Crimean Khanate
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The Crimean Khanate or the Khanate of Crimea (Crimean Tatar: Qırım Hanlığı; Russian: Крымское ханство - Krymskoye khanstvo; Ukrainian: Кримське ханство - Kryms'ke khanstvo; Turkish: Kırım Hanlığı) was a Crimean Tatar state from 1441 to 1783. It was by far the longest-lived of the Turkic khanates that succeeded the empire of the Golden Horde.
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[edit] Early rulers
The Crimean Khanate was founded when certain clans of the Golden Horde Empire ceased their nomadic life in the Desht-i Kipchak (Kypchak Steppes of today's Ukraine and South Russia), decided to make Crimea their yurt (homeland) and invited a Chingizid contender for the Golden Horde throne, Hacı Giray, to be their khan. Hacı Giray accepted this proposal and came from Lithuania, the place he was exiled. He founded his independent state in 1441 after a long-lasting struggle for independence from the Golden Horde. The khanate included the Crimean peninsula (except the south and southwest coast and ports, controlled by the Republic of Genoa) and the steppes of modern southern Ukraine and Russia, also known as Desht-i Kipchak.
The internal strife among the Hacı's sons followed after his death. The Ottomans interfered and installed Meñli I Giray, a son of Hacı I Giray to the throne. In 1475 the Ottoman forces, under the command of Gedik Ahmet Pasha conquered the Principality of Theodoro and Genoese colonies in Cembalo, Soldaia, and Caffa. The khanate from then on entered the protection of the Ottoman Empire. While the Crimean coast became an Ottoman Kefe sancak, the khans continued to rule in the rest of the peninsula and the northern steppes. The relationship of the Ottomans and the Crimean Tatars were unique. The sultans treated the khans more as allies than subjects. Though the chosen khan had to receive approval to the Sultan, they were not appointees of Constantinople. (Halil İnalcık) The Ottomans also recognized the legitimacy of the khans in the steppes, as descendants of Genghis Khan. The khans continued to have a foreign policy independent from the Ottomans in the steppes of Little Tartary. The relations of the khans and the Ottoman Sultan were governed through diplomatic correspondence. The khans continued to mint coins and use their names in Friday prayers, two important signs of sovereignty. They did not pay tribute to the Ottoman Empire, instead the Ottomans paid them in return for their services of providing skilled outriders and frontline cavalry in their campaigns. (Alexandre Bennigsen)
The alliance of Crimean Tatars and Ottomans was comparable to Polish-Lithuania in its importance and durability. The Crimean cavalry became indispensable for the Ottomans' campaigns in Europe (Poland, Hungary) and Asia (Persia). This made Crimean Tatars dependent on the booty attained after the successful campaigns, and when the Ottoman military campaigns began to fail, the Crimean Tatar economy also began to decline.
In 1502 Meñli I Giray defeated the last khan of the Great Horde putting the end to the Horde's claims on Crimea. In the 16th century the Crimean khanate pretended to be the successor authority of the former Golden Horde territory, Great Horde and hence over the Tatar khanates of Caspian-Volga region, particularly the Kazan Khanate and Astrakhan Khanate. This resulted in rivalry with Muscovy for dominance in the region. A successful campaign of Devlet I Giray to Moscow in 1571 finished with the burning of the Russian capital and he was called Taht-Algan (seizer of the throne) after this event. However the Crimean Khanate eventually lost the dispute for access to the Volga due to its catastrophic defeat in the Battle at Molodi just one year later.
The capital of the Khanate was placed initially in Salaçıq near the Qırq Yer fortress, then moved to Bakhchisaray founded in 1532 by Sahib I Giray.
[edit] Political and economic system
Girays traced their origins to Chingiz Khan, and this made them prevalent among other noble clans. According to the steppe tradition, the ruler was legitimate only if he is of Chingizid royal descent (i.e. ak süyek). Even the Muscovite Tsar claimed Chingizid descent. Instead of the Ottoman ideology of autocracy, the Crimean Khanate followed the Horde tradition. (Schamiloglu) That is, the Giray dynasty was the symbol of government but the khan actually governed with the participation of Qaraçı Beys, the leaders of the noble clans such as Şirin, Barın, Arğın, Qıpçaq, and in the later period, Mansuroğlu and Sicavut. The Nogays who transferred their allegiance to the Crimean khan when the Astrakhan Khanate collapsed in 1556, were an important element of the Crimean Khanate. Circassians and Cossacks also played role at certain times in Crimean politics, transferring their allegiance between the khan and the beys.
Internally, the khanate territory was divided among the beys and beneath the beys were mirzas from noble families. The relationship of peasants or herdsmen to mirzas were not feudal. They were free, and Islamic law protected them from losing their rights. Apportioned by village, the land was worked in common and the tax was assigned to whole village. The tax was one tenth of agricultural product, one twentieh of the livestock and a variable unpaid labour. During the reforms by the last khan Şahin Giray the internal structure was changed following the Turkish pattern: land-ownings of nobility were proclaimed the domain of the khan and reorganized into "qadılıqs" (provinces governed by representatives of the khan).
Crimean law was based on Tatar law, Islamic law and on limited matters the Ottoman law. The leader of the Muslim establishment was the mufti, who was selected among the local Muslim clergy. His major duty was neither judicial nor theological, it was financial. The mufti’s administration controlled all of the vakif lands and their enomous revenues. Another Muslim official, appointed not by the clergy but the Ottoman sultan was the kadıasker. He oversaw the khanate’s judicial districts, each under jurisdiction of a kadi. Kadis theoretically depended on kadiasker but in practice to the clan leaders and the khan. The kadis determined the day to day legal behaviour of the Muslims in the khanate.
The non-Muslim minorities (Greeks, Armenians, Adyghe (Cherkessians), Genoeses, Crimean Karaites and Qırımçaq Jews) lived in the cities and villages, sometimes having different quarters. They had their own religious and judicial institutions according to the millet system. They controlled the financial occupations and trade, and paid tax in return for which they did not serve in the military. There is no evidence that they faced any discrimination, they lived like Crimean Tatars, and spoke dialects of Crimean Tatar. (Alan Fisher, 1978)
The nomadic part of the Crimean Tatars and all the Nogays were cattle-breeders. Crimea had important trading ports where the goods carried through Silk Road were exported to the Ottoman Empire and Europe. Crimean Khanate had many sizeable, beautiful and lively cities such as Bakhchisaray - the capital, Kezlev, Karasubazar and Aqmescit having numerous caravansarais, hans and merchant quarters, leather-manufactures, mills. The settled Crimean Tatars were engaged in trade, agriculture, and artisanry. Crimea was a center of wine and tobacco production, and fruit farming. The Bakhchisaray kilims (oriental rugs) were exported to Poland, and knives made by Crimean Tatar artisans were thought to be best among the Caucasian tribes. Crimean Tatars were famous Silkworm cultivation, and honey production. One of the major sources of incomes of Crimean Tatar and Nogay nobility was booty attained from campaigns to the neighbouring countries and slave trade. (Brian G. Williams)
[edit] Golden Age
The Crimean Khanate was undoubtedly one of the strongest powers in Eastern Europe until the 18th century. Crimean Tatars played an invaluable role in defending the borders of Islam, especially against the Muscovites and Poles. In order to prevent the Slavic settlement in the steppes, Crimean Tatar raiding parties (chambuls), in cooperation with the Nogais, engaged in raids on the Danubian principalities, Poland-Lithuania, and Muscovy.
In a process called "harvesting of the steppe" they enslaved many Slavic peasants, and acquired booty, from which the khan received a fixed share (savğa) of 10 or 20%. The campaigns by Crimean forces could be divided into "sefers" - officially declared military operations led by the khans themselves - and "çapuls" - raids undertaken by separate groups of noblemen (sometimes illegal and banned because they contravened the treaties concluded by the khans with the neighbor rulers). For a long time, until the early 18th century, the khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East. Kefe was one of the best known and significant trading ports and slave markets.
The Crimean Khanate also made several alliances with Polish-Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Cossacks against growing Muscovy, which made competing claims to Golden Horde territories. The region in dispute was highly valued by Muscovy since it would allow the settlement of Russians to fertile areas where the growing season is longer than the more northerly areas which Muscovy depended on. It is speculated that with this soil, agriculture in Russia would have been rich enough to allow for a quicker decline of serfdom in the 17th century. In any case the permanent warfare in the borderland and the fast increase of the Russian nobles' armies contributed to increased exploitation of the Russian peasants.
Some researchers estimate that altogether more than 3 million people, predominantly Ukrainians but also Circassians, Russians, Belarusians and Poles, were captured and enslaved during the time of the Crimean Khanate. One of their most famous victims was Roxelana (Khurem Sultan), who later became the wife of Suleyman the Magnificent and achieved great power in the Ottoman court. A constant threat from Crimean Tatars supported the appearance of Cossackdom.
Perfecting their raiding tactics, Crimean Tatars chose routes along watersheds. The main way to Moscow was Muravski shliach, going from Crimean Perekop up to Tula between the rivers Dnieper and Seversky Donets. Having gone deep into the populated area for 100-200 kilometers, the Tatars turned back and looted and captured slaves. Annually Moscow mobilized in the spring up to 65 thousand soldiers for border service, which was a heavy burden for the state. The defensive Russian lines consisted of the circuit of earthen shafts, fallen trees, trenches and fortresses such as Belev, Odoev, and Tula. The coast of the river Oka near to Moscow served as last line of defense. Cossacks and gentry (дети боярские) were organized into sentry and patrol services that observed Crimean Tatars on the steppe. (Source: Vasily Klyuchevsky, "The course of Russian History".)
[edit] Decline
The decline of the Crimean Khanate was tied to the weakening of the Ottoman empire and a change in the balance of power in Eastern Europe that favoured the Christian kingdoms. Crimean Tatars returned from the Ottoman campaigns empty-handed, while the Tatar cavalry without sufficient guns suffered great loss against European and Russian modern armies. By the late 17th century, Muscovite Russia became too strong a power for Crimea to pillage it. From then on, Crimean Tatars were not able to conducts raids for attaining slaves or booty to Ukraine and Russia and this cut one of the economic sources of the khanate. The support of the khan by noble clans also began to erode as a result of these external failures, and internal conflict for power ensued. The Nogays, who provided a significant portion of the Crimean military forces, also took back their support from the khans towards the end of the empire.
The united Russian and Ukrainian forces attacked the Khanate during the Chigirin Campaigns and the Crimean Campaigns. It was during the Russo-Turkish War, 1735-1739 that the Russians under command of Field-Marshal Munnich finally managed to penetrate the Crimean Peninsula itself.
More warfare ensued during the reign of Catherine II. The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774 resulted in the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji, which made the Crimean Khanate independent from the Ottoman Empire, and aligned it with the Russian Empire.
The rule of the last Crimean khan Şahin Giray was marked with increasing Russian influence and outbursts of violence from the side of the khan administration towards internal opposition. On 8 April 1783, in violation of the treaty, Catherine II interfered into the civil war, de facto annexing the whole peninsula into the Russian Empire. In 1787, Şahin Giray took refuge in the Ottoman empire and was eventually executed by the Ottoman authorities for betrayal in Rhodes, although the royal Giray family survives to this day.
