Batu’s Invasion: Babylonian Captivity on the Russian Land

Abstract

Starting from Nikolai Karamzin, the earliest reports preserved in the three oldest Rus’ chronicles were the basis for the reconstruction of the events of Batu’s invasion of Rus’. However, textual analysis shows a high level of literary borrowings in these chronicle texts, originating from the Byzantine historical writings and the Holy Scripture. As a result, the quality of these accounts as historical sources is undermined. The purpose of the article is to determine the functions of the identified quotations and paraphrases, the existence of links between their content and the data that is provided by parallel written sources and archaeological studies. As we found out, there seem to be some real details of the Mongol conquest behind these accounts in the chronicles, and the use of suitable excerpts from historical and sacred books was a method to describe this reality, which is based on the principles of the universal medieval ideas of the historical process inherited by Rus’ from Byzantium.