ABSTRACT
Patriotic national Russian historiography, both Imperial and Soviet, has always been reluctant to admit that foreign conquest by Inner Asian pastoral nomads could have brought any positive benefits to Russia. Political narratives of thirteenth-fifteenth century Russian history differ in how much influence they assign to the Mongols in the evolution of the northeastern Russian principalities, and most importantly in the rise of Moscow. Some recent scholarship has parted company, in greater or lesser degree, with this dominant paradigm of Russo-Mongol relations, and sought to present a more balanced picture of the Mongol impact upon Russian history. The Soviet scholar M. D. Polubojarinova has concluded on the basis of the written and archeological evidence that the Russian physical presence in the Golden Horde was ubiquitous. The Tatars were the enemies of the Russians; the Tatars had conquered Russia, their raids and campaigns continued to devastate her, and the decisions of the Mongol khan affected what happened in Russian politics.
