Ulug Mehmed

Ulug Mehmed (ruled 1419-1424 and 1427-1438; † 1445) was a khan of the Golden Horde who founded the khanate of Kazan after his overthrow . The final collapse of the Golden Horde fell during his reign. The addition Ulug means the "great" Mehmed and is intended to distinguish him from a rival of the same name.

origin

There is not enough evidence of its origin. He was - after the contemporary J. Barbaro and after Abulghazi - the son of a Hassan Oglan, probably a local prince of this time, who ruled around 1372 in the Bolgar area at the confluence of the Volga and Kama rivers and who ruled in 1370-76 during Russian advances under Dmitri Konstantinovich von Suzdal suffered defeats. He is one of the Toktamish relatives , but there are no historical records about his exact clan membership.

Khan of the Golden Horde

Ulug Mehmed seized the throne immediately after the overthrow of the Emir Edigü and the mutual annihilation of several sons of Toktamish (1419 coin from Astrakhan) and sent envoys to the Timurid ruler Shah Rukh (1421). According to Schiltberger , he is said to have seized the government in the fight against Edigü and his protégé Chekre Khan.

The khan constantly struggled with rivals. One of them was Devlet Berdi , who was able to establish himself in the Crimea after 1424 and founded the Crimean Khanate there. In 1424 Ulug Mehmed was defeated by the Siberian Khan Boraq (1422-28) and lost the throne for about three years. He fled with his son to Grand Duke Witold at the court of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . However, Boraq showed no interest in the cities of the Horde - there are no coins - and instead oriented itself towards the prosperous Syr-Darya area and the Timurid Empire . In his place, Devlet Berdi seized power, sent an ambassador to Egypt in March 1427 and gave a. a. 1427/28 coins out in New Sarai and Astrakhan. In 1428 Ulug Mehmed finally regained the throne by killing Boraq - a merit that is also attributed to Boraq's Siberian rival, the Uzbek Khan Abu'l-Chair (r. 1428–1468).

After his return, Ulug Mehmed sought an alliance with Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire, documented in a letter to Sultan Murad II in March 1428. In April 1429 one of his envoys also arrived in Egypt, possibly hoping for grain deliveries due to a drought Southern Russia. Furthermore, in the spring of 1432, after long negotiations, he installed Vasilij II (r. 1425-62) of Moscow as Russian Grand Duke, after he had visited the khan's court camp with his enemy uncle Yuri.

Finally, new power struggles broke out in the horde: around 1431 Ulug Mehmed interfered in the Lithuanian throne disputes in favor of Žygimantas Kęstutaitis (r. 1432-40) and attacked Kiev. Zygimanta's opponent in the Lithuanian succession, his brother Švitrigaila , and the Moscow Grand Duke Vasilij II promptly made contact with a rival of Ulug Mehmed, Khan Sajjid Ahmed (r. 1433-55 / 60) and recognized him as the new overlord. Sajjid Ahmed led various campaigns to Podolia and the Sub-Carpathian Mountains in favor of Švitrigaila and thereby gained influence in the west of the Horde. Another aspirant to the throne appeared next to him: Küchük Mehmed (r. 1435–59 / 65), a Khan from the Namagan patrimony , moved to the lower Don via Astrakhan.

Retreat to Kazan

By the new rivals Ulug Mehmed was forced around 1438 to withdraw from the heartland of the Golden Horde and to settle on the Upper Oka . Vasilij II seized his chance and proceeded militarily against him, but was defeated in December 1438 at Belev on the Oka, whereupon the Khan plundered the area around Moscow. After that, Ulug Mehmed established himself in Kazan and founded an independent khanate there, the Khanate of Kazan . In July 1445 his sons Jusuf (also Jaqub) and Mahmudek beat the Grand Duke again near Suzdal. Vasilij II was captured, but Ulug Mehmed released him prematurely and did not take advantage of the victory politically; the Grand Duke was only forced to pay a ransom.

Ulug Mehmed was probably murdered in Kurmuish in autumn 1445 by his son Mahmudek, who also killed his brother Jaqub and ascended the throne in Kazan. There are, however, different traditions.

Remarks

1. ↑ According to the combined statements of Abulghazi and Abdul Ghaffar, he would have the following family tree: Dschötschi - Tuqa Timur - Uz Timur - Saricha - Kunchak Oghlan - Tolachtimur - Zabina - Hasan Oglan - Ulugh Mehemed. Tolachtimur would have been the brother of Toktamish's grandfather Tokul Khoja Oghlan. See Henry Hoyle Howorth: History of the Mongols from the 9th to the 19th Century. Part 2. The So-Called Tartars of Russia and Central Asia, London 1880, pp. 229, 363f., 448f .; Gottlieb Messerschmid: Abulgasi Bagadur Chan's gender book of the Mungal-Mogulischen or Mogorischen Chanen, Göttingen 1780, p. 181.
2. ↑ Safargaliev: According to Raspad Zolotoj Ordy, a grandson of Toktamish.

literature

• Bertold Spuler: The Golden Horde . Wiesbaden 1965
• Henry Hoyle Howorth: History of the Mongols from the 9th to the 19th Century. Part 2. The So-Called Tartars of Russia and Central Asia . London 1880