Woman, diplomacy and war: Rus princes in negotiations with Batu on the eve of the Mongol invasion

Abstract

The scepticism found in recent publications with regard to the Tale of the Destruction of Ryazan by Batu is due, on the one hand, to the unsubstantiated opinion about the late origin of the tale, and, on the other hand, to its treatment exclusively as a literary work created by the artistic imagination of the author. Key episodes of the tale, concerning peace negotiations with the leader of the Mongols and the marriage proposals received from him, find direct and indirect correspondence with the historical realities present in the times of the Mongol conquest and the establishment of the global Mongol empire. The demands concerning the wife of the Ryazan prince and the murder of the latter for refusing to comply with them could have been a deliberate provocation undertaken by Batu in order to create a pretext for changing the direction of the main attack of the Mongols to the advantage of the Jochids. The attack of the Ryazan princes on Batu's headquarters in response to the murder of Prince Fedor, described in the tale, does not contradict, but rather, quite the opposite, conforms to the general picture of the Mongol conquest of the Ryazan land, supported by the cumulative evidence from all currently known sources. In response to this attack, the leaders of the Mongols had to abandon their original plan for peaceful subjugation of Northeast Rus' and substantially change the strategy of the Western Campaign as a whole.