Uzbek took power in the Golden Horde as a result of the struggle of its khans with the khans of the White Horde. He belonged to the part of the renounced Mongols from the Genghis Khan clan. He was the grandson of Khan Mengu–Timur, who had ten sons, some of whom fought for Nogai and his henchmen, others for the khans of the White Horde. Uzbek’s father, Torubzha, was an opponent of Nogai, and after his death, his son managed, with the help of the khans of the White Horde, to take power in the Golden Horde. By the time of Uzbek rule, the uluses of the Mongol Empire were being refined and its central government no longer existed. The Mongols, small in number and weak in culture, inevitably fell under the influence of the culture of the peoples they conquered. The ruling stratum adopted the culture of the local people, changed the customs of the nomads and turned into rulers of settled peoples, losing, at the same time, the warlike qualities of the primitive steppe peoples.
In 1280, the Supreme Khan Kubilai, after conquering Southern China, moved his capital to Beijing, accepted the court orders of the Chinese emperors, broke with the dynasty of Genghis Khan and declared himself the founder of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty. Karokorum became the center of the eastern ulus, losing the importance of the Headquarters of the Supreme Khan. Since that time, the power of the Great Khan in the Mongol Empire has ceased to exist.
The heirs of Jagatai, a Central Asian ulus, also fell under the influence of Turkic culture, adopted their customs and lost the characteristics of nomads. The ulus of Iran in Asia Minor also lost its national characteristics and fully accepted the culture of the peoples under their control, began to decompose rapidly and ceased to exist in 1336. The Golden Horde, which had no stable culture, also had to adopt the culture of one of the peoples under its control. The Russian people had all the data to subjugate the Mongols, who were incomparably inferior to them, to their culture. There were other, equally favorable conditions for this: the number of Russians in the possessions of the Golden Horde was overwhelming. The Golden Horde had a bishop at its headquarters, and Russians with churches and clergy, who made up 2/3 of the entire steppe population, were settled throughout its territory. The troops of the Golden Horde also consisted of more than half of the Russian people. Since its foundation, there have been many Christians among the Mongols. Batu’s son, Satrak, and his wife were Christians; Batu’s nephew, Peter, was not only a Christian, but was canonized by the Russian Church and is celebrated by the church on June 29. There were many Christians among the khan’s family later. The Yasa of Genghis Khan did not forbid the Mongols to accept one or another religious cult, and, on the contrary, it was believed that the best subordinate could be the one who recognizes the authority of the heavenly king. However, the Russians were unable to subjugate the Mongols to their culture, and the Horde under Uzbek rule was finally ostracized. Uzbek Islam was recognized as the official state religion, and the written and spoken language were adopted by the Turkic–Polovtsian. The reasons for the failure of the influence of Russian culture among the Mongols lay in political weakness. There was no unity or strong government in Russia. The princely feuds continued and by the time of the Uzbek’s rule had become the most violent. The Novgorod chronicler describes this time as follows: «After the deaths of Princes Dimitri Mikhailovich of Tver and Yuri Danilovich of Moscow, Kalita’s brother, in the Horde, Mikhail Tversky’s son Alexander received the label of Prince of Tver. Tver could not pay 2,000 silver for the massacre of Tatars in Tver. Prince Ivan Danilovich of Moscow, nicknamed Kalita, took advantage of this, went to the Horde and denounced Alexander. The Uzbek sent his brother Chol Khan against Tver with a large detachment of Tatars. He kicked the prince and his family out of the house, and a rumor spread among the Tver people that the khan would remain king in Tver. The Tverites rebelled and hacked Chol Khan to pieces, his squad was slaughtered. Ivan Kalita rushed into the Horde and, having begged the Uzbek to give him an armed detachment of Tatars, received 50,000 troops, took Tver, Kashim and the New Tatar lands with him, «and just destroy the whole Russian land and lay waste, only Novgorod is gone.» Prince Alexander of Tver fled to Polotsk. Tatar ambassador also came to Novgorod, and the Novgorodians gave him 2,000 silver. Ivan Kalita also arrived in Novgorod and demanded the extradition of Alexander, but he went to the Lithuanian Prince Gediminas. Metropolitan Theognost, a native of Grechin, was under Ivan Kalita. He cursed the Pskov people for hiding Prince Alexander of Tver. After marching to Novgorod, Ivan Kalita attacked Ryazan, devastated its lands and killed the prince. There were also feuds between other Russian princes. Property was seized, lands were ravaged, churches and monasteries were destroyed, villages were burned and people were taken into captivity.
The Golden Horde consisted of 2/3 of the Russian population. The armed border maintenance and Yamshchitsky lines and the workforce consisted mainly of the Russian population, which inevitably influenced the way of life and culture of the Mongols. By the time of the reign of Khan Uzbek, several generations had changed in the Cossack population. They got used to their lands and the order of the Golden Horde. As part of the Golden Horde, the Cossacks formed settlements based on national characteristics, spoke their own language, preserved their religious rituals, and maintained their national identity apart from other tribal formations that existed in the Mongol possessions. They enjoyed not only autonomy in their internal life, but were also paid for their service with the missing items of food and weapons. The Cossack settlements were headed by Temniks, millennials, and Baskaks. The supreme head of government for all was the main khan, who was called tsar among the Russian population. The Tsar Khan was the head of state, his name was pronounced at all the ecclesiastical services in Christian churches and proclaimed: «To the Blessed Sovereign and the Blessed Empress, their people and all Orthodox Christians …» The names of Russian princes could not be pronounced along with the khan’s name, because they were not included in the hierarchy of the ruling stratum of the Mongols. In addition, even the metropolitan could not proclaim the name of the Russian prince in ecclesiastical terms because in the process of princely feuds, the grand dukes of Vladimir–Suzdal, Tver, Rostov and others were called grand dukes. The frequent succession of candidates who received the khan’s label of grand duke also did not create the basis for a firm central authority of the Russian people. The grand ducal power was a «fiction» that had no power behind it. The fragmentation of the principalities was so great that the saints of one principality were reviled in another, and this continued until the middle of the 16th century, until the Church Council assembled by Ivan the Terrible, at which the saints of all principalities were recognized as all-Russian saints, and formed a synclite of «All-Russian saints who enlightened the Russian land.» The supreme power of the khans was associated with the population of the uluses, the temniks, the millennials, and the Baskaks. In the epistles of the bishop of the Sarai and Podon diocese, it was always written: «To the prisoners, to the thousands, to the boyars, to the centurions and to the constables…» It was a system under which the peoples who were part of the Golden Horde were controlled, in whose hands was a real, armed force. At all levels of the ruling hierarchy, there were princes of various categories as representatives of the subordinate Russian people: Horde, ulus, narodny, and others. The latter were attached to the Baskaks of the Cossack settlements and supervised the internal order, served as assistants in quarrels and court hearings, etc.
Russian Russians were so numerous that their number could be maintained by their own growth, and therefore the information of some chroniclers can be taken as reality that Khan Mengu–Timur, having transferred the right to collect tribute to the Russian prince, saved the Russian people from giving the tenth man to replenish the armed forces. This information is confirmed by the fact that during subsequent khans, the withdrawal of the Tagma from the Russian principalities was not reported. This event was of great importance in the psychology of the Cossack population and placed them in an even more independent position in relation to the Russian people and weakened their kinship with them.
In the internecine clashes of the khans, the temniks and the millennials, who were at the head of the Cossack settlements, could not stand aside and took part, involving the Cossack troops in this struggle. But the khans, taking into account the psychology of the Eastern peoples, took appropriate measures. According to the description of the Italian traveler Marco Polo: «The measures taken by the khans consisted in the fact that they understood that there were enough traitors and infidels in all the khan’s possessions who were ready to rebel, therefore they maintained reliable troops. The Great Khan changes his superiors every two years. So the unbridled nations remain calm. Besides, these troops are supported by salaries…»
The living conditions of the Russian people were so difficult that they caused the Cossacks one desire — not to get into the same situation. Princely feuds, their disputes at the Khan’s Headquarters, the humiliating position of the princes and the frequent open executions, often carried out by «stupefied» Russians, could not inspire the Cossacks with any respect for them. In addition, the princes used the same Cossack troops in their civil strife, allowed them to plunder the lands of their opponents, and made the princes dependent on the troops they used—in short, the troops created a consciousness of the complete helplessness of the Russian princes. By order of the khan, the same troops were given to the enemy at other times and, under his leadership, plundered and ravaged the lands of the former prince. Thus, the alienation of the Cossack population from the Russian population deepened even further. Therefore, with a common desire for liberation from foreign dependence, there could not be unity among the Russian people, who overwhelmingly made up the population of the Golden Horde. It could not be because in the princely feuds, not a single prince could decide to openly fight against the khan without risking immediate denunciation of him. Therefore, unlike other peoples who managed to absorb the ruling Mongolian class into their culture, the Russian people had to leave their liberation to time and their own patience. The hopes for these saving means of getting rid of the power of the conquerors were assimilated by the psychology of princely families. When dying, each prince bequeathed to his successor: «God will free us from the Horde,» «God will change the Horde,» and exhorted the brothers to live in peace and according to their father’s covenant, and «so that the memory of our parents and ours would not cease, so that the candle would not go out.» Under the candle was meant the inextinguishable thought of national liberation.
For the peaceful existence of the Cossack troops, the firm authority of the legitimate khan was necessary. According to the established custom in the Mongol possessions, only the direct descendants of Genghis Khan were recognized as legitimate khans. The legitimate succession saved other contenders from seizing power, which inevitably led to the internal disorder of the country. The order of the legitimate succession of the khan’s power was adopted by the Cossacks and maintained by them.
The reign of Khan Uzbek in the history of the Golden Horde is considered a time of internal stability, during which the khan’s civil strife was stopped, but he failed to restore the unity of the Golden Horde. The khans of the White Horde considered themselves independent of him, the war continued with the Iranian ulus, and in the west a new threat was created to the possessions of the Golden Horde from Lithuania, which began to strengthen.