The Russian Empire 1450–1801

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corruption of Russian officials. When the Bashkirs turned to the Crimean Tatars
for help, the Kalmyks, caught in between Crimea and Bashkiria, tightened their
1655 alliance with Russia and helped to put down the Bashkirs. Oppression against
Islam was often one of many factors of revolt, as in 1681–3 when Bashkirs rose up
against a short-lived Christianization campaign and in 1705–11 when oppressive
new taxes were applied to mosques and mullahs (more than seventy-five Orthodox
churches were burned in this uprising). Russia responded to Bashkir revolts with
harsh reprisals and then conciliatory gestures such as lowering the iasakand
forbidding Russians to settle Bashkir land. Russia’s goal was to establish equilib-
rium in Bashkiria, slowly drawing them into subjection so that Russia could deal
with the persistent raids from unsubjugated steppe peoples, the Nogais, Kalmyks,
and eventually Kazakhs.


NOGAIS, KALMYKS


Russia encountered Nogais and Kalmyks in the steppe of the lower Volga and
forged with them a complex interdependency. As a rule, they remained autono-
mous of formal Russian administration. But Russia established a sort of middle
ground interaction with them, even occasionally drawing them in to cooperate with
Russia’s goals. The seventeenth century was a waiting game for Russia: unable to
pacify or control the steppe, it pursued compromise.
As Michael Khodarkovsky has described, in interactions in Eurasia—in Siberia,
with Kalmyks, Nogais, and other steppe nomads—Russia followed Chinggisid
customs. Assuming the role of universal, superior ruler, it observed rituals of mutual
respect and exchange. Russia signed treaties (shert’) recognizing each other as
fraternal allies; both sides exchanged annual gifts (which Russia regarded as tribute).
The parties also participated inamanat, or hostage taking, in which one side sent
sons of elites in return for gifts perceived as tribute. The receiving side was obliged
to treat the hostages well. In the fourteenth century, for example, princes of
Moscow and Tver’sent their sons to the Qipchaq capital at Sarai, where they
learned Mongol ways. Evidencing its upper hand on steppe borderlands, Moscow
took scions of tribal elites as hostages. As its bureaucratic and military power
improved in these regions (generally in the eighteenth century), Russia abandoned
subterfuges in favor of more straightforward taxation, cessation of gift giving, and
assertions of the natives’subordinate status. Russia shrewdly turned the hostage
practice to their advantage by educating these native young men in Russian culture
and service.
Both sides regarded these alliances pragmatically, even cynically, and they were
further weakened by thefluidity of nomadic confederations. Muscovy, in turn,
manipulated or misinterpreted the alliances: Russian translators inserted language
in treaties that described nomads’relationships to Moscow as subjugation, even
while providing copies to the nomads that maintained the language of fraternal
alliance. Nomads saw annual gifts as evidence of reciprocity, while the Russian side
interpreted them as tribute and tax. Nevertheless, this pragmatic approach bought


70 The Russian Empire 1450– 1801

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