TSAR JOHN IV (IVAN THE TERRIBLE) - RUSSIA AND ISLAM

KAZAN, LEPANTO AND GRANADA

THE MONGOL INVASION OF KIEVAN RUS’ In the early part of the 13th century Kievan Rus’ was in decline as its major cities contended with each other for dominance and for greater autonomy from Kiev. At that time Turkic marauders began to raid the frontiers of Rus’. This was followed by an invasion of a large horde of Mongol/Turkic [1] nomads in 1236 led by Batu Khan, the grandson of Ghengis Khan. Within a few years, Kiev and the other cities of Rus’, except Novgorod, were vanquished and reduced to tribute-paying vassals of the Golden Horde which had its capital at Sarai on the lower Don River.

THE TATAR YOKE For the next three hundred years the Russian lands remained subject to their Tatar overlords. Fortunately for the Eastern Slavs the Tatars never occupied Russian territory, but were content to maintain their pastoral life outside of Rus’ and to exact tribute from the subjugated Slavic population. Annually the princes of the Russian cities/principalities journeyed to Sarai to pledge obedience to their masters and to pay the tribute calculated as a head tax exacted on the basis of population. Revolts, recalcitrance and failure to pay the tribute as required brought punitive expeditions of plunder and slave-gathering.

The original invaders of Rus’ were animists, but in the course of the 14th century Islam became their dominant religion. That fact changed the conditions of the Christian Slavs very little. The payment of tribute imposed on them by the animist Tatars was continued as the jizya (humiliation) tax by the Moslem Tatars as mandated by the Quran, Surah 9: 29. In the following centuries there were significant changes in developments which would influence the future of the Russian lands. First, the Golden Horde broke up into various khanates, namely Kazan, Astrakhan, and the Crimean, Siberian and Nogai khanates. This allowed the Russian cities/principalities greater latitude to grow, increasing in population and in economic and military strength. Moscow, particularly, benefited from several able leaders and this eventually allowed it to prevail over the Tatars and the other Russian principalities. In 1378 the armed forces of Moscow stopped a major Tatar raiding expedition at the Oka River and two years later Grand Prince Dmitri Donskoy of Moscow, with the blessing of St. Sergius of Radonezh, defeated the Tatars at the Battle of Kulikovo on the Don, an event much celebrated in Russia as portending the future of the Russian state; it represented the beginning of the end of Muslim domination over the Russian lands. In 1476 Grand Prince John III dared to cease paying tribute to the Golden Horde. Four years later he faced down successfully a punitive expedition of the Tatars in an event known as THE GREAT STANDING ON THE UGRA RIVER. This forced the Tatars to retreat. Over the following decades occasional Tatar raids into Slavic lands continued, but failed to change the course of history.

TSAR JOHN IV In 1547 the young Muscovite prince, John IV [2], grandson of Grand Prince John III, was crowned the first Tsar Of All The Russias at the age of 17. He soon resolved to rid Russia of the Islamic menace forever. In the spring of 1552 he laid siege to Kazan. Throughout the summer his artillery and sappers breached the walls and on October 2 his army took the city by storm. Within a few years he led the Russian army down the Volga River to its mouth and the easy conquest of the khanate of Astrakhan, whereby the entire Volga River basin came under Russian control. Thereafter Moscow’s armies moved eastward and southward against its Tatar enemies and pressed westward to secure the western lands from European intrusion. The last of the Tatar yoke ended in 1783 when Empress Catherine the Great vanquished the Tatars of the Crimean peninsula.

BLESSED HOST OF THE TSAR OF HEAVEN, also called THE CHURCH MILITANT Upon his return to Moscow after the defeat and seizure of Kazan, Tsar John IV sought to memorialize his victory by ordering the construction of the Cathedral of St. Basil and by commissioning the writing of the above grand iconographic depiction of his victory over the Muslim city of Kazan. Dedicated to St. Michael Archangel, Prince of the Heavenly Hosts, it was placed opposite the Tsar’s throne in the Dormition Cathedral. The painting is not properly an icon, for it does not portray an event cognizable in the liturgical calendar. It depicts, rather, in allegory a panorama of the world and of Russian history beginning with Byzantine Emperor, Constantine the Great, and leading up to the capture and destruction of Kazan, imagery which lauds the emerging aspirations of the state. Tsar John saw his conquest of the Kazan Tatars as more than a victory over his enemy, but also as a symbol of the triumph of Christianity over Islam. In the upper right corner is the city of Kazan in flames. In the upper left corner is the heavenly city of Jerusalem where the Holy Virgin and Child await the victorious army. Just to the right of Jerusalem is the Archangel Michael leading an army in three columns proceeding from Kazan on the right. At the head of the center column, just right of St. Michael, is Tsar John bearing a red banner. Right of the Tsar in the middle of the composition is Vladimir Monomakh, beloved Grand Prince of Kievan Rus’ and ancestor of Tsar John. Following him are St. Vladimir the Great and his sons, Sts. Boris and Gleb. At the head of the upper column of knights is St. Dmitri Donskoy, scourge of the Tatars at Kulikovo, and his heavenly patron, Dmitri Solunsky. The lower column of warriors is led by St. Alexander Nevsky who defeated the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of the Lake in 1242, and St. George. The triumphant march from Kazan to Jerusalem affirms spiritual support for the existence of Holy Rus’ as surrogate for the Heavenly Kingdom and in later centuries as the Third Rome. [3].

The above iconographic depiction may be viewed in light of 16th century Russia’s notion of itself as successor to Constantinople, the Second Rome. The destruction of Kazan is witness to Russia’s elected path as defender of the true faith and the enemy of the adherents of Islam. Our readers should bear in mind that the victory at Kazan represents the final liberation of Holy Rus’ from Islamic domination; Russia at that time became the only free Orthodox nation. All others were still chafing under the yoke of Islam. The victory at Kazan changed the balance of power on the Eurasian steppes. It can be seen to symbolize the unity of nation and Church in Russia’s mission then and in later centuries as defender of Orthodoxy and liberator of Orthodox peoples from the rule of Islam in the Middle East and in the Balkans. This became the foundation of Russia’s foreign policy in the 18th and 19th centuries. [4]

KAZAN, LEPANTO AND GRANADA We dare not depart from the theme of this page without reminding our readers that Tsar John’s defeat of the Turkic Tatars at Kazan in 1552 was followed less than two decades later by the defeat of the Ottoman Turks at the naval battle of Lepanto [5] off of the coast of Greece by the Holy League led by Pope Pius V. Before that in 1492 the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabel, seized Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Spain, thus completing the re-conquest of the Iberian peninsula after seven centuries of Muslim occupation. This accidental convergence of events in less than a century may be viewed in their entirety as a response of the two Churches, Roman and Orthodox, to the common menace of Islamic imperialism in their respective parts of Europe. Kazan was followed in 1783 by the final defeat of the Crimean Tatars and Lepanto led inexorably to the expulsion of the last Ottoman Turks from Europe in 1911. In Spain the Muslims were given the option of converting to Christianity or returning to Africa. Today we are experiencing a renewed effort by militant Islamists to reverse the victories of Kazan, Lepanto and Granada and to reassert Islam’s hereditary claim to rule all mankind under a universal caliphate as willed by Muhammad’s deity. [6]

FOOTNOTES:

1) The invading Mongol horde consisted of a small minority of Mongoloid herdsmen from eastern Asia which led a large majority of Caucasoid Turkic people. The word “Tatar” in Russian usage is descriptive and also pejorative for both Asiatic types, but in the main refers to the Turkic peoples which inhabit the territories south and east of the Slavic lands.

2) Tsar John IV, known in popular jargon as Ivan the Terrible, suffered from schizophrenia exacerbated by paranoia likely brought on by his harsh treatment as a child at the hands of the palace Boyars following the death of his parents. His rule was marked by cruelty to his subjects as well as to his enemies. Nevertheless, he was a determined ruler and nationalist who expanded Russia’s domains, gathered in the lands of ancient Rus’, subdued the Tatars, centralized the administration of the state, started the eastward movement across the Ural Mountains and into Siberia, promoted trade, initiated contacts with the West, and set Russia on the course of empire which was to mark the following centuries.

3) The doctrine of Moscow as the Third Rome and successor to Constantinople, the Second Rome, which fell to the heathens, and the First Rome, taken over by the “heretics”, played an important role in Moscow’s evolving concept of itself as first of the Orthodox Churches and defender of the true faith.

4) This section of the page is drawn substantially from THE TEMPERING OF HOLY RUS’ by S. V. Perevezentsev, translated from Russian to English by Larissa Tolchinsky. See also IVAN THE TERRIBLE by Isabel de Madariaga; ISBN: 0300097573; RUSSIA, A HISTORY edited by Gregory Freeze; ISBN: 0198605110; RUSSIA AND THE RUSSIANS by Geoffrey Hosking; ISBN: 0674011147

5) See LEPANTO in http://www.byzantines.net/epiphany/islam.htm

6) Many parts of the world today are under attack by militant Islamists, to wit: southern Russia and the southern edge of the former Soviet Union extending to China, western Europe, southeastern Europe, western China, northern India, southern Thailand, southern Philippines, Indonesia, Middle East, the United States, southern Sudan & northern Nigeria. The radical Islamists seek to reclaim those territories which had been previously conquered and incorporated into the House of Islam such as the Iberian peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia, southeastern Europe, Russia, India and Israel for the restored caliphate while moving on to subdue the rest of the world to their rule.
The Muhammadan cosmology contemplates all mankind under the dominion of a righteous caliph (caliphate) who would unite in his person authority over all religious, political, economic and other matters. Any other order in which infidels prevail over Muslims or remain free of their control is regarded by Muslims as contrary to the laws of the universe. Jihad, i. e. the continuing war against infidels, is the means by which this dream of a restored and universal caliphate would be realized.