The Mongol World, 2022

Drawing upon research carried out in several different languages and across a variety of disciplines, The Mongol World documents how Mongol rule shaped the trajectory of Eurasian history from Central Europe to the Korean Peninsula, from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth century. Contributing authors consider how intercontinental environmental, economic, and intellectual trends affected the Empire as a whole and, where appropriate, situate regional political, social, and religious shifts within the context of the broader Mongol Empire. Issues pertaining to the Mongols and their role within the societies that they conquered therefore take precedence over the historical narratives of those societies. Alongside the formation, conquests, administration, and political structure of the Mongol Empire, the second section examines archaeology and art history, family and royal households, science and exploration, and religion, which provides greater insight into the social history of the Empire-an aspect often neglected by traditional dynastic and political histories. With 58 chapters written by both senior and early-career scholars, the volume is an essential resource for all students and scholars who study the Mongol Empire from its origins to its disintegration and legacy.

MONGOLO-TIBETICA PRAGENSIA ’11 . Ethnolinguistics, Sociolinguistics, Religion and Culture, Volume 4, No. 1, pp. 7-33. Publication of Charles University in Prague Philosophical Faculty, Institute of South and Central Asia Seminar of Mongolian Studies, Prague 2011. ISSN 1803 – 5647, 2011

In the study of the SHM there is a conception of the language of the original of the SHM, to which its Chinese interlinear translation and the Chinese abridged translation belong. In this paper this conception is questioned, and it is demonstrated from concrete examples that it results in erroneous translations. We may mention several examples: Temujin seized a mare from the Merkit ruler and presented it to his brotherly friend Jamuqa (§117); an important riding horse of Chingis Khan's commander Boorči had an arched back (§95); Mongolian Khans killed people by cooking them all in a kettle (§129); and the like. The author of the paper discloses and corrects a number of such errors and proposes new possibilities for translations, which would correctly reflect the facts described in the SHM.

Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History, 2025

The object of this paper is to explore false reports of Batu’s combat death in East-Central Europe that were recorded in both Western European and Russian sources in the decades and centuries following his invasion of Europe in 1241–1242. Het’um’s La Flor des Estoires de la Terre d’Orient (1307) contains a clearly inaccurate description of Batu drowning during an attempted Mongol invasion of Austria. Fifteenth-century Russian chronicles and a hagiographic text separately report on Batu being slain in Hungary by a saintly king, “Vladislav”. This Tale of the Death of Batu (Повесть об убиении Батыя) suddenly became quite popular in Rus’ chronicle records during the period leading up to the Great Stand at the Ugra River when Moscow defied the demands of the Horde. While such diverse and post-thirteenth-century accounts of the Mongol khan’s death are fundamentally untrue — Batu certainly returned from Europe and ruled the Jochid territory from the Volga River for many years into the 1250s — they are also not the purely baseless products of medieval authors’ imaginations. This paper analyzes and speculates as to how genuine historic events or at least widespread stories, such as a Mongol general’s death at Muhi, and even the Legenda of Saint Ladislaus of Hungary, became inserted into these amalgamated narratives over time. The results in both cases shed light on how news and local memories were intriguingly transferred and shared across Europe and its peripheries over the course of the Middle Ages.

Edited by Victor Spinei and George Bilavschi In order to institute the Florilegium project, we approached several notable scholars in Europe and America, and we were glad to find out that our initiative was welcomed. In the special case this introduction refers to, the promptitude of his response to the dialogue we initiated in order to carry out the anthology project, and moreover, the value and diversity of the studies he offered account for the fact that the personality chosen to open the series was the eminent American mediaevalist Charles J. Halperin. He is known in the world of specialists mainly for his substantial investigations of the impact the great Mongol invasion had on Eastern Europe. The American colleague was not as ready to co-operate when he was asked to reveal certain biographical details. He was not very forthcoming in that respect, so we cannot mention too many details in regard to his career. In exchange, the list of his publications is quite telling as to the large range of the topics he has dealt with over the years. 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. No matter what professional position he held, Charles J. Halperin remained true to what he was mainly preoccupied in his youth, namely with the relationship of the Mongols with the Russian principalities. On that problem - with vast implications, both synchronically and diachronically -, he wrote two 8 A CHINGISSID SAINT OF RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH fundamental books: Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History (Bloomington, IN, 1985), and The Tatar Yoke (Columbus, OH, 1986). They remain reference books, and they still are helpful, although two decades have passed since their publication. Charles J. Halperin has also published a series of studies on the same subject. In them he shows solid documentation, keen interpretation, and minute analysis of complex and controversial problems, for which he found credible solutions. His studies are of real importance not only for the history of the Mongols and of Russia, but also for the history of the whole eastern half of Europe. The present volume provides a selection from the rich range of works by Charles J. Halperin. Unfortunately, we have not been able to include other valuable articles by the same author. Our hope is that the present anthology will be received with interest by specialists not only in Romania, but also in other countries where there is major interest in the history of the Golden Horde and of mediaeval Russia. The editors of this anthology wish to address their cordial thanks to the American and European publishing houses which first published the articles of this volume, and which kindly agreed to allow republication by Publishing House of the Romanian Academy. Victor SPINEI (Translated by Adrian PORUCIUC)