Russia In The Mongol Empire In Comparative Perspective Summary

In the article “Russia in the Mongol Empire in Comparative Perspective,” Charles J. Halperin makes the argument that past scholarship on the Mongols has been distorted by a Europocentric premise. This premise holds that the influence of the Mongols on Russia as minimal and negligent, or at the very least had a negative impact on Russia. In his article, Halperin disputes this, calling instead for a comparison of Mongol rule in Russia, China, and in Iran. By examining and comparing these three areas in terms of the influence of the Mongols, Halperin claims that the impact of the Mongols on Russia was greater than it had been in both China and Iran. In terms of the location of the thesis of the article, Halperin places his thesis in two primary places. The first can be located on pages 240 and 241 where Halperin calls into question the notion that the Mongols contributed to the backwards culture in Russia. This thesis is broadened, albeit in a minor fashion, on page 242 where Halperin …show more content…
On page 243, Halperin submits that the heavy involvement of the Russian princes and the nobility in the trade had an impact in mitigating the antagonism that was so common in Yuan China and in Iran. According to Halperin, while the Mongol-Russia trade relations did suffer to some degree, the blame cannot be placed exclusively on the Mongols. This can be attributed primarily to how the “Mongol economy did not have the resilience or strength, or perhaps simply the wealth, of the Iranian.” (Halperin 244) One case of the evidence supporting this idea comes on page 242-243 where Halperin uses the trade routes of the three major areas to show how impactful Mongol trade was for all three