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Russia: The Wild East

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Factual: History

A history of Russia, written and presented by Martin Sixsmith

Russia: The Wild East: Series 1

Russia: The Wild East: Series 1: Episode 4: The Mongol Yoke

Series 1

Episode 4

Episode 4: The Mongol Yoke

The Mongol Yoke

BBC Radio 4 - Russia: The Wild East, Series 1, The Mongol Yoke

The Mongol invasion changes the course of Russian History. Martin Sixsmith explores the lasting legacy of the fall of Kiev, Mongol rule, and isolation from the Western Renaissance.

In 1240, the Mongols arrived at the capital of the Russian lands, the great city of Kiev. After a week-long bombardment that breached the city walls, the Mongols poured in, wreaking death and destruction. It was to change the course of Russian History. 

Isolated from Europe, Russia missed out on the Renaissance, and Martin Sixsmith argues, "She would never fully catch up with its intellectual, cultural and social values. Instead, a profound admiration for the Mongol model of an autocratic, militarised state began to enter the Russian psyche.This legacy was so deeply assimilated that its influence has marked the way the country is governed right down to the present day." 

The widely accepted view is that the Mongol period was a national catastrophe and the absolutist state model it implanted in Russia was her great misfortune. But drawing on the writings of the great historian Nikolay Karamzin, Sixsmith suggests the political unity it created among the Russian lands outweighed all the negative effects. 

He visits Kulikovo Pole, where the Russians marked their the first military victory against the Mongols. In national folk memory this is the place to which Russians came disunited and left as a nation. Alexander Blok, the great Symbolist poet writing 500 years later, sees it as the starting gun for a millennial clash of opposing religions and values that would define Russia's historical identity. 

The country united around what soon become a national religious myth -the belief that Rus had been chosen by God for a historic mission - and a consciousness of being a unified nation in opposition to external enemies. And, as we'll see, the leader of that newborn Russia would no longer be Kiev, but Moscow.

Historical Consultant: Professor Geoffrey Hosking

Producers: Adam Fowler & Anna Scott-Brown
A Ladbroke production for BBC Radio 4.

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Russia: The Wild East

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Episode 4: The Mongol Yoke

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