Free Republic

It is wrong to think that Mongol-Tatars invaded Russia as a single state, because the state actually formed as a response to the invasion, to resist and overthrow it. It was Peter the Great who formally ended Russia’s tributes to the Khans. Knyaz’ Yaroslav II of Vladimir was poisoned by Güyük Khan’s wife. At the age of 67, Knyaz’ Mikhail of Chernigov was executed in the capital of the Golden Horde (Mongol khaganate) for refusing to worship Mongol idols. Knyaz’ Mikhail of Tver had his heart ripped out in the same capital, the chronicle says. The Russian population was forced...

…. Putin's more than 22 years as a mob boss running a mafia state from Moscow have seen him descend from reformer and uneasy ally to tyrant and global pariah. Once upon a time he was pictured posing outside Downing Street with Tony Blair and riding in a golf cart with US President George W. Bush. But now paranoid and delusional Vlad remains holed up in the bubble-like environment of the Kremlin as he turns 70. Furiously ranting about the West in rambling speeches and wildly swinging his nuclear sabre, Putin's long cultivated image as a cold and calculating strongman...

Mukhorshibirsky District, Russia - In the south of Buryatia, near the present-day border with Mongolia, there is a mountain-sized rock outcropping known locally as the Merkit Fortress, which looks out over the arid, rolling steppe that gradually fades into the Gobi Desert a few hundred miles away. According to legend, this formidable natural fortification was stormed more than 800 years ago by the forces of a young Mongol warlord who claimed his bride had been stolen by the Merkit tribe, which had made its home base here. He seized the rock, and went on to unite most of the nomadic...

Less than a decade ago, it seemed self-evident that Russia was reclaiming its rightful place as part of the Western world. Now Russia is increasingly looking East, toward an uneasy alliance with an illiberal and much more powerful China, and—in recognition of the country’s increasingly Muslim makeup—with nations such as Turkey and Iran. But even more pronounced is a sentiment that Russia, so unique in its vastness, must remain a world unto itself, a country that should expect kinship from no one. Some Russian nationalists now herald this Mongol-Turkic state, governed by descendants of Genghis Khan’s oldest son, as the...

It was 1246, and a Franciscan monk named John de Plano Carpini, the papal envoy to the Mongol court in Karakorum, sat listening very intently to some Russian priests at the coronation of Güyük Khan. Carpini's mind absorbed every detail as the Russian priests spoke of the Mongols' past conquests, reciting the names and locations of the Mongol generals. And when they were done speaking, Carpini had accomplished an amazing thing; He had gathered more intelligence than all of Christendom had ever known about these mysterious, terrifying horsemen from the east. From the Russian priests, he learned of one general...