A. V. Maiorov. “…they did great harm to people”: besermens, tityam Kutlubiy and the uprising of
1262 // Petersburg historical journal, no. 4, 2024, pp. 17–30.

Abstract:

In order to administer the territories that had been conquered, the Mongols opted to employ
administrators from other countries and regions, rather than utilising local personnel. These administrators were expected to demonstrate loyalty to the new rulers. It was not uncommon for prominent international merchants, designated as ortogh, to assume the role of Mongol administrators and tax collectors. The surviving sources, originating from different cultural and linguistic environments and available to us both in the original and in translations into modern languages, as well as the latest scientific data on the main institutions and methods of governance used by the Mongols during the period of the unified empire, allow us to redefine the ethnic composition and nature of the activities of the Mongol authorities’ main representatives in the Rus’ lands in the mid‑13th century. At this time, the Khwarazm Turks, who had accepted Islam, played a significant role in the governance of the Rus’ lands. This included the representative of the imperial administration, Tityam Kutlubiy (Kutlu Bek), as well as tax farmers who operated in North-Eastern Rus’.

Key words: Mongol Empire, Khwarazm Turks, North-Eastern Rus’, Tityam of Kutlubiy (Kutlu Beg), tax farmers, Alexander Nevsky, uprising of 1262.

Author:

Maiorov, Alexander Vyacheslavovich — Dr. of Sciences in History, Professor, Head of the Department of Museology, St. Petersburg State University (St. Petersburg, Russia).
E-mail: a. v.maiorov@gmail.com
ORCID: 0000-0001-8212-7467

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