Immediately after Kazan's conquest, Moscow showed a zeal similar to its Spanish counterpart: the mosques were destroyed and the Muslim population faced slaughter, expulsion, forced resettlement and conversion to Orthodox
Christianity.[111] Those who were converted at the initial stage of conquest become known as the old converts (starokreshchennye). Yet Moscow's rule over the conquered Muslim domains proved to be very different from that of Spain. Shortly after the annexation of Kazan', Moscow changed its policy to a mixture of carrots and sticks, choosing to rely more on accommodation and co-optation than on concerted violence. The Muscovite rulers never resorted to the sort of violent campaign which characterised the Spanish Reconquista: wholesale conversion to Christianity and massive expulsion.
Belatedly and unconvincingly Moscow also tried to make Kazan' into its own Reconquista, claiming that Kazan' had always been a patrimony of the Russian princes. Such a claim could justify the conquest to Muscovite and Western audiences, but it certainly found little appeal among the population of the Kazan' khanate and Muslims outside it. Unlike Spain, which was a part of a larger Roman Catholic Europe, Moscow was surrounded by powerful Islamic states and numerous non-Christian peoples whom it simply could not afford to antagonise, even less to dispense with. To legitimise its conquest among the population of the former Golden Horde, Moscow had to take the mantle of the khans and to claim to be an heir to their glory. It would not be the last time that Moscow's political theology of a crusading state destined to rule and convert the pagans and the Muslims was moderated by the reality mandating a more accommodating approach. For a long time to come, Moscow's pragmatic political concerns continued to coexist uneasily with its theological visions.
Annexation of the Kazan' khanate added numerous non-Christians to the Muscovite realm. These were the Mordva, Chuvash, Mari (Cheremis) and Udmurts (Votiaks) who comprised prosperous agricultural communities along the banks of the Volga, Viatka and Kama rivers and remained predominantly pagan. But most significantly, for the first time Moscow acquired large numbers of Muslims who were to become the subjects of the Christian tsar. These were Tatars mostly residing in and around Kazan' and Bashkirs in the territory east of the Volga.
The conquest and annexation of Kazan' in 1552 was the culmination of a long process: Moscow's incremental but determined territorial aggrandisement, driven above all by its growing economic and military might on the one hand and the increasing rivalry and debilitation among the successor khanates ofthe Golden Horde on the other. Moscow's expansion was also based on a complex set of its ever-changing relationships with the various constituent parts of the former Golden Horde.
Thus, it was no secret that Moscow's measured military successes between 1480 and 1509 were due to its alliance with the Crimea. Of course, what was de facto an alliance was seen in the world of steppe politics as a relationship of two unequals. The Crimean khans claimed to be the heirs to the heritage of the Golden Horde and referred to themselves as the Great Khans of the Great Horde (Ulug Ordugunun Ulug Khan), while continuing to regard the grand princes as the rulers of a subservient tributary state. Such indeed was the status of the Russian princes since the mid-thirteenth century, when they had been pressed into submission by the khans of the Golden Horde. The Muscovite grand princes tacitly agreed with such assumptions and never challenged them openly as long as the Crimea and Moscow had common enemies: Poland- Lithuania and the Great Horde.
In the middle of the fifteenth century several branches of the Chingisids seceded from the Golden Horde. They used traditional commercial hubs to establish new political centres on the fringes of the Golden Horde: thus emerged the khanates of the Crimea, Kazan', Astrakhan' and Siberia. What was left of the Golden Horde was the Great Horde, a nomadic confederation deprived of its vital economic centres, whose khans could claim to be the heirs of the Golden Horde with greater legitimacy than any other members of the Chingis dynasty and were therefore the main rivals of the Crimean khans. In 1502, having suffered the last devastating blow by the Crimeans, the Great Horde ceased to exist, its people and herds captured and brought to the Crimea. With their common antagonist gone, the interests of Moscow and Crimea began to diverge. In their effort to establish Crimean authority over the parts of the former Golden Horde, the Crimean khans sought to control Kazan', Kasimov and Astrakhan' and continued to demand tribute and military assistance from Muscovy.
In the meantime, Moscow had its own agenda. With its hard-won sovereignty, Moscow was in no mood to have the Crimea replace Sarai, the former residence of the khans of the Golden Horde. It slashed the payments of customary tribute, procrastinated in helping the Crimeans against Astrakhan' and, most importantly, zealously guarded its influence over Kazan' where, however intermittently and indirectly, Moscow had exercised control since 1487. When in 1519 Moscow installed in Kazan' Shah Ali, a member of the rival branch of the Chingisid dynasty and a nephew of Ahmed, the deceased khan of the Great Horde, the Crimean khan Muhammed Girey had had enough. In 1521, Muhammed Girey approached his arch-rival, the khan ofAstrakhan', and offered peace and alliance against Moscow. At the same time, pro-Crimean forces in Kazan' organised a coup and successfully installed on the throne Sahip Girey, the son ofthe deceased Crimean khan, Mengli Girey. The deferred hostility which had characterised the relationship between Moscow and the Crimea since 1509 now turned into an open war. The military campaign launched against Muscovy from both the Crimea and Kazan' was one of the most devastating in the history of the Muscovite state.[112]
With the final dissipation of the Golden Horde, the steppe lost any semblance of central authority, which led to further turmoil and the emergence of new actors and new alliances. From the mid-i52os Moscow's military success was, in no small degree, based on its alliance with the Nogais, a powerful nomadic confederation of Turko-Mongol tribes. Throughout the sixteenth century, the Nogais found themselves under increasing pressure from other nomadic peoples, the Kazakhs and Kalmyks, and were forced to move further west, approaching the Muscovite zone of influence. De facto crucial players in the turbulent politics of the steppe, the Nogais had no claims to the throne of the Great Khan of the Horde because their rulers were not descendants of Chingis khan. The Nogais played a critical role in annihilating the Great Horde and assisting Moscow in the conquests of Kazan' and Astrakhan'.[113]
Moscow's annexation of Kazan' represented more than a military victory; it was also an ultimate challenge to the Crimean pretensions to rule and control the territories of the former Golden Horde in the name of the horde's khans. Vocabulary of images spoke louder than words. To celebrate his victory over Kazan', Ivan IV ordered the construction of the most unusual cathedral. Erected in the Red Square near the Kremlin, St Basil's cathedral, with its eclectic architecture, stood as the ultimate symbol of Moscow's place in its self-construed theological and political universe. Moscow was to be the New Jerusalem and the New Sarai, both at the same time.
The deluge of foreign embassies and envoys in the wake of Moscow's military victory was a further confirmation of Moscow's rise to international prominence. The author of the Kazan' Chronicle did not doubt the biblical importance of Moscow's victory over Kazan', when he included the Babylonians among many foreign envoys arriving to honour the Muscovite tsar.[114]
111
112
M. Khudiakov,
114
L. A. Iuzefovich,