The Golden Horde - Tatar Invasions of Russia

[Jonathan Randall]

Question:

What influence, and to what extent, did the Mongol/Turkish (Tatars) invasions and occupation of Russia during the Middle Ages have upon the development of Russian Martial Arts?


Tatar Control of Russia

"None of these new Khanates was stronger than Muscovite Russia, which finally broke free of Tatar control by 1480. Each Khanate was eventually annexed by it, starting with Kazan and Astrakhan in the 1550s. By the end of the century the Siberia Khanate was also part of Russia, and descendants of its ruling khans entered Russian service."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horde


Breaking Free

"On October 8, 1480 Akhmat, planning to bypass the Oka river from the west (avoiding Ivan's regiments, located in Kolomna, Serpukhov and Tarusa) and unite his army with Casimir's, approached the Ugra river — Oka's tributary. However, Akhmat was met by the Russian army under the joint command of Ivan Molodoy (Ivan Junior, Ivan's son) and Andrey Menshoy (Andrey Smaller, Ivan's brother). Akhmat's attempt to cross the Ugra river was rebutted in a 4-day battle. It seems that Akhmat retreated to the town of Vorotynsk, where he decided to wait for Casimir's army. Ivan III located his army in Kremenets and started to negotiate with the khan, trying to buy some time to restore his relations with his rebellious brothers (hence, the Great standing on the Ugra river). It took Ivan III four days (from September, 30 to October, 3) to sort things out between him and his brothers and another 17 days for his brothers' armies to arrive at Kremenets (on October, 20). Watching the increasing Russian army and receiving no word from the Polish king, Akhmat chose not to attack the Russians. In the meantime, Casimir IV was dealing with his own country's internal affairs and fighting with the Crimean Khanate. The Mongols waited for reinforcements until November, 11 and then, lacking supplies and suffering from epidemics and freezing weather, turned south.
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On January 6, 1481 Akhmat Khan was killed in a clash with the army of Ibak Khan of Tyumen. As a result, the Golden Horde entered the times of gradual disintegration. The Great standing on the Ugra river put an end to the Tatar-Mongol dominance"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_standing_on_the_Ugra_river

 

[NYCRonin]

Great question, John.

As one trained mostley by VV and MR? It is kind of hard to answer as far as Systema goes. RMA systema claim alot...as does Systema - to link to ancient historyy and beliefs. Frankly, sir - I have never really cared if my teachers could produce direct documents of a historical link to any thing at all.

All I have ever - and still do care about - is pragmatism. And that boils down to 'kick my butt' demonstratively!

Teach me just a third of how 'you' did that...and I am satisfied.
My history of study spans over 40 years (and that went by in an eyeblink! Where did the time go?)

I can tell you that in 2001 - I and a goodly number faced off with a VERY slow moving Misha - who was armed with a shashka (a curved Cossack blade that he seemed to treasure) - and as fast as we attempted to move...he mooooovvvveeeedddd to odddlllllyyyy ssssllloooooww. And, at times- seemed to giggle and allow us to bridgew the gap and get close...and other times, a simple flick of the wrist left you just enough time to keep from impaling yourself on the blade. From the newbie to the seniors -JUST enough time. NO ONE was injured...and as someone who has been privaledged enough to know the few masters of the Katana in the east coast of the USA?

Those ones would have loved to see this!

MR - he said that this movement was a combination of his movement, Cossack and mongol sword work.

John, your request is far beyond my ability to define exacting parameters...all I am recounting is word to ear knowledge spoken by Ryabco. Maybe others have more to add.
*****

RMA's have many variations - and I can only write from what I learned from my teachers....In Systema about 95%...and from others, the remaining 5%.
BUT....I do not really care if the golden horde was the start or the Rus. And even that is only a part of previous training and life experience.

I used to care where things that worked came from....yet, to me...it does not matter...not any more.

Systema gets callled out as crap, overall - on the net.
I do not care, anymore.

Let us diverge for a moment.
Once upon a time - in a ghetto-ish spot in Brooklyn...long ago. There I was....a 16 year old B.Belt of MDK (at a time when 'the arts' was comprised mostly of fully grown men - NOT the martial art day care system that has evolved, at least; in NYC). I could do pinan...heian...and even the earlier rudementary kata of the chinese connecyion to Okinanwa - from the early early days. I held a nidan...and was proud of it. I also was able to demo godan and above level kata.

Good for a teaching demo - but did not really work all that well - on the streets. What did work? was the fact that my MDK sensei/sabunim ( he did not use the latter term) - Shane Cillione (may he rest in eternal peace) - had been also a golden gloves boxer - just before he learned how to kick like a demon. (Thanks to the also dearly departed Ed Gross - another real deal butt kicker, regardless of style or system).
I know, I digess...for a reason I hope I can get across.

1. YES. I AM A HISTORIAN OF SORTS AND CAN EVEN QUOTE THE UPANISHADS AND THE BAGAVADGITA AND MUSASHI....And many other notable quoteables.
2. Yes...also - I have consistanly sought out the best available teachers......in anything of interest - for 40 years - and it has 'cost me' a ton of money that would have been better spent in a mutual fund. For 20 mplus years - I could have carried my gun (which I very, very ever do) and saved myself a lot of sweat, tears and toil.
3. In my total baggae of training...my total experience with interpersonal combatives....Systema filled the gaps. I learned to refine my crappy skill set and do 'the work' far more effectively...than before.
4. Some in Systema and RMA - due to their upbringing and culture and belief system - feel this a gift from divininty or history. Fine...I can understand this thing. I wound up a madman zennist from my previous studies of Japanese arts and tibetan mindset - and refuse to say they are wrong...or I am right. I could no more accpt the idea that they are worng...than a single word of acceptance that I am 'right'.
5. Under the Soviets, all history began to become quite abit squewed - and screwed.....just what they did in China, Cuba and the biggest part - the Soviet Union. A woman I love dearly - she has no deep roots - I understand this, as an orphan who knows far too little of his....she has family from the Ukrain, just a few. The Soviets....well - they destoyed the entire village from where her family came from. "The evil that men do' - at times. In our innner family of Systema - there are a few of russian jewish birth. And of that few - there are some - that move like quicksilver on ice. DAMN! My favorite trining partner is so cool....name not be metioned to 'the crew' - they all know who he is.
   Mr. Randall -since I already have all the children I could ever handle? I would trade either testicle- to have their grace of pure movement. In stating so, I am openly stating that ANY MARTIAL METHOD can be learned without any cultural or faith based method. ALL you have to do is exactly what MY treacher - Vladimir asks - just 'try to understand'. Some, well - it is natural -they seek all they can be. nearer my god to thee....and some do a 180 to get closer to the best life guide they find. I understand and respect this normal thing. New knowledge...hoping to attain as much as is possible. OK - I am coooool with that.
6. The deep, true history you ask for, sir. Is buried and may never be definitivly be conclusively revealed as fact. Martial historians will discuss it for decades to come - and be no where as near as those that speak about the scrolls of Hatsumi. In this - it is faith based.
7. I personally am only interested in whatever personal results I obtain from any area study. As stated above - my study of Systema - the people I have trained with - those that actually think I know anything about martialism and seek for me to share whatever I can - THAT IS MORE THAN ENOUGH...for me

I Know - I did not answer your question sir.

I think your question might never be answered...BUT - I would enjoy reading the provable that might do so.*****

Please John...do not hold your breath on this one...a little in house Systema joke - we move, relax, keep form...and breath.


​

 

[tellner]

Think about it a moment. All of Central Asia is lousy with wrestling. From the Seljuks and Persians to the Mongols they are fanatics about it. It would be very odd if centuries of contact and occupation didn't cause a little of their grappling traditions to rub off on Russia.

We know for a fact that there were profound effects on the martial arts of many places from Russia and Poland to Hungary, Turkey and the Arabs. The way of the horse, lance and bow, horse nomad tactics and the rest completely transformed the way these peoples fought wars. The Arabs took up horse archery, curved swords and maneuver warfare. Polish and Hungarian arms became nearly identical with those from further East. The Cossacks were essentially a mounted "Counter-Horde". Even their shasqa is a copy of the Tatar sword. It was only the widespread adoption of firearms that finally put the kibosh to it all.

That was a while ago. You might find bits or pieces in the folk arts that became part of Sambo. You won't find anything like a clear genealogy. And unarmed technique was always much less important than horsemanship, archery and group tactics.

 

[exile]

Think about it a moment. All of Central Asia is lousy with wrestling. From the Seljuks and Persians to the Mongols they are fanatics about it. It would be very odd if centuries of contact and occupation didn't cause a little of their grappling traditions to rub off on Russia.

We know for a fact that there were profound effects on the martial arts of many places from Russia and Poland to Hungary, Turkey and the Arabs. The way of the horse, lance and bow, horse nomad tactics and the rest completely transformed the way these peoples fought wars. The Arabs took up horse archery, curved swords and maneuver warfare. Polish and Hungarian arms became nearly identical with those from further East. The Cossacks were essentially a mounted "Counter-Horde". Even their shasqa is a copy of the Tatar sword. It was only the widespread adoption of firearms that finally put the kibosh to it all.

That was a while ago. You might find bits or pieces in the folk arts that became part of Sambo. You won't find anything like a clear genealogy. And unarmed technique was always much less important than horsemanship, archery and group tactics.

Tellner's point is more general still. There was a northern Asian cultural tradition of wrestling and leg fighting games that crossed ethnic and linguistic lines over a huge swathe of territory; it's been recorded for many groups from the Inuits on south. A lot of the emphasis on leg techniques in Korean MAs is probably nothing more than the persistence of this very far-flung cultural complex in the northern Chinese/Manchurian/southern Siberian context. And that's so typical: an awful lot of stuff you find in any society's fighting systems are probably local crystalizations of much more widespread practice. The documentary record isn't going to be very deep for these places, where illiteracy was the overwhelming rule until comparatively very recent times; but even if it were, it's not likely that the exact origins of a local variation in a geographically widespread practice are going to be recoverable from any kind of written record...

 

[Xue Sheng]

Tellner's point is more general still. There was a northern Asian cultural tradition of wrestling and leg fighting games that crossed ethnic and linguistic lines over a huge swathe of territory; it's been recorded for many groups from the Inuits on south. A lot of the emphasis on leg techniques in Korean MAs is probably nothing more than the persistence of this very far-flung cultural complex in the northern Chinese/Manchurian/southern Siberian context. And that's so typical: an awful lot of stuff you find in any society's fighting systems are probably local crystalizations of much more widespread practice. The documentary record isn't going to be very deep for these places, where illiteracy was the overwhelming rule until comparatively very recent times; but even if it were, it's not likely that the exact origins of a local variation in a geographically widespread practice are going to be recoverable from any kind of written record...

I will admit right here and now I know sooooo very little about Russian history and Russian MA styles that I likely do not belong in this conversation (but it is an interesting topic I look forward to reading about in this post) but my first thought was Mongol wrestling could likely have had some influence. But then I read exile's post and something else of interest hit me that is not exactly to the point of the post but interesting, at least to me, is that Mongolian is closer linguistically to Korean and Japanese than it is Mandarin or Chinese. Don't have a clue about Inuit however.

But there is also wrestling in China, the oldest CMA is wrestling and wrestling is likely the oldest style of standardized empty hand fighting in existence. So with that said I am not sure if Mongolian wrestling would have influenced Russian fighting methods or not. There may have been something there in existence already.

 

[exile]

I will admit right here and now I know sooooo very little about Russian history and Russian MA styles that I likely do not belong in this conversation (but it is an interesting topic I look forward to reading about in this post) but my first thought was Mongol wrestling could likely have had some influence. But then I read exile's post and something else of interest hit me that is not exactly to the point of the post but interesting, at least to me, is that Mongolian is closer linguistically to Korean and Japanese than it is Mandarin or Chinese. Don't have a clue about Inuit however.

Innuit's related only to Yup'ik, another aboriginal language of North Americal, in interior Alaska; these people were grouped with Inuit speakers under the heading `Eskimo' in older literature; and Innuit/Yupik is related as a tiny subfamily to Aleut, the language of the people of the Aleutian Islands. And Eskimo/Aleut isn't related to anything else, so far as we know.

The thing is, a lot of the same stuff was found in traditional Siberian societies among groups who represent linguistic isolates, or are related to neighboring groups so distantly that linguistic relations are purely speculative. It's very possible that Korean and Mongolian are (again, very distantly related), but I see this leg wrestling thing as a kind of widespread practice that was picked up by linguistically (and maybe ethnically) very different groups over a gigantic stretch of territory in the course of their interaction with each other over hundreds or thousands of years. You see the same thing on the northwest coast of North America, which is, except for New Guinea maybe, the most linguistically diverse place on earth, but there is are an enormous number of shared cultural elements there...

This is what makes it so hard to reconstruct precise histories for things like MAs... there are so many possible lines of descent, and it's very difficult to say that such and such a technique, or move, or tactical system started here or there. People don't like amorphous, unclear beginnings, though; we like to get to C from B and to B from A—that's the reason, I think, that there is so much legend passed around as history in the MAs (Bhodidharma and the Shaolin Temple and ... and... etc.)

 

[Jonathan Randall]

Think about it a moment. All of Central Asia is lousy with wrestling. From the Seljuks and Persians to the Mongols they are fanatics about it. It would be very odd if centuries of contact and occupation didn't cause a little of their grappling traditions to rub off on Russia.

We know for a fact that there were profound effects on the martial arts of many places from Russia and Poland to Hungary, Turkey and the Arabs. The way of the horse, lance and bow, horse nomad tactics and the rest completely transformed the way these peoples fought wars. The Arabs took up horse archery, curved swords and maneuver warfare. Polish and Hungarian arms became nearly identical with those from further East. The Cossacks were essentially a mounted "Counter-Horde". Even their shasqa is a copy of the Tatar sword. It was only the widespread adoption of firearms that finally put the kibosh to it all.

That was a while ago. You might find bits or pieces in the folk arts that became part of Sambo. You won't find anything like a clear genealogy. And unarmed technique was always much less important than horsemanship, archery and group tactics.

Good point. I do recall that one of the early American (European born, IIRC) strongmen won enough wrestling competitions to be invited by the Turks (Ottomans at the time) to learn their wrestling secrets.

Great input, all.

No fears, NYCRonin, I got a lot out of your post even if it only covered the original topic tangentially.