The Mongols in Eastern Europe

Abstract

As a result of the grandiose Western campaign (1236–1242), the Mongols conquered Eastern Europe and founded a mighty center of power in the Lower Volga region, while demanding unconditional submission in all the conquered territories. This campaign was carried out according to the imperial ideology of the first Mongol rulers aspiring to world domination and representing their geopolitical ambitions not just as the fulfillment of the Chinggis Khan’s precepts, 1 but as the manifestation of divine will. Thus Ögödei Khan (1186–1241), the third son and immediate successor of Chinggis Khan (1165–1227), claimed in his edict addressed to the Hungarian King Béla IV (1235–1270) in 1237 that he was authorized by the “king of heaven” to have power on the whole earth and destroy all those who opposed that power. 2 Along with a number of other Mongol letters of the 1240s and 1250s, the edict reflected the Mongol perception of the ideal world order being in a state of becoming or implementation through the Mongol conquests aimed at subjugating the universe in accordance with the divine command given to Chinggis Khan and to his immediate successors. 3 It can be said with some certainty that the Mongols of the first half of the 13th century waged a “holy war” on a global scale, although their goal was not to impose their or any other religion on the conquered peoples, but only to establish a “universal peace.” 4