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This dissertation is a compilation and analysis of the Russian historiography of the Tatar Yoke in the post-Petrine, pre-Stalinist period. The scope of research is not entirely comprehensive-plays, novels, librettos, and folk artifacts are largely excluded-but is very extensive, and, it is hoped, constitutes a representational cross section of elite Russian opinion. The work of thirty-nine authors is examined, and biographical sketches of each are included. Historians make up the bulk of the subject materials, but poets, philosophers, journalists, politicians, and various social scientists also appear. Manifold intellectual controversies and schools of thought are treated in some detail. For instance, I have analyzed the work of Slavophiles and Westernizers; state school historians and social historians; classical Marxists and populists; Panmongolists and Eurasianists. Similarly, I have detailed the opinions of colossal historical actors such as Pushkin, Dostoevsky, and Stalin, along with smaller fry such as Ilovaiskii, Voloshin, and Ustrialov. The results of my research confirm many commonplaces as well as producing some surprises. We see, for example, the expected heavy emphasis on the Mongol influence upon Russian state building, Russia's economy, its isolation from Europe, sacrifice on behalf of that continent, and most common of all, the degradation of Russian culture and mores as a result of Tatar rule. Interestingly enough, however, we also see a recognition of new trade routes opening with Asia, and beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the contemplation of a new Tatar Yoke. Even more surprising, many Russian intellectuals actually welcomed a reconstruction of the Mongol empire, albeit under Russian rule. The significance of this dissertation lies in the importance of the Tatar Yoke for Russia's current self image. To a significant degree, a nation's history will determine how it sees itself and how it behaves on the international stage. And in the case of Russia whose identity always seems to be in flux, the almost two and a half centuries it spent under Asian rule must figure largely in its current self concept, and its actions.
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