The Mongols' lasting legacy

The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World

Author: Marie Favereau

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Pages:377

Price: $29.95

When we think of the Mongols, we recall Chinggis Khan and the “Golden Horde” as it streaked from the eastern steppes to the gates of Vienna in one dazzling movement of conquest and a long trail of destruction, after which the Mongols disappear from our consciousness.

The Mongol story is, in fact, quite different. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the Mongols had the largest contiguous empire in the world: From present-day northern China and Mongolia, it extended to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldavia, Bulgaria and Ukraine. The Mongols’ political imprint on these lands continued till the 19th century and their cultural influence resonates to this day.

After uniting all the Mongol tribes under his rule, Chinggis Khan (1162-1227), in his life-time divided Eurasia among his four sons. Jochi, the eldest, got the western territories. The empire from Central Asia to the West was shaped by Jochi and his descendants over the next few decades through a series of military campaigns. In 1238-41, the Russian forces were defeated, so that Moscow, Kiev and Novgorod came under Mongol control. In 1241, the Mongols defeated the German, Polish and Hungarian armies. 

This Jochid empire was defined by the “Horde” that had diverse meanings — a large military camp, an army, a centre of power, and a people under a ruler. Unlike most empires, Marie Favereau says, this was an empire “built on mobility, expansion and assimilation, diplomacy and trade”. The ruler, his army and his people were always on the move; government was where the ruler was —with no large capital city and no grand palaces. The horde was a self-sufficient unit in which everything was portable — homes, workshops, shrines, statues, even palaces — and included thousands of horses, oxen, goats, sheep and camels.

Ms Favereau prefers to call these Mongol territories the “Mongol Exchange” since the landmass under Mongol control across Eurasia had different ruling dynasties and yet seamlessly connected, through trade, East Asia with the Islamic world, the Slavic world and Europe. It was, thus, “the largest integrated market in premodern history,” the author writes. The “exchange” was linked by the yam,  an official communications system made up of a chain of posts equipped with fresh horses, food and water supplies, clothing, and even accommodation for official travellers and escorts.

This connectivity encouraged the development of arts and crafts, the manufacture of goods —ceramics, weapons, textiles — and the flowering of poetry, music and painting. It also promoted studies in botany, medicine, astronomy, measurement systems and historiography. Though nomadic warriors, the Mongols favoured luxurious silk and cotton clothing, jewellery, belts,  hats, boots and expensive weapons.

Central to the Mongol economy was the idea of redistribution — whatever revenues, gifts, tribute or booty the khan (ruler) obtained had to be shared right down the hierarchy, from the nobles to the humblest servants.

Mongol faith was based on propitiating the spirit of nature and venerating ancestors. At the apex was Tengri, the sky or heaven or god, who imbued warriors with strength, status and good fortune. This belief-system made for an eclectic order — Mongol rule accommodated diverse beliefs and spiritual practices. Thus, the Horde at any time included Muslims, Jews, different Christian denominations and even pagans.

Ms Favereau has devoted considerable attention to the origin and impact on the Mongols of the Black Death, the plague epidemic in Europe in the mid-14th century. It may have originated around Lake Issyk Kul, a Mongol trading station east of Syr-Darya, in 1338-39, and then moved westwards along the Silk Route. It engulfed the Mongol territories between the Caspian and Black Seas in 1346, and then went southwards to the major West Asian cities and westwards to the trade centres of Genoa and Venice in 1347 and 1348, respectively.

It was both a demographic and an economic disaster for the Horde —thousands of people were killed, agriculture and grazing suffered through neglect, and Eurasian trade, carefully nurtured over a century, was critically damaged. As Ms Favereau says, “the Horde was tied to a [globalised] world that had begun to unravel and could not help suffering as a result”.

In coming decades, the Horde experienced internecine conflict, the breakdown of time-honoured rules and norms of governance, and weak and murderous rulers. But Ms Favereau goes beyond these surface changes to point out that the Mongol order remained resilient, drawing on its inherent flexibility to survive these extraordinary challenges. The Mongol heritage continued in the various “khanates” that later emerged across Eurasia and live on in the modern states of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The Mongols have bequeathed to human civilisation East-West connectivity that spread arts, sciences, commerce, faith and philosophy across the Eurasian landmass. They have also left behind the ideal of accommodating diversity, in terms of ethnic identity and belief-systems, for shared advantage and profit. The Mongol mode of governance was least intrusive — rulers of conquered lands remained in place, exercised their earlier authority in their dominions, and only paid an annual tribute to the Mongol ruler. In the words of a commentator, the Mongols were able “to control resources without controlling societies and possess power without possessing space”. 

Ms Favereau points out that Mongol achievements have faded from memory because, unlike other great empires, the Mongol empire was nomadic and, hence, has left behind no great cities. Mongol legacy lies in its ideas and practices — the importance attached to enterprise, trade and redistribution founded on justice and generosity.

This book is an outstanding work of scholarship that throws new light on the legacy of the Mongols and affirms the idea that nomadic cultures can and do enrich human civilisation.

The reviewer, a former diplomat, holds the Ram Sathe Chair for International Studies, Symbiosis International University, Pune