236 chapter four
context of this treaty, it was probably nothing but a confirmation of the
previous agreements of 1380 and 1381, guaranteeing lasting links to the
Genoese in Qutlugh Bugha’s name while the tartars prepared the great
campaign against russia.
the expedition against the russian knyazates in summer 1382 culmi-
nated in august with the burning of Moscow, the banner of the liberation
struggle.367 this tartar victory had a profound and lasting effect: the rus-
sians were subject to the ‘Mongol yoke’ for a further century.368 thus the
result of the battle of Kulikovo was completely neutralised: in 1382, the
Golden horde again became a great power after four decades of decline,
the arbiter of eastern european affairs.
on the other hand, the victory of 1382 marked the end of this first
stage in Jochid external assertion: having regularised relations with
Lithuania369 and reduced the russian principalities to vassal status once
more, toqtamïsh had settled affairs on the Northern frontier and could
now turn his mind to the empire’s Southern flank, where a number of
problems awaited their solution.
In the years to come Sarai’s attention was on two distinct areas: in the
first instance, relations with toqtamïsh’s former patron timur, who had
become his main rival once the Golden horde was reunited,370 and sec-
ondly relations with the Genoese, which were to be adapted to toqtamïsh’s
planned reorientation of tartar foreign policy following 1382’s ‘normalisa-
tion’ of the russian knyazates.
the two matters developed in parallel until 1387, when the khan
hastily yoked them together, by confirming once more the established
367 for the course of the campaign, cf. Grekov, Yakubovskiy, Orda, pp. 324–329.
368 Ibid., discussing the immense material losses incurred, call this a “raiding expedi-
tion” and lose sight of its political purpose; according to Barthold, Turkestan, p. 851, the
most important result was a further century of tartar rule in russia.
369 the formal act of submission by the Lithuanians actually amounted to little more
than a non-aggression pact (which the Grand Duke only agreed to in exchange for keep-
ing ukraine) but this nevertheless gave toqtamïsh considerable advantages; the Grand
Duchy’s neutrality secured his flank during the campaign in the russian lands, and then
his back during the long war with timur, and the Lithuanians supported him after the
defeat of 1395 (Spuler, Horde, pp. 128 ff.).
370 toqtamïsh owed his rise prior to 1380 entirely to timur, a debt which may have made
the khan hesitant to attack his former protector directly until 1387 (Grekov, Yakubovskiy,
Orda, pp. 317–320, 329–334); the decision to go to war met with opposition from the emirs
of the ‘left bank’ of the ulus, partisans and allies of timur, who abandoned toqtamïsh
once war had broken out and crossed to his enemy’s camp ( fedorov-Davïdov, Stroy,
pp. 152 ff.).