Charles J. Halperin. Russia and the Mongols (2007)

Charles J. Halperin. Russia and the Mongols: slavs and the steppe in medieval and early modern Russia. Edited by Victor Spinei and George Bilavschi; Florilegium magistrorum historiae archaeologiaeque Antiquitatis et Medii Aevi, 1. Bucureşti: Editura Academiae Române, 2007, 329 p. ISBN 9789732716199, 9732716193

Charles J. Halperin was born on 21 July 1946 in New York City, and he studied history at the Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, N.Y., between 1963 and 1967. He continued his education in his native city, at the Columbia University, where he also completed his doctoral thesis on a subject of Russian history. As a graduate student, he benefited from a research stay in the Soviet Union in 1971-1972, by means of the scholarships he received from the International Research and Exchanges Board and the Fulbright Hays Fellowship. For him it was a good opportunity to get more familiar with the Russian language and with the writings of Russian scholars. In 1972 he became an assistant professor at the Department of History of the Indiana University at Bloomington, Indiana, where he taught Russian history until 1980. In 1980-1982 he was a senior fellow at the Russian Institute of the Columbia University. It was during that period, more exactly in the autumn of 1981, when he returned to the Soviet Union for research, within the framework of an agreement of scientific collaboration. As he was unable to get another position at a university, for several years he had to work as a computer instructor, computer programmer and system analyst, until 1996, when he returned to Bloomington, where he later received a Visiting Scholar’s position at the Russian and East European Institute of Indiana University, where he still works at present. That position carries no responsibilities, but does offer him some library and computer conveniences. So, with a shade of self-irony, Charles J. Halperin still defines himself as an independent scholar. It is regrettable that no university has found it a way of taking advantage of his remarkable scientific potential, to the benefit of the education process.

The present volume provides a selection from the rich range of works by Charles J. Halperin.

CONTENTS

Introduction (Victor Spinei) … 7

1. A Chingissid Saint of Russian Orthodox Church: “The Life of Peter, Tsarevich of the Horde” (Canadian-American Slavic Studies, IX, 1975, 3, pp. 324-335) … 11

2. George Vernadsky, Eurasianism, the Mongols, and Russia (Slavic Review, 41, 1982, 3, pp. 477-493) … 24

3. “Know Thy Enemy”: Medieval Russian Familiarity with the Mongols of the Golden Horde (Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 30, 1982, 2, pp. 161-175) … 43

4. Soviet Historiography on Russia and the Mongols (The Russian Review. An American Quartely Devoted to Russia Past and Present, 41, 1982, 3, pp. 306-322) … 62

5. Tsarev ulus: Russia in the Golden Horde (Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique, XXIII, 1982, 2, pp. 257-263) … 77

6. Bulgars and Slavs in the First Bulgarian Empire: A Reconsideration of the Historiography (Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, III, 1983, pp. 183-200) … 84

7. “The Defeat and Death of Batu” (Russian History/Histoire Russe, 10, 1983, 1, pp. 50-65) … 99

8. Russia in the Mongol Empire in Comparative Perspective (Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 43, 1983, 1, pp. 239-261) … 114

9. The Ideology of Silence: Prejudice and Pragmatism on the Medieval Religious Frontier (Comparative Studies in Society and History, 26, 1984, 3, pp. 442-466) … 132

10. The Six-Hundredth Anniversary of the Battle of Kulikovo Field, 1380-1980, in Soviet Historiography (Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 18, 1984, 3, pp. 298-310) … 156

11. The Tatar Yoke and Tatar Oppression (Russia Mediaevalis, V, 1984, 1, pp. 20-39) … 168

12. Russo-Tatar Relations in Mongol Context: Two Notes (Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 51, 1998, 3, pp. 321-339) … 182

13. The East Slavic Response to the Mongol Conquest (Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, 10, 1998-1999, pp. 98-117) … 201

14. Muscovite Political Institutions in the 14th Century (Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 1, 2000, 2, pp. 237-257) … 219

15. Kliuchevskii and the Tatar Yoke (Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 34, 2000, 4, pp. 385-408) … 239

16. The Missing Golden Horde Chronicles and Historiography in the Mongol Empire (Mongolian Studies, XXIII, 2000, pp. 1-15) … 264

17. Ivan IV and Chinggis Khun (Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 51, 2003, 4, pp. 481-497) … 277

18. Вымышленное родство. Московия не была наследницей Золотой Орды (Родина, 12, 2003, сс. 68-71) … 298

19. Omissions of National Memory: Russian Historiography on the Golden Horde as Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion (Ab Imperio. Studies of New Imperial History and Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Space, 2004, 3, pp. 131-144) … 306

20. The Place of Rus’ in the Golden Horde (Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, 14, 2005, pp. 21-30) … 318

List of abbreviations … 329