Since 1206, when the general Mongol hural on the bank of the river Onon proclaimed Temujin Genghis Khan, the lord of the world, and began the era of Mongol conquests, which covered most of the then known countries and peoples.
The Mongol Empire that Genghis Khan began to create saw itself as an instrument of the Eternal Blue Sky (Munhe Huhe Tengeri) to establish order on earth (1). And his main function the great Khan formulated as follows:
«I, Khan, am the son of the Eternal Blue Sky, to whom he gave over the earth (the power) to elevate those who submit to me and suppress those who oppose me» (2).
Genghis Khan (c. 1155 or 1162 — August 25, 1227)
Thus, the official ideology of the empire was its expansion to the lands of the whole world without exception: «By the power of the Eternal Blue Sky, all lands, from those where the sun rises to those where it sets, have been granted to us» (3), and also: «He (Genghis Khan) said that (the Mongols) should conquer all the lands of the world…» (4). (4).
Russian Metropolitan Peter said of the Mongols’ aims:
«They intend to subdue the whole world, and there was a divine revelation to them that they should ruin the whole world in thirty-nine years. And they claim that as once the divine punishment by a flood cleansed the world, so now the world will be cleansed by the general beating of people, which they will produce… If they win, they claim that they will truly rule over the whole world» (5).
At the same time, the Mongols themselves, unlike their present and future opponents, sincerely believed that all nations were already subordinated to the Yehe Mongol Ulus («Great Mongol Empire») and only needed to be informed about it.
Thus, with regard to the western lands, the chronicles explicitly state that:
«The country of Alans, Russ, Bulgars, Circassians, Crimea and Ardak, which were under the authority of his father (Djuchi), as a consequence of his death went out of obedience; with the help of his uncle, Ugedei Khan, he (Batu) mastered them» (6).
They are under the rule of Djuchi because the great Genghis Khan himself gave his son all the lands in the West to his ulus. This mission, the mission of «peaceful subjugation», was carried out by Mongol embassies to the countries of Asia and Europe (there are known embassies to Russia, Hungary, Nicaea Empire, Ikonian Sultanate, Khorezm, Iran, Georgia, Armenia, France, Holy Roman Empire, to the Pope of Rome).
The embassies traditionally reported the appearance of the great Khan of the Mongols and demanded submission to his authority — if anyone wanted to maintain peace and good neighborly relations with the Mongols, he had to submit to the Khan (7).
The Mongol ambassadors realized that the reaction to this message might not be the most flattering for the khaan and the Mongols, but the mandate of the Eternal Blue Sky behind the khaan and the most capable army at the time inspired them with confidence.
In Batu Khan’s address to the Hungarian king Béla IV it sounded quite specific:
«If you voluntarily surrender, you will find good treatment and peace, but if you resist — what can we say from our side? Eternal Heaven knows what will happen to you» (8).
Every nation that refused to recognize the supreme authority (and thus the supreme power over itself) of the great khan was automatically considered to be in rebellion against the divine regulations and the will of Heaven. It turned out that it rebelled against the world order and for the sake of its restoration it was necessary to punish such apostates by destroying their state and ruining their lands.
Onon River, Transbaikalia
The Mongols through their faith in the Eternal Blue Sky, which in essence had no restraints as in other world religions, regarded the whole population of the world as subjects of the khan, for «their sovereign is a relative of Heaven, who took the sky as his inheritance and gave the land to the kagan» (9).
According to the thought of the khans of Mongolia, they did not go on conquest campaigns in the full sense of the word, but on punitive ones, directed against the subjects who rebelled against the will of Heaven.
The Mongolian state, according to the thought of its creators, was not a state among other states of the world, but envisioned itself as a World Empire in the process of formation (10). The ultimate goal (in many respects ideal, which was realized by the Mongols themselves) was the subjugation of the whole world «to the last sea» to one single ruler, first of all, by military means.
War for the Mongol aristocracy was the most common and desirable form of relations in foreign policy (11).
The very structure, faith, and organization of the Mongol Empire was geared towards war as a way of subjugation.
Nature of Transbaikalia
In just a few tens of years the Mongols were subjugated the lands from the Pacific Ocean to the Black Sea, the greatest at that time empire was erected, covering Northern China, Korea, Siberia, the territory of the Tangut State of Xi Xia, Central and Central Asia, Transcaucasia, Iran, Afghanistan, a significant part of the Russian lands and Eastern Europe.
Genghis Khan’s empire was an organized military-state machine, entirely focused on the conquest and control of vast spaces, the organization of its road service, providing postal and any kind of communication in unprecedented in Europe spaces (12).
The changes in politics, international relations caused by these campaigns were colossal and comprehensive. Before the eyes of a generation, a new world system was taking shape that could not be ignored. Such an almost instantaneous change in the geopolitical picture of the world seemed to contemporaries something impossible and fantastic.
Not only the West, but also the East saw in this advancement a harbinger of even more terrible changes, the beginning of the end of the world.
The Mongols quickly enough fell out of the eschatological scenario, but the reality of their threat now as one of the most active factors in foreign policy did not diminish. And the entire Western and Eastern world sought in every possible way, if not to eliminate, then at least weaken the threat of a new, as it seemed to all, inevitable invasion.
The Mongol Empire existed for a very short time — from 1206 and up to the actual 1260s, that is, a little more than half a century passed from the time when Temudgin was recognized as Genghis Khan and before the beginning of the disintegration of his empire into separate uluses. But during this time it became the center of attraction of all forces.
The conquered and subjugated countries, including the Russian lands, were incorporated into the empire and had to live under the new system, acquiring a new status, rights and duties in relation to the «unknown people» who had «unknown faith in the power of Heaven».
This new system enshrined the immutability of Genghis Khan’s and the Genghisids’ power over the oikumene and the leading role of the Mongols over all other peoples (13).
The Mongols believed that by the will of the Eternal Blue Sky the entire territory of the empire was the collective property of the Golden Borjigin family — descendants of Genghis Khan.
Religious factor in conquering campaigns of Genghis Khan
Onon River, Transbaikalia
The Great Khan could dispose of life and death of any of his subjects in any corner of the vast empire. The Great Khan himself was descended from the Great Heaven, which concluded a contract with each new elected ruler of the world (14).
Khan was a sacral figure with heavenly support and of divine (heavenly) origin. Khan’s dignity was seen as acquired through the favor of divine forces (15).
He alone, as the viceroy of Heaven and its authorized representative, could decide all the affairs of the world empire. Locally, he could delegate some of his power to representatives of the same lineage, marked with the «blue seal of Heaven,» and to no one else.
«Blue Seal of Heaven» is the so-called «Mongolian spot» — a bluish coloration of the skin in the area of the sacrum, less often buttocks or thighs, associated with the melanin pigment in the connective tissue layer of the skin. It is mainly spread among Buryats, Mongols, Kalmyks and some other peoples.
Most clearly the status of khaan was manifested in the figure of the founder of the empire — Genghis Khan. He is a sovereign by God’s grace, and therefore the very source of the right to power (16).
Thus, in fact, it turned out that at the mental level Mongols first of all believed in themselves and their forces (as messengers of Heaven), and not in God.
Contemporaries characterized the religiosity of the Mongols most often as follows:
«They (Tatars) had no rituals or worship, and on all occasions often mentioned the name of Heaven» (17).
In the thirteenth century, the Mongol aristocracy of Ulus Juchi was Tengerian (heavenly), quite tolerant of both Christianity and Islam. Batu Khan’s son Sartak and his entourage were Nestorian Christians. Berke converted to Islam as a young man (18).
Religious scholars believe that the Mongols’ adoption of a monotheistic religion subsequently subdued their once free hearts and actions.
nature of Transbaikalia
Attitude of Mongols to other religions
In general, the attitude of the Mongols to religion was radically different from the Western and Eastern. The Mongols showed themselves as a surprisingly tolerant people. Even in their cities, representatives of different religious denominations coexisted:
«The city of Sarai. It is inhabited by different peoples — such as Mongols, who are the real inhabitants and lords of the country, some of them are Muslims; Kipchaks; Circassians; Russians and Byzantines, who are Christians. Each nation lives in its own section separately» (19).
The pluralism of the authorities, for example, in the Golden Horde reached a degree so impossible for the West and the East that religious discord itself was persecuted by the state (20).
The Mongols strove to maintain peace between the major religions within their state, not wanting to get involved in religious strife until a certain point. This was also dictated by urgent strategic necessity. But at the same time the Mongols, claiming world domination, strove to get rid of the main, including religious, rivals within the known world:
They destroyed the caliphate, because the caliph was the figure who was able, at least theoretically, to claim supreme spiritual and secular power.
The papacy tried so hard to stand above the secular rulers that the pope would most likely have suffered the fate of the caliph if the Mongols had been in Rome (21).
nature of Transbaikalia
Mongols within the world empire sought to create a new community based on the imperial factor. The understanding of «I am a Christian,» «I am a Muslim,» or «I am a Jew» was to be overshadowed by the understanding of «I am a subject of the world empire by the will of the Eternal Blue Sky.» Therefore, the Mongols could afford to support the preaching of any religion within their borders, exempted the clergy from taxes, «treated the church with even more honor than the Russians themselves» (22).
The Mongols were even ready to patronize the religions of their subjects — during the Mongol-Tatar yoke, the supreme rulers of the state created for the Russian Orthodox Church the most favorable regime in economy, politics, and ideology (23). Moreover, the confrontation between the Orthodox and Catholics was up to a certain point favorable to the Horde, as it allowed it to hope that the Russian principalities would not try to defect to the side of religious antagonists in case of military conflicts. The Mongols were allowed to preach Russian Orthodoxy within their borders (24).
Traditional Russian pre-revolutionary and Soviet historiography says that «Russian princes found themselves personally dependent on the Horde as serfs, they got used to a slavish, humiliating position, they cultivated the adaptive psychology of the «two morals» and transferred, transmitted all this ugly and slavish to their states, practicing then on boyars, on the nobility and especially on their own people the same techniques that were applied to them in the Horde» (25).
The Mongols evolved from a «scourge of God» to a world pagan empire. Yehe Mongol ulus was above any particular faith other than the Mongol faith. And no god could match the power of the Eternal Blue Sky.