of the Latin
literary language in Europe, bubonic plague led technological regression disrupting
the development of multiple Turkic literary languages in the territories of the
Golden Horde [I have argued this in 40, i, p. 501–507].
9. Increase in religiosity
The next result of the Black Death which I will consider here is increased
religiosity. People living in the time of plague were frightened by the arrival of
plague as an indication of God’s displeasure with them. They concluded that they
were poor Muslims and sought to atone for their sins. Some people gave away their
possessions or performed pious acts. This was equally true of the Muslim Turks of
the Golden Horde. As noted (above), a work of Islamic Turkic religious literature
was produced in the Golden Horde in 1358 (a plague year) with the Arabic title
Nehc ül-feradis and bearing the Turkic subtitle Uştmaxlarnıŋ açuq yolı, meaning
‘The Clear Path to Heaven’. This work is a handbook of the Islamic religion, with

9
For a map of the distribution of both kinds of inscriptions see: [57, p. 21].
10
These eight inscriptions are: [35, 1357: nos. 24, 25, 52; 57, 1357: no. 23, and 1358: nos.
24, 25; and 56, 1357: nos. 16, 17]. Cf. [57], in which no. 26 is read as “1361?”, while the same
inscription is read by [35, no. 26] as “1353–4?”.
338 GOLDEN HORDE REVIEW. 2017. Vol. 5, no. 2

the title suggesting that if one reads this book (and, perhaps, we might add, if one
writes such a book), one is guaranteed entry to heaven. Why else would a devout
Muslim be concerned unless there is clear evidence of God’s impending
punishment? [for parallel evidence from Anatolia see 42, p. 268]. It also appears
that this work was also copied just before the author himself died. I would argue
the production of such religious literature and its copying were pious acts
performed to regain God’s favor in order to ward off disease. This is buttressed by
the subtitle of the work: Why else would they be concerned with getting to heaven?
There is at least one parallel example to this in Anatolia as well, namely Süleyman
Çelebi’s early 15th century religious poem in honor of the birth of the Prophet
Muhammad (mawlid) entitled Vesilet ün-necat or “Path to Salvation”11.
There was yet another consequence of the Black Death for religion and
religiosity, namely the dramatic strengthening of the relationship between the ruler
and the religious class. Of course it is the case that earlier rulers such as Özbek
Khan already had a close relationship with the religious élite [19, ii, p. 482 ff.].
Later, upon the collapse of the Golden Horde state, the clear lines of succession in
the dynastic and tribal leadership as well as well as the four-bey system were
disrupted. Many individuals competed for the right to be elevated as xan. From this
time on, descent from Chinggis Khan was no longer sufficient to guarantee
political legitimacy. The leaders of Sufi orders, which had been active throughout
the 13th–14th centuries, were now in a position to offer Islam as a second source of
political legitimacy. The Black Death ushered in a new era in which Chinggisid
political leaders were now allied even more closely with Islamic religious leaders.
Individual Sufi shaykh offered candidates for khan Islamic legitimacy to
supplement their Chinggisid descent. In return, a candidate for xan, once
successful, could offer the Sufi şeyx who supported him and his order tremendous
prestige and, as in Central Asia, wealthy estates. In this regard, the Black Death
was certainly a factor in the dramatic increase in the importance of Sufi orders after
the second half of the 14th century.
10. Rise in population after the Black Death
Even though the Black Death evidently contributed to large-scale depopulation
in the territories of the Golden Horde, eventually the population would begin to
grow again. In Europe this recovery was certainly in evidence by the second half of
the 15th century. For example, Cohn notes a surge in the number of surviving
publications (incunabula) in Europe in the 1470s, which we may take as a possible
reflection of the rising population in this period [see 18, p. 11]. Perhaps we can see
in the foundation of the Khanate of Kazan in the late 1430s, the Crimean Khanate
in the 1440s, the Khanate of Kasimov in the 1450s, and the Siberian Khanate in
Tümän at the end of the 15th century as indirect evidence of sufficient recovery of
the population to make governance of isolated regions of the western territories of
what was once a vast state possible. After all, when Uluğ Muhammad moved north
to Kazan, he needed to also take a certain number of forces with him, which would
only be possible with a rise in the population. We need to look for more evidence
of a rising population by the mid-15th century in the territories of the Later Golden
Horde. The Kipchakization of the Middle Volga region must also be seen as a
11
See my forthcoming articles on the Turkish mevlid tradition and its later history among
the Muslim Turks of the Russian Empire.
Uli Schamiloglu. The Impact of the Black Death on the Golden Horde... 339

result of Kipchak Turkic speakers migrating into the region after the reversal of the
decline in population (see above), though we may certainly expect that the decline
in the nomadic population was less severe compared to the decline in the sedentary
population.
11. Conclusion
It is clear that the primary sources for the territories of the Golden Horde in the
14th–15th centuries do not provide the kind of detailed on the Black Death and its
political, economic, social, and cultural consequences which we find in ample
supply for Europe. Even the Middle East has much more detailed information than
we can find for the territories of the Golden Horde. Nevertheless, I hope that I have
been able to show that the political, economic, social, and cultural transformations
in these territories from the mid-14th to the mid-15th centuries are consistent with
what we might expect to find from a territory and population living through
successive waves of bubonic plague. Regarding some of the consequences I rely
more on speculation than hard data, to be sure. It is my firm conviction, however,
that once we become aware of the Black Death and its well-documented
consequences for Europe and the Middle East in this same period, it becomes
possible to find some direct and substantial amounts of indirect evidence for
studying the shadow cast by the Black Death over this state and its population. If
we take these and other theorized consequences to be an agenda for research, I
believe that future researchers will be able to marshal much more evidence in
support of the consequences outlined here.

REFERENCES

1. Alibek K., Handelman S. Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert
Biological Weapons Program in the World – Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It. New
York, Random House, 1999. xi + 319 p.
2. Alef G. The Crisis of the Muscovite Aristocracy: A Factor in the Growth of
Monarchical Power. Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte. Bd. 15. Wiesbaden,
Harrassowitz, 1970, pp. 15–58 [reprinted in Rulers and Nobles in Fifteenth-Century
Muscovy (London, 1983), V].
3. Alexander J.T. Bubonic Plague in Early Modern Russia. Public Health & Urban
Disaster. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980. xvii + 385 p.
4. Balard M. La Romanie génoise (XIIe – début du XVe siècle), i–ii. Rome, École
française de Rome, 1978. (In French)
5. Bean J.M.W. The Black Death: The Crisis and its Social and Economic
Consequences. The Black Death: The impact of the 14th-century plague. Papers of the 11th
annual conference of the Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, ed. Daniel
Williman. Binghamton, NY, Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982,
pp. 23–38.
6. Benedictow O.J. The Black Death, 1346–1353: The Complete History. Woodbridge,
Suffolk, Boydell, 2004. xvi + 433 p.
7. The Black Death, ed.–trans. Rosemary Horrox, Manchester Medieval Sources
Series. Manchester–New York, Manchester University Press, 1994, pp. 14–26.
8. Bombaci A., trans. I. Mélikoff, Histoire de la littérature turque. Paris,
C. Klincksieck, 1968. viii + 437 p. (In French)
9. Borsch S.J. The Black Death in Egypt and England: A Comparative Study. Austin,
University of Texas Press, 2005. xii + 195 p.
340 GOLDEN HORDE REVIEW. 2017. Vol. 5, no. 2

10. Campbell B.M.S. Before the Black Death: Studies in the ‘Crisis’ of the Early
Fourteenth Century. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1992. viii + 232 p.
11. Chwolson D. Syrisch-nestorianische Grabinschriften aus Semirjetschie. Neue
Folge. St. Pétersbourg, Académie Impériale des Sciences, 1897. 62 p. (In German)
12. Chwolson D. Syrisch-nestorianische Grabinschriften aus Semirjetschie. Mémoires
de l’Académie Impériale des sciences de St.-Pétersbourg. Vol. VII, 37:8. St.-Pétersbourg,
Académie Impériale des Sciences, 1890, pp. 129–130. (In German)
13. Dols M. The Black Death in the Middle East. Princeton, Princeton University
Press, 1977. xvii + 390 p.
14. Dols M. Ibn al-Wardī's Risālah al-naba' can al-waba', A Translation of a Major
Source for the History of the Black Death in the Middle East. Near Eastern Numismatics,
Iconography, Epigraphy and History. Studies in Honor of George C. Miles, ed.
D.K. Kouymjian. Beirut, American University of Beirut, 1974, pp. 443–455.
15. Evliya Çelebi, trans. Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı. Günümüz Türkçesiyle
Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi. Istanbul, Yapı ve Kredi Yayınları, 2011. (In Turkish)
16. Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi, ed. Mehmed Zillioğlu, i–x. Istanbul, Üçdal
Neşriyatı, 1985. (In Turkish)
17. Henschel A.W. Document zur Geschichte des schwarzen Todes. Repertorium für
die gesammte Medicin, ed. Heinrich Haeser, ii. Jena, Druck und Verlag von Friedrich
Mauke, 1841. (In German)
18. Herlihy D., Cohn S.K. Jr. The Black Death and the Transformation of the West.
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1997. 117 p.
19. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Riḥla, trans. H.A.R. Gibb, The Travels of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, A.D. 1325–
1354, i–iii. Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society. Cambridge, 1958–1971.
20. Klein W. Syriac Writings and Turkic Language According to Central Asian
Tombstone Inscriptions. Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. Vol. 5:2. Washington, DC,
Syriac Computing Institute, 2002, pp. 213–223.
21. Langer L.N. Plague and the Russian Countryside: Monastic Estates in the Late
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Canadian-American Slavic studies. Vol. 10. Pittsburgh, Pa.,
University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 1976, pp. 351–368.
22. Langer L.N. The Black Death in Russia: Its Effects Upon Urban Labor. Russian
History. Vol. 2. Leiden, Boston, Brill, 1975, pp. 53–67.
23. Little L.K. Plague Historians in Lab Coats. Past and Present. Vol. 213. Oxford,
Past and Present Society, 2011, pp. 267–290.
24. Maqrīzī. As-sulūk li-macrifat duwal al-mulūk, ed. M.M. Ziada, Cairo, 1958.
(In Arabic)
25. Mäxmüd äl-Bolgari, ed. Fänüzä Nurieva, Nähcel-färadis. Kazan, 2002. (In Tatar)
26. McNeill W.H. Plagues and Peoples. Garden City, N.Y., Anchor Press, 1976. viii + 369 p.
27. Mellinger G. The Silver Coins of the Golden Horde: 1310–1358. Archivum Eurasiae
Medii Aevi. Vol. 7. Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1987–1991, pp. 153–211.
28. Mission to Asia, trans. A Nun of Stanbrook Abbey, ed. C. Dawson. London,
1955/Toronto, University of Toronto Press in association with the Medieval Academy of
America, 1980. xxxix + 246 p.
29. Morgan D. The Mongols. New York, Basil Blackwell, 1987. xviii + 238 p.
30. Nedashkovsky L.F. Ukek: The Golden Horde city and its periphery. An analysis of
the written, numismatic and artefactual evidence for the city of Ukek and the Jochid state
on the Volga, 12th to 15th centuries. British Archaeological Reports S1222. Oxford,
England: Archaeopress, 2004. i + 253 p.
31. Nehcü’l-ferādīs. Uştmahlarnıng açuq yolı (Cennetlerin açık yolu), ed. János
Eckmann et alia, ii: Metin, Türk Dil Kurumu Yayınları 518. Ankara, Atatürk Kültür, Dil ve
Tarih Yüksek Kurumu, 1995. x + 312, 444 + xiv p. (In Turkish)
Uli Schamiloglu. The Impact of the Black Death on the Golden Horde... 341

32. Pelenski J. The Contest between Lithuania-Rus’ and the Golden Horde in the
Fourteenth Century for Supremacy over Eastern Europe. Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi.
Vol. 2. Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1982, pp. 303–320.
33. Róna-Tas A. The Periodization and Sources of Chuvash Linguistic History.
Chuvash Studies, ed. A. Róna-Tas. Budapest, 1982, pp. 113–169.
34. Róna-Tas A. Bevezetés a csuvas nyelv ismeretébe. Budapest, Tankönyvkiadó,
1978. 480 p. (In Hungarian)
35. Róna-Tas A., Fodor S. Epigraphica Bulgarica: a volgai bolgár-török feliratok.
Studia Uralo-Altaica. Vol. 1. Szeged, Universitatis Szegediensis de Attila József nominata,
1973. 189 p. (In Hungarian)
36. Schamiloglu U., Nedashkovsky L. Coins Tell Their Own Story: Numismatic
Evidence and the History of the Golden Horde and the Later Golden Horde. Proceedings of
the 2nd International Conference on the Golden Horde and Its Successor States (Istanbul,
22–24 April 2005), ed. Timur Kocaoğlu and Uli Schamiloglu (forthcoming).
37. Schamiloglu U. The Plague in the Time of Justinian and Central Eurasian History:
An Agenda for Research. Central Eurasia in the Middle Ages. Studies in Honour of Peter
B. Golden, ed. Osman Karatay and István Zimonyi, Turcologica 104. Wiesbaden,
Harrassowitz Verlag, 2016, pp. 293–311.
38. Schamiloglu U. The Rise of Urban Centers in the Golden Horde and the City of
Ükek. Proceedings of the conference on the Historical and Archeological Heritage of the
Golden Horde on the Territory of Saratov’s Volga Region: Uvek – Past, Present and
Future. Saratov, Russia, June 2015.
39. Schamiloglu U. The Origins of Kazakh Statehood: From the Golden Horde to the
Kazakh Khanate. Qazaq xandığınıŋ qurıluınıŋ 550 jıldığına oray uyımdastırılğan “Qazaq
xandığı: tarix, teoriya jäne bügingi kün” attı xalıqaralıq ğılımi-teoriyalıq konferentsiya
Materialdarı. 5-6 mausım 2015 jıl, Almatı qalası. Almatı, Qazaq universiteti, 2015, pp. 15–18.
40. Schamiloglu U. Ortaçağ Dillerinden Modern Dillere: Avrupa ve Türk Dünyasında
Yeni Edebi Dillerin Varlığa Gelmesi. IV. Dünya Dili Türkçe Sempozyumu Bildirileri. 22–
24 Aralık 2011, Muğla, i–ii, ed. Mehmet Naci Önal. Ankara, 2012. (In Turkish)
41. Schamiloglu U. The Black Death in the Golden Horde and the Later Golden Horde
and its Consequences. Natsional'naya istoriya tatar: Teoretiko-metodologicheskie problem
[National History of the Tatars: Theoretical and Methodological Problems]. Vypusk 2,
Bibliotheca Tatarica. Kazan', Institut istorii AN RT, 2011, pp. 98–117.
42. Schamiloglu U. The Rise of the Ottoman Empire: The Black Death in Medieval
Anatolia and its Impact on Turkish Civilization. Views From the Edge: Essays in Honor of
Richard W. Bulliet, ed. Neguin Yavari, Lawrence G. Potter, and Jean-Marc Oppenheim.
New York, Columbia University Press, 2004, pp. 255–279.
43. Schamiloglu U. Preliminary Remarks on the Role of Disease in the History of the
Golden Horde. Central Asian Survey. Vol. 12:4. Oxford, Oxford Microform Publ., 1993,
pp. 447–457.
44. Schamiloglu U. The End of Volga Bulgarian. Varia Eurasiatica. Festschrift für
Professor András Róna Tas. Szeged, Dep. of Altaic Studies, 1991, pp. 157–163.
45. Schamiloglu U. Tribal Politics and Social Organization in the Golden Horde.
Ph.D. dissertation. Columbia University, 1986. 286 p.
46. Schamiloglu U. The Qaraçı Beys of the Later Golden Horde: Notes on the
Organization of the Mongol World Empire. Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi. Vol. 4.
Wiesbaden, Harrasowitz, 1984, pp. 283–297.
47. Seyf-i Sarayi, ed.–trans. A. Bodrogligeti, A Fourteenth Century Turkic Translation
of Saʻdī’s Gulistān (Sayf-i Sarāyī’s Gulistān bi’t-turkī). Budapest, 1969.
48. Thacker T.W. A Nestorian Gravestone from Central Asia in the Gulbenkian
Museum, Durham University. The Durham University Journal. Vol. 59. Durham, Durham
University Geographical Society, 1967, pp. 94–107.
342 GOLDEN HORDE REVIEW. 2017. Vol. 5, no. 2

49. Wunderli R. Peasant Fire: The Drummer of Niklashausen. Bloomington. Indiana


University Press, 1992. xii + 156 p.
50. Derbek F.A. Istoriya chumnykh epidemiy v Rossii s osnovaniya gosudarstva do
nastoyashchego vremeni [The History of Plague Epidemics in Russia since the State
Foundation to the Present]. Seriya doktorskikh dissertatsiy, dopushchennykh k zashchite v
Imperatorskoy voenno-meditsinskoy akademii v 1904–1905 uchebnom godu [A Series of
Doctoral Dissertations Accepted for Defense in the Imperial Military Medical Academy in
the 1904–1905 academic year]. No. 14. St. Petersburg, 1905, pp. 14–25. (In Russian)
51. Egorov V.L. Istoricheskaya geografiya Zolotoy Ordy v XIII–XIV vv. [Historical
Geography of the Golden Horde in the 13th–14th centuries]. Moscow, Nauka Publ., 1985.
245 p. (In Russian)
52. Istoriya Tatar s drevneyshikh vremen v semi tomakh: III. Ulus Dzhuchi (Zolotaya
Orda). XIII–seredina XV v. [History of the Tatars since the Ancient Times in Seven
Volumes. Vol. III: The Ulus of Jochi (Golden Horde). 13th – middle of the 15th centuries].
Kazan, Sh.Marjani Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, 2009. 1056 p.
(In Russian)
53. Mukhametshin D.G., Khakimzyanov F.S. Epigraficheskie pamyatniki goroda
Bulgara [Epigraphic Monuments of the Town of Bolghar]. Kazan, Tatarskoe knizhnoe
Publ., 1987. 128 p. (In Russian)
54. Nedashkovskiy L.F. Zolotoordynskie goroda Nizhnego Povolzh'ya i ikh okruga
[The Golden Horde Towns of the Lower Volga Region and Their Districts]. Moscow,
Vostochnaya literatura Publ., 2010. 351 p. (In Russian)
55. Nedashkovskiy L.F. Zolotoordynskiy gorod Ukek i ego okruga [The Golden Horde
Town of Ukek and Its Districts]. Moscow, Vostochnaya literature Publ., 2000. 224 p.
(In Russian)
56. Khakimzyanov F.S. Epigraficheskie pamyatniki Volzhskoy Bulgarii i ikh yazyk
[Epigraphic Monuments of the Volga Bulgaria and Their Language]. Moscow, Nauka
Publ., 1987. 191 p. (In Russian)
57. Khakimzyanov F.S. Yazyk epitafiy Volzhskikh Bulgar [Language of the Volga
Bulgars’ Epitaphs]. Moscow, Nauka Publ., 1978. 205 p. (In Russian)
58. Khvol'son D. Predvaritel'nye zametki o naydennykh v Semirechenskoy oblasti
siriyskikh nadgrobnykh nadpisyakh [Preliminary Notes on the Syriac Funerary Inscriptions
Found in the Semirechensk Area]. Zapiski Vostochnogo Otdeleniya Imperatorskogo
Russkogo Arkheologicheskogo Obshchestva [Notes of the Oriental Division of the Imperial
Russian Archaeological Society]. No. 1. St. Petersburg, 1886, pp. 84–109, table (following
160), 217–221, 303–308. (In Russian)

About the author: Uli Schamiloglu – Ph.D. (History), Professor, Department of


German, Nordic, and Slavic, University of Wisconsin-Madison, ORCID:
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0658-1267 (1220 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA).
E-mail: uschamil@wisc.edu

Received February 20, 2017


Accepted for publication May 3, 2017
Published June 30, 2017
Uli Schamiloglu. The Impact of the Black Death on the Golden Horde... 343

ВЛИЯНИЕ ЧЕРНОЙ СМЕРТИ НА ЗОЛОТУЮ ОРДУ:


ПОЛИТИКА, ЭКОНОМИКА, ОБЩЕСТВО, ЦИВИЛИЗАЦИЯ

Юлай Шамильоглу
Висконсинский университет в Мадисоне
Мадисон, США
uschamil@wisc.edu

Цель исследования: данное исследование представляет обзор политических, эко-


номических, социальных и культурных последствий Черной Смерти (эпидемии бу-
бонной чумы, вызванной бактерией Yersinia pestis) на территориях Золотой Орды в
XIV–XV веках. В исследовании рассматриваются условия, сложившиеся в средневе-
ковой Европе и на Среднем Востоке. Его автор рассматривает вопрос, наблюдался ли
в Золотой Орде рост средневекового населения до прибытия Черной Смерти в сере-
дине XIV века. В исследовании рассматривается степень уменьшения населения, и
его влияние на политическую дестабилизацию. Автор отмечает, как бубонная чума
была использована в качестве оружия монгольскими армиями. Исследование рас-
сматривает такие экономические последствия, как упадок определенных профессий и
ремесел, угроза продовольственному снабжению и подорожание трудовых ресурсов,
приведшие к инфляции. Оно также рассматривает социальный кризис, вызванный
внезапной смертью существенной части населения.
Результаты исследования: за ростом урбанизации с XIII до середины XIV века
последовало резкое уменьшение населения и упадок городских центров начиная со
второй половины XIV века. Черная Смерть также привела к перенаселенности, по-
скольку большинство центров оседлого населения пришли в упадок, в то время как
некоторые оседлые регионы избежали чумы, как это случилось и со многими кочев-
ническими группами населения, менее уязвимыми по отношению к эпидемии. Автор
также анализирует упадок литературного языка и рост религиозности. Наконец, дан-
ное исследование рассматривает восстановление уровня населения, начиная с сере-
дины XV века.
Ключевые слова: Черная Смерть, уменьшение населения, политическая деста-
билизация, экономический кризис, социальный кризис, деурбанизация, литературные
языки, религиозность
Для цитирования: Schamiloglu U. The Impact of the Black Death on the Golden
Horde: Politics, Economy, Society, Civilization // Золотоордынское обозрение. 2017.
Т. 5, № 2. С. 325–343. DOI: 10.22378/2313-6197.2017-5-2.325-343

Сведения об авторе: Юлай Шамильоглу – Ph.D. (история), профессор, департа-


мент немецкого, скандинавских и славянских языков, Висконсинский университет в
Мадисоне, ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0658-1267 (1220 Linden Drive,
Madison, WI 53706, USA). E-mail: uschamil@wisc.edu

Поступила 20.02.2017
Принята к публикации 03.05.2017
Опубликована 30.06.2017

You might also like