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47-778: Mahmud bin Küchük established the Khanate in the 1460s. The capital was the city of Xacitarxan , also known as Astrakhan in Russian chronicles. Its territory included the Lower Volga valley and the Volga Delta , including most of what is now Astrakhan Oblast and the steppeland on the right bank of Volga in present-day Kalmykia . To the south was the Caspian Sea , to the east the Nogai Horde , and to

94-558: A foreign witness, Sigismund von Herberstein . Belsky's huge army spent 20 days encamped on an island opposite Kazan, awaiting the arrival of Russian cavalrymen. Then news came that part of the cavalry had been defeated, and the vessels loaded with provisions had been captured by the Tatars. Although the army suffered from hunger, Belsky at once laid siege to the city and soon the Tatars sent their envoys proposing terms. Belsky accepted them and speedily returned to Moscow. Prince Belsky returned to

141-477: A puppet on the throne during the 1466–1469 Kazan succession crisis, the 1469 peace treaty meant 20 years of relative peace between Muscovy and an initially anti-Muscovite khan, Ibrahim . During the 1486–1487 succession dispute, however, Ivan managed to place the Crimean khan Meñli I Giray 's stepson Möxämmädämin (Muhammed Amin) on the throne of Kazan. When Ivan III died in 1505, his will still allocated tributes to

188-680: A series of short, intermittent wars fought between the Grand Principality of Moscow and the Khanate of Kazan between 1437 and 1556. Most of these were wars of succession in Kazan, in which Muscovy intervened on behalf of the dynastic interests of its main ally, the Crimean Khanate . For most of the period, neither side sought to conquer the other, until Ivan the Terrible decided to annex Kazan upon

235-628: A transit trade between Muscovy , Kazan , Crimea , Central Asia , and the Transcaucasus region. The nobility consisted of feudal ranks, which were, from highest to lowest: the khan , sultans , begs , and morzalar . The rest of the population were known as qara xalıq , ('black people', or more accurately in Old Turkic, "great creation" implying 'the creatures at large" or common folks, when "qara" stood for "big" and "great" not just black, and "aq" (white), stood also for delicate, small, dainty etc.),

282-600: The Great Horde and coined his own money. His letter to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II (as dispatched on April 10, 1466) is a curious example of diplomatic epistles written in Persian or in the 15th-century Old Tatar language . The content is a necessity of establishment of diplomatic relations between Ottoman Empire and Astrakhan, and sending ambassadors to Istanbul . For uncertainties and additional information see

329-650: The Qasim Khanate , the Crimean Khanate , the Astrakhan Khanate , and the Khanate of Kazan, although the sums were smaller than those of previous Muscovite princes. Vasily III continued Ivan's pro-Crimean policies, and during their reigns, the Khanate of Kazan, the Principality of Moscow and the Crimea Khanate were allies, the latter being the senior partner of the other two. The boundary between Muscovy and Kazan

376-570: 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 Kotelnich in the Vyatka Land . They sailed down

423-709: The Vyatka River and the Kama towards the Volga, pillaging merchant vessels on their way. In response, Ibrahim mounted a counter-offensive, overran Vyatka, and forced local inhabitants into slavery for the duration of the campaign. 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

470-569: The successful 1552 siege , which was followed by a rebellion lasting until 1556 . 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, several decades before the Christianisation of Kievan Rus' was boosted by the conversion of Volodimer in c. 988. In

517-495: The 1430s, the Khanate of Kazan emerged on the mid-Volga, breaking away from the Golden Horde , and roughly comprising the area of former Volga Bulgaria. Charles J. Halperin (1987) noted: 'Muscovy's relations with the Kazan' khanate were complex, her aggressive intentions tempered by the lure of trade and her own limited military capability.' Both Kazan and Muscovy experienced wars of succession within their reigning families in

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564-479: The 15th and 16th century. The Muscovite War of Succession between Vasily Vasilyevich and his uncle Dmitry Shemyaka tore Muscovy apart from 1425 to 1453, while Ulugh Muhammad (Ulu-Mehmed), the first khan of Kazan, was murdered by his son Mäxmüd (Mahmutek), who then expelled his brothers Qasim and Yakub. For most of the decades-long intermittent conflict, neither the Kazanians sought to conquer Moscow, nor did

611-499: The Arsk Tower but, when the Russians started to celebrate their victory, ventured out and inflicted an excruciating defeat on them (June 25). Although it was the most brilliant Tatar victory in decades, Moxammat Amin – for some reason not clearly understood – resolved to sue for peace and paid homage to Ivan's successor, Vasily III of Russia . A new massacre of Russian merchants and envoys residing in Kazan took place in 1521. Vasily III

658-734: The Crimeans. Russia sent more troops and occupied Astrakhan in 1556, proceeding to destroy the largest slave market on the Volga. In 1558, Astrakhan was moved 12 km south to its present location. In 1569, the Ottomans were unable to capture Astrakhan. Mahmud bin K%C3%BCch%C3%BCk Maḥmūd bin Muḥammad bin Tīmūr Khān ( Turki and Persian : محمود بن محمد بن تیمور خان), also known as Mahmud Astrakhani ( Tatar : Ästerxannıñ Mäxmüd )

705-510: The Golden Horde until the Horde's end in 1502. In 1459 the Golden Horde ruler Küchük Muhammad died and power was split between his sons Ahmed Khan bin Küchük , the man who lost Russia in 1480, and Mahmud bin Küchük who was based around Astrakhan. The khanate was founded either by Mahmud or his son Qasim I . The khans of Astrakhan were all descended from Mahmud or his brother Ahmed. It was visited by Ambrogio Contarini in 1476. Howorth (only) says it

752-553: The Mongol conquest the western steppe broke off and became the Golden Horde (c. 1240–1502). In the fifteenth century parts of the Horde broke off as follows: 1438: Khanate of Kazan , 1441: Khanate of Crimea , 1466: Astrakhan, 1480: Russia . The steppe remnant ended in 1502 and steppe peoples around Astrakhan became the Nogai Horde . Most of the population of the Astrakhan khanate were Astrakhan Tatars and Nogais . Merchants carried on

799-498: The Muscovites make any attempt to conquer Kazan. The foreign policy of Ivan III centred on his alliance with the Crimean Khanate , and both Ivan III and Vasily III used their military might to uphold the dynastic interests of the Crimean khans in Kazan. The princes of Moscow contented themselves with maintaining a pro-Crimean khan on the Kazan throne whenever they could exploit a dynastic conflict. Although Ivan III failed to put

846-529: The Russians used Qasim Tatars to contain him. After his advance was stalled near Murom , Safa Giray was forced to withdraw towards his own borders. These reverses undermined Safa Giray's authority in Kazan. A pro-Russian party, represented by Shahgali , gained enough popular support to usurp the throne more than once. In 1545, Ivan IV mounted an expedition to the Volga River, mainly in order to flex muscles and to show his support for pro-Russian factions. Little

893-653: 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. Ivan failed to get Qasim on

940-474: The Volga from Uglich all the way to Kazan. It was used as the Russian place d'armes during the decisive campaign of 1552. On 16 June 1552 Ivan IV led a 150,000-strong Russian army from Moscow towards Kolomna . They routed the Crimean Tatars under Devlet Giray near Tula before turning to the east. The tsar pressed on towards Kazan, and the final siege of the Tatar capital commenced on 30 August. Under

987-561: 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. In reference to this victorious campaign, Ivan III proclaimed himself "Lord of Volga Bulgaria ". 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

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1034-533: The enemy after setting the fortress on fire. On 7 July 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 (July–November 1445) and an enormous ransom to recover the monarch from captivity. Ulugh Muhammad (Ulu-Mehmed) died in late 1445, murdered by his eldest son Mäxmüd of Kazan (Mahmutek). A conflict arose over

1081-567: The khan of Kazan, Ulugh Muhammad , defeated Muscovite troops in the Battle of Belyov . In 1439, Ulugh advanced on Moscow with a large army. Vasily II of Moscow fled from his capital across the Volga River . Tatars devastated the outskirts of Moscow for 10 days and on their way back to Kazan burned Kolomna ; they also took many captives. The campaign of 1445 was disastrous for Muscovy and had major repercussions in Russian politics. Hostilities broke out when khan Ulugh Muhammad (Ulu-Mehmed) took

1128-491: The khan's brother-in-law was killed in action and the horde retreated. 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 Vasily Kholmsky was sent to relieve Belsky and defeated the khan on Arsk Field on June 22. Moxammat Amin withdrew to

1175-474: 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 Nogai Tatars then advanced towards Nizhny Novgorod and besieged the city. The affair was decided by 300 Lithuanian archers, who had been captured by Russians in the Battle of Vedrosha and lived in Nizhny in captivity. They managed to put the Tatar vanguard into disarray:

1222-584: The region. In revenge, Ivan III sent his generals to sack the neighbourhood of Kazan. At that time Ibrahim died and was succeeded by Ilham , whilst his half-brother Moxammat Amin fled to Moscow. Ivan III allowed him to settle in Kashira and pledged his support for Moxammat's claims to the Tatar throne. 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

1269-445: The second part of List of Astrakhan khans . His son Janibeg briefly ruled Crimea in the winter of 1476/77 until he was driven out by the legitimate ruler Nur Devlet . This Mongolian biographical article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This biography of a member of an Asian royal house is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Russo-Kazan wars The Russo-Kazan Wars were

1316-459: The sources, when they are represented at all." About all we have is an imperfect khan list with uncertain regnal dates and a few military and diplomatic events and traveler's reports. The capital was Xacitarxan , which the Russians called Astrakhan, 12 km north of modern Astrakhan . After the conquest, the town and name were moved to the present location. The khanate is said to have been founded in 1466, but did not become fully separate from

1363-434: The standard Turkic designation for commoners. The state religion was Sunni Islam . With its conquest by the Russians in 1556, Sunni Islam was largely replaced by Russian Orthodox Christianity, though the region to this day is home to a Sunni Muslim minority. The Kalmyks are largely Buddhist. The Astrakhan khanate is poorly documented. According to Frank "The dates and activities of these rulers are faintly represented in

1410-415: The strategic fortress of Nizhny Novgorod and invaded Muscovy. Vasily II mustered an army and defeated the Tatars near Murom and Gorokhovets . Thinking the war over, he disbanded his forces and returned to Moscow in triumph, only to learn that the Tatars had besieged Nizhny Novgorod again. A new army was mustered and marched towards Suzdal , where they met the Russian generals who had surrendered Nizhny to

1457-501: The subject of the longest poem in the Russian language, Mikhail Kheraskov 's epic Rossiada (1771–1779). After the fall of Kazan, a guerrilla uprising known as the Kazan rebellion or Kazan War (1552–1556) started in the region, lasting several years until its final suppression in 1556. The Tsar responded with a policy of Christianization and Russification of his Tatar subjects and other indigenous peoples, an approach not reversed until

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1504-585: The supervision of Prince Alexander Gorbatyi-Shuisky , the Russians used ram weapons, a battery-tower , mines , and 150 cannons. The Russians had the advantage of efficient military engineers , such as Ivan Vyrodkov , Nemchin Erazm ("Rozmysl") from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the English engineer Butler. The besiegers blocked the city's water supply and breached the walls before the final storming on 2 October led to

1551-532: The taking of the city of Kazan, and the razing of its fortifications. 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

1598-431: The throne of Kazan, and had to recognise Ibrahim as the legitimate successor in a 1469 peace treaty. Under the terms of the peace settlement, the Tatars set free all the ethnic Christian Russians they had enslaved in the forty previous years. Qasim died soon after. 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

1645-451: The throne of Kazan, and in 1447, Mäxmüd expelled two brothers named Qasim (Kasim) and Iakub, who fled to Muscovy and offered to aid Vasily in his bid for the throne against Dmitry Shemyaka. It was in part due to these renegade Kazan princes' help that Vasily was able to regain the Muscovite throne. In 1452, Vasily would grant the former a small fiefdom known as the Qasim Khanate , centred on

1692-563: The town of Kasimov on the Oka River , with revenues collected from neighbouring Ryazan . Since its formation in the 1430s and 1440s, the Khanate of Kazan had claimed tribute from peoples living on the (upper) Kama river and Vyatka river ( left-bank tributaries of the Volga ), as well as controlling access to the best routes across the Ural Mountains into western Siberia . To disrupt this control, Muscovy performed several raids into

1739-438: The upper Kama and Vyatka river regions between 1458 and 1462. A Kazan counter-raid at outposts near Ustyug failed. One of the Kazan tributaries that the Muscovites sought to take control of was Great Perm . The death of Mäxmüd of Kazan in 1466 or 1467 triggered a war of succession in the khanate between his son Ibrahim and his brother Qasim , the vassal of Ivan III (succeeded Vasily in 1462). Ivan's army sailed down

1786-448: 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 Rus' chronicles ) and causing their enemy, Safa Giray , to withdraw to Arsk. The Tatars sued for peace, promising to accept any khan appointed from Moscow. The tsar put Shahgali's younger brother, Canghali , on the throne. He

1833-533: The west Nogais who were theoretically subjects of the Crimean Khanate . The area was a natural center since it was the intersection of the north–south trade route down the Volga to Persia and the east–west trade route north of the Caspian. From the sixth century it was populated by various Turkic-speaking tribes. They formed two states: Old Great Bulgaria ( c.  632–668 ) and the Khazars (c. 650–969). Following

1880-530: Was expanding east toward Kazan which it conquered in 1552. It also was gaining the power to exert force down the Volga between Kazan and Astrakhan, something that is not explained in the sources. In 1551, Yamghurchi of Astrakhan made a nominal submission to Moscow. He soon changed sides and allied with Crimea and the Nogais. Russia sent 30,000 troops against him. In 1554 he fled the town and Russia imposed its client Dervish Ali Astrakhani who soon began intriguing with

1927-474: 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 Lyskovo , but the battle was averted. Over the following years, the Crimean khan constructed an offensive alliance with Safa Giray of Kazan , his relative. When Safa Giray invaded Muscovy in December 1540,

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1974-416: Was achieved during the campaign of 1547-48 and the story was much the same for 1549-50. 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

2021-501: Was besieged by Ahmed and Ibak Khan some time before 1480. The Russian Misplaced Pages (only) says it was besieged by Ibak's brother and the Nogais in 1492. It was twice briefly occupied by Crimea ( Mehmed I Giray in 1523 and Sahib I Giray in 1549). The khanate traditionally had military and diplomatic relations with Crimea, the Nogais and sometimes the Circassians. Diplomatic contact with Moscow began in 1532 or earlier. About this time Moscow

2068-449: Was murdered by the anti-Russian faction in 1535 . Rus' chronicles record about forty attacks of Kazan khans on northeastern Rus' territories (mainly the regions of Nizhniy Novgorod , Murom , Vyatka, Vladimir , Kostroma , Galich ) in the first half of the 16th century. Half of Kazan raids occurred in the 1530s and 1540s. Besides 1521, most ruinous Kazan attacks occurred in 1522, 1533, 1537, 1538, 1539, 1540, and 1541. While Ivan IV

2115-482: Was near Nizhny Novgorod , about halfway between the two cities. The land east of Nizhny Novgorod was fairly difficult. Whenever the Tatars attacked, they would first hit Nizhny Novgorod and then move on Murom, Ryazan, and other places, only twice approaching Moscow. When the Rus' attacked, they would usually send two armies, one down the Volga, and one over land. As Muscovy grew stronger, fighting shifted eastward. In 1437,

2162-457: Was one of Küchük Muhammad 's sons and a Khan who founded the Khanate of Astrakhan in the 1460s. After years of struggle for the throne of the Great Horde against Akhmat Khan , he escaped to the town of Hajji Tarkhan (or Xacitarxan ), establishing the independent Khanate of Astrakhan there. Mahmud Astrakhani maintained friendly relations with his powerful neighbors—the Nogay Horde and

2209-462: Was so enraged that he forbade his subjects to visit the Kazan Fair again. Instead, the famous Makariev Fair was inaugurated downstream from Nizhny Novgorod, an establishment which undermined the economical prosperity of Kazan, thus contributing to its eventual downfall. In 1524, Prince Ivan Belsky led the 150,000-strong Russian army against the Tatar capital. This campaign is described in detail by

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